# Vegetarian and Vegan Passion



## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

Okay all you fellow hippies, check in here. Share recipes and other BS, tree-hugger stuff - ethical cycling gear (non-skin) perhaps?

By the way, do I still get to be part of the club if I'm a strict vegetarian (for ethical reasons) yet have a gun collection and a proud member of the NRA?


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## linadog (Aug 12, 2011)

No. NRA membership voids all treehugging ties


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## Anonymous (Mar 3, 2005)

I have a lot of respect for vegans. Along with a lot of pity.


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## PVR (Oct 29, 2006)

I like vegans - taste sort of like chicken.


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

PVR said:


> I like vegans - taste sort of like chicken.


Have to use salt and pepper.


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## Ken in KC (Jan 12, 2004)

*One of my favorites...*

I love this recipe! It's delicious!


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## Ken in KC (Jan 12, 2004)

*And...*



AZ.MTNS said:


> Have to use salt and pepper.


A little minced garlic.


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

How did I know more meat eaters would chime in than vegetarians? :lol:


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## 411898 (Nov 5, 2008)

I eat the meat of vegetarian animals...


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## Silentfoe (May 9, 2008)

Semi serious question...What is the point of Tofurkey? If a vegetarian won't eat turkey for any number of reasons, why do they want their tofu to taste like it?


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## Jayem (Jul 16, 2005)

Bacon


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## Anonymous (Mar 3, 2005)

Dion said:


> How did I know more meat eaters would chime in than vegetarians? :lol:


We out number you 5000 to 1?


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## pointerDixie214 (Feb 10, 2009)

Wife's a vegetarian. I love making Tofu curry... cut firm tofu into 1/2" squares and fry in olive oil. Then mix with veggies, curry powder, cayenne, garlic, and coconut milk. (And whatever I forgot to list). Serve over freshly made jasmine rice. 

Tip as well: We just discovered how awesome the Go Lean sausage in the produce section tastes. Especially if you add a little Cayenne, cumin, and curry powder.

I still eat meat, and there is nothing in the world I like better than beef. But I also really like a lot of vegetarian foods. Friggin Tempeh burgers brushed with Sriracha sauce and grilled... heaven on a plate.


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## kattrap (Mar 15, 2008)

Silentfoe said:


> Semi serious question...What is the point of Tofurkey? If a vegetarian won't eat turkey for any number of reasons, why do they want their tofu to taste like it?


It doesn't. If you think a fake meat or cheese substitue tastes exactly like the real thing, you've been vegi/vegan for too long.


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## kattrap (Mar 15, 2008)

Dion said:


> By the way, do I still get to be part of the club if I'm a strict vegetarian (for ethical reasons) yet have a gun collection and a proud member of the NRA?


When the revolution comes, you'll have to defend your tofu somehow. 



pointerDixie214 said:


> Friggin Tempeh burgers brushed with Sriracha sauce and grilled... heaven on a plate.


That does sound awesome.

(note: vegetarian for 14 yrs, mostly vegan for 4)


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

Gee, we feed the baby bacon formula, wash in bacon soap.....what kind of life is there without bacon???


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## simpterfex (Nov 14, 2010)

Did you know some bacon bits are vegan!


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## Guest (Aug 13, 2011)

ah, the vegan/vegetarian vs meat eater threads. always the best ever. here we go now!


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## tg (Feb 1, 2006)

*Yum*

At my house the Indian word for vegetarian is " Poor Hunter " We eat lots of elk. Makes you faster on these loooong rides.


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## Guest (Aug 13, 2011)

tg, that is some imagery. carcasses and bikes. wow. 

i'm marinating a steak as i type.


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

Well, my thread went to sh*t. 

I have no problems with hunters who eat what they kill. Like I said, I'm a proud NRA member and a conservative leaning.


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## tg (Feb 1, 2006)

mikeb said:


> tg, that is some imagery. carcasses and bikes. wow. Two of my very favorite things.......hunting elk and riding bikes.
> 
> i'm marinating a steak as i type.


 I do a lot of scouting from the bike.


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## Hand/of/Midas (Sep 19, 2007)

Dion said:


> Well, my thread went to sh*t.
> 
> I have no problems with hunters who eat what they kill. Like I said, I'm a proud NRA member and a conservative leaning.


I am Vegi, i still eat fish however, so Pesco-Vegi is the proper term.

I love it, i feel great, it solved some issues i had while eating meat, it uses less resources and can support larger populations, and i still go out and do 260 mile rides.:thumbsup:


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## Ebo (Dec 30, 2003)

Dharma's in Capitola ... excellent eats after a good ride. Decent beer on tap too.


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## lidarman (Jan 12, 2004)

Silentfoe said:


> Semi serious question...What is the point of Tofurkey? If a vegetarian won't eat turkey for any number of reasons, why do they want their tofu to taste like it?


I laugh at that too. I always wonder why vegi meats are made to look at taste like real ones. it could go the other way.

I have had this business idea for a while. Why not a pure a carnivorian diet?

--Faux lettuce made from thinly sliced prosciutto colored green like lettuce.
--Beef heart made into tomatoes
--Compressed pulled pork "tatertots"
--Kidney "chunks" beans
--Filet minon made into.....what? filet minon of course. Need a balance diet her ya know.

Lets make our vegitables be meat so we can have a pure meat diet. Why should the vegetarians have it all? We can too.


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## Daemon[CRO] (Jul 14, 2010)

Ah, vege people. How wrong you are about your diet, it's incredible. 

Every cell in your body is a product of millions of years of evolution. Evolution which consisted of our ancestors eating meat. Your body needs animal bits to survive. 

You think that just because someone invented food replacement items they are good for you? That because you decided to go against the nature your body will rapidly shed millions of years of need&want in favor of your forced diet?

Fun fact; no human society / tribe living out of the food they can produce or hunt is vege. Even if they are expert agriculture society, and even if their diet consists mostly out of vegetables and fruit, they will either hunt for fish or other animals to boost their diet. 

Vege type of diet is only possible because your food ("food") is readily available in the next supermarket. 

Ask yourself this - if you get stranded on an island, or in the middle of a lush forest, would you survive eating only vege stuff for weeks/months? Hint: you won't.


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## Katt (Jul 3, 2011)




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## square (Jun 5, 2010)

Katt said:


>


:thumbsup:


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

Carnivorous vegan here; vegy diet supplemented with hefty side dishes of beef, pork, poultry, and fish.


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## singlesprocket (Jun 9, 2004)

Dion said:


> Okay all you fellow hippies, check in here. Share recipes and other BS, tree-hugger stuff - ethical cycling gear (non-skin) perhaps?
> 
> By the way, do I still get to be part of the club if I'm a strict vegetarian (for ethical reasons) yet have a gun collection and a proud member of the NRA?


my wife is vegan... i'm slowing moving over to the vegetarian. it is a real challange to cook for a vegan. i find that it is making me a better cook and understanding flavors and textures in food. one of the lucky things of the area in which we live is that there is
a large population of people from all over india. so we have a great slection of vegetarian resturants, ingredients, etc...

going to try some of this, in homemade vegan sushi rolls

Vegetarian caviar food fit for a pauper


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> Ah, vege people. How wrong you are about your diet, it's incredible.
> 
> Every cell in your body is a product of millions of years of evolution. Evolution which consisted of our ancestors eating meat. Your body needs animal bits to survive.
> 
> ...


I don't even think I could say this reply is poorly researched, I don't even think it is researched at all! Sounds a lot like opinion to me, and we all have a right to our opinion. Please do not try to dress it up as 'fact'.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Dion said:


> Well, my thread went to sh*t.
> 
> I have no problems with hunters who eat what they kill. Like I said, I'm a proud NRA member and a conservative leaning.


I'm a life long vegetarian and now vegan (former roadie and now addicted to dh), My husband (a long time cyclist and now dh'er) is not vegetarian but is slowly converting. He likes to do most of the cooking and has experimented with food combinations that provide optimum nutrition (without the extra empty calories), to convert to energy.

I've rarely have a proplem with bonking on long rides, I' m strong enough to ride advanced technical trails.

Please keep this thread alive. There are vegetarians.vegans on MTBR and some who are contemplating a vegetarian (meat-free) diet and would appreciate the imput and experiences from others.


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## greg de taos (Jul 23, 2007)

simpterfex said:


> Did you know some bacon bits are vegan!


Bacos are made from Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP). Invented by a prof still at Stanford, he made a buck or two.


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## manabiker (Jul 18, 2010)

I haven't eaten red meat in 45 years, I do fish and eat fish, some dairy, I'm still able to bounce back from crashes, and do a good job at the races, I ride 50 to 100 miles a week on trails, my pre ride meals are oatmeal with lots of berries/banana, or 40 oz. smoothies with everything in the fridge in them, 
I ride the 18.6 mile Potawami trail in Michigan, 2 to 4 times a week, best time 1 hr 42 min, its one of the hardest trails in the area, I'm still improving, I'm only 65 yrs old, I hope to be doing this for a few more years, I don't take any meds, my standing heart rate is 50 bpm.
I don't know if not eating red meat has helped me, but I don't think its hurt me.
See you at the races/trails


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

manabiker said:


> I haven't eaten red meat in 45 years, I do fish and eat fish, some dairy, I'm still able to bounce back from crashes, and do a good job at the races, I ride 50 to 100 miles a week on trails, my pre ride meals are oatmeal with lots of berries/banana, or 40 oz. smoothies with everything in the fridge in them,
> I ride the 18.6 mile Potawami trail in Michigan, 2 to 4 times a week, best time 1 hr 42 min, its one of the hardest trails in the area, I'm still improving, I'm only 65 yrs old, I hope to be doing this for a few more years, I don't take any meds, my standing heart rate is 50 bpm.
> I don't know if not eating red meat has helped me, but I don't think its hurt me.
> See you at the races/trails


We might disagree on motorcycles Manabiker, but not on diet! I have never been a big meat eater, but recently have cut out dairy, refined sugars and flours as much as possible, and base my intake on plant-based rather than animal based products. I try and eat foods that are clean and as raw as possible. I also juice every day. There is a lot of evidence that this is a healthier option for us, but I realise that people will disagree. I have suggested elsewhere that the movie "Forks over Knives" outlines a great many of the benefits such a diet has for us, and how many of the current poor health issues in the 'developed' world would be minimised if we were to follow these guidelines. Incidence of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, some cancers and many other conditions would be drastically cut, and people suffering these afflictions would see a great improvement in their conditions if they maintained this healthier eating habit.
I am not saying that meat does not have a part of any diet, but my choice is to not have it if given the option. All the other cr*p that gets put into our food is mostly to blame for ill-health. I ride a lot, up to 2 hours off road each day when I am home; I am 55 years old, 6' tall and in the last few weeks have trimmed down to 175 Lbs from a lifelong fluctuation between 185 and 195. I have a lot of energy too, sleep well, and generally feel bloody good... That is all the evidence I need to eat healthy.


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## nikojan (Jun 18, 2011)

I was raw vegan for awhile and then university happened. I'm trying to get back into it. It's like a drug, you feel sooo much better about everything and just in general happier. Also if you have the will power to go raw vegan you can just about do anything. 

If you need a quick snack try kelp chips, dehydrated if you are rv or just baked if you're just a vegan or vegetarian.


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## manabiker (Jul 18, 2010)

Below this informative video is a place to put your zip code, to find good food and eat well... from places near you.. family farms etc...

http://www.themeatrix.com/


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

manabiker said:


> Below this informative video is a place to put your zip code, to find good food and eat well... from places near you.. family farms etc...
> 
> http://www.themeatrix.com/


Cool, thanks, I had not seen this one. I did try the search for local restaurants tho, and it returned 6 local Chipotle Grills! (Amongst some other places too). Something I should know?


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> Ah, vege people. How wrong you are about your diet, it's incredible.
> 
> Every cell in your body is a product of millions of years of evolution. Evolution which consisted of our ancestors eating meat. Your body needs animal bits to survive.
> 
> ...


If the S hit the fan, I have lots of guns and ammo and I will gladly kill an animal for food, as will my vegan wife.

And you you assume that people who eat meat don't eat it out of luxury? Quite the opposite. A meat centric type of diet is only possible because meat ("food") is readily available in the next supermarket - the world is full of p*ssies who couldn't kill, skin and cook an animal for food with their own hands.

This is why I respect and support hunters - these people actually have a relationship with their kill. It's a far cry from some fat lady with diabetes in a moo-moo ordering up 3 Quarter Pounders with Cheese with a milkshake at McDonalds.

Hunters don't let their kill suffer. The death is generally swift and most hunters will pride themselves on a good, fast kill. The meat industry - they don't care if an animal suffers.

We don't live in a apocalyptic society. We live in a rich society that allows us options. I'm a vegetarian because I don't vibe with the ethics of the meat industry. I support small farmers (who sell meat, too), fishermen and hunters. Also - all my stomach issues have gone away - doc says I'm "healthy as a horse".

I'm not one of those bleeding heart liberals throwing paint on fur coats. I hate those causes and they don't do a good job in promoting vegetarianism as an option.

The best compliments that I receive is "You are a vegetarian? How do you stay so muscular?" :lol:

I ride 100 miles a week (MTB) and race cyclocross on a veggie diet, throwing in weight training in there. This diet sucks


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Vegetarian here. Been one for 16 years. I don't do it for the animals. In fact, I hate animals. I hate them so much I won't even put them in my mouth.


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## pleepleus (Apr 19, 2011)

I'm a supporter of PETA.

PETA = People Eating Tasty Animals


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## Guest (Aug 13, 2011)

i know a lot of people who were vegans/vegetarians but somehow returned to their meat-eating ways. bacon was usually their "gateway meat'...


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## stnewt (Feb 13, 2010)

Funny, I was eating a cheeseburger when I opened this thread.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

These are hilarious! (See, even vegetarians have a sense of humor) 

BTW we even have our own vegan *soundboard*

As far as PETA goes:








would you dare eat a steak in front of her?

Or keep up with Sally Hibberd?









Regardless we do love our epic meal time


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## Circlip (Mar 29, 2004)

I've been a vegetarian (ovo lacto) for 8 years, but I really don't care what anyone else eats. It's a personal choice, and I won't claim that it's any better or worse than anyone else's dietary choices. The preachy comments from either side bore me, although I can still appreciate a bit of good-natured humor from either viewpoint. Eat whatever you want.

Couple of misc. comments;

- "Replacement" foods from grocery store are not needed. Lots of easy ways to get protein out of standard whole or near-whole sources. Sightly more thought required on this item for full vegans as opposed to vegetarians, of course.

- I'm no world class rider, but I have won multiple 24-hour solo races during these 8 years. Being a vegetarian isn't a limiter on physical ability or performance in my experience.

- I enjoy my food, it's tastes, textures, and scents. I'm not fighting off any complusion to eat meat, nor do I miss it. Nuff said.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

totally forgot about VBMC:thumbsup:


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## Daemon[CRO] (Jul 14, 2010)

rockerc said:


> I don't even think I could say this reply is poorly researched, I don't even think it is researched at all! Sounds a lot like opinion to me, and we all have a right to our opinion. Please do not try to dress it up as 'fact'.


I lived on an island in the Pacific for 6 months living of what I can catch.

Long story short, unless I ate fish or shells, I could not lift a finger. You cannot make a good living (have energy) eating only fruit and vegetables even tho lush Pacific islands have abundance of them. You just cannot.

Need proof?


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## Daemon[CRO] (Jul 14, 2010)

Dion said:


> . We live in a rich society that allows us options. I'm a vegetarian because I don't vibe with the ethics of the meat industry. I support small farmers (who sell meat, too), fishermen and hunters. Also - all my stomach issues have gone away - doc says I'm "healthy as a horse".


I agree. Meat industry sucks, and they mistreat animals. But if I stopped eating and drinking and using stuff which came from such conditions, I'd basically stop existing. Do you agree with sweatshops? With people working 18h for 1$ to bring you that iPhone?

I respect vege people just for the fact they are disciplined. That being said, I hate them because they are a pain in the ass. Wherever we go as a group of friends, that place needs to have their food. It's basically impossible to coexist in a group with you folks. The demands, the drama (not all vege dramatise, but I have seen them acting like bloody Jehova Witness).

What I know firsthand is that some of my friends who used to be vege, switched back to meat, or at least to birds (poultry?). Hardships of mountain biking were too great. And it is too complicated to get all the required replacement food. So they just went normal diet.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> ...Hardships of mountain biking were too great. And it is too complicated to get all the required replacement food. So they just went normal diet.


That's too bad. These athletes didn't give up so easily:

Carl Lewis-Vegetarian









and this guy...









Except for the occasional opponent's ear...









and to prove we're not just pretty...


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## Marko G (Jun 24, 2009)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> I lived on an island in the Pacific for 6 months living of what I can catch.
> 
> Long story short, unless I ate fish or shells, I could not lift a finger.* You cannot make a good living (have energy) eating only fruit and vegetables* even tho lush Pacific islands have abundance of them. You just cannot.
> 
> Need proof?


why are you generalizing like this, it shows your ignorance... i go on fruit and vegetable ONLY diets at least once a week out of every month, eating nothing but raw fruits and vegetables, and I can say that my energy levels are HIGHER than when i eat cooked/processed foods. I ride, run and lift at the gym every day...


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## Rock Surf (Aug 28, 2010)

Ebo said:


> Dharma's in Capitola ... excellent eats after a good ride. Decent beer on tap too.


+1 for Dharma's. Asian Rose is my favorite place in Santa Cruz. I also love the Kung Pao tofu at The Golden Buddha.


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## kennbenny667 (Jan 13, 2004)

I've been vegetarian for five years. I eat dairy occasionally.

I eat better. My palate has grown more sophisticated and has dived deeper into different cultural dishes than ever before. I've learned how to prepare food, not just reheat/grill it. 

I feel better. Everyday. Period. 

I live better. I like knowing that my choice(s) help support "better" options in terms of Green business and agriculture. 

I also own a gun, but I'm not a member of the NRA or PETA. Quite simply, I cannot support views I perceive to be extremist. 

I support ethical hunting. Nothing is more "'American'" than killing an animal and serving it to family and friends for dinner. 

Veganism as a culture is probably even more annoying to veggies than it is to carnivores. I hate being lectured on going vegan by someone drinking a dollar beer and smoking a cig. Hope onto your damn fixie and ride away, Sir!


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

dubthang said:


> Vegetarian here. Been one for 16 years. I don't do it for the animals. In fact, I hate animals. I hate them so much I won't even put them in my mouth.


I can't believe somebody gave me a neg rep over a bit of humor. Almost makes me want to stop being a vegetarian and become a cannibal.


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## BeanMan (Jul 6, 2006)




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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

BeanMan said:


>


The dog is wondering if he's next.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

^^Oh yeah?^^

*Take this!*









_Why do people assume that if they throw up pictures of dead animal, we're going to run back into the brush screaming? _


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

dubthang said:


> I can't believe somebody gave me a neg rep over a bit of humor. Almost makes me want to stop being a vegetarian and become a cannibal.


Me too; some dildo dooosh nozzle with a cowardly axe to grind didn't like my post on bacon flavored formula....says to post elsewhere and that it was off topic. Sad to see so many doped up dopes.


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## Ebo (Dec 30, 2003)

Thanks for the tips...In Santa Cruz next Thursday and Friday so hope to check out Asian Rose. Dharma's for sure...


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## Adam_B. (Apr 7, 2011)

When I ran cross country in high school my coach was a vegetarian and insisted that we give it a try. I tried it for a month and hated every second of it. I felt weak and my running suffered a lot. Now that I know more about diet and nutrition I'm sure I was doing it all wrong. Not enough variety or calories. Now it would be nearly impossible for me try to be a vegetarian if I had the desire to. Being in the Army you pretty much eat what the hell they give you when your in the field or deployed.

PS if you neg rep someone and don't have the stones to put your name behind it you are nothing but a spineless little b*tch:madmax:


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

longfinkillie said:


> These are hilarious! (See, even vegetarians have a sense of humor)
> 
> BTW we even have our own vegan *soundboard*
> 
> ...


Funny that Pamela Lee is vegan, shes had more meat in her than Burger King.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

mtbnoobadam said:


> When I ran cross country in high school my coach was a vegetarian and insisted that we give it a try. I tried it for a month and hated every second of it. I felt weak and my running suffered a lot. Now that I know more about diet and nutrition I'm sure I was doing it all wrong. Not enough variety or calories. Now it would be nearly impossible for me try to be a vegetarian if I had the desire to. Being in the Army you pretty much eat what the hell they give you when your in the field or deployed.
> 
> PS if you neg rep someone and don't have the stones to put your name behind it you are nothing but a spineless little b*tch:madmax:


Of which there are too many to count.


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## floydlippencott (Sep 4, 2010)

TraumaARNP said:


> Of which there are too many to count.


Yeah we get it, you don't like the neg rep you get, no one cares anymore because you pollute every single thread with this bs.


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## roadie scum (Jan 21, 2011)

floydlippencott said:


> Yeah we get it, you don't like the neg rep you get, no one cares anymore because you pollute every single thread with this bs.


Well done (pardon the pun) golf clap. :thumbsup:


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

AZ.MTNS said:


> Funny that Pamela Lee is vegan, shes had more meat in her than Burger King.


YEAH! :lol:


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## mack_turtle (Jan 6, 2009)

learn how to make your own seitan. there are two methods, boiling and baking. I prefer to bake mine. yummy stuff if you spice it right.

being vegan for the last 10 1/2 years has been working for me. however, I have learned to keep out of internet discussions because people get really defensive and rude. so that's all I will add to it. if you want to ask me about vegetarianism, recipes, etc, PM me. i won't waste my time playing games with ******** who don't understand or respect my choices.


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## nikojan (Jun 18, 2011)

@Daemon I was a raw vegan for two years and took maca, vitamin c, msm which in the long run aren't that many supplements and I was at my peak. Don't make statements like that unless you've tried it.


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> I lived on an island in the Pacific for 6 months living of what I can catch.
> 
> Long story short, unless I ate fish or shells, I could not lift a finger. You cannot make a good living (have energy) eating only fruit and vegetables even tho lush Pacific islands have abundance of them. You just cannot.
> 
> Need proof?


This is not really a valid argument in the light of what we are discussing. I truly believe that you CAN get enough nutrition in our society from a plant based diet to be able to support any strenuous activity and to live a much healthier life. If you are stuck on a desert island or similar, then by all means eat whatever you can get your hands on if that is all there is. However, we do have the ability to get all kinds of healthier options today that do not necessarily include animal products. People do thrive on this diet. There is plenty of proof of this if you care to look at the remote possibility you might be mistaken about this.
Also, to the spineless muppets who insist on giving out bad rep with foul language and no name, have the courage to voice your beef in public. Pardon the pun...


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## dogdaysunrise (May 15, 2011)

Vegan Gyro. Very good.

Seitan Gyros


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

I've tried and will continue to try. Have given up beef completely, still eat fish, eggs, chicken once in awhile. Almost completely dairy free, I think that the reduction in dairy has been the biggest improvement for me.


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## nikojan (Jun 18, 2011)

Dairy was the easiest for me once I learned that milk has pus in it...


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

AZ.MTNS said:


> ... Almost completely dairy free, I think that the reduction in dairy has been the biggest improvement for me.


I think many people would find this true if they gave it a chance. I'm not dairy free (because I have a love of cheese,) but I feel better when I eat less dairy. People generally become lactose intolerant as they get older. There's no point in forcing your body to try to breakdown things it'd rather not have in it in the first place.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

DJ Sexy Beast said:


> Source?
> 
> "i think that's what happens" does not count as a reliable source.


I'll see what I can find. I know it has a lot to do with a person's ethnic background, but I'll search.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

> Developmental causes of lactose intolerance
> 
> The most common cause of lactase deficiency is a decrease in the amount of lactase that occurs after childhood and persists into adulthood, referred to as adult-type hypolactasia. This decrease in lactase is genetically programmed, and the prevalence of this type of lactase deficiency in different ethnic groups is highly variable. Thus, in Asian populations it is almost 100%, among American Indians it is 80%, and in blacks it is 70%; however, in American Caucasians the prevalence of lactase deficiency is only 20%. In addition to variability in the prevalence of lactase deficiency, there also is variability in the age at which symptoms of lactose intolerance appear. Thus, in Asian populations, the symptoms of lactase deficiency (intolerance) occur around the age of 5, among Blacks and Mexican-Americans by the age of 10, and in the Finnish by age 20.
> 
> It is important to emphasize that lactase deficiency is not the same as lactose intolerance. Persons with milder deficiencies of lactase often have no symptoms after the ingestion of milk. For unclear reasons, even persons with moderate deficiencies of lactase may not have symptoms. A diagnosis of lactase deficiency is made when the amount of lactase in the intestine is reduced, but a diagnosis of lactose intolerance is made only when the reduced amount of lactase causes symptoms.


Lactose Intolerance Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment on MedicineNet.com

Other links,
Lactose intolerance: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia
Prevalence, Age & Genetics of Lactose Intolerance
and of course, Wiki... because if it's here, it's true...
Lactose intolerance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2011)

ice cream made from coconut milk is actually quite good! :thumbsup:


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## Rock Surf (Aug 28, 2010)

mikeb said:


> ice cream made from coconut milk is actually quite good! :thumbsup:


Yup! Sorbet also fills the Ice cream void well. My fav is Jamaican me crazy from Ben & Jerry's


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

DJ Sexy Beast said:


> "People generally become lactose intolerant as they get older"
> 
> Still waiting...


So intolerant is the wrong word, but people do tend to develope issues with dairy as they age.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

DJ Sexy Beast said:


> Source?
> 
> "i think that's what happens" does not count as a reliable source.


Did you not read the links? National Geographic had a good article on it awhile back. I'll try to find it.

To paraphrase,
Babies (includes all ethnic/racial backgrounds) create lactase inorder to process lactose. When the body stops creating lactase, it becomes difficult to process lactose into its two simple sugars so that it can be absorbed by the intestine. Caucasians are the largest group to not always experience this stop in lactase production. Since caucasians make up a very small portion of the World's over all population, it is safe to say that many humans lose their ability to process dairy as they age.

Getting this thread back on track...
Good recipes can be found on
Allrecipes.com - recipes, menus, meal ideas, food, and cooking tips. 
Vegetarian Recipes Search | Vegetarian Times 
Epicurious.com: Recipes, Menus, Cooking Articles & Food Guides


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## terrasmak (Jun 14, 2011)

Beef i can give up, chicken, no way. Don't eat beef more than once a week, most of the time is chicken or fish. 

Burger with bacon, no way i could give up red meat.


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

I respect people who make their dietary choices without getting preachy, snotty, or rude about it. I happen to enjoy meat too much to give it up entirely. That said, I do enjoy a lot of vegetarian meals and will also enjoy the occasional vegan meal. But I enjoy cheese too much to give it up, especially local artisan cheeses.

I try to get all of my food locally, organically, and from people who really love raising/growing food. Unfortunately, it's super expensive to do that with your whole diet, so I do it bit by bit when I can. My diet varies quite a bit seasonally these days, and I think that makes me appreciate a lot of my food even more. I stock up on peaches, plums, blueberries, and squashes when they're in season locally. I can usually get enough blueberries to stock my freezer for the year where I live. But the peaches and plums usually don't make it to the freezer. And you always have too much squash - squash is funny that way.


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## Rock Surf (Aug 28, 2010)

terrasmak said:


> Beef i can give up, ......... no way i could give up red meat.


:lol:


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## nikojan (Jun 18, 2011)

AptosRider said:


> :lol:


Beef isn't red meat, its black and white...idiot.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

........................


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

+1 on the Coconut Milk Ice Cream. They are doing some very good flavors now. Also, cultured coconut milk as a yogurt replacement, and if you like cheese but have trouble with it digestively, raw goat milk cheese is a good substitute. There's a lot of stuff out there if you care to look.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

mack_turtle said:


> learn how to make your own seitan. there are two methods, boiling and baking. I prefer to bake mine. yummy stuff if you spice it right.
> 
> being vegan for the last 10 1/2 years has been working for me. however, I have learned to keep out of internet discussions because people get really defensive and rude. so that's all I will add to it. if you want to ask me about vegetarianism, recipes, etc, PM me. i won't waste my time playing games with ******** who don't understand or respect my choices.


I've finally mastered seitan a week ago. Been a veg' for 12 years. Now there's no stopping me from mocking duck, chicken, beef...Here's a tip if you don't do it already: Once the seitan is in dough form, I knead it flat and stretch it. I then roll it like a carpet in a tight cylinder or ball. I never let the broth boil (that's the hardest part), voila!


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## singlesprocket (Jun 9, 2004)

interesting stat: 399 million people, are vegetarians in india, in the states it is over 3% of the pop.


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## H0WL (Jan 17, 2007)

mikeb said:


> *ice cream made from coconut milk* is actually quite good! :thumbsup:


Insanely, fabulously, desperately good, especially chocolate--likely because of the fat in coconut. Coconut in all of its forms is now the next big thing in health foods. Fine by me. 
Really like red lentils and sweet potatoes with Tasty Bite Good Korma Simmer Sauce or you could make your own korma sauce. Some have cream, some not:
coconut, onions, tomatoes, cashews, garlic, ginger, chiles, turmeric, cardamom, clove, pepper, cinnamon, coriander. 
Have felt much better getting a daily fix of greens, usually bok choy or kale or Napa cabbage or similar + mixed salad greens.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

For those of you on here that have made seitan, how does it compare to store bought seitan price wise? Also, how long does it keep?


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

dubthang said:


> For those of you on here that have made seitan, how does it compare to store bought seitan price wise? Also, how long does it keep?


I cheat and buy the vital wheat gluten. There are those hard core guys/gals that make it by filtering the flour to get the gluten (probably the same people that ride rigid SS). It usually runs me about 7 bucks for a lb. That single bag of vital wheat gluten will last me a month. 
Of course it took me a couple of bags to get the process down.

And whatever you do, don't let the stuff get into your pipes. Seitan is tantamount to plaster when it gets in your plumbing:madman:

Flavor-wise, price-wise and shelf-life wise making your own wins every time. The things you can do with it are innumerable. I also found that store bought seitan was way too salty.

Besides, you have to make things like seitan reubens from scratch


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## seemlessstate (Apr 3, 2011)

I'm a vegetarian, and eat dairy fairly infrequently.
I am also what most would consider an Extreme Libertarian. 

I value life, and the living's right to keep it. 
I only take and kill what is wholly necessary for my survival. 
If I were living in the woods, or as a hunter gatherer, or even an 18th century farmer, then I would absolutely be chowing down on some pig. The fact is though, that human ingenuity has created a Society so advanced that we can have our pick of an astonishing variety of food from around the world, just by going down the street to the grocery store. 

the average american has access to more than enough calories, vitamins and nutrients to lead an extremely healthy and active life without ever touching an animal product. You don't have to eat meat to live, but you cant eat only meat and survive very long. it just isn't a crucial thing to eat considering the modern food system. Since I live by the philosophy of "why kill something that you don't have to?" then that pretty much rules out meat. 

not to mention, I have worked on a dairy farm, and seen plenty of beef cattle and poultry operations in my life to know that most of the meat and dairy that people eat is from a factory farm. factory farms are horrifically disgusting places where pointless abuse is commonplace if not company policy. Most dairy farms let their cows stand in 6" deep ****, never let them out to pasture, then when they milk, there is ****, and dirt and blood and puss on the udders. that all goes into the milking equipment and mixes with the milk. I would rather eat meat and dairy from a place that I knew was a clean safe environment. I do eat dairy products from local farms. its not that hard to find local farms that have ethical clean environments, especially in this part of the country (upstate New York), and when you work in agriculture like myself. 

If you want to eat meat, it is your body, your philosophy, and your decision. I wont preach or ram my opinion down anyone's throat. the most I will do is talk to someone who asks. Remember, Im a "do whatever you want" libertarian. 

that said, if you believe that you can not lead a productive life as a vegetarian, you are plain un-informed on the subject. I have one of the most physically demanding labor intensive jobs, outside of a professional athlete that I can think of. I work regularly in triple digit heat, with heavy equipment, lifting 100+ lb objects all day, climbing things, jumping on and off semi trailers and just doing pain in the ass stuff all the time. honestly I have more stamina than all the guys who eat meat for lunch. they all want a nap in the afternoon because digesting meat requires a fair amount of energy. why do you think most large carnivorous animals are idle for periods after eating?

Im an outdoorsy dude. I was an avid hunter until I became vegetarian. I frequently do multi day remote backpacking trips with my wife (who is a vegan). I obviously mountain bike. And If lost in the woods, would surely be able to survive better than most. basically I'm a ******* hippie, so the stereotype of whiney liberal ****** vegetarians is just a stereotype.


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

seemlessstate said:


> I'm a vegetarian, and eat dairy fairly infrequently.
> I am also what most would consider an Extreme Libertarian.
> 
> I value life, and the living's right to keep it.
> ...


Brothers from a different mother, my friend. Props!


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2011)

"If you want to eat meat, it is your body, your philosophy, and your decision. I wont preach or ram my opinion down anyone's throat. the most I will do is talk to someone who asks. Remember, Im a "do whatever you want" libertarian. "

we need more people in the world like you...


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## modifier (May 11, 2007)

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with eating animal products except that these days we live on a very polluted planet and the farther up the food chain you eat the more concentrated crap you are directly taking into your body along with the crap you can't avoid by living in the environment. Plus excess cholesterol may not be a good thing but that jury is still out, apparently. 

I'm not saying any of it will kill you right off but most people die of cancer so I like to limit exposure where I can.

I still eat meat but limit my intake. I have no religious or moral issues with eating meat either. All primates eat meat when they can get it and if we hadn't had the high caloric boost from eating it back in the early days we would not have been able to prosper and evolve as we did. 

To answer a question about why you would want to eat Tofurkey? It may not be as good as turkey but it's not bad and if you make a sandwich with it along with the other things you might add to it the Tofukey adds some (good) texture and taste that would not be there if it was all vegetables. Adds some protein too. So it tastes pretty good and you get to cut out some of the animal product from your diet. Veganaise is good stuff too. No cholesterol. 

For those who think eating fish and chicken is way better for you then beef do a little research on what the conditions are like on large scale poultry farms where almost all the non organic stuff comes from; then do a little research on what pollutants are in the oceans. Organic grass fed beef may not look so bad anymore.


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## Rock Surf (Aug 28, 2010)

nikojan said:


> Beef isn't red meat, its black and white...idiot.


:nono:I hear your Mama callin' litttle boy, let the grown ups talk now.


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

seemlessstate said:


> I'm a vegetarian, and eat dairy fairly infrequently.
> I am also what most would consider an Extreme Libertarian.
> 
> I value life, and the living's right to keep it.
> ...


Good post. Thank you for putting it so well. Are you a roadie? And I do not use the term in any derogatory way, I just have spent 35 years in the music touring business, and your description sounds very like what I have seen all these years... I know how physically and mentally demanding it can be. (When I say 'roadie' I mean as in a non-cycling way!)


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## stumblemumble (Mar 31, 2006)

I've been doing the pesco-vegetarian thing for a few months now. Hats off to those who stick to it. I've had to cheat a number of times when dining at other's houses and meat is for dinner. I don't want to be picky and not be invited back. Of course my gf makes an announcement about it and I have to explain that it's not a big deal.
Like Kermit said, "It's not easy being green (different)"


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## Bilirubin (Mar 6, 2010)

My wife has been vegetarian (ovo-lacto) for 25 years, so we don't cook meat at home. I just eat it when out (had a nice rib eye for a special anniversary treat tonight in fact!). But due to high cholesterol I'm mostly off red meat eggs cheese etc. Thank goodness I like fish.


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## Daemon[CRO] (Jul 14, 2010)

I have huge respect for vege people. My two close friends are vegans, and the discipline of vegan life spreads to discipline in other regions. They are never late to work, they are always organised, etc. 

That being said, these are two of my bottom line thoughts regarding vege diet. 

A) it is not natural. You cannot spontaneously decide not to eat animal products when we have been eating them for millions of years. There are replacement products, yes. Replacement. I think (maybe I'm wrong) but the human society yet has to see a person who lived his entire life being vegan and had no complications whatsoever because of it. Be it during pregnancy, old age, recovery from sickness etc. Show me a family that lived vege life for generations, and you convinced me. 

B) You are not fighting meat industry. Even if 20% of 1st world county population were vege, that will only make meat industry work harder with their buyers to put more meat into other 80%. By pure "coincidence" will McDonalds make a sandwich with meat and bacon and extra meat. Screw it, make buns out of meat. You cannot fight meat industry. Being vege out of rebellion against meat industry makes you like those folks who are anti-capitalist anti-corporate, yet on rallies they come in Dr.Martiens boots, Levis 501, Gap shirts with Che Guevara print. Of course, they organised event via iPhone, over Facebook. Vege lifestyle is a product of marketing, and you know it. Food industry wanted to make more money, so they shoved some guerilla marketing commercials into your head how you have to fight animal abuse, stop getting fat in Burger King. "Here, don't eat meat, eat this instead. And, oh, that food is harder to come by, +50% price, sorry. Be a good rebel, pay more!"


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## Daemon[CRO] (Jul 14, 2010)

Man, the irony. As I posted this, I saw an article about vegan parents killing their baby through malnutrition.

Google Translate


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## Guest (Aug 15, 2011)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> I have huge respect for vege people. My two close friends are vegans, and the discipline of vegan life spreads to discipline in other regions. They are never late to work, they are always organised, etc.
> 
> That being said, these are two of my bottom line thoughts regarding vege diet.
> 
> ...


outstanding post. i am not allowed to give away any more rep today. maybe tomorrow.


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## Orkje (May 3, 2006)

All discussion aside and to get back to the OP's question: I've been a vegan for about three years now. My favourite recipe (or one of them, at least):

burrito wraps filled with little chunks of grilled tofu (nicely covered with ground pepper and celery seeds) and a mixture of avocado paste, cucumber, tomatoes, onions, paprikas and olive oil. Cover with your favourite type of lettuce before wrapping it all up


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> I have huge respect for vege people. My two close friends are vegans, and the discipline of vegan life spreads to discipline in other regions. They are never late to work, they are always organised, etc.


You make it sound like the 'vegan life' is like some sort of disciplined imposition. This is simply not the case. The only 'discipline' involved is the simple and small effort involved in getting off the couch and going to a market to buy good food, then coming home and taking the trouble to prepare it. There may be some research involved in finding recipes and ideas, but it really is no great hardship. 
The benefits of this are many, as I and several others have pointed out here, and as is borne out all over the world as we speak here. Scaremongering about isolated cases of neglect to try and prove a point is invalid. There are 2 sides to that coin. 
As for the rest of your post, I am working on not getting angry at people who hold certain views, but you are not making it any easier...


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## modifier (May 11, 2007)

My ex said the other day that she was now a vegetarian. But she eats eggs, cheese and fish. I'm like, well then you are not a vegetarian. She said, yes I am, I have lots of [hipster] friends who are vegan who eat eggs. Me, well then they are not vegans, look it up, and you are an ovo/lacto/ichthyo vegetarian and they are posers, saying they are vegan because it's trendy to be vegan and to be lacto or wheat intolerant it seems too. She's like, oh you are just too into labels. Me, no I'm not into labels, the ones calling them selves vegans are. I'm into honesty and calling a spade a spade.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being vegan or vegetarian or various forms of if that is what you are into. Just get the facts straight.

I would call myself a soft core vegan  I'll avoid animal products most of the time but will still eat a steak or hamburger or whatever occasionally when I want.

A friend of my ex calls himself a "freegan". He's a vegan unless he's invited to dinner and they serve something else and it's free so he eats it. Sounds good to me:thumbsup:


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> I have huge respect for vege people. My two close friends are vegans, and the discipline of vegan life spreads to discipline in other regions. They are never late to work, they are always organised, etc.
> 
> That being said, these are two of my bottom line thoughts regarding vege diet.
> 
> ...


A) There are millions of vegetarian families who have been for thousands of years outside of the US.

B) So, if a bike shop gives you crappy service and you decide not to buy there anymore - are you "fighting" the bike shop?

As I don't buy from retailers that my personal beliefs don't vibe with, the same goes with my decision not to buy from the meat industry. Because local grown, ethical meat is hard to come by, I just opt out. The mass meat industry is brutal, abusive and inhumane. So - you have a problem with those who choose not to "invest" our dollar in that? Strange - sounds like you have "beef" with the annoying liberal hippies/hipsters, and not necessarily vegetarians. As stated by myself and a few others - if you're looking to pick a fight with bleeding heart liberals, there isn't one sitting in this seat.

I don't feel my vegetarianism is going to change the industry.

I believe in "voting" with your wallet because I believe in the free market. I like the fact that I don't have to be a pompous PETA type to opt out of an industry I don't like - conversely I can _opt in_ to an industry I do like. I like food companies that give me an option to eat healthy, good food that keeps me muscular and healthy and well without having to contribute to animal abuse.

Diabetes and other health problems run rampant in my ethnic community due to the poor food choices. When I became a vegetarian, my "view" of food became more honed, and I started to investigate other things in my consumption, like sodium, processed sugar and high fructose corn syrup. I have lost 25 lbs. without losing an ounce of muscle and I average 100 miles of riding a week without batting an eye. I feel MUCH healthier now and my blood tests say the same (which are vastly more improved than just two years ago).

I don't give a sh*t if what somebody eats. So why should anybody give a sh*t what myself and others eat? It appears your problem is with the pompous veggie liberal azzholes (who I am also annoyed by), so your disdain is misplaced in this thread.

This thread is about sharing vege recipes and vegan cycling gear, not "We hate meat eaters and are better than them"


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## sxotty (Nov 4, 2005)

I heartily support this thread. I have eaten as a guest with lots of vegans/vegetarians and the food is usually not very good. So share some recipes so that the food tastes better ok 

ps. While it may be funny I am serious.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

So where's the "vegan" cycling gear?


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## BrettVisionSLR (Aug 5, 2006)

Long time vegan here. 


As an animal loving, biochemist, with a strong toxicology background I would have to say that I do it for Environmental, ethical/moral, physiological/health reasons.

From a taxonomic perspective I see the biological foundations of a primarily herbivorous animal, and from a purely biochemical perspective we see the same thing. There are few sound arguments suggesting we are "designed" to eat meat, and the long term negative health consequences of doing so are rather obvious too.

Additionally, it is clear that factory farms are one of the larger sources of environmental toxicants. Many members of my father's side of the family have large family farms, and these are so very different from the industrial farms that actually bring the bulk of animal products to market. . .unfortunately the family farms have a very difficult time competing, and especially in the case of dairy farms, they are often regulated out of existence. 

It is hard to argue about ethics/morals, so I'm not going to bother with that, other than to say that I trust my own ethical assessment that if I have a choice, I'd rather not kill sentient beings.

In the end, it's hard for me to justify the consumption of meat, dairy or eggs. . .especially when sources from industrial factory farms.

Another tidbit by way of accidental experimentation: 

Over the last few months when I was seeing a girl that was not vegetarian/vegan (a first, and last for me) I dabbled in cheese, and even had a bite of her mandarin chicken. The chicken was just foul, and during the two weeks that I'd had cheese probably once or twice a day I also saw something interesting when I'd work out. I noticed that I had phlegm and some headaches, and then when I went on rides it was amazing how much worse I felt, mostly in the respiratory department, and I also found that I got exertion headaches doing rides at paces I never had an issue with. I actually remember those feelings from a looooong time ago, and it was interesting to re-encounter them. I went back to being a happy vegan, and I got my old lungs and legs back, and no more headaches from hard sessions on the bike.


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## PsyCro (Jun 8, 2007)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> A) it is not natural. You cannot spontaneously decide not to eat animal products when we have been eating them for millions of years.


I love it when i hear stuff like this. Modern science doesn't have the ability to prove almost anything from 'way back in the day'.. but some people still 'believe' they know what went on millions of years ago. We don't know how pyramids were made, and that was just a few thousand years ago, not to mention the 'missing link' and other puzzles in human evolution. Vegetarianism is simply not in any way any less viable than a 'meat eating diet', and that's been proven many times over.. heck in this thread alone!! (not even gonna go into the gazillion studies side if it)


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

PsyCro said:


> I love it when i hear stuff like this. Modern science doesn't have the ability to prove almost anything from 'way back in the day'.. but some people still 'believe' they know what went on millions of years ago. We don't know how pyramids were made, and that was just a few thousand years ago, not to mention the 'missing link' and other puzzles in human evolution. Vegetarianism is simply not in any way any less viable than a 'meat eating diet', and that's been proven many times over.. heck in this thread alone!! (not even gonna go into the gazillion studies side if it)


There are many religious groups, including very old Christian groups that do not believe in meat consumption as the moral ideal. Most of these rules are not hard and fast (including Sikhs), but many believe it's the nonviolence that brings your closer to a higher spiritual awareness.

That being said, you're looking at generations of people who did just fine on a veggie diet.


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## heartland (Oct 1, 2009)

Cheesus Christmas. What's with all the hate? Some of you need to get out more. Is Dion the first vegetarian you've ever met?

I'm not vegetarian any more, but I was for several years. I eat meat now, but locally and humanely raised exclusively.

That said, I still eat many vegetarian meals on a regular basis. So, in a (possibly futile) effort to get the thread back on track, here are a couple favorites:

Like Indian food? Chana Masala is one of my favorites. I haven't tried this particular recipe, but it looks promising: chana masala | smitten kitchen

For dessert, it's hard to beat this vegan peanut butter pie: 
Peanut Butter Pie (Vegan) Recipe | Yummly


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## MikeG (Oct 1, 2002)

I was a meat eating, beer guzzling, coffee drinking full throttle hard ass for 15 years as an adult. It caught up with me. Then I started studying health. Who were the longest living people? What were their diets like? How happy were they? Where did they live?

I tried the Atkins diet. I tried the paleo diet. I tried low carb. I tried vegetarian. I tried low sodium vegan. Then high carb raw vegan. I even pulled off a 14 day water fast.

I learned a lot ... If you want to lose 150 lbs, go vegan. Wanna do it quickly? Go raw vegan.

Fruit never tasted better in my life, or gave me more energy, than when coming off ketosis. If you have a high fat diet, the sugars in fruit will make you feel sick. Insulin is almost ineffective when there is a high percentage of fat in the blood stream. Type 2 Diabetes is curable with a plant based low fat vegan diet. (The China Study.)

On a vegan diet I feel a more spiritual person, more at peace, never depressed, A lot of us types get preachy because we want to share the exhilaration and hope of health after struggling through a long downward spiral of uneducated overeating. Talking about it turns into a passion.

So, I'm not vegan for animal rights, or because of factory farms... although it does make sense ... if you let unnaturally raised, dead flesh and oils putrify in your body, you'll have a higher chance of disease.

Yes, humans evolved eating meat. But way less often than we do these days. And you really had to work for it ...
Shamanistic Hunting of The Kalahari People - YouTube


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

I am a Thai food addict.









The ingredients are kind of exotic but worth the effort:thumbsup:
Here's the recipe:
Por Pieer Tod (»Íà»ÕêÂÐ·Í´ - Thai Spring Roll Recipe)

Vegan Tamales (try not to lick the screen)! 









Corn Tamales with Chile-Braised Beans, Braised Greens, and Glazed Mushrooms - Recipe Finder


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

I stumbled upon vegetarianism when hunting for Pho' (Vietnamese soup). There is a place here in San Jose, Ca. called "Happy Bamboo" run by a tiny Vietnamese woman named Bihn. She is the most pleasant, sweet woman one can meet, and my wife really liked it because she is vegan. 

Well, the food was absolutely awesome, and I really couldn't tell the difference. All the fake "meat" had the same texture and taste as real meat. So the logical part of me said, "Well, hell... if I can make food that tastes like this all the time, I could do the vegetarian thing..."

Two weeks later, wife and I went back to Happy Bamboo and I told Bihn I had been meat free since - then Bihn laid it all out on the table - all the ethical and moral issues surrounding the meat industry, etc. She also told me about the spiritual aspect of it as MikeG has said.

So, the Mrs. and I went shopping and we found all kinds of cool stuff, like the Morning Star brand "ground meat" and their sausage patties. There is also tofu lunch "meat" - all the same texture and taste.

So, vegetarians are, by no means, deprived of any good tasting food. I make tacos with the Morning Star ground "meat", curry fried rice, "beef" with broccoli (from "Fry's beef strips"), spaghetti and "meat balls", etc. Of course, veggie burgers and "chicken" sandwiches. It all tastes like meat, so psychologically I get my fill and philosophically I get my fill. Like I said, coming from a "meat centric" culture, it was a rough start but today's options make it very easy for a guy like me to go the veggie route.

I have weened off cheese, but still eat eggs from an ethical, local farmer. I stopped with dairy mostly, but whatever's in deserts, I'll eat. 

For anybody wanting to give it a try without eating rabbit food, check out Morning Star, Fry's Beef Strips, or if you like Asian food, there are lots of Indian and Vietnamese restaurants that serve vegetarian dishes.

It's not going to kill you and you actually might like it.


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## Guest (Aug 15, 2011)

> If you think a fake meat or cheese substitute tastes exactly like the real thing, you've been vegi/vegan for too long.


You know, that is soy true.

Seriously, eat what makes you feel best. I've been a vegetarian(had my own organic garden) and I've had a few burgers as well. Now, I'm somewhere in between. I don't eat much meat, but I've got nothing against doing so. I eat what I think is healthy and best for me. As far as what other people do, well, that's their business.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

longfinkillie said:


> I am a Thai food addict.
> Vegan Tamales (try not to lick the screen)!


Evidently, I've repped you too many times, but thanks for these recipes. They look awesome.

And for DJ S.B. Some links for you (and anybody else that's interested) on lactose. I'm not saying that these prove or disprove anything. I just found the first one to be an informative read, and the second one to be a good chart.
http://www.robrdunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Dunn-11.pdf
Lactose Intolerance by Ethnicity and Region - Milk - ProCon.org


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

MikeG said:


> I learned a lot ... If you want to lose 150 lbs, go vegan. Wanna do it quickly? Go raw vegan.
> 
> Fruit never tasted better in my life, or gave me more energy, than when coming off ketosis. If you have a high fat diet, the sugars in fruit will make you feel sick. Insulin is almost ineffective when there is a high percentage of fat in the blood stream. Type 2 Diabetes is curable with a plant based low fat vegan diet. (The China Study.)
> 
> ...


Thank you too for putting it so eloquently.

This is all a personal choice, but, as you say, wanting to share the benefits is a powerful urge, and some people seem completely closed to any learning of these. I certainly do not hate these people, but they do frustrate me. So many of our problems related to health today could be solved or at least minimised if only the majority of people were to at least give a change in diet to something more plant based a chance. It usually takes a massive fright to bring about this change, but this is sadly not always the case. 
As far as recipes and such, I have already mentioned coconut based ice cream and 'yogurt', which is widely available now. Just these things satisfy a craving for something 'bad' that usually puts us in front of the freezer at the supermarket with a tub of Ben and Jerry's in our hands... for recipes, my girlfriend and I use a lot of stuff by Natalia Rose, or just google raw food online. We have our moments of weakness sometimes, but these usually involve the Indian Restaurant down the road here which is superb. They do some awesome vegetarian dishes... Flavor of India in Oro Valley if anyone lives in this area. 
The recipe for healthy carrot cake cookies that my girlfriend uses will only be pried from her on pain of death, so I am afraid I cannot share that right now... I shall work on it tho...


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## seemlessstate (Apr 3, 2011)

congrats on a well organized and respectful debate MTBR. 

we deserve a pat on the back, and maybe some soy cubes to top it off lol.


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## Bilirubin (Mar 6, 2010)

sxotty said:


> I heartily support this thread. I have eaten as a guest with lots of vegans/vegetarians and the food is usually not very good. So share some recipes so that the food tastes better ok
> 
> ps. While it may be funny I am serious.


Yeah, there is this idea that tofu is inherently delicious. Its bland, and tastes vaguely of grandparent's closet. Marinate that stuff!

Baked tofu: take half a pound firm tofu, cut into thin slices, press dry, set aside.

Take a small square tupperware (or whatever) container, add 1/4 cup soy/tamari, 2.5 tblsp sesame oil, 1 tblsp engevita yeast (helps mix the oil and soy). Mix, and toss in a diced clove of garlic for good measure! Add the tofu slices. Let marinate all day/overnight, flipping the tofu once. Bake in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until desired level of crispiness is achieved. 425 F is a good temperature to do it at.

We eat this with rice, and a simple broccoli stirfry with a head of garlic added. Specifics upon request :thumbsup:


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## Bilirubin (Mar 6, 2010)

PsyCro said:


> I love it when i hear stuff like this. Modern science doesn't have the ability to prove almost anything from 'way back in the day'.. but some people still 'believe' they know what went on millions of years ago. We don't know how pyramids were made, and that was just a few thousand years ago, not to mention the 'missing link' and other puzzles in human evolution. Vegetarianism is simply not in any way any less viable than a 'meat eating diet', and that's been proven many times over.. heck in this thread alone!! (not even gonna go into the gazillion studies side if it)


Rice and beans is a complete protein.

Meat eating among primates is relatively recent (approx 5 million years ago), evolutionarily. Go back beyond our most recent common ancestor with chimps (who eat very little meat, mostly using it to entice sex. Ahem.), and most primates are herbivorous or fructivores. Go back to the most recent common ancestor of all mammals, and it probably ate bugs.


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## modifier (May 11, 2007)

Thanks for recipes, they all look good.

Btw I thought I should clarify that while Tofurky does not taste as good as fresh roasted turkey, if you compare it to turkey loaf, which is probably 75% of the turkey that is consumed in the US, I'd take Tofurky over that crap any day. At least on a sandwich. Standing aside how it tastes or it's mouth feel can you image what is in it? I mean factory turkey is pretty nasty stuff but then they take the left overs that they can't sell otherwise and then grind it up and make loaf out of it. Ewww.


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## stumblemumble (Mar 31, 2006)

Had this tonight: Brown rice with a bunch of sliver chopped kale mixed in with sun-dried and fresh tomatoes stirred with pesto.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

modifier said:


> Thanks for recipes, they all look good.
> 
> Btw I thought I should clarify that while Tofurky does not taste as good as fresh roasted turkey, if you compare it to turkey loaf, which is probably 75% of the turkey that is consumed in the US, I'd take Tofurky over that crap any day. At least on a sandwich. Standing aside how it tastes or it's mouth feel can you image what is in it? I mean factory turkey is pretty nasty stuff but then they take the left overs that they can't sell otherwise and then grind it up and make loaf out of it. Ewww.


It's been so long since I've had turkey that I don't even remember what it actually tastes like. Tofurky does make an odd squeak when it's eaten, but the stuffing inside it is to die for.


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## MariahLinda99 (Aug 4, 2011)

You are the member of the NRA and having gun collection, well its very good but it would be difficult for you to do this just due to NRA.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

Dion said:


> A)
> 
> I don't give a sh*t if what somebody eats. So why should anybody give a sh*t what myself and others eat? It appears your problem is with the pompous veggie liberal azzholes (who I am also annoyed by), so your disdain is misplaced in this thread.
> 
> *This thread is about sharing vege recipes and vegan cycling gear,* not "We hate meat eaters and are better than them"


Sooooo, after several posts filled with drama, hate, angst, etc, it is apparent that some here are vegan, some are veggy's, and many are omnivorous....I get the point. Now, what about this so-called vegan cycling gear; I've called several bike shops, even making one long distance call to a san francisco bike shop, and no one has ever heard of *vegan *cycling gear?


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

TraumaARNP said:


> Sooooo, after several posts filled with drama, hate, angst, etc, it is apparent that some here are vegan, some are veggy's, and many are omnivorous....I get the point. Now, what about this so-called vegan cycling gear; I've called several bike shops, even making one long distance call to a san francisco bike shop, and no one has ever heard of *vegan *cycling gear?


I would just let it go, I suspect he meant ecologically sound cycling apparel. I tried the Tofu cranks and they taste better than they work... gotta marinate them tho...


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Vegan cycling gear. The website VegWeb is a good resource for recipes but is hit or miss since it is user run and the recipes are all home brewed ideas from said users. Also, Isa Chandra Moskowitz has a podcast vegan cooking show and her books are full of rad recipes( "Veganomicon", "Vegan with a Vengeance" and "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World"). A few more cookbooks: "Hot Damn and Hell Yeah" and "Please Don't Feed the Bears"; there's a zine called "Barefoot and in the Kitchen".


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

rockerc said:


> I would just let it go, I suspect he meant ecologically sound cycling apparel. I tried the Tofu cranks and they taste better than they work... gotta marinate them tho...


No. It's called "vegan" clothing (my wife turned me on to this stuff).

I have to wear a suit and tie everyday for work and I'll be looking for dress shoes soon.

Men's Dressy Vegan Shoes: Vegan Oxford Shoes, Slip On Shoes, Vegetarian Shoes, Eco Friendly Shoes


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Dubthang: I tried to plus rep you again for cannibalism. But apparently need to spread the love a bit more. 

I'm okay with cannibalism, though the amount of garbage people put into their bodies may make the meat putrid before you even off them for the BBQ. 

Still trying to get my lady to stop eating as much meat/ dairy as she does. Gross but, she complains about not being able to poop when she feels she has to. I keep telling her it's because of all the meat and dairy. She hardly eats veggies, seriously, she eats maybe the equivalent of half a serving of veggies a day. The rest is bread, meat and cheese. At least I got her eating 100% whole wheat bread without HFCS, though it still has some sugar; I hate that.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

HFCS is a major issue, I feel, for people in the U.S. I haven't eaten it in years, and feel much better physically and mentally. 

Monzie- Anything with fiber should help your lady out a bit. Perhaps there are some fruits and veggies that she'd eat as a snack if they were lying around? My gf will plow through a carton of strawberries if they are in the house.


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## dozicusmaximus (Aug 10, 2011)

I've thought about doing the vegetarian thing. 
But I don't think I could give up eggs, cheese and would have to eat fish. I don't think it would be to hard to give up beef or pork. Chicken might be tough.
Once I buy a bike and start exercising, maybe I'll try it out. My desk job laziness has moved into my off time. I'm lazy and tired all the time.
All though I have had serious cravings for fruit lately. Which is good. When I eat fruit I'm less likely to eat other sugary trash.
I'm poor so eating healthy always seems like it's so expensive. Compared to lunch meat, hamburger helper, chef boyardee, and ramen.... it's really expensive.


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

For you octo-lavo types: Curry Fried Rice this morning

1. Cooked rice
2. Morning Star Meat Crumbles
3. 1 egg (not necessary)
4. Curry and Chili powder to taste

Microwave the meat crumbles to thaw them. Fry it all up together in olive oil and enjoy it with a piece of fruit.


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

dozicusmaximus said:


> I'm poor so eating healthy always seems like it's so expensive.


There are grocery discount places that you'd be surprised to find vegetarian stuff for cheap. We have "Food Max" and "Grocery Outlet", and Target and Safeway carries a lot of vege-friendly stuff on sale a lot of the times.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

DubThang: Yeah, I got her eating plums as snacks, though she still would rather have a candy bar. It's a slow process. 

I'm not a fan of fake meats and not really a fan of fake dairy products. I like veganaise but still think even though it is healthy and made with organic stuff feel that getting the full spectrum organic regular mayonnaise is better since it's not as processed and less ingredients; same thoughts apply to meat stuffs; though local sustainable meat is what I mean( of which I will eat very rarely). No research to back this up just my thoughts and speculations. I don't eat either of them though. The only fake meat I eat is the ToFurky sausage link things. Bonus because the lady actually likes them too.

My brother hunts and will give me some of the venison when he gets it processed. I'm cool with this situation. I would like to learn to bow hunt but that's just another thing to spend money on and bikes currently eat my whole budget.


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## snowjnky (Oct 7, 2005)

seemlessstate said:


> the average american has access to more than enough calories, vitamins and nutrients to lead an extremely healthy and active life without ever touching an animal product.


 first off , your post in its entirety was , IMO, well thought out and does a great job illustrating a different perspective, Thank you. But I think your assumption that the average american has access to any healthy options regardless of meat or vegan is completely incorrect. Most Americans, specifically the ones living in the inner cities, have NO healthy options. This is a hidden epidemic within our nation which has the ability to produce healthy food sources for all its people. It is hard to eat vegan or just healthy when you doing grocery shopping at convenience stores.But I feel lucky as should anyone who has a local farmers market or a good grocer with fair prices (not Whole Paycheck) nearby.

Not trying to debate this here just giving you my take on it. 
Sorry Dion for no recipes 
But you should try Vegetarian House on Santa Clara in SJ; Its BOMB! The Law and D-bug turned me on to it

I go vegan 4-5 days a week BTW, I wish I had more will power. I REALLY need to get of the tit. 
10-15lbs instantly


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## snowjnky (Oct 7, 2005)




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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

TraumaARNP said:


> Sooooo, after several posts filled with drama, hate, angst, etc, it is apparent that some here are vegan, some are veggy's, and many are omnivorous....I get the point. Now, what about this so-called vegan cycling gear; I've called several bike shops, even making one long distance call to a san francisco bike shop, and no one has ever heard of *vegan *cycling gear?





Dion said:


> No. It's called "vegan" clothing (my wife turned me on to this stuff).
> 
> I have to wear a suit and tie everyday for work and I'll be looking for dress shoes soon.
> 
> Men's Dressy Vegan Shoes: Vegan Oxford Shoes, Slip On Shoes, Vegetarian Shoes, Eco Friendly Shoes


So because I ask a legitimate question, I get the "persistant a-hole" neg rep?


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## snowjnky (Oct 7, 2005)

TraumaARNP said:


> So because I ask a legitimate question, I get the "persistant a-hole" neg rep?


hey me too LOL. awesome. Haters gonna hate


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

I like The Grouch and Zion I too!


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## abegold (Jan 30, 2004)

mtbnoobadam said:


> When I ran cross country in high school my coach was a vegetarian and insisted that we give it a try. I tried it for a month and hated every second of it. I felt weak and my running suffered a lot. Now that I know more about diet and nutrition I'm sure I was doing it all wrong. Not enough variety or calories. Now it would be nearly impossible for me try to be a vegetarian if I had the desire to. Being in the Army you pretty much eat what the hell they give you when your in the field or deployed.
> 
> PS if you neg rep someone and don't have the stones to put your name behind it you are nothing but a spineless little b*tch:madmax:


You didn't get it and your coach didn't tell you it takes 2-3 years to get your blood clean of the stuff you'd been eating all your life. You'll have good and bad days and headaches for that long. I felt so much better after 3 weeks I never ate meat again, since 1973. 
On a low mucous diet you don't even get dandruff, now spit!
Be true to your teeth and they won't be false to you.-Soupy Sales


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## pointerDixie214 (Feb 10, 2009)

seemlessstate said:


> I'm a vegetarian, and eat dairy fairly infrequently.
> I am also what most would consider an Extreme Libertarian.
> 
> I value life, and the living's right to keep it.
> ...


Great post.

Not sure why people get so pissed when they hear someone is a vegetarian. My wife is a vegetarian, I am not. Neither of us would ever try to push our views on one another or anyone else. If what we eat at our table has no effect on you, STFU.

The thing that annoys me the most is my wife's family can't have a meal with us without one of them (usually the same two) thinking they are so creative saying, "Hey Jennifer, you want a piece of *insert meat product here*" while snickering with a s-eating grin on their faces. Might have been funny the first time, but the last 243058972340859 times over the last 4 years it has gotten very old.


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## abegold (Jan 30, 2004)

TraumaARNP said:


> So where's the "vegan" cycling gear?


Just wear HEMP, but most is too warm for the summer.
The only disqualifier I eat is cheese, I gotta cut the cheese! Without cheese there is no pizza.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

snowjnky said:


> hey me too LOL. awesome. Haters gonna hate


Dooooshhhhbag wingers never had a spine.:thumbsup:


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Yeah, that joke gets way old after three times. Also, the waving of meat in your face like it's going to make you sick/ eat it and reneg on your "diet".


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## Rock Surf (Aug 28, 2010)

For all the vegans on here, most of the Morning Star products have milk and egg ingredients.


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## Rock Surf (Aug 28, 2010)

mtbnoobadam said:


> PS if you neg rep someone and don't have the stones to put your name behind it you are nothing but a spineless little b*tch:madmax:


People are getting way to obsessed with this rep stuff.


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## pointerDixie214 (Feb 10, 2009)

monzie said:


> Yeah, that joke gets way old after three times. Also, the waving of meat in your face like it's going to make you sick/ eat it and reneg on your "diet".


Yeah. That one gets old too.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Also, Boca Burger's regular Chik'n patties are vegan the all natural ones are not. Go figure and what the crap?


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

TraumaARNP said:


> So because I ask a legitimate question, I get the "persistant a-hole" neg rep?


Somebody gave you negative rep for that question? See my sig, it wasn't from me!


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Dion said:


> Somebody gave you negative rep for that question? See my sig, it wasn't from me!


That's funny cause I got neg repped for the same thing. I also never neg rep anyone.

Not complaining just saying.

Maybe I make a$$ hole- ish posts in other threads but don't think I did in this one.


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## dozicusmaximus (Aug 10, 2011)

Dion said:


> There are grocery discount places that you'd be surprised to find vegetarian stuff for cheap. We have "Food Max" and "Grocery Outlet", and Target and Safeway carries a lot of vege-friendly stuff on sale a lot of the times.


Cool. Thanks.
I guess I have to do some reading and research. Then try to budget and shop cheap. I'm in Austin, there are a bunch of vege friendly stores. But they aren't very cheap.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

dozicusmaximus said:


> Cool. Thanks.
> I guess I have to do some reading and research. Then try to budget and shop cheap. I'm in Austin, there are a bunch of vege friendly stores. But they aren't very cheap.


As much as I hate saying it( and will most likely get flack for saying it): Wal- Mart now carries organics and some other health foods; for cheap. So does Target and there's less of a stigma shopping there for some reason. Bulk dry goods at Whole Foods are cheap as all get out too. You just have to plan your meals out so you have them( the dry goods) soaking the night before you want to make them for dinner. Also try your farmers market, they usually have produce from your surrounding area and it might be organic, farmers just can't afford the FDA fee to have that stamp, just talk to the farmer. The prices may be a little higher than you want but still competitive with the grocery. Most times it ends up being cheaper( at least here in Raleigh).


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## dozicusmaximus (Aug 10, 2011)

Right on.
Thanks for the tips fellas. I'll probably need a "Vege Meals for People Who Can't Cook Worth a Crap" book too... Any suggestions? Or any decent books on the subject. I saw something calle The China Study. I'll probably pick that up.
I should probably google more, and let you guys get back to arguing haha


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Jeez internets. Ruin my life why don't ya?


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## scottybinwv (Jun 29, 2010)

My wife fixed tomato pie last night, I never heard of it and was quite skeptical. Man was it good. We eat veggie meals a couple times a week. Love this time of the year for the fresh stuff.


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## yer-mum-was-ace (Jun 12, 2011)

need 5 posts to make a thread. i like vegies, but i also like meats. and various other foods. plus i like pizza


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Vegan cycling gear. The website VegWeb is a good resource for recipes but is hit or miss since it is user run and the recipes are all home brewed ideas from said users. Also, Isa Chandra Moskowitz has a podcast vegan cooking show and her books are full of rad recipes( "Veganomicon", "Vegan with a Vengeance" and "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World"). A few more cookbooks: "Hot Damn and Hell Yeah" and "Please Don't Feed the Bears"; there's a zine called "Barefoot and in the Kitchen".

I posted this already. Sorry to repost it everyone but I think it may have gotten lost in the point/ counter- point discussion that is currently in progress.

Hope this helps dooder( dozicusmaximus).


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

monzie said:


> As much as I hate saying it( and will most likely get flack for saying it): Wal- Mart now carries organics and some other health foods; for cheap. So does Target and there's less of a stigma shopping there for some reason. Bulk dry goods at Whole Foods are cheap as all get out too. You just have to plan your meals out so you have them( the dry goods) soaking the night before you want to make them for dinner. Also try your farmers market, they usually have produce from your surrounding area and it might be organic, farmers just can't afford the FDA fee to have that stamp, just talk to the farmer. The prices may be a little higher than you want but still competitive with the grocery. Most times it ends up being cheaper( at least here in Raleigh).


Whole Foods tends to have the best price on bulk quinoa. The farmer's market here in Portland, ME, produces some killer tomatoes. Local farmers are def. one of the best ways to get quality food. Plus, your money is directly helping some great people.


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## velocycling (Dec 10, 2010)

Dion hope you have had Tofoo Com Chay Pho. Ben's is the best, but he will be closed 22-29.


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

abegold said:


> Just wear HEMP, but most is too warm for the summer.
> The only disqualifier I eat is cheese, I gotta cut the cheese! Without cheese there is no pizza.


Ahhh, pizza! I made my first one the other day:

Bob's Mills wholewheat pizza mix, and follow the directions on the pack. I use Chia seed soaked in water instead of eggs as the binder, and when I first cook the dough, I sprinkle a good amount of fresh chopped garlic onto the crust before putting it in the oven. Then take it out after about 9 mins and spread your choice of organic tomato sauce. I use Muir Glen roasted garlic variety, (I like garlic), then cover with grated raw goat milk cheddar. This is expensive, but I like pizza and value my health. then put whatever veggies you want on, peppers, onions, mushrooms, spinach, anchovies if you want, whatever, and cook for another 18 mins or so.

Voif**kingla! As good as any I have had anywhere. Add jalopenos, peppercinis, whatever takes your fancy...


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

kattrap said:


> It doesn't. If you think a fake meat or cheese substitue tastes exactly like the real thing, you've been vegi/vegan for too long.


I've seen many passionate meat eaters tricked by fake meat. I don't think its likely to work for all styles of meat, but ground beef, processed chicken, and some others can be very convincingly imitated.

And for the people who don't understand why fake meat exists, I think you can probably imagine some good reasons why a vegetarian would go for fake meat, but you'll have to be willing to think.


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## notaknob (Apr 6, 2004)

*One Hit Wonder*

I hate being late to a crap-fest thread but no vegetarian thread should go into the bucket without New Age Girl by Dead Eye Dick.





Bonus points for


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

^^^^
Those fake chicken nuggets have fooled many of my friends. The only 'fake' meat that I eat nowadays is Gimmelean (makes great burgers) and Smartdogs. Once in a great while, I'll grab a package of fake turkey slices, or Morningstar Farms crumbles. 

Seitan, beans, rice, etc is often used in place of meat in many of my recipes.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

I use tempeh like it's going out of style. brown it in butter/ margarine with veggies( if you want) and then add a sauce of your choosing to the pan, reduce sauce. It's not that elaborate but a good sub for a protein. And I use quinoa a lot too though I have like zero recipes for it and end up with the same curried quinoa and lentils dish all the damn time.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

*Quinoa?*

I've never heard of Quinoa (and I thought I've eaten everything plant related). Do you use it as a rice or potato, or is it in a class of its own?


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

It's a pseudocereal. And one of the only complete proteins that come in grain form. it cooks like a rice. Same water to grain ratio and cook time. In your meals it's super versatile. eat cold with black beans chopped bell peppers and other produce and spices or hot with lentils and chickpeas. look at my previous posts for some good recipe resources with this awesome foodstuff.

Also, it comes in two varieties regular white and red( I think they call it Inca). The red is more expensive though.


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

Lots to do with Quinoa... it is almost a grain, very similar altho not really. It is related to beets I believe, and is a good digestible substitute for rice, potatoes, pasta etc. I prefer the red variety, altho the regular is easier to find. There are a gazillion ways to incorporate it into dishes: great with stir fries, curries, even cold for breakfast with fruit.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Like said above, quinoa is very versatile. It can also be toasted before it's cooked to help bring out its flavor. I love it in burritos.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

Very popular grain used by many of the indigenous peoples of Peru and Bolivia.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Quinoa can do! Woo!






Yes, I've had a wee bit to drink,


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## Guest (Aug 18, 2011)

i am a die-hard meat eater but i support vegetarian/vegan lifestyles. i live in the bay area. that's the way it is. 

but...show me a veggie burger that's as good as a real burger and i'll be your friend for life. :thumbsup:


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## Katt (Jul 3, 2011)

Quinoa is a grain with very high protein content. Quinoa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I make a salsa with it I just add in some chopped up cilantro, red onion, jalapeño, craisins, tomato and mango.


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## Rock Surf (Aug 28, 2010)

mikeb said:


> i am a die-hard meat eater but i support vegetarian/vegan lifestyles. i live in the bay area. that's the way it is.
> 
> but...show me a veggie burger that's as good as a real burger and i'll be your friend for life. :thumbsup:


Betty Burgers veggie comes really close.


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

Gotta try the Garden Burger at Astro Burger in Hollywood if you go there... worth a detour...


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

rockerc said:


> Gotta try the Garden Burger at Astro Burger in Hollywood if you go there... worth a detour...


ASTROBURGER FRIGGIN RAWKS!!! :thumbsup:

I remember that the Santa Monica one is _not _veggie but the Melrose one is....weird.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

We have tried them all; vegan/veggie burghers at home, at local restaurants, at country fairs, commercially pre-packed under a variety of brand names, organic, and some not, and.....

Veggie Burgher





​
while this burgher looks appetizing, and did have some decent flavor,

Kobe Beef Burgher





​
this Kobe beef burgher wins out every time.

My family and I just cannot get our heads and tastebuds wrapped around the fact that all this "fake" beef, pork, lamb, sausages, etc. just doesn't cut it. We are a large family, even larger around the holidays, and we are a culture that enjoys good food and the positive social aspect of how good food and drink brings us all together. Serving anything vegan that is not a side dish accompaniment, and as a substitute for a main meat, fish, pork, or poultry dish would be disastrous, at best.


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## Lelandjt (Feb 22, 2008)

You poor saps:
Mark's Daily Apple


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

Lelandjt said:


> You poor saps:
> Mark's Daily Apple


Interesting... lots of stuff for sale there, altho there's lots of stuff for sale on vegan/vegetarian sites too. I have no problem with meat eaters, each to their own. BUT, eating meat from the kind of places that the majority of our meat comes from, with the crap that gets put into the animals, does not have any interest for me. I also have a problem killing sentient beings when I do not absolutely have to in order to survive, so I shall continue to thrive on a plant based diet. Anyone who tries to tell me I cannot survive in a healthy way on this diet will not have any influence on me as I am firmly convinced that it is fine. I do not rule out eating meat if I know it comes from a healthy environment. My brother in law in the UK only eats meat of which he knows the provenance. He will go so far as to check beforehand with a restaurant or store that claims to have organic and free range produce, and find out where they get their meat and veg. He sometimes will visit the farm for himself to check, if it's not too far away. Good for him.
Each to their own. The key, IMO, is a balanced diet with as few additives as possible, as little 'processed' food as possible, and regular exercise. Whether that includes meat or not is up to you.


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## Lelandjt (Feb 22, 2008)

rockerc said:


> I do not absolutely have to (eat animals) in order to survive, so I shall continue to thrive on a plant based diet. Anyone who tries to tell me I cannot survive in a healthy way on this diet will not have any influence on me as I am firmly convinced that it is fine.


You sound like a religious zealot. "Science be damned, I believe this!"


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## Bilirubin (Mar 6, 2010)

snowjnky said:


> hey me too LOL. awesome. Haters gonna hate


Me too! We're like a persistent a-hole club or something. :thumbsup:


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

Sitting back and taking in how this thread ended up.

I started it for vegans and vegetarians to share some cool recipes and maybe share some non-skin riding gear. Rather than that making up most of the thread, people who have taken some weird, personal offense to vegans and vegetarians sharing info with each other find it necessary to chime in and tell us how wrong we are for making personal choices.

So, the real question is for those who have wasted so much energy in telling vegans and vegetarians how wrong we are... what's in it for you to do so? All of us are pretty much strangers, we all make our own money and eating a vegetarian or vegan diet probably has absolutely no impact on you.

This thread is not called, "Vegetarians are better than everybody else..." or "Meat eaters are destroying the world..." or "Eating meat is wrong..." but people seem to take it personal when v-peeps want to share some information.

There are lots of things in this world that I'm offended by, but if people want to take part in those activities and it has nothing to do with me... why the f$ck do I care?

Why do _you_ care what I eat? I don't care what _you_ eat! All those bleeding hearts that find it necessary to convert the world to vegan are idiots, and I, personally, am not one of those.

Move along, nay sayers. This thread isn't for you, unless you're interested in some good tasting, non-meat meals... then, by all means, hang out.

I'm pretty stoked to see there are other MTB'ers who have chosen this diet, and I've been reading some good posts from you who have contributed useful info to this thread. Now I am officially fascinated by "Tomato Pie".


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## pointerDixie214 (Feb 10, 2009)

Dion- I hear you. Like I said, I am not a vegetarian, but my wife is. As such, I have grown to greatly enjoy full vegetarian meals, and I eat meat about 20% as much as I used to. Wife and I discovered this one this week... along with grilled sriracha basted tempeh it was pretty damned good. 

Recipe 1: Cajun Butternut and Black Eyed Pea Saute'

1/2 medium onion
3 clove garlic
3 slices bacon (Morning star fake bacon and 1 tbs. of butter)
1 can (about 16 ounces) black-eyed peas
5 cups diced butternut squash (Takes 1.5-2 squash)
1/2 teaspoon Cajun seasoning blend
1 finely chopped bell or anaheim pepper (seeded)

Peel and finely chop onion and garlic. Cut bacon in 1/2-inch pieces. Drain and rinse black-eyed peas. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add bacon and cook until crisp. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Add onion to bacon drippings; cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute. Add squash, pepper, black-eyed peas, seasoning blend and 3/4 cup water. Cover and cook, stirring often, until squash is tender, about 10 minutes. Stir cooked facon in and serve.

Active time: 15 minutes.
Total time: 20 minutes.
Servings: 4


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## rockerc (Nov 22, 2010)

Lelandjt said:


> You sound like a religious zealot. "Science be damned, I believe this!"


Far from a religious zealot. And there is a lot of science to support my belief. I would never damn science, I just cannot be bothered sometimes to respond to some of the idiotic things that people try to get me to believe. I have been on this earth long enough, have read and experienced enough to have a pretty f**king shrewd idea what works and what does not.


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## Bilirubin (Mar 6, 2010)

rockerc said:


> Far from a religious zealot. And there is a lot of science to support my belief. I would never damn science, I just cannot be bothered sometimes to respond to some of the idiotic things that people try to get me to believe. I have been on this earth long enough, have read and experienced enough to have a pretty f**king shrewd idea what works and what does not.


The key to any diet is knowing the nutritional content of the food and making informed choices--proper nutrition can come from a variety of sources. Science suggests that the average North American diet consumes more protein than is actually needed. Science is telling me that my liver produces a lot of LDL, which could lead to heart disease, a major killer in North America, if left unchecked over time. Eating a different diet lower in fatty meats (fish excepted) and exercise, like riding my MTB, can help mitigate this risk. Other people don't have such difficult livers; its why I punish mine a little with the ethanol! Teach it a lesson :thumbsup:

Not that I don't love me a steak, and that my current job is due in large part to the Canadian beef industry. I just can't eat a steak or pulled pork very often. And its definitely not my place to tell someone to replace their poutine with a salad.


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

rockerc said:


> Far from a religious zealot. And there is a lot of science to support my belief. I would never damn science, I just cannot be bothered sometimes to respond to some of the idiotic things that people try to get me to believe. I have been on this earth long enough, have read and experienced enough to have a pretty f**king shrewd idea what works and what does not.


As a fellow V-peep, I encourage you to ignore the nay-saying regarding our diet choices. I tell people I'm a vegetarian and they look at me like I have AIDS.

Then the questions come up, "How do you get your protein?" and "Don't you feel weak?" and or "Science has proven we need meat..."; sometimes I get the "I knew a guy who was vegetarian and he still ended up dying..." That one always makes me laugh.

I feel like the crying, bleeding hearts and Hollywood types have ruined it for folks like me. I can't tell somebody I'm a vegetarian without somebody getting butt hurt over it, and I'm not even preaching. The only thing I'm really "left leaning" is in regards to the environment (because I'm a mountain biker and I like my trails to be green and pollution free) and humane animal treatment (because I'm a mountain biker and I love animals). Aside from that, I'm pretty Right leaning. But the moment you say, "No thanks... I don't eat meat." people act like you flung poo at them.

My wife tells me to not even bring it up because people are so sensitive over it and get offended. Makes absolutely no sense to me why that is - if somebody told me they don't eat broccoli - I just wouldn't give a sh*t.


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## wedge (Jun 24, 2006)

I don't eat broccoli.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

I'm totally with you. When I decided to go vegetarian, it felt like I was coming out of the closet to my parents and friends. Of course the first Thanksgiving at home was awkward: That day my family looked at me-afraid if they grabbed a drumstick I'd go into paroxyms throwing myself onto the dining room table grabbing my chest only to steal off with the turkey carcass to give it a proper burial.

I remember someone asking what is the purpose of tofurkey. Besides being quite good (if prepared right), it's almost a psychological/gustational olive branch. Thank god whiskey is vegetarian as well, or I would never survive the holidays.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

I don't know about anybody else, but I see too much drama and poor, poor me developing here. I had no idea going meatless results in all this angst. Me thinks I'll stick with what I know.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

TraumaARNP said:


> I don't know about anybody else, but I see too much drama and poor, poor me developing here. I had no idea going meatless results in all this angst. Me thinks I'll stick with what I know.


I've read the posts and they don't sound particularly "angsty." But that's a common meme when talking about/referring to vegetarians. Put up an innocuous topic wanting to share vegetarian/vegan recipes and eats and non-vegs can't wait to post opposing views and carcasses. Thank goodness no one has started a "I like live kittens" thread, I shudder to think of the posts for that one.


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## Lelandjt (Feb 22, 2008)

Bilirubin said:


> Science suggests that the average North American diet consumes more protein than is actually needed. Science is telling me that my liver produces a lot of LDL, which could lead to heart disease, a major killer in North America, if left unchecked over time. Eating a different diet lower in fatty meats (fish excepted) and exercise, like riding my MTB, can help mitigate this risk.


That "science" is old and proven wrong. Read marksdailyapple.com and watch Fat Head on Hulu or Netflix. I don't care how other people want to live. I just feel bad for people who are misinformed (like I was for 29 years) and making bad choices because of it. I tell people once about this stuff, encourage them to research it, and leave them alone.
Bye.


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## Bilirubin (Mar 6, 2010)

Yeah alright, thanks for that? I've adjusted my diet thanks to the recommendations of the Mayo Clinic and American Heart Association, but I'm sure this fellow flogging his own diet and wares must know better than evidence based medicine. I'll take a look, but I'll also be double checking claims against PubMed.

ETA: or I just got trolled. Dunno.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Science tells me not to eat brightly colored frogs, centipedes, and milkweed. I'm sure there is somebody out there that will tell me different, but I'm sticking with science on this one.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

Bilirubin said:


> Yeah alright, thanks for that? I've adjusted my diet thanks to the recommendations of the Mayo Clinic and American Heart Association, but I'm sure this fellow flogging his own diet and wares must know better than *evidence based medicine*. I'll take a look, but I'll also be double checking claims against PubMed.
> 
> ETA: or I just got trolled. Dunno.





dubthang said:


> *Science* tells me not to eat brightly colored frogs, centipedes, and milkweed. I'm sure there is somebody out there that will tell me different, but I'm sticking with science on this one.


:thumbsup: Rick Perry be damned.:thumbsup:


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

ambassadorhawg said:


> I eat the meat of vegetarian animals...


I only eat grass, milk, and beer fed (I know, I know, that meat & dairy thing) anti-biotic and hormone free, and Kosher butchered Black Angus and Wagyu cattle.


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## H0WL (Jan 17, 2007)

Katt said:


> Quinoa is a grain with very high protein content. Quinoa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I make a salsa with it I just add in some chopped up cilantro, red onion, jalapeño, craisins, tomato and mango.


Besides tasting great, it needs to cook for only 20 minutes. Last night I cooked up a pot of quinoa with some amaranth (just to be über indigenous). Tasty.


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## stumblemumble (Mar 31, 2006)

TraumaARNP said:


> I only eat grass, milk, and beer fed (I know, I know, that meat & dairy thing) anti-biotic and hormone free, and Kosher butchered Black Angus and Wagyu cattle.


That sounds good. Ever notice how much faster organic milk spoils compared to regular milk?


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## Rock Surf (Aug 28, 2010)

TraumaARNP said:


> I only eat grass, milk, and beer fed (I know, I know, that meat & dairy thing) anti-biotic and hormone free, and Kosher butchered Black Angus and Wagyu cattle.


Kosher butchered is some of the most inhumane butchering of them all. If I ate meat I'd rather not have its throat slit until it bleeds to death. A shot to the head would be more humane.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

In the midst of math and searching I forgot who I originally intended this to be response to. However, here goes:

Number of hits, search term and their percentage of total thread count on this site.

197 vegan (.027%)

68 vegan diet (.009%)

11 vegan recipes ( .001%)

3 vegan diet recipes (.0004%)

All this out of 711,177 threads. No quotations around any of them. These percents may be wrong when you read this since new threads are started all the time. That big number is what the count was at when I did the math.

So not that much in the way of being a... I forget what was actually said, something about the threads becoming angsty when this diet is brought up.



mikeb said:


> ah, the vegan/vegetarian vs meat eater threads. always the best ever. here we go now!


Honestly this wasn't directed at you. But, in response to this post: It was never intended to be "that type" of thread. It was intended to be a place to swap recipes and resources; maybe the occasional witty banter. Simple as that. However I guess these things devolve quickly on the internet due to stigmas surrounding an apparently unmentionable diet.



Dion said:


> Well, my thread went to sh*t.
> 
> .......


Terribly sorry about this bit here. Now it seems this is unfortunately destined for the recycle bin. But, in the interest of getting this thread back on track and being helpful to some folks:

Two more good resources:
"Becoming V3gan: The complete guide to adopting a healthy plant- based diet"
By Belinda Davis, R.D. and Vesanto Melina, M.S., R.D.

It should be your diet bible if you go this route. They also have one called Becoming V3getarian for those who still want dairy.

"V3gan on the Cheap"
By Robin Robertson

For all you Brokely Carmichael's out there( me included).


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

stumblemumble said:


> That sounds good. Ever notice how much faster organic milk spoils compared to regular milk?


Yes, and that's because so-called "organic" milk doesn't have to travel long distances to your store shelves....milk that travels is boiled and cooled to death so that it has a longer shelf life. Heat and cold damage to milk is why milk doesn't taste anything like the milk I remember from the 60's.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

AptosRider said:


> Kosher butchered is some of the most inhumane butchering of them all. If I ate meat I'd rather not have its throat slit until it bleeds to death. A shot to the head would be more humane.


:nono:You need to read up a bit more about Kosher butchering (_Shechita_) before you make that claim. A "shot to the head" as you call it, is called "stunning" where a bolt is shot into an animal's head rendering it unconscious before the actual slaughtering. Unfortunately, and as many animal rights groups have complained about, too often, animals regain consciousness while their throats are being cut, therefore subjecting the animal to pain and suffering. The Kosher method renders an animal permanently unconscious at the very time it's being slaughtered.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

^(wouldn't it just be easier to ignore posts like this?)^

Now back to regular scheduled programming...

So, I went for a 10 mile ride yesterday when the munchies hit. Barring the obligatory dried fruit/granola fare, whatcha guys packin' for ya snackin'?


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

longfinkillie said:


> ^(wouldn't it just be easier to ignore posts like this?)^
> 
> Now back to regular scheduled programming...
> 
> So, I went for a 10 mile ride yesterday when the munchies hit. Barring the obligatory dried fruit/granola fare, whatcha guys packin' for ya snackin'?


Dried fruit and granola. Hehe. Also, baked potato with some fixin's( butter or substitute, a few slices of avocado, cheese or nutritional yeast, whatever else you want on it). Bag of mixed nuts( almonds, walnuts, cashews, sometimes Brazil nuts and maybe some pistachios). Peanut butter and banana sandwich with honey/ agave nectar. Vegetable juice.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

longfinkillie said:


> ^(wouldn't it just be easier to ignore posts like this?)^
> 
> Now back to regular scheduled programming...
> 
> So, I went for a 10 mile ride yesterday when the munchies hit. Barring the obligatory dried fruit/granola fare, whatcha guys packin' for ya snackin'?





monzie said:


> Dried fruit and granola. Hehe. Also, baked potato with some fixin's( butter or substitute, a few slices of avocado, cheese or nutritional yeast, whatever else you want on it). Bag of mixed nuts( almonds, walnuts, cashews, sometimes Brazil nuts and maybe some pistachios). Peanut butter and banana sandwich with honey/ agave nectar. Vegetable juice.


Homemade beef and venison jerky.


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

Somebody gave me negative rep for being a "troll" in my own thread :lol:


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

longfinkillie said:


> ^(wouldn't it just be easier to ignore posts like this?)^
> 
> Now back to regular scheduled programming...
> 
> So, I went for a 10 mile ride yesterday when the munchies hit. Barring the obligatory dried fruit/granola fare, whatcha guys packin' for ya snackin'?


I just pack a bar. I'm not a vegan, so I go with a Clif Bar - but I've been drinking Hammer Heed and it's been working great. I truly DO NOT know what they put in that stuff but it brings me back to life in a big way.

My lunch rides are generally 10-15 miles long (with the exception of my road rides, which are about 22 miles long) so I only pack enough calories to get me through.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

You can't be a troll. Trolls eat meat.


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

I'm taking my wife to Home Page for her birthday today up in Oakland (Ca.). They serve fried "chicken" and other things that seem pretty good.

When I converted, the one thing that I really miss is Fried Chicken, prepared Filipino style (Island style) - which is extra crispy with a serving of white rice. DUDE.

So I'm looking forward to it, definitely.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Jealous. In the South( Raleigh) we have nothing. Unless you count this place called Remedy, which is absolute sh¡t.

I miss Denver already. Veg food options at every single restaurant. Here I'm lucky if the salad has a lettuce besides iceberg in it.


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

I always throw a couple apples into my pack. get some slow-release sugar and hydration at the same time.

I save fancy sports foods and drinks for special occasions, such as a trip to the mountains.


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

Dion said:


> As a fellow V-peep, I encourage you to ignore the nay-saying regarding our diet choices. I tell people I'm a vegetarian and they look at me like I have AIDS.
> 
> Then the questions come up, "How do you get your protein?" and "Don't you feel weak?" and or "Science has proven we need meat..."; sometimes I get the "I knew a guy who was vegetarian and he still ended up dying..." That one always makes me laugh.


its amazing how consistent the responses are to finding out somebody is a vegetarian. Why do so many people act as if they have not had plenty of opportunities to find out that there is plenty of digestable protein in all sorts of vegetative matter.

now if you're a world-class athlete, perhaps you might find mild scientific justification for eating dairy or a bit of meat. But the other 99.995% of the population is almost certainly well-served by plant proteins. I haven't eaten meat more than ten times in over a decade and nobody would look at me and think I'm lacking in protein at 5'8", 200lbs, and ~10% body fat.

and as I age slower than the sedentary and the heavy-meat eaters around me, I get to revel in my body's relative youth, so I still get to feel like a winner!


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

June Bug said:


> Besides tasting great, it needs to cook for only 20 minutes. Last night I cooked up a pot of quinoa with some amaranth (just to be über indigenous). Tasty.


interestingly, quinoa is basically a type of amaranth...same family.

there are several interesting north american species in the same genus as quinoa. What we see around here most frequently, and considered one of agriculture's most noxious pests is chenopodium alba. South American quinoa is chenopodium quinoa.

In the south if you scratch the ground (or even if you don't) a close relative of quinoa will come sprouting up. You can eat the leaves in moderation ( though some are very sensitive to the oxalic acid in the leaves) and the seeds are a smaller version of the familiar pseudo-grain, quinoa. Once you've cleaned off the saponins that prevent insect infestation, you can eat the seeds. I'm letting chenopodium take over my garden and weeding out all the competitors to see how much food I can get from it.


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## sprunghunt (May 14, 2006)

PretendGentleman said:


> now if you're a world-class athlete, perhaps you might find mild scientific justification for eating dairy or a bit of meat. But the other 99.995% of the population is almost certainly well-served by plant proteins.


Mac Danzig, professional UFC fighter, seems to do just fine with his high protein vegan diet

UFC Fighter Mac Danzig's Vegan Diet - Aggressive Strength Nutrition Article


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## Dion (Oct 22, 2009)

monzie said:


> Jealous. In the South( Raleigh) we have nothing. Unless you count this place called Remedy, which is absolute sh¡t.
> 
> I miss Denver already. Veg food options at every single restaurant. Here I'm lucky if the salad has a lettuce besides iceberg in it.


Here's what I had for lunch today at Souly Vegan:

Fried Okra for an Appetizer
2 pieces of Fried Tofu
Red Beans and Rice
Corn Bread
Mustard Greens

Dude...


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## pointerDixie214 (Feb 10, 2009)

God that looks delicious!!!


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## Rock Surf (Aug 28, 2010)

Wow!! Vegan soul food. Gonna have to take a trip to Oakland for some of that goodness. Perhaps before an A's game.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Dude, that looks so freaking good! You quoted me to make me more envious. I like your style. 

Also, whomever neg repped me for being a "vegan troll", I'm not vegan. Read my posts dude; I eat fish and sh¡t on a rare occasion. I simply add the vegan subs so people who are can make the proper adjustments without having to figure it out themselves, 'Cause I'm a nice guy and sh¡t.

I have to now try and force myself to sleep. It's 10:50pm EST and I need to be up by 5:00am EST for a 70+ miler. Though, I am probably going to post a few more times on some forums; I'm addicted.


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## crazy03 (Mar 15, 2011)

monzie said:


> Also, whomever neg repped me for being a "vegan troll", I'm not vegan. Read my posts dude; I eat fish and sh¡t on a rare occasion.


Eww, you eat sh*t on rare occasions?!?! That's just gross.

(Sorry, I had a moment of weakness and couldn't resist :thumbsup: )


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

crazy03 said:


> Eww, you eat sh*t on rare occasions?!?! That's just gross.
> 
> (Sorry, I had a moment of weakness and couldn't resist :thumbsup: )


Yeah, I knew it was going to happen eventually. I thought about editing it when I was proofreading but decided against it. I figured I'd let some one jump on it.

Also, Found that post I was responding to. It was in a different thread. I am going to cross post my original. (The one with the statistics).


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## danguskhan (Aug 22, 2011)

Ive been on a vegan diet for over 9 years and it seems to suit me well in an active lifestyle that includes cycling, running, hiking, skateboarding, surfing, and snowboarding. 
I live in Portland most of the year (im stuck in Michigan for grad school) and that city has the best selection of vegan and vegetarian eateries ive ever seen. In addition it is also super cycle friendly.


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## mr.bubbles (May 4, 2011)

I love mushrooms! Saute them with garlic, ginger, and eat them over noodles. And I live off Hummus, I make wraps with greens and a cucumber sauce for lunch all the time. Not to mention black beans nachos, chile and black bean burritos. :thumbsup:


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## unicrown junkie (Nov 12, 2009)

mr.bubbles said:


> I love mushrooms! Saute them with garlic, ginger, and eat them over noodles. And I live off Hummus, I make wraps with greens and a cucumber sauce for lunch all the time. Not to mention black beans nachos, chile and black bean burritos. :thumbsup:


 I think you may like this pic. We had to ride around it of course! My Dad is always trying these out, brings them home all the time, and he's 78. More often than not they end up in the garbage due to bugs.

Also, Go Patrick Swayze train! Just saw that one the other day....


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## mr.bubbles (May 4, 2011)

Thats a nice shroom. I saw a big ol' one my last ride too. I never dare to eat them tho, but I don't know what kind they are.
dirty old Sebastian Bach is jealous of the swayze express, and lied about him using illegal parts! 
Hahaha


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## iowegianor (Jun 5, 2009)

Anybody ever ate Laughing Seed Restaurant in Asheville NC? AMAZING and very reasonable price. Stellar MTB area obviously too!


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

sprunghunt said:


> Mac Danzig, professional UFC fighter, seems to do just fine with his high protein vegan diet
> 
> UFC Fighter Mac Danzig's Vegan Diet - Aggressive Strength Nutrition Article


right, which is why I only went so far as to say "mild scientific justification".

clearly an example of someone who performs well as a professional athlete without eating meat is insufficient to rule out that all can do so.

But what I think is defensible is that scientific evidence indicates that the vast majority of people can be just as healthy and athletic with a omnivorous diet as a vegetarian diet. Too much meat has also been thoroughly shown to be bad for you, but that's a tautological statement, so of course its correct.

Another claim that is difficult to support with science is the idea that small amounts of meat in your diet (e.g. a serving every couple of weeks) will have deleterious effects on your health. Probably the greatest risk associated with this sort of meat consumption is due to the risk of consuming pathogens and unhealthy chemicals, both which can also be found in non-meat food sources.


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## longfinkillie (Jan 28, 2011)

*Osem is Awesome!*









This stuff is the closest to a chicken soup analogue I've seen in a while (but I'm open to suggestions about others). It's a little on the salty side though.


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## johnbryer (Apr 22, 2011)

I'm trying very hard to be vegan. It's not easy. Fake meat does not = vegetarian. I hate that stuff. It's nasty.

How do the vegan's do it when you travel? 

How can we have this many non-vegans in this thread? Go troll some where else :madmax: 

I use a lot of recipe's from Brenden Brazier's THRIVE books. Lots of great information there. Is anyone else using his books?


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## abegold (Jan 30, 2004)

johnbryer said:


> I'm trying very hard to be vegan. It's not easy. Fake meat does not = vegetarian. I hate that stuff. It's nasty.
> 
> How do the vegan's do it when you travel?
> 
> ...


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## danguskhan (Aug 22, 2011)

The longer you are use to a vegan diet the easier it will become. I was in Finland this summer and that was a little difficult. Almost every meal is meat or fish and its very hard to read ingredients. I eventually found food but the trip was far from a culinary delight. 

I also think it's reasonable to make some exceptions. Bear Grylls is actually a vegan when he isnt in survival mode I heard. If I was doing a crazy adventure tour in an undeveloped area I might allow myself to eat something dairy or egg based to sustain myself until I got back to where I could buy something vegan. I wouldnt be happy about it but my personal survival comes first. 

Having said that, I have been vegan for going on 10 years and have not eaten any animal products except for minor accidents where something was prepared wrong. So although I am prepared for those situations they dont seem to happen a great deal.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

danguskhan- Curious, when you had your 'minor accidents,' did it make you sick?

I ask because I have some friends that have been able to switch back to eating meat without any issues, and some that haven't. I know if I eat food (been a vegetarian for 16 years) that has meat grease (fats) in it that I'm in for an uncomfortable evening.


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## TraumaARNP (Oct 13, 2005)

longfinkillie said:


> This stuff is the closest to a chicken soup analogue I've seen in a while (but I'm open to suggestions about others). It's a little on the salty side though.


When not having a homemade poultry, beef, fish, ham, lobster, or vegetable stock handy, I like this brand; no MSG, and can be had in organic, Kosher, vegan, and low salt varieties. The regular bases do not have a salty taste to begin with...


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Dubthang: I was vegan for three years and really hardcore about it( i.e. not even eating red dye #40, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D3 etc. because they are animal derived) and when I started to eat dairy again I had no adverse effects. To be incredibly fair though, I think my stomach is actually made out of lead lined cast-iron. I can eat things that make you mere mortals sick and be fine. I'm awesome like that.

JohnBryer: I would-- a lot of the times-- end up not eating out when I traveled( in country) and just go to a grocery. It sounds lame because the idea of travel is to experience new foods and cooking styles but whatever. You could just "suspend" your diet for travel duration. It's a self-imposed diet restriction for moral/ health reasons, so just lift the ban for travel. All your HxC Vegan friends may frown on that but screw them, they're *******s anyway.

I hate fake meats too. Have you tried the ToFurky Sausages? They are they only "meat" product I eat. They have an awesome taste and are even better when thrown over some coals. Add on some Inglehoffer Stone Ground Dijon Mustard, sauerkraut, ketchup, dill relish, Veganaise on the bun and holy crap, I'm in heaven.


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## danguskhan (Aug 22, 2011)

dubthang said:


> danguskhan- Curious, when you had your 'minor accidents,' did it make you sick?
> 
> I ask because I have some friends that have been able to switch back to eating meat without any issues, and some that haven't. I know if I eat food (been a vegetarian for 16 years) that has meat grease (fats) in it that I'm in for an uncomfortable evening.


When I get something that has dairy in it I can tell. It has never settled well with me even before I was vegan. So I will sometimes feel a little off if that happens.I dont really get sick. I can just tell by the way I feel. 
Usually when a restaurant slips up and I dont notice until I am eating it I dont have much of a problem. I just ask them to correct the problem and they do. I dont usually get sick from this either. For the most part I have an iron gullet so I dont pay to heavily for kitchen slip ups.


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## danguskhan (Aug 22, 2011)

monzie said:


> Dubthang: I was vegan for three years and really hardcore about it( i.e. not even eating red dye #40, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D3 etc. because they are animal derived).


Red 40 is actually vegan. There is a bit of an urban legend that it contains carmine coloring which is made of beetles (check your ruby red grapefruit ). However it is mostly mineral derived is my understanding. Its probably not at all good for you but it is not animal in origin.


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## Socrates428 (Aug 27, 2009)

As a long time vegetarian-of one sort or the other-, with plenty of veg friends and veg and vegan associates, I truly appreciated this clip/movie 

Scott Pilgram Vegan - YouTube


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

danguskhan said:


> Red 40 is actually vegan. There is a bit of an urban legend that it contains carmine coloring which is made of beetles (check your ruby red grapefruit ). However it is mostly mineral derived is my understanding. Its probably not at all good for you but it is not animal in origin.


I just read something about this on producers of Red 40 going back to beetles because it was cheaper. The article wasn't about vegans, but actually about people with allergies. I wish I could remember where I saw that so I could dig it up.


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

dubthang said:


> I just read something about this on producers of Red 40 going back to beetles because it was cheaper. The article wasn't about vegans, but actually about people with allergies. I wish I could remember where I saw that so I could dig it up.


Wiki:

Was red food coloring made from beetles' wings


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

AZ.MTNS said:


> Wiki:
> 
> Was red food coloring made from beetles' wings


Maybe it's carmine that I was reading about. Thanks for the link.


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## danguskhan (Aug 22, 2011)

Its something that I've heard numerous times from legit vegans and veggies. I have just never found anything to show that any of red 40 is non-vegan. 
I hope they never start to include carmine cause red 40 finds it's way into a lot of stuff.


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## thrasher_s (Oct 5, 2009)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> Your body needs animal bits to survive.
> 
> Ask yourself this - if you get stranded on an island, or in the middle of a lush forest, would you survive eating only vege stuff for weeks/months? Hint: you won't.


The first statement is incorrect. As to the hypothetical question, the answer is MAYBE. It depends on what vegetation is available on the island.

There are quite a few foods that are vegan and provide ALL of the essential amino acids a human needs to survive. Or combine a couple different foods that together cover the essential amino acids.

I'm no vegan, just somebody who doesn't like the propagation of incorrect "facts".


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

thrasher_s said:


> The first statement is incorrect. As to the hypothetical question, the answer is MAYBE. It depends on what vegetation is available on the island.
> 
> There are quite a few foods that are vegan and provide ALL of the essential amino acids a human needs to survive. Or combine a couple different foods that together cover the essential amino acids.
> 
> I'm no vegan, just somebody who doesn't like the propagation of incorrect "facts".


From Livestrong on the subject of essential amino acids.

"Vegan Protein Foods
Vegans can obtain all the essential amino acids to make a complete protein in two ways. The first way is by eating plant-based foods that contain complete protein, such as soy and quinoa. Soybean is a legume and is among the most popular foods worldwide. Soybean is high in protein and equivalent in protein quality to animal foods. Soy foods include tofu, soy milk, tempeh and miso. Quinoa is a seed with a grainlike look and texture that contains all of the essential amino acids.

The second way is by combining foods that contain incomplete proteins but which together provide enough of the essential amino acids to complement what's lacking in the other incomplete protein-containing food. Beans, peas, seeds, nuts, grain and vegetables are sources of incomplete proteins. Complementary proteins are two or more sources of incomplete proteins which together contain all the essential amino acids in proper proportions. Complementary proteins include whole-wheat bread and peanut butter, rice and beans and beans or peas and corn."

As can be seen in the article it is possible to get the needed amino acids, it just requires a bit more planning.


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## Daemon[CRO] (Jul 14, 2010)

No, seriously, being stranded on an island (or deep forest) your primary goal would be to find a soy farm? Or to find couple of food types to combine into full protein dish? Where is that magical place?

Look, guys, I do not doubt vegan diet can give your body all the nutrients the body needs. I am saying that to achieve that you are dependant on supermarkets which have food which comes from different places, maybe even different climate zones. 

Think small - think, what if I am really stranded on an island where there are only couple of types of vegetables, some fruit, and coconuts. Closest soy farm is 3000 miles away. Fishing is your only option (molluscs, seaweed, ...).


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

I'm pretty sure that my biggest concern would be to find water before I found food if I was on an island. After that, I'd think, "Wait. Why the hell am I trapped on an island? Oh, I'm not because that's not ever going to happen."


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## stumblemumble (Mar 31, 2006)

I fail to see the point of the island argument. Yes, a meat diet is more sustaining; That however does not make it healthier.
Best food if you were stranded on an island? Milk.


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## Trail Addict (Nov 20, 2011)

dubthang said:


> After that, I'd think, "Wait. Why the hell am I trapped on an island? Oh, I'm not because that's not ever going to happen."


Who knows? You could one day end up like Tom Hanks in Castaway.


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## Daemon[CRO] (Jul 14, 2010)

Oh you guys, and your literal comprehension of world.

First, I was implying that vegans have specific set of rules which inhibits them to attend any "out-of-the-ordinary" "out-of-their-comfort-zone" stuff. I have asked numerous times some of my vegan friends to go hiking (a few days trip) with me, or to go to some place wild, or whatever, and the first answer is always - "do they have vegan restaurant/food there?". Of course on the bloody mountain they do not have vegan restaurant. You will eat delicious bacon and beans and barbecued wildlife and you will like it. Any weird location freaks them out.

Second, I believe this is a public album, you do not need Facebook account - this is me on a small island in the middle of Pacific:

Man from the wild | Facebook

I have spent 6 months there. There is _NO_ variety of protein available to vegans there. Seafood is a must.


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> Oh you guys, and your literal comprehension of world.
> 
> First, I was implying that vegans have specific set of rules which inhibits them to attend any "out-of-the-ordinary" "out-of-their-comfort-zone" stuff. I have asked numerous times some of my vegan friends to go hiking (a few days trip) with me, or to go to some place wild, or whatever, and the first answer is always - "do they have vegan restaurant/food there?". Of course on the bloody mountain they do not have vegan restaurant. You will eat delicious bacon and beans and barbecued wildlife and you will like it. Any weird location freaks them out.
> 
> ...


Wow, one guy on an island and it makes being a vegan unsustainable. Congrats, your changing the world.


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## Daemon[CRO] (Jul 14, 2010)

AZ.MTNS said:


> Wow, one guy on an island and it makes being a vegan unsustainable. Congrats, your changing the world.


No, but it serves as an example that vegans are pretty much dependent on the supermarket being around the corner.

There is a reason why there are no vegan or even vegetarian civilizations and cultures found in the world, except our First World Civilization which can just pop by local supermarket and buy some food supplements.

On the other hand, I really ADMIRE vegan folks who live on farms and can eat what they grow with their own hands.


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> No, but it serves as an example that vegans are pretty much dependent on the supermarket being around the corner.
> 
> There is a reason why there are no vegan or even vegetarian civilizations and cultures found in the world, except our First World Civilization which can just pop by local supermarket and buy some food supplements.
> 
> On the other hand, I really ADMIRE vegan folks who live on farms and can eat what they grow with their own hands.


Your last statement nulls your first. Just sayin....


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> Second, I believe this is a public album, you do not need Facebook account - this is me on a small island in the middle of Pacific:
> 
> Man from the wild | Facebook


Props to you on your island adventure. That is really cool.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> No, but it serves as an example that vegans are pretty much dependent on the supermarket being around the corner.
> 
> There is a reason why there are no vegan or even vegetarian civilizations and cultures found in the world, except our First World Civilization which can just pop by local supermarket and buy some food supplements.
> 
> On the other hand, I really ADMIRE vegan folks who live on farms and can eat what they grow with their own hands.


India has a population of over a billion people, and 1/3 of them are vegetarian.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

Hoô boy...

When I clicked this thread, I knew it'd be chock full of super cool and witty responses like "people eating tasty animals" and "for every animal you don't eat, I'll eat three". Not only are you guys super smart, you're original, too. Why are you guys wasting your time here when you could be out setting the world afire with your brilliance? I think Adam Sandler has a few openings in his writing staff for "Jack and Jill 2".

In all seriousness, I adopted a vegan diet late 2009 and stuck with it. My weight has gone down while my strength and stamina have gone up. I never get sick anymore.

Make of it what you will.


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## danguskhan (Aug 22, 2011)

Seitan, a wheat gluten meat, was developed by Buddhist monks over a thousand years ago. Supermarket not required. All you need is flour. 
Also, you can be a healthy vegan w/o any fake meats. If you are in a rediculuous island situation you can either plan for it (if its a vacation). Or be reasonable and eat what it takes to survive until you return to civilization. Veganism is largely a response to inhumanity in industrialised food systems anyways. You don't find them on tiny bits of land floating in the south pacific.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

I just got back from Barbados last night... and I survived a week there. Turns out that they eat quite a bit of vegetarian style meals.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Welcome back brother. Was wondering where you'd gotten off to. Did you happen to bring the mountain bike( and camera)? How was the food?


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

There was no bike for this trip. My gf and I went for my brother's wedding so most of the week was already planned for us. 

The food wasn't that bad, but it wasn't excellent either. I visited a couple of really good restaurants, but most of the food on the island is geared towards using local fare cheaply. Local vegetables are a staple of every dish. Rice and pasta (macaroni pie) are also big on the island. For the carnivores, local fish (flying fish when it is in season) and pork are big. Many of the things on the island are imported (chocolate, bottled water, cheese, milk, etc.) making them hard to get and/or expensive. 

It was pretty easy for me to eat well as a vegetarian. The people are really friendly, and many were willing to adjust menu items for me. Plus, the people were very supportive of the vegetarian lifestyle there. Something that can be hard to come by in some places.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

I live in cattle country. Ranching is the county's largest private sector employer. No factory livestock here -- the supermarkets and butcheries carry local beef. You can select the source ranch. I have little doubt I have seen my dinner previously grazing along the traIl during a ride.

OTOH -- I really do not the source of the produce in the market.


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## tednugent (Apr 16, 2009)

johnbryer said:


> I'm trying very hard to be vegan. It's not easy. Fake meat does not = vegetarian. I hate that stuff. It's nasty.
> 
> How do the vegan's do it when you travel?
> 
> ...


I am bonafide meat eater.

My brother is vegetarian.

But I eat just about everything, vegetarian, vegan, meat....

I did start trying Brenden Brazier's products, starting with Vega Sport stuff.... would like to incorporate more into my diet....


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

Just an update, I've been feeling like a million bucks lately. I'm faster than I've ever been on two wheels and two feet. I recently took up a kettlebell routine to balance out with all of the running and cycling. I am supplementing with a complete plant based protein powder and eating lots of avocados and nuts along with the standard food. I've never been this healthy, nor have I felt this good. Veganism has been a hit with me thus far.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

^^^^
Good to hear.


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

ultraspontane said:


> Just an update, I've been feeling like a million bucks lately. I'm faster than I've ever been on two wheels and two feet. I recently took up a kettlebell routine to balance out with all of the running and cycling. I am supplementing with a complete plant based protein powder and eating lots of avocados and nuts along with the standard food. I've never been this healthy, nor have I felt this good. Veganism has been a hit with me thus far.


Nice, keep it up.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

I started because of perceived health benefits, but when I see things like this...

Pig Farm Investigation | Mercy For Animals on Blip

I don't think eating meat is wrong, but factory farms are terrible, terrible places. Some people here say they love steaks, and that is fine. I just wish they would consider buying their meat from a local farmer, farmers market, ect instead of the grocery store where 90% percent of the product comes from factory farms. The meat would probably be of a better quality, anyway.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> No, but it serves as an example that vegans are pretty much dependent on the supermarket being around the corner.


i'd like to supplement this statement with empirical and historical facts and evidence if i may.

at 6'3" i've been vegetarian/vegan (including macro in my 20's) most of my life and primarily vegan for the last 12. i've been all over the world and have not found the statement quoted above to be true. not in the least. in fact, the poorer the nation the easier it is to be vegan because they do not have the resources to dump into such an inefficient food source (i.e. meat/dairy) nor do the poor have the resources to buy what is produced, in fact, the poorer the nation the more hearty the markets are with an abundance of fruits, grains, and veggies.

raising meat is not only an inefficient use of resources but a poor investment as well because it does not return an increase on the protein invested into it either in quantity or quality. aside from the fact that it takes an investment of around 16 lbs. of grain to produce one pound of meat, that pound of meat is also a vastly inferior nutritionally to plant based foods both in healthy fats and proteins while being packed with carcinogens (e.g. over 300 known carcinogens form when grilling meat), unhealthy fats, high in uric acid (causes gout, kidney stones, renal distress/failure, and bone density loss when the body attempts to combat the metabolic acidosis by buffering it with calcium stores from the teeth and bones in an attempt to being the body's pH back to 7.4), and that's just the free range "healthy" meats. that's not even taking into account the gmo meats and livestock pumped full of hormones and vaccines!

interesting to note that without government subsidies meat would be around $90/lb. but that's an entirely other topic...

further, it's a totally fabricated myth that one needs special supplements or items that can only be gotten at a "whole foods" type store to be vegan. all you do is skip the meat and dairy aisle, and if you're smart all the processed boxed foods.

VIOLA! it's really that easy. 

i've been all over mexico and central america and guess what? easy to be vegan. lived in bangkok thailand for a while. guess what? easy to be vegan. in fact, REEEAAAAALLLLLY easy because of all the buddhists. the entire country is very, very vegan friendly. there are vegan eateries EVERYWHERE from formal sit-down establishments to little food carts and shanties on the side of the road.

when i was in cambodia? ditto! vietnam too. all through the mediterranean and caribbean as well.

[QUOTE='Daemon[CRO]]There is a reason why there are no vegan or even vegetarian civilizations and cultures found in the world, except our First World Civilization which can just pop by local supermarket and buy some food supplements.[/quote]
again with all due respect i would most strongly disagree.

ancient egyptians were primarily vegegarian/vegan. ethiopians and many african tribes were as well, and some still are. the people of the hunza valley in pakistan too, and they are among the longest living culture on the planet. in fact, the hunza valley has long been referred to as the original shangri-la.

so the truth is that many cultures have for millennia been primarily vegetarian, consuming animal flesh (be it mammal or fish) only sparingly and/or infrequently or using a small amount of meat as a garnish or for flavoring only including the mayans, peruvians, incas, and most asian cultures (notably japanese & chinese). even the peasants throughout europe have been primarily vegetarian for thousands of years, being famous for their gruel and hearty bread.

in fact, throughout history meat consumption has been primarily associated with affluence and wealth be they kings or titans of industry or even in biblical record. a quick study of history shows that even here in the u.s. meat did not become such a hugely consumed part of the diet until AFTER ww2. prior to that the diet was mostly grains and vegetables with the occasional, infrequent garnish of animal flesh.

and interesting to note that throughout history the rich who ate diets high in meats and diary because they could afford to and did so to flaunt their wealth were not as healthy as the peasants, who not only lived longer but also were much more physically robust during the course of their lives PARTICULARLY in old age.

and we still see the direct correlation between increased animal flesh/secretion consumption with stunted life span and quality of life. the "standard american diet" which is now high in animal flesh/secretions is directly correlated with disease and premature death. cultures who are primarily vegetarians, most notably asians, did not suffer from lifestyle diseases such as coronary artery disease, heart disease, diabetes, and the plethora of cancers that are rampant in america. however, as they adopt the american diet high in animal products/by-products the lifestyle diseases and premature death rate enters their culture.

the fact is that most cancers, diabetes, heart/artery disease, kidney/renal disease, and even dimentias are lifestyle related disease brought on as a direct result of what one's diet. 
countless studies over the last 100 years (including many that span decades and follow subjects throughout their lives) have shown time and time again that vegetarians on average not only live 10-20 years longer than carnivores, but also that the rates of the above mentioned lifestyle diseases plummets as one moves closer to a wholly plant based diet.

the evidence is there and is irrefutable. plain and simple.

[QUOTE='Daemon[CRO]]On the other hand, I really ADMIRE vegan folks who live on farms and can eat what they grow with their own hands.[/QUOTE]
again, not necessary to grow one's own food to be vegan or even primarily vegetarian. simply skip all the garbage in the market (animal flesh/secretions, processed foods, refined sugars). hit the produce section, the dried goods section, and read all labels before putting it into your cart.

heck, i don't grow my own food and have found it comically easy to maintain a vegan diet all over the globe.


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## stumblemumble (Mar 31, 2006)

^^^Take the time to read what monogod wrote there. An informed response.

I'll just add that as he alluded to, historically it was only the wealthy who could afford meat at every meal and it was the wealthy who had higher rates of obesity and related health problems. In modern societies today this has largely flipped, meat is now a readily available cheap source of calories and it is the wealthy who can afford to live off of only veggies, grain etc.
In less wealthy societies today the historic norm still prevails, it is the poor who live off of grain while the wealthy can afford to eat meat with every meal.
Fact is that our modern society has it ass backward. Meat is not an efficient way to feed a nation, it does take 16 pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat, and a lot of calories are lost in that process.


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## CharleyGnarlyP290 (Apr 26, 2010)

Soylent Green for me.


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## saltpot (Jan 17, 2012)

stumblemumble said:


> ^^^Take the time to read what monogod wrote there. An informed response.
> 
> I'll just add that as he alluded to, historically it was only the wealthy who could afford meat at every meal and it was the wealthy who had higher rates of obesity and related health problems. In modern societies today this has largely flipped, meat is now a readily available cheap source of calories and it is the wealthy who can afford to live off of only veggies, grain etc.
> In less wealthy societies today the historic norm still prevails, it is the poor who live off of grain while the wealthy can afford to eat meat with every meal.
> Fact is that our modern society has it ass backward. Meat is not an efficient way to feed a nation, it does take 16 pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat, and a lot of calories are lost in that process.


I'm not all against meat, but, yes, we certainly don't need to eat as much meat as the production output in "First World" countries might suggest. As far as I know in "olden times" the poorer people would eat meat only once a weak, or less if they were reeealy poor. I think that's about enough. You can get most of any nutritious elements from other sources.:thumbsup:


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Monogod crushed haters with his awesome. And to try and sway you all back to the original topic, I just made my lunch for work: sautéed portobello cap in a balsamic reduction on German dark wheat with lettuce, tomato, horseradish mustard and cheese, and mayo. Kind of want to eat it now.


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## maxwell2 (Nov 11, 2011)

Without reading the whole thread and probably restating others comments (apologies). I bet if people had to go out and kill, gut and process their own meat we would be a huge society of veg's.


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## Wheezy Rider (Jun 12, 2008)

I was a vegetarian for about 3 years before going back to eating meat. I just missed it too much and gave in to a lack of willpower.

It was an interesting exercise though; and not just the dietary aspect of it. It also gave me an insight into just how petty and small so many people are. I never preached, never proselytized, never tried to impact anyone else's food choices. Yet the mere fact that _*I*_ chose not to eat meat made me the target of everything from eye rolling, to group ridicule, to downright hostility.

I was constantly justifying my choice to people who would delight in trying to trip me up, thinking that if I was willing to eat _this_, then I had no right to choose not to eat _that_. Then there were the people who delighted in trying to trick me into eating meat. "Hope you enjoyed your vegetable soup because it was made with _chicken_ stock. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

I also had a co-worker who thought it was funny to email me photographs of uncooked meat. Really not sure what reaction he was hoping for but he didn't get one.

I just don't get it. I choose not to eat green beans, because I don't care for the taste. Yet, _that_ doesn't annoy people. Why should me not eating meat get people so riled up?


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## thezaugg (Sep 2, 2011)

*Fueling the Vegan way (it's not half bad actually)*

I'm not generally one for shameless plugging or self-promotion, but in the spirit of the thread, I figure I could at least pass along a vegan fueling product for on-the-bike consumption. As a semi-pro level mtb. racer, I found I needed something other than bars, gummies, and gels during rides and races. So I spent ~1 year developing a product that is raw, all-natural and easy to eat. It's called CocoNutz Fuel. The product is vegan, non-GMO, and gluten-free, and utilizes coconut oil throughout to provide natural energy for a rider who needs something more than a gel / gummy. Additionally, it is in a form factor that is actually edible WHILE riding, and is dispensed from a flip top tube.

Though I personally don't follow a strict vegan lifestyle (gotta have a hamburger every once in awhile), I found that while riding, eating something real helps to keep a settled stomach (I even down these during 1.5 - 2 hour XC races and they work great).

So, if you want to check out the product, head on over to the website. I'm all about finding a better way to fuel during exercise, and I think that this product stands out quite nicely.


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## NoahColorado (Aug 3, 2004)

Vegetarian and gluten free - never felt better. I do like to "huck my meat" though.


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## Rivet (Sep 3, 2004)

Wheezy Rider said:


> I was a vegetarian for about 3 years before going back to eating meat. I just missed it too much and gave in to a lack of willpower.
> 
> It was an interesting exercise though; and not just the dietary aspect of it. It also gave me an insight into just how petty and small so many people are. I never preached, never proselytized, never tried to impact anyone else's food choices. Yet the mere fact that _*I*_ chose not to eat meat made me the target of everything from eye rolling, to group ridicule, to downright hostility.
> 
> ...


Here's a question, how did all those people know you were vegetarian? I work with a a guy every day for the last 3 years and just now found out he was a vegan, I just though he ate gross food. You have to go out of your way (preach) to let people know you are vegan/vegetarian.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Sorry dude, pretty sure the first time you go out to lunch with coworkers and ask for the substitution or removal of meat/cheese/mayo/insert animal product, people look at you like a leper, then ask, then make jokes. That's how I've seen it happen in almost every case. Maybe your workplace is special. 

Now can we please stop arguing in circles/debating the plus-minus of a veg diet and get back on topic with the sharing of yummy recipes that don't contain animal bits?


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Made some mashed potatoes the other night that were pretty damn tasty. Used Yukon Golds, and added/mashed in some steamed cauliflower and leeks. I also added heavy cream and cheddar, but those can be left out.

Turnips, rutabagas, parsnips are also get to add to such concoctions.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Has anyone tried the unsweetened original almond/coconut milk from Blue Diamond? I just bought is since they didn't have regular almond milk and man is that **** tasty! I would stick to regular almond milk or soymilk for cooking though, the coconut is a bit prominent and may leave a taste in the dish, I imagine it would be awesome in a dessert recipe.

Dubthang: have you tried par boiling red potatoes, baking them, then mashing and seasoning them? It's a lot of work for a side but if you make a **** ton it's so worth it. It's maybe like a special occasion thing I guess.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

monzie said:


> Dubthang: have you tried par boiling red potatoes, baking them, then mashing and seasoning them? It's a lot of work for a side but if you make a **** ton it's so worth it. It's maybe like a special occasion thing I guess.


I haven't. I did try baking slices of Yukons to dry them out, and then layering them in a dish to use as a crust for quiche. Came out amazing.


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## Wheezy Rider (Jun 12, 2008)

Rivet said:


> Here's a question, how did all those people know you were vegetarian? I work with a a guy every day for the last 3 years and just now found out he was a vegan, I just though he ate gross food. You have to go out of your way (preach) to let people know you are vegan/vegetarian.





monzie said:


> Sorry dude, pretty sure the first time you go out to lunch with coworkers and ask for the substitution or removal of meat/cheese/mayo/insert animal product, people look at you like a leper, then ask, then make jokes. That's how I've seen it happen in almost every case. Maybe your workplace is special.


That's exactly what happened. I inadvertently outed myself by asking for a salad when there was no vegetarian option on the menu at a business function. I really didn't think it was a big deal but it became the focal point of the conversation for the rest of the meal with me having to defend myself and my personal choice. The people at that meal made a point of bringing it up at every future business function (Wheezy Rider's a _vegetarian_ - smirk - ) and it snowballed from there.

So no, I _didn't_ go out of my way to let people know I was a vegetarian.

But for the record, even if I had chosen to bring it up, I don't see how simply telling somebody something about yourself equates to preaching. If I tell you which football team I support, is that preaching? How about if I tell you what my musical tastes run to? Why shouldn't I be able to mention my food preferences without being accused of preaching? Why should I _have_ to keep it a secret?


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Wheezy Rider said:


> That's exactly what happened. I inadvertently outed myself by asking for a salad when there was no vegetarian option on the menu at a business function. I really didn't think it was a big deal but it became the focal point of the conversation for the rest of the meal with me having to defend myself and my personal choice. The people at that meal made a point of bringing it up at every future business function (Wheezy Rider's a _vegetarian_ - smirk - ) and it snowballed from there.
> 
> So no, I _didn't_ go out of my way to let people know I was a vegetarian.
> 
> But for the record, even if I had chosen to bring it up, I don't see how simply telling somebody something about yourself equates to preaching. If I tell you which football team I support, is that preaching? How about if I tell you what my musical tastes run to? Why shouldn't I be able to mention my food preferences without being accused of preaching? Why should I _have_ to keep it a secret?


Preach it brotha! Bwahahaha!


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Double post like a boss.


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## iBallz (Aug 31, 2009)

monogod said:


> i'd like to supplement this statement with empirical and historical facts and evidence if i may.
> 
> at 6'3" i've been vegetarian/vegan (including macro in my 20's) most of my life and primarily vegan for the last 12. i've been all over the world and have not found the statement quoted above to be true. not in the least. in fact, the poorer the nation the easier it is to be vegan because they do not have the resources to dump into such an inefficient food source (i.e. meat/dairy) nor do the poor have the resources to buy what is produced, in fact, the poorer the nation the more hearty the markets are with an abundance of fruits, grains, and veggies.
> 
> ...


Well said man.:thumbsup:

I was one of the aholes too had always had to poke at others for not eating meat. (Rather than keep my negative remarks to myself)
Well, 7 months ago, I gave up meat and dairy, and never felt better. I maintain alkaline foods, and lost 55 pounds, ride more, further, faster, my vision has improved, and I get zero aches and pains, not even a headache in 7 months. (well, its a pain to find good meals while out and about) But I don't miss the animal flesh.

And true about the other parts of the world. I visited Costa Rica and Panama several times and after a week being there I always felt better, even though I thought I was missing Arbys, Wendys, Applebees, and all them, but I was alway full after stopping at one of the roadside sodas and having the comida tipica.

Forks Over Knives movie, and pH Miracle book has been a life changer.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Anybody here try quinoa pancakes? There are several recipes floating around on the web. Some use straight quinoa flour while others use a mix of wheat/buckwheat flour and whole cooked quinoa. I'm thinking that this may be a great powerhouse staple for breakfast.


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## CMUrider (Feb 25, 2005)

In the original spirit of the thread, I figured i would give my current cravings:

Vegan Tempeh Burrito w/Creamy Almond Sauce
December 2008

I take this recipe and add fresh jalapeno to the filling and red pepper flakes to the sauce before blending.

Sweet Chili Roasted Sweet Potato Spring Rolls
{Sweet Chili} Roasted Sweet Potato Spring Rolls | Naturally Ella

Good as is, but rice papers are a ***** to work with if the water is still really hot.


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## coachjon (Jun 13, 2007)

Hand/of/Midas said:


> I am Vegi, i still eat fish however, so Pesco-Vegi is the proper term.
> 
> I love it, i feel great, it solved some issues i had while eating meat, it uses less resources and can support larger populations, and i still go out and do 260 mile rides.:thumbsup:


Same here!

Well not the 260 mile rides, but Pescetarian FTW! I feel so much better than when I was eating meat 5-6 days a week. I have only been at it for 8 months or so but I don't really see myself ever going back to that level of meat consumption. I would eat meat occasionally if it is local, organic, truely free range/grass fed etc, but still maybe every other week? once a month?

Don't miss it at all, not even bacon!? lol


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## coachjon (Jun 13, 2007)

Dion said:


> If the S hit the fan, I have lots of guns and ammo and I will gladly kill an animal for food, as will my vegan wife.
> 
> And you you assume that people who eat meat don't eat it out of luxury? Quite the opposite. A meat centric type of diet is only possible because meat ("food") is readily available in the next supermarket - the world is full of p*ssies who couldn't kill, skin and cook an animal for food with their own hands.
> 
> ...


QFT! Great post, couldn't agree more!


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## scatl M artin (Apr 6, 2012)

coachjon said:


> QFT! Great post, couldn't agree more!


In-short.

Almond + blue berry + banana + oatmeal smoothies = WIN


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## drtoph (Mar 19, 2012)

Love the thread. Mostly vegetarian here, moving towards a whole foods plant based diet but I just cant give up yogurt and cheese quite yet. I have to say pre-ride gotta go smoothie. Strawberry, banana, protein powder, yogurt, apple juice, rasberries, flax seed and water. Blend to goodness and drink. For my rides I usually bring an apple and water and don't have any issues feeling wiped so far. Keep the veg recipes coming, its always nice to know there are others out there.


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## scatl M artin (Apr 6, 2012)

drtoph said:


> Love the thread. Mostly vegetarian here, moving towards a whole foods plant based diet but I just cant give up yogurt and cheese quite yet. I have to say pre-ride gotta go smoothie. Strawberry, banana, protein powder, yogurt, apple juice, rasberries, flax seed and water. Blend to goodness and drink. For my rides I usually bring an apple and water and don't have any issues feeling wiped so far. Keep the veg recipes coming, its always nice to know there are others out there.


I sometimes add yogurt but for the post-workout smoothie. Before the ride I like a lighter smoothie.

Try adding almonds to your shake!  Tons of protein and vitamin E :thumbsup:


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## yodaopie (Jun 24, 2008)

I already posted in the thread once, but a change was made to the blog that is really useful. All the recipes are packed in one link, so here it is.

Eat and Live in a way that Nourishes: Recipes


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## ballerina18 (Jul 29, 2010)

I've been a vegetarian for 10 years =D


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## crunchymama (May 13, 2012)

Glad to see a vegetarian/vegan thread here. I am vegan at home, lacto-ovo when out and about (but only when there is no other option. Both DH and I feel so much better and stronger since making the switch. And I'll admit it....I think cows are adorable. Has anyone here seen the Forks over Knives documentary?


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## ktm2us (Jun 10, 2007)

I have been complete plant eater since Sept 2011. 
Yes it was tough at first. Now I am used to with this lifestyle.
I took this lifestyle mainly for health reason and compassion for animals in the factory farms.
I am 43 years old avid mountain biker.
I truly feel I am stronger and have gained endurance. Feel energetic.
My wife and Kids are meat eaters....


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## rho (Dec 13, 2007)

Been on the ovo-lacto veggie theme of things for the past week, good stuff there!

Before that... pretty much cut red meat out of the diet 3 years ago and spent the past six months thinking about going to a vegetarian diet before finally taking the plunge and just doing it and cutting meat out all together last week. 

It'll be interesting times for sure for the next few times and the next few years. More so that there is a tasty bbq place down the street from my apartment that smells really... really reaaaaallly good. I'm gonna go insane. Of course given some of the circumstances that have led me to alter my diet in such a way, the consequences of giving in to temptation would be not fun.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

rho said:


> It'll be interesting times for sure for the next few times and the next few years. More so that there is a tasty bbq place down the street from my apartment that smells really... really reaaaaallly good. I'm gonna go insane.


I've been an ovo-lacto for 17 years. No matter what, sometimes meat just smells good. Don't deny the fact that it does, just use it as inspiration to create meals that smell just as good.


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## durianrider (Mar 16, 2009)

Ive been vegan since April 2001 and reversed a lot of serious health issues.

My bamboo roadie is 11kg and I trump crew on 7kg carbon blingers all the time on the local bergs.










I honestly know that my high carb low fat vegan lifestyle keeps me 'TDF lean' all year long regardless of my miles. The main thing that changes is my tan lines.










My gf is vegan for 5 years and dropped 40lbs. This is her from last week.










High carb vegan is literally as close as one can get to the legal EPO


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

I don't know if I could ever pull off being vegan, but props to you and your gf.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

It's actually not that hard. It really just depends on where you draw the line of reason. I had to modify the **** out of my ideology since I couldn't draw a reasonable line. I still eat vegan and just started dating a girl who is vegan and uses the label. I don't label my diet anymore because of my line drawing issue. I wouldn't eat bread at restaurants or if it had anything that may have come from an animal; same thing with food dyes and cleaning products. I was still healthy as all get out but it was becoming a huge mental drain. Essentially, anything in the "Animal Ingredients A-Z" book was off limits in my mind and that book is stacked. Now though, I keep it in reason. Additionally, if I'm hungry and someone is throwing out food I don't care really what it is, I'll eat it. I'd rather eat it than let any foodstuff go to waste. I dislike that some of my friends eat meat/dairy when we go out and I play clean-up crew but that's just my nerosis getting to me. I have this problem with our waste generation as a society too, so I generally try to dumpster as much of my food as possible. You'd be surprised how much ripe food is in there. And food that is ripe and still good; thrown out for no other reason than to make room for the new shipment of food. It kills me. I've been dumpstering since 2006 and there's never a time where I couldn't find enough food to feed myself and a houseful of people. We'd have leftovers most of the time from dinner plus unused veggies for the meals the next whole week. There was eight of us living in the house. 

Not sure where I was goin with this bushleaguery but yeah. Not too hard as long as you stay on your game.


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## HOV (Apr 16, 2012)

Great thread, glad it's going strong. I was a veg for around 7 years then went off for a while, now I'm getting back to it.

I'm not surprised to see the usual "people eating tasy animals" and "for every one you don't eat, I'll eat three". Same tired comments from the tired comment playbook.


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## durianrider (Mar 16, 2009)

Going vegan is like riding a bike. It looks scarier than it is lol!

I think we can all remember when cycling was 'no way man!'.

I remember when I was 8 and too scared to ride out of the saddle. I remember saying to myself 'riding in the saddle is fine, no need to stand up..' That was back in 1985 and I can even remember what street it was on.

Funny how we change. When I learned how bad eating animals is for our health and the environment I went vegan over night.

A quick google search will show literally a few hundred thousand vegan recipes. Not to mention all the vegan options at resturants thesedays. Heck even junk food places like Taco Bell serve vegan dishes! lol!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I don;t know what took me so long but I recently discovered Kale. I didn't know how to prepare it, so I've ignored this vitamin rich food
This salad is currently one of my favs"

Basic Recipe
4-6 cups kale, loosely packed, leaves only remove stems and centre ribs
½ - ¾ of the juice from 1 lemon OR 1/3 – ½ of the juice of a ruby red grapefruit
½ cup tahini
3-4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, mashed (optional)
salt & pepper, to taste
hot red pepper flakes, to taste

Instructions
1. Whisk together lemon juice, tahini, olive oil, (garlic), salt, pepper, and a generous pinch (or more to taste) of hot red pepper flakes.
2. Pour over kale in serving bowl and toss well.
3. Let kale sit for at least 10 minutes * so that the lemon juice softens the leaves.

* Note this salad can be made hours/day before eating so that the kale leaves will be soft and tender.

Options for Salad
add nuts, or avocado, shredded carrots, vegetarians may add parmesan Asiago cheese etc 

I'm a life long vegetarian and transitioned to vegan (former roadie and now addicted to dh),


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## SpecializedWindsor (Jul 19, 2012)

Much of my diet focuses on all natural or organic foods. It's pretty shocking to me how disgusting commercial foods have become. 
I'm not so sure I'd fall into the vegetarian category (though I have significantly lowered my meat intake), but I will NOT eat chicken. Why? Because almost all chicken in the US contains arsenic, put into the feed so it will make them look "fatter" and "juicier" - and arsenic is used to pressure treat wood. The FDA recently admitted this, and they're actually encouraging you to eat more of it! :shocked: Yeesh!! 

A staple drink in my diet is tea...not really green tea, but lots of black tea and other herbal blends. Black tea can lower triglyceride levels by 40%, greatly reducing risk of heart disease - just three cups a day . It can also prevent type 2 diabetes. And the kicker - just a cup of Black tea a day can dramatically reduce risk of Parkinson's disease by as much as 71%. 
Choice Organic Teas, Tazo, Twinings, and Celestial have incredible blends . 
The good news is that more people are switching to healthier diets than ever before, and the demand for all-natural and organic foods has increased considerably. More and more people are shopping at natural/health food stores and farmers' markets. 
We have a good future ahead of us .


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

cyclelicious said:


> I don;t know what took me so long but I recently discovered Kale. I didn't know how to prepare it, so I've ignored this vitamin rich food


I love kale and other greens. To me the best way to cook them is at a medium temperature at the end of stir frying other vegetables. Contrary to what so many people in the south say, I think the best way to make it tasty is to just barely cook it...maybe 5 min in a pot of steaming food. You can see the color change as it cooks, and you want to stop it while its still bright green. When its overcooked (i.e., the southern way) it turns a darker yellowish green and tastes bitter to me.

Kale and chard are my favorite, we put them in pretty much any dish to add some texture and more nutrition.

I'm also a huge fan of tempeh. Just sautee it on medium high in some oil until its golden. it works great on a grill too, and drop it in bbq sauce for a good veggie option at cook-outs.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

I like kale chips. I made them once and it was heaven. Super prone to turning into a bunch of powdered kale but it's still tasty.

When I get my apartment at the end of August I'm having a vegan biscuits and gravy cook-off. I have a banging idea for a recipe. It's on the hush for now just in case it sucks but I'll definitely post pictures when it happens.


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## HOV (Apr 16, 2012)

Inspired by this thread, I tried making my own seitan.

It came out well, but the resulting methane explosions were a serious biohazard. It is with regret that I take seitan off my menu.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

This is still funny to me years after I found it in some crusty punk show on a patch.


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## Vlad (Feb 7, 2004)

I really like vegetarian fare, but have found that it can be improved with some beef.


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

monzie said:


> I like kale chips. I made them once and it was heaven. Super prone to turning into a bunch of powdered kale but it's still tasty.
> 
> When I get my apartment at the end of August I'm having a vegan biscuits and gravy cook-off. I have a banging idea for a recipe. It's on the hush for now just in case it sucks but I'll definitely post pictures when it happens.


nutritional yeast gravy is the bomb! If that's not in your recipe, give it a whirl. waiting to hear bout your cook-off and the best veg gravy recipe.


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## Rock dude (May 24, 2007)

I’m a 57-year-old divorced man that loves to ride mountain bikes and would like to change the food I eat. The problem is, I’m lazy when it comes to eating. It’s easy for me to just put a hamburger or steak on the barbecue and I’m done. Just about every thing I cook is on the barbecue. It’s just too hot here in the summer to cook in the kitchen.
Another problem I have is that I only eat a lite breakfast before I ride and hours later dinner. I know that’s not good but the day just seems to slip by and I don’t eat.
I have a friend that is a Vegan but he doesn’t have to prepare his meals. His wife stays at home and makes all the meals (lucky guy).
My question is how do I get started on a whole grain Vegan diet with out spending hours in the kitchen every day? 
Please help! I know it would be the best thing for my over all health.


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

Rock dude said:


> I'm a 57-year-old divorced man that loves to ride mountain bikes and would like to change the food I eat. The problem is, I'm lazy when it comes to eating. It's easy for me to just put a hamburger or steak on the barbecue and I'm done. Just about every thing I cook is on the barbecue. It's just too hot here in the summer to cook in the kitchen.
> Another problem I have is that I only eat a lite breakfast before I ride and hours later dinner. I know that's not good but the day just seems to slip by and I don't eat.
> I have a friend that is a Vegan but he doesn't have to prepare his meals. His wife stays at home and makes all the meals (lucky guy).
> My question is how do I get started on a whole grain Vegan diet with out spending hours in the kitchen every day?
> Please help! I know it would be the best thing for my over all health.


Have a read of the book "Thrive" by Brendan Brazier. Many recipes and great nutrition info.


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## chugachjed (May 20, 2010)

PretendGentleman said:


> nutritional yeast gravy is the bomb! If that's not in your recipe, give it a whirl. waiting to hear bout your cook-off and the best veg gravy recipe.


You eat live animals?! That's just mean.


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

chugachjed said:


> You eat live animals?! That's just mean.


are you referring to yeast? _fungi_


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## SpecializedWindsor (Jul 19, 2012)

nohj said:


> I respect all vegetarians but I keep on wondering how do they survive. so you guys are awesome! it's hard! =)


To me, the hardest part is getting used to the radical change in diet. I can't really say as a "hardcore" vegetarian, but most of my diet consists of all-natural and organic foods, and I rarely eat meats except for fish and eggs...if you count them as meat . 
The good part is that many people are now switching to more healthful diets. The demand for healthy foods has skyrocketed, which helps bring the cost down. More people are visiting their local farmers' markets and natural food stores than ever before. Plus, nutritional research has opened up many job opportunities that will very likely continue to grow.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Ok, I will start with an easy one. This one is SO easy for meat eaters to pick up too, you won't know the difference!

1 pkg. Morningstar Griller crumbles (found in the frozen section)
1 can of Manwich sloppy Joe mix
1 can fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 onion, any color, diced
2 bell peppers, any colors, sliced thinly
olive oil

Cook the crumbles according to package and set aside. Cook the onion and bell pepper on medium high heat in a tablespoon or so of olive oil until the onion begins to brown. Add tomatoes, sauce, and crumbles, reduce to a simmer, and cover. Allow to cook for 35-45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with a scant amount of black pepper. Manwich tastes better than generic sloppy joe mix, so spend the extra 20 cents for the good stuff!

You can serve this like a traditional sloppy joe, on a bun, with or without cheese. I personally love to make stuffed peppers with it. Just follow the recipe, then put the cooked sloppy joe inside of a hollowed out and cleaned bell pepper. Cover loosely with foil, and bake about 25-35 minutes, or until the outside of the pepper begins to brown and darken. It gets super sweet and fire-roasty! YUM.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

I have a legit question to ask you all. As a preemptive defensive--yeah, maybe it's unnecessary--please, meat-eaters keep the snark and guffaw to yourselves. It's actually a concern for me. Also, Durianrider, keep your opinion yours. I don't give a **** what you think.

So there's a race this weekend and I live in the South. As such, there will be no vegan food at all. The price for the race includes food and no they don't refund any monies if you're not eating, I tried; every race. Anyway, the food is BBQ and probably mayonnaise slathered sides (macaroni salad, potato salad, probably veggies cooked in lard, etc.). So my question is: do I just suck it up and eat the food? I'm not opposed to eating meat that I know where it's from and the farmer and how it was raised but chances are I know none of this about the meat being served here. It's probably some factory farmed, drug and hormone injected sick decrepit cow/pig. I don't eat meat often (maybe once a year, _maybe_, and even then it's only like two sausage links) and don't really like the way a lot of it makes me feel all bloated and sluggish. Since I can't afford to pay for food twice--race provided and store bought vegan--should I just not eat? I only have rice at home since I'm broke. Do I just stick to the mayo crusted side dishes and eschew the meat? How would you all handle this?


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

When I went vegan/ vegetarian, I had exception days. They were special events, just like you describe, where there were no other options, and I really wanted to be polite (plus I was freakin HUNGRY). Eat some grilled corn on the cob, baked beans (even if there is bacon in them, they will most likely be the healthiest thing that won't upset your stomach too bad) with cornbread, skip the mayo infused stuff for your own sake (it will make you feel like death), and grab a few ribs or a burger (go for chicken if they have it, your stomach will be less pissed at you). You will feel like **** afterwards, remember why you went vegan, and not be tempted again until you forget this lesson 

I sure as hell didn't hold it against myself, nor would I hold it against others--you shouldn't either. Go for it, but go easy on the meat so you don't feel *too* sick afterwards


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

monzie said:


> I have a legit question to ask you all. As a preemptive defensive--yeah, maybe it's unnecessary--please, meat-eaters keep the snark and guffaw to yourselves. It's actually a concern for me. Also, Durianrider, keep your opinion yours. I don't give a **** what you think.
> 
> So there's a race this weekend and I live in the South. As such, there will be no vegan food at all. The price for the race includes food and no they don't refund any monies if you're not eating, I tried; every race. Anyway, the food is BBQ and probably mayonnaise slathered sides (macaroni salad, potato salad, probably veggies cooked in lard, etc.). So my question is: do I just suck it up and eat the food? I'm not opposed to eating meat that I know where it's from and the farmer and how it was raised but chances are I know none of this about the meat being served here. It's probably some factory farmed, drug and hormone injected sick decrepit cow/pig. I don't eat meat often (maybe once a year, _maybe_, and even then it's only like two sausage links) and don't really like the way a lot of it makes me feel all bloated and sluggish. Since I can't afford to pay for food twice--race provided and store bought vegan--should I just not eat? I only have rice at home since I'm broke. Do I just stick to the mayo crusted side dishes and eschew the meat? How would you all handle this?


personally, i would handle it by not eating the animal based stuff simply because (like you) i don't like how i feel after eating that stuff. we're only talking about one meal here, and it's not like you'll suffer deficit by missing a meal loaded with animal proteins, fats, eggs, dairy, and processed sugar. just the opposite, actually.

given the choice between a bowl of rice and the items you referenced i'd stick with the bowl of rice.


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

monzie said:


> I have a legit question to ask you all. As a preemptive defensive--yeah, maybe it's unnecessary--please, meat-eaters keep the snark and guffaw to yourselves. It's actually a concern for me. Also, Durianrider, keep your opinion yours. I don't give a **** what you think.
> 
> So there's a race this weekend and I live in the South. As such, there will be no vegan food at all. The price for the race includes food and no they don't refund any monies if you're not eating, I tried; every race. Anyway, the food is BBQ and probably mayonnaise slathered sides (macaroni salad, potato salad, probably veggies cooked in lard, etc.). So my question is: do I just suck it up and eat the food? I'm not opposed to eating meat that I know where it's from and the farmer and how it was raised but chances are I know none of this about the meat being served here. It's probably some factory farmed, drug and hormone injected sick decrepit cow/pig. I don't eat meat often (maybe once a year, _maybe_, and even then it's only like two sausage links) and don't really like the way a lot of it makes me feel all bloated and sluggish. Since I can't afford to pay for food twice--race provided and store bought vegan--should I just not eat? I only have rice at home since I'm broke. Do I just stick to the mayo crusted side dishes and eschew the meat? How would you all handle this?


I personally would go without the meat, packing your own food is not possible?


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

I have rice and some quinoa. It's a six hour race and I already eat like 3,000+ calories for a sedentary day. I just get kind of irked that the food price is included but there's no opt out option so I'm paying double for food. Bringing food from my house means there's less there for me when I get home on top of paying to not eat at the race. I think I'll just bring quinoa and rice with salt and pepper. My stomach doesn't really get mad at me for eating gross stuff as it's pretty resilient, I just feel bloated and sluggish, no pain or upsetting though. It's the joys of login in the South I guess. I swear I'm organizing my own race one day and the only food options are going to be Triangle Raw Foods Truck and Fiction Kitchen.


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## Asmodeus2112 (Jan 4, 2008)

monzie said:


> I have rice and some quinoa. It's a six hour race and I already eat like 3,000+ calories for a sedentary day. I just get kind of irked that the food price is included but there's no opt out option so I'm paying double for food. Bringing food from my house means there's less there for me when I get home on top of paying to not eat at the race. I think I'll just bring quinoa and rice with salt and pepper. My stomach doesn't really get mad at me for eating gross stuff as it's pretty resilient, I just feel bloated and sluggish, no pain or upsetting though. It's the joys of login in the South I guess. I swear I'm organizing my own race one day and the only food options are going to be Triangle Raw Foods Truck and Fiction Kitchen.


I'd find a middle ground and take some food and then eat the best of the worst that they have to offer. If you can't spare much then maybe set aside a little each meal for the rest of the week so you don't totally miss too many calories but you can stock up enough to cover the majority of the meal? I was pleasantly surprised that at the last race they had black bean veggie burgers as an option, hopefully you will find the options are better than you fear.


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## Asmodeus2112 (Jan 4, 2008)

Rock dude said:


> I'm a 57-year-old divorced man that loves to ride mountain bikes and would like to change the food I eat. The problem is, I'm lazy when it comes to eating. It's easy for me to just put a hamburger or steak on the barbecue and I'm done. Just about every thing I cook is on the barbecue. It's just too hot here in the summer to cook in the kitchen.
> Another problem I have is that I only eat a lite breakfast before I ride and hours later dinner. I know that's not good but the day just seems to slip by and I don't eat.
> I have a friend that is a Vegan but he doesn't have to prepare his meals. His wife stays at home and makes all the meals (lucky guy).
> My question is how do I get started on a whole grain Vegan diet with out spending hours in the kitchen every day?
> Please help! I know it would be the best thing for my over all health.


In my opinion you need to take it in small steps. Try to find a few things that you can make and then add them as sides to your meat meals. After you accumulate some recipes then start changing the ratio, bring the meat portions down and increase the veggie stuff. It's easy to eat raw vegetables. Get some carrots, broccoli, celery and eat it raw. Add some nut butter to the celery. Buy some pre-made hummus and dip things in it. Get a programmable rice cooker and cook rice, quinoa and oatmeal. Easy. Add some raw nuts to the oatmeal. Eat fruit. Apples, bananas, blueberries. All raw, no prep besides cleaning. Grill some veggies with your meat. Make the meat smaller every time. Grill peppers, onions, asparagus, mushrooms. Just clean, cut and throw on the grill. A bit of seasoning. Seasoning is important. I love green chiles and hot things, so indulge on that if you like it. There are so, so many options. Also rice, quinoa keeps nicely for a day or so in the fridge and tastes pretty good reheated. Just start adding some good things and reducing the bad, and after a while you will have a whole bunch of options to replace the meat. I love to eat, and being vegetarian has been so fun because there are so many things to eat. And, even if you don't get to be fully vegetarian or vegan, you will be eating better and that is what matters most.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Asmodeus2112 said:


> I'd find a middle ground and take some food and then eat the best of the worst that they have to offer. If you can't spare much then maybe set aside a little each meal for the rest of the week so you don't totally miss too many calories but you can stock up enough to cover the majority of the meal? I was pleasantly surprised that at the last race they had black bean veggie burgers as an option, hopefully you will find the options are better than you fear.


I'm not sure where you're from but trust me on this one, it's most likely worst than I fear. As a general rule we use and consume animals at probably a 50% faster rate than all of the universe combined.


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

monzie said:


> I have a legit question to ask you all. As a preemptive defensive--yeah, maybe it's unnecessary--please, meat-eaters keep the snark and guffaw to yourselves. It's actually a concern for me. Also, Durianrider, keep your opinion yours. I don't give a **** what you think.
> 
> So there's a race this weekend and I live in the South. As such, there will be no vegan food at all. The price for the race includes food and no they don't refund any monies if you're not eating, I tried; every race. Anyway, the food is BBQ and probably mayonnaise slathered sides (macaroni salad, potato salad, probably veggies cooked in lard, etc.). So my question is: do I just suck it up and eat the food? I'm not opposed to eating meat that I know where it's from and the farmer and how it was raised but chances are I know none of this about the meat being served here. It's probably some factory farmed, drug and hormone injected sick decrepit cow/pig. I don't eat meat often (maybe once a year, _maybe_, and even then it's only like two sausage links) and don't really like the way a lot of it makes me feel all bloated and sluggish. Since I can't afford to pay for food twice--race provided and store bought vegan--should I just not eat? I only have rice at home since I'm broke. Do I just stick to the mayo crusted side dishes and eschew the meat? How would you all handle this?


There is no reason for you to eat any meat if you don't like it. Perhaps there will be vegetables and fruit that you will find tolerable, or maybe even cornbread. Bring your own food. It's really not that expensive. Yes, you are getting shafted on subsidizing the expensive meat food of others. Many things in life are like this as well.


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## Asmodeus2112 (Jan 4, 2008)

monzie said:


> I'm not sure where you're from but trust me on this one, it's most likely worst than I fear. As a general rule we use and consume animals at probably a 50% faster rate than all of the universe combined.


I'm in Texas, not the best, but yes I can understand that there are worse places in regards to veg food progressiveness. Good luck, I hope you have a good race.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

monzie said:


> I have a legit question to ask you all. As a preemptive defensive--yeah, maybe it's unnecessary--please, meat-eaters keep the snark and guffaw to yourselves. It's actually a concern for me. Also, Durianrider, keep your opinion yours. I don't give a **** what you think.
> 
> So there's a race this weekend and *I live in the South*. As such, there will be no vegan food at all. The price for the race includes food and no they don't refund any monies if you're not eating, I tried; every race. Anyway, the food is BBQ and probably mayonnaise slathered sides (macaroni salad, potato salad, probably veggies cooked in lard, etc.). So my question is: do I just suck it up and eat the food? I'm not opposed to eating meat that I know where it's from and the farmer and how it was raised but chances are I know none of this about the meat being served here. It's probably some factory farmed, drug and hormone injected sick decrepit cow/pig. I don't eat meat often (maybe once a year, _maybe_, and even then it's only like two sausage links) and don't really like the way a lot of it makes me feel all bloated and sluggish. Since I can't afford to pay for food twice--race provided and store bought vegan--should I just not eat? I only have rice at home since I'm broke. Do I just stick to the mayo crusted side dishes and eschew the meat? How would you all handle this?


I suggest moving.


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## chas_martel (May 14, 2006)

ultraspontane said:


> I suggest moving.


I was gonna suggest he get a job.


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## kjlued (Jun 23, 2011)

PVR said:


> I like vegans - taste sort of like chicken.


Vegetarians taste better. 
Vegans taste a little gamey.


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## natzx7 (May 30, 2007)

I've been vegetarian for about five years, and at 42 I'm in the best shape of my life. I find it very easy to maintain this diet, I eat a little dairy, just some nice cheese once in a while, some organic whole milk in my morning cup of tea. Traveling in Europe is sometimes a little challenging, I remember Vienna being a little tough. ( Bread and cheese for 4 days is a little tough on the system) . I'm happy with a big plate of vegetables, some need meat replacement products. Here's a chili recipe that everyone I make it for enjoys, meat eaters included:
Wick Fowler's 2 alarm chili mix or Carrol Shelby's mix
1 bag Morning Star crumbles
1 onion
1 can black beans
1 can chick peas
1 can pinto beans
1 can kidney beans
8 oz can tomato sauce
2 cans diced tomatoes with green chilies 
1 cup frozen corn (optional)
Chop up the onion and saute it down with some olive oil in a big 4.5 quart saucepan. drain all the beans and diced tomatoes. Add all the ingredients , following the directions on the chili mix. Stir it up and cook on about medium low, covered, for 45 minutes or so stirring occasionally. Add a little more water if it's too thick. I let it simmer on low for a while longer if i have time. I find that a very small amount of the cayenne goes a long way, only add a tiny bit, you can add more later if you want. This chili always tastes better the next day, and this amount feed two of us for a few days. This recipe is not set in stone, the beans, diced tomatoes and corn are all optional, or can be substituted with something else.:thumbsup:


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## kjlued (Jun 23, 2011)




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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Wow kjlued, you're such an awesome, mature, grown adult-type person. I've never seen those pictures before, thank you so much for sharing them. You're brilliant. I mean, it's such a great idea to be reactionary to a choice in diet that people put a lot of thought into and time researching why and how to stop eating/eat less meat and you, I'm sure, spent as much or more time looking through hundreds of thousand of pictures of animal carcasses cooked up for consumption until you found the exact right ones to post in this thread. Because, none of us eating meat, there's nothing more offensive to our sensibilities than animals we used to eat and see all the time being eaten in person. Those pictures though, whoo man! That's another whole level of seeing we just can't take. So, thanks a million for posting some very relevant and awesome pictures to our thread where we share recipes and ideas for meals. It really helps us out.


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## 2fargon (Jan 22, 2011)

Vegan for a year now. I'm kind of lazy when it comes to cooking but the girlfriend makes us all kinds of tasty vegan meals. Tonight she made "sweet potato minestrone." It's just water, diced tomatoes, diced sweet potatoes, diced onion, celery, carrots, northern beans,sveggies broth,salt & pepper, oregano and spinach. Sometimes she'll put in a fake sausage which is pretty tasty. You fry up the carrots, celery and onion in a soup pot, add the liquids, potatoes and remaining ingredients and let it simmer for 30 minutes or so. Toss the spinach in at the end. She also makes corn bread by replacing the egg with applesauce and the milk with almond milk. Delicious!


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## roadie scum (Jan 21, 2011)

kjlued, what a twit. :skep:


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## natzx7 (May 30, 2007)

I've made this on a couple times , and it's pretty good.I use Tofurkey beer brats. Recipe from Vegetarian times magazine. :thumbsup:
Beer Brats

Serves 8

Once these brats have simmered in the onion-beer liquid, they can be served as-is or grilled. Top with your favorite fixings 

2 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 small onions, halved and thinly sliced (2 cups)
3 tsp. sugar, divided
1 pt. brown ale
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
8 vegetarian beer brats or sausages
8 hot dog buns

1 | Heat oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions, and sauté 3 to 5 minutes, or until they soften and begin to brown. Sprinkle with 1 tsp. sugar, and sauté 3 minutes more, or until onions are golden brown.

2 | Stir in 1 cup brown ale, scraping up browned bits from bottom of pan. Stir in remaining 1 cup brown ale, remaining 2 tsp. sugar, salt, and pepper, and 2 cups water. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes, or until onions are very tender and translucent.

3 | Prick sausages with fork. Add to beer mixture, and simmer 10 minutes. Serve immediately, or cool in liquid for more flavor, then reheat or grill. Serve welldrained brats in buns, each topped with 2 Tbs. onions, if desired.

PER SERVING (1 BRAT, BUN, AND 2 TBS. ONIONS) 395 cal; 32 g prot; 15 g total fat (2 g sat fat); 35 g carb; 0 mg chol; 841 mg sod; 6 g fiber; 5 g sugars


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## kjlued (Jun 23, 2011)

monzie said:


> Wow kjlued, you're such an awesome, mature, grown adult-type person. I've never seen those pictures before, thank you so much for sharing them. You're brilliant. I mean, it's such a great idea to be reactionary to a choice in diet that people put a lot of thought into and time researching why and how to stop eating/eat less meat and you, I'm sure, spent as much or more time looking through hundreds of thousand of pictures of animal carcasses cooked up for consumption until you found the exact right ones to post in this thread. Because, none of us eating meat, there's nothing more offensive to our sensibilities than animals we used to eat and see all the time being eaten in person. Those pictures though, whoo man! That's another whole level of seeing we just can't take. So, thanks a million for posting some very relevant and awesome pictures to our thread where we share recipes and ideas for meals. It really helps us out.


Your welcome:thumbsup:


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

There's a "carnivorous passion" thread where you can share your love of delicious meat products, seared to perfection. Rich in protein and saturated fatty acids, with a complete amino acid profile. Don't troll the vegans here, LOL.


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## kjlued (Jun 23, 2011)

beanbag said:


> There's a "carnivorous passion" thread where you can share your love of delicious meat products, seared to perfection. Rich in protein and saturated fatty acids, with a complete amino acid profile. Don't troll the vegans here, LOL.


LOL, no kidding, all that denying themselves of delicious seared flesh makes some of them a little testy.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

kjlued said:


> LOL, no kidding, all that denying themselves of delicious seared flesh makes some of them a little testy.


actually we're pretty laid back until something in a douchey carnivore's creutzfeldt-jakob addled brain prompts them to troll our threads. perhaps you've noticed a profound lack of vegan trolling in your "dead animal carcass passion" threads???

be a swell guy and return the favor, eh? :thumbsup:


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## kjlued (Jun 23, 2011)

I am sorry guys, I didn't mean to piss you all off. 
I guess my love for yummy seared flesh sometimes get the best of me. 
I will try not troll your thread anymore. 

Here is a corny joke to maybe make it all better

Q: What do vegan zombies eat?

A: Graiinnnzzzz

Ok guys, time for me to go clog some arteries. :thumbsup:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The concept of rooftop gardens in urban centres continues to grow. Singlesprocket and I visited the The Big Carrot (a flagship living roof garden and urban agriculture space in the heart of Toronto) this summer.

Carrot City - Carrot Green Roof


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## rho (Dec 13, 2007)

So, holidays are nearly upon us! 

Ill be experimenting with some vegan gravy around t-day and trying to get some awesome dishes the non vegetarian family will enjoy.

What do the rest of you guys have going on for these often traditionally family oriented days ahead?

Sent by smoke signal.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Vegan gravy! That reminds me, I was supposed to make some with some vegan biscuits when I moved into my apartment. I'll keep it on my radar. 

As for the holidays, I got nothing. I think Thanksgiving and Christmas I am going to spend with a friend(s?) from France. She'll be here with nothing to do and my mom has plans and I think my brother is spending it with his girls family.


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## natzx7 (May 30, 2007)

Vegan gravy is tough to make IMO, I find the kind that comes with the Tofurkey is excellent.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

^^i got a plan, if it works it will be awesome, so I hope it works.


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## rho (Dec 13, 2007)

Yep, its gonna be trickey... But doable I think. I have some time to practice at least.

Sent by smoke signal.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

The absolutely best way to make the best vegan sauces is to start with a roux for the base. Always, ALWAYS start with a roux! That is how you get the creaminess that animal fat provides without the animal fat!

I use a couple different combos for this. If you are just vegetarian, use butter and flour, either chickpea flour or a whole wheat fine grind flour. If vegan, I really like coconut oil and chickpea flour. Look up how to make a roux on youtube if you haven't done it before, and practice! Once you get it down, it is simple. But you will mess up the first couple times. Luckily, they are fast and cost almost nothing to make. But the results are spectacular! 

Now, as for gravy recipes... I have to think about that. I have made them, but I am a professional cook, so we don't really use recipes. I just throw stuff in a pot until what I want comes out  Ok, let me try to translate one here for you...

Basically, find any recipe that sounds good (and make sure it starts with a ROUX!), and substitute pan drippings/ chicken stock with veggie stock. If you REALLY want to blow away the family, make your own veggie stock from all your veggie tips and ends. Save them for the next couple of weeks in a freezer bag. If this is too much, just follow a recipe online and buy the veggies. Just make sure that you at least have some onion, celery, garlic, carrots, peppercorns, and a few bay leaves in the mix. The more variety you add on top of those, the yummier it is! I like to make a big pot, portion it out in ziplock bags, and freeze them for use any time. Use it in any recipe instead of water (rice, grains, sauces, everything!) to level up your vegan/ vegetarian cooking 


So, here is the basic idea for how I make my gravy:
Frying pan on medium heat, add 2 tbsp of whatever oil or fat you would like to use for the roux (I like coconut oil, vegan margarine is also highly recommended). Add about 1/4 cup finely diced onion, and cook a couple of minutes. If you would like a mushroom gravy, add some small diced mushrooms at this point, about 1/2 cup, and some more oil. Add 2 cloves of minced garlic, adding more oil as needed. You want them to be swimming in it a bit. This is gravy, after all! Once the garlic is almost done, drain that yummy flavored oil you just made into a saucepan. It's ok if you get a few chunks of garlic or veggies in the mix! Now, this is my secret; with the frying pan still on medium heat with the veggies in the pan, add about 1/3 cup white wine to deglaze them. Only cook for a minute or two, just until the wine cooks down a bit and all the oil from the sides is mixed in. Turn off the heat and set aside. 

Now, back to that saucepan with the flavored oil. Turn it on low-medium heat, whatever you have found you need it set to for your roux. Add some more oil to the saucepan, enough so there is about 1/2 cup of oil in there. Add 1/2 cup flour and make your roux. Once that is complete, add about 2 cups of veggie stock, more as needed. Whisk over low-medium heat until there are no more lumps. Add the veggies and wine you just cooked, and reduce to a simmer. Add salt, pepper, and some sage, to taste. Allow to simmer for about 10 minutes, or until it gets all nice and creamy. If it isn't getting creamy enough for you, add cornstarch, about 1 tsp whisked together with a couple tablespoons of COLD water (must be COLD or you will make your gorgeous gravy lumpy!) and stir in to the gravy. Repeat as needed to get more creamy... but I tend to find that this isn't needed!

That is basic veggie/ mushroom gravy. If there is a certain theme or flavor you want, let me know! (cranberry gravy, citrus gravy, white gravy, etc.) If there is a certain non vegan recipe that sounds good, I can help you adapt it to be vegan. That is basically how I make my recipes, just adapting regular ones  

I have found there are very few limitations to vegan cooking. You just need to be smart and creative, and the results are just as amazing as non vegan!

Good luck, have fun, and make the family proud


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## rho (Dec 13, 2007)

Thanks!
Ive got some experimenting to do now based on that sort of outline there.

Sent by smoke signal.


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## GTscoob (Apr 27, 2009)

Anybody have some good seitan recipes to share? I'm an accidental vegetarian most days but eat meat at a few meals throughout the week. 

Seitan has always been my favorite, normally just use the recipes from Veganomicon and put them in the steamer to cook instead of boiling in broth.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

GTscoob said:


> Anybody have some good seitan recipes to share? I'm an accidental vegetarian most days but eat meat at a few meals throughout the week.
> 
> Seitan has always been my favorite, normally just use the recipes from Veganomicon and put them in the steamer to cook instead of boiling in broth.


Hi GT Here is an earlier post for seitan

http://forums.mtbr.com/8344327-post11.html


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

I will give you guys another hint while we on are the topic of sauces;

Béchamel sauce - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bechamel sauce. Make it with vegan margarine and soy milk. It is a creamy modification of roux, and is how you will make the BEST vegan Alfredo and Cheese sauces you will ever have  Protip number two; blend the soy milk with some raw cashews before adding it into the sauce. It takes the creaminess up a notch, and adds that amazing 'bite' kind of texture and the hint of nuttiness that cream and cheese have and most vegan substitutions are missing. Nutritional yeast is a must, which is a trick most vegans already know about. And, try some yellow mustard in the sauce to give it a 'sharp' cheddar cheese flavor. I also like some blended pimentos to give it the cheddar cheese color and some very nice, mild flavor. And of course, never be afraid of the spices.

I love to experiment with sauces because they are inexpensive, very versatile and easy to play with, and can make or break a dish!


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## durianrider (Mar 16, 2009)

Daemon[CRO] said:


> No, but it serves as an example that vegans are pretty much dependent on the supermarket being around the corner.
> 
> There is a reason why there are no vegan or even vegetarian civilizations and cultures found in the world, except our First World Civilization which can just pop by local supermarket and buy some food supplements.
> 
> On the other hand, I really ADMIRE vegan folks who live on farms and can eat what they grow with their own hands.


Says the man chomping on bacon hotpockets in his Mum's basement.

"Id be vegan but I don't have a farm so I just eat meat from the supermarket vs killing cats, cows, dogs, rats and lambs like other meat eaters do...'.

face palm.


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## durianrider (Mar 16, 2009)

Does any of the 'you won't get enough protein if you are a vegan' naysayers think they have more Strava KOM's against elite riders than me? http://app.strava.com/dashboard

Check it out.

How can I bang out such high wattage and VAM if my diet is 'protein deficient'. How come so many riders eat meat and take whey protein? If you are getting enough protein how come you need to take whey protein? Interesting eh?

Not hat'n.
Just say'n..


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Durian, you're poking bears. Old ones at that. And while bears are generally stupid and know next to nothing about a healthy vegan diet, it's more stupid to poke them as it only gets them fired up and ready to launch an idiotic picture flame-war of moronic proportions. So, in an effort to keep stupidity to a minimum, let's not get all "high and mighty vegan" , yeah?

Pro-tip: I'm using bears as a metaphor for posts/posters that like to troll our thread with meat stupidity.


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## natzx7 (May 30, 2007)

Had a nice 4 + hour ride today, earned my Tofurkey. :thumbsup: Holidays are always a tough time for us vegetarians, with family dinners and such. Our plan is to get everyone to go to a restaurant where there is some vegetarian options, that way we don't have to impose on someone to make special dishes or bring our own food. What do you guys do?


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

During the holidays I become even more reclusive and stay home and refuse to answer my phone. I hate holidays like I'm the Grinch.


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## natzx7 (May 30, 2007)

^^ Me too. We usually plan our vacation abroad during the holidays so we can get the hell out of Dodge. I guess I'm a Grinch too. Doesn't help that they start ramming Xmas up your azz right after Halloween these days.


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## Asmodeus2112 (Jan 4, 2008)

natzx7 said:


> Had a nice 4 + hour ride today, earned my Tofurkey. :thumbsup: Holidays are always a tough time for us vegetarians, with family dinners and such. Our plan is to get everyone to go to a restaurant where there is some vegetarian options, that way we don't have to impose on someone to make special dishes or bring our own food. What do you guys do?


I'm a vegetarian, but I'm not allergic to meat. I don't believe in a religion that forbids eating meat. So, if I eat a bit twice or thrice a year it's not a big deal. From the health aspect and the moral aspect what I do 99% of the year matters more. I'm not going to let my diet choice dictate how I participate in the holidays with my friends and family. I have yet to go to a meal and not find enough vegetarian things to eat to get by. I also try to not make a big deal out of it. If I can select vegetarian items and nobody notices then I feel like I achieved my mission. I sort of treat it like a game. To be honest, people are so worried about themselves few actually pay much attention to what I'm eating unless I talk about it.


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## 2ridealot (Jun 15, 2004)

I'm not vegetarian but I have been making healthier food choices and fixing veggie only meals or dinners about 3 or 4 nights a week. Tonight we had a garden salad with roasted butternut squash on the side. The squash came out really good so I thought I would share.

one washed butternut squash cut into 1 to 2 inch pieces put into an oven roasting pan
enough olive oil to coat maybe (3 to 5 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon steak rub & appx. 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
drizzle small amount of maple syrup (sorry no measurement)
Mix spices and squash pieces until well coated
Bake uncovered in preheated 375 degree oven for appx. 20 min. then cover and cook for another 10 minutes or until done. 

It is a little bit sweet and savory too. Next time I will add a few crushed red pepper flakes

edit: The steak rub is also good on roasted potatoes


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## trap121 (Mar 7, 2011)

Ive been vegi for about a year and vegan for 5 months. For me, its not about the animals, its about my health. I try to eat raw a lot as well. 

Since Ive changed my eating habits Ive been stronger on the bike and my recovery time has greatly improved. The meals are excellent and its been a fun change.

This was my first T-giving with no meat and it went excellent. We made a black bean quinioa salad, mashed sweet potatos, mac and cheese, and a field roast bought at whole foods. 

The mac and cheese was a hit with our 2 boys. We used elbow rice noodles and the cheese was a blend of cashews and nutritional yeast and a few others things, a small amount of sauteed kale and smoked spanish paprika. Everything turned our really well. 

The best part is we all ate a ton of food but I still felt good afterward. Nothing like I use to feel after eating a traditional Thanksgiving meal.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Asmodeus2112 said:


> I'm a vegetarian, but I'm not allergic to meat. I don't believe in a religion that forbids eating meat. So, if I eat a bit twice or thrice a year it's not a big deal. From the health aspect and the moral aspect what I do 99% of the year matters more. I'm not going to let my diet choice dictate how I participate in the holidays with my friends and family. I have yet to go to a meal and not find enough vegetarian things to eat to get by. I also try to not make a big deal out of it. If I can select vegetarian items and nobody notices then I feel like I achieved my mission. I sort of treat it like a game. To be honest, people are so worried about themselves few actually pay much attention to what I'm eating unless I talk about it.


^^^^This

I just couldn't refuse christmas eve sushi, it was a yearly splurge. But I could easily pass on the same prime rib (which I never liked) on christmas proper. Passing on turkey was easy too, same turkey every year. I made something vegan to bring, it escapes me what exactly I brought... maybe a desert? I know I splurged and ate vegetarian instead of vegan during family dinners. My first thanksgiving away from the family, I made a full vegan feast. It was great when I made all the rules 

I got razzed by the family for eating sushi but not beef, or a piece of pie but no ice cream. But just don't let it bother you. For special occasions, and in small amounts, it won't hurt you, is tasty, and makes the family happy to see you eat the food they slaved over. Keeping them guessing is good for them anyways, makes them more tolerant for future gatherings. 

Just like Asmodeus said, don't make a big deal about it, eat a nice selection of vegetarian sides, and politely decline the roasted animal of the night. I knew when I went into it, trying to get my family to change anything would only make dinner hostile. So, *I* changed for them on those nights, and dinner was pleasant. Everything else was the same level of suck, but that never has anything to do with what I choose to eat. 

It is more about getting the family together than properly feeding everyone anyways. The feeding is just the excuse to force everyone to sit down together.

Good luck


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## Asmodeus2112 (Jan 4, 2008)

Can't rep you again so soon, so I'll just post to say :thumbsup:



Bikemaya said:


> ^^^^This
> 
> I just couldn't refuse christmas eve sushi, it was a yearly splurge. But I could easily pass on the same prime rib (which I never liked) on christmas proper. Passing on turkey was easy too, same turkey every year. I made something vegan to bring, it escapes me what exactly I brought... maybe a desert? I know I splurged and ate vegetarian instead of vegan during family dinners. My first thanksgiving away from the family, I made a full vegan feast. It was great when I made all the rules
> 
> ...


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## 2ridealot (Jun 15, 2004)

*Roasted tomato passion*

I was served roasted tomatoes with fresh mozzarella slices and garlic toast as an appetizer years ago in a small Atlanta bistro. I remarked to the owner how awesome it was and she invited me back into the kitchen to show me how to make them.

I usually pick up 3 to 5 lbs of ripe tomatoes. My local produce stand almost always has a decent selection of reduced ripe tomatoes, when they don't I usually pick up roma/plum tomatoes. I use a mandolin slicer to keep the slices uniform (if the tomatoes are very soft you will want to slice with a knife). Preheat oven to 350 degrees, you will need a couple or three cookie sheet pans, go ahead and either spray with cooking oil or use olive oil to coat pans prior to placing sliced tomatoes in pans. Place tomatoes in pans, then I sprinkle with dried basil flakes, generic italian seasoning mix and lightly with garlic salt. Drizzle a bit more olive oil on tomatoes and place in oven. After about 15 minutes reduce heat to appx. 275/300 and begin to watch the tomatoes but be careful when opening oven as steam will pour out of oven and can burn your face. It helps if you turn them with a spatula near the halfway point. It is a process and takes a time or two to perfect but imo the end product is worth the time. I took pictures at 4 different points in the process. The concentrated flavor is far superior to sun dried tomatoes (which I like too) and they are great added to many things like salads, pizza or just eaten alone...yum.


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## GTscoob (Apr 27, 2009)

^^^^ What Atlanta bistro? Sounds like an awesome recipe that I'll have to try in the future.


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## 2ridealot (Jun 15, 2004)

GTscoob said:


> ^^^^ What Atlanta bistro? Sounds like an awesome recipe that I'll have to try in the future.


It was named after the owner "Zoe's". My sister lives in Atl and said the restaurant went out of business but their food was amazing. When you make the tomatoes your house will smell incredible. I'd like to know what you think if you give it a try.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Ooo reminds me of one of my favorite recipes! I mostly use it to showcase the amazing produce I grow in my garden. If you make this recipe, please make sure to use garden fresh tomatoes! Supermarket tomatoes are picked when still green then sprayed with chemicals to force them to turn red. It allows them to survive the shipping times, but they have no flavor! Fresh tomatoes in this recipe taste like garden fresh CANDY! Remember, tomatoes are a fruit! They should have flavor and a bit of sweetness. 

Take some of those garden fresh tomatoes and slice them thick. They don't need to be perfect, but aim for between 1/2" and 1". Lay those slices out on a foil lined sheet pan lightly sprayed with olive oil, then very lightly spray the slices. Top each slice with a nice leaf of fresh basil. Not too big of a piece, cut them down if needed. You want a piece of basil that is no bigger than the slice of tomato. Put a little nug of goat cheese on top of the basil. The amount varies depending on size of tomatoes, so aim for a piece that covers about 1/2 of the basil, dont smother it with cheese! Drizzle balsamic glaze VERY lightly over all slices. Bake for 5-10 minutes at 375F, or until cheese is brown and bubbly. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, and enjoy! 

Sorry about lack of measurements again . I just eye everything!


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

lulanok said:


> yeah,I like vegans - taste sort of like chicken.


Actually, we taste like pork. All humans do. Our skin and organs very closely resemble that of pigs. Just think about how similar they look! In fact, for years, scientists have been using pigs to experiment with growing human organs, and have tested transplants from pigs into primates. We currently grow heart valves and insulin in them, and as soon as we can solve that pesky autoimmune rejection thing, we can grow any organ in them for human transplantation. When you eat pork, you are eating your cousin.

But, that is a side tangent. Your line is old and has been used multiple times in this thread already. It stopped being cleaver in 501 BC. But thanks for the thread bump!

*Is waiting for next month when another newbie inevitably comes by to say the same thing*


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

Ha! the troll got trolled.


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## Mr.Magura (Aug 11, 2010)

Bikemaya said:


> Actually, we taste like pork. All humans do. Our skin and organs very closely resemble that of pigs. Just think about how similar they look! In fact, for years, scientists have been using pigs to experiment with growing human organs, and have tested transplants from pigs into primates. We currently grow heart valves and insulin in them, and as soon as we can solve that pesky autoimmune rejection thing, we can grow any organ in them for human transplantation. When you eat pork, you are eating your cousin.
> 
> But, that is a side tangent. Your line is old and has been used multiple times in this thread already. It stopped being cleaver in 501 BC. But thanks for the thread bump!
> 
> *Is waiting for next month when another newbie inevitably comes by to say the same thing*


LOL, for that kind of matter, we all know that men are pigs. That women share the same similarities with pigs, somehow seems to fly under the radar 

Magura


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

*chiming in..*

I just wanted to say that I've been lurking in this thread for a while now and I signed up so I could post. I know I should introduce my self in the general thread first but I just wanted to say that this thread is great and thanks for starting it! I will be checking back frequently.


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## azpoolguy (Oct 23, 2008)

I've been Vegan for 6 months. I had RLS for at least 15 years. I had never been able to figure out the cause and didn't want to be on medication for the rest of my life. I did a 5 day juice cleanse and my RLS was gone after 24hrs of starting on the juice. I have now been able to control the feelings in my legs completely thru my diet. We need to sleep to recover and if you can't sleep you can't recover. 

Two things I have found. After talking to a lot of people and doing a lot of research.

First- Just like in the first page of this thread. Why do meat eaters feel under attack and have to defend them selves when I'm the one that has made the choice to not eat meat or dairy? 

Second- Is every one brainwashed by the media and USFDA to believe that meat and cheese is the only source of protien in the world?


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## Orthoguy (Dec 4, 2011)

The hardest thing for me to do in my practice is to get a patient to make a lifestyle change in regards to diet. I had a guy last month who is being ravaged by type II diabetes to the point where he is on the verge of losing two toes. He told me he would do anything to get healthy. I took two hours of my personal time to explain how he could start simply by eating a basic green smoothie prior to his meals. I figured this would be a nice easy place for him to start. I saw him two weeks later and asked him how it was going. He laughed and said "Doc, it was like licking my dogs butt and if that's what I have to do to get healthy they can have both of my feet!" So much of folks poor diet is wrapped up in emotion, addiction, and misinformation. Most people would be shocked to know how many medical professionals are completely ignorant concerning diet. So it's the perfect storm, people aren't getting the information from their healthcare providers because Docs are not being taught proper nutrition in school. I feel this is because of adverse pressure from pharmaceutical companies Peoples biology is being exploited by "food" companies who add addictive additives to their products. (Think MSG and Aspartame among others). Plus you have a government that caters to special interests (think Mansanto) who continue to push absurd dietary guidelines.


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## GTscoob (Apr 27, 2009)

azpoolguy said:


> I've been Vegan for 6 months. I had RLS for at least 15 years. I had never been able to figure out the cause and didn't want to be on medication for the rest of my life. I did a 5 day juice cleanse and my RLS was gone after 24hrs of starting on the juice. I have now been able to control the feelings in my legs completely thru my diet. We need to sleep to recover and if you can't sleep you can't recover.
> 
> Second- Is every one brainwashed by the media and USFDA to believe that meat and cheese is the only source of protien in the world?


I'm doing the juice cleanse right now and experience the same thing, but I havent been riding as much either. Carbs and exercise seemed to be the biggest causes I could trace to restless legs at night, different diets and stretching helped a lot for me. RLS as a medical condition is BS in my opinion as are most modern conditions created by big pharma to sell you medication you dont need.

People never seem to care about where you get your protein until you tell them that you're trying a vegetarian diet. You should tell those folks to ask some gorillas or elephants where they get their protein from . . .


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## azpoolguy (Oct 23, 2008)

GTscoob said:


> I'm doing the juice cleanse right now and experience the same thing, but I havent been riding as much either. Carbs and exercise seemed to be the biggest causes I could trace to restless legs at night, different diets and stretching helped a lot for me. RLS as a medical condition is BS in my opinion as are most modern conditions created by big pharma to sell you medication you dont need.
> 
> People never seem to care about where you get your protein until you tell them that you're trying a vegetarian diet. You should tell those folks to ask some gorillas or elephants where they get their protein from . . .


I think the biggest cause for my RLS was refined sugar. The cleaner my diet has become the easier it has become to trace the effects of food.


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## motoolfan (Nov 30, 2012)

Been a vegetarian for almost a year and honestly can say that I feel better then I have in years (just turned 42). I've subscribed to this thread and appreciate the info I've gotten from here. I've not gone full vegan tho, still consume eggs and honey. Have cut out most dairy products, we have a lil cheese every now and again. Thanks again guys.


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## pgibson821 (Jun 16, 2009)

???


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

Oh by the way, to stay on topic 

Favorite vegan food = pizza

We use home made cashew cheese there's a ton of how to's on making nut cheese. A quick google will yield some results, but as for other ingredients -

Sun dried tomatoes
Cubed boiled sweet potato
Red capsicum
Baby spinach
Garlic
Red onion
And top it with a swirl of BBQ sauce
And some basil and oregano

Yummmm



Sent from my iPh.....the future to kill John Connor.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Trader Joes also has a fantastic vegan pizza. I personally don't like the fake cheeses (other than nut cheese sauces like what I have posted), and this pizza doesn't use it. It uses a nice balsamic glaze sauce and topped with fire roasted veggies.

I believe Amy's makes one too, and it is a very similar recipe. It isn't quite as good as Trader Joes, however


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

Not sure if I can get Trader Joes here in Australia but that sounds awesome!


Sent from my iPh.....the future to kill John Connor.


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## pequin (Jan 24, 2013)

New mostly-vegetarian here, after seeing some documentaries such as _Forks Over Knives, Dying To Have Known_, and other docs that I don't remember the names of which tout the merits of healthy, sustainable, healing foods. Been at it since last fall, with the usual breaks at Tg, Christmas, and another family celebration last week. Bought a juicer and am juicing too. I have to say, I can't remember feeling this good. I'm old and have been sick for years, but I feel so good these days that I have ordered a MTB, which should arrive tomorrow.  Won't be too long, some of y'all may see me on some Austin-area trails. (OK the easier ones - I may feel better now, but I doubt that I'll as easily get over being OLD.) 

I'm glad to have found this thread for all the tips I'm finding (Thanks Dion! and the rest of you who have provided so much useful info). My veggie diet needs some spicing up (while staying low sodium, low fat, etc.), and I'm getting some good ideas here.

As for recipes, my neighbor gave us one for red lentil soup that is so good it makes me want to slap the s%@t outa a red wasp nest just to bring me back to my senses. I'll ask her if I can post it here; if so I'll sure do it.

Subscribed.
pequín


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## Orthoguy (Dec 4, 2011)

pequin said:


> New mostly-vegetarian here, after seeing some documentaries such as _Forks Over Knives, Dying To Have Known_, and other docs that I don't remember the names of which tout the merits of healthy, sustainable, healing foods. Been at it since last fall, with the usual breaks at Tg, Christmas, and another family celebration last week. Bought a juicer and am juicing too. I have to say, I can't remember feeling this good. I'm old and have been sick for years, but I feel so good these days that I have ordered a MTB, which should arrive tomorrow.  Won't be too long, some of y'all may see me on some Austin-area trails. (OK the easier ones - I may feel better now, but I doubt that I'll as easily get over being OLD.)
> 
> I'm glad to have found this thread for all the tips I'm finding (Thanks Dion! and the rest of you who have provided so much useful info). My veggie diet needs some spicing up (while staying low sodium, low fat, etc.), and I'm getting some good ideas here.
> 
> ...


That's awesome Pequin, good luck on your goals!


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## SpaceCraft (Jan 25, 2013)

Anyone been carnivore and turned veg and seen a change in their performance? Or vice versa?


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## pequin (Jan 24, 2013)

Orthoguy said:


> That's awesome Pequin, good luck on your goals!


Thanks, Orthoguy; I appreciate that.

Got my bike today and went for a ride. Wow, it's been a looong time! I had just about forgotten how, though conventional wisdom has it that that's theoretically impossible. 

Scrolling back to post #366 I see you're my kind of doc. If my doc talked and acted like you do I'd probably still be going to him. Alas, he's basically a liaison between "big pharma," expensive specialists, and the patient though.

A Granny Smith apple and a carrot in the mix tone down dog butt tremendously.


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

SpaceCraft said:


> Anyone been carnivore and turned veg and seen a change in their performance? Or vice versa?


To be honest I switched about 4 years ago and I haven't noticed any change at all. You could look at that one of two ways -

a) my perforce hasn't magically increased since becoming a twig muncher (Except i never get sick any more.) but more importantly....

b) it HASN'T DECREASED in any way either.

Purely anecdotal but take it how you will.

Sent from my iPh.....the future to kill John Connor.


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## pequin (Jan 24, 2013)

OK, on topic here:

*Masoor Dal - Red Lentil Soup*

1 cup red lentils, rinsed
4 cups water or vegetable stock
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 1/2 tsp cumin powder (comino)
2 medium tomatoes, peeled & chopped (I used Ro-tel for the extra chili peppers, but fresh is always healthier than canned)
2 tsp salt (I reduced this to 1 tsp, and it still tasted great)
1 serrano pepper, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro (fresh coriander leaves), chopped
2 tsp lemon juice
10 curry leaves (I chopped them slightly, but the recipe does not specify this)

Fry curry leaves in a Tb. of oil until fragrant, about 1 minute
Add water/stock and lentils; bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 20 mins.
Add turmeric, cumin, and tomatoes
Cook 10 mins. more
Add salt, chilis, lemon juice, and cilantro, and mix well

Goes great with rice, quinoa, or just by itself. This is the best tasting thing I've eaten since "going veggie," I believe.

Note: Only thing is, the curry leaves might be hard to find, I have no idea. My neighbor provided them; I don't know where she got them. I'm guessing Whole Foods has them.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

SpaceCraft said:


> Anyone been carnivore and turned veg and seen a change in their performance? Or vice versa?


Vice versa. A college experiment years ago. 54 non-jock students went vegan for six weeks. Everything we ate was supplied by the study. The majority saw a decrease in the battery of physical tests given. When meat was re-introduced into our diet test scores improved.


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

dave54 said:


> Vice versa. A college experiment years ago. 54 non-jock students went vegan for six weeks. Everything we ate was supplied by the study. The majority saw a decrease in the battery of physical tests given. When meat was re-introduced into our diet test scores improved.


Interesting......6 weeks isn't a very long time though. It takes longer than that for most people to "de-tox" so to speak with a massive change in diet like going straight from standard omni diet to vegan there would be a fairly large shock on the body as it adjusts. Not really ideal conditions for testing - but I'm sure your not claiming otherwise. Do you know what the purpose of the study was, or who was conducting it by any chance? You've piqued my interest


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## abegold (Jan 30, 2004)

N1kk0 said:


> Interesting......6 weeks isn't a very long time though. It takes longer than that for most people to "de-tox" so to speak with a massive change in diet like going straight from standard omni diet to vegan there would be a fairly large shock on the body as it adjusts. Not really ideal conditions for testing - but I'm sure your not claiming otherwise. Do you know what the purpose of the study was, or who was conducting it by any chance? You've piqued my interest


Complete BS science. Your body doesn't detox mostly for 7 years! I 3 weeks I felt better but it was years before I started really knowing some of the advantages.


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

abegold said:


> Complete BS science. Your body doesn't detox mostly for 7 years! I 3 weeks I felt better but it was years before I started really knowing some of the advantages.


Yeah, I didn't really go through any kind of de-tox, I feel great having been veg for 4+ years though.

Sent from another dimension using tappatalk


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## Orthoguy (Dec 4, 2011)

One of the big things you'll notice when you change to a greener diet is the changes to your skin. It's been my experience that when somebody commits to a green diet they will notice improvements in their skin in three to six weeks. The skin is the largest organ in the body so it may be that it is a general representation of general systemic improvement.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

I lost 150lbs in 2 years when I went vegetarian, then vegan. I gained back 50 over 3 years when I went back to omni, but it seems like the majority will never come back.

I need to get back on track with it. I felt better than I had my entire life! I also had a lot of flexibility in my life that I don't have now. There certainly is a complexity that is added, mostly related to planning. The cost is really only upfront stocking the pantry (and I have kept the pantry stocked with healthy vegan essentials as an after affect, which is why I didn't gain everything back).

If nothing else, even going partially vegan teaches extremely good eating habits that will make even omni diets healthier. For those who can't go full vegan, I would still recommend doing 3 days a week vegan, for the health benefits and for teaching overall healthy eating habits. I have gotten my best friend into this as well, who is about to finish her degree in nutrition. She is omni, and has never gone full vegan, but spends a lot of time learning and creating vegan dishes. She hopes to start a small business with menu planning and cooking with a strong foundation in vegan foods to promote healthy lifestyles. I support her 100% and share all my recipes with her, and vice versa


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## Fred Smedley (Feb 28, 2006)

Going Vegan and losing 50 pounds made m a hellava lot faster on the bike especially on hills.
Losing 50 pounds reduced the wear and tear on my ankles, knees and feet where my aches and pains from my job literally went away in six months.


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## xgjokax (Sep 2, 2010)

I don't know how I never checked out this part of the forums before!

Just wanted to chime in...
I've been vegan for over 15 years and veg for even longer. 

If anyone needs any recipes or has questions then please drop me a line.


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## derby (Jan 12, 2004)

Soon after eliminating animal products 20 years ago, my riding and mental endurance improved a lot, flues became rare, and after a couple years flues only have occurred every 2 or 3 years lasting for a few days to a week of symptoms and no more seasonal flu-like allergy symptoms. As if I became 20 years younger in energy.

Previously since early childhood I had suffered a lifetime of frequent flues and colds 3 or 4 times per year, each lasting 6 weeks or longer, and increasing seasonal flu like allergies. 

Vegan at home, I'll accept occasional dairy or egg when served by others. But I get a flu like feeling for a day when I eat a larger portion of dairy or egg, or if there is a little meat hidden in a serving.

Vegan sure is best for me. And there's so many more flavor options.


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## GFisher2001 (Mar 16, 2006)

Could we start a thread that strictly talks about vegan/veggie recipes for on/off the bike. I get it, I use to make fun of vegans when I ate meat. 

For jokes I have numerous outlets, I'm actually just trying to find recipes or suggestions for on the bike eating, recovery, etc. 

I'll add something.....I tried hemp protein and compared to what I use to eat (whey) it's TERRIBLE. How do people like rice protein?


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

I actually switched to hemp protein from soy once I figured out how to make it tasty 

The base I use is vanilla almond milk (the sweetened stuff) and a banana, blend with the hemp powder and ice to make a shake or just shake with ice (but the texture is funky). You can add more flavor and sweetness with a couple tablespoons of that Torani syrup for cocktails and coffee. I tried other fruit with limited success... the banana was all I found that actually tasted alright with the hemp.

Play with the recipe a bit using the base. I like it enough that I drink it just like that.


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## pequin (Jan 24, 2013)

Hmm... Sounds like I may stay away from the hemp protein for the time being - I can't add all that sweet stuff, for health reasons. I've been trying whey, and it seems OK. The one I'm using is 365 brand, sweetened with stevia. Not vegan of course, but I'm not too worried about that. Some day I might be, but not yet.

What about spirulina for taste, etc.? I've yet to try it. I'd hate to buy a $20 drum of it just to find out it tastes like how I imagine pond scum would. It is something akin to pond scum, right? lol


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## Orthoguy (Dec 4, 2011)

pequin said:


> Hmm... Sounds like I may stay away from the hemp protein for the time being - I can't add all that sweet stuff, for health reasons. I've been trying whey, and it seems OK. The one I'm using is 365 brand, sweetened with stevia. Not vegan of course, but I'm not too worried about that. Some day I might be, but not yet.
> 
> What about spirulina for taste, etc.? I've yet to try it. I'd hate to buy a $20 drum of it just to find out it tastes like how I imagine pond scum would. It is something akin to pond scum, right? lol


It's not that bad, in fact I have come to like the taste. With that being said it is different and I would mix it with juice or put it into a smoothie. The cool thing with spirulina is that it is 60-65%% protein and unlike whey it's also considered a super food. Give it a shot Pequin, how bad could it be? 

Spirulina Health and Nutritional Benefits | Wellness Mama

Spirulina Increases Fat Burn During Exercise | Mind and Muscle Articles


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## moldau94 (Aug 16, 2009)

pequin said:


> Hmm... Sounds like I may stay away from the hemp protein for the time being - I can't add all that sweet stuff, for health reasons. I've been trying whey, and it seems OK. The one I'm using is 365 brand, sweetened with stevia. Not vegan of course, but I'm not too worried about that. Some day I might be, but not yet.
> 
> What about spirulina for taste, etc.? I've yet to try it. I'd hate to buy a $20 drum of it just to find out it tastes like how I imagine pond scum would. It is something akin to pond scum, right? lol


Tried spirulina and hated it. Spent almost $20 on the bottle, kept it in the fridge for months before tossing it. Wanted to like it but just couldn't.


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## trap121 (Mar 7, 2011)

Sprulina is hard to take in a smoothie unless you doctor it up a lot. I take it in pill form....chlorella and sprulina mixed. 

I have come to really enjoy the hemp protein. All I add is 1 banana, ice water and some cinnamon and it taste fine to me. I mix 2 tbsp of hemp and 2 tbsp of pea protein for my shakes. My post training shakes consist of a lot more stuff. 

I tried some whey I had in the cabinet not too long ago (after being vegan for 8 months) and I couldn't stand it. It tasted too man made, artificial I guess. I have found the longer and healthier I eat, the worse my old foods taste to me.


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## abegold (Jan 30, 2004)

I buy spirulina in tablet form and take 4 before rides. It and Wolfberries are the only health foods I've tried that actually make a difference in my energy level and how I feel.
Didn't like trying to put it in capsules from powder form.
Been a vege since 1973.


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## richwolf (Dec 8, 2004)

Adding more fuel to the fire. I have been vegetarian for over 12 years now. No meat, chicken fish etc. BUT I did eat a lot of cheese, milk, eggs and I love ice cream to no end! BUT I am going more "radical" in my diet now that I have spent some time researching diet.
From what I have been reading we don't need that much protein in our diet. Our biggest problem is too much protein and protein affects our kidneys lowers our calcium levels and produces cancer.
People are herbivores based upon their bodies, mouths, teeth and long intestinal track. Our long intestinal track filled with meat is not natural. It is designed to digest fruits and vegetables.
People take calcium supplements but a new study has come out to say it is not effective. It appears that it is not effective because of the excess protein most people take in is stripping our bodies of calcium.
The lowest lived people are those that consume a lot of meat like Eskimos. The longest lived people are those who are on a diet mostly of vegetables and fruit.
Back in 1976 when queried one of the heads of a cancer institute said that diet probably contributed towards 50 percent of cancers. When asked why only 1% of his funding was going towards nutrition, he said I often wonder about that (or something to that effect) Too much money is going to be left on the table if they find a cure for cancer, which given our diet they will probably never do.
Even given my imperfect diet to date, I hardly ever get sick unlike when I used to eat meat. I would get a cold that would leave me hacking for a month or more.
I lost an eye to cancer around 30 years ago so I know what a bummer it is to get cancer.

Here is a pretty good link on vegetarianism and vegan-ism including some recipes!
This link I am giving you speaks about how doctors generally know little about nutrition and life expectancy of people with different diets.
http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/books/dietamerica.html#doctors


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

richwolf,

there's a lot of emerging evidence that carbs accelerate aging, especially simple carbs or their dietary equivalent. One can't cut back on more than one macronutrient at a time. We can definitely be sure that there are lots of healthy plant fats out there that are not to be avoided.

And our digestive tract wasn't designed, it evolved. It is a logical fallacy to argue that we must be best off eating the diet that we were eating during eons of evolution. This is exactly the argument made by the stone age diet followers who are definitely not vegetarian. It could be true, but b/c we evolved to eat it doesn't mean it's best for us by any means.


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## andy4d (Feb 27, 2013)

respect ..man


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## richwolf (Dec 8, 2004)

PretendGentleman said:


> richwolf,
> 
> there's a lot of emerging evidence that carbs accelerate aging, especially simple carbs or their dietary equivalent. One can't cut back on more than one macronutrient at a time. We can definitely be sure that there are lots of healthy plant fats out there that are not to be avoided.
> 
> And our digestive tract wasn't designed, it evolved. It is a logical fallacy to argue that we must be best off eating the diet that we were eating during eons of evolution. This is exactly the argument made by the stone age diet followers who are definitely not vegetarian. It could be true, but b/c we evolved to eat it doesn't mean it's best for us by any means.


PG,

Interesting. Well I guess I shouldn't have said designed since that is a whole other can of worms!
Since I am just in the first steps of doing diet research I would be interested in hearing more about this carb theory.


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## GTscoob (Apr 27, 2009)

For those having issues with hemp protein, try hemp hearts instead. They have a nuttier flavor and more protein than the crushed hemp plant that makes up most powdered hemp protein. Texture is very similar to a smoothie with oatmeal ground into it or kinda like a strawberry smoothie with all of the little seeds in the mix. Not for fans of perfectly homogenous smoothies.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

PretendGentleman said:


> And our digestive tract wasn't designed, it evolved.


your opinion is respected, but please don't present it as fact as it opens up a whole other can of worms for a host of reasons including but not limited to:


other people feel just as strongly about their beliefs/opinions as you do so it begs for reply/defense/confrontation.
some people may take offense to being bluntly told they're wrong just as you might were the situation reversed.
simply saying that our digestive tract is designed as herbivorous doesn't necessarily imply that one believes in intelligent design or evolution, so there's no need to start preaching/defending/ballyhooing the theory of evolution.
your statement is not fact as there is no concrete evidence to back it up.
it could be suggested and well argued that from the standpoints of both simple and complex science/research/logic (along with mathematical probability) that the intricately complex individual bodily systems (digestive, respiratory, lymphatic, renal, cardiovascular, etc.) combined with their requisite symbiotic nature actually suggest and give far more evidence to an intelligent design than random and/or gradual evolution.

that being said, irrespective of the nature of design (I.D. or evolution) it is irrefutable that the human G.I. tract's functional construct design from lips to anus is herbivore.

please don't view this as an invitation or attempt to debate the issue of I.D. vs. evolution. i'm not attacking your opinion nor should you feel the need to defend it. i'm merely pointing out that simply stating an opinion doesn't make it fact, and i'm suggesting it not be presented as such.

as for carbs accelerating aging keep in mind that the body's functional design (irrespective of origin) is to use carbs as it's main energy source. however, all carbs are not created equal (pun intended) in that there are both "good" and "bad" carbs -- so i'd like to see that research as well. while there seems to be plenty of research over the last few decades that "bad" carbs have a detrimental impact on the human body i've yet to see any research that suggests "good" carbs (i.e. those from a plant based diet) that the body is designed to run on are simultaneously detrimental to it.


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## GTscoob (Apr 27, 2009)

"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." - Neil deGrasse Tyson.

While our digestive tract might look just like an herbivore, our frontal teeth are shaped for ripping and tearing into flesh. Pretty good evolution to be able to survive on eating whatever is most readily available.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

richwolf said:


> Adding more fuel to the fire. I have been vegetarian for over 12 years now. No meat, chicken fish etc. BUT I did eat a lot of cheese, milk, eggs and I love ice cream to no end! BUT I am going more "radical" in my diet now that I have spent some time researching diet.
> From what I have been reading we don't need that much protein in our diet. Our biggest problem is too much protein and protein affects our kidneys lowers our calcium levels and produces cancer.
> People are herbivores based upon their bodies, mouths, teeth and long intestinal track. Our long intestinal track filled with meat is not natural. It is designed to digest fruits and vegetables.
> People take calcium supplements but a new study has come out to say it is not effective. It appears that it is not effective because of the excess protein most people take in is stripping our bodies of calcium.
> ...


great post! looks like you're well on your way to a healthier lifestyle and the benefits that follow.

as for the "war on cancer", well, that will never be won by mainstream medicine. the truth is that it's already been won long ago as we've known about a cancer cure for over 100 years of "modern society" and even longer than that in general (think hippocrates). however, there is no money in prevention and non-pharmacological/surgical cures. people don't want to be told that eating "x" or "y" will kill or seriously cripple them. for that matter look at smoking -- it's widely known that smoking is deadly yet look how many people still do it. it's the old "lead the horse to water..." syndrome.

diet is directly related to most every cancer, that is both known and freely admitted by modern medicine. however, what is interesting is that there is pretty much ZERO emphasis on prevention. medical school is about pharmacology/surgery. most of nursing school is pharmacology. the entire medical industry is geared toward reactionary measures rather than prevention.

there will not be an appreciable decrease in cancer rates until people take it upon themselves to deny themselves of things which, though they may find tasty, will ultimately directly kill them. the interesting thing is that the longer one doesn't eat these things the more one loses their taste for them and most eventually find repulsive smelling/tasting.

"_let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food_" ~ hippocrates


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

GTscoob said:


> "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." - Neil deGrasse Tyson.
> 
> While our digestive tract might look just like an herbivore, *our frontal teeth are shaped for ripping and tearing into flesh*. Pretty good evolution to be able to survive on eating whatever is most readily available.


i not only whole-heartedly agree with tyson's statement but use it frequently in discussions on this topic. however, the statement in bold is based wholly in opinion rather than science or fact as human incisors (frontal teeth) are poorly designed/evolved/equipped for tearing into flesh yet are perfect for cutting through fruits/vegetables/foliage. they are broad, flat, and spade shaped akin to other herbivores and noticeably unlike carnivores.

human incisors:










pop quiz! perhaps you'd be kind enough to tell us which they most closely resemble:

*A:* 









*B:* 









*C: *









*D:*


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Saw this, and thought of this thread.


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## trap121 (Mar 7, 2011)

monogod said:


> i not only whole-heartedly agree with tyson's statement but use it frequently in discussions on this topic. however, the statement in bold is based wholly in opinion rather than science or fact as human incisors (frontal teeth) are poorly designed/evolved/equipped for tearing into flesh yet are perfect for cutting through fruits/vegetables/foliage. they are broad, flat, and spade shaped akin to other herbivores and noticeably unlike carnivores.
> 
> human incisors:
> 
> ...


HA! Couldent have said it better!


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Just sayin'. Apes eat bugs too, fwiw, and a bit of meat from small prey. The vast, vast majority of diet is plant material and bugs, either way.

EAT MOAR BUGS! 

*shudders*


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

Bikemaya said:


> Just sayin'. Apes eat bugs too, fwiw, and a bit of meat from small prey. The vast, vast majority of diet is plant material and bugs, either way.
> 
> EAT MOAR BUGS!
> 
> *shudders*


posting pictures/info of functional construct/design herbivores that are at times elective carnivores has pretty much zero relevance to the comparative anatomy of herbivores to carnivores.

just sayin'....


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Hey, Mono, wipe those lead paint chips off your shoulder. The teeth of primates more closely resemble ours than either horses or dogs, so I belive it is most relevant to the conversation.

If we are using the diets of animals with comparative teeth as a talking point, perhaps it would be more honest to the conversation to use a closer relative to humans than extreme examples, hmmm?

We were built to forage, if the conversation is turning towards anatomy. Most foraging involves picking through plant material. When droughts and winter come through, foragers have to get a bit more clever. Hence, bugs and small game. I am no primate expert, but they may also just enjoy the taste as well. We certainly are guilty of following our tongues first.

But the point still remains... we are equipped with the ability to process meat because we are meant to have the option to eat it on occasion. Culture has turned gluttonous due to our clever brains figuring out how we can ALWAYS be eating the best tasting stuff instead of simply what we need to live.

Vegan is what we are meant to be. But a bbq every once in a while is also completely healthy and normal. No need for militancy in this, you scare away all the vegan curious if you try to tell them they can NEVER EVER EVER have bubbas famous pulled pork again. They just can't eat it every day if they want to be healthy and see the benefits of veganism.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

There is a good article in the latest Nat. Geo. about bonobos (cousin to the chimp.) It talks quite a bit about their diet, and their addition of the occasional animal protein.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

Bikemaya said:


> Hey, Mono, wipe those lead paint chips off your shoulder. The teeth of primates more closely resemble ours than either horses or dogs, so I belive it is most relevant to the conversation.


hey maya, if i respond by insulting you will that be ok or will you cry foul like you did the last time i responded to your insults with insults? :skep:

you do realize that the "pop quiz" comparison was in response to the suggestion that human incisors are designed to cut and tear flesh, right? so ANY herbivore incisor would have sufficed. additionally, the dogs incisors are dissimilar to humans rather than similar to them. that was the whole point. 

ape incisors are no more similar in design/construct to humans than are horses. however, the reason examples from the ape family weren't included is the first response is usually something along the lines of "but some primates eat non plant matter so they're not herbivores". thus, by not using apes it avoids having to reiterate that apes, like humans, are functional construct herbivores and sometimes apes, like humans, are elective omnivores.



bikemaya said:


> If we are using the diets of animals with comparative teeth as a talking point, perhaps it would be more honest to the conversation to use a closer relative to humans than extreme examples, hmmm?


since we're discussing comparative anatomy of functional construct herbivores with functional construct carnivores maybe it was entirely honest to actually compare the differences between the two classes, hmmmmm?



bikemaya said:


> But the point still remains... we are equipped with the ability to process meat because we are meant to have the option to eat it on occasion.


"able" to process it and "designed/evolved" to process it are two wholly mutually exclusive things, and is a poor argument for equipped/designed/evolved to process it. just because the human machine is so incredibly designed (irrespective of the method) that it is able to process materials it is not designed to ingest is hardly "proof" meat should be included in the diet. studies have shown that even infrequent meat ingestion (i.e. 3-4x weekly) increases the risk of many types of cancers.

so really the point that remains is -- "_able_" to? yes. "_properly equipped/designed/evolved_" to? absolutely not.



bikemaya said:


> Vegan is what we are meant to be....


yup! :thumbsup:



bikemaya said:


> you scare away all the vegan curious if you try to tell them they can NEVER EVER EVER have bubbas famous pulled pork again.


wow... a red herring AND a strawman all rolled into one! :lol:

for one thing, how would it scare away the "vegan curious" when they are curious about a diet that DOESN'T INCLUDE MEAT?!?!?!? unless the "vegan curious" is profoundly ignorant of what the word "vegan" means they already know a vegan diet doesn't include bubba's famous pulled pork.

for another, no one is telling anyone what they can or can't eat. in fact, i even provided bacon recipes in a similar discussion on this topic.

just sayin'...


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

xgjokax said:


> I don't know how I never checked out this part of the forums before!
> 
> Just wanted to chime in...
> I've been vegan for over 15 years and veg for even longer.
> ...


start a thread on it and kick us off with a good one. there's been other interest expressed in such a topic as well.


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

Dion said:


> Okay all you fellow hippies, check in here. *Share recipes* and other BS, tree-hugger stuff - ethical cycling gear (non-skin) perhaps?
> 
> By the way, do I still get to be part of the club if I'm a strict vegetarian (for ethical reasons) yet have a gun collection and a proud member of the NRA?


...


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

You see, I am not a black and white kinda gal. So, when two extremes are used to make a point, I tend to want to narrow things in to make a much more accurate point instead of broad, sweeping ones.

Human teeth are actually quite different from horse teeth as well. One of the BIGGEST differences seemed to be left out of the picture of human teeth that was posted, which is the cuspids! I often hear people say that these canines are 'proof' that we are meant to be carnivores. A quick googling of horse teeth revealed to me that horses also have canines. I learned that these are believed to be used for fighting, which based on their location and the fact horses do, in fact, bite to fight, makes sense. Horses have canines, but they aren't carnivores, are they? So a broad statement like canines= meat is simply not true! In the same sense, saying incisors= plants would be incorrect, as many carnivores have them. They come in as many different sizes for different functions as canines. Ours, for example, are meant for soft plant matter, and are unable to rip and tear stuff a horse could.

However, it is unclear why primates have canines, though there certainly are theories. Based on mouth size, humans clearly did not evolve to bite as a primary defense mechanism (ha! Tell Mike Tyson that!). The canines in humans and primates, as far as science can tell, are the ripping and tearing type and not the fighting or 'look at how big and sexxy my teeths are' type.


An interesting article on this issue goes through a number of the Pliocene hominids, who are found between the split from the apes and before the **** hominids. It basically shows the flexibility of the species that began with teeth seemingly meant for only chewing stuff that was soft or brittle. No branches, but plenty of flowers, nuts, and BUGS! They definitely did not appear to be the kind that could tear into flesh and meat, and even fruit came along later in the evolution. A nice little summery of how this relates to the conversation on teeth:



> However, as shown by the work of Lucas and colleagues (39), variations in tooth size are a means of adapting to changes in the external characteristics of foods, such as their size, shape, and abrasiveness. Clearly, some of these food characteristics were changing during the evolution of the earliest hominids, as postcanine teeth became relatively larger and larger. However, evidence from the middle to late Miocene shows that tooth size, by itself, cannot pinpoint the initial change to a hominid diet, at least not with the samples at hand.


And, the conclusion, which addresses the burning question of 'But what about MEAT?!'



> Another important aspect of early hominid trophic adaptations is *evident from data presented here-the dietary shift from apes to early hominids did not involve an increase in the consumption of tough foods, and so the australopithecines were not preadapted for eating meat. This conclusion runs counter to (i) recent isotope work suggesting that the australopithecines did in fact consume significant amounts of meat (7) and (ii) nutritional work suggesting that meat may have provided critical nutrients for both young and old hominids *(77-79). There would seem to be three different ways to reconcile these perspectives. First, the present study has reviewed only craniodental features related to diet. *If the australopithecines used other means for ingesting and processing meat (e.g., tools), they might have been able to process meat more efficiently than the craniodental evidence suggests (80, 81)*. Second, the heavy C3 signature found in A. africanus (7) may reflect the consumption of underground storage organs of C3 plants rather than meat (82). Third, *the functional analyses of the teeth assume that all meat has the same degree of toughness. This may not be the case. Studies of the physical properties of food have thus far focused on plant remains, with only brief mention of the toughness of materials like skin (40, 46). Variations in toughness between animal tissues might well be due to variations in the arrangement and density of collagen matrix. Furthermore, the physical effects of decomposition might render meat less tough and more readily processed by hominids. If this is so, it could be further evidence in support of scavenging as part of the early hominid way of life.*
> 
> Investigators have tried to relate patterns of hominid evolution to patterns of climatic change for some time (3, 4). The focus of much of the recent work has been on the origin of the genus ****. Can the dietary shifts in the earliest hominids also be tied to such changes? Whereas there is some evidence of large-scale climatic changes around the Mediterranean (83) and unusual faunal turnover in parts of western Asia (84), there are no large-scale changes evident in sub-Saharan Africa until after the earliest hominids have arrived on the scene (i.e., not until 1.5-2.5 million years ago). There is the slow and inexorable cooling and drying of the Miocene, but perhaps the crucial result of this was an increase in microhabitat variability. Certainly, there are limits to our paleoecological evidence from this period, but as Potts (4) has noted, *"in general, the oldest hominids were associated with a diverse range of habitats." These included lake and river margins, woodland, bushland, and savanna. Potts (4) has emphasized that locomotor versatility was a crucial adaptation of the earliest hominids in the face of such varied environmental conditions. We feel that this perspective needs to be extended to the dietary adaptations of the earliest hominids as well. In such a land of variable opportunities, the generalized craniodental toolkit of the earliest hominids may have had a distinct advantage, as it allowed our forbears the flexibility to cope with short-term and long-term climatic variations and the resultant changes in resource availability*.


The work referenced that suggests early hominids were eating meat before they were using tools can be found here. This research led to conclusions that meat helped the brain to evolve rapidly, leading to very clever creatures that eventually figured out how to make tools and fire.

From all of this, what I am seeing is that hominid brains evolved faster than their physiology. It seems that there was a point where our brains were evolving much more quickly than the rest of our bodies, which didn't give the teeth a chance to catch up! Our earliest ancestors primarily ate vegan diets with bugs, but this changed in a short period of time when we became clever enough to use tools to get ahead instead of waiting for evolution to catch up. It has been suggested that the diet change assisted by the use of tools (ie, heavy consumption of Brontosaurus ribs ) rapidly increased the rate of evolution of the brain (so Fred Flintstone could watch TV!). Once our brains began to evolve, there no longer was a need for certain traits to be as highly selective as before, since what was currently equipped was still working just fine with the help of tools. Stone tools and fire meant we could eat foods our teeth would otherwise not be able to process. We already had teeth than were meant for a fairly diverse and adaptable diet, so it wasn't like trying to feed a steak to a horse or an apple to a dog. Those are extreme examples, and our teeth fall somewhere in the middle, just like primates'. Without advanced tool use (though basic tools, like sticks, allow them to eat bugs!) and fire, primates are unable to really eat much meat, even though their teeth are very similar to ours.

So, in regards to what kind of diet our teeth support? Anything, honestly  If you take our clever brains out of the equation, we are talking nuts, soft leaves, fruits, bugs, and anything bite-sized. The articles seem to be unsure about the raw meat and game chewing abilities of species that came directly before tool-using hominids due to lack of enough fossils. This will change eventually  But what they DO know is that the fossil record seems to indicate that early branches all had different plant-based diets.

Until there is a bit more to the fossil record, I would say it is best to stick to what we DO know; personal experience. Cause, gawd, being vegetarian and vegan makes people feel awesome  One of those things where you feel it for yourself instead of trying to pick through the fossil record to find an answer. Modern nutritional evidence supports the health benefits of a _balanced_ vegan/ vegetarian diet (no french fry vegans, come on!), where we use our clever brains to properly balance our nutrients instead of merely hacking up and burning every critter we get our hands on 

ETA: The **** is the forum censoring the shortened name for H. Erectus, which is also a not nice slang for folks who like others of the same gender 

More recipes when I get some downtime, Monzie! I have some I can flip through or suggestions I can make if you are craving something in particular


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

*Frontal teeth!*



Bikemaya said:


> You see, I am not a black and white kinda gal. So, when two extremes are used to make a point, I tend to want to narrow things in to make a much more accurate point instead of broad, sweeping ones.


they weren't "broad sweeping" extremes.

perhaps in your haste to argue you missed the fact that the "pop quiz" made a very accurate point as it was a rather narrow comparison of FRONTAL TEETH design/shape/function between functional construct herbivores and functional construct carnivores.



Bikemaya said:


> Human teeth are actually quite different from horse teeth as well.


human incisors: broad, flat, spade shaped. 
equine incisors: broad, flat, spade shaped.

hmmmmm..... no, seems the FRONTAL TEETH of a human and horse are not quite different after all.

perhaps in your haste to argue you completely missed both the original and restated point that it was specifically the FRONTAL TEETH that were being compared in the pop quiz in response to a statement about FRONTAL TEETH. the comparison was also not meant to contrast or compare human/equine in general but rather to contrast and compare herbivore/carnivore FRONTAL TEETH shape/design/function.



Bikemaya said:


> One of the BIGGEST differences seemed to be left out of the picture of human teeth that was posted, which is the cuspids!


that's because we were talking about FRONTAL TEETH!

seriously, you would have saved yourself a lot of searching, typing, and arguing had you actually read the quote in bold that post #404 both quoted and was in response to. in reading that ENTIRE post it is quite clear that the pop quiz pictures were in response to the following statement: "_*our frontal teeth are shaped for ripping and tearing into flesh*_" rather than a generalized comment/comparison between equine oral/dental structure and human's. i went to far as to directly point out that it was "_incisors (frontal teeth)_" that were being compared in the pictures. (hint: the post was clearly and unmistakably talking about and referring to FRONTAL TEETH)



Bikemaya said:


> So a broad statement like canines= meat is simply not true! In the same sense, saying incisors= plants would be incorrect, as many carnivores have them.


you're jousting windmills, don quixote, as no one has made either argument!

canine, incisor, cuspid, molar, etc are used to denote PLACEMENT rather than FUNCTION. it is the SHAPE of the incisor which typically denotes function and differs between functional construct herbivores/carnivores, and THAT is what was being discussed. you are retorting points and rebutting positions no one other than yourself has made.

herbivore incisors: flat, broad, spade shaped, generally abutted against each other.
carnivore incisors: narrow, pointed, prong-like, sometimes serrated, and discretely spaced to avoid trapping stringy debris.

this is what the pop quiz pictures illustrated and were meant to compare.... FRONTAL TEETH. that's why all three pictures of functional construct carnivores in the pop quiz very prominently showcased their FRONTAL TEETH.



Bikemaya said:


> They [incisors] come in as many different sizes for different functions as canines. Ours, for example, are meant for soft plant matter, and are unable to rip and tear stuff a horse could.


that's simply incorrect. our incisors allow us to rip and tear the same type of stuff a horse can because they are similarly shaped (broad, flat, spade shaped). the difference is in the strength of the jaw musculature which is what allows horses to rip into thicker plant material (a whole cantaloupe, watermelon rinds, etc.) that we cannot.

however, we can do the exact same thing to plant matter (hard or soft) as can a horse - just on a smaller scale. take carrots or apples for example. humans can bite into hard plant matter with our broad, flat, spade shaped incisors and rip/tear chunks off to grind into a pulp with our wide, flat molars and side to side jaw action.

as for the expository monologue on evolution i'll not even address or retort -- for the simple reason that if someone suggested (and provided supporting examples) that there is less basis and evidence (both circumstantial and objective) to support long, gradual, undirected evolution than there is to support functional intelligent design you'd blow a gasket and start ranting and raving about "sky daddy" because someone dared exercise the same latitude to discuss their position regarding organic origin (i.e. evolution vs. I.D.) that you feel you're entitled to have.

tsk, tsk, tsk... disingenuous to say the least. :nono:


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

monzie said:


> Dion said:
> 
> 
> > Dion View Post
> ...


jah.... i know that was the first post in the thread but it has meandered, ebbed, and flowed into various things requiring digging for recipes posted.

was kinda referring more to a thread specifically titled "vegan recipes" (or something of the sort) to be devoid of side topics.


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## Orthoguy (Dec 4, 2011)

Are you two married to each other?


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

this thread, as of late, has too much passionate jargon throwing for my taste. pseudo academic palaver of the panajandrum, self-styled philosopher monogod is tiring, ad hominem, and hypocritical.
Spoiler alert: non-gluten free recipe below.
But I can still share our new-found and beloved bread recipe: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html
There are many variations. It's amazing that we're now making bread at home that tastes as good as the stuff we used to buy from a local baker.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

PretendGentleman said:


> *although i may say whatever i want in the derogatory/confrontational/condemnatory manner i choose in public forums i refuse to allow anyone else such latitude -- and if they do so and/or i'm disagreed with i'll get all butthurt and respond solely with ad-homs.
> *
> But I can still share our new-found and beloved bread recipe: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html
> There are many variations. It's amazing that we're now making bread at home that tastes as good as the stuff we used to buy from a local baker.


FIFY :thumbsup:

all jesting aside though, the bread recipe looks not only tasty but also like a great starting point for lots of variations.

in the spirit of olive branch reciprocity (pun intended) here's one of my faves:

rosemary olive bread

2 TBSP instant yeast
2 cups water
2 cups unbleached flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
4 TBSP olive oil
2 TBSP ground flax
1 tsp salt
1 TBSP dried rosemary (more or less according to your preference) i tend to use a bit more because i LOVE rosemary.
1 cup sliced olives (or more according to your preference) i tend to use 1.5-2 cups because, like rosemary, the more the better!

mix all ingredients in a large bowl with a mixer for 5 minutes or knead by hand for 10 mins. i generally use my bread maker on knead mode.

cover and let rise in bowl in a warm place until it doubles in size (or more). i usually let it rise for an hour or two but not more than that because then it starts to ferment and smell like beer...

after it rises, form it into rolls, braid it into a loaf or set it in a bread pan(s). make sure to grease whatever pan you bake it in. bake @ 350 for 25 minutes or so or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

p.s. did it even slightly occur to you that the palaver would've been unnecessary had a certain respondent more thoroughly grasped/comprehended posts they were responding to?
p.p.s. interesting that you condemn he who responds with clarification to posts rife with errant response and full of rebuttals to self-styled and erected strawmen yet give a pass to they who instigated/engaged/trolled for argument. 
p.p.p.s. you misspelled "panjandrum" </size>


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

Orthoguy said:


> Are you two married to each other?


not yet.... but we're madly in love! :lol:


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Ok, just for my favorite kinky, horny, holiday sweater-wearing ferret, a recipe  And! It is CHEAP. Most stuff you already have in your pantry, the rest is cheap and will last you.

This is actually a recipe inspired by one from work  It wasn't *meant* to be vegan, it just happens to be so! I make it, on average, once a week, and in six gallon batches. I will attempt to convert this into a more reasonable size from memory (my recipes are kept at work), but I eye everything anyways  Everything can be adjusted to taste! If you like spicy, add some of that garlic chili sauce. Yum!

Asian salad dressing (I know, original, huh?)

Ok, ok... ummm...

*Honey Sesame Peanut Ginger Asian Dressing* *giggles* Yield: about 1.5 cups

4oz Rice vinegar
1 tbsp smooth peanut butter (If you use the plain unsalted, unsweetened stuff, adjust the recipe to add a bit more honey and a dash of salt)
1/2 oz fresh, or 1/2 tbsp dried powder ginger
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp minced garlic
1.5 tsp wasabi powder (the fake stuff that is basically green powdered horseradish. If you have the real stuff, go REALLY easy unless you like hot )
2.5 tsp mustard powder
3.5 oz honey (I think it is only a few tablespoons. 1 cup weighs well over 8oz, but I have never measured it)
salt to taste

Blend all these ingredients together thoroughly. Very, very slowly add, while blender or food processor is running:

16oz vegetable oil mixed with 1.5 tbsp sesame oil.

It should take you a good 5 minutes to add the oil if you do it right. Nice and slow to get the emulsification right, and get a nice, creamy texture!

Now, how to serve it? Over salad!

Freshly shredded cabbage
handful of romaine lettuce
shredded carrots
scallions
Vegan wonton wrappers, cut into 1/2" strips, and fried (optional, but I suggest you don't skip it cause they are super yummy! They freeze well so you can use the package again.)
canned mandarin oranges, drained
roasted cashews, roughly chopped

Optional:
favorite chicken substitute, such as fried tofu or (my favorite) Quorn Naked Cutlets. The salad doesn't really need these for flavor, it is for stuff like more energy before a race  The Quorn Naked Cutlets are EXPENSIVE, but really good!

The dressing is freaking awesome and goes good on a spoon too 

Enjoy!


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## LaXCarp (Jul 19, 2008)

Holy drama,ill try my best to get the conversation moving in a less cumbersome direction. I am not vegetarian but am becoming more of one the last couple years...no red meat, mainly fish and occasional chicken. 

Korean fried califlower:
1/2 cup corn starch
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup toasted sesame seeds
1/3 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup vodka(secret ingredient)

Coat, shake, fry then smother in a sweet soy sauce, something like:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup sweet cooking wine
Honey
Sriracha
Scallions
Simmer and reduce til thickened

Tastes like Korean fried chicken!


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Honestly, if I had known ape teeth were such a controversial topic, I never would have brought them up. I thought they were interesting enough to add to the conversation.  I found it pretty rude that a topic i found interesting was shot down before anyone had a chance to talk about it. Ignoring the drama and doing the research myself just seemed to kill the conversation altogether. Boo. :/

It's something i hear meat supporters bring up quite often, the purpose of our canines, so it seemed a direction the conversation would eventually take when one came by to bring it up. (You know, right after the hundredth person came by to say vegans taste like chicken. Harhar.) I had often wondered about them myself, which is why it interested me. We can always look at our closest living relatives, chimps and orangutans (I think orangutans are the other closest related, but I couldn't remember for sure. Dubthang mentioned Bonobos, which may have been the one I meant!) for clues to lots of questions we have about ourselves. They usually are a good starting point to answers, so it seemed a good way to start the conversation about canines and their meat-eating function! I always think that the more informed we are, the better case we can make for meat-free lifestyles, ya know? Anyways, I just did the research myself, and posted my findings and conclusions I drew. Hope someone can dig through the mess and find something interesting like I did. *shrug*

I'm done with teeth now too, I guess. I never intended to debate them, just wanted to learn some more about them by picking some other's brains. So it's best to move on, hmm?

So, how about poop? It's all about the poop, they say! But, less specifically, metabolism as a whole.

Now, I have heard this, but not confirmed if it's true; humans are born lactose intolerant, and only with repeated exposure to dairy in our regular diet do we lose the sensitivity. When I was vegan, I would have a bit of ice cream or a grilled cheese once in a while when I was craving them. After months with no dairy, they made me feel pretty icky. Loose bowels and such (but worth it!). I figured, at the time, it was the sugar of the ice cream that did it (I am sensitive to lots of sugar) and the grease of the cheese when I had been eating so low fat. Later, when I heard about the lactose intolerance, I thought that might have been the actual cause! I still eat barely any dairy, except my two weaknesses of cheese and ice cream  I cook with non dairy stuff, and only keep that on hand. Take soy in my coffee or drink it black. I really cant stand milk any more! Hate eggs, but have recently gotten into plain fat free greek yogurt for a gentle on the tummy and healthy breakfast. Despite eating so little dairy, I have no problems with yogurt.

People have also brought up, but not really elaborated on, human's ability to process meat. Is there research on it? Raw food advocates also say that burning meat-- and any food, for that matter, introduces carcinogenics that are toxic. If this is true, why dont our liver and kidneys takes care of it? Or, do they, and it isn't something to worry about?

And, finally, our body's ability to form complete proteins WITHOUT the need for meat! This is essential for a healthy vegan and vegetarian lifestyle! Vegans and vegetarians need to know how to combine foods in order to get complete proteins from them. I am a bit tired and have very little free time, so perhaps someone has the handy charts and information they can post here to help out those who don't know how to do it?

That should be a good start to get the talk going!

I apologize in advance if any of these topics rub anyone the wrong way. Feel free to ignore them so we can keep the conversation moving forward and informative  My PM box is always open <3

Oh, and post moar recipes for Monzie. He's hungry


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

People who are interested in how humans evolved to digest meat and make it a large part of their diet can read Ch. 8 "Why eat like a caveman?" in Paleo Diet for Athletes. Dr Cordain has done a lot of research on the diet of ancient humans and their evolution. The short version is that teeth doesn't matter that much because we use tools and fire. We were not designed or evolved to eat plants only due to our body's poor ability to synthesize taurine and 20-carbon fatty acids, essential nutrients that are only present in meats. Our digestive tract is too short to be fully herbivorous. (We can get away with it these days because fruits and vegetables have been bred to be softer and sweeter. We can also eat "enriched" bread, a product of the industrial revolution.)


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

Bikemaya said:


> Honestly, if I had known ape teeth were such a controversial topic, I never would have brought them up. I thought they were interesting enough to add to the conversation.  I found it pretty rude that a topic i found interesting was shot down before anyone had a chance to talk about it. Ignoring the drama and doing the research myself just seemed to kill the conversation altogether. Boo. :/


you made some good points and asked some great questions. i'll respond to both your "drama" comments and your actual/factual questions and comments, and will invest far more to actual/factual than drama content. but let's start with the actual/factual first.

ape teeth aren't a controversial topic and you know it. yes, you are 100% correct that ape teeth are functional design herbivore as are humans and no one argued that or shot that down. yes you are 100% correct that like humans some apes are *elective* omnivores. however, the non-plant material in the ape's diet is around 2-3% which is SUBSTANTIALLY lower than most human elective carnivores.

to put this in perspective, 3% non-plant matter in the diet is the equivalent of 3 ounces out of every 6.25 pounds of food being non-plant matter!!! and that takes into account ALL animal based foods, both flesh AND byproducts! to further put that into perspective that is a 2 ounce meat patty with 1 ounce of cheese for every 6.25 pounds of fruits, grains, veggies, legumes, nuts, seeds, berries, and greens.

per the drama:

come on maya, if ya wanna get along we can get along and if you wanna squabble we can squabble. i'm totally cool with either way you want it to go. but either way (and i say this with love rather than aggression) quit playing the victim. not only is it factually disingenuous but you're better than that and it's beneath you. specifically, while post #404 (my initial response to you) was not rude some might find your opening comment in post #409 to be rude, unprovoked, and begging for conflict and debate yet you hold yourself out as doing nothing but asking an innocent question and subsequently being savagely victimized verbally. you decry the drama yet pretty much initiated it! let's put the cards on the table and call all that what it is... bovine excrement! that's like poking a beehive and then crying, playing the victim, and blaming the bees when you get stung. just sayin'.... 

the pop quiz was a retort to "human front teeth are designed to rip/tear meat", to which you replied with a non-sequitur. given the way you've engaged me in the past and the tone of both your initial ape teeth post and it's immediate follow up you can hardly claim it would be unreasonable to see them as inflammatory and confrontational. if you recall you've blatantly (and even proudly) admitted in the past that you enjoy trolling me for arguments and i somewhat suspected from the initial post in which you engaged me that you might be doing so again. but it's a topic i enjoy discussing so i figured "what the hey", either way some good points will be brought out and it's not as though i don't mind a spirited debate from time to time either (nor do you, and we both know it). :lol:

so no, it's not that ape teeth are a controversial topic or that your interesting topic got "shot down". rather, you engaged with insults and by arguing and rebutting points and positions that no one but you was making. (i.e. strawmen) and no, i didn't mind the insult nor did it hurt my feelings. i'm just tired of people wanting to play rough and be snarky and then crying like a little poof when it's reciprocated.

not trying to point fingers or keep track of points, just helping to keep the facts straight and avoid the revisionist history being constructed. 



Bikemaya said:


> It's something i hear meat supporters bring up quite often, the purpose of our canines, so it seemed a direction the conversation would eventually take when one came by to bring it up. (You know, right after the hundredth person came by to say vegans taste like chicken. Harhar.) I had often wondered about them myself, which is why it interested me.


the simplest answer to meat supporters that bring up canines is that "canine" simply denotes placement rather than function. for example, both herbivores and carnivores have molars but they are very different in construct and function.

also, some functional construct herbivores (certain primates, for example) have very long canines but they are for display/defense/tools rather than tearing meat. we know this because the rest of their GI tract is 100% herbivore.



Bikemaya said:


> We can always look at our closest living relatives, chimps and orangutans (I think orangutans are the other closest related, but I couldn't remember for sure. Dubthang mentioned Bonobos, which may have been the one I meant!) for clues to lots of questions we have about ourselves. They usually are a good starting point to answers, so it seemed a good way to start the conversation about canines and their meat-eating function!


chimps are the closest to humans but they are not necessarily our relatives. such a suppositionary conclusion is based on facts not in evidence. it's equally, perhaps even more so, possible (along with irrefutably more probable mathematically) that they are simply a similarly designed species rather than a precursory ancestor resultant to blind random chance. but that's another discussion all its own...

that being said, when looking to classify humans as either functional construct herbivores/carnivores and in specific how to deal with the "canine teeth" issue i would suggest it's not necessary or even substantially beneficial to confine the investigation merely to other primates. "canine" simply indicates placement rather than function. it is the shape of the canine tooth along with taxonomic features of the rest of the digestive tract which more accurately defines function.



Bikemaya said:


> I always think that the more informed we are, the better case we can make for meat-free lifestyles, ya know? Anyways, I just did the research myself, and posted my findings and conclusions I drew. Hope someone can dig through the mess and find something interesting like I did. *shrug*
> 
> I'm done with teeth now too, I guess. I never intended to debate them, just wanted to learn some more about them by picking some other's brains. So it's best to move on, hmm?


 move on? no need at all. if you wish to discuss teeth then let's discuss them. in fact, i'll post some comparative anatomy of functional construct herbivore/carnivore teeth and GI tract below.

but there may be some that might suggest the best way to pick people's brains is with with civil engagement and questions rather than contradictory challenges, strawmen, red herrings, and insults. not scolding you, my dear... just offering a friendly suggestion if your desire was truly to discuss and learn vs. engage and argue. but hey, even if you just wanted to argue that's ok too... just don't try to pretend it was something it wasn't.



Bikemaya said:


> So, how about poop? It's all about the poop, they say! But, less specifically, metabolism as a whole.


poop, you say? just so happens there's a thread for that! :lol:

from a metabolism aspect humans lack the anatomical, chemical, and biophysical construct/ability to properly digest and assimilate meat. see the comparative anatomy below.



Bikemaya said:


> Now, I have heard this, but not confirmed if it's true; humans are born lactose intolerant, and only with repeated exposure to dairy in our regular diet do we lose the sensitivity.


that is absolutely correct regarding adverse reaction to dairy from birth, but has to do with the proteins in cow's milk as well. and the symptoms you related after going dairy free are very common for other that go dairy free or have never or seldom consumed it as well. once weened off of breast milk dairy shouldn't be introduced into the body again.

milk consumption, for example, has been proven to leads to insulin dependent diabetes. why? the body sees the casein protein in milk as an antigen and will set up antibodies to combat/destroy it. however, this milk protein is very similar to the beta cells in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas that produce insulin and amylin. similar enough that the antibodies the body produces in response to the casein protein will then frequently have an autoimmune response to the beta cells in pancreas and destroy them -- and along with them the body's ability to produce insulin. this is not theory, this is a well documented finding supported by decades of research.

the scary thing is this is not new information, it's information that the dairy industry spends millions upon millions yearly to suppress.



Bikemaya said:


> People have also brought up, but not really elaborated on, human's ability to process meat. Is there research on it? Raw food advocates also say that burning meat-- and any food, for that matter, introduces carcinogenics that are toxic. If this is true, why dont our liver and kidneys takes care of it? Or, do they, and it isn't something to worry about?


human's ability to process meat? it's "able" to do so but very inefficiently and with great taxation on the body if repetitively burdened with this task.

heating most any food above 117 degrees begins to destroy enzymes and other micronutrients contained within. this is why raw is ultimately best. however, cooking meat does form carcinogens, and burning it even more so.

the liver and kidneys are poorly equipped to handle and detoxify this load, just as the cardiovascular is ill equipped to handle the cholesterol and other insulting agents introduced into it via ingesting meat. most cancers are lifestyle related. most GI cancers, for example, are a direct result of high meat intake with vegans very rarely developing them. studies have also shown that even infrequent meat consumption of 3-4x weekly increases the risk of many cancers other than merely GI such as breast cancer.

cancer has been reversed and cured for over 100 years by simply going to a complete vegetarian diet. this is also rather well documented but information that is suppressed by the meat and dairy industry similar to how the tobacco companies for decades were able to hide the fact that smoking caused lung cancer. heck, doctors used to RECOMMEND cigarettes to improve asthma. even after it was known to cause cancer tobacco companies marketed it with doctors (winston: "more doctors smoke winston than any other brand") and even used the flintstones and beverly hillbillies to sell their ciggies. there are old black and white commercials from each show in which fred, wilma, granny, and jed are shown smoking cigarettes. even old tom and jerry and looney tunes showed characters smoking.

the point being that it is a well known and documented fact that alternative cures to cancer exist that don't require radical surgery and radiating the body. it is well known that most cancers are completely lifestyle/diet related, and that vegans seldom develop cancer. there are cancer cells in our bodies every day. this is not a problem as long as our immune systems can lyse them. it is only when our immune system is compromised by our lifestyle that cancer gains a hold in the body -- and this is why cancers are regularly beaten with nutrition therapy.

so any research done on it? plenty. additionally, here's a bit of comparative anatomy:


jaw joint location: carnivore - same plane as molar teeth; herbivore - above plane of molars; human - above plane of molars
jaw motion: carnivore - shearing with minimal side to side motion; herbivore - little to no shear, good side to side and front to back; human - little to no shear, good side to side and front to back
major jaw muscles: carnivore - temporalis; herbivore - masseter and pterygoids; human - masseter and pterygoids
mouth opening vs. head size: carnivore - large; herbivore - small; human - small
teeth (incisrors): carnivore - short and pointed; herbivore - broad, flattened, spade shaped; human - broad, flattened, spade shaped
teeth (canine): carnivore - long, sharp, curved; herbivore - dull and short (long in some for defense), or none; human: short and blunted
teeth (molars): carnivore - sharp, jagged, blade shaped; herbivore - flattened with cusps vs. complex surface; humans - flattened with nodular cusps
chewing: carnivore - little to none necessary, swallows food whole; herbivore - extensive chewing necessary; human - extensive chewing necessary
saliva: carnivore - no digestive enzymes; herbivore - carbohydrate digesting enzymes; human - carbohydrate digesting enzymes
stomach acidity: carnivore - less than or equal to pH of 1 with food; herbivore - pH of 4 to 5 with food; human - pH of 4 to 5 with food
stomach capacity: 60-70% of digestive tract's total volume; herbivore - less than 30% of digestive tract's total volume; human - 21-27% of digestive tract's total volume
small intestine length: carnivore - 3 to 6 times body length; herbivore - 10 to 12+ times body length; human - 10 times body length
colon: carnivore - simple, short, smooth; herbivore - long, complex, may be sacculated; human - long, sacculated
liver: carnivore - can detoxify vit. A from animal meat; herbivore - can't detox vit. A from animal meat; human - can't detox vit. A from animal meat
kidney: carnivore - extremely concentrated urine; herbivore - moderately concentrated urine; human - moderately concentrated urine

so clearly the human GI tract is horribly equipped to properly process not only the meat itself but also the extraction of nutrients and processing of toxins/wastes resultant to its ingestion.



Bikemaya said:


> And, finally, our body's ability to form complete proteins WITHOUT the need for meat! This is essential for a healthy vegan and vegetarian lifestyle! Vegans and vegetarians need to know how to combine foods in order to get complete proteins from them. I am a bit tired and have very little free time, so perhaps someone has the handy charts and information they can post here to help out those who don't know how to do it?
> 
> That should be a good start to get the talk going!


well, the body doesn't actually form complete proteins with or without meat.

protein is essential for many bodily functions and processes. it is used to build/repair tissue, make enzymes, hormones, and other chemicals as well as being an important basic building block for muscles, bones, skin, blood, and cartilage.

however, protein is made up of amino acids. while the body manufactures 12 of them another 9, called essential amino acids, must be obtained from our food. so a "complete protein" is one that contains all of the essential amino acids rather than something that is produced by the body irrespective of one's diet.

it is a complete myth that one needs meat to obtain complete proteins. while all animal proteins do contain all essential amino acids, as discussed previously the body is ill equipped to process/extract them and there is significant detriment that accompanies the ingesting of both animal flesh and by-products (i.e. dairy).

many plants offer complete protein such as soy, spirulina, buckwheat, teff, amaranth, and quinoa. (just to name a few. corn too, but organic rather than GMO) further, many plant foods can be combined to make complete proteins such as beans and rice or corn. beans and grains (hummus and pita bread). beans and seeds/nuts like pasta and beans, nut butter on whole grain bread, tortillas with refried beans, split pea soup with whole grain bread, and veggie burgers on whole grain bread for a few examples.

additionally, they don't have to be combined at the same meal to be effectively assimilated by the body. eat rice with one meal and beans with the next and you have a complete protein. in fact, you can spread this combination over a 2 day period and still get the complete protein.

so basically as long as one is eating a nicely varied plant based diet of grains, legumes, seeds, nuts, greens, fruits, and veggies one cannot help but meet the body's need for complete protein.



Bikemaya said:


> Oh, and post moar recipes for Monzie. He's hungry


monzie was actually reposting the very first post from this thread (in response to me suggesting someone create a recipe specific thread) rather than trolling for recipes. not sayin' he's not hungry, mind you... just sayin'. (i.e. a friendly poke) 

see? it's not so hard to play nicey-nice and have a civil discussion... is it? :thumbsup:


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

beanbag said:


> People who are interested in *some guy's theory of* how humans _*might have*_ evolved to digest meat and make it a large part of their diet can read Ch. 8 "Why eat like a caveman?" in Paleo Diet for Athletes.


fify :thumbsup:



beanbag said:


> Dr Cordain has done a lot of research on the diet of ancient humans and their evolution.


which is totally irrelevant. if modern man makes animal flesh and by-products a large part of their diet they will more likely than not develop one or more of the following: heart disease, various cancers, stroke, gout, and diabetes -- just to name a few.



beanbag said:


> The short version is that teeth doesn't matter that much because we use tools and fire.


teeth are but one component of the big picture. "tools and fire" is a poor and wholly inadequate/irrelevant response to, and hardly negate, the extensive and comprehensive comparative anatomy below.



beanbag said:


> We were not designed or evolved to eat plants only


that's simply not true. humans are irrefutably functional construct/design herbivores from lips to anus:


jaw joint location: carnivore - same plane as molar teeth; herbivore - above plane of molars; human - above plane of molars
jaw motion: carnivore - shearing with minimal side to side motion; herbivore - little to no shear, good side to side and front to back; human - little to no shear, good side to side and front to back
major jaw muscles: carnivore - temporalis; herbivore - masseter and pterygoids; human - masseter and pterygoids
mouth opening vs. head size: carnivore - large; herbivore - small; human - small
teeth (incisrors): carnivore - short and pointed; herbivore - broad, flattened, spade shaped; human - broad, flattened, spade shaped
teeth (canine): carnivore - long, sharp, curved; herbivore - dull and short (long in some for defense), or none; human: short and blunted
teeth (molars): carnivore - sharp, jagged, blade shaped; herbivore - flattened with cusps vs. complex surface; humans - flattened with nodular cusps
chewing: carnivore - little to none necessary, swallows food whole; herbivore - extensive chewing necessary; human - extensive chewing necessary
saliva: carnivore - no digestive enzymes; herbivore - carbohydrate digesting enzymes; human - carbohydrate digesting enzymes
stomach acidity: carnivore - less than or equal to pH of 1 with food; herbivore - pH of 4 to 5 with food; human - pH of 4 to 5 with food
stomach capacity: 60-70% of digestive tract's total volume; herbivore - less than 30% of digestive tract's total volume; human - 21-27% of digestive tract's total volume
small intestine length: carnivore - 3 to 6 times body length; herbivore - 10 to 12+ times body length; human - 10 times body length
colon: carnivore - simple, short, smooth; herbivore - long, complex, may be sacculated; human - long, sacculated
liver: carnivore - can detoxify vit. A from animal meat; herbivore - can't detox vit. A from animal meat; human - can't detox vit. A from animal meat
kidney: carnivore - extremely concentrated urine; herbivore - moderately concentrated urine; human - moderately concentrated urine



beanbag said:


> We were not designed or evolved to eat plants only due to our body's poor ability to synthesize taurine


again, simply not true. taurine is a non-essential amino acid which can be derived from food or synthesized from the amino acid cysteine when adequate levels of vitamin B6 are present. when one eats a varied and balanced vegan diet they will not suffer from taurine deficiency.



beanbag said:


> We were not designed or evolved to eat plants only due to our body's poor ability to synthesize... 20-carbon fatty acids


yet again, simply not true. the two polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) that the body can't make are linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid. these must be provided by one's diet and are abundant in a well balanced vegan diet. both of these can be converted within the body to other PUFAs such as arachidonic acid, or eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).



beanbag said:


> Our digestive tract is too short to be fully herbivorous.


and yet again, simply not true as can be clearly seen above.



beanbag said:


> We can also eat "enriched" bread, a product of the industrial revolution.)


we can also shoot cocaine, another product of the industrial revolution. but that doesn't make it good for us.

diametrically opposed to whole grain breads the "enriched" breads are a nutritionally empty "food" which provides no soluble or insoluble fiber, is pretty much empty bad carbs, turns to sugar quickly and spikes blood glucose, and once in the stomach basically becomes more or less the same stuff you made paper mache with as a kid.

in short, it's a nutritionally void highly processed food-like product that should be avoided at all costs.


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

Wait, was the discussion about evolutionary dietary adaptations, or modern healthful eating? Because humans were definitely not evolved to eat "a varied and balanced vegan diet" because agriculture, planes, and trucks were not invented yet. They could not one day eat some flax seeds, a rich source of ALA O3 fatty acids, which are inefficiently converted to EPA, and then decide to eat some bell peppers, a source of cysteiene, helping them in their meager biosynthesis of taurine.

In the meantime, I found this page which has a long ass article if one is interested in evolution, teeth, apes, intestines, etc.
Comparative Anatomy Updated. Humans--Omnivores or Vegetarians?

I also noticed an interesting comment that a vegan diet can "cure" cancer. So if you already got cancer, you can go vegan and fix it? Really?


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

beanbag said:


> Wait, was the discussion about evolutionary dietary adaptations, or modern healthful eating?


with all due respect, is this a serious question???

to begin with, "_evolutionary dietary adaptations_" assumes facts not in evidence. specifically that the macro evolutionary theory of the origin of life and diversity of species is irrefutable.... which it is not. not by a long shot. it's on shaky ground at best with probability and logic strongly contravening it.

however that is another discussion entirely, one not suited here, and one that for some reason you keep trying to force. you're squarely in the evolution camp. we get it. but that's irrelevant to whether or not man is (present tense) a functional construct herbivore.

the position that you are refuting is that man is (present tense) irrefutably designed (irrespective of I.D. or evolution) as a functional construct herbivore. yet inexplicably you keep referring to evolution, which is wholly irrelevant to the current observable features, physiology, and biochemistry of the human digestive tract.

again with all due respect after reviewing the past week or so of this thread it seems rather clear that this discussion has NEVER been about evolutionary dietary adaptations but rather the premise that humans are (present tense, i.e. "modern") or are not functional construct (irrespective of origin of design) herbivores.



beanbag said:


> Because humans were definitely not evolved to eat "a varied and balanced vegan diet" because agriculture, planes, and trucks were not invented yet. They could not one day eat some flax seeds, a rich source of ALA O3 fatty acids, which are inefficiently converted to EPA, and then decide to eat some bell peppers, a source of cysteiene, helping them in their meager biosynthesis of taurine.


first of all, the statement "humans were definitely not evolved to eat..." yet again assumes facts not in evidence and is arguing a point not in contention.

second, because we're not talking about what humans ate eons ago the "not invented yet" argument is wholly without merit and is a red herring and strawman in a discussion of whether humans are (present tense) functional construct herbivores.

third, the body is capable of (and does quite adequately) synthesizing the EPA and taurine it needs from "a varied and balanced vegan diet". yet again, what ancient man ate eons ago is wholly irrelevant to the discussion at hand.



beanbag said:


> In the meantime, I found this page which has a long ass article if one is interested in evolution, teeth, apes, intestines, etc.
> Comparative Anatomy Updated. Humans--Omnivores or Vegetarians?


you "found a page" that has a "long ass article" on why man is not a functional construct herbivore despite the digestive tract being that of an herbivore from lips to anus? congratulations. after all, if it's on the internet it MUST be true.

i personally find it disingenuous that if such chicanery were attempted with any other clearly classified functional construct herbivore the author would be ridiculed, scorned to shame, and ostracized by being laughed out of the scientific community. only with the clearly herbivorous digestive tract of one animal is this kind of nonsensical pablum and drivel accepted as a quantitative refutation.... humans. hmmmmm..... why is that? disingenuous, dishonest, quackery, and hypocritical don't even begin to cover such a supposition/position.



beanbag said:


> I also noticed an interesting comment that a vegan diet can "cure" cancer. So if you already got cancer, you can go vegan and fix it? Really?


yes. cancer is simply an outgrowth of certain types of cells that the immune system can no longer keep under control. one's diet has a huge impact on the immune system but there's more to it than simply "going vegan" to fix it. nutrition therapy is nothing new, is well documented, and quashing it (along with homeopathy) are but a couple of reasons the AMA was formed. however, nutrition therapy predates hippocrates who said "let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food".

there are countless well documented cases of people reversing cancer simply by nutrition therapy. i happen to know one individual personally who, with terminal metastatic jaw cancer, was given less than 6 months to live. they advised that if she had radical surgery removing most of the lower portion of her face and and extensive chemo she may get up to 3 or 4 years. she refused and went the route of nutrition therapy. almost 20 years later she's still cancer free.

nutrition therapy has also been shown to reverse coronary artery disease, gout, control diabetes, reverse and/or control many other maladies including neurological and psychological issues.


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## LaXCarp (Jul 19, 2008)

Humans are not born lactose intolerant, breast milk contains about 9% carbs in the form of lactose. Our enzymes are specific to our mothers breast milk though, through exposure to other items, we build up the necessary enzymes to break down "tolerate" other forms of milk. This not only happens with milk but just about everything else we eat as well, we are not born perfectly capable of consuming everything...that's what the human immune system is constantly, a work in progress and how eat is how it is formed. Your body will build in a immune system to tolerate your diet....that is unless your body has a specific genetic mechanism that does not tolerate a certain substance within the body. 

This is the basis for why when you quit eating a food for a while your body reacts differently the next time you consume it. I has quit producing the necessary enzymes to break it down. Keep eating it for a while and your body will readapt. It's has been this case with me in cutting wheat based carbs out of my diet. Much like milk, modern wheat pales in comparison to what it is actually supposed to be. The lining if our stomach(diverticuli,sp) are mechanically unable to absorb modern wheat. 

I am not making trying to make the case that we should consume milk, present day milk is far from actually being milk and I do not drink it myself. By I did grow up in WI where I drank about a gallon a week my whole life. 

PS. Did anyone else see they are lobbying the FDA to allow aspartame to be allowed in milk?? Lets get our kids hooked on sweets through the milk they drink at school at the age of 5 (now that choc. Milk is not allowed in a lot of schools). 

Now someone add another recipe.


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

monogod said:


> with all due respect, is this a serious question???


Since you asked with due respect, then my answer is yes, that was a serious question since you / somebody brought up comparison to primates, teeth structure, presence of features, I.D., etc. Evolution provides a long case history of what worked, what doesn't kill you, and why certain features are the way they are. But you don't want to go there. Fine.



> again with all due respect after reviewing the past week or so of this thread it seems rather clear that this discussion has NEVER been about evolutionary dietary adaptations but rather the premise that humans are (present tense, i.e. "modern") or are not functional construct (irrespective of origin of design) herbivores.


Oh, well in that case, I would say that humans cannot be "functional construct herbivores" because (some, most?) herbivores can live their entire life eating only one thing, whereas humans require a "balanced vegan diet". Eat some rice and beans to make up for the protein you are not getting from eating meat. What does this show? Only that some some people can survive without eating meat.

That a human digestive tract shows similarities to herbivores does not exclude the possibility that it is best suited for omnivore.

That long ass article goes into detail on why humans are functional construct omnivores. In the time it took you to reply, you could not have read much of it at all, instead immediately calling it quackery. That doesn't sound very open minded at all. What claims does it make that are blatantly false?



> there are countless well documented cases of people reversing cancer simply by nutrition therapy.


While there are many many maladies that can be fixed by "eating better", I'll have to wait for a controlled and peer-reviewed study in the case of cancer.


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## 2ridealot (Jun 15, 2004)

LaXCarp said:


> Holy drama,ill try my best to get the conversation moving in a less cumbersome direction. I am not vegetarian but am becoming more of one the last couple years...no red meat, mainly fish and occasional chicken.
> 
> Korean fried califlower:
> 1/2 cup corn starch
> ...


That sounds pretty tasty. Thanks for posting the recipe!


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

monogod said:


> with all due respect, is this a serious question???
> 
> 
> beanbag said:
> ...


discussing the fact that the human's digestive tract is (current tense) designed (irrespective of by I.D., evolution, alien intervention, or the flying spaghetti monster) as a functional construct herbivore (i.e. presence of features/function) is hardly an opening to begin discussing the theory of evolution along with man's diet eons ago. in other words, irrespective of how man arrived at his current functional construct that construct is irrefutably that of an herbivore. an honest comparative anatomy investigation clearly illustrates this -- and we've only looked at the digestive tract. other comparisons also clearly classify humans as functional construct herbivores as well.

dishonest science is ignoring clearly observed evidence and drawing a conclusion based on what one wants as an outcome rather than going strictly by facts in evidence. you've got an agenda that you need to meet so you're looking for any way to slant the evidence in that favor. but pure, objective, fact based comparative anatomy clearly and irrefutably places humans as functional construct herbivores. dishonest science is ignoring these facts to arrive at the pre-ordained conclusion one wishes to reach.

further, looking into man's past is not synonymous with "evolution providing a long case history" of anything. it is nothing but pure assumption/conjecture that because fossils have been found evolution explains their origin. again, citing evolution as fact assumes facts not in evidence. evolution is not fact. doesn't matter how hard you want it to be or keep referring to it as fact.... it's just not. it doesn't even matter that there are other much more plausible, mathematically/statistically probable, anatomically/physiologically viable, and far more logical explanations for origin/diversity than evolution because evolution is not fact on it's own basis, lack of evidence/merit, and required assumptive foundational framework. where i'm trying not to go is a discussion on origin of life and diversity of species but you still keep pushing and pushing the issue.



monogod said:


> again with all due respect after reviewing the past week or so of this thread it seems rather clear that this discussion has NEVER been about evolutionary dietary adaptations but rather the premise that humans are (present tense, i.e. "modern") or are not functional construct (irrespective of origin of design) herbivores.
> 
> 
> beanbag said:
> ...


you're welcome to say that humans are not functional construct herbivores, but the evidence simply doesn't support your statement. you're free to say that the sun revolves around the earth, but the evidence offers just about as much support for that statement as well. in fact, you're free to say whatever you want and even if i disagree i will defend to the death your right to say it -- but we're not talking about opinion. instead we're talking about looking at the functional construct of every element of the human digestive tract from lips to anus, including down to the type saliva, and that evidence clearly classifies humans as functional construct herbivores.

further, even if meat is included in the diet a human has to eat "a balanced and varied diet" rich in varied grains, fruits, veggies, greens, etc. for optimal nutrition. meat is not a nutritional panacea. the suggestion that the only way one can meet their nutritional needs is with meat is ludicrous and without merit. in fact, the opposite is quite true combined with the fact that the more meat one consumes there is a direct proportionate rise with both chance and occurrence of cancer.

one doesn't eat rice and beans to "make up" for what they are not getting from meat. one eats beans and rice to get protein from sources their body is designed (irrespective of origin) to ingest. one can either get their protein needs met from beans and rice or meat. if one chooses beans and rice they miss out on all the lovely accouterments of meat such has higher cholesterol, increased risk/occurrence of cancer, heart disease, coronary artery disease, gout, and so on.

one argument for eating meat is having the brains to know how to use tools and fire to hunt/kill/process/cook meat. conversely that same argument holds true that we have used our brains to learn that our bodies are designed as herbivores and we have learned about the nutritional content of foods that our bodies are designed to ingest/process and how to get complete nutrition from those foods without resorting to ingesting things our bodies are not designed to ingest/process. we have used our brains to discover that even infrequent ingestion of meat increases the risk/occurrence of cancer several fold.

listen, if you want to eat meat then eat it. no one is telling you not to. eat it without guilt. it's your body, do with it what you want. but an honest look at comparative anatomy shows that in doing so you will be an elective omnivore rather than a designed one. the discussion is not what you want to do or what diet you or anyone elects to have. it's whether or not humans are herbivores from a functional construct and comparative anatomy standpoint. and that evidence is clear irrespective of the fact you refuse to acknowledge it and long for it not to be so.



beanbag said:


> That a human digestive tract shows similarities to herbivores does not exclude the possibility that it is best suited for omnivore.


you have thus far presented the grand sum of ZERO actual evidence to support that possibility and/or why despite the fact that the human digestive tract from lips to anus is irrefutably herbivore it should not be classified as such.

i will absolutely be the first to agree that humans are ELECTIVE omnivores. but so are some primates (at a rate of about 2-3% non-plant material or 2-3 ounces out of every 6.25 lbs of food). so are many other types of functional construct herbivores in times of crisis/famine or when their survival depends on it. however, an organism (whether human or not) ELECTING to eat meat when it's functional construct is that of an herbivores does nothing to alter said construct in any way. it simply means it has CHOSEN to ingest something its digestive tract was not designed to process.



beanbag said:


> That long ass article goes into detail on why humans are functional construct omnivores. In the time it took you to reply, you could not have read much of it at all, instead immediately calling it quackery. That doesn't sound very open minded at all. What claims does it make that are blatantly false?


or it means i've had this discussion/debate before and have seen and read that article before. the article begins by presenting assumption/supposition as fact, draws concrete conclusions and bases foundational premises on conjecture, supposition, and facts not in evidence, and basically tries to offer an explanation of why humans, though clearly having an herbivore digestive tract from lips to anus, should be classified as omnivores rather than herbivores.

as i previous said about it, i personally find it disingenuous that if such chicanery were attempted with any other clearly classified functional construct herbivore the author would be ridiculed, scorned to shame, and ostracized by being laughed out of the scientific community. only with the clearly herbivorous digestive tract of one animal is this kind of nonsensical pablum and drivel accepted as a quantitative refutation.... humans. hmmmmm..... why is that? disingenuous, dishonest, quackery, and hypocritical don't even begin to cover such a supposition/position.



monogod said:


> there are countless well documented cases of people reversing cancer simply by nutrition therapy.
> 
> 
> beanbag said:
> ...


dr. nicholas gonzalez conducted a study supervised the the national cancer institute and funded by nestle, the results of which were published in "Nutrition and Cancer" (a peer reviewed journal) and reported "the best results ever in the treatment of the disease". you wanted a case, theres one. and there are others exist as well.

additionally there are many peer reviewed studies which show that the closer one moves to a plant based diet the more the risk and occurrence of cancer decreases and that vegetarian live longer and enjoy a better quality of life specifically in their latter years.

the fact that you seem to be ignorant of nutrition therapy and think it equates to merely "eating better" does nothing to negate the fact that it has been used successfully for over a hundred years in modern medicine with outstanding success. nor does it remove the victory over cancer and cessation/reversal of disease process that lots of people enjoy yearly due to nutritional therapy.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

Who cares how prehistoric humans ate?

Its 2013. You're not Tarzan. You're not chasing down prey all day and hauling it back to your village. You're driving your car to the grocery store to buy neatly packaged, factory farmed flesh harvested from unhealthy animals that were raised on unnatural diets.

It's all a moot point, anyway. Let's all eat like people did during a time where the average life expectancy was 20 years. Sounds like a great idea.


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

ultraspontane said:


> Let's all eat like people did during a time where the average life expectancy was 20 years. Sounds like a great idea.


I totally agree with your point about the irrelevance of the (presumably highly varied) paleolithic diet.

But where'd you get 20 year life expectancy from?

I think we mostly don't have any clue, especially for the earlier homos, but there are some very old specimens with evidence of arthritis....

I've also heard arguments that agriculture and later industrialization led to some decreases in life expectancy as populations grew when harvests were good, but contracted sharply when crop or human disease came or when weather turned against them.

North American people during the woodland period, for example, were less numerous but probably lived longer and were certainly much taller than their later mississipian period semi-agrarian descendants. But this is long after modern humans evolved.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

Sorry, I was thinking about Neolithic life expectancy. After some research, upper paleolithic life expectancy is thought to be 33 years.

I don't see the point of a man living in the year 2013 walking around thinking "what would a caveman do?" We have something called science now. We have ways of finding out what foods are good for you, and what foods are bad for you.

Telling the fattest nation on the planet that eating a plate of fried sh*t for breakfast is "good for you" is just plain irresponsible. I see paleo cookbooks at the grocery store that have pictures of fried chicken on the cover. I don't believe the paleo diet is a good choice for already fit people who are concerned about long term wellness, either. Consuming copious amounts of cholesterol, saturated fat, trans fat (fried anything) and living in a perpetual state of ketosis is NOT a solution for long term wellness. It's a fad diet.

On a side note, here is my delicious lunch before I head out for a ride today: Vegan lasagna, almond kale salad w/tamari, brown rice, and carrots sauteed with maple syrup and red pepper.


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## PretendGentleman (May 24, 2011)

that's a good looking meal, ultaspontane.

My 5 minute go to lunch for replacing $6 burritos that I used to buy daily:
1 can of black or "refried" beans 
1/2 to 3/4 bag of mixed frozen vegetables
a couple of spoonfuls of plain, full-fat yogurt
chipotle peppers in adobo sauce or sriracha to taste

I just microwave the whole shebang (yogurt added after cooking) for a couple of minutes and my $1.50 lunch is ready to eat. If I'm ambitious I throw in some cheese.
prep time: 2 minutes
cook time: 3 minutes

I intend in the future to get back to cooking with dried beans, but thus far I have been too lazy/not planning sufficiently ahead.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

I'm going to create a new diet based on the Roaring Twenties. I'm going to eat lots of meat, and food filled with untested chemicals. I'm going to drink tons of milk, and smoke like a chimney. I'll get my exercise by dancing and drinking heavily at the local speak easy. And I'll top it all off by driving home drunk, and beating my girlfriend.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

The roaring 20's led to a wonderful Wikipedia tangent  I realized all I really knew about it centered around art and cultural movements, which were fabulous and quite important! Women's suffrage, to me, has always defined the 20's. Really, we could have done worse  It was pretty much the cultural pivot to catch us up with what the industrial revolution had done for the economy and technology. An era that is defined by revolutionary ideas and positive cultural growth is hardly one to turn our noses up at. People were trying new things and being adventurous with their diets, which really is the spirit of being a vegan 

Dubthang, I think you are thinking of the 50's. I would more argue the 50's were the beginning of the modern, terrible American and European diets and lifestyles. World wars over, nuclear families and white collar jobs are emphasized, all centered around television and explosive growth in advertising. Artificial foods and TV dinners, convenience and mass produced consistency were key. No prep, freezer to oven, just add water to a box of chemicals, etc. No farming needed, fully stocked grocery stores everywhere and fridges and freezers in every house. Sedentary lifestyles were the norm, and even the lower class could afford to eat the dirt cheap factory farmed meat on a regular basis. Middle class exploded, so everyone had a car, horses were only seen on farms. Smoking was promoted on kid's cartoons. DuPont and other industrial companies were busy inventing massive amounts of new, caustic, and environmentally toxic chemicals and materials that we are still trying to clean up, phase out, and convince the EPA and USDA are dangerous. Drinking was banned in the US in the 20's, if you remember, so there was a cultural outlash against it. By the 50's, a 'good little woman' at home was expected to greet her husband with a martini, and never discuss how she got that black eye. Almost undid all the hard work of the women of the 20's trying to get equal rights and treatment for themselves.

A diet based on the 20's would be an improvement over the average American diet, which has changed little since the 50's. Honestly, a Paleo diet, as ridiculous as it is, is still an improvement over the average modern one. It cuts out processed foods, at least  I won't even touch Atkins, except to point out what most already know; Dr. Atkins died of a heart attack.



> Centered on commonly available modern foods, the "contemporary" Paleolithic diet consists mainly of fish, grass-fed pasture raised meats, eggs, vegetables, fruit, fungi, roots, and nuts, and excludes grains, legumes, dairy products, potatoes, refined salt, refined sugar, and processed oils.


Which leads me to the point of my tangent (there is always one, I swear!) that perhaps the worst of the two evils (processed vs. meat) is, perhaps, processed? From what I have read and heard, it seems that a diet that is free from processed foods and chemicals is much better for us than one that is vegan, but full of processed foods.

This is a good conversation of where I think some valuable information can be found, as to whether it is the lack of processed foods that brings the most benefit to a vegan lifestyle, or if it really is all about the lack of animal products? Inherently, vegans eat less processed food simply because it is not mainstream, more food needs to be cooked at home, and those companies that make vegan convenience foods are mostly not big companies who dump the same chemicals into everything they make. Obviously a lifestyle that lacks both meat AND processed foods is the best, but I can tell you that 90% of vegans still eat processed food. High fructose corn syrup, enriched white flour, hydrogenated oils, artificial sweeteners, dyes, chemical preservatives... all the worst offenders are all still vegan and found in most common items that are technically vegan. (I have heard many vegans talk about their favorite junk food, like Oreos, which are the epitome of processed horribleness, even if it is *technically* vegan)

Are we doing more damage eating the processed food than the benefit we are gaining from not eating animal products? Should the focus be more towards getting people to stop eating processed food instead of how to sidestep animal products?

Thoughts? Resources for more information?


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Bikemaya said:


> The roaring 20's led to a wonderful Wikipedia tangent ...


Happy to create the lead. I fully agree that the 50's are way worse than the the 20's were. The 20's thing was more tongue in cheek than serious. The beginning of the 1900's was a time with plenty of experimentation with people's food and little solid research. We are still dealing with such a system, but I feel slightly safer with today's system... slightly.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

Bikemaya said:


> I won't even touch Atkins, except to point out what most already know; Dr. Atkins died of a heart attack.


complications from head trauma actually. it'd be a nice arrow to have in the quiver but at his family's direction no autopsy was performed to be able to know for sure. however, medical records requested by and accidentally sent to an anti-Atkins physician revealed he had a history of M.I., CHF, and HTN - all of which typically accompany the diet he promoted.



Bikemaya said:


> Which leads me to the point of my tangent (there is always one, I swear!) that perhaps the worst of the two evils (processed vs. meat) is, perhaps, processed? From what I have read and heard, it seems that a diet that is free from processed foods and chemicals is much better for us than one that is vegan, but full of processed foods.


interesting query, but begs a couple of questions.


how much of the diet would be made up of animal flesh and by-products? main staple or infrequent addition (i.e. used <3x weekly).
organic free range meat? eating non-organic free range meat IS eating chemically/disease laden food no different that heavily processed foods.

in order to eat animal flesh and by-products free of hormones, chemicals, disease, and GMO free one literally has to be as careful and fastidious about their diet as vegans generally are. i'd suggest that those kind of folks would generally avoid processed foods as well. be that as it may though, even infrequent ingestion of animal flesh and by-products carries with it increased risk of multiple cancers, heart disease, coronary artery disease, etc.; and although limiting to only organic/free-range would eliminate the chemcial/hormone component it will only slightly lower the risk of lifestyle diseases associated with their inclusion in the diet.



Bikemaya said:


> This is a good conversation of where I think some valuable information can be found, as to whether it is the lack of processed foods that brings the most benefit to a vegan lifestyle, or if it really is all about the lack of animal products?


although you said "most" implying one over the other i'd say the answer is "both". as you mentioned one can eat oreos, doritos (a chemical soup marketed as food), white bread and enriched grain/rice products (nutritionally empty carbs), and soda and be vegan. however, most processed foods have animal products in them either as casein (a dairy protein directly related to insulin dependent diabetes), animal fat, some sort of cheese, etc. and is one reason vegans avoid them.

are the chemicals in processed foods detrimental? certainly. but likewise detrimental is the cholesterol and fat, increased systemic acidity, lifestyle diseases, and autoimmune disorders related to animal flesh/by-product ingestion. so it's kind of like asking whether it's worse to fall from a 10th story balcony or a 12th story balcony.



Bikemaya said:


> Obviously a lifestyle that lacks both meat AND processed foods is the best, but I can tell you that 90% of vegans still eat processed food. High fructose corn syrup, enriched white flour, hydrogenated oils, artificial sweeteners, dyes, chemical preservatives... all the worst offenders are all still vegan and found in most common items that are technically vegan. (I have heard many vegans talk about their favorite junk food, like Oreos, which are the epitome of processed horribleness, even if it is *technically* vegan)


although you've made some great points i totally agree with i must say that i know a lot of vegans and in my experience the percentage that eat processed foods is around 5-8% (if that). vegetarians, however, are another story. most vegetarians i know eat lots of processed foods as they simply eschew animal flesh, but not their by-products, from their diet and are far less concerned about what they shovel down their gullets than are vegans. (not all, lest any vegetarians protest, but most that i have come across). which is interesting because technically a vegetarian is someone who doesn't eat ANY animal flesh/by-products (root of the word is "veg") and vegan used to mean someone that doesn't use ANY animal products like leather, etc. in addition to not consuming their flesh/by-products. but that's a whole other topic...

i'm not saying you're wrong, as 90% of the vegans you know may very well consume processed foods. that's simply my observation resultant to over a decade of teaching health/nutrition/wellness seminars, my experience in the medical field, travelling all over the world, living in a major city with a large vegan population/culture (austin), along with knowing/interacting with lots of vegans. most vegans i know and have come into contact with avoid processed foods for the same reason they avoid animal flesh/by-products -- they're poison to the human body (as you mentioned).



Bikemaya said:


> Are we doing more damage eating the processed food than the benefit we are gaining from not eating animal products?


again, in general that's like asking if it's worse to fall from a 10th story balcony or a 12th story balcony. both contribute to cancers, autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular, neurological, renal, and other systemic diseases.



Bikemaya said:


> Should the focus be more towards getting people to stop eating processed food instead of how to sidestep animal products?


comprehensive education on both to avoid falling from either balcony. :thumbsup:


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

Anyone here listen to the Rich Roll podcast? If not, check it out. That also goes for all of you "plant-curious" folks out there, too. Look it up on iTunes or whatever podcast client you use.


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

How come all the meat eaters come over here just to pick fights?


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## trap121 (Mar 7, 2011)

Joshua_B said:


> How come all the meat eaters come over here just to pick fights?


They feel the need to defend themselves even when not provoked. You see the same thing from atheists towards Christians. Ironic and childish.


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## richwolf (Dec 8, 2004)

trap121 said:


> They feel the need to defend themselves even when not provoked. You see the same thing from atheists towards Christians. Ironic and childish.


I think people like to defend the choices that they have made be it the type to bike they rider, their wheel size etc and their diet.
Perhaps we should start a thread on the benefits of mostly eating meat and dairy. Obviously since so many people do it, it must have some merit!
I have done a lot of research lately on diet and if you look at the facts, a plant based diet appears to be the best. Read the China Study.
I talk to a lot of people and friends about diet and it is really surprising how clueless they are in regards to it. I don't think they choose to be clueless but they just look at what everyone else eats and it must be OK, right??
I was on a bikepacking trip the last few days and we stopped into a restaurant to get breakfast. Big mistake. All I could order from the menu was 2 pieces of dry wheat toast and some hash-browns and that was the best food they had!! I looked at all the customers and the cooks and waitresses and they were all overweight, out of shape and had a layer of goo all around them. Are these people bad people? No but they are certainly ill informed on nutrition. I find it real hard to go to a restaurant anymore just because all their menu choices are so unhealthy.
And then people get diabetes, cancer, heart disease and bad knees from being overweight, but they never look at what caused it. It is always woe is me. Doc, can you fix me up? And people wonder why health care and insurance is so expensive. It is like requiring everyone to drive at least 100MPH. Don't you think car crashes and claims would go up?
I actually think it is good for meat eaters to look at this forum. If it turns a few people onto the real truth about nutrition then I think it is worth it. 
But you meat and diary consumers, bash all you want, but look in the mirror and do your own research on what is a healthy diet and what type of diet leads to a long healthful life. Initially it might be heck to change but once you do, you might never go back.
Personally I don't care what you eat. It is you who should care about what you eat. I figure the more people that die the better. Too many people on this planet anyways!


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

Spinach, Chard, and Kale salad w/avocado and a simple balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing. The greens come pre washed in a tub, simple and easy. One $3.99 tub gets me enough for 5 days of big salads.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

That looks delish!


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

I think I'll have that for dinner! ^^^


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## durianrider (Mar 16, 2009)

dubthang said:


> I'm going to create a new diet based on the Roaring Twenties. I'm going to eat lots of meat, and food filled with untested chemicals. I'm going to drink tons of milk, and smoke like a chimney. I'll get my exercise by dancing and drinking heavily at the local speak easy. And I'll top it all off by driving home drunk, and beating my girlfriend.


pretty much sums up the vegan haters out there. I used to be a ******* though. I woke up when I went vegan. Its like a light switch when you pump your body so full of plant food nutrition something changes inside.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

durianrider said:


> pretty much sums up the vegan haters out there. I used to be a ******* though. I woke up when I went vegan. Its like a light switch when you pump your body so full of plant food nutrition something changes inside.


My point wasn't to 'sum up the vegan haters,' but to make a joke about all the diet/lifestyle movements out there. Anybody with an idea can turn it into a lifestyle whether it is right or wrong in the eyes of others. I've been a vegetarian for 17 years. Doesn't mean that my lifestyle is the correct one. It's simply the way I choose to live my life. The trick is getting everybody else to put down their stones, and except other people's differences.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

dubthang said:


> My point wasn't to 'sum up the vegan haters,' but to make a joke about all the diet/lifestyle movements out there. Anybody with an idea can turn it into a lifestyle whether it is right or wrong in the eyes of others. I've been a vegetarian for 17 years. Doesn't mean that my lifestyle is the correct one. It's simply the way I choose to live my life. The trick is getting everybody else to put down their stones, and except other people's differences.


I think he was referring to the paleo-flavored vegan haters out there.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

ultraspontane said:


> I think he was referring to the paleo-flavored vegan haters out there.
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD


I understand that. Generalizing them into a group makes us no better than the others that don't understand and/or make fun.

Plus, most of the paleo folks that I know are just as passionate and understanding of their lifestyle as we are of ours.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

I'm not so sure I agree with you in thinking Durianrider made some kind of damaging statement. I understood what he was trying to say, and I happen to agree with him. He never said all paleo folks are vegan haters, as you seem to be asserting.

Also, I'm a big fan of proselytizing. Be it religion, politics, diet, whatever. Everyone should be able to throw their hat into the ring. If you believe in something, stake your claim. Don't tiptoe around on eggshells for the sake of political correctness. What do you believe? Is science on your side? Let's hear it.



Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

ultraspontane said:


> I'm not so sure I agree with you in thinking Durianrider made some kind of damaging statement. I understood what he was trying to say, and I happen to agree with him. He never said all paleo folks are vegan haters, as you seem to be asserting.
> 
> Also, I'm a big fan of proselytizing. Be it religion, politics, diet, whatever. Everyone should be able to throw their hat into the ring. If you believe in something, stake your claim. Don't tiptoe around on eggshells for the sake of political correctness. What do you believe? Is science on your side? Let's hear it.


I don't think he made a damaging statement per say... I was just trying to keep this thread on track since it was my comment that was quoted to make a point. I am partly to blame for the derailment too.


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## Z4good (Sep 14, 2012)

Yes


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Eggplant parm recipe. This was sent to me by one of my paleo leaning buddies. I used quinoa flour instead of the almond flour. It was pretty tasty.

Singles And Pairs: Primal Eggplant Parmigiana Stacker


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

^ I have no idea what that tastes like, but it looks delish! I'd have to find a substitute for the parmesan cheese, though.

I really do need better cooking chops...

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

You can make a pretty tasty cheese sauce with soy products (margarine and milk,) add in nutritional yeast, cashews, and flour. Not in that order though. Make it like one would make a regular sauce starting with a roux.


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

Anyone have any ideas for homemade vegan sports drink mixes? Or energy bars for racing?


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## GTscoob (Apr 27, 2009)

Joshua_B said:


> Anyone have any ideas for homemade vegan sports drink mixes? Or energy bars for racing?


No Meat Athlete | Vegetarian Running and Fitness

Tons of awesome vegan recipes on there. The author of that site has been turning raw over the last year or two so most of the newer articles include raw options but the older recipes arent necessarily raw.


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## Tone's (Nov 12, 2011)

Vegos n vegans are sick people in more ways than one


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

Thanks for the reply GTscoob! That is a great site!


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

ultraspontane said:


> ^ I have no idea what that tastes like, but it looks delish! I'd have to find a substitute for the parmesan cheese, though.
> 
> I really do need better cooking chops...
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD


http://forums.mtbr.com/nutrition-hydration/vegetarian-vegan-passion-730767-14.html#post9870202



Also, this is my favorite place to browse recipes: Welcome to VegWeb.com | The World's Largest Collection of Vegetarian Recipes They have reviews as well, so you can get some tips on any tweaks, as well as whether or not the recipe is even any good! Tons of recipes, and quite an active community leaving reviews. Use the search function, trust me. WAY too many tasty recipes to browse through 

Oh, and whatever you do, DO NOT LOOK AT THIS SITE! -----> vegan | TasteSpotting
You will be drooling on your keyboard for hours, most likely feeling the future pounds pack on as you declare 'MUST. MAKE. EVERYTHING!!111!!'

You're welcome.


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## Gundam168 (Dec 19, 2012)

At first I didn't hate vegans. Until they started messing with what I eat.


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

I didn't mess with what you eat, and I'm not going out of my way to talk smack on a veggie passion thread.


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## GTscoob (Apr 27, 2009)

Thug Kitchen




























Plenty more of those on the thugkitchen site.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Nature's butter, *****. Best line ever.


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## rho (Dec 13, 2007)

Bikemaya said:


> http://forums.mtbr.com/nutrition-hydration/vegetarian-vegan-passion-730767-14.html#post9870202
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Also, if anyone is near a bookstore or their amazon.com account, I've been enthralled with the veganomicon. I like these paper cookbook thingys...


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

OMFG YES!

The Veganomicon!! I have it too! I forgot to mention it!

BUY IT. Every single recipe is full of win and awesome. Really, really good stuff in there, lots of variety for all tastes, tips and tricks, tons of info and pages to explore!


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## Boyonabyke (Sep 5, 2007)

Bikemaya said:


> OMFG YES!
> 
> The Veganomicon!! I have it too! I forgot to mention it!
> 
> BUY IT. Every single recipe is full of win and awesome. Really, really good stuff in there, lots of variety for all tastes, tips and tricks, tons of info and pages to explore!


So, did you just have an "O" while posting?


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

*hides the zucchini and whistles innocently*


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## Boyonabyke (Sep 5, 2007)

Bikemaya said:


> *hides the zucchini and whistles innocently*


You didn't put that back at the supermarket, did you?


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

I used it today when cooking at work.

They say the best tasting food is made with love!! <3!!

So everyone remember to put lots of love in your cooking and ingredients, including a garden! Your cooking will be THE BEST tasting and health-wise when you know exactly what is in it, and worked hard to put lots of love into every part of it!


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## mk.ultra (Jul 17, 2012)

I recently found out I had IBS so I've switched to being fully vegan and gluten-free.

I'm no stranger to extreme diets (I've done a 22 day juice fast in the past, it was an incredible experience), and I was already contemplating going vegetarian, so it hasn't been hard for me at all.

It really just forces you to be more thoughtful about what you eat and prepare more meals for yourself. Learning how to cook is never a bad thing.

I've been on the diet for a few weeks now and I'm very slowly starting to see symptoms subside. Definitely going to stick with this as a lifelong dietary commitment!


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## mk.ultra (Jul 17, 2012)

lollllll repped the dude who posted the Thug Kitchen link


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

^^^^
Really? It only sucks when people drag it down. Congrats on adding to the suck factor.

Time to counter the suck with some more Thug Kitchen.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Fun commercial.






Silk Milk from CINEMA SCOTT on Vimeo.


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## mk.ultra (Jul 17, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> Fun commercial.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Lol. "He's got some serious nuts."

"Almonds!"

In my opinion soy milk tastes the best (Silk), coconut milk is pretty good (So Delicious), and I'm not really a fan of almond milk (Silk).


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

I find uses for each type of milk. As a reference, I found hemp milk to be the thickest and creamiest, and rice to be the thinnest. Soy is fairly thick, almond is in the middle. Westsoy is awful, spend the extra few cents for something better. Trader joe's house brand of all milks is comparable to the high end stuff. It is also the cheapest (actually, westsoy is a few cents less, but not worth it). Blends seem to be popular right now, but I am not crazy about any of them. Coconut milks, which seem to be different than the full-fat cream stuff in cans, has hit the market in the last year or so. Thicker than rice, thinner than almond. I like it for cereal! Tried it in baking, a bit too thin. Great for asian cooking, however, when you want to make a low-fat version of something that calls for the coconut milk cream. Adds flavor without all the oil. A bit of dehydrated coconut makes it perfect!

Luckily, all of the milks are shelf-stable, so I keep as full of variety as i can find on hand at all times.  And, if a disaster strikes, I have nutritionally complete meals on the shelf that require no prep, have a large chunk of water requirements, and enough of it to last at least a couple weeks.  **** spam, these milk-alternatives should be lining the shelves of bunkers and being sent in MREs!


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

I can't say I'm 100% vegetarian but my gf is and I eat about 90% veg (even on my own) so am I allowed on this thread? 

A really good resource for recipes and such is nomeatathlete.com

A favorite recipe of mine is Portobello Philly "Cheese Steaks"

Slice up some large portobello mushrooms and saute them in oil.
Slice up onions, peppers and saute in oil, after about 2min add choice of hot sauce, soy, worcestershire, etc. Add mushrooms to onions and peppers and saute for another 5min.

Place mixture on roll with cheese and enjoy.

(You can not use Worcestershire and use daiya instead of real cheese if you are full vegan)


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Just a heads up about worcestershire sauce... it isn't technically vegetarian. It has anchovy paste in it! There are vegan alternatives out there, though I honestly don't know what they are called.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Showdown Kale vs Spinach: Which is healthier?

I love both but since I discovered kale a few years ago, I am leaning toward kale. Found this easy read article that confirms my preference. But nutritionally they are both aces!

Kale vs Spinach: Which Is Healthier?

"Verdict: While kale is a better source for some essential vitamins and minerals - including manganese, copper, calcium, and vitamins A, C, B6, and K - spinach is a richer source of folate and an equally good source of iron and fibre. And both foods are very healthy choices! Kale might have the edge here, but spinach is no slouch."


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

Kale chips with nooch FTW!!!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

N1kk0 said:


> Kale chips with nooch FTW!!!


Love dem Kale chips!

"Nooch:
Nutritional yeast, the pungent yellow vitamin B-12-filled flakes loved by vegans everywhere. It tastes delicious in cheezy sauces and many other dishes. The term "nooch" was coined by the PPK.

Oh no, I'm out of nooch! However will I make macaroni and cheeze?" Urban Dictionary


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

cyclelicious said:


> Love dem Kale chips!
> 
> "Nooch:
> Nutritional yeast, the pungent yellow vitamin B-12-filled flakes loved by vegans everywhere. It tastes delicious in cheezy sauces and many other dishes. The term "nooch" was coined by the PPK.
> ...


Spot on!!


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

Yeah kale chips are awesome.

My sister is a vegan, used to be raw only. She is raising her 3 yo son as a vegan, it seems to be working. But you can always spot the vegans -- the long drawn out look, droopy skin. I was semi vegetarian for a while up until earlier this year, not eating a lot of animal products, but a little bit. I saw the same skeleton emerging in my face so now I've upped my animal protein intake -- I eat an organic free range egg every day and also some organic whey powder. Still eat lots of the good plant products too.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

Mark_BC said:


> you can always spot the vegans -- the long drawn out look, droopy skin.


or not.

i certainly don't fit that bill, nor do most any of the vegans i know.

that being said i'll certainly concede that many vegans do look that way. however, the only vegans i know that look like concentration camp surviors are those ignorant on proper diet.


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

Ya maybe I just don't notice the vegans that don't look like that... You have to do veganism properly, or you risk malnourishment. It can be done, though.


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## steelhmr (Sep 30, 2011)

You should try spotting me sometime? I'm the one lifting the most weight at my gym and with the best legs


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

So I recently committed to being vegan/vegetarian 100%. Researched it a bunch from sites like No Meat Athlete and looked a lot into Brendan Brazier's stuff and I feel like I got a pretty good handle on what I need to eat and all that.

I gotta say, it is better than expected. I decided to go vegan for environmental reasons and I didn't really think I'd see much benefit physically because I ate pretty healthy before. But I am 2.5 weeks into a serious training block and I do not feel worn down at all. I'm not sore. I can tell I worked out but the aches and pains I usually got are not there. And I'm well rested. I'm recovering great and I can hit every workout really hard which is awesome.


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

Mark_BC said:


> But you can always spot the vegans -- the long drawn out look, droopy skin.


Hahaha, I have literally NEVER met anyone who looked like that in the 5 plus years I've been vegan. That sounds more like a heroin addict


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

N1kk0 said:


> Hahaha, I have literally NEVER met anyone who looked like that in the 5 plus years I've been vegan. That sounds more like a heroin addict


rofl! :thumbsup:


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## Nico_Was_Here (Jul 22, 2013)

Soysauges, Fakon (Meatless Bacon), Veggie Burgers, etc 

Vegetarians and Vegans going through the transition from meat eater to Vegan/Vegetarian usually want familiar tasting foods.. And some people crave the taist but would rather have a healthier substitute...


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## kubikeman (Jun 4, 2010)

Thought I'd share dinner from a couple nights ago. First let me start of by admitting I'm an apple whore, a total addict if you will.

We started with a sliced up Braeburn apple and maybe a teaspoon of sunflower oil in the pan. Saute for a couple minutes.

Then add a good (1) tablespoon plus of honey and let the apples begin to caramelize.

Once they're caramelized, remove the pan from the heat and add 1 tablespoon and a half of red/white wine vinegar, a couple (2) teaspoons of whole grain mustard and another (1) tablespoon of oil. Stir the apples around to get all the ingredients to mix and let cool slightly.

Serve slightly warm over dark greens (we used spinach), toasted walnuts and crumbles of blue cheese.


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## N1kk0 (Jan 24, 2013)

That sounds really good!


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## amabala (May 21, 2013)

Vegan Mango Milkshake:thumbsup:


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

you need a vita-mix!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

monogod said:


> you need a vita-mix!


lol I thought that blender was going to blow chunks!

The frozen mango is a good idea :thumbsup:


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

This has got to be one of my favorite recipes. Quick easy and the leftovers are amazing. The other recipes on this site are pretty top notch too.

Hawaiian Beans and Rice Recipe | No Meat Athlete


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

Anyone else notice that they seem to recover from hard exercise significantly faster after they switched to a plant based diet?


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

Yeah definitely. And I don't think it's a placebo effect because I made the switch more for environmental reasons. I felt I was eating healthy before (and I was) but I absolutely don't feel that chronic aching I did before I switched.


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

ultraspontane said:


> Anyone else notice that they seem to recover from hard exercise significantly faster after they switched to a plant based diet?


No, I recover from hard exercise better if I make sure to meet my daily requirement of x grams of protein per y pounds of body weight. Although I feel a general weakness if I don't have enough vegetables over a long period of time.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

beanbag said:


> No, I recover from hard exercise better if I make sure to meet my daily requirement of x grams of protein per y pounds of body weight. Although I feel a general weakness if I don't have enough vegetables over a long period of time.


Are you following a 100% plant based diet?


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

ultraspontane said:


> Are you following a 100% plant based diet?


No, I would die of unhappiness if I tried that.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

beanbag said:


> No, I would die of unhappiness if I tried that.


Well, you're not qualified to answer the question then, are you?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

I know I already answered but here's an article I found on a guy who hiked the Pacific Crest trail (all of it) in less than 60 days. He credits a vegan diet to helping him recover day after day.
A vegan who chewed up the Pacific Crest Trail - latimes.com
I like what he says when he gets asked how he gets protein:
"I get my protein the same way a gorilla does, or a wild mustang or an elephant"
It boggles my mind that people think we have more need for protein than a half ton cow or elephant. I thought this even before I was vegan.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

I don't think that my plant based diet helps me recover any quicker than anybody else's diet. I've been meat free for 18 years so I can't really compare it to much, but there are plenty of days when I'm dragging ass. I think proper sleep, hydration, and training have more to do with it. That, and making sure I ingest a good mix of proteins, carbs, and good fats.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

dubthang said:


> I don't think that my plant based diet helps me recover any quicker than anybody else's diet. I've been meat free for 18 years so I can't really compare it to much, but there are plenty of days when I'm dragging ass. I think proper sleep, hydration, and training have more to do with it. That, and making sure I ingest a good mix of proteins, carbs, and good fats.


^^^This.

Any number of those mentioned factors affect me the most. Plant-based mostly just provided an overall sense of well being, much of it mental. It also forced me to pay close attention to what I was eating, so I would normally get the things I didn't when being careless.

Physically, the affects were minor over plain proper diet. I had less stomach problems due to my own personal body quirks, and, as mentioned before, when I actually balance stuff and eat what I am supposed to, the affects are felt.

I strongly feel that animal products *can* be consumed and a person can have the same benefits of a pure plant based diet as long as they maintain balance and listen to their body (like avoiding dairy for those who are more sensitive to it). The vast majority of people don't, and there are plenty of vegans, especially young ones, who still eat junk and don't get any benefits because of it. Oreos and french fries are vegan, but living on those will result in a far less healthy person than someone who eats lean meats and fish in proper proportions. The mental aspect is the BIGGEST boundary in the vast majority of poor diets. This actually has studies to back it up, and why the diet industry is so successful, yet obesity is still a critical problem, and getting worse. If it takes a hamburger a week to get someone to eat their veggies and cut back on the junk for the other 6 days, than dammit, that hamburger is healthier than an extra kale salad! Good for you if eating properly only requires as much willpower as waking up for work in the morning. Keep rocking the healthy lifestyle! Most people need more help than you, so compromises need to be made to get the help where it is needed most. A bit of bedside manner, so to speak, to show empathy to how they feel, understanding for them personally, and a willingness to meet someone halfway to help them, instead of telling them to meet you at the finish line. I hope some doctors and nutritionists read this and take it to heart. Of course, every once in a while, someone just needs a plain 'ol kick in the ass when good bedside manner fails. It's a case by case deal. 

Veganism and vegetarianism provide really easy to follow templates for people who need to crack down on their diet. No books to consult, or celebrity fad diets to pay for, simply reading labels and googling will give you all you answers to get started. For the extremely noobish dieters, those who need drastic changes, or those with very specific dietary needs, all the help needed can be found from the majority of nutritionists out there. And, nutritionists are _gladly_ covered by every insurance plan. Atkins is not. In fact, some even provide you plan discounts for doing so. They practically BEG you to see them!


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

^^^^
Well said.

I don't push my diet on others because what I do may not be right for somebody else. However, eating smartly is the correct thing for everybody. I'm sure that none of us eat a perfect diet. I know that I have an ongoing issue with sugar consumption. I eat way less of it than the normal American, but I'm still trying to eat even less of it. That ish is like crack, and on days when I haven't had a solid breakfast and/or lunch, a bag of Sour Patch Kids becomes very tempting. 

If there is one thing that everybody can learn from this thread, it's that there is no one correct diet for everybody, but that we all should try to eat as healthy as we see fit.


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## Tone's (Nov 12, 2011)

Vegos and vegans look a bit sick, and they seem to fart a lot and be very pasty looking like they are just about to die.
Is this a road i want to go down?
Surely fish and chicken is ok to eat and is beneficial to a healthy life?


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

If they look sick they are doin it wrong.

Due to factory farming and polluted water filled with mercury, you need to be very careful with chicken and fish. You can make yourself sick, even if prepared healthily.

Actually, too much fish explains a LOT about you, Tone's.  Ever hear of Mad Hatter disease? It's a real thing. Happened in the Victorian era to hatters who used mercury to make the velvet hats that were so popular. They went crazy from sniffing the fumes, and acted just like the mad hatter in Alice in Wonderland! Fish are heavily polluted by mercury, which sticks in their bodies. Certain fish will give you a yearly dosage of the stuff in just a few servings. Not sure what the water quality is like down under, but anything near factories or from rivers that factories have ever dumped waste in, are contaminated with dangerous levels of the stuff. The worst part is, most of it travels from coal factories, so it spreads to areas that don't have them. And the fish will move around, eating contaminated fish, then being eaten and contaminating fish in a new area. Huge mess.

But we still love ya, Tone's. Mad Hatter diseased and all. <3


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

Tone's said:


> Vegos and vegans look a bit sick, and they seem to fart a lot and be very pasty looking like they are just about to die.
> Is this a road i want to go down?
> Surely fish and chicken is ok to eat and is beneficial to a healthy life?


You're an idiot. You keep proving it over and over again.


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

Bikemaya said:


> If they look sick they are doin it wrong.
> 
> Due to factory farming and polluted water filled with mercury, you need to be very careful with chicken and fish. You can make yourself sick, even if prepared healthily.
> 
> ...


Good post. I have to say that years ago when I went through the effort of juicing every day I could go all day without eating and not get tired. I am going to try to get back into it.

Regarding mercury in fish, you want to avoid old fish, like big tuna and swordfish. Salmon are good because they don't live long but they accumulate PCB's and all that other nasty hydrophobic toxic stuff we dump everywhere. Sockeye are the best since they feed on krill whereas other salmon feed on little fish, one step up the food chain and therefore with 10X greater toxin accumulation. However, there's only so much sockeye to go around.

My roomate just left for a month and he left a chicken carcass in the fridge, just a regular non-organic one. I can't let food go to waste so I ate a bunch, and I'm not feeling too well. We'll see how I do tomorrow..


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## guamjim (Jun 3, 2013)

> Vegos and vegans look a bit sick, and they seem to fart a lot and be very pasty looking like they are just about to die.
> Is this a road i want to go down?
> Surely fish and chicken is ok to eat and is beneficial to a healthy life?


I'm sure you are a very clever and witty fellow, but why can't you save this brand of crap for the Off Camber threads.


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## Tone's (Nov 12, 2011)

guamjim said:


> I'm sure you are a very clever and witty fellow, but why can't you save this brand of crap for the Off Camber threads.


Cheers mate, but by the look of your avatar, you are exactly what im talking about.......
And i dont see my post as crap at all, see here in Aus we dont take ourselves to seriously, lifes about laughing and being able to laugh at ourselves and others, maybe your life might have a bit more joy in it if you didnt take yourself and others so seriously, cheers mate, and dont forget to smile, the world looks different when you smile, learn to laugh at yourself and others, we will all be dead one day, and theres not much laughing or smilin you can do from 6 foot under....


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## Tone's (Nov 12, 2011)

ultraspontane said:


> You're an idiot. You keep proving it over and over again.


Mate, dont come down to an idiots level, They will hammer you with experience.
And only idiots bother with talking to idiots, so its not looking good for you is it?

Cheers:thumbsup:


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## alphazz (Oct 12, 2012)

Anonymous said:


> I have a lot of respect for vegans. Along with a lot of pity.


Respect because those of us who are true vegetarians can out ride you meat eaters and pity because we usually ride alone at the front of the pack.


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

Tone's said:


> Vegos and vegans look a bit sick, and they seem to fart a lot and be very pasty looking like they are just about to die.


Maybe it's a B12 deficiency.


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

Bikemaya said:


> ^^^This.
> 
> [plus some other stuff]


^^^ This x2


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

B12 deficiency is rare. Only a small number of people develop b12 deficiency, and most of them eat meat.

Anyway, I've cleaned up my diet quite a bit in the last month. I've been on a 100% plant based diet for a years now, but ate junk food like desserts and other processed food. Now, Im using my vitamix for two big green smoothies a day, and eating mostly fresh whole food. Lots of fresh, whole foods and no packaged, processed crap. 

What a difference. My recovery time between workouts is much faster. I killed myself with heavy kettlebells yesterday, today I feel barely anything in the way of soreness. I hit the trails more times a week for hard rides, sometimes for several consecutive days in a row. Was never able to feel this good sustaining that activity level before.


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## alphazz (Oct 12, 2012)

What kind of smoothies are you making in your Vitamix?


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## GFisher2001 (Mar 16, 2006)

Frozen bananas, rice milk, frozen strawberries. Awesome, simple.

I thought my wife should be committed when she wanted to buy a Vitamix for $300+, now we use it 4 or 5 times a week. It will shred frozen bananas and strawberries easily.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

alphazz said:


> What kind of smoothies are you making in your Vitamix?


Green smoothies. My favorite is frozen pineapple, frozen mango, a huge handful of fresh kale and/or spinach, with a serving of hemp protein.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

I LOVE hemp protein! Easy on the stomach, and makes me poop like a champ!


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## beanbag (Nov 20, 2005)

beanbag said:


> No, I recover from hard exercise better if I make sure to meet my daily requirement of x grams of *protein* per y pounds of body weight.





ultraspontane said:


> Anyway, I've cleaned up my diet quite a bit in the last month.* I've been on a 100% plant based diet for a years now, but ate junk food like desserts and other processed food.* Now, Im using my vitamix for* two big green smoothies a day*, and eating mostly fresh whole food.
> 
> What a difference. My recovery time between workouts is much faster.Was never able to feel this good sustaining that activity level before.





ultraspontane said:


> Green smoothies. My favorite is frozen pineapple, frozen mango, a huge handful of fresh kale and/or spinach, *with a serving of hemp protein.*


Yeah, makes sense to me.


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

No one is disputing that protein is a critical part of recovering no matter what diet you follow. Let's all stop fighting over what "diet"/lifestyle/whatever you wanna call it is better than the other and just ride bikes.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

KevinShoes said:


> No one is disputing that protein is a critical part of recovering no matter what diet you follow. Let's all stop fighting over what "diet"/lifestyle/whatever you wanna call it is better than the other and just ride bikes.


Kevin, you're missing the point. My bike is better than yours, and you should only ride what I ride.


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## ultraspontane (May 26, 2011)

beanbag said:


> Yeah, makes sense to me.


Yeah? And guess what hemp is. What is it? That's right, a plant.

Amazing, right?


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## FatCloud (May 6, 2013)

I had no idea this was here.

I am stoked.

Anyone got any great vegan on bike bar recipes? I'm getting bored of the usual Clif Bar regiment (plus I think that I need a higher sugar to protein lean while on the bike). I also realized I need half a bottle of water with a Cliff Bar they are so dry.

I saw some nice sushi rice "bars" someone made once, anyone try those?


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## tednugent (Apr 16, 2009)

FatCloud said:


> I saw some nice sushi rice "bars" someone made once, anyone try those?


They are Allen Lim's rice cakes. It can be vegan, vegetarian or meaty.

Sent from my iPhone. There may be horrible grammar and misspelling involved


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

I'm sure these aren't the bars you're referring to but I really like Amrita bars. No soy, nuts or dairy and they are primarily date based with some brown rice protein. They actually taste good too. The first (and only) energy bar that I'll actually eat because it tastes good too even when I'm not riding.

Amrita Health Foods


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

I got a magic bullet for Christmas. Anyone have good recipes? I've got the obvious in smoothies/hummus but I know some people can make "cream" sauces with nuts or something for it.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

KevinShoes said:


> I got a magic bullet for Christmas. Anyone have good recipes? I've got the obvious in smoothies/hummus but I know some people can make "cream" sauces with nuts or something for it.


Regular Cheese Sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp Vegan Margarine, such as Earth Balance (found at most stores) 
2 1/2 Tbsp flour
2 cups nondairy milk, divided (I use soy. Make sure it is unsweetened!)
4 ounces pimentos
2 1/2 tsp regular red label 'Spike' spice mix
3 Tbsp dehydrated onions
3-4 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
black pepper, to taste
5 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
1/4 cup raw cashews
1 tablespoon lemon juice, more to taste 
arrowroot, as needed to thicken (around 2 tsp. Mix well with a small amount of COLD water before adding in!)

Blend together cashews, pimentos, and a few tablespoons of soymilk (don't be afraid to use too much, you just need some moisture so the cashews will blend into a puree) and set aside. Make a rue with margarine and flour. Add the remaining soymilk to the rue and cook down on medium low heat for a few minutes. Add the cashew puree and all the spices and cook down for around 5 minutes, or until thick. Add cornstarch only if you need it to thicken the sauce more. The lemon juice makes the sauce taste more 'sharp', like sharper cheddar. Try the sauce with the 1 tbsp, and add a bit more, teaspoon at a time, to adjust the flavor to be a bit more bold. Or, leave it out all together to make it more mellow.

You can also use a bit of plain old yellow mustard to give it a nice bold flavor instead of the lemon juice, or use it together with the lemon juice. Experiment! Feel free to add more spices to it for specific uses, like some canned chilies and olives for nachos. You can make a great Alfredo sauce for pasta or a white vegan lasagna (crumble some tofu and fresh spinach between the layers and pour this sauce on top of the layers). To make Alfredo, use only the rue, soy milk, cashews, garlic powder, a bit of salt, bit of pepper, and an Italian seasoning blend!

Smokey Chipotle Cheese Sauce
2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tablespoons chickpea flour (or other gluten-free flour)
2 cups non-dairy milk of choice (make sure it is unsweetened!)
4 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
2 chipotles in adobo sauce, chopped (use only 1 if you don't like really spicy!)
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1 Tbsp African Smoke spice mix (from Trader Joes)
2 tsp 21 seasoning mix (from Trader Joes)
2 tsp regular red label Spike spice mix (found at most grocery stores, Clark's should have it)
1 Tbsp 'low sodium' yellow label Spike spice mix (Clark's had it)
2 cups Daiya cheddar (one 8-ounce package), OR 5 oz 'Hickory Smoked' cheese spread (found at Clark's Nutrition. I think it was cheaper than Daiya, and I thought it tasted WAY better too!)
Directions:
Melt coconut oil in a medium-size saucepan over medium heat. Add chickpea flour, whisking until smooth. Cook into a rue by stirring constantly until the mixture begins to just barely brown.* Add non-dairy milk and Nutritional Yeast and whisk continually for 5 minutes (to avoid lumps) until thickened. Remove from heat and add chopped chipotles as well as a couple tablespoons of adobo sauce from the can (to taste), and all the spices; stir to combine. Gradually add Daiya cheddar or cheese spread, whisking as you do so, until smooth consistency is reached (may take a few minutes).

*Some people say it smells like buttered popcorn when it reaches this point, and that is how you know it is ready! You can find lots of videos online that show you how to make it, so head on over to Youtube and practice a bit before you plan to make the sauce. Rue is the secret to the BEST vegan sauces, and it is SO easy to make once you get it down!


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

To make a plain cream sauce you can add anything to, I wing it. Here is the gist;

Cook diced onion in a sucepan, using your favorite oil or vegan margarine. Use enough oil to make a rue with the oil. Once the onions are translucent and have cooked their flavor in the oil, remove the onion with slotted spoon and set aside, reserving the oil for rue. Make the rue. Add soy milk, mix thoroughly, and cook on low heat. Bend together about 2 cups soy or almond milk (unsweetened), a handful of tofu chunks, and a handful of cashews. Add more tofu if it is runny, more milk if thick. You want it like a cream. Add to rue and soymilk, and cook until thick. Season it as you want, salt will be essential at the least. Add the onion back in there too while it is cooking down, unless you hate the stuff!

That is basically how you make a really nice vegan 'mother sauce' (bechamel). It is used as the base for all cream sauces, and you can make large batches and freeze small bags of it so you always have some around.

I make this stuff with a magic bullet too, only cause I don't have the counter space for a real blender or the money for something better. The bullet overheats with more than a couple minutes of use, and it doesn't like to blend thick or solid stuff. It sucks at making pesto. It works great for these sauces, though! I just get annoyed at how limited and picky the thing is...


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

Can anyone confirm or deny if this product is vegan friendly? Some of the ingredients I am having a hard time trying to find their source.
Herbalife24 | Hydrate


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

KevinShoes said:


> Can anyone confirm or deny if this product is vegan friendly? Some of the ingredients I am having a hard time trying to find their source.
> Herbalife24 | Hydrate


"natural flavors" can include ANYTHING - including beaver anal glands (actually used in a LOT of stuff), tallow, animal based by-products, plant based sources, and so forth. so without knowing the source of the natural flavors it would be hard to say, but given the product chances are they are from a plant based source.

the calcium lactate is another one that could go either way. it can be culled from both dairy and non-dairy sources.

vegan wolf has a great ingredient/source list with a lot of other good info. linky


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

Thanks. It's surprising to me that a company called HERBalife has so many products that have whey in them this was the only one that didn't.

Surprising calcium lactate is vegan (that one I was able to find) but a lot of these ingredients I can't tell if they are synthesized or from milk or anything. Thanks for the link.


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## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

KevinShoes said:


> Thanks. It's surprising to me that a company called HERBalife has so many products that have whey in them this was the only one that didn't.
> 
> Surprising calcium lactate is vegan (that one I was able to find) but a lot of these ingredients I can't tell if they are synthesized or from milk or anything. Thanks for the link.


Massachusetts Senator calls for probe into Herbalife, shares drop - Yahoo Finance


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

For reference here's a link for a list 9 Everyday Products You Didn't Know Had Animal Ingredients. (some I was aware of but some I learned something new)









9 Everyday Products You Didn't Know Had Animal Ingredients : TreeHugger


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## tednugent (Apr 16, 2009)

KevinShoes said:


> Thanks. It's surprising to me that a company called HERBalife has so many products that have whey in them this was the only one that didn't.
> 
> Surprising calcium lactate is vegan (that one I was able to find) but a lot of these ingredients I can't tell if they are synthesized or from milk or anything. Thanks for the link.


Their Rebuild Endurance & Strength contains milk protein concentrate & whey protein isolate.

Formula 1 Sport has Milk protein

Prolong has Whey Protein isolate

read the ingredients.... it's available on their website.


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## tednugent (Apr 16, 2009)

So, what can I do with nutritional yeast? Nuked kale chips with Nootch?... I would like to work my way towards eventually trying a Mac & Cheese....


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

I know people who use it like parmesan cheese and just sprinkle it on pastas. When I make mac and sheese I'll usually combine it with some earth balance and nooch. I'll add a little daiya to help thicken it.


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## alphazz (Oct 12, 2012)

tednugent said:


> So, what can I do with nutritional yeast? Nuked kale chips with Nootch?... I would like to work my way towards eventually trying a Mac & Cheese....


It's really good on popcorn.


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## tednugent (Apr 16, 2009)

Finally picked up Brendan Brazier's book... Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life

Barely made it into Chapter 1 and found it very interesting thus far


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## tednugent (Apr 16, 2009)

Lunch
Kale Salad... with blueberries, mushrooms, chick peas, tempeh (eaten already), toasted oat bread with raw garlic rubbed on, a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.... dressing (EVOO, Grey Poupon, Balsamic Vinegar, Italian Seasoning)....


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Regarding nooch;

If you get the 'low sodium' (yellow label) Spike seasoning, it has nooch in it! It is great on, like, everything. 

Also;



AZ said:


> Massachusetts Senator calls for probe into Herbalife, shares drop - Yahoo Finance


....I thought everyone knew they were a pyramid scheme?! To be honest, I am shocked and appalled they are even still in business. What a freaking scam that company is. Just another company founded on a bunch of BS, riding the billions and billions of dollar weight-loss industry in the US. Everyone in the 90's who I knew that tried their weight loss drops and vitamins/supplements knew it was a scam, and were stuck with all kinds of product they couldn't move.

Stay away, people! There are plenty of fine protein supplements out there, and less questionably sourced herbal ones. There are also eons more supplements that only relieve you of excess money than ones that help you in any way, and herbalife excels in selling the former.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

Bikemaya said:


> If you get the 'low sodium' (yellow label) Spike seasoning, it has nooch in it! It is great on, like, everything.


"sodium" is not the issue with salt, it's what the processing does to the salt and how this subsequently affects the body.

avoid ALL salt is not 100% pure evaporated sea salt or raw mined salt. a tiny bit of sea salt goes a LOT farther than processed table salt. also, processed table salt is kiln fired which destroys pretty much all the mineral content. evaporated sea salt and raw salt have 80+ minerals the body needs for optimal physiological and mental health. lithium is but one example.

also, be careful using salt substitutes as many contain potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride. this is a problem for lots of folks.



Bikemaya said:


> Stay away, people! There are plenty of fine protein supplements out there, and less questionably sourced herbal ones. There are also eons more supplements that only relieve you of excess money than ones that help you in any way, and herbalife excels in selling the former.


or just eat a proper plant based diet and there is no need to supplement.


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## Bikemaya (Sep 24, 2012)

Spike ® Vegit Magic! | Spike

The low sodium Spike, apparently also known as Veg-it. It contains naturally occurring MSG instead of salt, which helps give the 'umami' flavor. For the wary, despite the bad press and many extensive studies, there is no evidence that MSG is harmful in the amounts used for seasoning. Google it to make up your own minds about whether you want to believe the press and stories. You use such a small amount, and it both occurs naturally and has been available as a concentrated extract for so long, if there was a problem with it there would be evidence of it by now. I avoided it myself until I reasearched it. I don't sweat it anymore.


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## clarkrw3 (Feb 21, 2011)

My wife keeps up a blog that has great easy Vegan recipes it's

Easy Vegetarian Cuisine


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

Bikemaya said:


> Spike ® Vegit Magic! | Spike
> 
> The low sodium Spike, apparently also known as Veg-it. It contains naturally occurring MSG instead of salt, which helps give the 'umami' flavor. For the wary, despite the bad press and many extensive studies, there is no evidence that MSG is harmful in the amounts used for seasoning. Google it to make up your own minds about whether you want to believe the press and stories. You use such a small amount, and it both occurs naturally and has been available as a concentrated extract for so long, if there was a problem with it there would be evidence of it by now. I avoided it myself until I reasearched it. I don't sweat it anymore.


just a friendly head's up, maya... hydrolyzed soy protein (the "umami" in spike, accent, etc.) isn't naturally occurring but is actually very heavily processed.

the process of extracting seed oils from soybeans leaves behind dehulled, defatted soy protein meal. this is either fed to cattle, spray-dried into "texturized soy protein", or "hydrolyzed" to make a flavor enhancer.

the hydrolysis occurs by dropping the protein into a vat of sulfuric acid and boiled for up to a day to break down the proteins, then lye is added to return the pH to neutral.

the end result is the highly processed and refined "hydrolyzed soy protein".

just thought you might find that interesting.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

clarkrw3 said:


> My wife keeps up a blog that has great easy Vegan recipes it's
> 
> Easy Vegetarian Cuisine


great resource! thanks for sharing :thumbsup:


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## Poe4soul (Nov 18, 2012)

monogod said:


> just a friendly head's up, maya... hydrolyzed soy protein (the "umami" in spike, accent, etc.) isn't naturally occurring but is actually very heavily processed.
> 
> the process of extracting seed oils from soybeans leaves behind dehulled, defatted soy protein meal. this is either fed to cattle, spray-dried into "texturized soy protein", or "hydrolyzed" to make a flavor enhancer.
> 
> ...


Well, that sounds tasty!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A well written article in Rolling Stone by Moby explaining why he is vegan









Moby: Why I'm Vegan | Culture News | Rolling Stone


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The truth about baby carrots!









The Truth About Baby Carrots - 100 Days of Real Food


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

Here is a good read for the veggies out there.
Is Israel Going to Be the First Vegan Nation?The Vegan Woman


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## zaphen (May 13, 2014)

i love my being a vegan never will go back ^^ !


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## wingerak92 (Apr 15, 2014)

Went through this whole thread, its quite interesting. Lots of good resources. Slowly, very slowly I am sliding towards plant based diet. I was on it last year and felt way better, but I slipped back out of it due to laziness. The peer pressure is annnoying as heck too.
I am surprised this site hasn't been mentioned yet!
Vega Recipe Center - Vegan Recipes and Plant-Based Meals


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

Vega and Brendan Brazier (the founder) do know quite a bit about vegan nutrition. Although I found some of the recipes a bit inaccessible. Seriously, where the hell do I find dulse and why does it cost 25 bucks a pound? I don't got time/money for that. I also wasn't the biggest fan of his book (it's called Thrive if you are so inclined). He made a lot of bold claims about veganism, he didn't back up with references (like saying its impossible for vegans to get cancer). But Vega's stuff is definitely a good resource if you're looking for some ideas on what you should incorporate into your diet and you realize its more marketing for his products which I hear are top notch.

On a more positive note, the Engine 2 stuff is fantastic. I have yet to find a recipe I don't like from there (the wild rice tacos are aces). The Engine 2 Diet


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## wingerak92 (Apr 15, 2014)

KevinShoes said:


> Vega and Brendan Brazier (the founder) do know quite a bit about vegan nutrition. Although I found some of the recipes a bit inaccessible. Seriously, where the hell do I find dulse and why does it cost 25 bucks a pound? I don't got time/money for that. I also wasn't the biggest fan of his book (it's called Thrive if you are so inclined). He made a lot of bold claims about veganism, he didn't back up with references (like saying its impossible for vegans to get cancer). But Vega's stuff is definitely a good resource if you're looking for some ideas on what you should incorporate into your diet and you realize its more marketing for his products which I hear are top notch.
> 
> On a more positive note, the Engine 2 stuff is fantastic. I have yet to find a recipe I don't like from there (the wild rice tacos are aces). The Engine 2 Diet


Oh yeah, I take any claim with a grain of salt. I like feeling good, so I use that as my guide for my diet. If I eat meat I feel worse than when I don't, especially when I go a while without eating it. 
I did notice, living in the centre of the continent, vegetarian fare is hard to come by...


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## monzie (Aug 5, 2009)

KevinShoes said:


> ... he didn't back up with references (like saying its impossible for vegans to get cancer). ...The Engine 2 Diet


He may be basing that statement on a research paper and series of meta-data analysis from T. Collin Campbell that's pretty startling in it's implication of casein being a key factor in the creation of foci. He wrote a book called "The China Study" which is well cited and a great read. Highly recommend.


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

+1 on the China study!


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## alphazz (Oct 12, 2012)

++1 on the China Study.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

and another! :thumbsup:


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

I'm trying to find some good quick and easy meals/recipes, anyone want to post up what they eat on a daily basis?


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## jjdoyle (Jul 16, 2013)

Joshua_B said:


> I'm trying to find some good quick and easy meals/recipes, anyone want to post up what they eat on a daily basis?


Varies very little for me but here it goes going to sound boring:

Im no expert been Vegan 1 1/2 yr. But heres what works for me

Bananas 7-10 for a meal

Cereal that is made of mostly Corn add in some sugar about 600 cals worth

1 cup Quaker Oatmeal 1/2 cup almond milk 1/2 cup water tsp cinnamon, tsp sugar, handful raisins let soak over night. Microwave next morning add in cut up banana or strawberries

Apples 3 for snacks throughout day

Rice and Black Beans about 3 cups cooked rice 1 cup beans

Sweet Corn is always good

Dates for pre-ride meals

Whole watermelons eat alot of melon this time of year

Grapes, blueberries, any fruit really

Salads quick spring mix from sams or costco just add some fat free dairy free dressing

Baked potatoes without all the dairy, I do green onions and some salt

Make sure your getting your calories and sugars

Wife makes alot of vegan dinners from here: Vegan Recipes by Angela Liddon | Oh She Glows

She just got her cookbook and pretty good. I get on her for the ones that use oil thought to try and not use it.

And if you havent done so check out durianriders on youtube. He has a 30 day what he eats to stay lean like a kenyan series.


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

Thanks you eat about like me, as I was reading your post I thought of durianrider. I following him on youtube. Ya he has some really cool vids that are very informative, thanks for your reply.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This supermarket came Up with a brilliant way to keep food from going to waste

The French supermarket chain Intermarche started selling imperfect, unattractive fruits and vegetables at a 30% discount over the pretty ones, to raise awareness about food waste (these are generally thrown out). They also sold soups and juices made from them.

It's a smart way to steer people to food quality, rather than its appearance.﻿


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

Maybe an american supermarket chain should follow..... Great idea!


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## clarkrw3 (Feb 21, 2011)

Joshua_B said:


> I'm trying to find some good quick and easy meals/recipes, anyone want to post up what they eat on a daily basis?


Check out my wife's blog...good eats 

Easy Vegetarian Cuisine


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## big_slacker (Feb 16, 2004)

Joshua_B said:


> I'm trying to find some good quick and easy meals/recipes, anyone want to post up what they eat on a daily basis?


I know I'm probably zombifying this thread, but I just found it. In the last 2 years I've gone from eating 1-2 lbs of meat a day + whey protein shakes to completely plant based. I was outwardly fit but lethargic and had other problems.

These days I rarely have food comas and my recovery ability is stupid. During the summer I was doing upwards of 10 hours/wk on the bike, + lifting 3 time a week. I did my biggest ride ever at age 40. So yeah, I'm a believer in the health benefits and as an animal/nature lover this is really a no brainer.

In terms of what you eat, you want some easy stuff? I'm super busy at work and have 2 toddlers so best believe I'm not spending hours cooking. Some of this stuff is pure fuel and so don't expect gourmet. But I follow a relatively higher carb, high-ish protein and lower fat vegan diet.

Breakfast- Dave's Killer bread + homemade almond butter. 1 cup coconut milk w/1 scoop vega sport protein, 1 apple

Mid-morning-2 cups kale, 1 cup coconut milk, 1 whole banana, 1 cup frozen fruit, 2 tbsp hemp hearts, 1 tbsp flaxseed, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 12 oz water. (The dry stuff is pre-mixed, I just dump everything in the blendtec and hit the smoothie button, booyah!)

Lunch-1 can of black or kidney beans, 1 cup steamfresh veggies with a little bit of sriracha for spice.

Post workout-1 cup frozen fruit, 1 scoop vega sport

Dinner-1 can black beans, 1 cup steamfresh veggies, 1 field roast fake sausage (****in sue me, need moar protein)

Evening snack-2 scoops orgain protein powder, 1 cup coconut milk. 1/4 cup almonds

If I'm still hungry in there I'll snack on fruit or baby carrots + hummus. Maybe an extra sandwich. Any of these meals is under 5 minutes, so there you go.

After a big ride or leg day I'll have brown rice pasta.

For reference I'm 5'11" and 170-175 lbs.


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## abegold (Jan 30, 2004)

You're eating well. I eat lots of pintos and pasta. Crock pot is my trail to the burrito, tastier and cheaper than canned beans. Find your own path in seasoning. I use salt, chile powder, onions, garlic, basil and some baking powder for antigas.


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## big_slacker (Feb 16, 2004)

abegold said:


> You're eating well. I eat lots of pintos and pasta. Crock pot is my trail to the burrito, tastier and cheaper than canned beans. Find your own path in seasoning. I use salt, chile powder, onions, garlic, basil and some baking powder for antigas.


How long do you put the beans in for to avoid mushiness?


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

Thanks. I get into a rut and eat the same stuff over and over, just have no originality, need some more recipes for variety.


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## abegold (Jan 30, 2004)

I let pintos soak for 4 or more hours and cook for 6-8, depending on whether 1 or 2 pounds of beans. Garbanzos are more firm. Found lentils to be too gassy to be social.
Even my dogs love burritos.


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## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

abegold said:


> and some baking powder for antigas.


Really? I've never heard that? I'll have to try it...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy New Year vegans and vegetarians. Hope you all kiss someone special and that you have abundant strength and good health. Let's make 2015 the best year ever for ALL beings.


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## Justagirlonabike (Oct 18, 2014)

I like Progressive Lentil soup (the Vegetarian one, not the one with sausage) and I add frozen baby kale and cooked shredded carrots if I have them, and serve over brown rice. Filling and delicious, and best of all, easy, especially as I use frozen rice.


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## Joshua_B (Oct 1, 2011)

Amy's brand make some really good soup and chili as well! Get it while its hot!


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## unicrown junkie (Nov 12, 2009)

More like get it while it is on sale! Amy's is good stuff indeed, we have it every Friday night as a sub for quick meal w/o having to go to any lengths to get something yummy in the tummy.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy 70th Birthday to vegetarian Bob Marley, born Feb. 6, 1945. He died of cancer Nov 5, 1981 "Me only have one ambition y'know, I only have one thing I'd really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together. Black, White, Chinese, everyone. That's all."


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## RiceBrnr (Oct 13, 2014)

2+ years Vegan now. Long over due. NEVER felt better.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

RiceBrnr said:


> 2+ years Vegan now. Long over due. NEVER felt better.


Congrats! I think that's amazing... certainly not easy


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## RiceBrnr (Oct 13, 2014)

Vegan Humor lol.


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## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

abegold said:


> ...and some baking powder for antigas.


that's like taking a shower with a raincoat on! :lol:

another nice thing about crockpotting your own beans is the ability to control the amount and type of salt.

sea salt is good for the body, providing lots of micronutrients (80+). the process of kiln-firing table salt removes most of them.


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## RiceBrnr (Oct 13, 2014)

cyclelicious said:


> Congrats! I think that's amazing... certainly not easy


Thank you. It's not easy at all, public wise. Morally and ethically its a no brainer.they say we're 2% of the population. I say we're the best 2%.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Here's an interesting concept:

The New York Times best-selling author, physician Dr. Mark Hyman, MD, shares his interesting point of view on the debate. "Vegan diet studies show they help with weight loss, reverse diabetes and lower cholesterol. Paleo diets seem to do the same thing." His answer? "Why I am a Pegan-or Paleo-Vegan-and Why You Should Be Too"

Link

Why I am a Pegan?or Paleo-Vegan?and Why You Should Be Too » EcoWatch


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## Guest (Feb 19, 2015)

Dion said:


> How did I know more meat eaters would chime in than vegetarians? :lol:


You may have set yourself up with the NRA comment. When you post presuming your audience will be close-minded, generally it becomes a self-fulfilling proficy. As far as recipes goes Dueling Chefs, Dueling Chefs - University of Nebraska Press, has some of my favorites from Maggie's Vegitarian Cafe. I try real hard not to eat meat raised commercially (just because), but I do put my NRA membership to use several seasons a year. Want real organic anything, you gotta get it yourself.


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## Guest (Feb 21, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 965307
> 
> 
> Here's an interesting concept:
> ...


 I think he means a Vegan and Paleo or Viggo.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

At first I was like yes... be free... then aw no!

Truck Loses Load on Interstate, Chickens on the Loose | WNEP.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forster said:


> I think he means a Vegan and Paleo or Viggo.


Viggo Mortenson is vegetarian... not too shabby


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Love it or hate it. Interesting recent article about tofu

Should I Eat Tofu?


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> Love it or hate it. Interesting recent article about tofu
> 
> Should I Eat Tofu?


 Couldn't get it to open. Generally we avoided most soy with our son over concerns about the levels of estrogens and psuedo-estrogens ( https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2005nl/april/050400pusoy.htm ), and we're not vegetarians by any stretch of the imagination. We do see the health benefit of a varied diet and reduced meat-protein consumption. My new favorite is Nut-Meat tacos, which we make by substituting walnuts and pecans (with a little olive oil) for hamburger. You don't "brown" the chopped nuts, but otherwise the recipe is the same as any other taco. The first time my son ate these he didn't even know it wasn't hamburger. Low-tech is the best approach.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Leonard Nimoy R.I.P. was vegetarian. Mr.Spock was probably the first ‪vegan‬ character in TV history (if one doesn't count Bugs Bunny!). Nimoy's final tweet was poignant: "A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP."


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sunday vegan funnies


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## thisismiawallace (Mar 2, 2015)

When I first saw that this thread existed I got excited, then I read through the first page and was kind of disappointed.. glad I skipped to the last pages  I have been vegan for a year now and living mainly raw, eating wholefoods only and have never felt better in my whole life!


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## RiceBrnr (Oct 13, 2014)

Awesome! The earth could use a lot more Vegans. We are the future.


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## big_slacker (Feb 16, 2004)

thisismiawallace said:


> When I first saw that this thread existed I got excited, then I read through the first page and was kind of disappointed.. glad I skipped to the last pages  I have been vegan for a year now and living mainly raw, eating wholefoods only and have never felt better in my whole life!


I think the first page of the thread underscores how much food (particularly meat eating) is culture based, particularly in the US. I personally enjoy the **** talking and love firing back and forth in a friendly way. I crack jokes on the paleo guys all the time. Oh, you can eat a pound of bacon and butter in your coffee but my brown rice, beans and broc is the unhealthy dish? Haha!

Reading back about vegan in the center part of the country? I travel a lot for work (25% or so on the road) all over the country. Really it's only the convenience vegan branded food that's harder to get. I just make sure to get a hotel room with a fridge and microwave. Staples are:

Steamable pre-cooked brown rice
Canned beans
Pre-cooked lentils
Steam in bag veggies
Fruit
Oatmeal
Nuts
Some kind of sauce (verde for mexican style stuff is a fav or sriracha)

Eating out chipotle is everywhere and if not a generic mexican place. Thai and viet restaurants are always a solid choice. If you're at a steakhouse just order a giant salad and baked potato.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Philanthropist Sam Simon, co-creator of The Simpsons, has lost his battle with colon cancer. He was a passionate animal advocate, Sam Simon, passed away after giving away millions to animal organizations. After being diagnosed, he started buying zoos and circuses to free animals. R.I.P. Sam (June 6, 1955 - March 8, 2015).









Animal Activist and Simpsons Co-Creator Dies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

WOW. Richard Branson to launch Vegan America in what may be the biggest story of the year. Minds Blown.


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## Guest (Apr 1, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> WOW. Richard Branson to launch Vegan America in what may be the biggest story of the year. Minds Blown.
> 
> View attachment 977563


I'll hold off on the mind blowing until he converts his jets to bio-fuels. He's probably the person to move that project forward. It just so happens that you can make a bio-diesel from Castor Beans that doesn't gel and could be used in jets. Since roughly 1/3 the bio-diesel refineraries are sitting idle (due to soybean prices), using a non-food crop that can be raised less impactfully (can grow in poor soil with no chemicals and very little water) makes great sense. It would be perfect if they could hybrid it to lose it's toxicity and make it easier to harvest.


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## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

Forster said:


> I'll hold off on the mind blowing until he converts his jets to bio-fuels. He's probably the person to move that project forward. It just so happens that you can make a bio-diesel from Castor Beans that doesn't gel and could be used in jets. Since roughly 1/3 the bio-diesel refineraries are sitting idle (due to soybean prices), using a non-food crop that can be raised less impactfully (can grow in poor soil with no chemicals and very little water) makes great sense. It would be perfect if they could hybrid it to lose it's toxicity and make it easier to harvest.


I'm also holding off my mind blowing once I hear this is confirmed on a day that isn't April 1st...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sources of calcium


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting article about labratory cheese

Cow Milk Without the Cow Is Coming to Change Food Forever | WIRED


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## big_slacker (Feb 16, 2004)

Looks grosser than real chesse if that's possible. 

But I do know some people are hung up about cheese. 

Update for me, I've pretty much cut all the fake meat out of my diet. Not as a conscious step, just been eating other stuff and haven't bothered to buy it. LBM and bodyweight unchanged.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Not directly related to vegetarian/vegan nutrition but it is about raising awareness about packaged of food and storage.

I try to eat as much fresh whenever possible but now I'll be mindful of BPA -free containers

BPA May Break Down into Fat in Human Body - Scientific American


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## Guest (May 30, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> Not directly related to vegetarian/vegan nutrition but it is about raising awareness about packaged of food and storage.
> 
> I try to eat as much fresh whenever possible but now I'll be mindful of BPA -free containers
> 
> BPA May Break Down into Fat in Human Body - Scientific American


 Apparently there's an issue with Keurig K-Pods too. On a side note, my wife's been making nut-meat tacos lately with rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes that are killer. My son tried them the first time and didn't notice that there was no meat until she told him.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forster said:


> Apparently there's an issue with Keurig K-Pods too. On a side note, my wife's been making nut-meat tacos lately with rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes that are killer. My son tried them the first time and didn't notice that there was no meat until she told him.


Good stuff Forster!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

More info graphics good stuff


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

I became vegan almost four years ago so that I could reverse type 2 diabetes. I have been off all diabetic medication now for 3 1/2 years because of it. 
I thought I might share my vegan cornbread recipe with y'all. I do use honey in it but I do list alternatives if you don't eat honey.

*Vegan Cornbread*
Ingredients:

4 tablespoons ground flax seeds
3/4 cup HOT water
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups cornmeal
2 tablespoons honey or agave or 1/4 cup of sugar (more if you like it sweeter)
5 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups soy milk or almond milk (unsweetened)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 ½ tablespoons of margarine (Smart Balance)
Servings: 9

Directions:

1 Preheat oven to 425°F

2 Put cast iron skillet in oven while preheating.

3 Put the HOT water into a small bowl, stir in the ground flaxseed, let sit until thickened, stirring occasionally, then set aside.

4 In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, , baking powder, and salt until well-combined.

5 Add the ground flax seed mixture, soy milk, honey or sugar and olive oil to the flour mixture.

6 Beat just until smooth (do not overbeat.) Then let stand for 5 minutes.

7 Remove skillet from oven. Melt 1 1/2 tablespoon margarine (Smart Balance) into skillet, coating the pan. Put mixture into skillet. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

8 Remove from oven and cover with dish towel until ready to serve. (about 10 minutes)


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## acer66 (Oct 13, 2010)

Forster said:


> On a side note, my wife's been making nut-meat tacos lately with rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes that are killer. My son tried them the first time and didn't notice that there was no meat until she told him.


Is the recipe a family secret or are you allowed to share?


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## Guest (Jul 6, 2015)

acer66 said:


> Is the recipe a family secret or are you allowed to share?


It's on walnut taco ?meat? | The Naked Avocado Heating is listed as optional, but it's better warmed.


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## acer66 (Oct 13, 2010)

Forster said:


> It's on walnut taco ?meat? | The Naked Avocado Heating is listed as optional, but it's better warmed.


Looks good, thank you.


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## Edmiester440 (Nov 13, 2014)

Hello everyone I am a fellow vegetarian that just recently joined the forum! Lots of good info here!!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Edmiester440 said:


> Hello everyone I am a fellow vegetarian that just recently joined the forum! Lots of good info here!!


Hay! Welcome aboard


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## Lard_Vader (Aug 6, 2015)

I’ve been vegetarian/vegan/fruitarian/plant based for about 8 years. Straight-edge for over 3. I chose this lifestyle primarily for health reasons and it suits my training (high mileage cyclist & runner) with regards to fuel and recovery. Keeps me lean and feeling well overall. However, within the last month I have begun transitioning to eating seafood (salmon specifically) 2 or 3 times a month. The rest of my diet is ovo-lacto vegetarian with a HUGE amount of fruit. 

Dean Karnazes (Ultramarathon Man) said “Listen to everyone, follow no one.” I think this is increasingly important in today’s society. Don’t subscribe to labels as much as find your own true way. What works best for one person, may not for the next. At the same time, it’s important to educate ourselves to sustainability for our own health. Furthermore, I think it becomes a natural process (depending on ones level of activity) to eat cleaner when high level activity is required. 

I decided to post this for others who may be curious to eating this way for health reasons and/or those who may be considering transitioning back, as I have.


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## Lard_Vader (Aug 6, 2015)

I’ve been vegetarian/vegan/fruitarian/plant based for about 8 years. Straight-edge for over 3. I chose this lifestyle primarily for health reasons and it suits my training (high mileage cyclist & runner) with regards to fuel and recovery. Keeps me lean and feeling well overall. However, within the last month I have begun transitioning to eating seafood (salmon specifically) 2 or 3 times a month. The rest of my diet is ovo-lacto vegetarian with a HUGE amount of fruit. 

Dean Karnazes (Ultramarathon Man) said “Listen to everyone, follow no one.” I think this is increasingly important in today’s society. Don’t subscribe to labels as much as find your own true way. What works best for one person, may not for the next. At the same time, it’s important to educate ourselves to sustainability for our own health. Furthermore, I think it becomes a natural process (depending on ones level of activity) to eat cleaner when high level activity is required. 

I decided to post this for others who may be curious to eating this way for health reasons and/or those who may be considering transitioning back, as I have.


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## Ecurb_ATX840 (Feb 27, 2014)

been vegetarian for four years, never been fitter.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good advice



> HOW TO STAY MOTIVATED TO EXERCISE
> 
> Motivation comes from within and only you can keep your motivation strong to reach your goals
> So you have set your goals. Some may have set lofty goals with some small ones in between. Others may have a goal that has time constraints around it. Motivation needs to kick in to ensure you reach those goals but how do you stay motivated?
> ...


Get Out There : How To Stay Motivated To Exercise


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Guest (Aug 21, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1009918


 I think ants avoid artificial sweeteners because it provides no nutrition. Humans are certainly the only creature to create non-nutritive food and likely the only creature to consume it. Of course the counter argument is that only humans use toilets, ride bikes, grind two almonds into a 1/2 gal of water add sugar and vanilla and call it "Almond Milk"..... But with the amount of hunger in the world, it seems a little counter productive to create "entertainment food" so we can eat without the benefit (or negative side affect) of eating.


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

Just a "Thanks" from someone who avoided veggies for decades. 

Don't remember who posted it but two in particular stand out. One was to find a "gateway" veg, and the other was to experiment with veggies in seasoning and olive oil. 

Should have listened earlier to Momma on Diet and Exercise, but apparently it's never too late to change. Thanks again for the tips. Mucho appreciated.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Guest (Sep 25, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1017755


 I heard on National Public Radio that you can't even count on "organic" pot anymore. What the world coming to when Marijuana growers turn "Corporate".


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## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

This doesn't have anything specifically to do with vegetarian or vegan (other than we likely eat more vegetables than others), but it is very intersting. It's an article about GMO's, but it's not the normal "GMOs are bad" simplistic answer. It brings up the research and history behind things, who developed them, who, if anyone is profiting from them, if you avoid GMOs are you really avoiding them and if you buy Organic are you really getting what you think...long but very insightful:

Are GMOs safe? Yes. The case against them is full of fraud, lies, and errors.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2015)

mabrodis said:


> This doesn't have anything specifically to do with vegetarian or vegan (other than we likely eat more vegetables than others), but it is very intersting. It's an article about GMO's, but it's not the normal "GMOs are bad" simplistic answer. It brings up the research and history behind things, who developed them, who, if anyone is profiting from them, if you avoid GMOs are you really avoiding them and if you buy Organic are you really getting what you think...long but very insightful:
> 
> Are GMOs safe? Yes. The case against them is full of fraud, lies, and errors.


I think there are several parts to the debate (for lack of a better word). I eat pretty standard food. I don't shop at whole foods often because I'm not convinced they're enough better/more pure/greener/whatever to justify their prices. I do eat farmer's market and locally when I can because I think small farming may be the last bastion of family farming left in a few years. I would like to know where my food comes from and what's in it. I don't eat a vegan or vegetarian diet, but I don't have a steak everyday either and I won't eat farm-raised fish from Asia. GMOs? Almost every food we consume was hybred some way or another, we don't worry about Canola oil being the hybrid of Rapeseed, but the information is available. If you don't want GMOs I think you should be able to avoid them and labeling would help. I also would like lactose, peanuts, tree nuts, gluten and honey listed (if they're in a product).


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

I saw the movie, "fat, Sick and Almost Dead" on Netflix which was inspiring. I'm in no way fat but the diet has slid a little the last few months, I think I'm going to get back on with regular vegetable juicing again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Boomchakabowwow (Sep 8, 2015)

i did cut way back on meat. i typically only eat a few ounces on the weekends. 
we do not need that much protein...i think it beats up our kidneys. 

either way..i am also an avid bowhunter. gave up gun hunting in 2007. now i am almost a real vegetarian..if i only ate what i killed..i would be a bean, tofu, quinoa eating fool. i am not a good bowhunter. 

vegans? mad props to a dedicated Vegan. that is a commitment!!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving 









It's been a beautiful long weekend


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Portland tofu heist! The truck was eventually found, but the tofu is still on the loose.

Portland thieves ditch stolen truck, but take huge haul of tofu | OregonLive.com

"A witness told police he or she saw a man and a woman leave the truck"

Tofunny!


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2015)

Shouldn't be too hard to find. How many vegans are there in Portlandia? Six? I'd look for the two heavy-set vegans.


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## Grok (Sep 4, 2015)

Maybe they thought the tofu was some sort of expensive building material, like a new type of insulation for new homes?

Do any of you actually look at Tofu and think, Mmmm, I'm hungry?


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

Grok said:


> Maybe they thought the tofu was some sort of expensive building material, like a new type of insulation for new homes?
> 
> Do any of you actually look at Tofu and think, Mmmm, I'm hungry?


Only when it is cooked at Pei Wei. They do tofu right.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How the Simpsons Forever changed the face of vegetarianism

Slate names "Lisa the Vegetarian" a game-changer in the history of vegetarianism on TV.

I remember when this episode aired in 1995. I was already a vegetarian for 15 years (those were the dark ages before vegetarian menus) and I was so excited that Lisa became vegetarian because the Simpsons was my favorite show...I thought it was the coolest thing ever.









The Simpsons? ?Lisa the Vegetarian? episode changed the image of vegetarians on TV.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The 5-digit PLU codes on produce do not tell you what is genetically modified or natural. This urban legend has circulated even on the best of websites.

I got sent an article that informed that any number that starts with a "9" means that piece of produce is an organic good. Anything starting with a "3" or "4" means that it is grown conventionally. An "8" means the food has been genetically engineered.

Apparently this is a myth

PLU Codes Do Not Indicate Genetically Modified Produce*|*Jeffrey Smith

These numbers, organized by the Produce Marketing Association, have nothing to do with the consumer. This is an optional convention for retailers and their supplier and is not designed as a communication tool for customers. If you want to know which items are organic, look for the word *Organic;* .

To check out the long lists of non-GMO and GMO brands by category. The good news is that there are only 4 GMO veggies or fruits at this point: papaya, but only from Hawaii and no where else; some zucchini and yellow squash, and some corn on the cob.

If you're not sure if GMOs are bad for you, visit The Campaign for Healthier Eating in America


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hallowe'en


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)




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## Guest (Oct 31, 2015)

Mark_BC said:


>


 The Irony of the Carrot. We call redhead's "carrot top" but carrot tops are green. No wonder he/she feels so alone.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Mark_BC said:


>


love it!

https://forums.mtbr.com/off-camber-...tently-shaped-like-something-else-961721.html


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Thanksgiving


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

6 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Supermarkets









Highlights:
Stores are designed to make the shopper spend more time and shop more
"Counterclockwise"
Placement of items is deliberate
Glad I don't eat meat
There is no backroom
The power of bananas

Sauce: 6 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Supermarkets | Mental Floss


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

and Happy Caturday


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> 6 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Supermarkets
> 
> This ^^^^
> 
> First tried this a year ago on advice of my wife, and the doctor saying something about pre-diabetes.


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

In 2008, archaeologists unearted a tiny clay pot on a dig in the First Nation's Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin. The pot was determined to be about 800 years old. But the real discovery was what was found in the pot: " Something that changes how we're looking at extinction, preservation, and food storage, as well as how humans have influenced the planet in their time on it."








Inside, archaeologists found a stash of seeds. The seeds were probably buried in the pot as a method of storing food supplies. They were determined to be an old, now-extinct species of squash.








7 years after making the discovery, students in Winnipeg decided to plant the 800-year-old seeds - and, to everyone's amazement, something grew!








The squash was named Gete-okosomin. It means "Big Old Squash" in the Menominee language








and big it certainly is!








Now, they're working to cultivate the squash so that it doesn't go extinct again.

Archaeologists Dug Up A Centuries-Old Pot. What They Found Inside Changed History


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Tofvcken: The Vegan Turducken

A heartwarming family recipe that isn't gross! BTW This lady rocks and the video is SFW... and funny as f...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Grok (Sep 4, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1033480


Probably because Popeye is make believe....and delicious steaks are real!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

8 edibles you can grow indoors over the winter

1. Sprouts
2. Scallions
3. Salad Greens
4. Kale
5. Carrots
6. Citrus Fruits
7. Potatoes
8. Pea Shoots

Sauce for details:
8 Edibles You Can Grow Indoors This Winter - Urban Farm


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

I had a peach pit sprout after put in the fridge late summer so I put it in a pot, and now it's growing in the windowsill with the light on. Will plant outside next spring.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Mark_BC said:


> I had a peach pit sprout after put in the fridge late summer so I put it in a pot, and now it's growing in the windowsill with the light on. Will plant outside next spring.


That is neat!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says people should go meat-free one or two days a week to protect the climate.

Sauce:

COP21: Arnold Schwarzenegger: 'Go part-time vegetarian to protect the planet' - BBC News


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Things Vegetarians and Vegans hear at Christmas









1) Can you not just have some turkey since it's Christmas?

2) Do you eat chicken?

3) I know you're vegetarian, so I've done some salmon...

4) Is your whole family vegetarian?

5) I don't know if it's gluten free...

6) Can you not just pick the bacon off the sprouts?

7) I don't eat very much meat

8) I only eat organic meat

9) Where do you get your protein from?

10) Do you not just ever fancy a bacon sandwich?

11) But pigs in blankets taste so good!

12) It must be very hard to eat out

13) Hi, I'm James Martin [ chef]

14) The gravy is just the meat juices though...

15) The potatoes are cooked in goose fat, but there's no meat in them

16) What are you having for Christmas dinner? Nut roast?

17) My friend was a vegetarian but had to give it up because it made her ill

18) But the turkey is free range...

19) Hitler was a vegetarian

20) What if plants feel pain too?

21) You're vegan? But the cows like being milked

22) Are you a Buddhist or something? I didn't think they celebrated Christmas

23) If you were marooned at Christmas on a desert island with a turkey, would you eat it?

Sauce:

23 things not to say to vegetarians and vegans at Christmas - Sunderland Echo


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## Guest (Dec 18, 2015)

Years ago my mom calls and she's freaking out because my step-brother's girlfriend is a vegetarian and she doesn't know what to fix for thanksgiving. (Really odd, since my sister was a vegan through her teen years.) So my first question was "Is she vegan or vegetarian?" which my mom thought was some form of condescending joke. Long story short, I reach her directly and find that she does dairy and eats glutens but no eggs, so eggplant lasagna with egg free noodles. We show up two and a half hours before dinner with two bags of stuff and my wife had to get my mom drunk to keep her out of the kitchen and freaking out because "you can't make a lasagna from scratch in 2 hours!" She'd really freaked if she'd known I'd never made a vegetarian lasagna before. I'm becoming a firm believer in skipping the big meal holidays and spending them in a hotel somewhere.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forster said:


> Years ago my mom calls and she's freaking out because my step-brother's girlfriend is a vegetarian and she doesn't know what to fix for thanksgiving. (Really odd, since my sister was a vegan through her teen years.) So my first question was "Is she vegan or vegetarian?" which my mom thought was some form of condescending joke. Long story short, I reach her directly and find that she does dairy and eats glutens but no eggs, so eggplant lasagna with egg free noodles. We show up two and a half hours before dinner with two bags of stuff and my wife had to get my mom drunk to keep her out of the kitchen and freaking out because "you can't make a lasagna from scratch in 2 hours!" She'd really freaked if she'd known I'd never made a vegetarian lasagna before. I'm becoming a firm believer in skipping the big meal holidays and spending them in a hotel somewhere.


Love your story!


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## BR46 (Nov 15, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> Things Vegetarians and Vegans hear at Christmas
> 
> View attachment 1036407
> 
> ...


Sounds like my mother in law trying to feed me high carbohydrate sugary things. 
Mother in law. ..want some pie and ice cream?
Me...no thanks. 
Mother in law. ..cake? 
Me. ..no thanks I'm good. 
Mother in law. ....why not? 
Me. ..my blood sugar is a little high right now so I'm going skip desert. 
Mother in law. ....ice cream? 
Me. ...no thanks. 
So I get up and go to a different room to get away. 5 minutes later my mother in law comes in with pie and ice cream. 
Mother in law. ..here this is a small piece of pie. 
Me...my glucose levels is high right now. 
Mother in law. ..I don't know what that means. 
Me...it means that I shouldn't eat that. 
Mother in law. ..but it's Thanksgiving


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

May the fruit be with you


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## Guest (Dec 20, 2015)

I always imagine Yoda being more of a Kiwi.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays fellow vegetarian, vegan riders


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## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

Holy broccoli monster batman


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Guest (Dec 28, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1037457


 They last better if they tree ripen, but you'd have to move south, way south. My habanero hummus was a big hit for the first three seconds of Christmas Eve when everyone realized that there was too much habanero and not enough chickpea.


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

Ohhhh, you cook with Habanero's?
Can I come over for dinner? Pretty please?


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## Bizman (Oct 11, 2010)

I just tried an easy coconut flour pancake recipe using homemade coconut flour and I wanted to share it. I made the flour from the pulp of the coconut after making homemade coconut milk. I used the oven on a low heat drying the pulp spread out evenly on a cookie sheet.

I actually forgot to put the almond milk in and I didn't have any lemon so I didn't use the lemon zest. I also used a "flat" griddle to make them on using a medium heat (medium high as specified in the recipe was to hot). I did use a TBSP to make a few small ones as it said but then made normal size ones as it was less work.

These were real good with maple syrup on even without the things I forgot! Next time I will remember to put the almond milk in and try the lemon zest if I have any. I realize these aren't vegan because of the eggs but they are vegetarian & gluten free. If you try them I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Homemade coconut milk: Homemade Coconut Milk Recipe | Wellness Mama

Coconut flour pancakes: Coconut Flour Pancakes | Goop


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Looks good Bizman


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Although kale has made a big name for itself, the last couple years... spinach is still a favorite :thumbsup:


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## BR46 (Nov 15, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1039142
> 
> 
> Although kale has made a big name for itself, the last couple years... spinach is still a favorite :thumbsup:


One of my favorite things to do with spinach is dehydrated it and make garlic and feta cheese chips.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Great idea!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## acer66 (Oct 13, 2010)

BR46 said:


> One of my favorite things to do with spinach is dehydrated it and make garlic and feta cheese chips.


Recipe?


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## BR46 (Nov 15, 2015)

acer66 said:


> Recipe?


I took the idea from making kale chips from a recipe on pinterest. I don't have exact measurements and I had to do a little experimenting and you may have to experiment what works for you.

I put spinach in a mixing bowl and lightly coat the spinach with olive oil 
mix in some garlic powder, garlic salt, onion powder 
spread out on parchment paper and sprinkle with some feta cheese 
I will microwave at 50% power for a few minutes or you can bake in the oven at 250° for about 20 minutes

Another easy one is my favorite to make 
coat spinach lightly with olive oil sprinkle with jalapeño feta cheese and microwave.


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## BR46 (Nov 15, 2015)

I found out that if you use to much olive oil the spinach never gets crispy


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1039767


 Oh boy, then I'm doing it all wrong. Interesting weekend with my niece's husband who doesn't eat meat, but he doesn't eat very well and doesn't exercise either. It makes you wonder what his goals are. Not that eating always support some goal, but most of my vegetarian friends eat healthy foods, not just meat free junk.


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## acer66 (Oct 13, 2010)

BR46 said:


> I took the idea from making kale chips from a recipe on pinterest. I don't have exact measurements and I had to do a little experimenting and you may have to experiment what works for you.
> 
> I put spinach in a mixing bowl and lightly coat the spinach with olive oil
> mix in some garlic powder, garlic salt, onion powder
> ...


Cool, I will try that.
Thank you


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

Bizman said:


> I just tried an easy coconut flour pancake recipe using homemade coconut flour and I wanted to share it. I made the flour from the pulp of the coconut after making homemade coconut milk. I used the oven on a low heat drying the pulp spread out evenly on a cookie sheet.
> 
> I actually forgot to put the almond milk in and I didn't have any lemon so I didn't use the lemon zest. I also used a "flat" griddle to make them on using a medium heat (medium high as specified in the recipe was to hot). I did use a TBSP to make a few small ones as it said but then made normal size ones as it was less work.
> 
> ...


There has got to be something wrong with that pancake recipe. There is no way 1/4 cup of coconut flour can make 12- 2 inch pancakes.


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## Bizman (Oct 11, 2010)

huckleberry hound said:


> There has got to be something wrong with that pancake recipe. There is no way 1/4 cup of coconut flour can make 12- 2 inch pancakes.


 I used the 1 Tbsp measurement it says to use (for each one) and 3 jumbo eggs, I did 4 at a time on the griddle, actually they may have been slightly bigger than 2" but they were close to 2" (I didn't measure the diameter), I did this 3 times for a total of 12 small pancakes. I had more batter left over and just poured it out of the blender making what I would call "2 more" regular size pancakes, about 5-6" diameter each.

I did the later step as it seemed easier than making 4 small 2" pancakes. I would suggest the bigger pancakes. And yes, this was using a 1/4 cup homemade coconut flour. I did forget to put the 1/3 cup almond milk in it called for. If I had done that I am not sure if it would have made more or less? I ate pretty much all them myself other than a few bites my wife wanted to try (she ate earlier). It's really not that much.

We both thought these were real good and I will be making them again, except I will be sure to put the almond milk in. In the research I did for coconut flour it says that you only use 1/4-1/3 cup coconut flour per 1 cup of wheat flour. I may also increase the coconut flour to 1/3 cup for a little thicker batter. Sorry this doesn't sound correct using 1/4 cup of coconut flour but I have no reason to say otherwise, this is how it was.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Food & Wine magazine promotes vegan cheese

In an article entitled, "Why 2016 is the Year to Surrender to Vegan Cheese," Food & Wine Magazine writes about the advancements made in the world of nut-based cheese. Noting that times have changed, the story describes how vegan cheese was once "rubbery, oily, [and] starch-filled."

Currently, nut cheeses have improved because the people making it use techniques similar to those who make dairy-based cheeses. Almond, cashews, macadamia, or other nuts are blended with cultures and aged to make everything from spreadable to hard cheeses. "Until recently, only raw foodists made vegan cheeses-and they did it in very simple ways," Miyoko Schinner, owner of vegan cheese company Miyoko's Kitchen, told the magazine. "But recently the amount of vegan cheese on the market has skyrocketed." Food & Wine featured vegan favorites such as Miyoko's Kitchen, Treeline Treenut Cheese, Field Roast Chao Slices, and more.

7 Amazing Vegan Cheeses to Try in 2016 | Food & Wine

2016 is looking to be a very good year


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## acer66 (Oct 13, 2010)

The lack of any even remotely good tasting cheese ended my short lived vegan phase years ago but it looks like times might have changed.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

acer66 said:


> The lack of any even remotely good tasting cheese ended my short lived vegan phase years ago but it looks like times might have changed.


I'm hopeful too...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

"Gà Ham Chay" is "chicken ham liver" in Vietnamese :yesnod:


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## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

cyclelicious said:


> I'm hopeful too...


I always laugh when I'm looking at what is in vegan cheese since the ingredients seem so weird usually...then I think of what's in dairy cheese and how it's made and I'm like...oh...right...that's even more weird that people would eat that...


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1041126
> 
> 
> "Gà Ham Chay" is "chicken ham liver" in Vietnamese :yesnod:


I completely understand this. All these years I thought that a vegetarian just ate plants until I became one. But No! As Steve Martin used to say. Apparently there are Ovo vegetarians, Lacto vegetarians, Pollo vegetarians, Pesco vegetarians and every combination of these. I came to find out that people who just eat plants are Vegan. Why is that? You would think that the term vegetarian would mean only plants.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Guest (Jan 12, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1041126
> 
> 
> "Gà Ham Chay" is "chicken ham liver" in Vietnamese :yesnod:


 On first glance, I'd say it's dog food. Not knowing any Vietnamese I looked at their english website and found "Lamyong Vegetarian Ham is a tasty and convenient vegetarian food ingredient loved by all in the family! Comes in 3 different flavours, Original, "Chicken" and "Bacon"." I would speculate that the references to both "Ham" and "Liver" are non-direct translations referencing the similarity to a pork sausage with a Pate texture, but that's still a guess. Now I'll have to try and find it so I can figure out what the heck it is.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## Guest (Jan 14, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1042582


 They're probably all wondering why we don't eat the peels and getting all the nutrition available.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Just 10 days ago, an organic head was $8.99 and conventional stuff hovered around $6.99 in downtown Toronto. This past weekend, conventional cauli dropped in some Ontario stores to $5, while in Vancouver, prices were already back to what shoppers were used to.

How did cauliflower come to cost as much as a pound of grass-fed ground beef? - The Globe and Mail


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ so cool


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I just bought a container of $8.00 spinach and it tasted so rich


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> I just bought a container of $8.00 spinach and it tasted so rich
> 
> View attachment 1044548


 I feel like I let you down this afternoon Cyclelicious. I had both Broccoli and Cauliflower but since I was working, I didn't fulfill the experience of eating like a Canadian Millionare and washed it down with water instead of a fine white wine. I guess I just don't understand the finer points of being a Canadian Gourmet.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

January 24 is National Peanut Butter Day

George Bayle, a St. Louis snack food maker, started making peanut butter in the 1890's. For many years, manufacturers struggled with the oil separating from the grainy solids of the peanut butter. In 1923 Heinz became the first company to homogenize the peanuts into the spreadable butter we know today.

It takes 550 peanuts to make a 12 ounce jar of peanut butter! Peanuts are cholesterol free and an excellent source of protein. In fact, it's the high protein content that causes peanut butter to stick to the roof of your mouth.

How many peanut butter combos are there? Lot's!

1. Peanut butter with honey
There is Vegan honey. Take a spoonful of peanut butter, add a squirt of the apple-based variety from Bee Free Honee, and-wah lah-dinner and dessert in one.

2. Peanut butter on celery
For some people, celery smells funny and tastes even worse. For others, it's a delicious snack that requires no cooking. However a person feels about this vegetable, adding peanut butter in that cute little moat definitely improves this raw green.

3. Peanut butter with bananas
The combination of peanut butter and bananas is often referred to as an "Elvis," and why shouldn't it be? Just like Presley was the king of rock 'n' roll, mixing PB and bananas is the king of sandwiches, bagel spreads, and however else you want to eat it.

4. Peanut butter on apples
We already know that combining applesauce and peanut butter is the food equivalent of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel harmonizing together, but for a different spin on a delectable treat, try spreading PB onto apple slices. Any apple will do, but I suggest Honeycrisp.

5. Peanut butter with chocolate chips
Contrary to popular belief, George Washington Carver didn't invent peanut butter (see above). Had he, Carver most certainly would have immediately thought to add chocolate chips to his delicious spread because adding chocolate chips to everything is always the right decision.

sauce
National Peanut Butter Day, Vegans, & Bachelors


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2016)

Grilled BB&J was my last supervisor's favorite sandwich, I would opt for grilled PB and Banana. I still own a nut plate for a meat grinder just to make nut butters.


----------



## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

This journey is getting easier. Last week we came home with a jar of Salted Caramel (Skippy) PB. Over Golden Delicious Apples it was like ice cream to the taste buds.


----------



## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

I love the stuff and I actually had pb on celery last night. You'd think I'd get sick of it but year after year I keep eating it. British friends say it tastes like dirt. I don't think it's very popular over there.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## Guest (Jan 26, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1045515


 I'd keep them to level 8 but my wife can't tolerate the smell of very ripe banana's since my son was born so she makes banana bread when they hit 7.5. She's only eating 2-4 no matter what. On an unrelated topic, PBS Frontline did an interesting show on nutritional supplements last week. Good props to the Canadian government for their regulation of the industry. Reinforces my standard practice of checking supplements to see how Canada views the manufacturer and supplement itself. A few years ago we had a friend recommend taking Sinjat (claimed anti-inflamatory). Canada bans it due to high levels of heavy metals, the US? Sure, sell it, it's from India, it has to be healthy. Ugh.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

9 Sources of Vegan Protein to Get You Ripped



> As many athletes know, protein serves as a key nutrient in building muscle and strength. Protein fuels our workouts, aids our recovery, and supports long-term brain functioning. But contrary to popular belief, protein is found in much more than just meat. Some of the healthiest forms of protein come from plants and are incredibly efficient at synthesizing amino acids and promoting cell growth and repair.
> 
> When comparing the protein content of meat and plants, one thing to consider is how much protein a food contains compared to the number of calories and weight it has. For instance, although they contain a lot of protein, chicken and other animal-based proteins are high in calories. Vegan food doesn't typically contain as many grams of protein, but pound-for-pound, they're a much more efficient source of it. For example, per calorie, broccoli has more protein than beef and contains approximately 4.5 grams per 30 calories, which is why it's easier for vegan and vegetarian bodybuilders to build leaner-looking physiques without experiencing the drastic weight swings similar to their meat-eating counterparts.
> 
> With plant-based proteins, it's important to distinguish between incomplete and complete proteins. Something we have learned in recent years is that our bodies are capable of using all sources of amino acids to form complete proteins. In other words, eat a good variety of plant-based, whole foods that are protein-rich, and you'll be equipped to build serious muscle.


1. Soy
Soybeans are approximately 40 percent protein, and the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (a measure of protein quality) for soybeans is just below 1.0, making them the equivalent to cow's milk, beef, and egg proteins. While beans are often low in the amino acid methionine, soy is a complete protein. Tempeh is loaded with 16 grams per serving, while tofu comes in at seven grams.
Protein per serving: 68 grams

2. Lentils
Lentils are great for athletes looking to boost their protein intake quickly and efficiently. Use them in vegan burger recipes and veggie wraps for delicious, protein-laden meals.
Protein per serving: 12 grams

3. Black beans
Versatility makes black beans an all-time favorite vegan protein source. Delicious in vegan chili and stir-fry recipes, they're just as nutritious straight out of the can.
Protein per serving: 15 grams

4. Ezekiel bread with peanut butter
Peanut butter sandwiches happen to be protein-rich with a sizable amount of essential amino acids and plenty of healthy fats, while Ezekiel bread has wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, sprouted grains, and spelt. These combined ingredients contain all the essential amino acids, and they are also high in fiber and vitamins.
Protein per serving: 8 grams

5. Seitan
If you're not gluten intolerant, seitan is an ideal protein source. Made by mixing gluten (the protein in wheat) with herbs and spices, hydrating it with water or stock, and simmering it in broth, seitan isn't a complete protein on its own-it needs to be cooked in a soy sauce-rich broth to add gluten's missing amino acid (lysine).
Protein per serving: 21 grams

6. Quinoa
Quinoa looks much like couscous but is more nutritious. Full of fiber, iron, magnesium, and manganese, quinoa is a terrific substitute for rice because it's easy to cook ahead of time for meal prep. And it tastes great!
Protein per serving: 8 grams

7. Hemp seeds
Hemp is a complete protein and rich in all essential amino acids. High in fiber and a rare vegan source of omega-3s, most of hemp's calories come from beneficial proteins and omega-3 fatty acids. Hemp also boosts energy (thanks to the high amounts of magnesium it contains) and has significant amounts of all nine essential amino acids, as well as plenty of magnesium, zinc, iron, and calcium. In addition to seeds, hemp also comes in the form of powder (which mixes wonderfully into smoothies) and oil, can be used as a butter substitute, and makes a delicious salad dressing.
Protein per serving: 11 grams

8. Chia seeds
Chia seeds are the highest plant source of omega-3 fatty acids, and they contain more fiber than flax seeds or nuts. Chia is also full of iron, calcium, zinc, and antioxidants, but the best thing about these little seeds is that they form a gooey gel when combined with milk or water. You can commonly find seeds in the form of ground or milled chia, white chia, and pre-hydrated chia.
Protein per serving: 4 grams

9. Almonds
Almonds are an ideal plant-based food that fuel workouts and reverse sodium and calcium deficiencies in the body. Featuring the types of healthy fats that sustain energy during a gym session or competition, almonds are packed with calcium and are a great source of vitamins.
Protein per serving: 6 grams

sauce:
9 Sources of Vegan Protein to Get You Ripped


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Unilever, the parent company of Hellmann's (also known as Best Foods)-one of the largest and most iconic mayonnaise brands in the world- is launching a vegan "spread" later this month. In 2014, Unilever filed a false advertising lawsuit against vegan company Hampton Creek for its eggless Just Mayo, before bad press forced them to drop the suit. While Hellman's marketing will focus "cater to its customers tastes," it is evident that Hampton Creek-whose Just Mayo is now officially the only spread used by 7-Eleven stores worldwide-poses a threat to companies that continue to use eggs.

Hellmann's has figured out that if you can't beat them, you might as well join them....

sauce
Hellmann's To Launch Vegan Mayo


----------



## gt7152b (Jul 7, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> I just bought a container of $8.00 spinach and it tasted so rich
> 
> View attachment 1044548


Just tried this cauliflower steak recipe over the weekend. So good:

Recipe: Cauliflower Steaks with Ginger, Turmeric, and Cumin ? Recipes from The Kitchn | The Kitchn


----------



## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

Num nums


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Best 2016 Super bowl Commercial (and it's vegetarian/vegan)!


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## rho (Dec 13, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1048559


Truth


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## alphazz (Oct 12, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1049500


That triangle is nearly as bad as the one the dairy industry puts out.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sweet!


----------



## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> Sweet!
> 
> View attachment 1049929


Him: err, no

Her:


----------



## Guest (Feb 14, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> Sweet!
> 
> View attachment 1049929


 Is that heart made from recycled paper? Why did you choose to kill these roses? Was bringing home a live plant too difficult? I hope for your sake, you didn't bring this home in a plastic bag. These roses don't look like they were in your panniers, did you drive the car again? Is that your Hemp Sweater? It looks like a poly-blend......


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

So many questions :lol:


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## shredchic (Jun 18, 2007)

Wow just found this after 4 yrs! Is this our "coming out" thread? Lol. Vegetarian for roughly the same amt of years I have been mtn biking, and more recently 99.9% vegan 2+ yrs. (can't shake the occasional half and half with coffee). 

I feel like I'm missing out from all of the meat eaters in that I have never bonked or cramped up. I read that from Cyclicious as well. Is that a common theme? 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Chicken vs Chickpeas


----------



## acer66 (Oct 13, 2010)




----------



## Guest (Feb 20, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> Chicken vs Chickpeas


 They totally missed the point. Chickens can eat Chickpeas. It's not even a fair fight.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## Guest (Feb 24, 2016)

Three if you count Europeans. I never understood fries, always been an Onion Ring type myself.


----------



## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

Anyone try making their own energy gels? I'm thinking to cut down on wrappers of making my own (using the Thrive recipe as a starting point) and throwing it in a gel flask and mounting that on my bike or jersey pocket. Anyone try this? Was it succesful or not?


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

KevinShoes said:


> Anyone try making their own energy gels? I'm thinking to cut down on wrappers of making my own (using the Thrive recipe as a starting point) and throwing it in a gel flask and mounting that on my bike or jersey pocket. Anyone try this? Was it succesful or not?


I've never tried gel... the flavors themselves are a big turn off for me ( strawberry banana, tangerine etc) and I prefer whole foods like dates and bananas but it is worth a look so

I was curious by your post and I checked out Thrive











> Ingredients (for 3/4 cup, twice as much as pictured)
> 4 dates (may use dried dates, soaked for a few hours)
> 1/2 cup raw agave nectar
> 1 Tbsp lime zest
> ...


It might be a good start for those who like experimenting  :thumbsup:


----------



## KevinShoes (Apr 30, 2012)

Just to kind off build even more off your reply. I found this recipe which seems to be an adaptation of the recipe Vega uses (very similar to thrive but with coconut oil).

DIY: Endurance Gels | lululemon athletica

I think to cut down on my single use plastics, I'm going to find a flask and bike mount and use that for training and racing. I'll report back with how it goes.


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## Guest (Feb 26, 2016)

Haven't tried that, I've really gone back to basics. Figs/Dates, Salted Almonds/Peanuts, raw nuts/seeds and Honey. Seems odd to process foods I enjoy better in their natural state. Plus I find it easier to adjust on the fly if I have a couple ziplocks to pick from as I'm riding.


----------



## Ol Bromy (Feb 6, 2009)

I like to stuff a PB&J or PB & honey into the pack for long days in the saddle. They just taste awesome in the woods.


----------



## monogod (Feb 10, 2006)

alphazz said:


> That triangle is nearly as bad as the one the dairy industry puts out.


in what universe?


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The Benefits of Dulse Seaweed | LIVESTRONG.COM



> Ingredients (for 3/4 cup, twice as much as pictured)
> 4 dates (may use dried dates, soaked for a few hours)
> 1/2 cup raw agave nectar
> 1 Tbsp lime zest
> ...


----------



## ladljon (Nov 30, 2011)

I bake sweet potato, mashed with frozen bananas, soy protein, blackstrap molasses, and peanut butter powder or just plain peanut butter, get to the right constancy and put into squeeze tubes U can buy at camping stores. Looks like yuck, but taste great...sometimes a little organic coconut oil....


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thanks for your post ladljon .


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Another nice push into the mainstream

Torre Washington is a bodybuilder, and part of a growing trend of jocks (like Serena Williams and 300-pound Chicago Bears lineman David Carter) who avoid animal products. Mike Tyson is now vegan. Even the definitive muscleman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, says we should eat less meat. Need convincing? Try Washington's eco-friendly, critter-free diet plan.

More about pro athletes going vegan

The Vegan Diet That Will Get You Jacked | GQ


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

just letting you know...









Blight resistant potato on its way thanks to GM tech, guess which ones had the gene transfer??

Genetically modified potato likely to be released this year | Dhaka Tribune


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Chocolate... is top shelf


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Paleo - Vegetarian? Turns out it's not such an oxymoron. Brief article (published a few years ago) about one person's experiment

Experimenting with the Paleo Diet for Vegetarians


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## alphazz (Oct 12, 2012)

A strange article. I don't understand how someone would think eggs and dairy would be vegetarian. And as with most in America, he has an obsession with protein. Paleo vegetarian is very easy with most of the food requiring little or no preparation.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

alphazz said:


> A strange article. I don't understand how someone would think eggs and dairy would be vegetarian. And as with most in America, he has an obsession with protein. Paleo vegetarian is very easy with moat of the food requiring little or no preparation.


I still get asked "Do you eat chicken? What about fish? Eggs? Cheese? Milk?" :lol:


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## alphazz (Oct 12, 2012)

Answer;: No, I'm a vegetarian.

Or the question is, How do you get protein?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

alphazz said:


> Answer;: No, I'm a vegetarian.
> 
> Or the question is, How do you get protein?


Classic !


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

MMMM Origin of Almond milk.... mystery solved


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The best burger in the world this year is vegetarian. That is according to GQ, which heaped praise on New York's Superiority Burger. The $6 burger (it even has a vegan version) is described as having a nutty patty made from secret ingredients.

And it looks pretty good.









Vegetarian version is served with Muenster cheese... I'll take the vegan version

Sauce:

https://www.finedininglovers.com/blog/news-trends/worlds-best-burger-vegan/

https://boughtbymany.com/news/artic...gn=content-veggie-meals-better-than-originals


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Had some asparagus for dinner... yup pee smells funny this morning :lol:


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ok This is wrong on so many levels.... but there is a tiny part of me that likes taking the guess work out when an avocado is ready


----------



## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

ewww what I (don't) want to know is how they keep it from going black


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## Silentfoe (May 9, 2008)

@ 4x the price.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Kiwi or Fruit Scrotum  You be the judge









Behold - the chemical make-up of an all-natural kiwi:


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

So true.... I always snip the end off :lol:


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The following Girl Scout cookie varieties are made without milk and egg ingredients (But read on after the list for some important information!):

Cranberry Citrus Crisps - "Crispy cookie, made with whole grain, full of tangy cranberry bits and zesty citrus flavor." (contain wheat and soy; not sure why they aren't labeled as vegan)
Peanut Butter Patties® - "Crispy vanilla cookies layered with real peanut butter and blanketed with a chocolaty coating" (vegan; contain wheat, soy and peanuts)
Thanks-a-Lot™ - "Heart-warming shortbread cookies dipped in rich fudge" (vegan; contain wheat and soy)
Lemonades™ - "Savory slices of shortbread with a refreshingly tangy lemon icing" (vegan; contain wheat and soy)
Thin Mints - "The Girl Scout Cookie Sale's number one seller" (vegan; contain wheat and soy)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Hey wait a minute... that's not vegan! Happy Caturday


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This supermarket has the freshest vegetables because they grow them right inside the store






Love this. Hope to see in farm stores here in north America


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

great questions


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Everyone who is at least once been on a weight loss program will know that losing weight can be a great struggle. However, the main rule says fewer calories in and more calories burnt, in practice, it's not always like that. If you want to lose weight fast, these expert tips will come handy.
> 
> In fact, following these steps can help you cut down pounds in a safe and healthy way.
> 
> ...


sauce: The Fastest And Safest Weight Loss Plan: 4 Steps To A Perfect Weight


----------



## Guest (Mar 31, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> great questions
> 
> View attachment 1060762


 Those might just be "Deep Carbs".


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Muscle cramps or headaches can be a result of magnesium deficiency
*
Magnesium as the most common mineral is a really essential nutrient for the function of the nervous system. It not only helps you relax nerves and tense muscles, but can alleviate headaches and muscle cramping too.

In order to increase the magnesium intake, you should include more green leafy veggies like collards greens or kale in your nutrition and boost your daily requirements.

At the same time, Epsom salt is rich in magnesium and easily absorbed through the skin. Don't forget to include it in your baths.

Sauce: The Most Common Symptoms of Mineral Deficiency - Health Questions Answered


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A GMO that makes sense :lol:

Scientists Successfully Breed Kale with Cannabis ? Health And Wellness


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

Kale Doobies, anyone?


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

pineapple









Pineapple is packed with healthy nutrients that protect us against many ailments. Pineapple tastes sweet and contains great amount of vitamins A and C, fiber, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium.



> 1.Strong protection against cancer
> Pineapple is loaded with antioxidants that destroy free radicals and prevent cell damage. It provides a strong protection against severe diseases, including atherosclerosis, heart disease, arthritis, and various types of cancer.
> 
> 2. Fights inflammation and infections
> ...


sauce: You Eat Pineapple But You Have Probably Never Heard Of This - Super Tasty Recipes


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

8 Vegetables That You Buy Once and Can Regrow









1. Romaine Lettuce
By using the bottom of a lettuce you can grow a new romaine lettuce. Just put the stems in a ½ inch of water and after a few days new leaves and roots will appear. Then, transplant the lettuce into soil.
The same method can be used for re-growing cabbage.

2. Bok Choy
Place the root ends in a water and place it in a well-lit area. Leave it for 1-2 weeks, and then you can transplant them to a pot with a soil.

3. Carrots
Put the carrot tops in a dish with little water. Place the dish where is well -lit, window sill is ok.
Carrot greens are a little bit bitter, but they make great salad combination with garlic and vinegar.

4. Basil
Put the basil cuttings, the one with stems about 3-4 inches, in a water. Place them directly where the sunlight is. When the roots will grow to 2 inches long you can transfer them to pots. You should change the water constantly. That way you will avoid slimy basil plants.

5. Cilantro
Place the stems in a glass of water. When they become long enough, transfer them in a pot with soil. They need to be placed in a room with ample lighting. After a few months you will have new plants of cilantro.

6. Celery
Cut the base of the celery bottom and place it in a low bowl. Put the bowl in the sun. With time the new leaves will grow. After three days, transplant it to soil.

7. Garlic
When the new sprouts begin to grow from the garlic clove, place them in a pot with a little water. Later transplant them to a soil. New garlic sprouts have a milder flavor and they are great for salads, pasta and other dishes.

8. Scallions
Use scallion's roots to re-grow the new ones. Scallion root, an inch long, put it in the water and leave it in a place that is well-lit.

Sauce:

8 Vegetables That You Buy Once And Regrow Forever ! Complete guide How To Grow ThemHealthy Lifestyle Zone


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Lunch today at Fresh Restaurant (one of my favorite vegan nosh places in Toronto) East African Yellow Split Pea w/ Sweet Potatoes +salad (edamame, napa cabbage, cucumber, assorted sprouts & microgreens, parsley, cilantro) + cornbread and flax hummus


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Found this linked to Missouri Morel Facebook page. Impressive morel (looks like a world record!) but at that size might not be tasty











> what makes morels and other mushrooms (chanterelles are another) so rare are that they cannot be cultivated. They grow in the wild and spore in the same area. When you harvest them, use a paring knife and cut them at the base. This will this ensure that the mushrooms will grow back (protecting the ecosystem and allowing you to return to the same spot) .
> On a side note, never wash them in water as they begin to decompose once picked and water speeds up the process, never buy wet mushrooms as you are paying for more water than mushroom
> 
> It's more important to avoid disturbing the mycelium bed than to cut. Gently remove at the base, and cover.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

:lol:


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Food gradients: A work of art

































sauce: wright kitchen


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Toronto's first fully vegan food truck The Vegan Extremist will debut May 14 at the Veggie Fest Hamilton. The truck specializes in curries and will serve classic Thai and Indian dishes such as vegetable korma, samosas, chana masala, and carrot halwa with cashews and raisins


Toronto to Get First Vegan Food Truck


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Enjoying my lentil soup....mmmmm !









Fat Pasha restaurant in Toronto... delicious middle eastern fare. Red lentil pumpkin soup - preserved lemon salsa verde, labneh. Best hummus I've ever eaten. chickpea, tahini, lemon, smoked chipotle, evo (low carb high protein) Altz is gut!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## Guest (May 6, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1068441


 I dunno. I eat a lot of Avocados and I still don't have a Uterus.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forster said:


> I dunno. I eat a lot of Avocados and I still don't have a Uterus.


Ha! and for me it's figs


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We found a morel near the trail... going back later to search for more!


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## Guest (May 12, 2016)

We used to find grocery bags of morels when I was a kid. We'd eat them everyday for a few days and dry the rest for later (soak in salt water to remove the bugs, thread onto a piece of kite string and hang from the ceiling until completely dehydrated). Cream of Morel Soup (sorry, not strictly vegan) was the best meal ever.


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## BeDrinkable (Sep 22, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1069792


braaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiins!


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Reading labels: Labeling standards don't necessarily make sense.









The explanation: These are treacherous times

https://consumerist.com/2013/06/04/why-non-dairy-creamer-has-dairy-in-it/


----------



## Guest (May 15, 2016)

^^Apparently it just tastes like "Non-Dairy"^^
Edit: You mean you can't make Soy-Milk by feeding your cows Soybeans?


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ways to get more calcium









The dairy industry would like us to believe that milk builds strong bones. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to advertise milk and cheese. Yet, a 12-year Harvard study of 78,000 women demonstrated that those who drank the most milk broke more bones than women who rarely drank milk. Evidence from around the world shows that in countries where dairy intake is highest, osteoporosis is most prevalent. Where dairy is seldom consumed, bones remain strong into old age. While we certainly don't need milk, we do need calcium to keep our bones healthy. The good news is that a plethora of vegetarian foods-including beans and greens, dried fruit, nuts and seeds, and fortified juice and soymilk-all provide ample calcium.

How much is enough? The World Health Organization recommends we consume 1000 milligrams of calcium every day, while the recommended daily allowance in North America and developed countries-where people eat a high-protein, high-salt diet-is 1000 to 1300 milligrams a day. Here is a list of some of our favorite calcium-rich foods:

Collards (1 cup cooked): 385 mg
Fortified orange juice (1 cup): 350 mg
Dried figs (10 medium): 269 mg
Tofu (1/2 cup): 258 mg
White beans (1 cup cooked): 161 mg
Mustard greens (1 cup cooked): 150 mg
Navy beans (1 cup cooked): 128 mg
Kale (1 cup cooked): 94 mg
Chickpeas (1 cup cooked): 80 mg
Raisins (2/3 cups): 80 mg

1. Pour some calcium-enriched soymilk or nut milk on breakfast cereal, and sprinkle some raisins on top.
2. Add kale, collard greens, or mustard greens to salads. Chop up a few dried figs and toss them in to add calcium-packed sweetness.
3. Use kale or collard greens on sandwiches instead of lettuce.
4. Add a few tablespoons of silken tofu to a fruit smoothie.
5. Add beans to salads, mash them on toast, or cook with some veggie dogs.

sauce: 5 Great Ways to Get More Calcium


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

More: http://forums.mtbr.com/off-camber-o...tently-shaped-like-something-else-961721.html


----------



## 1consciousfella (May 18, 2016)

Another fellow vegan here going on 6 months. I damn near **** myself when i saw this thread.(Excited)
Just want to say the Vegan lifestyle changed my life. My health has never been better, no need for all these products on the market for energy, protein etc. Everything you need is naturally occurring in nature. On that note. Make sure to eat **** tons of bananas and other fruits. Organic of course.
Stay blessed my friends, Much love to you.
-Rob


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Way to go Rob! Welcome. Glad you found this forum (exciting and stimulating  ) !


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## Fuzzle (Mar 31, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1071520


That's hilarious!


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Except for these badass avocados


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## Fuzzle (Mar 31, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1071870
> 
> 
> Except for these badass avocados
> ...


So you won't eat anything that poops.


----------



## Guest (May 24, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1071870
> 
> 
> Except for these badass avocados
> ...


 I've always maintained that the "H" was silent.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Veg Pizza prepared (locally) outdoors and baked in a stone oven... incredible


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Blogger Yvette d'Entremont, a.k.a. SciBabe, is calling out the top five food myths circulating the Internet right now.

Top 5 food myths that need to go away - Canadian Living


----------



## Muirenn (Jun 17, 2013)

cyclelicious said:


> Veg Pizza prepared (locally) outdoors and baked in a stone oven... incredible
> 
> View attachment 1073021
> 
> ...


Beautiful! What type of cheese-substitute did he use?


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The pics were taken a couple years ago. It was an all-veggie pizza but I can't recall the ingredients. Definitely a bit of oil



Vegan Parmesan is often used (but not for that pizza) 

I've seen recent recipes calling for this:

Ingredients
3/4 cup (90 g) raw cashews
3 Tbsp (9 g) nutritional yeast
3/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder

Instructions
Add all ingredients to a food processor and mix/pulse until a fine meal is achieved. Store in the refrigerator to keep fresh. Lasts for several weeks.


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## alphazz (Oct 12, 2012)

Cashew cheese is okay but why does pizza have to have "cheese"?


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## chillis (Mar 24, 2015)

I don't believe it does! The wife & I make flat breads using lavash, and then make a funky pesto for the sauce. My favorite is to use rocket arugula because the pesto comes out nice and spicy.

Love this thread, by the way, just stumbled upon it!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

That pizza looks mouth watering, alphazz !


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## alphazz (Oct 12, 2012)

Thanks, I think it was good. It had all my favorite stuff.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Today's lunch at Rawlicious (all vegan)

BBQ Burger:
Almond & sun-dried tomato patty on a sprouted buckwheat bun with BBQ sauce, vegan cheddar cheese (non dairy), caramelized onions, lettuce & tomato. Served with a side salad.

Dressing: 
Tahini Garlic - olive oil, dijon, tahini, garlic.








Banana Cream Pie
A layer of sliced bananas separates a banana & coconut cream layer on top of an almond & date crust.








All Green Goodness Salad
Cucumber, green onion, avocado, sunflower sprouts, pumpkin & hemp seeds on kale & romaine lettuce.

Balsamic Vinaigrette 
olive oil, balsamic, maple syrup, Dijon, garlic & spices.








Hemp Seed Bar
Cashew, dates, vanilla, coconut oil, hemp seeds


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Seems so idealistic? How bananas are harvested


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## Fuzzle (Mar 31, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1075219


Yikes :eekster:.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Found another morel patch









false morel (false morels are not hollow)


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I don't see the appeal









Is there anything stupider?









Ha! Washed, cooked and plastic wrapped...


----------



## Guest (Jun 12, 2016)

^^If you have to wrap them, why not use aluminum foil. That way you can at least get some use out of the wrapping.^^


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I don't eat honey but I am a big fan of the bees... we can't lose you guys!

Honey Bee Extinction Will Change Life As We Know It | Motherboard


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## acer66 (Oct 13, 2010)

lol


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Holy guacamole!

Avocado shortage fuels crime wave in New Zealand


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Extreme onion chopping... I'm crying while I watch this :cryin:


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ethiopian Vegan Food

Injera
A fermented grain mixed with water and then fried similar to a pancake or crêpe. injera is the backbone of Ethiopian meals. Eaten multiple times a day and typically served family-style with large spoonfuls of savory dishes, injera is commonly made from a grain called teff and is full of nutrients such as protein, calcium, fiber, and iron. Teff is naturally gluten-free. Food platters are served with additional pieces of injera to scoop up delectable dishes such as simmered greens, spicy lentils, or stewed chickpeas. The best part? Injera is always vegan.

Berbere
Berbere is a staple seasoning blend of hot red peppers and spices such as garlic, cardamom, cinnamon, and paprika. Most often added to spicy red sauces and stews, berbere can also be used in dressings or as a tableside condiment. Purchase the flavorful accompaniment as a dried spice mix in Ethiopian grocery stores, specialty markets, or online, or make the paste at home. Berbere can also pack some heat, so proceed with caution.

Wat
A term generally describing Ethiopian main dishes, wats can vary from a thin curry to a thick stew. Eaten with injera and served in an assortment of spice-levels, wat can typically be divided into two main types. Kay, characterized by its red color and use of berbere, begins with red onions or shallots. Then, broth is added along with the main ingredient (typically a type of legume) and thickened. Often abbreviated as just "wat," some of the most popular are shiro, made with chickpeas, and misir, made with lentils. Alicha, which tends to be thick like a stew and doesn't contain berbere (but can sometimes be spicy due to added hot green chiles), begins with yellow onions. Broth and the main ingredients are then added (vegetables and sometimes legumes) and left to thicken to a stew-like texture. Remember to specify your veganism when ordering these dishes because some might be prepared with ghee.

Salad
Salad is an unexpected yet refreshing feature of Ethiopian cuisine. Although the dish appears as a standard arrangement of lettuce, the Ethiopian version acts as a cold, light complement to thick, spicy wats. Dressings aren't typically dense, and Ethiopian chefs opt for Italian or citrus-filled varieties. If you're lucky, yours might even contain a kick of berbere!

Sauce: Guide to Vegan Ethiopian Food


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1077510


Or I could simply be Bivore curious. I had to invent a new word to explain that...


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Recently had vegan pizza (and a dunkaroo cookie) at APIECALYPSE NOW! Delicious! 
The "ricotta cheese" was made with cashew.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How to peel and eat an orange... because you probably have been doing it wrong 






Personally I like creative peels


----------



## 1consciousfella (May 18, 2016)

Large & in charge vegan breakfast for my 30 mile ride the other day. Fruit powers :thumbsup:


----------



## 1consciousfella (May 18, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> I don't see the appeal
> 
> View attachment 1075477
> 
> ...


If only they had an outer protective layer...


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

World's hottest destinations for vegans - CNN.com

India, Israel, and-you guessed it-Portland among top picks.
Also New York City, Berlin, Los Angeles, Honolulu... Toronto!

Vegan Pizza lunch this week :thumbsup:


----------



## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

Hmmmmm...
Would've thought it would be the bedroom...


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ericmopar said:


> Hmmmmm...
> Would've thought it would be the bedroom...


Hubba Hubba


----------



## Guest (Jul 1, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> World's hottest destinations for vegans - CNN.com
> 
> India, Israel, and-you guessed it-Portland among top picks.
> Also New York City, Berlin, Los Angeles, Honolulu... Toronto!
> ...


 I've been in Qatar when it was over 120F, the Vegans there thought it was a hot location.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ OMG Forster... that's hot enough to melt vegan "cheese". The hottest temperatures I've ever experienced is in a sauna... 120f would be unreal!


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Authentic Japanese streetfood. I tried the vegan option. My meal was 2 Croquettes, purple rice, fresh ginger. The purple rice is a blend of white and black rice. This blend creates a tasty, healthy, rice with a nutty flavour. Black rice is high in iron, antioxidants, and fibre. After cooking, black rice turns into a deep purple colour.

















Compliments to the chef!


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

Oh man, so many tasty things there.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ericmopar said:


> Oh man, so many tasty things there.


It was an amazing concept. Dozens of shipping containers were used and converted into kitchens. Each kitchen has it's own ethic menu. ie (West Indian: roti's; Philippino; Japanese: gushi; Columbian; Afghan; Thai; Korean; Chinese; southern grill etc) While all the kitchens prepared meat dishes. they all had vegetarian and vegan variations for every ethnic menu.

Market 707 Vendors | Scadding Court Community Centre

Here's me a few days ago. I tried the Afghan eggplant and rice









Other vendors include a small bike shop


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## Guest (Jul 6, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1080379


 Kelp is on the way.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

and "Common Sense is knowing it's not"


----------



## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

That's a good one. I have heard the first two before but not the one about ketchup.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Great idea... !


----------



## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> Great idea... !
> 
> View attachment 1080960


My wife says yay. :thumbsup:


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Eating Fruit and Vegetables Increases Happiness











> Longitudinal research project finds positive link between healthy eating and psychological well-being.
> 
> A new study by the University of Warwick and the University of Queensland found that people who ate more fruit and vegetables experienced substantial increases in happiness over a two-year period, even when other factors were accounted for. Researchers examined the food diaries of 12,385 randomly sampled Australian adults during the years 2007, 2009, and 2013 to measure their happiness level and concluded that people who transitioned from eating few fruit and vegetables to eight servings per day felt increases in life satisfaction comparable to getting a job after being unemployed. The research team suggests that their findings could potentially support other scientific studies linking optimism with carotenoid in the blood.


Fruit and veg give you the feel-good factor


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

The watermelon table is cool.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I went back to the street kitchens and tried another the Afghan dish called Laban (beans and salad on rice... all-vegan) The spices were amazing. Later we walked through chinatown and I found a hat I couldn't resist


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Building muscle on a Vegan diet









Is it really possible to build mass, increase strength, and optimize your athletic performance without eating any animal products?



> Bodybuilding and strength sports have traditionally been built on a hearty diet of animal protein. Even the general public automatically associate gym-goers with eggs, chicken breast, steak, and whey protein shakes.
> 
> So if the Western world thinks protein=animal products, can a healthy, muscular and strong body really be fueled by a diet which contains no animal protein at all?
> 
> ...


Sauce: Building Muscle On A Vegan Diet - Lift Big Eat Big


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Man Eats 25 Pounds of Kale in Eight Minutes to Win Eating Contest!

That fiber, though.


----------



## Guest (Jul 14, 2016)

^^Headlines the next day.."Man hospitalized for jaw cramps following Kale Eating contest."^^


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forster said:


> ^^Headlines the next day.."Man hospitalized for jaw cramps following Kale Eating contest."^^


I don't know how he did it! I like kale but 25 lbs at once? ha! no can do!


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> 30-year study found that a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, and nuts helps slow the aging process.
> 
> The Journal of Nutrition recently published a Harvard Medical School study showing that women who eat a plant-based diet are physically healthier than their meat-eating counterparts as they age. Based on survey data from more than 54,000 women who were tracked over the course of three decades, researchers found that a diet rich in fruit, leafy greens, and nuts correlated with higher levels of physical functioning. Meanwhile, high consumption of sugar, alcohol, salt, and trans-fats more often resulted in health problems. While researchers found some foods to have especially health-promoting properties (such as oranges, apples, pears, romaine lettuce, and walnuts), researchers emphasized that it was the overall quality of the subjects' diet that kept them healthier.


Diet rich in fruit, veg can help older women stay active


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I love Vegenaise! So I was so excited to find this article describing how it's made

https://munchies.vice.com/en/articles/this-is-how-your-favorite-vegan-mayonnaise-gets-made


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## shredchic (Jun 18, 2007)

Me too Cyclicious! Just had macaroni salad with it. It tastes way better than egg mayo. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ way to go shredchic! Yes loooove vegenaise!


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Japanese curry with sweet potatoes and purple rice (it's sweeter than Indian style curry)


----------



## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

Careful about eating too many carrots


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^
:lol: It's a hell of a vegetable


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Here's to Throwback Thursday!

Back in the day when smoking cigarettes was accepted as an appetite suppressant or "healthy choice"


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Animal-free meat - around the corner. Vegan Carnivores could exist! 

*Meet the guy who envisions a 'meat brewery' to help solve a global problem*
Bruce Friedrich, 46, is the executive director of the Good Food Institute and managing trustee of New Crop Capital, which both promote restructuring the meat industry away from animal slaughter. He lives in Washington.

*Would you call yourself an activist?*

Yes. Well ...

*Is there another term you would use?*

I'm a nonprofit executive. And a venture capitalist. New Crop Capital is focused on finding the companies that we believe will be maximally transformative, away from animal agriculture and toward plant-based and clean alternatives.

*Are all of the companies you focus on in the creating, like in the lab?*

We have invested in a few companies that are focused on meat and collagen that are cultured. At commercialization it will look like a beer brewery, but it will be for meat. So a meat brewery.

*You refer to it as meat? You don't use quotation marks or anything?*

It's meat. It's the exact same thing, just grown in a different way. It's cleaner, safer, transparent. There are tens of millions of illnesses from contaminated meat annually, thousands of people die. All of that goes away. At scale, it will be cheaper than beef, because it's so much more efficient.

*How'd you get here?*

I ran a homeless shelter in D.C. as part of the Catholic Worker movement for six years. I came when I was 20. Mitch Snyder [at] the Community for Creative Non-Violence just opened my eyes. I knew about global poverty, but I didn't really have the sense of what to do about it. And Mitch said, "This is an urgent situation - all of you need to join in the struggle to make things better for the poor." And that really spoke to me. So I came to Washington, D.C., and he killed himself that summer , before I got there.

Wow.

*Do you consider your work now helping global hunger as well?*

The Good Food Institute attempts to take ethics off the table for consumers. This is a solution to the end of the antibiotics era. This is a solution to climate change. The solution to global poverty. It seems to us that the likely solution is to just make the default choice that climate-friendly choice.

Because relying on people's ethics is &#8230;

It's a lot to ask.

*I Googled you. You streaked the queen [for PETA]!*

I had GoVeg.com written on my body. The Times of London reported "it is not known whether her majesty was forced to avert her eyes." That is very close to a direct quote.

*You're much more committed than most people are to causes they think are good.*

And there's a degree to which that's alienating, right? We're trying to normalize what we're doing and relate to people in a way that is not making people feel bad for the choices they're making.

*So you'd rather be perceived as not an activist.*

Yes.

*You're not an activist.*

I'm a nonprofit executive.

Sauce: https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...5716b8-3e30-11e6-a66f-aa6c1883b6b1_story.html


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## Guest (Jul 29, 2016)

I think if it's animal free, it's probably more accurately referred to as meat-like protein. I applaud the effort, especially if it tastes okay. I'd start with bacon.


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## chillis (Mar 24, 2015)

I've had a can in my Go Bag for a while now for emergencies, and just ate it last weekend at the trail head between rides. It is awesome! Already cooked, ready to be eaten. I love not having any food prep out the trail or while camping.

Also had the TJ's dahl mahkani which had a couple more grams of protein. Both were delicious and I'll be grabbing some more to take on weekenders from here on out!

*Edit: Oh, and coming from an Indian food lover, they are legit tasty :thumbsup:


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ ha looks good, chillis! Thanks for the taste test


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I have never eaten at Taco Bell, but I want to share some interesting info about the chain's vegetarian promotion



> Fast-food chain Taco Bell is promoting a https://www.tacobell.com/feed/how-to-eat-veggie guide to its nearly two million Twitter followers. The eatery created a vegetarian menu-the first fast-food chain to receive American Vegetarian Association approval-earlier this year due to rising customer demand. In its guide, the company pointed out meat-free options to make it even easier for customers to order. "Taco Bell sells 350 million vegetarian items a year," the company says, "and about seven percent of all items ordered at Taco Bell are either vegetarian-friendly or made vegetarian-friendly by substitution or removal." Taco Bell is among several chain restaurants looking to increase their popularity with the growing vegetarian and vegan demographic. Subway introduced vegan protein patties last year, while Wendy's began testing a new veggie burger at select locations nationwide.


Sauce: Taco Bell Promotes Meat-Free Guide


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting article about Clean Meat.

How to Feed Ten Billion: Lab-Made 'Clean Meat' Burgers are Future of Food

Posted on Reddit. I also found the comments generally positive


__
https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/4wpxbo


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Here's How To Pick The Perfect Watermelon Without Cutting It

#1. Pick a dull looking watermelon









A shiny appearance indicates an under-ripe melon.

#2. Look for the field spot









The yellow spot, known as the field spot, is a creamy spot on the melon, and it's where the watermelon was resting on the ground. The field spot should be a yellowish creamy color as shown here.

#3. Look for 'webbing'









These weblike brown spots on the watermelon mean that bees touched the pollinating parts of the flower many times. The more pollination, the sweeter the fruit is.

#4. 'Boy' and 'girl' watermelons









Many people do not know that farmers differentiate watermelons by gender. For example, 'boys' are bigger, have an elongated shape, and a watery taste. The 'girls' have a rounded shape and are very sweet.

#5. Pay attention to the size









It is better to choose neither the largest nor the smallest watermelon. Select an average-sized fruit. And note, please: large or small, the watermelon should feel heavy for its size.

#6. Inspect the tail









A dried tail indicates that the watermelon is ripe. However, if the tail is green, it probably means that the watermelon was picked too soon and will not be ripe.

Sauce: Here's How To Pick The Perfect Watermelon Without Cutting It


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Boost Your Performance! 3 Vegan Foods that Really Work

You've probably heard certain foods and drinks can boost athletic performance.

Coffee, for example, makes you run faster, and tart cherries reduce inflammation.

Researchers are finding that what you eat can actually boost cardiovascular efficiency, hasten recovery time, and increase immunity against common exercise-induced illnesses.



> *3 Foods to Boost Athletic Performance*
> 
> 1. *Beets*
> 
> ...


Sauce: Boost Your Performance! 3 Vegan Foods that Really Work | No Meat Athlete


----------



## Guest (Aug 12, 2016)

When Vegans get into an argument, is it still a "Beef?"


----------



## acer66 (Oct 13, 2010)

Forster said:


> When Vegans get into an argument, is it still a "Beef?"


I think it is called getting into a "tofu!".


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good one guys!


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

THE VEGAN DIET OF AMERICAN OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTER KENDRICK FARRIS









Team USA's lone male competitor has already set the American record in the 94kg weight class. With a combined personal best of 377kg in the snatch and the clean and jerk, the 29-year-old Louisiana native also holds the 94kg American record. Now, as he goes for gold in his third Olympic Games, Farris credits his all-vegetable diet with making him stronger, leaner, and more focused than ever.



> "When people think about particular diets, they often think about it in terms of what they can't eat," Farris says from Rio, where he's preparing for the final competition in the 94kg lifting class. "People ask me, 'Do you walk around and eat salads all day?' I actually don't even eat salads that often. But I like to think of it as having a lot of options. There are a lot of things you can eat."
> 
> Instead of strict limitations, Farris follows a few simple rules: He eats when he's hungry. He eats what makes his body feel good in training. And he aims for a broad range of vegan-friendly foods.
> 
> ...


Sauce:
The Vegan Diet of American Olympic Weightlifter Kendrick Farris


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## Guest (Aug 16, 2016)

Odd conversation today at lunch. One guy's asking another "Are you a Vegetarian or a Vegan." Guy number two "I just don't eat any kind of meat, fish, eggs or dairy." Guy one, what's the difference between that and being a Vegan?" Guy number two "I tell people what I am, a Vegan would." Seems like an odd answer, but hey, whatever he's comfortable with I suppose. Personally I'm not much for labels anyway.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good eats this weekend

Zimbabwean snacks. They had a kale carrot pie on the menu. (vegan) Delish!









Over to Kensington Market : Chris is having a vegan cornbread and carrot cupcake









Then over to chinatown where there was a street festival. There was much fish and squid.... but also some interesting veggie snacks 

Potatoes and Yams








Twisted into street eats corkscrews!


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## chillis (Mar 24, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> Here's How To Pick The Perfect Watermelon Without Cutting It
> 
> Sauce: Here's How To Pick The Perfect Watermelon Without Cutting It


Thanks so much for this guide! My wife & I love watermelon but we just sort of gamble with what the rind looks like and are always saying "oh this one was sweeter and softer!" and "this was more bland, didn't care for it". Now I have some trials to go thru to find a method to watermelon-picking madness.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Dancing veggies wow crowd at Olympics closing ceremony











> At the closing ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilians showed off their diverse musical talent and dance moves-including a large choreographed number with dozens of people dressed up as brightly-colored broccoli, bell pepper, raspberries, and other edible plants.
> 
> Amused Tweets flooded in to #ClosingCeremony expressing admiration (@TaCaGo: "These vegetables are great dancers"), hunger (@clarebalding: "I could really demolish a plate of broccoli now"), and appreciation (@swannsmith: "As we leave Rio, our hosts remind us to eat our vegetables").


https://www.romper.com/p/are-vegetables-dancing-at-the-closing-ceremony-yes-in-varied-hues-16833


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Best Summer Fruits & Vegetables









Tomatoes
This summer vegetable (that's also a fruit) is the perfect addition to any burger, grilled kabob or salad, and not just for its fresh and tangy taste-tomatoes are rich in lycopene, an antioxidant that helps protect your skin from UV-caused skin irritations like erythema. Tomatoes are also are great source of vitamin C, A and K, and contain high levels of magnesium and potassium, minerals that help with energy metabolism and recovery after a sweaty workout session.

Red or orange bell peppers
Red and orange produce-like sweet and spicy bell peppers that are ready for harvest in the summer-contain high levels of beta-carotene, which has been linked to lessening the effects sunburns by providing the body with antioxidants and anti-inflammatory benefits. Red and orange peppers are also high in vitamin C, which can help keep summer colds at bay.

Cucumbers
Cucumbers are a hydrating summer vegetable that gives a refreshing twist to any salad, sandwich or spa water. Cucumbers have a high water content, so they make an excellent snack if you're trying to beat the heat and stay hydrated. Cucumber is rich in potassium, magnesium and vitamin K, a key component in bone health that can help prevent fractures.

Watermelon
Nothing is as refreshing and satisfying on a hot summer's day than biting into a big, juicy slice of watermelon. Watermelon can be considered the ultimate summer fruit, containing high levels of lycopene for skin protection, water to keep you hydrated, and vitamin C and A to help boost your immune system.

Berries
Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries -- which start coming into season as soon as the temperature rises and are available all summer long - are packed with flavonoids that provide antioxidant benefits. Numerous studies have shown berries can help with everything from keeping your memory sharp and your gut healthy to lowering your blood pressure and decreasing your risk of cancer. These sun-kissed summer snacks are great on their own or on top of salads and sorbets.

sauce: Get Out There : Best Summer Fruits & Vegetables


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Crabapples are dropping (Spotted during my ride)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Wild Blueberries from our recent trip to northern Ontario


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Abstract
> 
> Background: Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Dietary factors account for at least 30% of all cancers in Western countries. As people do not consume individual foods but rather combinations of them, the assessment of dietary patterns may offer valuable information when determining associations between diet and cancer risk.
> 
> ...


full article/study sauce Vegetarian Diets and the Incidence of Cancer in a Low-risk Population

I repeat :

F*ck Cancer
Eat your veggies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Lifting heavy things seems to go hand-in-hand with chowing down on hefty amounts of steak (or chicken breast, if you've got to make weight). But there's no law saying "If Thou Liftest Weights, Thou Must Eat Meat".
> 
> So let's explore the realities of being a vegetarian strength athlete. Including the answer to that annoying question: "but where do you get your protein from?"
> 
> ...


sauce: Vegetarian Nutrition For Strength Training - Lift Big Eat Big


----------



## unicrown junkie (Nov 12, 2009)

There's nothing wrong with being a vegetarian but including eggs in that above wholly negates the philosophy. 

Working at the Co-op in Davis as a kid in the mid-80s made me one for quite some time and I support anyone who chooses it but we need to be realistic.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I agree unicrown. There is some variants of the vegetarian diet that includes dairy (ie cheese, eggs and milk etc) in the diet.

Being vegan a philosophy and compassionate lifestyle

Wonder if this tat will change to "Vegen" ?


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How to Grow 6,000 Lbs of Food on 1/10TH Acre


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## TraxFactory (Sep 10, 1999)

Enjoy lurking in here I have to say  I'm not vegan or vegetarian but focus on fueling with lots of vegetarian foods. Lately I've been rolling moms hummus into Dino Kale for a trail snack if I'm not going too far.. Similar to a stuffed grape leaf. I like to pop some Kalamata olives in there for some extra tasty goodness. Love crunching on the raw Dino, stem and all.

Currently I have a contract with a Food, Nutritional Supplement and Personal Care products manufacturing company (In the IT realm). I was speaking with one of our Food R&D Scientists about some homemade energy balls I've been playing with. I wanted a better binding ingredient so they stayed together longer. I was thinking brown rice syrup. She looked at me like I was nuts and started to inform me about the "metal loading" in rice and high arsenic levels. Felt like I was living under a rock after doing some reading on the subject. 

Other than the crazy arsenic levels in rice products, what I did get out of the conversation was to use a date paste or puree as a sugar substitute and binder agent for these energy balls. Better yet just as a sweetener substituent for many things. Looking for some date paste recipes or uses...gotta love mtbr!

-Adrian


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Seeds 









Pumpkin seeds: great source of iron, which is often depleted in endurance athletes. Also packed with Vitamin E and magnesium which enhances musculature. Opt for the raw and unsalted kind.

Cashews: commonly thought of as nuts, these seeds are high in copper, used to aid the body in absorbing and transporting oxygen to muscles. Also comparatively low in fat.

Hemp seeds: equipped with one of the most complete proteins found in nature, hemp seeds contain all 9 essential amino acids so they're absolutely fantastic for the immune system.

Flaxseed: High in Omega 3's, they can help the body become more efficient at burning fat for fuel.

Almonds: studies have shown almond consumption increases carbohydrate oxidation, which is a measure of improved endurance. 
Perfect for mid-morning munchies, an afternoon eat or to spice up a smoothie, these seeds pack a powerful punch in terms of nutritional benefit for endurance athletes.

Sauce:Get Out There : Seeds of Success: Why You Need Them


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Throwback Thursday... when men wanted he-man salads









FYI gelatin isn't vegan


----------



## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

cyclelicious said:


> Throwback Thursday... when men wanted he-man salads
> 
> View attachment 1092866
> 
> ...


Ah, good 'ol 1950's sexism  Though who calls a jello-ish salad a salad anyway?


----------



## TraxFactory (Sep 10, 1999)

Any love for the Chia seed? I've been doing lots of Chia pudding with various fruits mixed in...


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## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

TraxFactory said:


> Any love for the Chia seed? I've been doing lots of Chia pudding with various fruits mixed in...


I need to figure out something to make with chia seeds. I know they are super healthy but I just never eat them. I've had chia pudding at a restaurant..and was not impressed, but that was more the lack of sweetness/flavor than the texture.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This popped up on my FB page. OMG autumn is coming!









Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats with Chia

Thick and creamy pumpkin pie overnight oats with chia are a nutritious, healthy breakfast. Top with nuts, maple syrup, cranberries, coconut or whatever your heart desires!

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup plain nonfat greek yogurt (To make this vegan or want this dairy free try using a coconut or almond milk yogurt.)
1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1/4 cup pumpkin puree (do not use pie mix )
1-2 teaspoons pure maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup BetterOats Old-Fashioned Oats/ or other brand
2 teaspoons chia seeds
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

INSTRUCTIONS

In a medium bowl, mix together greek / or almond or coconut yogurt, almond milk, pumpkin puree, vanilla and maple syrup until well combined. Stir in oats, chia seeds and spices. Pour into a glass jar or container and place in fridge for 4 hours or overnight. Makes 1 serving of pumpkin overnight oats.

Nutrition Information
Serves: 1
Serving size: 1 serving
Calories: 274
Fat: 6.5g
Carbohydrates: 42g
Sugar: 9.7g
Fiber: 10.3g
Protein: 14g


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## singlesprocket (Jun 9, 2004)

vegan marshmallow treats today...


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A few more pics from the Toronto Veg Fest (Largest of it's kind in North America)

































Caribbean lunch 








Hot day, hot lunch... cool down by the lake


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

For me, eating steamed brussells sprouts tastes bitter. Cutting them in half, roasting them and partially blackening them with a little olive oil and salt /pepper (and garlic) makes them much more delicious.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Goodbye Summer! Hello Fall! Equinox and pumpkin season









Pumpkin cultivator Oliver Langheim, nicknamed "Kürbis-Olli" (Pumpkin-Olli) poses next to a giant pumpkin weighing around 550 kilograms at a greenhouse in Fürstenwalde, eastern Germany on September 21st 2016.


----------



## Guest (Sep 23, 2016)

^^Is it too early to start the rant about the term "Pumpkin Spice?"


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ha! I was in Starbucks today and I swear the menu changed from Iced Coconut Milk Mocha Macchiato etc etc to Pumpkin Spiced Latte Frappuccino blended... overnight! Thank goodness my Americano's are available year round


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Brussells Sprouts

Fun fact: Did you know that brussell sprouts are grown on giant stalks? They are then pulled or cut off the stalk.


----------



## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

cyclelicious said:


> Brussells Sprouts
> 
> Fun fact: Did you know that brussell sprouts are grown on giant stalks? They are then pulled or cut off the stalk.
> 
> View attachment 1096020


They aren't grown in Brusselles? Isn't that false advertising?

That guy Olli looks like He's out of his... gourd...


----------



## Guest (Sep 24, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> Brussells Sprouts
> 
> Fun fact: Did you know that brussell sprouts are grown on giant stalks? They are then pulled or cut off the stalk.
> 
> View attachment 1096020


 By stalkers?


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Saturday in Toronto Japanese Curry Gushi 








Big healthy smiles








I think these creatures are meant to frighten the trash pandas








A nice clean alleyway 








Zeppelins overhead! Jah! Jah!


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Most sugar is charred with cattle bone to whiten and remove impurities. ... But is it organic, gluten free, non gmo, chemical free, low glycemic sugar blessed by a pastafarian-jedi monk?


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Leather Alternatives Predicted to Take Over Sports Shoe Industry

Animal-free products jump to top of the sportswear shoe industry thanks to Nike and Adidas opting for faux leather.



> International research firm Technavio's recent global leather market Report reveals that non-leather materials are primed to dominate the sportswear shoe industry in the coming years. Thanks in part to major brands such as Nike and Adidas-which are consistently opting for animal-free synthetic materials to manufacture their new product lines-consumers are becoming more inclined to purchase faux leather. "As a result of the high prices of raw leather, and the subsequent high prices of the finished products, consumers are now shifting toward the more affordable faux leather goods," lead analyst at Technavio Poonam Saini says. The report further predicts that the use of synthetic materials instead of animal leather is poised for a faster growth rate in the next five years. The same report predicts that leather is still a top-seller amongst the non-athletic segment, however luxury apparel brand Prada reported a 22-percent decrease in sales of its leather products during the first quarter of 2016.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Get to know Apples Part 1

1.Sunrise








End of August to September
Sunrise apples have a crisp and juicy texture. Their taste is sweet and mildly acidic.
Uses: snacking.

2. Honeycrisp







End of September to April
A generous size, Honeycrisp apples get their name from their subtle honey notes. Deliciously crisp and juicy, their flesh is cream coloured and doesn't turn brown very quickly.
Uses: best enjoyed as a snack, but also suitable for cooking.

3. Jersey Mac







Mid-August to September
Fairly large apple with crisp, very firm but juicy flesh. Jersey Mac apples are sweet, mildly acidic and strongly flavoured.
Uses: snacking or juicing.

4. Melba








Beginning of August to September
Sweet fruit with tantalizing spicy notes. Melba apples have a juicy and tender flesh, but tend to bruise easily.
Uses: ideal for cooking.

5.Spartan








October to April
Medium-sized "stocky" apple with a pretty deep red colour. Fairly sweet with medium acidity, Spartan apples are aromatic and exceptionally crisp.
Uses: snacking or in a pie. Equally ideal for making homemade cider.

6. Paula Red









End of August to October
A versatile apple, Paula Red apples have a crisp, juicy flesh. Their taste is rather acidic and moderately sweet.
Uses: snacking, cooking or juicing.

7. Gala








End of September to April
Gala apples are notable for their smooth skin marked by striped colours. Very firm, juicy and wonderfully crisp, their pale yellow flesh has a very sweet, low acidic flavour. Does not bruise very easily.
Uses: snacking or cooking.

8. McIntosh







October to June
One of the most popular varieties in Canada, it is prized for its crisp, very juicy and aromatic flesh. Moderately acidic and not very sweet, McIntosh apples are suitable for all recipes.
Uses: snacking, cooking, juicing or in cider.

9. Pommettes








End of August to September
Adorable, small bright red fruit that strongly resemble cherries. Their aromatic flesh is very crisp, not very juicy and highly acidic.
Uses: Superb for jellies and jams.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Know Your Apples Part 2

1. Crab









August harvest 
Crab apples look like mini red apples that are best picked when firm and hard to the touch, and sour to the taste. 
Uses: Excellent choice for jams, jellies and ciders.

2. Bramley









August harvest 
Hard and tart, the Bramley is originally from England. This apple has a thin skin so bruises easily. 
Uses: Voted the #1 baking apple by chef Jamie Oliver.

3. Discovery









August harvest 
Originally from England, the Discovery is a summer apple unique for its pink interior colour. Sweet and scrumptious, it is the perfect dessert apple. 
Uses: Enjoy on its own.

4. Gravenstein








August harvest 
Once a popular backyard apple, the waxy summer Gravenstein hails from Denmark. 
Uses: Snacking and making applesauce.

5. Boskoop








September harvest 
Known for its rough skin and rustic look, the Boskoop is firm and tart, so will retain its crispness and sweeten over time. Stores well in a cool, dry place like a wooden or cardboard box for up to six months. 
Uses: Snacking and baking.

6. Jonagold







End of September to early October harvest 
A late season, multipurpose apple that is a cross between a Jonathan and a Golden Delicious. Big and sweet with a thin skin, the Jonagold ripens to a golden-yellow colour. 
Uses: Snacking and baking.

7. Gloster








October harvest 
A German winter apple that is bright and attractive to the eye. Its dazzling red colour attracts birds. Store 1-2 months in a cool, dry environment. 
Uses: Snacking and baking.

8. Northern Spy








October harvest 
An American apple that deepens in colour once it is fully ripe. The Northern Spy is unique in that it is best picked after a light October/November frost for maximum sweetness and can be kept for up to four months if properly stored. 
Uses: Eating and cooking.

Sauce :Apple-picking season: a handy guide - Part 2 | Natrel | Natrel


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

Lol^


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I had Jamaican vegan "box lunch". Rice and peas, pumpkin and seitan.... amazeballs! Chris had his meal with plantain


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Toronto gets a vegan grocery store

I will have to check it out


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy vegan Thanksgiving from Canada


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

History on a Plate











> FROM the origins of agriculture about 11,000 years ago to the spread of Big Macs and Chinese restaurants around the world today, the story of food is also one of globalisation, argues Kenneth Kiple. The co-editor of "The Cambridge World History of Food" (2000), he draws largely upon his earlier reference work as he describes the emergence of different foods in various parts of the world, and the myriad processes by which they spread, mingled and spawned new offspring, from chilli con carne to the Happy Meal.
> 
> It is a fascinating tale. The opening of the Silk Road in the first century BC, for example, meant that knowledge of winemaking passed eastwards from the Middle East to China, while the idea of noodles moved in the opposite direction. And the "Columbian exchange" of foodstuffs between the Old and New Worlds was second in importance in food history only to the adoption of agriculture.





> Several themes emerge from the resulting historical casserole. Across time and space, food has always been used to delineate social distinctions, whether in Roman dining rooms or modern gourmet supermarkets. The dividing line between foods and medicines has always been a hazy one. New foods are generally regarded with suspicion, as potatoes were in 18th-century Europe and genetically modified crops are by many people in the 21st.
> 
> But today, after ten millennia of food globalisation, we are living at the end of food history-a time when everything is available everywhere. Spices that once commanded exorbitant prices-and prompted merchants to invent tall tales to obscure their origins-can now be found in the supermarket. Tomatoes and maize from the New World were unknown to the Romans but are now central to Italian cuisine. India is now the biggest producer of peanuts, a South American crop. China is the largest producer of wheat, a Middle Eastern crop, and of potatoes, originally from South America. Brazil dominates the production of coffee, originally from Ethiopia, and of sugar, originally from New Guinea. It is globalisation in a bowl.
> 
> Mr Kiple's book covers an enormous amount of ground and, like any stew, can be a bit lumpy at times. But it is brimming with curious titbits: the use of cocoa beans as currency; the accidental domestication of rye, oats and various legumes after they hitched a ride with wheat and barley; Coca-Cola's origins as a health tonic. Anyone interested in the history of food for whom "The Cambridge World History of Food" seems too large a helping will find Mr Kiple's sprightly summary volume far more palatable.


sauce:

History on a plate | The Economist


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Guest (Oct 14, 2016)

Fun with hotel room cooking last night. On the road with a group of folks from work and two of us ended up buying Spaghetti Squash without realizing that our rooms have no oven. Figuring out how to microwave it wasn't tough, but halving it with a steak knife was a bear. Still, totally worth it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Keeping the vegan gangsta game on lock, this artist is no "toy".


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Lunch today at Grasshopper









My meal:









HARU ("SPRING") SALAD

Mixed green, daikon, gobo root, cucumber, chickpeas, beans with recommended bold plum dressing

House-made salad dressings:
Plum Dressing

Addition

Crispy breaded tofu cubes

Chris' meal:








CHICK-UN BANH MI

Crispy vegan "chick-un", house sauce, tomatoes, lettuce, caramelized onions and shredded vegan Mozzarella cheese

SESAME FRIES


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

^^^^
Looks tasty!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^Yup very tasty 

Or "every day", as we like to call it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Never refrigerate tomatoes



> Tomatoes officially taste worse when they've been refrigerated, thanks to a new study revealing how certain genes that produce flavor are down regulated as a result of chilling. This explains why commercial tomatoes - which are normally chilled in order to delay ripening and prevent decay - are considered by many to be less delicious than those bought directly from farmers.
> 
> The flavor of a tomato is produced by a combination of sugars, acids and Volatiles , which are amino acids and esters that have a particular taste. Previous studies have shown that some of these volatiles are lost when tomatoes are stored at low temperature, prompting a team of international researchers to try and figure out why this happens at the molecular level





> By storing tomatoes at 5 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahrenheit) for a period of 8 days and then analyzing the changes in expression of 25,879 genes, the researchers were able to determine how low temperatures affect the regulation of genes that code for flavor-producing volatiles.
> 
> Their results, which appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that genes controlling the production of 12 different volatiles were downregulated after being refrigerated. This was later verified by a taste test, in which a group of 76 consumers identified these tomatoes as being less flavorsome than others that had not been refrigerated.
> 
> ...


sauce: Hereâ€™s Why You Shouldnâ€™t Put Tomatoes In The Fridge | IFLScience


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^Thanks for this recipe midgemagnet


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Midgemagnet said:


> Another vote for keeping tomatoes out of the fridge. This phenomenon has been known about for almost as long as there have been refrigerators, but it's nice to see some solid scientific research to back up the anecdotal evidence. It doesn't help that most commercial tomato varieties don't taste that good anyway - it's one of those inviolable laws of the universe that states You Can't Have Everything. If you have a tomato variety that looks good, transports without bruising, is a heavy cropper and has a long shelf life then you can be sure it will taste bland.
> 
> My grandfather used to keep a few sheep, so I feel I am eminently qualified to pass on my personal recipe for sheep-free shepherd's pie. Quantities are deliberately vague, so adjust to taste.
> 
> ...


I make one similar, but I use seitan instead of Quorn. I also use almond milk, nutritional yeast, and faux butter in the mash. For the gravy, braise a few shitakes, then pulverize them and then add to the gravy base for the umami flavor. A splash of soy sauce helps too.

I find that pouring the gravy on top of the veg mix after it has been placed in the baking dish helps to maximize the amount of gravy. It does go from a shepherd's pie to more of a gravy pie, but who doesn't want more gravy?!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ nice alternative


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Labels Lie


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Vegan Olympic Medalist to Open Microsanctuary
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ted Talk:





Sauce:

Vegan Olympic Medalist to Open Microsanctuary


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

mmm vodka is missing


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1102061
> 
> 
> mmm vodka is missing


lmao!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I had a delicious vegan lunch at a new eatery in Toronto. Despite the restaurant name "Jackpot Chicken and Rice" the vegan option was top notch. Tofu mushroom rice: Braised tofu with edamame, veggie XO sauce, and shiitake mushroom rice


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Vegan Halloween


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy World Vegan Day

Turmeric









History:
The legend says that when baby Jesus was born, three wise men from the East went to see him and brought him gifts. They brought him gold, frankincense and myrrh. There are some records that many people believed that gold actually refers to the commonly used spice of the time- turmeric.

Turmeric guards a special place in Indian tradition and religion too. It was used to worship Sun God. People also wore turmeric as a part of purification process.

Turmeric was also used by Buddhists monks, who traveled to different places around the world, to dye their robes. There is some evidence that turmeric was used as a part of Chinese medicine around 1000 years ago. By the mid 20th century, turmeric became popular in the western world too.

Health Benefits of Turmeric:
Turmeric consists of a wide range of antibacterial, anticarcinogenic, antioxidant, antimutagenic, antifungal, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory properties.It is rich in many healthy nutrients such as iron, dietary fiber, niacin, magnesium, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, potassium, protein, calcium, copper, and zinc. Thanks to all these vitamins, nutrients and minerals turmeric is often used to treat a wide variety of health problems



> Prevents cancer
> 
> It has been shown that turmeric can help prevent prostate cancer, stop the growth of already existing prostate cancer and even destroy cancer cells. Many researchers have found that thanks to the active components found in turmeric, it is one of the best protectors against radiation-induced tumors. Turmeric can also prevent growth of tumor cells like T-cell leukemia, colon cancer and breast cancer.
> 
> ...











Turmeric Tea

Ingredients:

• 1 cup hot water
• ½ tsp fresh grated turmeric
• dash of black pepper
• raw honey to taste (vegetarian) or Maple Syrup (Vegan)
• squeeze of lime (makes turmeric more bioavailable)

Instructions:
Heat up the water until it boils. Add turmeric and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the water from the stove and strain the tea. Add the remaining ingredients. Let it sit for 10 minutes than pour it in a cup and enjoy!

sauce: 7,000 Studies Confirm Turmeric Can Change Your Life: Here Are 7 Amazing Ways To Use It


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

makes sense ....


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2016)

Found a neat place in Golden CO to eat called the Sherpa House. The food is great but the atmosphere is even better. The also serve a killer Chai.


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## drich (Oct 9, 2015)

Ordered my regular vegan cheese/vegan chicken pizza last night from whole foods. I was so hungry and ate two pieces on the drive home. When I got home, my wife (who is a carnivore) grabbed a piece and said, "This is real chicken." She was right! Even though I was very clear when I made the order (who orders vegan cheese and real chicken?), I never checked the box and instead just grabbed slices on the drive home. First meat in 20+ years. My stomach still doesn't feel right this morning. Bad way to start the weekend.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Accidents happen. For the first 24 hours you feel shitty - but what you've done the past 20 years is still fantastic for your health + the animals + the planet, so don't beat yourself up. Sure, you lose your vegan powers for a day or two, but you'll be back up and at 'em saving lives in no time!


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## drich (Oct 9, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ Accidents happen. For the first 24 hours you feel shitty - but what you've done the past 20 years is still fantastic for your health + the animals + the planet, so don't beat yourself up. Sure, you lose your vegan powers for a day or two, but you'll be back up and at 'em saving lives in no time!


Thanks! You are right--did not feel good for a while but shook it off by this evening and went out to an all-vegan Thai restaurant to take care of my body. Vegan power back in play!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Meatless Mondays!


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

From Cyclecious' post above on Turmeric:

"Heals wounds

With its strong antiseptic and antibacterial effects, turmeric can do wonders for your skin. If you have a cut or a burn, simply sprinkle some turmeric powder on it and help the healing process. You can also use turmeric in repairing damaged skin, treat psoriasis and other inflammatory skin conditions."

Not that I'll washout just to try this....but next time.. Thanks!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Let us know how it goes....but in the meantime "keep the rubber side down "


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm Super Chick Pea!

AKA the musical fruit ... let me play you the song of my people


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## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

Super Cupcake...kinda weak. I'd rather have The Masked Eradicator.


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## TraxFactory (Sep 10, 1999)

cyclelicious said:


> Happy World Vegan Day
> Turmeric Tea


Thanks for the tea recipe, yummy stuff. I tried it with Mānuka Honey...mmmm

I am thinking a hit of cayenne next time...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Meatless Monday (read your labels  )


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## Guest (Nov 14, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> Happy Meatless Monday (read your labels  )
> 
> View attachment 1105340


 Wait, TimTam is really Soylent Green?


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

I know soaked, and then ground, cashews can be used to help create a cream/cheese sauce, but would cashew butter work just as well while removing the effort?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

dubthang said:


> I know soaked, and then ground, cashews can be used to help create a cream/cheese sauce, but would cashew butter work just as well while removing the effort?


VegNews Best of Show Awards 2016 Winner! Nut Butter Filled Energy Bar by Clif Bar


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How to Snack When You're a Vegan Athlete


> *Pre-workout snacking
> *
> The key to pre-workout snacks is complex carbohydrates, which provide the energy to run that extra mile or lift one more set. But because carbs can be heavy, stick to light ones that don't cause stomach cramps or make you feel sluggish. Some good examples of light carbs are bananas, dates, and apples. It's also important to think about the amount of time between your snack and your workout. If you're having a snack immediately before you hit the gym, stick to fruits. If you have more than an hour before your workout, choose heavier snacks such as oats and nuts to deliver a long-lasting source of energy to your hard-working body. The good news? Many types of plant-based protein are easier to digest than animal sources, which gives vegans an advantage when it comes to pre-workout snacking. Leafy green vegetables, such as spinach and romaine lettuce, are easily digestible and fuel your body with clean energy. To avoid feeling weighed down, avoid high fat foods before your workout.
> 
> ...


sauce How to Snack When You're a Vegan Athlete


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How To Eat Like A Vegan (Without Actually Becoming One)



> Maybe you've considered a vegan diet, but can't imagine a life without burgers, steaks, or hot dogs. Exercise physiologist Marco Borges - the trainer and lifestyle coach responsible for Jay Z and Beyoncé's healthier eating habits - gets it. And he's here to help. We recently spoke with Borges in Miami at Seed Food and Wine, the largest plant-based, conscious-living fest in the U.S., where he emphasized meeting people where they're at in their diet. "This lifestyle affords people the health to be happy," says Borges, and he stresses that it doesn't mean you have to go all in, or not at all. Here, Borges shares doable tips to help you adopt a more plant-based lifestyle, no matter what you typically eat.
> 
> Go Vegan, Get Ripped: How to Make the Switch
> 
> ...


Sauce: How To Eat Like A Vegan (Without Actually Becoming One) - Men's Journal


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> BALTIMORE-According to a report published Tuesday by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, bananas remain the overwhelming fruit of choice among individuals pretending to receive a telephone call. "Our research found that when subjects simulate the act of answering a phone, the banana is their preferred fruit nearly 100 percent of the time," said report co-author Martha Gross, who noted that when people seated near a basket of assorted fruit begin to mimic the sound of a ringing telephone, they almost invariably choose to raise a banana to their ear, eschewing all other fruits. "During our study, we never once observed anyone shouting 'Hello?' into an apple, pausing for several moments as if listening to the other end of a conversation while holding a peach to the side of their face, or slamming down a bunch of grapes while saying 'Click!' For the vast majority of people who hold imaginary phone calls on pieces of fruit, it's either a banana or nothing." The report went on to state that a pear remains the most popular fruit to say "Breaker, breaker!" into and then imitate the static of a CB radio.


Report: Bananas Still Most Popular Fruit For Pretending To Receive Phone Call - The Onion - America's Finest News Source


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Not all bananas are vegetarian.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Friday funnies


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

dubthang said:


> Not all bananas are vegetarian.


That's true.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Meatless Monday


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## Guest (Dec 13, 2016)

^^You should have saved one of those for "Wheatless Wednesday" for the Gluten Free Folk. ^^


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

lol ^


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day!


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## Guest (Dec 15, 2016)

Ah gagh gagh gagh.


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> Happy Hump Day!
> 
> View attachment 1110321


Maybe if he ate more spinach and veggies and cut the meat out of his diet he wouldn't have this problem of "Raising the Flag"


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

huckleberry hound said:


> Maybe if he ate more spinach and veggies and cut the meat out of his diet he would have this problem of "Raising the Flag"


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Delicious lunch today. Rice mushroom edamame and crisps.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Seems like coconut oil can solve many 1st world problems


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *The Veggie Edge for Athletes*
> 
> Vegan athletes assert that a plant-based diet gives them a leg up. Let's explore the science behind this claim.
> 
> ...


Sauce:The Veggie Edge for Athletes - Toronto Vegetarian Association


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Trends for 2017... more vegan and plant based protein options for restaurants



> Industry magazine Modern Restaurant Management names plant-based proteins the next big trend for restaurants in 2017.
> 
> Industry magazine Modern Restaurant Management recently released its predictions for top trends for 2017. Among various predictions in the technology sector, MRM named plant-based protein options at restaurants as a growing trend thanks to the successful launch of Impossible Foods' Impossible Burger, millions of dollars in funding granted to vegan companies such as Hampton Creek and plant-based milk producers Ripple, and the popularity of vegan butchers. "As vegetable protein technology becomes more refined and less costly," writer Judith Goldstein said, "we are bound to see more and more restaurants using plant based proteins to create meatless 'meats."' Goldstein predicts the industry is "bound to grow" and that vegetable proteins will be more readily available at dining establishments in 2017. MRM's prediction is corroborated by New York-based consulting company Baum + Whiteman, which published its annual trend report with similar predictions last month.


sauce: What?s Next for #RestaurantTech | Modern Restaurant Management | The Business of Eating & Restaurant Management


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## Guest (Dec 29, 2016)

For those of us old enough to remember the movie Soylent Green, this is sounding like the beginning of a familiar plot. We'll see where this grows, but it seems more like lab work to me than farming. Of course the same thing could have been said about Cheese and Yogurt manufacturing processes at one time too. As long as we heed Charlton Heston's warnings and don't eat the Soylent Green, it's people!!!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forster said:


> For those of us old enough to remember the movie Soylent Green, this is sounding like the beginning of a familiar plot. We'll see where this grows, but it seems more like lab work to me than farming. Of course the same thing could have been said about Cheese and Yogurt manufacturing processes at one time too. As long as we heed Charlton Heston's warnings and don't eat the Soylent Green, it's people!!!


Oh Yes I remember Soylent Green!

There is a lot of exciting work focused on finding alternatives to meat/dairy. The world is changing

Substitute for chicken, using peas : New Zealand Woman Develops Pea Protein-Based Chicken

Substitute for fish, using algae: Tofuna Fysh | ocean-inspired | plant-based

Just a couple of recent examples in the news


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

When you have a cold virus, it's beneficial to nourish your body with healthy immune boosting foods. Herbs or supplements can help too, but the foundation for good health must be rooted in food.



> *
> Fluids*
> When we are sick with a cold, flu, or fever, the most important thing our body needs is fluids. Andrew Weil, MD, once said that if you want to get sick, just stop drinking water. It's really that important. Water, vegetable broths, and herbal teas are optimum nectar for revitalization. Research shows that room-temperature and warm fluids are more beneficial than cold drinks. Cold liquids can hinder wellness by taxing the immune system as your body works to heat the liquid up for digestion. Eight to 10 glasses of warm fluids each day can help loosen mucus and congestion, and prevent dehydration that's common with fever. Herbal and medicinal teas are perfect warm elixirs. Several commercial varieties offer a slew of health-supporting, cold- and flu-fighting teas.
> 
> ...


Sauce: 5 Vegan Foods for a Healthy Immune System

Do Hot Liquids Ease the Symptoms of a Cold or Flu? - The New York Times


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## Guest (Jan 4, 2017)

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to cyclelicious again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The dairy alternatives industry is growing rapidly due to increased global environmental, health, and ethical concerns surrounding dairy. Study

A recent article in Forbes says coconut, flax, cashew, and hemp milk are new options consumers are excited about in 2017. Consumers will be looking for new dairy alternatives, particularly hemp milk which will be "the next big thing" as a plant based option.



> More alternative milk products on the market. This wouldn't be surprising, given that milk alternatives are already taking off. Still, Jonathan Clinthorne, based out of Denver and the manager of scientific affairs at Natural Grocers, which has stores throughout 19 states, thinks that we'll see more kinds of these products in the next year.
> 
> "We're seeing a wider selection of alternative milk products, which gives customers more options. Some of these new varieties include milks such as almond milk, coconut milk, cashew milk, flax milk and hemp milk," Clinthorne says.
> 
> ...


Sauce: Forbes


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## kubikeman (Jun 4, 2010)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1113888
> 
> 
> The dairy alternatives industry is growing rapidly due to increased global environmental, health, and ethical concerns surrounding dairy. Study
> ...


I'm so happy this is catching on. It's awesome to be able to order a latte or coffee with a splash of almond milk at places like Dunkin, Wegmans (local grocery store) and Starbucks. The first time I tried a latte made with almond milk, I couldn't believe how amazing it tasted! I actually prefer it now.


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## mabrodis (Oct 19, 2005)

kubikeman said:


> I'm so happy this is catching on. It's awesome to be able to order a latte or coffee with a splash of almond milk at places like Dunkin, Wegmans (local grocery store) and Starbucks. The first time I tried a latte made with almond milk, I couldn't believe how amazing it tasted! I actually prefer it now.


It's funny when you realize you actually prefer a 'knockoff' type of thing like that. I've made some vegan alfredo sauces before (with soaked cashews, spices, etc) which were fantastic, friends would ask me if they were as good as real alfredo sauce (which I love btw, I've made many loaded with butter, numerous cheeses, etc) and I have to admit the vegan might be better. Sure they are different but a cashew based sauce has a slight nutty flavor which 'real' alfredo doesn't, so it's hard to compare but it's certainly not a "this is an imposter version", more "this is an excellent different way to make a creamy sauce".


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## kubikeman (Jun 4, 2010)

mabrodis said:


> ...so it's hard to compare but it's certainly not a "this is an imposter version", more "this is an excellent different way to make a creamy sauce".


This was the major epiphany I had when I first experimented with veg. I basically learned how to cook the same recipes, with the same flavors (mostly) in veg form. Like you said, it wasn't so much replacing meat with some kind of fake meat substitute as it was learning how to cook differently.

I've actually never tried a cashew alfredo sauce, I'll have to give it a go.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Magnesium*

Magnesium is a mineral vital for your health as it is responsible for more than 300 catalysts in the human body. However, many people are magnesium deficient nowadays which causes serious symptoms that may damage your health. Magnesium deficiency is a widespread problem and some estimates suggest that over 90% of us are deficient. If you have a magnesium deficiency, odds are you're feeling the tell-tale signs of it. If you're running low on magnesium, you'll suffer from some of the following symptoms. This is why it's important to recognize the signs of magnesium deficiency on time and treat the problem naturally. Here are the main signs of the condition:

*High blood pressure*

Magnesium relaxes the blood vessels and allows better blood flow, which regulates your blood pressure and keeps it steady. This won't happen in cases of magnesium deficiency, which is why you should add the mineral in your diet.

*Muscle and Bone Problems. *
Magnesium stimulates enzymes that help normalize your body's levels of calcium, potassium, and other essential vitamins and minerals. It also serves to stop excess calcium build up in your muscle tissue.

*Indigestion*

Indigestion and acid reflux can be relieved by consuming a chocolate bar or magnesium supplement. When mineral homeostasis is disrupted, the body can undergo quite a bit of discomfort. One of these unpleasant situations is experiencing nausea. Nausea can be a result of just about anything else on this list, as well as being a direct result of a magnesium deficiency. You may even end up with vomiting and weakness too.
*
Muscle spasms*

Insufficient amounts of magnesium in the body may lead to muscle spasms and pain.

*Anxiety*

If you're feeling anxious and edgy without a cause, you may be suffering from magnesium deficiency. Magnesium relaxes your body and helps you unwind, which is why it's important to have it in proper amounts.

*Headaches and migraines*

If you're suffering from a headache or migraine, eat a chocolate bar rich in magnesium to stop your suffering.
*
Constipation*

Magnesium can help you treat and prevent constipation as it relaxes the muscles and improves nutrient absorption in the body.

*Sleep deprivation*

Magnesium deficiency can help you relax and allow you to sleep better.

*Chocolate cravings*

If you're currently having chocolate cravings, you are probably suffering from magnesium deficiency. Eat a piece of dark chocolate which contains about 25% of the daily recommended allowance of the mineral.

*Irregular heartbeat*

As magnesium relaxes all the muscles in the body including the heart muscle, low levels of it can cause arrhythmia and irregular heartbeat.

Here are 9 foods that can raise your magnesium levels:

*Cocoa*

Cocoa contains numerous essential minerals including magnesium, so make sure to add it to your daily diet.

*Brazil nuts*

Brazil nuts are rich in magnesium, vitamins B and E as well as monounsaturated fatty acids which are required for proper organ function. Eat a handful of the nuts 3 times a week to increase your magnesium intake and make everything run smoother.

*Beans and Lentils (Soy Beans)
* Other Beans and Lentils High in Magnesium (%DV per cup cooked): White Beans (28%), French Beans (25%), Black-eyed Peas (23%), Kidney Beans (21%), Chickpeas (Garbanzo) (20%), Lentils (18%), Pinto Beans (16%).

*Pumpkin seeds*

Pumpkin seed have magnesium and zinc in abundance and have been known to fight bacteria and viruses.

*Cashew nuts*

Cashews are rich in essential nutrients such as magnesium and copper which can stimulate melanin production in the body.

*Spinach*

Spinach is rich in minerals such as potassium, calcium, zinc, magnesium and iron as well as minerals such as vitamin A, C and K, folates and other essential nutrients. Consuming it regularly can treat and prevent heart diseases as well as other health problems.

*Quinoa*

This seed is rich in magnesium, protein and amino acids which can increase your serotonin levels and help you feel better.

*Almonds*

Almonds are rich in magnesium and a high amount of monounsaturated fatty acids that can regulate your cholesterol and heartbeat and effectively treat heart diseases.

*Rice bran*

Rice bran contains numerous minerals including magnesium - add it to your diet in order to keep your body and mind fully functional.

sauce:

9 Symptoms Of Magnesium Deficiency And 9 Foods To Fix Them - Healthy Way Of Life

Magnesium Deficiency â€" 10 Top Symptoms & Signs â€" Page 10 â€" Web Health Advices

Dietitians of Canada - Food Sources of Magnesium


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good foodie stuff we discovered today

This looks yummy








Baru almonds (tastes like almond and peanut)








https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipteryx_alata

Bunner's Bakery - Gypsy Supersonic Cookie (my favorite!)








Calories	100	
Sodium	20 mg
Total Fat	5 g	
Potassium	0 mg
Saturated	0 g	
Total Carbs	5 g
Polyunsaturated	0 g	
Dietary Fiber	0 g
Monounsaturated	0 g	
Sugars	0 g
Trans	0 g	
Protein	2 g
Cholesterol	2 mg

Himalayan salt (taking the claims with a grain of salt... still going to try it  )







Himalayan pink salt is a rich source of several minerals that are important to the human diet including sodium chloride, sulfate, calcium, potassium and magnesium. It is believed to lower blood pressure, improve circulation, increase libido, detoxify the body of heavy metals, promote healthy sleep patterns, reduce the signs of aging, aid in vascular health, prevent muscle cramps, strengthen bones and increase hydration

https://www.reference.com/health/benefits-himalayan-pink-salt-43cc8a4f87d61ace?qo=cdpArticles

This looks yummy


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Coconut Soya Milk Really?

No coconut, but contains skim milk power and fish... !


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Someone changed the Hollywood sign again, must be an Italian.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How to Veganize Any Recipe: Savory Edition

These expert tips will help you convert any recipe vegan.

*Cheese Change*
There are a ton of vegan cheeses out including shreds, wedges, artisan blocks, and slices, but to achieve a cheesy flavor, nutritional yeast is the way to go. For a little more dimension, add a little maca powder to the "nooch." Maca powder is pricey so reserve this method for a special-occasion dish. Coconut milk or cream is great at mimicking a buttery, cheesy flavor when combined with nooch. Cashews are stellar for replicating cheese sauces. Crumbled tofu, flavored with spices and vinegar, are great ways to replace feta, ricotta, and cottage cheese, or make your own Parmesan by pulverizing walnuts and nooch together. To go gourmet with DIY cheeses, check out Artisan Vegan Life - From Miyoko's Kitchen to Yours! by Miyoko Schinner.

*Egg Exchange*
Tofu is a great replacement for egg-heavy dishes that call for at least six eggs such as quiches or fritattas. Add garbanzo bean flour to blended tofu to make a sturdy omelette. A pinch or two of black salt creates a sulfuric, egg-like taste.
*
Fish Fake Out*
Seaweed is a great addition to achieve a fishy flavor-marinating mushroom stems or tofu pieces in a nori broth is an easy way to infuse a briny taste and mimic seafood.

*Meat-Free Magic*
There are plenty of faux meats in the market-even a vegan haggis-so you can easily substitute any meat with vegan chicken cutlets, shrimp, or "beef" burgers. If you'd rather steer clear of fake meat, try mushrooms, chickpeas, or tofu flavored the way that you would prepare any other meat substitute. Marinating and pressing tofu overnight soaks up maximum flavor.

*Pantry Pointers*
When transforming savory dishes, keep the following ingredients on hand: reduced-sodium soy sauce, nutritional yeast, cornstarch, tomato paste, silken tofu, veggie broth powder or bouillon, unsweetened plain vegan yogurt, milk alternatives (unsweetened almond milk is a favorite of theirs), applesauce, liquid smoke, beans and legumes, black salt, textured vegetable protein, and vital wheat gluten flour.

*Better Broth*
While vegetable broth can substitute for a meat-based broth, you can season your veggie base to replicate a beef broth by adding soy sauce, vegan Worcestershire sauce, or steak sauce. Toss in a bay leaf, fresh thyme, onion powder, and a little nutritional yeast for a chicken-like flavor.

Sauce; How to Veganize Any Recipe: Savory Edition


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Gone are the days of granola and beans, the countless, beyond amazing dishes to be created are endless. You can google your favorite recipes vegan, go to the library or bookstore and look for vegan cookbooks, so many great ones!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Girl Scouts Kick Off Season with Vegan Cookies

To commemorate the organization's 100th annual cookie sale bonanza, 5 vegan cookie options are now available



> The Girl Scouts of the United States of America has officially launched its door-to-door cookie sale season. This year marks the organization's 100-year anniversary, and their cruelty-free selections are better than ever. A newly introduced Girl Scout S'mores cookie joins existing cruelty-free favorites such as Thin Mints, Thanks-A-Lots, Lemonades, and Peanut Butter Patties (the latter of which is vegan only if produced by ABC Bakers). The new cookie features a crispy graham cracker dipped in a cream icing and enrobed in chocolate, and was launched in August 2016 in response to customer demand for more vegan options. (Note: a second S'mores cookie produced by Little Brownie Bakers was also launched in August, but is not vegan.) Door-to-door sales of Girl Scout cookies will continue until January 31, and booth sales-where Girl Scouts will sell cookies in front of local stores-will run from February 24 until March 19. However, availability of the vegan S'mores cookies varies by location, depending on bakery partnership agreements. "The cookie sale is so important because it's [the] girls first taste at business," Western Pennsylvania Girl Scouts chapter public relations manager Lisa Shade says. Given the popularity of the new vegan flavor, the girls should see a spike in sales of their cruelty-free options this season.


Sauce:Girl Scouts Kick Off Season with Vegan Cookies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

What's in My Food? A guide to the ingredients list

Sharing this from a hospital colleague



> The ingredients list on a food label is required by Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to be listed on most packaged Canadian food products that contain more than one ingredient. Understanding the ingredients list can help you look for specific ingredients that you want or don't want because of allergy or intolerance, compare products, and make healthier food choices.
> 
> *Ingredients are listed by order of weight.*
> 
> ...


sauce: What's in my food? A guide to the ingredients list


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan "Bacon" Made from Seaweed Hits Shelves



> Pasta company launches unique, cruelty-free seaweed snack as a healthy alternative to the trendy animal product.
> 
> Netherlands-based company Seamore recently launched I Sea Bacon-a vegan product made from seaweed. The brand initially produced seaweed-based pasta, and then expanded its line to include plant-based alternatives to pork products as well.
> 
> ...


sauce Vegan "Bacon" Made from Seaweed Hits Shelves


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## ATLRB (Sep 12, 2014)

Down with Big Bacon!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Ha! I likey!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Mushrooms

Why mushrooms will be trending in 2017

The incredible health benefits of mushrooms have stood the test of time. Mushroom extracts and whole bulbs have been a food source for ancient populations, and have served as medicinal products in the form of tinctures, powders and teas for centuries. There are tens of thousands of strains of mushrooms in the wild; some are nutritious, others are poisonous, and many contain medicinal properties that are gaining attention from the medical community and health trend-hunters alike.






What are the health benefits of mushrooms?

Common strains of edible mushrooms, including button and cremini mushrooms, are a rich source of B-vitamins and minerals, including selenium and copper. A growing list of medicinal mushrooms available at your local CHFA Member health food store are being recognized for other benefits as well.

For example, some mushroom extracts pack a series of health benefits related to improving mental and nerve cell health. Key strains being researched include reishi, chaga, shiitake, Lion's Mane and oyster mushrooms. Research has suggested that these medicinal mushrooms offer benefits such as improved memory and learning, and a decrease in anxiety and depressive symptoms. In fact, compounds in the Lion's Mane mushroom have been shown to improve the protective covering of nerve cells (called myelin) from damage, relating to reductions in cognitive decline.









When it comes to the immune system, the benefits of reishi and chaga mushroom extracts are well documented. Reishi mushrooms have been consumed for thousands of years in Asia, steeped in hot water to make a tea. This process of hot-water extraction can release beneficial carbohydrates and fibres that have potent immune system effects. For instance, these active compounds can increase the production of certain white blood cells to help identify and break down invading bugs.

An easy-to-find mushroom to try in 2017 for big health benefits is the shiitake mushroom, which contains a unique source of compounds called eritadenines. These rare compounds have been studied by researchers at the University of Japan and found to significantly reduce cholesterol levels in the blood. Research also shows that the compounds in shiitake mushrooms can also help to fight obesity, support cardiovascular health, as well as promote skin health due to their high levels of selenium, an important mineral for our antioxidant defenses.









How you can incorporate mushrooms into your 2017 healthy habits

Many people are already aware that incorporating more plant-based foods into their diet reaps many benefits. Mushrooms can be a simple and delicious way to boost meatless meals in a hurry. Whether you toss them into a salad or throw them on the barbecue, there's no denying their nutritional benefits.

Enjoy one of the many mushroom-based teas that are available at natural health stores, or make your own by steeping dried mushrooms. Rich and earthy, these teas combine various strains of mushrooms like reishi, Lion's Mane, shiitake, or chaga for all their delicious immune-boosting benefits.









If you don't have a taste for them, supplements offer a simple way to incorporate the benefits of mushrooms into your lifestyle. A great example is maitake mushroom supplements, which have been studied to be potent immune boosters due to the high concentration of beneficial fibre called beta-glucan

Sauce: https://chfa.ca/en/lifestyle_tips/f...ebook&utm_campaign=trends-2017&utm_medium=cpm


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Lunch in Kensington Market, Toronto after crossfit and before our evening ride 

Broccoli appetizer








Vegan Tofu and veg.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Funday funnies


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> Mushrooms
> 
> Why mushrooms will be trending in 2017
> 
> ...


 Last summer in Croatia, we ate so many great mushroom based dishes including something they referred to as Mushroom Cake (more like a loaf). My current Fav is soup made with a pound of chopped mushrooms tossed with the juice of one lemon. Saute the mushrooms with olive oil and some salt and pepper. While that's cooking, heat 4 cups of vegetable stock to a low boil. Add the sauted mushrooms and another ½ cup of broth with 1 Tablespoon of Corn Starch stirred in. Bring to boil (to thicken) then remove from heat and wisk in ½ cup of vegan half and half (if you can find it with Gellan Gum listed as an ingredient, you can froth it with a wisk and it will add more body to your soup.) There are a lot of variants to the basic recipe, Pretty common for me to add Quinoa or Barley in the fall/winter.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ mmmm 'shrooms. We encounter mushroom pickers on some of our rides. Many are eastern european/ baltic background and the mushrooms they are mainly seeking are chantrelles and shiitakes


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Redesigned supermarkets can shift purchases from meat to vegetables

When I walk into big grocery chain stores, pop and chips displays greet me. The next thing I see is the long deli take out counter. My intent is to shop for fresh fruit and veg... but I have to weave through all the junk and processed food to reach my goal 



> All change in the aisles to entice us to eat more veg
> 
> British shoppers are to become the subject of an experiment aimed at making them eat their greens. In a bold move to rebalance the contents of supermarket trolleys, Oxford academics have teamed up with supermarket chiefs to persuade consumers to buy less meat.
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...sles-more-veg-sainsburys-cut-meat-consumption


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

You can also check by removing the stem at the top of the avocado. If it's lime green underneath, it's not ripe. If it's darker green or turning into brown, it's good to eat.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sprouts!

Why sprouting will be a trend in 2017






Sprouting ticks all of these boxes, not to mention it's easy and affordable. This trend is also primed to last all year, as it's easy to sprout from the comfort of your own kitchen throughout winter. Keep an eye out for sprouting kits and tips on how to sprout at your local CHFA Member health food store.

Sprouting is a safe and nutritious way to add veggies to your diet. However, there are some important safety considerations to ensure your sprouts are free from harmful bacteria. Be sure to take precautionary measures including: buying certified "pathogen-free" seeds; using sterilized containers for sprouting; and storing your sprouts in a clean, refrigerated airtight container once they've sprouted. Children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems should speak with their health care practitioner before consuming fresh sprouts. For other safety tips, refer to this fact sheet for safe sprouting.

What are the health benefits of eating sprouts?

Whether you buy sprouts or germinate your own at home, there are many to choose from that provide terrific health and culinary benefits.









Generally speaking, one of the big advantages of sprouts is that they are low in calories and fats, but high in digestible protein and essential vitamins and minerals. Almost any seed or grain can be sprouted with a little moisture, resulting in a crisp root tendril and colourful leaflet. The most common seeds used for sprouting are alfalfa, broccoli, lentils and the beautiful red-tinged sprout of radish seeds.

By allowing the seed or grain to sprout, or "germinate," nutrients naturally present in the seed are liberated. Vitamins and minerals usually locked away in the dried seed are activated during sprouting, which then allows our body to access and absorb these nutrients. In addition, sprouted foods retain a high vitamin and mineral content that many foods lose through processing.

One of our favourite sprouts is the widely studied mung bean, a tiny green bean commonly grown in India and other Asian countries. Just one cup of mung bean sprouts can provide a substantial portion of the daily iron intake required by adults for healthy red blood cells and blood pressure.

How you can incorporate sprouting into your 2017 healthy habits

Because of the nutritional benefits and rise in popularity of sprouting, this technique is now being used in a wide variety of other products available at your local CHFA Member health food store. For example, sprouted flours can add a health boost to your baking, while a vegan sprouted protein powder can help you recover after an intense workout.

On their own, sprouts can be added to salads and sandwiches or used as a garnish on soup. You can even blend them into a smoothie for a hit of protein, vitamins and minerals.

Again, if you're going to sprout at home, make sure you do it safely. Remember to rinse the seeds, beans or grains regularly and follow these steps for an optimal sprouting experience.









The Sprouting Process

To soak, place the seeds, beans or grains in a Mason jar with filtered water. For the top, use a sprouting lid, sprouting screen or a cheese cloth fitted snuggly around the rim with an elastic band.
During the sprouting process you will need to drain the water and rinse the seeds, beans or grains. This process needs to be done two to three times a day until they are fully sprouted.
Once sprouted, rinse the sprouts thoroughly, drain the excess water and place the jar in direct sunlight for about an hour. The sunshine will help them "green up" and evaporate the remaining moisture.
Once the sprouts have savoured their time in the sun, they will need to be refrigerated and enjoyed within two to three days.
Sprouted beans with their softened texture are great in soups and dips like hummus, while sprouted seeds and grains are delicious in wraps, salads and even smoothies.

sauce https://chfa.ca/en/lifestyle_tips/f...ebook&utm_campaign=trends-2017&utm_medium=cpm


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## Guest (Jan 27, 2017)

I was going to post a Chia Trump head here, but just couldn't.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ ha! That would be tremendous!


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## Guest (Jan 28, 2017)

You asked for it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Love it Forster! I wouldn't garnish a salad with those sprouts though... it might leave a bitter taste


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A Bored Japanese Chef Cut Daikon into This Insane Chain Configuration









The daikon chain pic has amassed a whopping 55,000 retweets and 69,000 likes since being shared and it left many wondering how such a feat is technically possible. And to think, it all just stemmed from kitchen boredom. "The head chef gave me this daikon he cut up for fun because he was bored lol," the caption says, according to RocketNews24.

Though it's unclear whether the chef was actually bored or just wanted to impress the Twitter user, it's clear that people are fascinated by vegetables-especially carrots and daikon-being carved into things that don't look like vegetables. Look no further than the other "bored" chefs uploading their creations to YouTube.

Sauce: https://munchies.vice.com/en/articl...tion?utm_source=vicefbanz&utm_campaign=global


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## Guest (Jan 28, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ Love it Forster! I wouldn't garnish a salad with those sprouts though... it might leave a bitter taste


 At least the Oompa Loompa skin tone makes sense in that context.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Kung Hei Fat Choi!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

High-Energy Plant-Based Snacks for Athletes

1. Trail mix









1 part raw walnuts
1 part raw cashews
1 part raw almonds
1 part raw pumpkin seeds
1/2 part vegan dark chocolate chunks
2 parts dried tart cherries

2. S'nuts









4 cups of your favorite energy-rich nuts (e.g. hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, pecans)
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon sea salt
Large pinch each black pepper and onion powder

Preheat the over to 350 degrees F. Combine the nuts and maple syrup in a mixing bowl and stir with a rubber spatula until the nuts are coated. Then season with salt, pepper, and onion powder and stir again to make uniform. Spread the nuts out in a single layer on a baking pan covered with parchment paper or a reusable baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until lightly browned. Cool and store or mix with fruit and seeds for a nutritive trail mix.

3. Whole wheat pita with almond butter or hummus

Prep time is almost zero: toast a whole wheat (or alternative grain) pita for a few minutes, then spread with your choice of topping. If you're using nut butter, a drizzle of maple syrup adds a touch of sweet and some quick-burning calories. If you're using hummus, a few drops of hot sauce make it that much better.

4. Granola









2 cups rolled oats
½ cup raw almonds (Mo suggests roasted, salted, but raw worked well for me)
¼ cup rough chopped pecans
¾ cup flax seed (I pulsed mine in the blender to barely chop)
¼ cup raw pumpkin seeds
3 tablespoons hemp seeds
1 cup chopped dried tart cherries (Mo's original recipe calls for half this amount)
½ cup brown rice syrup
⅓ cup peanut butter
2 small pinches of kosher salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Chop almonds, pecans and dried cherries at least in half, but with most pieces being even smaller.

3. Place dried cherries into a large mixing bowl.

4. Spread oats, chopped nuts, flax seeds and hemp seeds onto an ungreased baking sheet and toast in oven for 10 minutes. Gently shake and stir the oat mixture after 5 minutes of cooking to avoid burning the top layer and allowing both sides of the nuts and oats to brown.

5. Remove oat mixture from the oven and add to the bowl with the dried cherries. Add salt.

6. Decrease oven temperature to 300 degrees.

7. In a small saucepan, melt peanut butter over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Once the peanut butter is melted and slightly thinner, remove from heat and pour over oat mixture. Mix thoroughly.

8. In a separate small saucepan add brown rice syrup. Over medium-high heat, bring to a boil. Bubbles will begin to form along the sides of the pan and gradually move in towards the center. When bubbles get big and meet in the middle, immediately remove from heat and pour over the oat mixture.

9. Thoroughly mix, coat all ingredients with brown rice syrup and peanut butter.

10. While it is still warm, pour the mixture out into the corner of a baking sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper. Using wax paper, firmly press and spread mixture into the shape of a rectangle that is ¼ inch thick (no gaps!). NOTE: the mixture will most likely not fill the entire sheet tray. Starting in a corner will give the rectangle 2 or 3 straight edges.

11. Bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes or just until the edges begin to brown.

12. Remove from oven and gently re-press the rectangle using the wax paper. Cool completely on the tray. Flip rectangle out onto a cutting board and cut into 3×5 inch bars.

13. Wrap bars individually in plastic wrap and store in a large ziplock bag.

Sauce

9 High-Energy Plant-Based Snacks for Athletes | No Meat Athlete


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Funday funnies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Winter Potatoes









One plain potato is a good source of vitamin C and potassium, and it has about 159 calories. You'll also get some extra fiber if you eat the peel. Potatoes are high in carbohydrates but they're low in sugar, fat and sodium, and they'll stay that way if you use healthful cooking methods and recipes.

Potatoes are high in potassium, which works in opposition to sodium to help regulate blood pressure and fluid balance. It's also essential for normal muscle and nerve function. Vitamin C is needed for normal immune system function, blood clotting and strong connective tissue and blood vessel walls.

https://www.verywell.com/are-potatoes-good-for-you-2506382


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

10 reasons you need more avocados in your life!









1. Lower Risk of Cancer 
A 2007 study found that the phytochemicals in avocados encourage cancer cells to stop growing and die. Avocados are rich in cancer-fighting carotenoids, which are most plentiful in the dark-green portion of the flesh that's closest to the skin.

2. Blood Pressure Regulation
Avocado's relatively high levels of potassium can help keep blood pressure under control. This is because potassium balances the effects of sodium (table salt), which can increase your blood pressure, and 200g of avocado contains 21% RDA potassium.

3.Maintain a Healthy Heart
A high level of homocysteine is associated with a higher risk of heart disease, but Vitamin B6 and Folic Acid found in avocados help to regulate it.
Avocados are high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, which may help reduce blood cholesterol levels and decrease the risk of heart disease.
A seven-year study published in 2013 in Nutrition Journal found that eating avocados was associated with a reduced risk of metabolic syndrome, a group of symptoms shown to increase the risk of diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease.

4.Healthy Skin
The Vitamin C and Vitamin E in avocados helps keep skin looking nourished and healthy. Vitamin E acts as an antioxident to neautralise the oxidative effect of free radicals and can slow down the skin-aging process. Avocado (and avocado oil in particular) may even be useful in treating psoriasis.

5.Lower Bad Cholesterol
Avocados not only lower bad cholesterol, they also increase levels of good cholesterol. A 1996 study found that patients with high cholesterol who incorporated avocados into their diet for a week had a 22% decrease in bad cholesterol and triglycerides and an 11% increase in good cholesterol. Avocados were also found to improve cholesterol for people who already had good lipid levels, but were shown to be especially effective in those with mild cholesterol problems. Avocados contain beta-sitosterol compound, which is associated with lowering cholesterol.

6.Blood Sugar Regulation
The high levels of monounsaturated fats in avocados can help stop insulin resistance, which helps to regulate blood sugar levels. The high amount of soluble fiber in avocados helps maintain stable blood sugar levels. Compared to other fruits, the low carbohydrate and sugar levels in avocados also help in not raising blood sugar in the first place.

7.Improved Digestion
The fiber in avocados helps keep food moving through the digestive system, encouraging regular bowel movements and healthy intestines.
Maintain Healthy Eyes
Avocados are an excellent source of the carotenoid lutein, which reduces the risk of macular degeneration and cataracts. The Intake of fat from the avocado along with carotenoids greatly helps to improve their absorption.

8.Boost your Immune System
Avocados are a good source of Glutathione - a powerful antioxidant associated with immune system health, needed for the lymphoid cells.

9.Pregnancy and Healthy Babies
Avocados contain plenty of folic acid, which is essential for preventing birth defects of the brain and spinal cord.

10.Healthy Fats
Avocados have a high fat content of around 80% of their total calories-about 20 times the average for other fruits. A typical avocado contains 30g of fat, but 20 of these fat grams are health-promoting monounsaturated fats such as oleic acid.

Healthy Fats
Avocados have a high fat content of around 80% of their total calories-about 20 times the average for other fruits. A typical avocado contains 30g of fat, but 20 of these fat grams are health-promoting monounsaturated fats such as oleic acid.

Phytonutrient content
Avocados contain an amazing array of important phytonutrients. Included are phytosterols (especially beta-sitosterol, stigmasterol, and campesterol); carotenoids (beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lutein, neochrome, neoxanthin, chrysanthemaxanthin, beta-cryptoxanthin, zeaxanthin, and violaxanthin); flavonoids (epicatechin and epigallocatechin 3-0-gallate); and polyhydroxylated fatty alcohols. Alpha-linolenic acid (an omega-3 fatty acid) and oleic acid are key fats provided by avocado.

Sauce: 10 reasons you need more avocados in your life!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Heart Health









Here are our five favorite heart-healthy tips from the experts.

1. Lifestyle changes are paramount
On a bold mission to prevent one million heart attacks, Joel Kahn, MD (aka, "America's Healthy Heart Doc") is a seasoned cardiologist who has written extensively on the topic of heart health and diet. He points out that six basic factors-including smoking cessation, increasing physical activity, and a healthy diet-can reduce heart disease risk by 92 percent. He also promotes the concept of "Vitamin L" (the "L" is for lifestyle") as the key to preventing early death. Finally, Kahn highlights *four foods that are particularly good at reversing artery disease-garlic, pomegranates, bergamot (a citrus fruit), and green tea, *as each offers unique, heart-protecting properties.

2. Don't believe the protein myth
As a plant-based doctor and professor at New York University School of Medicine, Michelle McMacken, MD writes about the myths doctors often promote regarding protein. As an example, the belief that we need more protein (and that protein always comes from animals) and less carbohydrates to get lean are misleading and dangerous. In fact, McMacken sites research that low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets (as well as eating a lot of dairy) are actually associated with "heart disease and early death." She reinforces Kahn's point that lifestyle changes are the best approach to dealing with the root causes of heart disease rather than pills, which simply address symptoms.

3. Fish is not a health food, but plants are
Neal Barnard, MD and the experts at Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) have been leaders in the plant-based movement for decades and does not back down from making bold statements. While the mainstream likes to repeat the false notion that fish is a health food, PCRM counters these "alternative facts" with four important points: 1. Fish is high in cholesterol 2. Fish is high in saturated fat (these are two nutrients with a strong association to heart disease) 3. Fish oil supplements' effect on heart health is still inconclusive, while some studies have shown that it can increase your risk of diabetes and cancer 4. Fish are full of toxins (such as mercury) that are dangerous to our health. So, if you're looking for foods that reduce your risk for heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, then it's time to look toward plants, not fish.

4. Get your daily greens
Leafy greens are one of the healthiest foods on the planet, especially for your heart. This affordable superfood group is packed with heart-healthy nutrients including nitrates that are linked to lower blood pressure and the prevention and reversal of heart disease. Kayli Dice, registered dietitian at Lighter, suggests loading up on leafy green vegetables every chance you get. Some of her favorite ways include a handful of frozen greens in a morning smoothie, baked into kale chips, or as sandwich fixings wrapped up in chard or collard leaves such as this tasty BLT in a Collard Wrap.

5. Eat foods high in antioxidants, fiber and potassium
Michael Greger, MD offers the most robust (and entertaining) collection of plant-based research on the internet, organized by topic and in video format. On his site, nutritionfacts.org, Greger provides information regarding heart disease and diet. As he explains, foods high in antioxidants, fiber, and potassium might be protective against heart disease, especially when they are part of a diet that's low or void of animal-based food, salt, and excess fat and oil. Instead, a diet full of dark greens, beans, nuts, flax seeds, whole grains, vegetables, and spices can promote a long and healthy life.

sauce 5 Heart Health Tips from Plant-Based Medical Pros


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## Guest (Feb 11, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> 10 reasons you need more avocados in your life!
> 
> View attachment 1120605
> 
> ...


 My own (extensive) research would indicate that the most important reason is because fresh guacamole and blue corn chips makes us happy.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Yes love the blue chips  And did you know...Blue corn tortilla chips get their color from anthocyanins, brain-boosting flavanoids, and contain slightly more protein than white or yellow corn chips. !


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We explored chinatown on caturday. A few things caught my attention:

Dumpling House








Each pocket is made by hand in the front window by a multigenerational crew of laughing ladies.They have a huge menu and a ton of vegetarian options, ranging from the spicy bean curd noodles, to a quite a few dumpling options filled with vegetables.

The dumplings come either steamed or fried.

I didn't know what to make of this. Not sure if the meat was faux 








Mini mangos! 







Compared to a regular mango, the skin of a mini mango is thinner and edible. The seed is very similar to a mango but you don't get mango fibres stuck between your teeth. Another advantage is the mini mangos are not as juicy so won't leave you sticky and messy.

Mini mangos are also known as ma phrang (Thailand), kundang buah (Malaysia), plum mango and marian mango.

Vegan treats with Americanos


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Organically Grown Food 
Organic standards vary wildly. Here's what you need to know.



> The organic farming movement has its roots in 1960s counterculture. The back-to-the-land sensibilities that emerged during that period cast a skeptical eye on the wisdom of relying on petroleum-based pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. In addition to eschewing these chemicals, organic agriculture as it's currently defined within the United States forbids GMO crops, irradiation, and sewage sludge. An easy way to spot organic foods is to check its sticker. Organic foods start with the number 9 (Conversely, a number beginning with 8 means GMO!)
> 
> Unfortunately, the organization in charge of setting America's organic standards is the USDA-which happens to be the very same agency that oversees the nation's factory farms and slaughterhouses. Given that the USDA thinks it's acceptable to put just one meat inspector on a slaughter line killing 175 chickens per minute, it's reasonable to wonder how serious the agency is about setting meaningful organic standards. Their history in regard to organics is troubling. During one particularly dark moment in 1998, the USDA sought to permit organic farms to use treated sewage sludge as fertilizer-despite the fact that the stuff is often thoroughly contaminated with heavy metals and other nasty substances.
> 
> ...


sauce:Organically Grown Food


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

sauce: Vegan Chef Wins Omnivore Chili Cookoff | Care2 Healthy Living


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

Awesome 

I also enjoyed it when Chef Chloe won all the cupcake wars:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Friday Funnies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Dumpling House in Toronto
Lunch was under $10 vegetarian/vegan or meat dumplings


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

That looks good.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Can recommend How To Not Die by Dr. Michael Greger


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

5 Important Things You Should Know About Guacamole









1. Know this trick for picking the best avocados!

Do you have a knack for picking avocados with a streak of brown inside? Or ones that aren't quite ripe enough? Here's a fairly genius tip for you: The key to your avocado's health lies under the stem "button." Peel it away and take a peek. If it comes away easily and you find green underneath, you've got a good avocado that's ripe and ready to eat. That's the kind of fruit you want to take home with you.

2. Also? Always buy an extra avocado.

Even when you get really good at picking avocados, you should always buy an extra one when making guacamole. If a whole avocado or even parts of a few of them have gone bad, have an extra one as a replacement to make up for it in a recipe. And if all are good? Well, there's always room in our lives for one more avocado.

3. Avocados not ripe enough? Try a banana.

Gauging the perfect stage of ripeness for guacamole when you want it is a little tricky, though. If you buy avocados on the unripe side a few days ahead, and they're not ripening fast enough, a banana is your friend! putting a banana in a paper bag really hurried the ripening process along.

4. Avocados too ripe? Refrigerate until you need them.

On the other hand, sometimes you buy avocados that are just a little too ripe and they threaten to turn into mush well before guacamole game day. The solution here is simple: Refrigerate them! Refrigeration stops the ripening process, fixing your avocados at the perfect stage of ripeness.

5. Make guacamole ahead and use this tip to keep it green!

Last and certainly not least - yes, you can make guacamole ahead of time. No, it won't turn brown, provided you use our handy little trick for keeping it green. The power of water to banish oxidization is the key here; you simply cover guacamole with water, and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Then pour off the water and stir. It doesn't get soggy or watery at all - the water all pours off. Give it a try!

Sauce: Blog - 5 Important Things You Should Know About Guacamole


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The veg ramen soup hit the spot today!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

8 Foods You'll Be Surprised To Learn Aren't Always Vegan

Reading labels!

1 Gummy Bears and Marshmallows
Gelatin. That's what most gummy bears are made of. It's actually the third ingredient in Haribo Gummy Bears. And gelatin is made from animal bones.

2 Non-Dairy Creamer
Non-dairy creamer is mostly made from sugar, oil and thickeners, but there's one sneaky ingredient that finds its way into a lot of non-dairy creamers - sodium caseinate. In case you didn't know, sodium caseinate is a milk protein.

3 Worcestershire Sauce
In case you didn't know, it's made with fermented anchovies. Worcestershire sauce can show up in sneaky places ― like Bloody Marys ― so be on the look out next time you go to brunch. FYI, anchovies also show up in Caesar salads, olive tapenade and pasta puttanesca.

4 Cereal
Put down those Lucky Charms. As we just mentioned before, most marshmallows have gelatin in them, which means so do Lucky Charms. But they aren't the only culprits in the cereal aisle. Surprisingly, Frosted Mini Wheats are also made with gelatin.

5 Many Types Of Beer 
Yep, even beer isn't always safe. Some beers - and actually some wines, too - are clarified using animal-based fining agents. We're talking either gelatin, isinglass (from fish bladders) or casein.

6 White Sugar
If you're trying to abstain from all animal products, you might want to look for vegan sugar. Some white sugar is processed through animal bone char to refine it and get rid of the impurities. While the end product does not contain actually bone char, it did come into contact with it.

7 Orange Juice fortified with Omega-3
If you look at the ingredients in Heart Healthy Tropicana fortified with Omega-3, you'll see that it's not only made with fish oil, but fish gelatin as well. Not a very vegetarian way to start the day.

8 Refried Beans
Traditional refried beans are made with lard. So next time you go out for Mexican, you might want to double check with the cook. If you're picking up a can at the store, be sure to look for the vegetarian version (and read the ingredients carefully to make sure it's actually vegan).

Sauce: 8 Foods You'll Be Surprised To Learn Aren't Always Vegan | The Huffington Post

Surprise! 7 Foods You Thought Were Vegan! | Serious Eats


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Would be better if it were 0% chicken 



> LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) - If you think that chicken sandwich you ordered at Subway did not fully taste like fowl, you may have been right.
> 
> According to a Canadian study, a DNA test showed only half of Subway's oven-roasted patty is made with real chicken.
> 
> ...


DNA Test Subway Oven-Roasted Chicken Only 50% Chicken « CBS Los Angeles


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## splitendz (Nov 13, 2015)

Good stuff ! I am not vegan, or even vegetarian, but enjoy reading your posts. Very informative.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I'm happy to share!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> New York Times bestselling author Dr. Neal Barnard reveals the shocking truth about cheese-the dangerous addiction that is harming your health-and presents a radical program to lose weight and feel great.
> 
> We've been told that dairy does a body good, but the truth is that cheese can be dangerous. Loaded with calories, fat, and cholesterol, cheese can make you gain weight and leads to a host of health problems like high blood pressure and arthritis. Worse, it contains mild opiates that make it additive, triggering the same brain receptors as heroin and morphine.
> 
> In THE CHEESE TRAP, Dr. Neal Barnard presents a comprehensive program to help readers break free of their cheese addiction so they can lose weight, boost energy, and improve their overall health. This easy-to-follow diet features a treasury of healthy recipes that will tame even the toughest cravings-from pizza, to lasagna, to ice cream and cheesecake.


sauce: https://www.amazon.com/Cheese-Trap-...dc-20&linkId=8c43c12e876cd06728a8e52a78d6cdba


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

No one... I mean no one... is taking my cheese. 
A person has to have some kind of vise. 

Feta Fries, served by my favorite Bulgarian girls.... Mmmmmmmmm...


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Hmm, that's making me want to eat more cheese. I don't need to lose weight.


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

My Favorite pizza from a local pizzeria. It's their Vegetarian Pizza without cheese. Squash, zucchini, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, onion, spinach and mushrooms. Yum Yum!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ The pizza looks scrumptious!

As for the love of cheese: Only the British would say "lets throw a cheese down this and then throw ourselves down after it!"


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

huckleberry hound said:


> View attachment 1124396
> 
> 
> My Favorite pizza from a local pizzeria. It's their Vegetarian Pizza without cheese. Squash, zucchini, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, onion, spinach and mushrooms. Yum Yum!


I just ate dinner and now I'm hungry again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Scientists have figured out what makes Indian food so delicious: Researchers have data crunched 2,500 recipes and found the secret to their success.











> Indian food, with its hodgepodge of ingredients and intoxicating aromas, is coveted around the world. The labor-intensive cuisine and its mix of spices is more often than not a revelation for those who sit down to eat it for the first time. Heavy doses of cardamom, cayenne, tamarind and other flavors can overwhelm an unfamiliar palate. Together, they help form the pillars of what tastes so good to so many people.
> 
> But behind the appeal of Indian food - what makes it so novel and so delicious - is also a stranger and subtler truth. In a large new analysis of more than 2,000 popular recipes, data scientists have discovered perhaps the key reason why Indian food tastes so unique: It does something radical with flavors, something very different from what we tend to do in the United States and the rest of Western culture. And it does it at the molecular level.
> 
> ...


Sauce: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ian-food-so-delicious/?utm_term=.bf5151f1df08


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A recent review from the American College of Cardiology recommends a plant-based diet and acknowledges the damage animal products inflict on our heart/arterial health.



> The Journal of the American College of Cardiology has just published a review of some of the popular diets/eating patterns that are promoted for cardiovascular health. The aim of the review is to provide doctors with accurate advice for patients. Doctors are unfortunately not given much nutritional education during their medical training, but diet is absolutely key to preventing disease in the first place.
> 
> Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally, and as more people die annually from CVDs than from any other cause, it's very important for us to understand what lifestyle factors can decrease our risk.
> 
> ...













> The review noted that:
> 
> "All sources of animal protein (eggs, fish, poultry, red meat, and processed red meat) were noted to increase all-cause mortality relative to vegetable protein, with processed red meat being associated with more cardiovascular deaths and egg consumption being associated with more cancer deaths".
> 
> ...


Sauce: "Plant based proteins are significantly more heart-healthy compared to animal proteins" states research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Those with nut allergies have been warned


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Is it really possible to build mass, increase strength, and optimize your athletic performance without eating any animal products? Vegan strength athletes think so! Here's how to do it the right way.











> Bodybuilding and strength sports have traditionally been built on a hearty diet of animal protein. Even the general public automatically associate gym-goers with eggs, chicken breast, steak, and whey protein shakes.
> 
> So if the Western world thinks protein=animal products, can a healthy, muscular and strong body really be fueled by a diet which contains no animal protein at all?
> 
> ...


Sauce:
Building Muscle On A Vegan Diet - Lift Big Eat Big


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> Those with nut allergies have been warned
> 
> View attachment 1125242


I went to a restaurant tonight and ordered the portobello burger. The waitress informed me "that's vegetarian". I told her That's ok, I'm a vegetarian (I'm actually a pescatarian). She said some guy ordered it before and then made such a scene about it not having any meat that they are now required to notify anyone that orders it that it is vegetarian. It was as described in the menu.


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

cyclelicious said:


> Can recommend How To Not Die by Dr. Michael Greger
> 
> View attachment 1122582


I was researching Rich Roll the other day and found this book "How Not to Die" and ordered it. Should be here today. Can't wait to read it and I'm glad you recommend it  Has lots of great reviews!

Also, if you haven't checked out Rich Roll you should. One of the fittest men in the world according to Men's Fitness Magazine. He's now 51 but looks 30 and turned Vegan at 40 after a health scare. I had never heard of him until this week. Has lots of good info on his website, his books, his PODCASTS and his Youtube channel.
Rich Roll - Profile | Rich Roll


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thank you for sharing the link about Rich Roll! What an inspiring transformation! Incredible athlete!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump day!!!









6 Libido-Enhancing Vegan Foods

1. Arugula
A delightfully spicy leafy green that's part of the cruciferous vegetable family, arugula contains beneficial antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals that support overall health by combating free-radical damage and nourishing our bodies. From the culinary perspective, arugula is delicious and easy to use in vegan recipes. With its delicately peppery flavor, arugula can be eaten in a salad, blended into sauces, and added to green juices. And great news in the love-life department: arugula has been hailed as a powerful aphrodisiac since the first century!

2. Walnuts
Rich in flavor and healthy fats, heart-healthy walnuts can help keep arteries flexible, which means better blood flow to certain parts of our bodies &#8230; and better blood flow is something we definitely want when it comes to getting in the mood. In addition, with more antioxidants than any other nuts, walnuts support the body's overall health and vitality, which are all great things when it comes to maintaining and promoting a healthy sex drive!

3. Garlic
While it might not leave you with the freshest breath, there's an old expression that goes something like this: "if your lover doesn't like the smell of garlic, it's time to find a new lover." Or maybe that's just what you hear growing up in an Italian family. At any rate, garlic is another raw plant-based ingredient that supports sexual health. Similar to walnuts, garlic is high in antioxidants but is also heart-healthy and serves as a natural antifungal. Furthermore, garlic is packed with allicin, which increases blood flow and dilates blood vessels.

4. Avocado
High in monounsaturated fats that can help lower cholesterol, avocados are another power player when it comes to getting your blood pumping. They're also high in vitamin B-6, vitamin E, and folic acid, all of which are known to boost libido, which is fantastic news for fans of this popular ingredient.

5. Cacao
Who doesn't love chocolate, especially for romantic occasions? The great news is that chocolate not only boosts your mood and sex drive but it can also be served in ways that are both healthy and delicious. Cacao has more antioxidants than green tea or wine and is packed with a chemical called Phenylethylamine (PEA), which is something our bodies release when we're, um, excited. In addition, cacao makes for a natural mood-enhancer that can come in handy when you're looking to get into a romantic state of mind, making it a deliciously convenient plant-based ingredient for desserts.

6. Maca
This ancient starchy Peruvian root is most often found in powdered form and makes for a tasty addition to many vegan recipes, but especially in desserts. Maca's earthy sweet taste pairs well with raw cacao, which enhances everything from puddings to ice creams. The root is well-studied in terms of its ability to increase sexual desire and is considered a nutritionally robust plant due to its fiber, calcium, magnesium, iron, and selenium. Maca can also help balance hormones in women, alleviating symptoms of menopause while giving sex drive a boost.

Sauce: 6 Libido-Enhancing Vegan Foods


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

cyclelicious said:


> Thank you for sharing the link about Rich Roll! What an inspiring transformation! Incredible athlete!


Yes, I've heard several endurance athletes are going vegan because of the performance boost and overall health and recovery. When I first became vegan about seven years ago I was still eating a lot of junk food and drinking sodas and alcohol so I was surprised when my cholesterol numbers weren't as low as I expected them to be. Then I got the Thrive book by Brendan Braziar and got healthier in my 40s than I was in my 20s and I was really healthy in my 20s. But I had more endurance and stamina on the Thrive diet.
https://www.amazon.com/Thrive-Nutrition-Optimal-Performance-Sports/dp/0738212547








Here is Rich and his wife making a cheese sauce. I haven't tried it because I have my own recipe that is the best cheese/nacho dip/sauce I've ever had but I don't have a YT of mine


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

I can't believe tomatoes aren't on the sexy food list. Even oranges.


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## Carl Mega (Jan 17, 2004)

Jem7sk said:


>





cyclelicious said:


> Can recommend How To Not Die by Dr. Michael Greger


Both of these were really good. Before I took the V plunge, I had met a lot junk-food vegetarians who really didn't seem all that healthy. As RR nicely puts it - "eating plants as close to natural state as possible" is IMHO a great guideline for keeping the compass pointed towards maximium health. Thanks for sharing.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Chia Seeds









The tiny chia seed is a superfood which can help with weight loss, diabetes, and hypercholesteremia. Each serving gives you a healthy dose of fiber, protein, and omega-3 fatty acids. Unfortunately, it may bring on constipation, flatulence, diarrhea, and an allergic reaction. Chia seeds can also cause thinning of your blood. They could even be a choking hazard if you don't prep the seeds correctly



> Chia seeds, a superfood dating back to Aztec times, is now enjoying a rebirth of sorts. It features in every nutritional A-list as a rich source of fiber, omega-3 fats, protein, vitamins, and minerals. Granted, chia seeds are a great source of nutrition as part of a balanced diet. They are also constantly marketed as a weight-loss aid and scoffed down in large quantities by weight watchers. But you can have too much of a good thing, and this superfood is no exception. Here are some side effects you need to watch out for.
> 
> *5 Downsides Of Chia Seeds*
> 
> ...


Sauce: What Are The Side Effects Of Chia Seeds?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Maybe there's a corn shortage in Jamaica?


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## Guest (Mar 12, 2017)

I was in Turkey a few years back and had a million Turkish Lira in my pocket, it still wasn't enough to rent a car for a week. Now they're about a quarter a piece. Wonder if the stuff I have laying around is still redeemable.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

today? or next /Monday? :skep:


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

Doesn't matter. Monday is ALWAYS a bad day.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Beware the Ides of March


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

So I'm on a show site in Vegas and the last couple of days we've had crew meal lunches. Went in today and a coworker/vegetarian pointed out the sign next to the salad listed the ingredients which included "bacon" and then concluded with "vegetarian". And the salad obviously had bacon on it. How stupid is the person that typed that up not to notice? And why wouldn't they put the bacon in a bowl next to the salad so that you can have it if you want it but those of us that don't want it still have something to eat?

Last year on the same show we were ordering out for a runner to go pick up. The same coworker order a vegetarian "turkey" sandwich, actually him and another guy. When the runner placed the order, he was told they were out of the faux turkey so he went ahead and ordered real turkey. Fortunately, I had ordered something different and got something I could eat. And that runner was not hired back this year.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Guide to Dairy-Free Eating


> *Why Go Dairy-Free?*
> 
> Dairy products are deeply problematic on both health and ethical grounds. On the health side, countless people who've quit dairy found that their chronic congestion, digestive problems, ear infections, or acne vanished within a few weeks. You might therefore consider going dairy-free for a month to see if doing so significantly improves your quality of life. Having said that, it's important for everyone-meat eaters, ovo-lacto vegetarians, and vegans alike-to read up on nutrition to ensure the diet they follow isn't deficient in any nutrients.
> 
> ...


Guide to Dairy-Free Eating


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I found this article a good reference.











> *Iron Deficiency and Women*
> While iron might not be as hot a topic as protein or carbohydrates, it's actually the most common nutrition deficiency in the world (including in the USA).
> 
> Only two percent of adult men are iron deficient, but it increases to 9-12 percent of Caucasian women and nearly 20% of black and Hispanic women. Even in the general, non-runner, non-vegan population, there are a lot of people who are iron deficient, and female athletes may be at an even higher risk.
> ...


Iron: a Primer for the Vegan Female Athlete | No Meat Athlete


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

After the gym and prior to our evening ride, we did a big walk .... some random pics along the way

Mid day treat... vegan supersonic cookie for me and a double double cupcake vegan for Chris









jackfruit... medieval weapon on the outside... bubblegum on the inside 








ginseng... looks like people


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Building muscle mass as a vegan is easy if you take the time to monitor your macronutrients



> Has anyone ever told you that getting all your macronutrients from a vegan diet is impossible? If so, you should ask that person where her or she got that information because that belief is wrong. The truth is that as long as you eat the right kinds of calories, fill yourself with protein, train hard, and rest even harder, almost anyone can build muscle mass without relying on any animal products. In fact, a plant-based diet is better for your muscle-gaining efforts, which is one reason vegans have advantages at the gym. Still, many bodybuilders are leery of adopting a plant-based lifestyle for fear that removing steak from their diets will turn them skinny. This also isn't true, as a plant-based diet is a stellar way to put on muscle, so long as you go about it correctly. To understand what kinds of foods you should eat to supplement your bodybuilding, it's important to look closely at the kinds of nutrients that are in your meals.
> 
> The role of calories
> Understanding the science of weight gain comes down to the role of macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, and fats), which are the main energy providers in our bodies. Eating the correct ratio is essential for bodybuilding success, and while it's important to experiment with daily calorie levels to learn what works best for you, a 2010 study found that male bodybuilders increased their muscle mass best at 18 to 23 calories per pound per day. Because vegan food is naturally lower in calories than meat-based meals, building muscle mass with vegan macronutrients requires extra attention to your calorie levels. If you don't eat more calories than you burn in your workouts, weight gain is almost certain not to happen.
> ...


Sauce: How to Get All the Nutrients You Need on a Vegan Diet


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Let's separate food facts from fiction









*Are nuts good for you?*
Get the facts:
Nuts are packed with protein, fibre and essential fats. The type of fat in nuts is largely unsaturated fats. Nuts also provide some calcium, vitamin E, B vitamins, potassium, magnesium and are a source of antioxidants.

A small handful of nuts (30 grams) eaten each day may reduce your risk of developing heart disease and has been linked with lower body weight and lower risk of obesity. Use a handful of nuts as a substitute for unhealthy snack options such as muffins, cookies, chips and chocolate. A 30 gram serving is about the size of a golf ball. Each type of nut contains its own unique nutrients, eat a variety.

*Is honey better for you than sugar?*
Get the facts:
Honey is another form of sugar. In fact, your body handles naturally occurring sugar in food, and processed sugars and syrups in the same way. While some people consider honey to be more natural, it is still a type of carbohydrate or sugar and a concentrated source of calories with very few other nutrients. Excess sugar in any form gives extra calories and raises your blood sugar. Whether you choose to use honey, brown sugar, agave syrup or white sugar, the advice would be to use small amounts.

*Can drinking lemon water help with weight loss or detoxification?*
Get the facts:
Lemon water is often promoted to help burn fat, lose weight, or detox, but there is no evidence to support that it works. Unfortunately, lemon water does not work to burn fat in the body. Adding lemon juice to your food or drink may add a refreshing light taste, but it will not reduce the fat absorption from your meal. There is also no evidence to show that it can significantly increase your metabolism to lose weight.

Lemon water also does not serve to detoxify the body. There are many complex systems already built into the human body to help with detoxification. The best way to keep your body's organs healthy is to limit the intake of alcohol, and processed high fat and sugary foods. Overall, lemon water is a healthy beverage. It is free of sugars and calories, and works well to quench your thirst. Drinking lemon water to replace sugary beverages like soda, fruit juice, or sweetened caffeinated beverages would be a healthy change. So, if drinking lemon water helps you drink more water and stay hydrated, then by all means drink up!

sauce: Happy Nutrition Month! Let's separate food facts from fiction


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

Judy...
The staff should give you your own vegan nutrition column.

"Judy's Vegan Facts" 
They could sticky it here at the top of the Nutrition forum.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I sure hope there isn't a downside to eating nuts, especially peanuts as I buy them by the 3lb can and eat about a pound a week at work. I don't have a weight problem btw so the fat content is not a concern for me.

Though honey is pretty much another form of sugar, the fact that it never spoils makes it pretty amazing stuff. I remember reading recently a lady was asking how to keep bees away from her pool. Her neighbor had a hive and I think she was allergic and the bees were always at her pool. The reply was that the bees needed a water source to be able to make honey. The guy said to go ahead and kill the first ones that appeared and when they didn't return, the hive would get the message that that was not a good water source. Someone then mentioned that when they were a kid, there were always bees in the outhouse from their beehives. She also mentioned that she never ate the honey for that reason.

I imagine the lemon water for weight loss and detox is as mentioned, as a substitute for other drinks, especially soft drinks. The lemon mostly just provides some taste for someone not used to plain water.


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

The downside to eating nuts, is you can become what you eat...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ericmopar said:


> The downside to eating nuts, is you can become what you eat...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I should also mention, that I do crossfit :lol:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I think I may be a Realist, Utopist, Vegan


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Pics from our visit to the market on caturday Part 1

Taro Root

(we were both laughing when this pic was taken... hubbba hubba ) 








Taro is a root vegetable that is eaten in many different cultures around the world. The leaves of the taro plant are also used as a vegetable. Taro root is easily digestible and the leaves are a good source of vitamins A and C.

Taro root is inedible raw and must be cooked thoroughly to leach out the calcium oxalate (associated with gout and kidney stones), preferably with a pinch of baking soda. Taro leaves should also be cooked before eating. Taro root is used in curries, prepared in similar ways to potatoes, cooked with lentils, used in baking, and even used in dessert recipes. Taro chips, also known as vegetable chips, are available in many health food stores. Taro has a mild, nutty flavor.

Taro root is often used in a similar fashion to a potato, but in fact has better nutritional qualities than a potato. It has almost three times the dietary fiber, which is important for proper digestive health and regularity. Fiber can also fill you up and make you feel less hungry with fewer calories. Taro root has a low Glycemic Index, as opposed to potato which has a high Glycemic Index. A low GI means that taro effects blood sugar levels slowly, without the peaks and crashes of a high GI, which lead to increased hunger later on. Eating a diet of low GI foods can also help prevent diabetes.

Taro is nutritious, and is an excellent source of potassium, which is an essential mineral for many bodily functions. Taro also contains some calcium, vitamin C, vitamin E and B vitamins, as well as magnesium, manganese and copper. Taro leaves contain good amounts of vitamins A and C, fiber and a relatively high amount of protein

Eating taro can lead to kidney stones and gout as well as other health complications if it is not prepared properly by boiling for the recommended amount of time. It can also be steeped in water overnight before cooking to further reduce the amount of oxalates. To absolutely minimize risk, milk or other calcium rich foods should be eaten with taro in order to block oxalate absorption. However, taro is a staple food for many people around the world and should not be considered a high risk food after it is cooked.

Taro has many benefits over potatoes but does actually contain more calories, gram for gram, with 142 calories per 100 grams to the 93 calories per 100 grams of a potato. However, with the additional benefits of fiber and a low Glycemic Index, taro is still a good choice as a starch vegetable.

Sauce: The Nutrition of Taro / Nutrition / Healthy Eating


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Pics from our visit to the market on caturday Part 2

White Radish (Daikon)

(We were laughing again when this pic was taken....  )









Also known simply as White Radish, and in Japan as Daikon or Daikon radish, this popular Asian vegetable bears little resemblance to small, round red radishes found in tossed green salads. Instead, Chinese white radish, or Raphanus Sativus to use its scientific name, resembles a large white carrot. While Japanese cooks rely on Daikon's sharp bite to add flavor to relishes and salads, in China it is used more in cooking.

I had white radish in my bowl for lunch... also brown rice, tofu, guacamole, carrots mmmm)








We discovered a new vegan restaurant in Toronto (anyone visiting , I highly recommend checking it out!)

















Kupfert & Kim


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

Found a new vegan Youtuber I really like. She has lots of great recipe videos on her channel. Here is one linked below. I believe she lives in Toronto too cyclelicious.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

My wife cooks daikon a lot. It can really stink up the house but somehow tastes a lot better than it smells. She puts it in miso soup pretty often.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^^ Good find Jem7sk and thanks for posting. Vegan desserts have come a long way

^ Good stuff chazpat . I'll bet your wife is an awesome cook :thumbsup:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I could have used an umbrella today


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

You think carrots and bananas have always looked the way we know them? Sorry to say but you're wrong! Take a look at how fruits and veggies looked like before humans domesticated them:


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## Le Duke (Mar 23, 2009)

cyclelicious said:


> You think carrots and bananas have always looked the way we know them? Sorry to say but you're wrong! Take a look at how fruits and veggies looked like before humans domesticated them:


Having worked for a plant breeder/university professor, when people say "I won't eat GMOs" I always shake my head and give a wry smile.

Unless people are heading out into the blackberry bramble to go harvest wild berries in Alaska, good luck not eating GMO fruits or vegetables in the US.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day decision support!


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

Hmmmm...
Could this be a Freudian slip?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Now this cross breeding makes mouthwatering sense


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The Hippies Have Won









Miso, tahini, kimchi, quinoa, seaweed, dates, turmeric and ginger are some of the popular health food ingredients of the 1970s that have made recent appearances at some of the most innovative restaurants in the country. Here, the Power Bowl at Dimes in Manhattan, which features black beans, rice, kale, avocado, pumpkin seeds and alfalfa, among the ingredients.

sauce: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/dining/health-food-hippies-restaurants-vegetarian.html


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> Happy Hump Day
> 
> View attachment 1130323


'Licious are you alright? I think all of your posts this week have been off by a day. Yesterday was hump day.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Yes I fell behind ... our modem at home cacked and I had much to catch up on the interwebs


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan cheese renamed 'Gary' at Sainsbury's after a dairy-lover's Facebook rant goes viral



> Vegan cheese has been universally renamed 'Gary' after Sainsbury's turned one cheese-lover's furious tirade into a viral joke.
> 
> The supermarket was the subject of a tremendous Facebook rant after a woman kicked off at the branding of dairy-free vegan products as 'cheese'.
> 
> ...


sauce : Vegan cheese renamed 'Gary' at Sainsbury's after a dairy-lover's Facebook rant goes viral | London Evening Standard


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

Vegan Mozzarella Gary


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> Vegan cheese renamed 'Gary' at Sainsbury's after a dairy-lover's Facebook rant goes viral
> 
> sauce : Vegan cheese renamed 'Gary' at Sainsbury's after a dairy-lover's Facebook rant goes viral | London Evening Standard


I don't know, a Grilled Gary Sandwich doesn't sound very vegan.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vitamin B 12

I've been taking a B12 supplement for quite a number of years



> Of all the nutrients that vegans must pay attention to, Vitamin B12 is at the very top of the list. It is essential for nervous system health, so every vegan needs to take this nutrient seriously. People with B12 deficiency risk nerve damage, neurological problems, and elevated homocysteine levels that can cause inflammation that may lead to heart attacks or stroke.
> 
> Vitamin B12 is found exclusively in foods of animal origin, and the amount of this nutrient present in an unfortified vegan diet is essentially zero. It can, however, take several years for a deficiency to arise, since B12 is stored in the liver. It's dangerous to be complacent about finding a reliable source of B12 because deficiency can creep up over time, silently doing damage before symptoms arise.
> 
> ...


Sauce: Vitamin B-12


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

14 Genius Tricks to Keep Fresh Food From Spoiling Fast

1. PUT PAPER TOWELS IN THE SALAD DRAWER.








Lining your crisper with a few sheets of paper towels absorbs the condensation that the veggies generate as they chill. Excess moisture can make your fresh foods wilt and much faster, so the paper keeps them fresher for longer. AND it keeps your fridge cleaner without any extra effort, because no one deserves to spend their hard-earned Sunday wiping up cucumber gunk.

2. DON'T SEPARATE BANANAS BEFORE EATING.

You may think you're being super productive packaging your bananas into day-to-day portions, but actually the trick to stop them going brown is to keep them together as long as possible. Wrap the stems of the bananas in plastic wrap when you first buy them, and only snap one off when you're ready to eat it. This should give you three to five extra days of perfectly ripe banana joy.

3. PUT AN APPLE IN YOUR BAG OF POTATOES.









Sprouted potatoes are at the top of nobody's to-eat list. It turns out the best way to prevent them turning into a reject is to keep an apple in the bag - apples produce ethylene gas, which keeps potatoes fresher and firmer, and ready for mashed potato duties for a few more weeks.

4. BUT KEEP APPLES AWAY FROM OTHER FRUITS AND VEGGIES.









Ethylene gas may be good for potatoes, but it's bad for almost everything else. Keep apples out of the fruit bowl (and in a plastic bag in the fridge) and you should suddenly find that your other purchases keep much better.

5. WASH BERRIES IN VINEGAR.









Because fate is cruel, berries are both a) pretty much the most expensive fruit and b) the quickest to go moldy without fail. You can extend their life by giving them a bath in 1 cup of vinegar and 3 cups of water before you put them in the fridge - this kills the mold spores and bacteria that turn them fuzzy. Just be sure to dry them thoroughly before storing.

6. DON'T REFRIGERATE YOUR TOMATOES.









Seriously. You'll kill their flavor, and their juicy texture doesn't survive so well in the cold either. To make the most of your tomatoes, keep them on a counter to allow them to ripen them to their full potential. FYI, other veggies that shouldn't live in the fridge include potatoes and onions, although they should be stored in a cool dark place rather than within the sun's reach.

7. WRAP CELERY IN FOIL.









In the plastic wrapper you get from the supermarket, celery will last a week or two at most - annoying if you only use a couple of stalks at a time. Swap the original packaging for a sheet of aluminium foil - it lets the gas that spoils your celery escape, rather than trapping it like plastic, so the celery stays crisp long enough for plenty more hummus-dipping adventures.

8. TREAT HERBS LIKE A BOUQUET.









Buying fresh herbs in a bag and keeping them in there is a surefire route to grassy mush town. Instead, use what you need on the day, and then store the rest of the bunch in a glass of water on the windowsill. You could even put a couple of different varieties of them on the table in place of flowers and let everyone garnish their meals themselves. You fancy hostess, you.

9. AND WHEN THEY'RE ON THE TURN, FREEZE THEM IN OLIVE OIL.

Did you know you can preserve #basil, #parsley and other #herbs by freezing them in ice cube trays with a little olive oil? Then, when a recipe calls for fresh herbs, just pop a couple cubes in!

When the method above has run its course, you can finely chop the herbs, add them to an empty ice cube tray, and then pour olive oil over the top. Freeze until set, and they'll last for months - to use, just add to a hot pan until the oil cooks down

10. KEEP MUSHROOMS IN A PAPER BAG.









Proper markets use these bad boys for a reason - paper bags keep mushrooms much more efficiently than the usual plastic or styrofoam containers. Moisture is a slime sentence for mushrooms, so storing them this way keeps them clean and dry (and if you leave them too long and find they get too dry, you can give them a quick rinse in the sink and they'll plump right back up).

11. LET AVOCADO RIPEN AT ROOM TEMPERATURE.









There are few things in life sadder than going to make avocado toast and finding a sad, rock-hard excuse for a fruit. Protect your brunch-making emotions by keeping avocados out til they're ripe (you know they're there when they give a little when pressed), then put them in the fridge to halt the process and keep them ready to eat. Once you've cut them, keep the stone in the remaining half squeeze on a little lemon juice to preserve them even further.

12. PUT YOUR ONIONS IN TIGHTS.









Not your finest, obviously, but if you've got an old pair that have seen better days lying around, you could find a worse storage receptacle for your onions. Put them in one at a time, knot between each bulb and keep them in a dark, dry place until you need them.

13. KEEP RAISINS AIRTIGHT.









Raisin take years to spoil properly, but going dry and rubbery takes them just a few weeks if you don't store them right. Putting your raisins into an airtight jar or tub will keep them fat, moist and perfect for sprinkling over porridge. If they do shrivel up, soaking them in hot water for an hour or two will help, but as always, prevention is better than cure.

14. ICE YOUR GREENS.









You're too good for limp lettuce and you know it. Rehydrate and refresh your leaves by separating them and tossing them into a sinkful of iced water for anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, depending on how sad they're looking. Voila!

Sauce: 14 Genius Tricks to Keep Fresh Food From Spoiling Fast


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Meatless Monday !









Love both but I'm a hummus fan


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

> B-12 isn't absorbed especially well when it's swallowed in a tablet. You'll get better absorption if you purchase B12 lozenges or 'sublingual tablets', which are different words for the same thing. You let these tablets dissolve under your tongue, and the B12 is absorbed through the capillaries in your mouth. A sensible dosage is a 1000 to 2000 microgram tablet taken a few times a week. Note that many brands of B12 contain methylcobalamin, but cyanocobalamin is currently considered the better choice by nutritionists who've carefully studied the topic.


This is interesting in that I've always heard that methylcobalamin was the better form.

Methylcobalamin vs Cyanocobalamin - Methylcobalamin Info


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

"Mad honey" has been documented as a poison, aphrodisiac, powerful medicine, and hallucinogenic drug.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> This image answers a question we get asked frequently.
> 
> Following a vegan diet can provide many health benefits. Vegans typically have a much lower risk of type-2 diabetes than do meat-eaters - in fact, it's not even close. Research has also shown that vegans have a slightly lower risk of cancer by virtue of our diets. Vegans also have, on average, lower cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and body fat.
> 
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Easter


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Open the windows!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The story about marmite ie vegemite... I've never tried it, curious if anyone else has tried this "superfood"?











> Perhaps you first heard about Vegemite in the early 1980s from the Men at Work song, "Down Under."
> 
> The Australian sandwich spread, described by the Telegraph as a sticky, gloopy, salty spread made from yeast extract, may be the flavor that embodies the entire continent, as 23 million jars are purchased in Australia every year.1
> 
> ...


Sauce:

Can This Banned Condiment Boost Brain Function?


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I've had it but it was a long time ago, in the '90s. I just remember it being really salty and tasting like bouillon, really concentrated.

Interesting that there may be more to it than we've realized.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Veg Fests

There are some great vegan festivals coming up this spring and summer. Check 'em all out here.

Vegan Festivals


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## BeDrinkable (Sep 22, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> The story about marmite ie vegemite... I've never tried it, curious if anyone else has tried this "superfood"?
> 
> View attachment 1132359


Ha! Oh man, I haven't tried Marmite, but have tasted Vegemite years ago. It was salty. Bouillon is a good comparison. I didn't hate it but didn't feel like adding it my diet either. I do get a little suspicious when I'm told about a new 'superfood'. There are a lot of them these days. And no guidelines on what makes one. Cool that it has benefits though! Maybe it's why those Brits are so good on the DH circuit!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Green Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It might be impossible to always eat ethically, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try



> "Being vegan isn't as good for humanity as you think." That's what the headlines said after a study published in the journal Elementa found that when veganism is applied to an entire global population, the diet wastes available farmland that could otherwise be used to feed people.
> 
> Carnivores rejoiced at the news, proudly sharing it like a stack of flyers that proved they had been right all along. It fit neatly into their set of nutritional morals.
> 
> ...


It might be impossible to always eat ethically, but that doesn?t mean we shouldn?t try | National Post


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Well, that is depressing. 

And I don't get this:

“Being vegan isn’t as good for humanity as you think.” That’s what the headlines said after a study published in the journal Elementa found that when veganism is applied to an entire global population, the diet wastes available farmland that could otherwise be used to feed people.

So growing vegetables wastes farmland that could be used to grow food to feed people? What else would they use the farmland for, raising cattle that need more food than they produce?


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## JACKL (Sep 18, 2011)

chazpat said:


> Well, that is depressing.
> 
> And I don't get this:
> 
> ...


The headline was going to be "Nothing's perfect, even some foods that may be included in a vegan diet." But that didn't make for good click bait.


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## zooey (Oct 31, 2016)

chazpat said:


> Well, that is depressing.
> 
> And I don't get this:
> 
> ...


I interpreted that as saying there's an excess of farmland, and that vegans can feed themselves with far far less land used for food production, so even more land becomes excess. *shrug* if carnivores thought that was bad mouthing vegans and happily spread the word about it, it would only make me think they're seriously lacking intelligence.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm always perplexed when people characterize veganism as expensive. It seems to be a disingenuous excuse. I occasionally like to splurge on free range organic tofu that has been blessed by the tears of a monk under a full moon during the solstice, but generally speaking I'm fine with my various beans, whole real fruit etc


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## zooey (Oct 31, 2016)

Rice and beans, totally vegan and can't think of anything cheaper


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

It seems a lot studies on Vegan diets is done by the meat and dairy industry so they put their spin on it. The meat and diary industry is "Big" business and lobbies heavily and wins when it comes to influencing what people eat. I've heard the heads of the USDA are former meat and diary execs. It's big money and they will not lose their profits at the expense of a healthier society.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

'beans, beans the magical fruit
the more you eat, the more you toot
the more you toot, the better you feel
that's why you eat them every meal!'


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

cyclelicious said:


> 'beans, beans the magical fruit
> the more you eat, the more you toot
> the more you toot, the better you feel
> that's why you eat them every meal!'


My wife makes me lots of lentil soup. One week I was eating it for several meals that day and was experiencing some tremendous gas so I wrote my own version.

Lentil soup, lentil soup, good for the heart,
The more you eat it the more you fart,
The more you fart the better you fart,
So eat lentil soup with every fart!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ramps aka wild onions are still small. They should be ready for picking next weekend 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allium_tricoccum


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Jem7sk said:


> My wife makes me lots of lentil soup. One week I was eating it for several meals that day and was experiencing some tremendous gas so I wrote my own version.
> 
> Lentil soup, lentil soup, good for the heart,
> The more you eat it the more you fart,
> ...


As they say, don't quit your day job!


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

chazpat said:


> As they say, don't quit your day job!


I won't


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Most quality dark chocolate uses soy lecithin. ( eg Lindt 70%)


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

cyclelicious said:


> Most quality dark chocolate uses soy lecithin. ( eg Lindt 70%)
> 
> View attachment 1134085


True and good one! 

*How about beaver anal glands.. why do they have to put that in food?*


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It keeps me regular


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The Truth About Soy



> The great debate... People seem to be either for soy, or against soy. And people seem to have some very strong opinions.
> 
> So we spent some time analysing the science and investigated further to find out why there's so much conflicting opinion and confusion floating around about this humble bean.
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.riseofthevegan.com/blog/the-truth-about-soy-busting-the-myths


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

^^^ Thanks, Judy! I have been confused on this and I eat a good bit of soy. Really sad when people spread misinformation for their own profit. It seems really odd that they would promote unpasteurized milk. I do consume milk but would be very afraid to drink unpasteurized.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Today's caturday lunch (vegan curry)


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## zooey (Oct 31, 2016)

Excuse my uncultured self for asking, but what's that watermelon-looking slice on top?


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## Guest (May 1, 2017)

zooey said:


> Excuse my uncultured self for asking, but what's that watermelon-looking slice on top?


 I was thinking watermelon too. I can't wait to hear the answer. BTW, love your signature line.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I was expecting that slice to taste sweet but it tasted like a mild radish. I just looks odd , not like the white radishes I am used to.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ I was expecting that slice to taste sweet but it tasted like a mild radish. I just looks odd , not like the white radishes I am used to.


I suspect it is a pickled daikon. That was my first thought but the black specs were throwing me off as I thought they were seeds but now I suspect they are some type of herb added to the whole dish.


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## Guest (May 1, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ I was expecting that slice to taste sweet but it tasted like a mild radish. I just looks odd , not like the white radishes I am used to.


 So it's a Chinese Red Meat radish? (AKA Watermelon Radish).


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## zooey (Oct 31, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ I was expecting that slice to taste sweet but it tasted like a mild radish. I just looks odd , not like the white radishes I am used to.





chazpat said:


> I suspect it is a pickled daikon. That was my first thought but the black specs were throwing me off as I thought they were seeds but now I suspect they are some type of herb added to the whole dish.





Forster said:


> So it's a Chinese Red Meat radish? (AKA *Watermelon Radish*).


Mystery solved! Thanks!


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## Guest (May 2, 2017)

zooey said:


> Mystery solved! Thanks!


 With Google, anyone can live under the illusion that they're a Genius.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

"Watermelon radishes are an heirloom variety of Daikon radish"

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/radish/growing-watermelon-radishes.htm

I get half credit?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ thanks everyone


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## Guest (May 3, 2017)

chazpat said:


> "Watermelon radishes are an heirloom variety of Daikon radish"
> 
> https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/radish/growing-watermelon-radishes.htm
> 
> I get half credit?


 At least, your post is how I found watermelon radish. I think I googled red daikon.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

View attachment 1135296




> Clean Meat' to Change Industry, Food Entrepreneur Says
> 
> Your chicken fingers may soon be made of peas, according to food entrepreneur Bruce Friedrich.
> 
> ...


?Clean Meat? to Change Industry, Food Entrepreneur Says | The Cornell Daily Sun


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

View attachment 1135309


----------



## Guest (May 4, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1135296
> 
> 
> ?Clean Meat? to Change Industry, Food Entrepreneur Says | The Cornell Daily Sun


 Chicken from Peas? Looks like the Chickpea has some competition.


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## Le Duke (Mar 23, 2009)

Forster said:


> Chicken from Peas? Looks like the Chickpea has some competition.


The local Lebanese restaurant would beg to differ.

Their hummus is out of this world.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk


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## Guest (May 4, 2017)

Le Duke said:


> The local Lebanese restaurant would beg to differ.
> 
> Their hummus is out of this world.
> 
> Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk


 Sure, but what you gonna call the new food? Chickpea is taken and Peachicken sounds bad. How about Soylent-Chicken?


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## Le Duke (Mar 23, 2009)

Hummus fingers.

I'm trademarking that ****.


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## BeDrinkable (Sep 22, 2008)

Le Duke said:


> Hummus fingers.
> 
> I'm trademarking that ****.


I'd buy it. I've grown quite fond of Q'uorn brand "chick'n". It's made out of myco-protein. So, fungus. What's weird is that it is almost too much like actual chicken texture. I've fed them to meat-eaters who've asked, "You sure these don't have meat in them?"


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## birdrider (Jan 13, 2015)

I've been playing with Vegan foods as part of a cycling diet. I actually like the diet and find it makes me feel better but am not fully committed. I have a question: 

I own ducks as pets. Eventually they will lay eggs. Do you consider it unethical to eat their eggs?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

birdrider said:


> I've been playing with Vegan foods as part of a cycling diet. I actually like the diet and find it makes me feel better but am not fully committed. I have a question:
> 
> I own ducks as pets. Eventually they will lay eggs. Do you consider it unethical to eat their eggs?


Eggs are not vegan. Lacto-ovo vegetarian eat eggs, drink milk, etc., but don't eat meat/fish/poultry.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Consumer Reports Study Finds that Nearly All Ground Beef Sold in America Has Feces in It

This brings a whole new meaning to shitty food....

View attachment 1135469


The megalithic federal bureaucracy known as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is made up of 100,000 employees who are stationed at 4,500 locations across the country. Their mission statement, in part, reads "to promote agriculture production that better nourishes Americans."

A recent study by Consumer Reports, however, shows that nourishing Americans consists of feeding them deadly superbugs, food poisoning pathogens, and feces.

While it's not surprising to the readers of the Free Thought Project that the US government could fail so miserably in their stated mission, this recent study exhibits an unrivaled level of incompetence within this behemoth bureaucracy.

Consumer Reports tested several hundred packages of ground meat from stores across America, and their findings were shocking, to say the least.

According to the report,



> New lab tests conducted by Consumer Reports found that of the 300 packages of ground beef purchased in stores across the country, almost all contained bacteria that signified fecal contamination.
> 
> More than 40 percent contained Staphylococcus aureus. Almost 20 percent contained Clostridium perfringens, which causes nearly 1 million cases of food poisoning annually, many related to beef.
> 
> A significant amount also contained superbugs, bacteria that are resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics. A key reason is the overuse of antibiotics on cattle farms.


The irony here is that local organic farmers who have harmed no one, are being raided by SWAT teams for selling raw milk, eggs, or grass fed beef. Meanwhile, millions of people are getting sick and dying across the country by government-subsidized factory farms.

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan points out how concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), are dependent upon the cost of corn remaining low.

The government ensures these low corn prices by throwing billions of dollars a year the top 1 percent of corn farms in the United States. Since 1995, a whopping $85 billion has been taken from taxpayers and given to corn producers; all of this so you can have poop in your burger.

Aside from the horrific results of feeding corn to cows, there is also the apocalyptic problem of creating superbugs by massively dosing the factory farmed cattle with antibiotics to counter the horrendously dirty conditions in which they live.

"That practice (heavy use of antibiotics) can lead to the creation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a major public health problem. If you get sick from these bugs, your infection can be difficult to treat," said Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., director of Food Safety and Sustainability at Consumer Reports.

The consumer reports study wasn't all doom and gloom, however. When they tested the sustainably produced, antibiotic-free, grass-fed cattle, they found that these were far less likely to have any of the bacteria.

"This study is significant, because it's among the largest scientific studies to show that sustainable methods of raising cattle can produce cleaner and safer ground beef," Rangan said.

Of course, "big government beef" is upset and defensive about these findings. When consumer reports contacted the National Cattleman's Beef Association for a statement, they received this single comment from Kansas State University professor Mike Apley:



> If all cattle were grass-fed, we'd have less beef, and it would be less affordable. Since grass doesn't grow on pasture year-round in many parts of the country, feed lots evolved to make the most efficient use of land, water, fuel, labor and feed.


Amazingly enough, however, farmers can sustainably raise organic cattle to meet the market demand, without using government subsidized corn. Instead of massive amounts of chemical and mechanical inputs, the organic farmers can plan for the harsh winter months by saving the surplus from summer months.
The good news is that the demand is shifting from factory farmed cattle to sustainable and humanely raised cattle. Despite the best attempts of the USDA to regulate sustainable farms to death, they are thriving as demand increases.

Even some fast food chains are adopting this sustainable method. In December, California-based quick-service chain Carl's Jr. rolled out the All-Natural Burger, which sources solely grass-fed beef from Australia.

Besides Carl's Jr., a grass-fed burger chain called Farm Burger, has begun to spring up from coast to coast.

Besides sustainable beef, there is also the option of no beef. One of the fastest growing categories in food choice happens to be vegetarian.

In the information age, ignorance is a choice, and it seems that it's a choice more, and more people are avoiding. While this study shows that we still have an uphill battle when it comes to healthy, non-taxpayer subsidized food, it is only a matter of time before we reach critical mass.






Sauce: Consumer Reports Study Finds that Nearly All Ground Beef Sold in America Has Feces in It


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## jimbowho (Dec 16, 2009)

My daughter and I have always been into the same stuff she likes shooting, she raced motorcycles, still has her CR125. We still do the movies a lot and one thing I miss is constantly trying new restaurants because she is now vegan. But it is getting easier and I find some recipes delicious. So far my favorite is pasta, tomatoes, Kalamata olives, pepperoncinis, some of the olive juice with olive oil. And for me I crunch up feta cheese.

I came here thinking how cool is this but am disheartened at this vegan site. Very biased. All about cats. Apparently I'm (un) ethical. It's anti-trump, anti meat industry, hordes of sad cartoons of animals about to be eaten. It's more of a daily anti blog. Just making a point that we are not all on board and some of this stuff is a bit inappropriate.

the good news is that as I get older I am eating better than I ever have. Not coming here for anything vegan that's for darn sure.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I really don't see that, maybe you read a lot of earlier pages that I didn't. I'm not vegan, I'm not even a vegetarian, I'm a pescatarian and I've not found this thread as you described at all. I mean, sure there is the above poop in meat post but it seems to be a lot more anti big business meat (which is really why I quit eating beef/pork/chicken), it's pretty pro organic meat if you read it.

Glad you're eating better, regardless.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I skimmed back about 10 pages and didn't find one cat pic ... however I did find a lot of pics of food and content of interesting diverse articles related to plant-based diets and lifestyles. If anything is political which is forbidden on MTBR... it would get taken down by the mods. (I've never had a post removed by a mod because I am careful and considerate about what I post) 

When this thread was created in 2011, the OP and others were trolled, and there were the usual posts asking "where do you get your protein" questions why we have canine teeth if we can't use them to rip apart flesh and thought numbing claims like "If we stop eating animals they would over populate and take over the world... " The thread survived because intelligence and interest lives on and a few of us have been keeping the thread going, with humour and science, news items all relevant to the topic.

The thread kept growing as more members posted their awesome stories and shared interests and experiences. This thread reflects a cool little community and is a testament of tolerance

There is a second vegan/vegetarian thread that has grown and sustained itself , with members sharing delicious plant-based recipes (nothing negative about that). I'ven't search the pages but I don't recall any cat pics there either


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Animal Ingredients

Animal ingredients are found in food, clothing, cosmetics, alcohol, clothing, medicine, and many other products. It is virtually impossible to avoid some contact with animal products in your life, but once you become familiar with the most common animal ingredients, it becomes easy to avoid most products that contain them.

Here is a list of of common animal ingredients sorted by what types of products they are most commonly used in

*In Food Products:*
Carmine
Casein
Cholesterol
Fish oil
Gelatin / Isinglass
Glycerin
Lactic Acid
Lipase
Rennet
Retinol
Shellac

*In Medicine and Supplements:*
Adreneline
Allatonin
Bone Meal
Cortisone / Corticosteroid
Cystine
Estrogen
Gelatin
Linoleic Acids
Pepsin

*In Cosmetics:*
Allatonin
Albumin
Alpha-Hydroxy Acids
Beeswax
Bee Pollen
Biotin
Carmine
Cysteine
Elastin
Fish scales / Guanine
Glycerin
Keratin
Lanolin
Snails
Squalene
Tallow
Wax

*Beer/Wine Ingredients:*
Albumin
Egg Whites
Sea Shells
Gelatin
Isinglass (fish bladder)

*Clothing:*
Leather
Fur
Wool
Silk
Skins
Animal hair
Cashmere
Down
Feathers
Suede

Sauce Animal Ingredients


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Saturday's treat: Vegan Poke Poke and a vegan donut mmmm!

View attachment 1136090


View attachment 1136088


Explored some laneways 
View attachment 1136089


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

View attachment 1136226


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day 

View attachment 1136513


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## fleboz (Apr 22, 2015)

30 days of recipes via Food&Wine Mag
30 Days of Vegan Recipes | Food & Wine


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Beware: Avocado Hand









Don't become just another avocado statistic.

In August of 2012, Meryl Streep made headlines by raising awareness of an issue that impacts thousands, if not millions across the globe. Was it clean drinking water? Climate change? An impassioned speech about the role of art in a politically charged climate? Nope-none of the above.

Streep became the unwitting ambassador of an issue that is far closer to home for home cooks: avocado hand. You may not have heard of this medical condition, but you or someone you know has almost certainly been affected by it. And now, the medical community is finally speaking out about the dangers of avocado hand.

Speaking to The Times, Simon Eccles-secretary and former president of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons-said that he sees "four patients a week" with avocado hand, a.k.a. a serious cut to the hand procured while attempting to remove the pit or peel from an avocado. So why are so many home cooks being maimed while prepping their alligator pears?

Well, for starters, avocados are so popular that the word "Guacalypse" has become part of the modern lexicons. But there are also some structural issues that make everybody's favorite fatty fruit particularly dangerous. Think Dr. Eccles is exaggerating? Think again. After asking a few friends whether they'd ever been afflicted, I quickly heard multiple anecdotes supporting the frequency of these types of injuries.

"I had to go to the [emergency room] and get three stitches and I have lost most of the sensation in my finger," Freya Watson, a 29-year-old TV producer in London, told MUNCHIES, referring to her own experience with avocado hand. "And when I was in the [emergency room], there was a woman with the exact same injury."

Social media is littered with documentation of these types of injuries, many under Instagram hashtags such as #avocadoinjury. Just look at these pictures uploaded by Flickr user Brett Holt, with the caption "Cut it open slicing an avocado. Be careful."

"People do not anticipate that the avocados they buy can be very ripe and there is minimal understanding of how to handle them," Eccles told The Times, adding that labels might be the most effective way of mitigating avocado hand. "We don't want to put people off the fruit, but I think warning labels are an effective way of dealing with this. It needs to be recognizable. Perhaps we could have a cartoon picture of an avocado with a knife, and a big red cross going through it?"

It's not inconceivable that avocado peels could become the cigarette packages of the fruit world, covered in warnings about cutting yourselves (or maybe just warning of the threat of becoming so basic that you are annoying those around you with your constant talk of avocados).

Jokes aside, to reiterate: Improper handling of an avocado can land you in the ER with a ****ed up hand. So, next time you're de-stoning one, remember to use a flat surface, run the knife gently through the skin and around the pit, and then carefully remove the stone with a towel, or the blade of the knife. Don't become just another avocado statistic.

Sauce: https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/art...a-lot-of-people-in-the-er?utm_source=vicefbus


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

^^^ I think I've heard of similar statistics for bagel slicers. Avocado on a sliced bagel for breakfast? That's asking for trouble, especially before the coffee takes effect.


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## Guest (May 11, 2017)

If the Avocado is ripe as it should be, I cut it in half (around the pit long ways, not through the pit). Then I twist the halves. The pit always ends up in one half. Place the half with the pit on the cutting board and lightly chop the pit with a chef's knife. Hold the Avocado in one hand and twist it against the pit (secured by the knife blade). Should come right out.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Yep, that's what I do. Occasionally one is stubborn and sticks to the skin but it's easier to get a spoon and scrape it out rather than trying to peel it with a knife.


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

Forster said:


> If the Avocado is ripe as it should be, I cut it in half (around the pit long ways, not through the pit). Then I twist the halves. The pit always ends up in one half. Place the half with the pit on the cutting board and lightly chop the pit with a chef's knife. Hold the Avocado in one hand and twist it against the pit (secured by the knife blade). Should come right out.


Then how do you get the pit off the blade? I usually lightly bang my knife down on the garbage can hitting the handle on the plastic garbage bin so not to damage the blade. The pit goes flying into the can. Or I will hold the knife over the garbage and hit the pit with a spoon from the top to knock it in the can.

I bet a lot of people equally get cut trying to remove the pit from the avocado, trying to remove the pit from the knife and dicing up the avocado in the skin like I see so many chefs do it.


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## Guest (May 12, 2017)

I use the base of the blade near the handle and then push it off with my thumb (so grabbing the knife with my right (dominant) hand's fingers and using the right thumb. I try to keep my knifes from banging on stuff as much as practical so I don't have to sharpen them as much. It may work better with larger hands, but my wife taught me and her digits are normal size. Just need to use a knife without too deep a blade.

When dicing the avocado in the skin, I use a duller paring knife. It has a thin blade but it's not particularly sharp. I use it for things like that and when I'm preparing green beans (using the blade against my thumb). That knife has a less pointed tip than my sharp paring knife (so I can tell them apart). I like tools that fit the purpose, so a $3 knife that's kept dull on purpose seems like a cheap investment when you use it a few times a week.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

When I fractured a vertebrae in a crash, I was in the waiting room of the ER hanging out with a family waiting to be seen. The dad had a severe cut on his hand from a knife his kids had given him earlier that day as a birthday present. The kids felt guilty but mom and dad were in a good mood and reassured them it wasn't their fault.


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## Guest (May 12, 2017)

chazpat said:


> When I fractured a vertebrae in a crash, I was in the waiting room of the ER hanging out with a family waiting to be seen. The dad had a severe cut on his hand from a knife his kids had given him earlier that day as a birthday present. The kids felt guilty but mom and dad were in a good mood and reassured them it wasn't their fault.


 I put the leather awl of my first Boy Scout knife in my thigh about an inch and a half. Never told my folks. Stupid hole bled for more than a week. Gift knives, meh.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Even more disappointing, is when you cut open a perfect looking avocado and find this inside


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

My Caturday lunch

Seaweed & miso broth bowl -Miyeokguk at Kupfert & Kim









wakame, shiitake & miso broth, brown rice, daikon, carrots, organic bok choy, organic tofu, roasted mushroom, scallions, sesame seeds, dulse, house-made kimchi, added hot peppers


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I found some interesting fruits and veggies in the market places

These tiny sweet melons








Cherimoya (we bought one). It needs to ripen.











> Sweet, pulpy, and fragrant rich cherimoya is one of the most delicious tropical fruits of Andean valley origin. These greenish-yellow, conical fruits are from the evergreen trees belonging to the family Annonaceae, in the genus of Annona. The plant has been thought to be native to Loja region of Ecuador, bordering Peru, the low rising tropical forests of Central Andean Mountains.
> 
> Ripe fruits turn pale green to light brown and emanate sweet, fragrant aroma that can be appreciated from a distance. Inside it features, creamy pulp with smooth, shiny, black seeds embedded in the flesh. Seeds and skin are inedible.
> 
> ...


sauce: Cherimoya fruit nutrition facts and health benefits

Can't wait to try it 

Thumb-size bananas (so cute ) 








Edible cactus aka nopalitos, (I had cactus tacos a few weeks ago... yum)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Food Before it's Harvested... cool!

Peanut

Did you think peanuts grew in trees? Nope! Peanuts prefer sandy soil, growing underground but flowering above ground.








Sesame

Sesame Seeds prefer a tropical climate, and come to us mostly from Africa and India.








Almond

Almonds grow best in a Mediterranean climate, with 80 percent of the world's supply coming from sunny California.








Brussel Sprouts

Brussel Sprouts get their name from being grown in Belgium since the 1200s, but are so ancient the Romans are known to have cultivated them.








Pineapple

Most people assume pineapples grow in trees, like coconuts. Actually, they grow on the ground.








Vanilla

Vanilla beans first came to us from present-day Guatemala and Mexico.








Cranberry

Cranberries grow in marshes or bogs that were originally glacial plains. Therefore they're cultivated in northern areas like Massachusetts.









Cacao

Cacao or cocoa, another product of the Americas, first evolved in the Amazon rainforest.








Pistachio

Pistachio trees grow in various regions but a dry climate like that of the American West.








Cashew

Cashews seem specialized, but they actually grow in a wide range of climates.








sauce 
Startling Pics Of How Food Really Looks Before Itâ€™s Harvested


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## chillis (Mar 24, 2015)

Nopalitos tacos - so good! Going to have to make some this weekend.......to the market I go!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Throwback Thursday 

Woman Sees Donald Trump In Her Vegan Butter
You're fired, vegan butter.











> I can't believe it's not Donald!
> 
> Jan Castellano was getting ready to have some breakfast when she almost lost her lunch. She opened a tub of Earth Balance Organic Spread with plans to put the vegan butter on her toast - only to see what she claims is the image of Donald Trump looking right back at her.
> 
> ...


Woman Sees Donald Trump In Her Vegan Butter | HuffPost


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## Guest (May 19, 2017)

You forgot Tequila!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Salud!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

TGIF funnies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The Vegetarian (and Vegan) Cookbook Smackdown

#5: The Plantpower Way
The Authors: Ultra-endurance athlete Rich Roll and his wife, plant-based chef and artist Julie Piatt. 
The Sell: Meat is the only thing standing between you and your best self (or something).

The Plantpower Way shines brightest in the salad section, with clever combinations like cabbage beet ginger slaw and a roasted corn and tomato number that's perfect for summer. 
Unfortunately many recipes call for specialized ingredients like gluten-free tamari, mung beans, or soy-based pasta noodles.

#4: Plenty
The Author: Celebrated London chef and food writer Yotam Ottolenghi. 
The Sell: Gorgeous, restaurant-quality dishes where veggies are the star.

This book came highly recommended by several friends and, all important, my mom. Ottolenghi isn't a vegetarian, and so this is a good transitional book for meat eaters who are trying to reform their ways. He tops dishes with eggs, allows cheese in the mix, and even suggests pairing a few items with smoked fish or meat. Alongside some of the more strict books, this felt downright reckless.

The recipes are fantastic, with rich flavors, great mixes of texture, and plenty of protein and fat to make the dishes feel satisfying. Unfortunately, they're also hellishly time consuming.

#3: The VB6 Cookbook
The Author: New York Times food journalist and recipe writer Mark Bittman. Of all the authors on this cookbook list, I trust his judgment the most. 
The Sell: Eating plant-based breakfasts and lunches, then eating whatever you want for dinner, can make you a healthier human.

VB6 stands for "vegan before six," and it's a philosophy Bittman devised to stay healthy while being a food writer. He consumes no animal products for breakfast and lunch, then eats a healthy "flexitarian" dinner. Sometimes that means meat, sometimes it doesn't.

#2: Oh She Glows Every Day
The Author: Angela Liddon, a plant-based blogger turned cookbook author. 
The Sell: Nutrition-packed food that your whole family will eat.

The creative salads are the standouts. Liddon has a gift for turning the oft-maligned side into a bona fide main dish, topped with seasoned legumes, roasted nuts, and interesting grains. She celebrates produce rather than falling into the vegetarian-cookbook trap of trying to imitate favorite animal-product-laden dishes.

#1: Thug Kitchen: Eat Like You Give A F*ck
The Authors: Matt Holloway and Michelle Davis are Southern California food bloggers who have turned their vegan cooking into a cookbook empire with three plant-based titless plus a whole host of veggie-amorous merchandise. 
The Sell: Fast(ish) food for adventurous eaters.

These recipes are made for people who want to eat hearty food that doesn't require the sacrifice of an animal, not for those looking to consume mostly lettuce and fresh-pressed kale juice. The authors helpfully categorize recipes as breakfasts, snacks and salads, soups and stews, and mains,

For more info:

Sauce: https://www.outsideonline.com/218612...book-smackdown


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The Best way To Cook Mushrooms According to Science









Grilled, fried, microwaved, or boiled? Researchers from the Mushroom Technological Research Center in Spain claim to have found the most nutritionally beneficial way to cook fungi.

There are a multitude of ways to serve mushrooms. Smothered in butter and sat atop toast, stuffed with garlic and cheese, stirred into creamy risottos for that rich, umami flavour &#8230;

We all have our favourite shroom recipe, but scientists from the Mushroom Technological Center of La Rioja (CTICH), Spain-yes, an actual thing-claim to have worked out the optimal way of cooking the edible fungus.

The researchers set out to find which cooking method-grilling, frying, microwaving, or boiling-best preserved the nutritional profile of the vegetable. Mushrooms are rich in fibre, vitamins, and protein, and low in calories and fat, but can lose these properties during cooking.

So, according to the study, if you want to get the most from your mushrooms, you should step away from the frying pan and the boiling water. The cooking methods that give the best nutritional results are grilling and microwaving.

The study, which was published in the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, analysed the nutritional profile-before and after cooking-of four of the most commonly eaten mushrooms: white button mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and king oyster mushrooms. Scientists found that frying (unsurprisingly) increased mushrooms' fat content and caused significant loss of protein. Boiling also caused a notable loss of vitamins.

However, when researchers grilled and microwaved mushrooms, not only were there no significant nutritional losses, but the antioxidant levels within the vegetable increased. The authors concluded: "Since cooking techniques clearly influence the nutritional attributes of mushrooms, the proper selection of treatments is a key factor to prevent/reduce nutritional losses."

Commenting on the findings in a press release, Irene Roncero, researcher at CTICH and one of the study's authors, suggested that preparing mushrooms in oil or water caused soluble nutrient compounds to escape when cooking. She said: "Frying and boiling treatments produced more severe losses in proteins and antioxidants compounds, probably due to the leaching of soluble substances in the water or in the oil, which may significantly influence the nutritional value of the final product."

Roncero continued: "When mushrooms were cooked by microwave or grill, there are no significant losses in nutritional value of the cooked mushrooms."

However you decide to cook your fungi, keep in mind the wise words of culinary doyenne Julia Child: never crowd the mushrooms.

Sauce: https://munchies.vice.com/en_uk/art...ooms-according-to-science?utm_source=vicefbus


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

James Cameron to Release Vegan Documentary



> The Game Changers will highlight a broad range of plant-based athletes, soldiers, and cultural icons to show that nobody needs animal products to thrive.
> 
> Award-winning director and vegan environmentalist James Cameron executively produced new vegan documentary The Game Changers set for release this year. The film is a collaboration between Cameron, director Louis Psihoyos (who also directed Oscar-winning Japanese dolphin slaughter documentary The Cove), and mixed martial arts champion James Wilks. The Game Changers will feature a wide array of elite athletes, special operations soldiers, scientists, cultural icons, and everyday heroes who are all thriving on a plant-based diet. "The world's strongest guy is a vegan," Psihoyos said. "The world's fastest guy, Carl Lewis, was the first to break 10 seconds, and he did it when he was a vegan. We're trying to dispel the myth that you need protein from animals to become a real man." In recent years, Cameron has become an avid advocate for veganism and appears alongside actor Samuel L. Jackson in Eating You Alive-a new documentary that focuses on the adverse health effects of consuming animal products.


James Cameron to Release Vegan Documentary


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

Cool! Look forward to that.

And Bill Nye says Plant based diets are the future.

Bill Nye the Science Guy: "Plant-based diets are the future" | Clearly Veg


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Friday funnies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Jem7sk said:


> Cool! Look forward to that.
> 
> And Bill Nye says Plant based diets are the future.
> 
> Bill Nye the Science Guy: "Plant-based diets are the future" | Clearly Veg


Bill Nye is the future <3


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## Guest (May 27, 2017)

Jem7sk said:


> Cool! Look forward to that.
> 
> And Bill Nye says Plant based diets are the future.
> 
> Bill Nye the Science Guy: "Plant-based diets are the future" | Clearly Veg


 Depends on which future? In Star Wars future, all the Jedi and close associates appear to eat plant based diets. In the matrix and many other future movies, they eat mainly oatmeal looking glop. I just hope that Charlton Heston's future doesn't come to pass. Not looking forward to Soylent Green or any other Soylent foods.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Had a delish Almond Lime bowl on caturday


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Is Honey Vegan?



> Honey is produced by bees, who gather nectar from flowers, partially digest it, and then regurgitate it once back in their hives for storage in honeycombs. Since honey is a bee product, and bees are animals, it is by definition not vegan. Here's a nuanced article about how the ethical issues related to honey fit into the broader concept of vegan living.
> 
> Several companies make vegan honey alternatives:
> 
> ...



















Sauce: Is Honey Vegan?


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

Good point.
But, it's sure good on Baklava Ice Cream...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

You don't have to convince vegetarians and vegans 









Why eating more vegetables is good for the environment



> FILET mignon commands a princely sum on many restaurant menus. But bill-payers may not realise its true cost to the planet. Meat provides 17% of global calorific intake, but it requires a disproportionate amount of water and feed. And more land is given over to grazing animals than for any other single purpose. Overall the livestock sector accounts for between 8% and 18% of global emissions-about as much pollution as comes out the tailpipes of the world's cars. Ruminant livestock, such as cattle and sheep, have stomachs containing bacteria able to digest tough, cellulose-rich plants. But along the way, huge volumes of gases are farted and belched too. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that the world's domesticated ruminants annually release 100m tonnes of methane-a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
> 
> Much research in recent years has looked into meat's environmental hoofprint. A study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013 presented findings on the quantities of greenhouse gases associated with producing a kilo of protein from different animals. Chicken proved the greenest meal option at 3.7kg. Pork came second with 24kg. And cattle far behind at 1,000kg. Chicken and pork proved preferable because of the efficiency of factory farming. Reports by Chatham House, a British think-tank, on diet and climate change appeared in both 2014 and 2015. The latter noted the growing share of global crops given over to animal feed and considers the effects on food prices. The desires of rich carnivores often trump the needs of poorer cereal consumers.
> 
> ...


Sauce:http://www.economist.com/blogs/econ...hyeatingmorevegetablesisgoodfortheenvironment


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

My birthday ride and a stop for lunch 

























Later we rode to check out our shared community farm crop and picked some fresh rhubarb









The leeks aren't ready yet








My birthday bouquet


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Happy birthday, Judy!

That's a lot of leeks.


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## Ericmopar (Aug 23, 2003)

Happy B-Day Judy. 
Nice color coordination of the bike and chair. Classy


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

chazpat said:


> Happy birthday, Judy!
> 
> That's a lot of leeks.


We can pick what we need as per our share.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ericmopar said:


> Happy B-Day Judy.
> Nice color coordination of the bike and chair. Classy


:lol: I'm just trying to blend in


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Oprah says yes to meatless Mondays

Oprah says 'yes' to Meatless Mondays · A Humane Nation


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

7 Steps to Eating Less Meat



> *1. Commit to eating less meat.*
> One thing is certain: There are times when your new diet will be inconvenient. Parties, travel, dinner with friends, going out to eat. If y0u want to get through these without slipping up, you'd better be committed.
> 
> Tell everyone you know. Post it on Facebook. Blog about it. Take a trip to the health food store and buy lots of stuff for your new diet.
> ...


Sauce: 7 Steps to Eating Less Meat Now


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## Cerberus75 (Oct 20, 2015)

I've recently switch to a plant based diet. My primary reason is to reduce my effect on the environment. My biggest issues were that I didn't want to loose muscle mass, im a bouncer and know how much protien it requires to maintain or build muscle on me. Since most meat substitutes don't agree with me, I've been using a product called Humanpro. It's a vegan EAA product.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Choose garlic carefully... be sure you check where it's grown



> For thousands of years garlic has been used as food and medicine. It is been known to help fight heart disease, lower blood pressure, and improve your immune system functions; in addition treating a host of other conditions. It is super rich in antioxidants and can be eaten raw (for best potency and benefit) or prepared in every meal of the day.
> 
> Additional benefits of eating garlic:
> 
> ...


Sauce: Your Garlic is Being Imported From China, Filled With Bleach And Chemicals. Hereâ€™s How To Spot It - Holistic Living Tips


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

TGIF funnies... party on!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Is your booze vegan?

Check and see

Barnivore: your vegan wine, beer, and liquor guide

It's an amazing lifestyle choice not a diet


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I love spinach!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Monday June 12, 2017 - is World Meat-Free Day, which celebrates an initiative that hopes to get everyone to adopt a vegetarian diet for just 24 hours. The aim is to promote healthier diets, living sustainably, and cutting our carbon footprint.

Read more: Why You Should Go Meat-Free For One Day A Year, According To Science | IFLScience


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Guest (Jun 14, 2017)

^Won't work. Apples can't dance and nobody wants a Guardian buddy they can eat when they get hungry.^


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan Cyclist Rides 2000 Miles to Save Rhinos



> Matt Meyer is towing a 350-pound rhino replica along the Pacific coast of the US for two months to raise funds to save the endangered animal.
> 
> Vegan advocate Matt Meyer is riding his bicycle while hauling a 350-pound replica of a rhinoceros (which he named "Lunar") down the entirety of the Pacific coast of the US for the purpose of raising funds and awareness for the endangered species. Amidst his 2,000-mile journey, Meyer spoke to media outlet The Orange County Register about his experience. "I don't have children of my own," Meyer said. "But I have nieces and nephews and I couldn't let them inherit a planet without rhinos. The cyclist formed a bond with the animals while working as a safari tour guide in his homeland, South Africa, and became vegan after making the connection that rhinos are no different from animals such as cows. Meyer has stopped at schools along his journey to educate students about the plight of rhinos, and is hoping to raise $250,000-of which he has raised $100,000 thus far-to donate to organizations that work to end the poaching of rhinos in Africa and Asia. On the other side of the world, vegan cyclist Jackson Long is set to embark on a journey across Europe to raise awareness for animal-rights later this summer.


love this pic...









sauce
South African rides through Orange County to save rhinos â€" Orange County Register


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Nectarines



> The differences between a peach and a nectarine can be a little fuzzy. After all, these two relatives of the almond taste very much alike. But fans of nectarines favour the stone fruit for its smooth skin and smaller pit. The cherry on top is that nectarines are nutritional powerhouses for older adults. Indeed, when we sink our teeth into a nectarine, we're getting plenty of vitamin C, beta-carotene and fiber. And that's not all.
> 
> Nectarines are a low in calories.
> 
> ...


Sauce:
Nectarines Are Juicy, Sweet And Good For YouÂ*|Â*Lifetime Daily


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## Timon (May 11, 2008)

^^^ nice, i love nectarines. only .99/lb lately too.

almost at 6 months vegan here.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

nomit said:


> ^^^ nice, i love nectarines. only .99/lb lately too.
> 
> almost at 6 months vegan here.


Congrats!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

New documentary: What The Health



> What the Health is the groundbreaking follow-up film from the creators of the award winning documentary Cowspiracy. The film follows intrepid filmmaker Kip Andersen as he uncovers the secret to preventing and even reversing chronic diseases - and investigates why the nation's leading health organizations don't want us to know about it. With heart disease and cancer the leading causes of death in America, and diabetes at an all-time high, the film reveals possibly the largest health cover-up of our time.
> With the help of medical doctors, researchers, and consumer advocates, What the Health exposes the collusion and corruption in government and big business that is costing us trillions of healthcare dollars, and keeping us sick.
> Join Kip as he tracks down the leading and most trusted American health nonprofits to find out why these groups are staying silent, despite a growing body of evidence. Audiences will be shocked to learn the insidious roles played by pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness, and processed animal food companies in the nation's health, especially in the most vulnerable communities, and will cheer at the transformation and recovery of those who took their lives into their own hands.
> What The Health is a surprising, and at times hilarious, investigative documentary that will be an eye-opener for everyone concerned about our nation's health and how big business influences it.


Website: WHAT THE HEALTH


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Article is 6 weeks old but avocados are priced like gold. I paid $5 for 2 avocados at my local market. In two weeks they will 4 for $5 and mushy, most will probably get thrown out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ime-for-cinco-de-mayo/?utm_term=.b4283127e262


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## Timon (May 11, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> New documentary: What The Health
> 
> Website: WHAT THE HEALTH


on netflix too.

yay!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The rise of vegan culture



> DISTANT are the days of Annie Hall, when Woody Allen resigned himself to a plate of alfalfa sprouts and mashed yeast. Over the years, vegan eating has gone from tasteless to trendy to making inroads into the mainstream. One sign of the times: in 2016, Tyson Foods, the largest meat processor in the United States, bought a 5 percent stake in the plant-based protein producer Beyond Meat. (The company's best-known product, the Beyond Burger, is pinkened with beet extracts and reportedly sizzles when grilled.) No longer fettered by associations with hippie kooks or radical politics, veganism has ascended to the astral plane of aspirational living. These days it keeps mixed, and more glamorous, company: famous bodies belonging to the likes of Tom Brady and Beyoncé have been fueled by vegan diets.
> 
> Sociology graduate student Nina Gheihman is researching social aspects of veganism's spread. Veganism was at first closely bound to the ideology of the animal-rights movement, she explains, which initially aimed at a range of targets, like wearing fur and testing products on animals. Once activists shifted focus to farm conditions and food, veganism took on the features of what scholars call a "lifestyle movement." Over time, it's become more closely associated with general environmental concerns and a "healthism" mentality, bound up with notions of perfecting the body. Trustworthy numbers on how many people identify as vegan are hard to come by, says Gheihman, but a growing number practice veganism in some way: incorporating meat and dairy substitutes in their meals, or restricting their diets at certain times of day or for a period of weeks.
> 
> ...


My lunch on saturday








sauce:A Harvard sociologist studies how veganism went from tasteless to trendy | Harvard Magazine


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Jon Stewart and Other Stars Rescue Animals With Farm Sanctuary


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

My favorite Vegan bakery is Bunner's located in Kensington Market, here in Toronto. On caturday we admired the wide array of baked goods including vegan "passionfruit" pride cupcakes. We bought some savoury pockets (stuffed with jackfruit)... I had one for dinner soooooo good 









I liked this mango fruit stand display


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

World Vegan Council Declares Mountain Biking Non-Vegan - Channel 23 News


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Geralt said:


> World Vegan Council Declares Mountain Biking Non-Vegan - Channel 23 News









:lol::lol:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Guest (Jun 30, 2017)

Geralt said:


> World Vegan Council Declares Mountain Biking Non-Vegan - Channel 23 News


 Hikers watch out, your next. Also near the top of the list? People that live in homes, tents or on the ground and folks who brush off Mosquitos. Geez, I thought it would be at least related to riding through a swarm of Gnats.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Canada Day lunch

Japan street food. Veg curry and purple rice









Supersonic cookie and strawberry & hibiscus cupcake ... Chris raved about the cupcake. Both treats vegan and gluten-free and packed full of flavour

Americanos


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Crazy meat eaters


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Our Gut Microbes Strongly Influence Our Emotional Behaviors



> The gut microbiome - the world of bacteria living in our digestive system - doesn't just exist to give us stomach aches or to help us break down food. Research is rapidly emerging from the scientific community that suggests these little critters have a huge impact on our behavior, including (potentially) on our response to fear.
> 
> A new study led by the University of California Los Angeles appears to have found evidence of yet another unusual link between your stomach and your brain. Namely, a selection of gut microbes seem to be linked to regions of the brain associated with mood and general behavior, the first time such a mechanism has been found in healthy humans.
> 
> ...


One of the comments also made me wonder: "how different foods, organic/non-organic, location of growing produce, etc impacts the bacteria in the gut"

Wikipedia says Bacteriodes (the healthy microbes) thrive on plant fibers and proteins, while Prevotella live on simple carbohydrates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteroides

Sauce:Our Gut Microbes Strongly Influence Our Emotional Behaviors | IFLScience
.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

Ramone comes back five minutes later, obviously embarrassed.
"What happened?", his friends ask
Ramone answers, "the tellers all started laughing when I said "this is a stick up' and my trench coat opened"'


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

SEITAN

Seitan is a vegan protein substitute. It is high in protein and low in fat. Seitan begins with whole wheat berries that are ground into flour. This flour is mixed with water and kneaded into an elastic dough. The dough is rinsed under water to dissolve and wash away the starch, leaving the stretchy gluten behind. When cooked, the gluten is transformed into seitan, a food with a texture and flavor quite different from its original ingredients. Depending on how it is cooked and seasoned, seitan is capable of taking on a wide range of textures and flavors. Although long a staple in Asia and some European countries, seitan has only recently become available outside of a few natural foods stores.

TOFU

Tofu has been a main food staple in the Orient for over 2000 years. Dried ground soya bean puree are soaked in water and then boiled producing soya milk. It is sieved and then curdled with a coagulant (e.g. calcium sulfate). When the resulting whey is drained off, the curds are pressed to form blocks of tofu.

Tofu has absolutely no cholesterol. The fat that tofu has is monounsaturated and polyunsaturated, the "good fat" that are not harmful to blood vessels. It is also high in calcium and is a good source of vitamins and minerals.

Two substances present in tofu - lecithin and linoleic acid - actually help to break down cholesterol and fat deposits in the organs and blood.

TEMPEH

Tempeh has been a favorite food and staple source of protein in Indonesia for several hundred years. It has a firm texture and a nutty flavour. Tempeh is a complete protein that contains all the essential amino acids. The proteins and isoflavones have many health promoting effects such as bone building, reducing risk of coronary heart disease and some cancers. Tempeh maintains all of the fiber of the beans and gains some digestive benefits from the enzymes created during the fermentation process.

Tempeh is a fermented food made by the controlled fermentation of cooked soybeans with a Rhizopus mold (tempeh starter). The tempeh fermentation by the Rhizopus mold binds the soybeans into a compact white cake. Tempeh fermentation also produces natural antibiotic agents which are thought to increase the body's resistance to intestinal infections.

KALE

Kale provides more nutritional value for fewer calories than almost any other food around. It boosts the body's detoxification enzymes, helping to clear potentially carcinogenic substances more quickly. Kale provides an excellent source of Vitamin A - an important vision nutrient; Vitamin C - for antioxidant protection and immune support; Vitamin E - helps slow down loss of mental function; calcium - for healthy bones, and fiber - for colon cancer prevention.

QUINOA

Quinoa is a wonder grain, seed of a leafy plant with its' origin from the Andean civilization. The United Nations classified it as a super crop due to its nutritional value of essential amino acids, iron and vitamins. Rich in omega-3 fatty acids, low in fat, it offers benefits to the heart. It is gluten-free and easy to digest .

AVOCADO

Avocado, a native to Central America, is rich in potassium (30% more than banana) that helps regulate blood pressure. It contains 'oleic acid' a monounsaturated fat that may help lower cholesterol. It is an excellent source of Vitamin E which promotes skin health and Vitamin B6 which is essential to the central nervous system function.

ARTICHOKE

Some of the most powerful polyphenol-type antioxidants are found in artichoke. It is an excellent source of Vitamin C which enhances iron absorption and is vital for a healthy immune system.

MISO

Miso is a salty buttery paste produced by fermenting soybeans, mixture of rice or barley with salt and a yeast mold (koji). It is rich in the immune boosting mineral, zinc. It is also high in iron, copper & manganese which are all important in energy production & anti-oxidant defenses.

SHIITAKE MUSHROOM

Long a symbol of longevity in Asia for their health promoting properties, Shiitake mushrooms have been used medicinally by the Chinese for over 6000 years. It contains an active compound called lentinan, which helps boost the immune system, promotes anti-cancerous activity and lowers cholesterol.

EDAMAME BEAN

Edamame beans are fresh soya beans that are harvested when the plant is still young and green. They are low in fat, calories and contain all the essential amino acids the body doesn't make on its own. Edamame beans are high in fiber which is known to lower cholesterol and contains isoflavons which is key to lowering the risk of heart disease.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Hope Starbuck's introduces this in Canada 



> The coffeehouse giant's vegan options are no longer limited to just guacamole on a bagel.
> 
> Coffeehouse giant Starbucks launched a new vegan food option at select US locations this week. The new grab-and-go option, Vegan Lentils & Vegetables Protein Bowl with Brown Rice, comes loaded with butternut squash, roasted tomatoes, and sunflower seeds, and is served with a side of lemon-tahini dressing. Availability is currently limited to select locations in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington, DC. "This new bowl is also an excellent source of protein, and has more than one cup of fruits and vegetables, and is certified vegan," a spokesperson for Starbucks stated in a press release. In March, the international coffeehouse introduced a less exciting vegan option-an organic avocado spread that can be ordered with a vegan bagel to make DIY avocado toast. Shortly thereafter, Starbucks began testing more hearty vegan options (such as Cauliflower Tabouli Salad) through its "Mercato" concept at 100 Chicago locations. On the drinks front, the company introduced almond milk to all of its menus last year, and has since been experimenting with using plant-based milks to create signature drinks-some of which are vegan-friendly, including a four-drink line created to benefit Lady Gaga's anti-bullying organization, the Born This Way Foundation.


Sauce: Starbucks Launches Certified Vegan Lunch Option











> Made with butternut squash, roasted tomatoes, and sunflower seeds, and served with lemon - tahini dressing. With 23 grams of protein, this new bowl is also an excellent source of protein, and has more than one cup of fruits and vegetables, and is certified vegan. The new Vegan Lentils & Vegetables Protein Bowl with Brown Rice replaces the Hearty Veggie & Brown Rice Salad Bowl and will be available year-round at select company-operated Starbucks stores in the U.S., and select licensed store locations in the US.
> 
> Available for $7.45 - $8.45.


sauce:https://news.starbucks.com/facts/whats-new-at-starbucks-this-summer


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is awesome! I'll bet the Dairy Industry is fuming!



> Progress! Canada's New Draft Food Guidelines Favor Plant-Based Protein and Eliminates Dairy As a Food Group
> 
> Last fall, when the Canadian government began consulting the public on its plan to revise national food guidelines, I wrote that the existing food guide had lost all usefulness and credibility because lobbyists and economic concerns, rather than science, had been the driving force behind their structure and content.
> 
> ...


Sauce: https://www.riseofthevegan.com/blog/canadas-new-government-food-guidelines-favor-plants


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Power Meter City (Mar 28, 2016)

Ok, I'm going to give this thing a try. Saw a news story last night that really got me thinking. I think it's the right thing to do. Won't be an easy change...but should be worth it!


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Nothing wrong with easing in, maybe just start a few days a week and go from there.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^I agree Chazpat. Start with one or 2 meat-free days per week. Keep reading up on plant based diets. really try to stay away from processed foods... it's incredible how much those industries (sneakily) add dairy and meat protein in food

I was vegetarian for decades... I totally gave up dairy 3 years ago. My hubby eats fish (for the Omega3) once or twice per week but eats plant based the remaining days.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Lunch at Mean Bao

Tofu & veg steam bun sandwich (vegan)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

awww that face


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan omega 3 Guide: What vegans need to know about omega 3 fatty acids











> Just as there are many kinds of protein, there are likewise numerous forms of fat. Chemistry and nutrition graduate students can spend months studying the functions of these various protein and fat molecules. But simply gaining an understanding of how to meet your body's needs for protein and fat is relatively straightforward. Just a little reading on these two topics can enable you to avoid some of the most common pitfalls associated with vegan nutrition.
> 
> We've saved the protein story for another page. The point of this article is to keep you from coming up short where your omega 3 fats are concerned. There are three omega 3 fats that are relevant to human nutrition: ALA (alpha-linolenic acid); DHA (docosahexaenoic acid); and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid). We'll examine here why these fats are so important, and conclude with some recommendations to ensure that your dietary needs for these fats are met. First let's take a broader look at all dietary fat, so that we can understand omega 3 fats in their proper context.
> 
> ...


Sauce: Vegan Omega 3 Guide: ALA, DHA, & EPA Fats


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Thought y'all might like to see a few pix of my garden.

Though we have over an acre, a lot of it is woods and we have a good number of big oaks so not so many sunny spots. One of the sunniest is right in front of the house. I installed trellis but I knew the veggies would outgrow them so I tied some twine from the trellises to the rail on the upper balcony. Left side is some kind of Chinese squash and right side is cucumbers. Both sides also have Chinese Yard-Long beans. On the right, there are okra, a tomato and a green pepper. Went out on the balcony this evening and picked a cucumber and noticed a squash about eight inches long. Already had one squash and a ton of cukes, a little okra and a few green peppers.









This is in the backyard, doesn't get as much sun. I set up a string net for the beans to climb, though it is only about 6 feet high. We've grown Green Yard Long beans before and we thought some of these were green but so far we've only gotten red beans. They are about 16" long when picked, the greens were a little longer. That's four beans in the center of the photo, makes them look longer than they are. Got a couple of tomatoes back here but the [email protected]#$% squirrels keep picking them when they are still green. I watered after I took this, we've had a lot of rainy days this summer but not the last few with temps around 90.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^I dig your garden


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Perfect!


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

^ You may want to ask NDD if those are safe to eat!

We actually just had a discussion on GMO in the botany thread.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

cyclelicious said:


> Perfect!
> 
> View attachment 1147776


Does it really matter if the pit is there or not? It'll never be ripe enough to eat, and when it finally is; you've missed your window, and it has gone bad.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ the idea of a pitless avocado is appealing. We had a chat a little while ago about people getting injured from slicing avocado 

As for the massive blueberries...we're heading up to northern Ontario in a couple of weeks and I can't wait to have real wild blueberries again. The blueberry bushes grow along the trails!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We had a good lunch yesterday, during our walk. Sri Lankan veg combo lentils, green beans and okra on basmanti rice. It was spicy but very good. The flavours were a little different than other vegan Indian foods.


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

i don't want to sound like a d!ck, but probably will. if someone beats cancer why would you put gmo's into your body?


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

fishwrinkle said:


> i don't want to sound like a d!ck, but probably will. if someone beats cancer why would you put gmo's into your body?


It is preety hard to avoid now days. However the most GMOs consumed in North America are by livestock that is then slaughtered for their meat. Guess who then gets it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

huckleberry hound is right! 

Science has been messing with your food since the dawn of agriculture, because just by putting it on a farm, we change the way it grows. The only difference now is that we're testing that stuff out in a lab instead of just sticking food in someone's mouth and making a note if they immediately puke out a lung or something.

Around 70 % (It's probably closer to 80 % since this article was published) of processed foods in the U.S. contain genetically modified ingredients. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/labels-for-gmo-foods-are-a-bad-idea/

Long before Darwin and Wallace, farmers and breeders were using the idea of selection to cause major changes in the features of their plants and animals over the course of decades. Farmers and breeders allowed only the plants and animals with desirable characteristics to reproduce, causing the evolution of farm stock. This process is called artificial selection because people (instead of nature) select which organisms get to reproduce.

As shown below, farmers have cultivated numerous popular crops from the wild mustard, by artificially selecting for certain attributes.









sauce: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_30

Obviously, we should keep an eye on what goes into making our food, because we put it in our bodies. And we absolutely shouldn't just default to trusting major corporations, like Monsanto because they're gigantic currency monsters. But GMOs are the way we're going to feed the future, so let's maybe get the facts straight ie what are the causes of cancer. You should not be getting your cancer data from Jenny McCarthy.


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

Imo gmo is gene splicing and i understand selective breeding could be considered gmo, but not in my eyes. Making a plant to be able to survive in pesticides/herbicides while eveything else dies is not due to selective breeding, thats just satan working in a lab slicing and splicing. I too cross breed, back cross and everything in between for traits i want in my mmj. Ive even been sucessful in grafting four strains to one plant. Ive been vegan for 8 yrs now and it absolutley disgusts me what factory farmers(produce and livestock) do. I buy 100% of my food from 2 co-op's only. It also makes me sick how we spend more on good food than my mortgage. Wasnt trying to single you out either, sorry if you felt that way.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ no problem  I see your point too. As well as your passion.

We all want safe food and good health as well as protecting our environment


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

happy veggie hump day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The article can also apply to mtb and plant based diets 

4 Dietary Essentials for the Vegetarian Runner | RunnerClick


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

potato salad gone bad


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Gary Larson is unquestionably one of my favorites. He could be thread on it's own.

Thanks!


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## Foily (Jul 24, 2017)

I hear you we are veg but lately been eating meat because of random things going on. I want to get more consistent for sure.


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

Foily said:


> I hear you we are veg but lately been eating meat because of random things going on. I want to get more consistent for sure.


Remember it's progress not perfection.


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## Guest (Jul 29, 2017)

Opening Day of Zucchini Season. Although most of us use a smaller shotgun and a Burmese cat.


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## Foily (Jul 24, 2017)

Huckleberry, Thanks I need to remind myself of that more often!


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## Foily (Jul 24, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ no problem  I see your point too. As well as your passion.
> 
> We all want safe food and good health as well as protecting our environment


Hey Cycle, you seem to have wonderful idea an the post of the the food you eat looks mouth watering!! Can you recommend a good breakfast for a veg/vegan. I typically eat Trader Joe's O's in the morning with fruit on top. I am however, trying to not eat as much processed food if possible. Any ideas? Or anyone else want to chime in? Thanks!


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Foily said:


> Hey Cycle, you seem to have wonderful idea an the post of the the food you eat looks mouth watering!! Can you recommend a good breakfast for a veg/vegan. I typically eat Trader Joe's O's in the morning with fruit on top. I am however, trying to not eat as much processed food if possible. Any ideas? Or anyone else want to chime in? Thanks!


Do you eat eggs and/or cheese?

I like breakfast tacos (with or without eggs). I just saute some onion in some oil with a bit of garlic and spices, add in some peppers, some greenery, and some black beans. Top with a bit of hot sauce and some nooch, and throw it on some corn tortillas. A bit of cotija on top with some guac or avocado is great too.


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## Foily (Jul 24, 2017)

dubthang said:


> Do you eat eggs and/or cheese?
> 
> I like breakfast tacos (with or without eggs). I just saute some onion in some oil with a bit of garlic and spices, add in some peppers, some greenery, and some black beans. Top with a bit of hot sauce and some nooch, and throw it on some corn tortillas. A bit of cotija on top with some guac or avocado is great too.


That sounds so good, I go back and forth with cheese and eggs. I only really like cheese on pizza not on it's own. I enjoy eggs however, I typically only like the organic kind (not to sound snobby).
I appreciate your feedback. I think a breakfast taco sounds great even right now!


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I've been wanting to try "overnight oats" and came upstairs to find my daughter was making some for tomorrow. It's just oatmeal soaked in yogurt* overnight, then fruit and nuts added in the morning. Avocado toast is the trendy thing, but don't let that stop you from trying it. I also saw using sliced sweet potatoes as the "toast", I think it required running them through the toaster a couple of times to get them cooked.

Cyclelicious posts a ton of recipes in the http://forums.mtbr.com/nutrition-hydration/vegetarian-vegan-raw-recipes-chat-954332.html thread. In fact, the first post is a breakfast.

*a lot of yogurt isn't vegetarian, they tend to include gelatin, which is made from horse hooves or bones, can't remember which. Greek yogurts usually do not have this.


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

No hipster here, but ive been eating avo toast for years. I like a good sprout bread. smash 1/2 avo on a slice, load up with thin red onion, capers, lemon juice, fresh ground pepper/salt and some cayenne pepper too. Now if that dont make you cream your jeans then you firing blanks. 

Real Yogurt is always vegetarian even if it has gelatin due to fact its made from milk. Never vegan though even w/o gelatin


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

fishwrinkle said:


> Real Yogurt is always vegetarian even if it has gelatin due to fact its made from milk. Never vegan though even w/o gelatin


Not quite following your logic there, so cream of chicken soup is vegetarian due to the fact it is made from milk? You can get vegan yogurts made with soymilk but maybe those aren't "real", not sure how the live cultures work.


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

no, it has meat in it. 

vegetarians eat veggies and animal proteins in the form of dairy or eggs and some go as far as saying fish is ok too. basically vegetarians won't eat mammal flesh

vegans eat absolutely nothing but 100% veg 

so real yogurt is made from milk or some variation of it, meaning it's accepted by vegetarians.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

fishwrinkle said:


> no, it has meat in it.
> 
> vegetarians eat veggies and animal proteins in the form of dairy or eggs and some go as far as saying fish is ok too. basically vegetarians won't eat mammal flesh
> 
> ...


I think the point was that you said, "...even if it has gelatin in it..." Gelatin is not vegetarian.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Well, I consider gelatin to be non-vegetarian myself, though I guess it isn't actually meat. I'm a pescatarian.


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

So how is dairy considered vegetarian, but hooves and tendons are not? They're not meat but still all animal proteins. Dont matter to me @ all cuz i stay away from all animal protein


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

fishwrinkle said:


> So how is dairy considered vegetarian, but hooves and tendons are not? They're not meat but still all animal proteins. Dont matter to me @ all cuz i stay away from all animal protein


Welcome to the confusing world of vegetarianism. If you ask me a vegetarian should only eat plants because of the root word vegetable. But no!!! They eat fish, dairy, eggs and some even eat chicken. It has become so confusing that they had to make up a new word to lable someone who only eats plants- vegan. Saying you are vegetarian but you these other things is illogical to me but we all know logic left our society years ago.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

fishwrinkle said:


> So how is dairy considered vegetarian, but hooves and tendons are not? They're not meat but still all animal proteins. Dont matter to me @ all cuz i stay away from all animal protein


I would guess because the animal does not have to be killed to get it's milk or eggs but it would be killed for the hooves and tendons.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

huckleberry hound said:


> Welcome to the confusing world of vegetarianism. If you ask me a vegetarian should only eat plants because of the root word vegetable. But no!!! They eat fish, dairy, eggs and some even eat chicken. It has become so confusing that they had to make up a new word to lable someone who only eats plants- vegan. Saying you are vegetarian but you these other things is illogical to me but we all know logic left our society years ago.


I may occasionally claim to be a vegetarian for simplicity, a lot of people don't know what a pescatarian is. But I usually explain that I am a pescatarian and often correct people who refer to me as a vegetarian.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

happy hump day!


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

chazpat said:


> I would guess because the animal does not have to be killed to get it's milk or eggs but it would be killed for the hooves and tendons.


Yeah i guess, but theyre not killing animals for just hooves and tendons. The animals are dead already for meat processing. No more beating a dead horse


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Throwback Thursday


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## Picard (Apr 5, 2005)

cyclelicious said:


> happy hump day!
> 
> View attachment 1149875


Is this for real?

Sent from my F3213 using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

For real. You can have nectarines instead, if you don't like peach fuzz


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## MSU Alum (Aug 8, 2009)

Yum!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Today in the market... rambutan... but do not taste 









https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambutan


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## Guest (Aug 13, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> Today in the market... rambutan... but do not taste
> 
> View attachment 1151876
> 
> ...


 I'm shocked. Usually you avoid such tasteless posts.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Ha!

Our Caturday lunch: Bao tofu and enoki mushroom (with carrot, red cabbage, sesame, satay sauce) and cold noodle salad
Chris also had shrimp dumplings









Funday lunch: tofu club sandwich marinated and grilled tofu,	bean'n'buckwheat bacon, sliced tomato, romaine lettuce and	sriracha	mayo on house-made	bread
my salad: mixed greens, shredded carrots, cherry tomatoes,	sweet potato, apple-sweetened dried cranberries, and	mixed	
seeds and tofu


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

5 Healthiest Cooking Oils for Vegan Diets



> 1. Avocado oil
> You might be discouraged by the pricing of avocado oil, but you also need to remember that health perks are worth the few extra dollars. Luckily, there are different sizes of avocado oil bottles that are available for affordable prices. One of the properties of avocado oil that makes it ideal for vegan dishes is its high smoke-point. Furthermore, avocado oil allows you to prepare vegetables, make salad dressings, bake, and, most importantly, you will get a vitamin E supplementation, which comes as an antioxidant.
> 
> 2. Coconut oil
> ...


 sauce: 5 Healthiest Cooking Oils for Vegan Diets


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

VEGETARIAN NUTRITION FOR STRENGTH TRAINING



> Is it possible to be a strength athlete who doesn't eat meat?
> 
> Lifting heavy things seems to go hand-in-hand with chowing down on hefty amounts of steak (or chicken breast, if you've got to make weight). But there's no law saying "If Thou Liftest Weights, Thou Must Eat Meat".
> 
> ...


sauce Vegetarian Nutrition For Strength Training - Lift Big Eat Big


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Wild blueberries (from our recent trip to northern Ontario)

























Benefits of eating blueberries



> Just one cup of blueberries per day could be the key to reducing blood pressure and arterial stiffness, both of which are associated with cardiovascular disease.
> 
> "Our findings suggest that regular consumption of blueberries could potentially delay the progression of prehypertension to hypertension, therefore reducing cardiovascular disease risk," said Sarah A. Johnson, assistant director of the Center for Advancing Exercise and Nutrition Research on Aging and postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences at Florida State University.
> 
> ...


Sauce: Blueberries found to reduce blood pressure and arterial stiffness - BIPH


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Friday funnies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Caturday


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Potato passion (Happy Hump day  )


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The Truth About Soy.











> Soy is one of the most researched foods on earth, so firstly let's take look at some of the commonly believed "facts" about soy and compare this with the research&#8230;
> 
> #1 "Does Soy Contain Estrogen?"
> 
> ...


Sauce: https://www.riseofthevegan.com/blog/the-truth-about-soy-busting-the-myths


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The avocado is strong with this one


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Thanks Judy!

_Also, Americans currently spend over $1 billion a year on breast augmentation, so if soy was any good at making breasts larger we'd probably know about it...
_

Good point, never thought about that!

_Soy myths and hysteria and the WAPF are inseparable. Much of the fear-mongering around soy is a direct result of misinformation disseminated by the WAPF's relentless anti-soy campaigns.
The WAPF, registered as a nonprofit organization, is a multimillion dollar operation that lobbies for raw milk and grass-fed beef.
_

That really pisses me off. It should be illegal to purposely spread misinformation but I guess that would be hard to enforce and we'd have no politicians. Wait a minute&#8230;


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Revenge of the cows


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Jeremy Corbyn is "going through the process" of eating more vegan food, he has said - he just has to bring himself to give up the brie, verboten under vegan rules, along with eggs, milk and everything animals produce. Later, as if fearful of a backlash, his spokesperson issued a statement denying he was vegan. But the Labour leader was right to be proud of his efforts. Vegans are often unreasonably mocked as do-gooders and sniped at for making dinner parties awkward for those who don't like lentils quite so much. This is unfair: the diet does do the world good and if vegans provoke their friends into going vegan too, so much the better.
> 
> There is now a great deal of convincing data that breeding animals for food dirties the air and chews up the earth. One recent peer-reviewed study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculates that should the world go vegan, annual greenhouse gas emissions would halve and the new land used every year for each person would near-halve. The diet is also healthier: some meat products have been linked to cancer and saturated fat from meat and dairy products can cause heart disease. A study published in Nature predicts that global veganism would lead to 8.1 million fewer deaths per year.
> 
> ...


https://www.theguardian.com/comment...guardian-view-on-veganism-high-in-moral-fibre


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## Mark_BC (Sep 19, 2012)

Probably less than half, it takes way less energy and land to grow an equivalent amount of veggies as meat. Problem is I love cheese too much. I stay away from most meat unless it is organic and ethical, but still I don't eat a lot.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Mark_BC said:


> Probably less than half, it takes way less energy and land to grow an equivalent amount of veggies as meat. Problem is I love cheese too much. I stay away from most meat unless it is organic and ethical, but still I don't eat a lot.


It's so strange because I used to love cheese too. Once you stop eating cheese you realize that not everything has to be covered in cheese.

The vegan "cheeses" have come a loooong way.

The main thing is that you are trying. Singlesprocket is more flexitarian. He eats small portion of fish or chicken once per week I've been totally plant-based for 3 years.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

cyclelicious said:


> It's so strange because I used to love cheese too. Once you stop eating cheese you realize that not everything has to be covered in cheese.


Dairy is much like sugar in that it is addicting. Kicking the habit can be hard to do, but it is possible. I still eat some cheese, but items like nutritional yeast are easy to sub in.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Holy Smackers! That's some precious melon



> A luxury breed of melon has arrived at a Toronto restaurant. The Japanese Cantaloupe, or Crown Melon, is now being sold at Izakaya Ju for a whopping $30 per slice.
> 
> The Crown Melon is a rare and special breed of cantaloupe grown in Japan under extremely strict conditions. Farmers cut all but one of the fruits from each plant to ensure the sweetness and flavour are concentrated.
> 
> ...


Toronto restaurant charging $30 for a slice of melon


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

^ Funny they say they are a hot item, when I lived in Japan in the late '90s, individually wrapped "perfect" cantaloupe were a gift item with a high price tag. I often joked that I was going to smuggle in cantaloupe to make a fortune. I'm thinking I recall them being about $30 apiece at that time. I guess inflation has reduce that to a slice, or maybe just because they are imported into Canada.


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

cheese triggers the same brain receptors as heroin. i just can't stomach the fact of consuming puss in my dairy, amongst other things. i pee neon yellow a lot due to the fact that i eat A LOT of people "fish food", aka nutritional yeast. salt, raw cashews or pepitas, garlic powder and yeast flakes pulse blended makes a tasty parmesan. encrust eggplant with that and BAM! best eggplant parm eva, recipe in eaternity.


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

this may have been discussed, but what are some of your favorite vegan cookbooks?

oh she glows - all of them
eaternity
chloe's.... - all of them
vegan cooking for carnivores


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forks over Knives cookbook
Thug Kitchen (original)
How to Cook Everything Vegetarian - Mark Bittman

i am also member of a few FB groups and I get ideas from the forums


----------



## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

fishwrinkle said:


> this may have been discussed, but what are some of your favorite vegan cookbooks?


Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen - Richa Hingle
Isa Does It - Isa Chandra Moskowitz
The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen - Donna Klein
Vegan Eats World - Terry Hope Romero


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Yesterday, we attended the 33rd annual VegFest in Toronto. It was the biggest attendance ever for this 3 day event. Over 140 vendors, presentations, music etc

A few pics

Rice and peas, pumpkin, callaloo, (incredibly healthy), barbecue seitan, fresh coconut drink, and freshly corn on the cob. All from Vital 








One of dozens of food trucks from around the city








I think Hare Krishna was one of the original vendors from 1985... still serving delicious food
















I got my lunch at D'Beatstro. A Banh Mi Tofu sandwich








Apiecalypse Now was just one of 140 vendors... hugely popular. They make incredible pizza, flavoured marshmallows, donuts... etc all vegan


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Protein and the Vegan Athlete: All You Really Need to Know
> 
> Can you be a plant-based athlete and still meet your protein needs?
> 
> ...


Sauce: Protein and the Vegan Athlete: All You Really Need to Know | No Meat Athlete


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Velovegan: Vegan meat delivered by bike to your door
> 
> Each weekend Ben Mueller-Heaslip and his partner make amazing vegan meats, then, Velovegan delivers those 'meats' all over Toronto - by bike. dandyhorse caught up with the founder of Toronto's only vegan food bike delivery service to find out a bit more about what it's like being vegan and working on two wheels.
> When and why did you start Velovegan?
> ...


sauce Velovegan | dandyhorse magazine


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Great story! Thanks for sharing some local news and interests.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Have a beautiful sunday/funday with healthy treats 











> Is sugar really as addictive as cocaine? Scientists row over effect on body and brain
> Heated debate has greeted an article in a medical journal suggesting sugar should be considered an addictive drug, as experts deride the claims as 'absurd'


Sauce: https://www.theguardian.com/society...ver-effect-on-body-and-brain?CMP=share_btn_fb

Article:


> An article suggesting that sugar should be considered an addictive substance, and could even be on a par with abusive drugs such as cocaine, has sparked a furious backlash with experts describing the claims as "absurd".
> 
> In a narrative review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine the authors write that sugar could act as a gateway to alcohol and other addictive substances, adding that like sugar, like cocaine and opium, is refined from plants to yield pure white crystals - a process they say "significantly adds to its addictive properties."
> 
> ...


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2017)

I dunno, sugar is harder to snort, unless it's powdered sugar, which is used to cut cocaine sometimes. On a more serious note, non-sugar replacements also tend to make people eat sweeter foods and creates a similar problem to eating actual sugar.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

fishwrinkle said:


> this may have been discussed, but what are some of your favorite vegan cookbooks?
> 
> oh she glows - all of them
> eaternity
> ...


I follow Facebook group called No Meat Athlete. I haven't purchased the cookbook yet. The author posts excellent healthy recipes and relevant information









sauce: https://go.nomeatathlete.com/cookbook-info


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Dangerous Food

1) 
Mushrooms








Not every mushroom is created equal. Crimini mushrooms might make perfect pasta toppers, but some species contain poisons that can kill.

2)
Tomatoes








The juicy, red fruit contains a poison, Glycoalkaloid, in its leaves, which is known for causing upset stomachs, severe cramping, and anxiety. So steer clear of the leaves and stems.

3)
Rhubarb Leaves








Rhubarb might bake up all kinds of delicious sweets, but the leaves are poisonous, causing breathing trouble, seizures, kidney failure, and in some cases, death.

4)
Peanuts,








One of the most common allergies is to peanuts. The most severe reaction is anaphylaxis, which can lead to severe constriction of the airways, shock, and even loss of consciousness. It is dangerous enough to cause death if left untreated

5)
Potatoes








Potatoes have poisonous leaves and stems, but even so, potato poisoning is rare. Most potato related deaths come from eating green potatoes or drinking potato leaf tea

6)
Cherries








Watch out for cherry seeds, which contain poisonous hydrogen cyanide.

7)
Almonds








This seed (no, it isn't actually a nut) may pack in many health benefits- but they are potentially full of poison. Bitter almonds while in their raw form, are full of cyanide.They need to go through a specialized heat treatment(more than DIY oven roasting) in order to remove toxins.

8) 
Stone fruit seeds








Apples and stone fruits - cherries, plums, apples, pears, peaches, and apricots- are nature's candy , but stay away from the seeds (as well as the bark and leaves) They contain amygdalin, a compound that produces cyanide . large does can lead to dizziness, and vomiting, increased blood pressure, kidney failure, coma and even death

9)
Elderberry








We love us some berries, but the elderberry plant, used in medicinal syrups, sodas, and liquors can cause a severely upset stomach, so stay away from the stems and leaves.

10)
Castor oil








Castor oil comes from the castor bean plant, which is loaded with the poison ricin. Make sure the beans your castor oil was made from adhered to all safety guidelines.

11)
Kidney and Lima beans








These legumes are good for you, unless prepared incorrectly. Soak red beans for several hours to remove lectins which can kill the cells in the stomach and cook and drain lima beans thoroughly to get rid of the chemical compound linamarin, which can turn into hydrogen cyanide.

12)
Nutmeg








Though its great to have on hand for baking, ingesting a significant amount can lead to psychotic symptoms like disorientation, hallucinations and hyper-excitation


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan looters


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> 4 Strategies to Make Going Vegan Easier for Athletes
> 
> 1. Snack Smart
> 
> ...


sauce and further links: Everything an Athlete Needs to Know About Going Vegan


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

"Learn what's in season and be aware of what fruits and vegetables shouldn't be available locally at a particular time of year."



> People are being duped': Marketplace exposes homegrown lies at farmers markets
> 
> Some farmers market vendors push bogus homegrown stories to consumers looking for fresh local fruits and veggies - and Marketplace has the hidden camera footage to prove it.
> 
> ...


'People are being duped': Marketplace exposes homegrown lies at farmers markets - Business - CBC News


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

^ I watched the follow up video where they go vegetarian for 21 days. They should have done more research, lots of errors, "I need my protein" and the gal was saying how she felt so tired after the first day and they both concluded at the end that it is very hard. I think a big part of it was that they don't tend to eat very healthy even as meat eaters, the gal is overweight and I'm not sure they were used to really cooking fresh dishes and they were in McDonald's at one point.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Perfect for chunkin'


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

13 Things You Didn't Know About Nuts That Every Self-Respecting Vegan Should



> National Nut Day is Saturday October 21, which means we're hitting the bulk foods section at our local grocery stores to create sophisticated raw desserts, whip up creamy sauces, and slather oh-so-satisfying nut butters onto just about everything (there's also talk about filling a Mr. Peanut piñata with nuts, but we'll see). Of course, we all know that nuts are part of a healthy diet, but for this national holiday, we wanted to know more about one of our favorite snacks, which is why we're highlighting 13 little-known facts about nuts in honor of National Nut Day. After a quick read, you'll see why we've got never-ending love for nuts.
> 
> 1. What's a nut?
> According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a "nut" is a hard, one-seeded fruit that does not split open to release seeds when ripe.
> ...


sauce: 13 Things You Didn't Know About Nuts That Every Self-Respecting Vegan Should


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Friday Funnies

Be proud let loose 






One of the perks of going on a plant-based diet many people report is an end to constipation, or at least far more regular digestion. That said, at first, that isn't the case for everyone - as your digestive system adjusts to taking in more fiber, you might experience some increased irregularity and bloating.

More about the benefits when you stop eating meat, dairy, eggs : What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Eating Meat, Dairy & Eggs - The Daily Berries


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good deal except these aren't pumpkins... they're gourds. Oh my gourd


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

WOW
I like the purple cabbage!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Cleared2land said:


> WOW
> I like the purple cabbage!


Natural beauty!


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sexy veggies


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Plant Protein Shown to be Better than Animal Protein for Building Muscle



> New research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that both plant-based protein and meat build muscle equally well however because plant-protein comes with less 'baggage' in the form of harmful components it's the more beneficial protein source to use.
> 
> A study published last week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that dietary protein derived from plant sources built muscle just as well as protein from meat sources. However meat also comes with additional components that are harmful to our health, including antibiotic residue, hormones, saturated fat, trans-fats, endotoxins, cholesterol, Neu5Gc, heterocyclic amines and contaminants such as high levels of metals including copper and arsenic. These undesirable elements increase inflammation and promote various diseases thus making meat a less desirable option when building muscle and long term health are considered.
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.riseofthevegan.com/blog/plant-protein-best-for-building-muscle


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Vegan porn


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good article focusing on protein



> The high-protein craze may actually carry some risks
> 
> If there's one claim that's almost certain to boost sales of a food these days, it's to say the item is high in protein.
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...a_story.html?tid=ss_fb&utm_term=.fb75ac5b1937


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

From The Guardian:

A worried resident in Germany alerted police to what he thought was a second world war bomb in his garden. Officers found … a particularly large zucchini.

Police were summoned to the scene in Bretten, near the south-western city of Karlsruhe, on Thursday morning by a worried 81-year-old man.

They said in a statement Friday that officers determined “the object, which really did look very like a bomb” was actually a 40cm (nearly 16in) courgette.

The offending vegetable, which was very dark in color, weighed about 5kg (11lbs). Police believe someone threw it over a hedge into the garden.

Unexploded wartime bombs are unearthed frequently during construction work in Germany, often forcing authorities to evacuate residents while they are defused.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

All calories are equal, so goes the conventional wisdom. But it seems some may be more equal than others. The way the body processes the same calories may vary dramatically from one person to the next



> *Wider understanding
> 
> How the bacteria in your gut may be shaping your waistline*
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.economist.com/news/scie...standing?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/pe/widerunderstnading


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> W*hat Would Happen If Everyone in the UK Stopped Eating Meat?*
> 
> I think, deep down, we all know the meat industry isn't that great. Whether you've watched Cowspiracy, read those George Monbiot-type articles about how meat production is catastrophically bad for the environment, or just listened to someone at a party go on about how Food, Inc. was, like, so dark it almost made them give up eating burgers, you'll be aware of the ramifications of industrial animal farming.
> 
> ...


Sauce: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/...-meat?utm_campaign=global&utm_source=vicefbuk


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Beans beans
Good for your heart
The more you eat
The more you save the planet from environmental degradation, and improve your health


----------



## party_wagon (Oct 10, 2008)

I would try by starting off with casseroles that contain all of your micro and macro nutrients. This will make it easy to meal prep and transition. Then as you learn more about what you need to eat you can get pickier and will not be missing nutrients. Perhaps a Quinoa and 5 bean Chili or something similar. Just heaping portions of diverse proteins and vegetables all mixed into one recipe. Then as you learn more about what you have to include in your diet you can branch out more.


----------



## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Chicken wings are vanishing from the locker room. Superstars are slimming down-and speeding up. If 'skinny ball' has arrived, could the performance-enhancer sparking a revolution be...veganism?

The Secret (but Healthy!) Diet Powering Kyrie and the NBA | Bleacher Report


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ nice


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> VEGETARIAN DIETS CAN REDUCE HEART DISEASE RISK BY ALMOST 50 PERCENT COMPARED TO EATING MEAT
> 
> Here's some news that will bring a sigh of relief to farm animals: Research from the American Heart Association indicates that plant-based diets might be the best choice to reduce heart failure, even for people that haven't previously had cardiac conditions. Heart failure occurs gradually and doesn't necessarily mean your heart stops working. Instead, the organ isn't strong enough to pump blood throughout your body or is unable to draw in enough blood to supply your body with nutrients. Fairly common, the organization estimates that 6.5 million Americans, over the age of 20, have heart failure.
> 
> ...











Vegetarian Diets Can Reduce Heart Disease Risk by Almost 50 Percent Compared to Eating Meat


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *Americans Like Fruits More Than Veggies, But We Aren't Eating Much Of Either, Says New CDC Report*
> 
> The advice to eat our fruits and veggies is always with us, but it's not influencing most Americans to eat much of either. That's according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that looked at fruit and vegetable consumption by state, with breakdowns by age, income, race/ethnicity and gender.
> 
> ...











Sauce: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidd...h-of-either-says-new-cdc-report/#31af4aa33a13


----------



## Guest (Nov 21, 2017)

Potatoes and Tomatoes eh? We don't eat many potatoes anymore (not on the diet plan), we eat a lot of Tomatoes, but they mostly taste like guck.


----------



## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> *Americans Like Fruits More Than Veggies, But We Aren't Eating Much Of Either, Says New CDC Report*
> 
> Closing with some good news: we are eating slightly more fruits and vegetables than we were in 1970, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The most consumed vegetables? Potatoes and tomatoes, by far, says the USDA (roughly half of both are frozen or canned); onions come in third. Apples and oranges take the top two spots for our favorite fruits.
> [/url]


Except the tomato is a fruit, so their numbers are all off! Come on USDA, you should know this!


----------



## Guest (Nov 22, 2017)

chazpat said:


> Except the tomato is a fruit, so their numbers are all off! Come on USDA, you should know this!


 Finally some real fake news. Didn't they also decide tomato paste on pizza crust counted as a vegetable in school lunches?


----------



## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Forster said:


> Finally some real fake news. Didn't they also decide tomato paste on pizza crust counted as a vegetable in school lunches?


Wikipedia:

The ketchup as a vegetable controversy refers to proposed United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) regulations, early in the presidency of Ronald Reagan, that intended to provide more flexibility in meal planning to local school lunch administrators coping with National School Lunch Plan subsidy cuts enacted by the Omnibus Regulation Acts of 1980 and 1981.[1][2] The regulations allowed administrators the opportunity to credit items not explicitly listed that met nutritional requirements. While ketchup was not mentioned in the original regulations, pickle relish was used as an example of an item that could count as a vegetable.[3] A similar controversy arose in 2011, when Congress passed a bill prohibiting the USDA from increasing the amount of tomato paste required to constitute a vegetable; the bill allowed pizza with two tablespoons of tomato paste to qualify as a vegetable.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I think it's both...Veguit!

Most people actually categorize fruits and vegetables by taste. Most people consider fruits to be any sweet part of a plant, except sugar cane or corn syrup. The non-sweet parts of plants and fungus are usually considered vegetables just because of the taste. Although mushroom are neither fruit or vegetable (they are aliens) 

"Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad." some guy


----------



## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> I think it's both...Veguit!
> 
> Most people actually categorize fruits and vegetables by taste. Most people consider fruits to be any sweet part of a plant, except sugar cane or corn syrup. The non-sweet parts of plants and fungus are usually considered vegetables just because of the taste. Although mushroom are neither fruit or vegetable (they are aliens)
> 
> "Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad." some guy


So a sweet potato is a fruit?  Or maybe it's a fregetable.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ good one chaz


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Non GMO too :lol:









I'm pretty certain that the Fruit Loops have a shorter shelf life.


----------



## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

^So what IS that, freeze-dried all-ready-cooked corn on the cob?:arf:


----------



## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> I'm pretty certain that the Fruit Loops have a shorter shelf life.


That might be a good thing.


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Forget Milk and Eggs. These 8 Vegan Substitutes Will Make Your Holiday Baked Goods 100 Times Better
> 
> 1. Aquafaba
> Aquafaba is the water you find in a can of chickpeas, and this stuff is amazing! You can whip it using a mixer and produce beautiful, fluffy meringue, which makes it the perfect ingredient for making macarons and vegan lemon meringue pie.
> ...


Sauce Forget Milk and Eggs. These 8 Vegan Substitutes Will Make Your Holiday Baked Goods 100 Times Better


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

I prefer almond butter. 

remove metal top, pop in microwave for 30 seconds to soften. Add goji berries, honey, cinnamon and sea salt. Mix and enjoy.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

In case you're wondering

ATTACH=CONFIG]1170683[/ATTACH]


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## .WestCoastHucker. (Jan 14, 2004)

this thread needs a steak...


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

No it doesn't.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> ABOUT THE BOOK:
> 
> Paul Shapiro gives you a front-row seat for the wild story of the race to create and commercialize cleaner, safer, sustainable meat-real meat-without the animals. From the entrepreneurial visionaries to the scientists' workshops to the big business board rooms-Shapiro details that quest for clean meat and other animal products and examines the debate raging around it. Since the dawn of **** sapiens some quarter million years ago, animals have satiated our species' desire for meat. But with a growing global population and demand for meat, eggs, dairy, leather, and more, raising such massive numbers of farm animals is woefully inefficient and takes an enormous toll on the planet, public health, and certainly the animals themselves.
> 
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

10 Ways to Veganize Classic Hanukkah Dishes

Latkes, challah, rugelach, and even brisket are made kinder and more delicious by nixing all animal ingredients.

Hanukkah is an eight-day festival that's filled with traditional Jewish foods that warm the soul. The holiday of lights puts a glimmer in our eye every time we think about the aroma of a fresh batch of veganized latkes or a steaming bowl of matzo ball soup. While meat and milk can never be eaten together according to kosher laws, many traditional recipes contain one or the other. This year, we're making it easier than ever to practice kindness during Hanukkah by eliminating all animal products from iconic Jewish dishes. Here are 10 foods that can be easily veganized for enjoying by the glow of the menorah this Hanukkah.








Matzo Ball Soup
Many Jewish grandmothers will tell you that the secret behind a good matzo ball soup is schmaltz-or solidified chicken fat. We beg to differ. A great matzo ball soup is a mix of aromatic veggies cooked down in a rich vegetable broth and adorned with several gorgeous matzo balls. These steamy recipes from blogs The "V" Word, The Edgy Veg, and Hell Yeah It's Vegan prove that schmaltz has no place in matzo ball soup.








Brisket
A great resource for Jewish vegans is Jewish Veg-an organization that encourages members of the Jewish faith to opt for plant-based lifestyles. The group boasts prominent advisory board members, such as animal-rights legend Alex Hershaft, and the Humane Society of the United States' Paul Shapiro, amongst other notables. Another perk? Jewish Veg has a scrumptious recipe for seitan-based brisked that's braised in red wine. For you non-cooking types, we hear Dallas' vegan eatery V-Eats makes an eyebrow-raising brisket of their own.








Kugel
A craveable carby dish, this noodle casserole makes for a unique dessert (yes, noodles for dessert, what's the problem?). The base is usually farfel (egg noodles) which get a hefty coating of a sweet cream cheese sauce mixed with eggs before hitting the oven. Blogger Audrey Snowe's vegan version uses gluten-free ribbon noodles, a cashew-based sweet cheese sauce, and tangy raisins folded in for an extra sweet treat.








Challah
A braided bread used in many-a traditional Jewish celebration, the original version is normally coated in egg wash to give the top a sheen. Turns out that plant-based milk (such as soy or cashew) makes a viable substitute for the wash, and a chickpea flour base combined with active dry yeast creates a fluffy, brioche-like texture with zero animal products. Sarah McMinn over at My Darling Vegan perks her challah up by topping it with poppy seeds, but you can opt for sesame or go au naturel.








Latkes
These tiny pancakes-made with grated vegetables-are what Hanukkah is all about! Go classic potato or switch it up with other grated root veggies (such as carrots, beets, and sweet potatoes). The binding agent is traditionally eggs, but vegan cookbook queen Isa Chandra Moskowitz' recipe (lifted from her classic cookbook Veganomicon) creates perfectly crispy latkes with just corn or potato starch. We like ours hot straight from the pan with a big dollop of chunky applesauce. Speaking of which...








Apple Sauce
A traditional condiment to latkes, this one is already usually vegan, but that doesn't mean we can't dress ours up with creative flavors. Start with a classic recipe and make it tart with the addition of cranberries, spicy with a dash of cayenne, or add a pinch of salt for a salted caramel apple flavor before slathering it all over your latkes of choice.








Blintzes
Every culture has its version of delicate pancakes, and Jewish cuisine is no exception. Blintzes are thin, crepe-like pancakes usually stuffed with sweetened cheese or fruit fillings. The batter is made with eggs and milk, but every good vegan knows that a simple swap for plant-based alternatives will result in just-as-delicious pancakes. Excerpted from Annie and Dan Shannon's cookbook (inspired by Julia Child) entitled Mastering the Art of Vegan Cooking, these blueberry blintzes-made with a smooth tofu and vegan cream cheese filling-are perfect for your holiday spread.








Chocolate Babka
A pull-apart dessert bread that melts in your mouth, we're not ashamed of eating this chocolate-filled wonder for breakfast during the entire eight-day celebration. Similar to banana bread but with airy pockets of chocolate, the key to a great babka is lots of butter (vegan, of course!). Make your own with Oh Holy Basil's stunning recipe or, if you're near New York City, pop into Sweets by CHLOE to pick up its version of the Hanukkah staple-which adds an aromatic dose of matcha to the bread.








Sufganiyot
If you love doughnuts as much as we do, you'll want to make several batches for the holidays. Other times of the year, we might consider baking our doughnuts to eliminate some of the gluttonous-factor. However, oil is celebrated during Hanukkah as it is used to light the menorah, giving us very good reason to go full-fry on these powdered, sugar-topped wonders. Jewish vegan activist Mayim Bialik's version nails the classic, jelly-filled recipe, but feel free to experiment with vegan custard, dairy-free Nutella, or chocolate fillings.








Ruggelach
More dessert? Yes, please! These bite-sized pastries are what Hanukkah dreams are made of, and making them sans animal products is a cinch. Start with a simple dough recipe, choose your filling of choice (perhaps crushed hazelnuts, apricot jam, or cinnamon sugar), cut, roll, bake, and then cry happy tears as you devour them by the dozen.

Sauce: 10 Ways to Veganize Classic Hanukkah Dishes


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *Building Muscle On A Vegan Diet*
> 
> Is it really possible to build mass, increase strength, and optimize your athletic performance without eating any animal products? Vegan strength athletes think so! Here's how to do it the right way.
> 
> ...


sauce Building Muscle On A Vegan Diet -

High Hang power cleans


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Behold.. the mighty spud


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

You left out Potato Cannons; with beach chairs, fire pit and beer. yee hah!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Friday funnies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Some food for thought:



> *Cutting carbs can increase risk of diabetes and other diseases, experts w*arn
> 
> Australians risk increasing their chances of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease and colon cancer if they cut quality carbohydrates high in cereal fibre from their diets, experts say.
> 
> ...


sauce Cutting carbs can increase risk of diabetes and other diseases, experts warn

long article: Diabetes - Cause, Prevention, Treatment and Reversal with a Plant Based Diet

Summary: 
In the next 25 years 1 in every 3 Americans will have developed type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is a serious progressive disease.

Type 2 diabetes is largely a lifestyle-related disease and is preventable.

Caused by diets high in saturated fat, not high in carbohydrates.

Animal products and processed foods contain the vast majority of saturated fat in our diets.

The excess fat inhibits insulin's effect so blood sugar levels remain dangerously high.

By following a low-fat plant-based diet your risk of developing diabetes is very, very low.

People with diabetes are at high risk for heart disease and stroke.

Removing animal products from your diet helps lower your risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

A low-fat plant-based diet has been proven to treat and reverse diabetes.

Heart disease risk is also lowered by following a low-fat plant-based diet.

A plant-based diet has been shown to work better than American Diabetes Association's guidelines in treating diabetes.

Patients switching to a vegan diet didn't find it any harder to stick to than the ADA's recommended guidelines.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Game-Changing Vegan Documentary Debuts at Sundance



> The Game Changers-a new film executively produced by famed director James Cameron-eliminates the stereotype between eating meat and masculinity by highlighting top vegan athletes.
> 
> Anticipated vegan documentary *The Game Changers* will debut January 19 at this year's Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT. Director Louie Psihoyos-a former National Geographic photographer who won an Academy Award for his first documentary The Cove-dispels common myths linked to meat consumption and masculinity by focusing on a slew of vegan athletes who have thrived on a plant-based diet. Athletes featured in the 90-minute film include German strongman Patrik Baboumian, Olympian Kendrick James Ferris, champion surfer Tia Blanco, and martial artist James Wilks (the film's producer and season nine winner of reality show The Ultimate Fighter). The film also boasts a notable list of executive producers, including Avatar director James Cameron, actress Pamela Anderson, and triathlete and author Rip Esselstyn. In addition to promoting the health benefits of a plant-based diet, The Game Changers outlines the destructive effects of animal agriculture on the environment-a concern Cameron condemned for "choking the Earth" in a recent op-ed. A public release date for The Game Changers has not yet been announced.


sauce: Game-Changing Vegan Documentary Debuts at Sundance


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

Officially subscribed.

I'm hammering all the anti-inflammatory matter I can get my hands on. Tons and tons of fish and mega doses of vegetables, nuts, turmeric, etc. I won't give up my lean meats, just fewer doses but I've already been going that direction just because it's wise. I had lumbar surgery 7 weeks ago today. After doing phenomenally for 3-4 weeks post surgery, an inflammatory response kicked my ass by pressing surgical site tissue against my spinal chord through the new hole in my Lamina. Worse than the danged initial problem we set out to fix which was severe stenosis. Steroids on tap for now but I'm trying to do my part through foods. Haven't been on a bike since Oct 29 and it's REALLY feeling like it. I'm like a veal cow. Moo.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

Oh My Sack! said:


> Officially subscribed.
> 
> I'm hammering all the anti-inflammatory matter I can get my hands on. Tons and tons of fish and mega doses of vegetables, nuts, turmeric, etc. I won't give up my lean meats, just fewer doses but I've already been going that direction just because it's wise. I had lumbar surgery 7 weeks ago today. After doing phenomenally for 3-4 weeks post surgery, an inflammatory response kicked my ass by pressing surgical site tissue against my spinal chord through the new hole in my Lamina. Worse than the danged initial problem we set out to fix which was severe stenosis. Steroids on tap for now but I'm trying to do my part through foods. Haven't been on a bike since Oct 29 and it's REALLY feeling like it. I'm like a veal cow. Moo.


You have the right mix.

The more militant vegans keep equating any omni diet as slogging down pounds of red meat all day long, when that is simply not true for the majority of omni eaters. According to the NHANES survey the average American eats ~3.5-4 pounds of food per day, with approximately 0.5 pound animal protein. That is about 12-14% of the diet. Not really a lot. Still higher than optimum.
The bigger villains are added sugars, processed carbs, and inactivity. Get those under control and a small amount of lean animal protein (<0.25 pound per day average) is perfectly acceptable and can be part of a healthy diet. Want a nice juicy steak? Go ahead -- just remember that is about a 1x per month treat, and penance the next few days by going meatless.
Don't ask me to give up my fish. I worked to catch it, I earned it.


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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

dave54 said:


> You have the right mix.
> 
> The more militant vegans keep equating any omni diet as slogging down pounds of red meat all day long, when that is simply not true for the majority of omni eaters. According to the NHANES survey the average American eats ~3.5-4 pounds of food per day, with approximately 0.5 pound animal protein. That is about 12-14% of the diet. Not really a lot. Still higher than optimum.
> The bigger villains are added sugars, processed carbs, and inactivity. Get those under control and a small amount of lean animal protein (<0.25 pound per day average) is perfectly acceptable and can be part of a healthy diet. Want a nice juicy steak? Go ahead -- just remember that is about a 1x per month treat, and penance the next few days by going meatless.
> Don't ask me to give up my fish. I worked to catch it, I earned it.


Fish is epic. I could be offshore right now bringing in my rockfish and ling but the boat on our typical ocean would absolutely kill me with my recovery so it sits for now. I'm buying fresh from our Costco (Bluefin and Wild Caught Salmon) but also doing the Trader Joe's flash frozen stuff which has always been pretty good if you stick with the Ahi, Mahi, and Salmon. I won't do Tilapia from anywhere and the Cods have a lot to be desired but that's a component of me going regularly and catching it. My lean red meat is pretty exclusively Prime Sirloin. Again, Costco is King. I buy the whole Top Block and spend 30 minutes butchering my own custom steak cuts and Culotte from the cap. On most occasions, I'm able to buy the Prime Sirloin whole for under $4/lb!! The identical cut product in the case is usually upwards of 9.99/lb. I am literally getting Prime Sirloin for the price of Ground Beef just down the aisle. :lol: So many people overlook that option. One medium sized Top Block will give my wife and I both 12-16 dinners. I vacuum seal it and deep freeze. The quality is definitely there.

Oh...and the sugars. Definitely cutting waaayy back to minimal on that, too. We just don't do processed stuff and haven't for some time. Walking the aisles at all the stores, including Costco, Trader Joe's, etc., it's no wonder America is full of unhealthy fat pigs. It just boggles my mind that people either don't make the connection or just simply fail to give a sh*t. We're in big health trouble with our society. BIG!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Welcome OMS


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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ Welcome OMS


Thanks, Judy. I promise I'll do my best to keep my meat to myself while in your kitchen. :lol:

I'm here for good food ideas.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Plant Powered Pros*

Optimal fuel for athletes and runners [and cyclists] is a highly debated issue. Some swear by following a Low Carb, High Fat diet (LCHF), while others still carbo load with abandon the night before a big race. Therefore it's hardly surprising that, many athletes find the subject of fueling extremely confusing. Are carbs really taboo? Is fat good? And is animal protein necessary?

But before you get ready to defend your preferred way of eating, rest assured. This article is not aimed at identifying a "one size fits all" fueling strategy for athletes. That is if something like this even exists! Instead it simply aims at exploring a new generation of athletes who prefer to power their performances through a plant-based foods.

But is that even possible? Surely their performance and long term state of health will suffer as a result? based on the stories of three incredible plant powered pros, the answer is a definite "no" . Prepare to throw all your preconceived judgement out the door, because their stories will amaze you.

*What Exactly is a Plant Powered Diet?*

Before we meet these inspiring individuals, lets clarify what is meant by plant powered diet. French fries and white bread also originate from plants, and surely a diet existing mainly of these can't be good? Sorry french fry fans, but it isn't. And while the term "plant based" means different things to different people, it basically boils down to one thing. Its a diet mainly comprised of whole foods in plant form, including vegetables, whole grains, seeds, legumes, nuts and fruits.

Individuals preferring to fuel themselves in this way, stay away from or minimize their consumption of processed food and animal products, mostly for health reasons.

*The Plant-Powered Running Pros.*

So you are doubtful that a long distance runner can survive and excel on a diet like that?

*Scott Jurek*

Ultra running legend Scott Jurek, has a list of running accomplishments that is as long as it is impressive:

-Winner of the Hardock 100 mile endurance run in 2007
-Winner of the Spartathalon a 152 mile race from Athens to Sparta for 3 consecutive years (2006 to 2009)
-Champion of the infamous Badwater Ultramarathon 2005 and 2006
-Seven time consecutive winner of the Western States 100 mile endurance (1999 to 2005)
-Record holder for the US record for a 24hr road run 165.7miles in 2010
-Holder of the Appalachian Trail speed record 2189 minles in 46days 8 hours, 7 minutes 2015

Jurek was also included in _Runners World_ top 10 greatest runners of all time and Men's Health 100 fittest men of all time, two very well deserved accolades

But surely a runner of his caliber can't be fueled by plants? But you know what ? He is. Jurek follows a 100% plant based diet and credits this for his impressive 20 year racing career. He believes his plant based diet helps access his body's innate body to heal, thereby contributing to his endurance and recovery

*Brendan Brazier*

Echoing Jureks sentiments that a whole food, plant based diet enhances and speeds up recovery, former pro Canadian triathlete Brendan Brazier eliminated all animal products from his diet in 1999. While he does admit to a plant based diet inconvenient at times, he adds that it's a small price to pay for the advantages that it delivers. And it has definitely served him well. Brazier's list of accomplishments include:

-Third finisher in the Canadian Ironman Championship 2001
-11th finisher in Ironman Canada 2001
-8th finisher in Ironman Utah 2002
-Winner of the Canadian Ultra marathon championships 2003

In 2007 Brazier, self published a book on his experience with training and nutrition, namely the Thrive Diet. after receiving a very positive response from readers worldwide, he followed it up with Thrive Fitness in 2009.

*Tim Shieff*

As a professional free runner, Tim Shieff, spends most of his time running, jumping over obstacles and leaping between buildings. And he's pretty darn good at it too. Winner of the 2009 World freerunning Championship and the Ninja Warrior tv show. Shieff also tackled his first 100 mile ultra marathon in 2015. Yes and he did it on a plant based diet.

Originally turning to a vegan diet for animal rights reasons, Shieff quickly noted how a plant based diet provide him with heaps of energy and enthusiasm for training. In addition, the tendonitis that he had suffered from previously, was o thing of the past. Shieff attributes this to the abundance of anti-inflammatory micro nutrients in his diet, and feels that his body now has ample energy for healing and rebuilding itself after tough workouts.

*Easy Ways to Add More Veggies to Your Diet*

So does the success of these three plant powered individuals mean that we all need to jump the plant based wagon in order to become better athletes? Not necessarily. But one thing we definitely can all benefit from is including more whole food veggies in our diets. Here's Scott Jurek's recommendations for doing just that:

*Explore More*: Challenge yourself to trying one new plant based food each week. You'll increase your nutrient uptake in the process and you might find a new favorite

*Mix and Match*: Combine a wide variety of plant based foods, in order to meet your protein quota. think quinoa and beans, 3 bean chilli and more.

*Joint the Meatless Monday Movement*: One purely plant based dinner per week will both boost your micro-nutrient intake and lighten your impact on Mother Earth

*Go Vegan When Dining Out*: Stuck for plant based cooking inspiration? Order vegan meals when dining out and get inspired

*Plan Ahead* Yes cleaning, cutting and cooking vegetables from scratch is time consuming. Be prepared and use 30 minutes on the weekend to pre-prep your veg for the week ahead

*Be Sneaky* If your or some family members are not veggie lovers, add it to your meals in sneaky ways. Smoothies and fresh pressed juices are a great way to ingest more dark leafy greens, while one pot meals like chilli are ideal for hiding grated carrots , squash, butternut pumpkin.

Sauce: https://runnerclick.com/plant-powered-pros/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Why holiday meals might look radically different in the near future



> Paul Shapiro is the author of the forthcoming book Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World.
> 
> As we sit down to our family dinners to enjoy the season, how the meat on our table got to us may not be the most pleasant topic of conversation. But how the meat of our future holiday dinner tables gets to us may be much more interesting. In fact, if a group of entrepreneurs working to grow real meat outside of animals succeeds, our holiday roasts may not look that different from now, but the way they get to our tables will be anything but ordinary.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/a-new-coursethe-next-course/article37409389/


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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

I'm holding out for the Soylent Green.

Mmmmmmmm....S O Y L E N T !


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

18 Vegan Food Trends to Ring in the #NewYearNewVegan

1. Plant-Based Poke Bowls
Vegan poke bowls are fun to make because you can "choose your own adventure," so to speak. Edamame, tempeh, tofu, mushrooms, and nori seaweed are just a few of our favorite ingredients to include. Ocean Hugger Foods: Its vegan poke bowl features fish-like Ahimi, made from tomatoes.

2. Cauliflower Everything
Rice, pizza crust, stuffing, and even "steak" are just some of the cauliflower-based products we're seeing pop up on store shelves. A couple of our favorite recipes featuring this cruciferous-of-the-moment veggie include vegan cauliflower mash and buffalo wings.

3. Turmeric
In the same family as ginger, turmeric is said to possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and improve brain function. You can incorporate the spice into soups, ciders, bowls, tea, homemade tonics, smoothies, and more.

4. Activated Charcoal
Have you heard of charcoal ice cream? How about a black-charcoal smoothie bowl? In addition to charcoal's health benefits (it's said to draw toxins out of the body), it also colors food black. Leave it to creative foodies to grab hold of this idea and start a black food trend.

5. Plant Butcheries
Vegan butchers use compassionate ingredients and techniques to create a variety of vegan meats, including steaks, ribs, cold cuts, sausages, and more. People are loving these shops for their endearing, local feel-and for addressing contemporary concerns about animals, the environment, and personal health.

6. Aquafaba
From meringues and macarons to marshmallows and more, aquafaba can be used to create delicious foods, acting as a binder, leavening agent, and emulsifier. It can do anything that an egg white does-but without the cruelty or cholesterol.






7. Sorghum
Already being touted as the new "supergrain," sorghum can be popped like popcorn or used in pilafs, salads, and bowls, among other dishes. Its cane is also made into a syrup-like sweetener.

8. Street Food-Inspired Dishes
The culinarily curious are interested in cuisines from all over the world, and this includes local street foods. These vegan street food recipes are a fun way to enjoy these classic dishes in your home, without the cost of an airplane ticket.

9. Veggie Chips
Despite increased attention to healthful eating, America's collective snack attack doesn't show any signs of slowing down. So companies are creating vegetable chips that possess the same irresistible qualities as their potato counterparts but are better for you. It's super-easy to make your own veggie chips, too.

10. Comfort Food
Sometimes you need a little comfort food to soothe the soul. This list of vegan comfort-food recipes includes lasagne, casseroles, mac 'n' cheese, biscuits and gravy, and more.

11. Superfruit
While pomegranates, blueberries, and açaí berries are well known for their superfruit status, there are some new nutrient-packed fruits on the block: jackfruit, baobab, and dragon fruit. Look for them this coming year in everything from candy and bottled beverages to dietary supplements and desserts.

12. Flowers
One of these days-perhaps in 2018-the average person will know how to incorporate flowers into recipes. As we continue to see flowers bloom on restaurant plates and in online recipes, we're bound to get the hang of it soon.

13. Noodles
Whether you prefer ramen, pho, udon, or another noodle-based dish, we predict that vegan noodle spots will be all the rage in 2018. Los Angeles saw the recent openings of Ramen Hood and a second location of vegan Vietnamese restaurant Âu Lạc, indicators that vegan noodle restaurants are a growing trend.

14. Nondairy Milks, Yogurts, Cheeses, and More
You only have to look at the numbers to realize the staggering rate at which nondairy products are becoming an American diet staple. The dairy-alternatives industry is projected to reach $16 billion in the coming year, and we couldn't be happier to see money diverted from cruel dairy farms.

15. Kind Sweeteners
We think that sweeteners-including coconut sugar, maple syrup, fruit juice, molasses, date sugar, monk fruit sugar, and sorghum (see number 7), among others-will become kitchen-cupboard staples in 2018. Honey is cruelly obtained and unsustainable, and vegan sweeteners are a delicious, modern choice.

16. Rice Protein
Watch out, soy, peas, and grains-rice protein is here! This protein is becoming popular in vegan protein powders and other products, and it's a good option for those who eat gluten-free.

17. Hidden Vegetables and Fruits
Increasing numbers of people are incorporating veggies and fruits into their children's or their own meals in covert ways. Spiralized vegetable noodles, cauliflower pizza crust, and smoothies are just a few examples of this growing food trend.

18. Nice Cream
Nice cream is like ice cream's friendly cousin. It's a simple and quick way to make a sweet treat at home without investing in store-bought vegan ice cream. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Most nice cream recipes include only a few ingredients, such as frozen bananas and nondairy milk. A blender is required.

Sauce: https://www.peta.org/living/food/pl...ends to Ring in the NewYearN ewVegan::::link


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

Oh My Sack! said:


> ...
> Oh...and the sugars. Definitely cutting waaayy back to minimal on that, too. We just don't do processed stuff and haven't for some time. Walking the aisles at all the stores, including Costco, Trader Joe's, etc., it's no wonder America is full of unhealthy fat pigs. It just boggles my mind that people either don't make the connection or just simply fail to give a sh*t. We're in big health trouble with our society. BIG!


Our local butchery sells local meats. Not only beef, but also goat, mutton, pork, chicken, et al. With beef I can choose the ranch where it was raised, and some of the ranches have a better rep than others. Almost all public land graze at least part of the life cycle, and I often quip I have met my dinner on the trail. You can taste the difference in the meat depending on where grazed -- high elevation mountain meadows or Great Basin sagebrush and bitterbrush. I prefer the meadow grass fed beef, others prefer sagebrush. Same for venison. World of difference in blacktail and mule deer flavor depending on what they ate (the ones that spent their lives in the alfalfa fields are really tasty, but those tend to be private hunts with $$$ pricetags.)

I do not see the lab created meat like Cyclelicious posted becoming more than niche market (or maybe local raised and subsistence meat will become the niche. Who knows?) There is a certain something added to the enjoyment of the meal when you worked hard to provide it yourself. Sweat equity makes it taste better. This applies to garden as well as lake and field.

OTOH I do limit my meat consumption. Sometimes it is my hunting and fishing skills that limit it for me.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting article about eating "clean" It's long but a good read.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/11/why-we-fell-for-clean-eating?CMP=share_btn_fb


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How Bad Is It if I Never Eat Any Vegetables?



> *The Scenario:* As a child, your friend sat at the dinner table most nights protesting that bitter garbage called broccoli. The only veggies he eats now are usually sprinkled on top of a deep-dish pizza.
> *
> The Reality:* Most of us actually have a subpar veggie intake. Research shows only around nine percent of Americans get the recommended two to three cups a day. (In Mississippi, that number goes down to 5.5 percent.) Plenty of people, aside from your broccoli-snubbing friends in Jackson, go long stretches without laying eyes on a fresh vegetable. In some third world countries, or during long stretches of military deployment, they're just not available. (Remind your friend of that so he feels like a jerk.)
> 
> ...


sauce: https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/articl...-never-eat-any-vegetables?utm_source=vicefbus


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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

When I was a youngster in the 60's/70's, I spent hours and hours sitting at the dinner table alone after everyone and everything else was cleaned up, until I ate my Brussel Sprouts. At one point later in the game, my Dad even tried the "I'll give you a dollar for every one you eat" (pretty good coin back in the day!), yet I eventually was released from custody at some point and still broke. :lol: 

I'm much better now, especially in my current state. I still won't eat Brussel Sprouts, though. I went out to dinner to a Mexican Restaurant with my wife last night before our Costco run (eliminates buying/snacking desire on the processed crap they're always peddling). I ordered my first vegetarian burrito ever. It was pretty darned good. Kind of like my regular stir-fry ingredients just wrapped in a tortilla with black beans added. I'll definitely do that again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I really like brussel sprouts however I don't want to eat them too often. I get the worst gas.:yesnod::lol:


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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

Even my Dad referred to them as "Gas Balls". 

Brussel sprouts seem to have made a tremendous comeback in people's diet these days. The problem I see with it is they're all wrapping them in BACON. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work! :lol:


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

Oh My Sack! said:


> Even my Dad referred to them as "Gas Balls".
> 
> Brussel sprouts seem to have made a tremendous comeback in people's diet these days. The problem I see with it is they're all wrapping them in BACON. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work! :lol:


Had some last night at a BBQ restaurant. They were one of their signature sides, and were terrific. Grilled in olive oil with a chipotle cheese sauce on top.


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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

dave54 said:


> Had some last night at a BBQ restaurant. They were one of their signature sides, and were terrific. Grilled in olive oil with a chipotle cheese sauce on top.


With bacon or without? Maybe I'll try them. Costco had a massive bag o'gas balls in the refrigerated fresh fruits/vegetable section last night. They looked to be of solid quality....I just couldn't fathom all the bacon I would need to get them down! :lol:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

See Post # 121 
Vegetarian/Vegan/Raw Recipes and Chat

Dijon Roasted Brussel sprouts










> Serves 6
> 
> What You Need:
> 
> ...


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## LargeMan (May 20, 2017)

Want to go Vegan but have so many food allergies, it seems impossible.

Allergic to:

Peanuts
Tree nuts
Onion
Apple
Corn
Rice
All Citrus
Barley
Oats
Avocado

I am also allergic to Red meat, Chicken, Turkey

The only meat I can eat is Pork and I alternate Soy milk and dairy milk for fear of eating too much soy, which is a huge part of my current diet.

If I could eat rice and corn, I think I could do the switch, but without those seems impossible, any ideas?


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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

LargeMan said:


> Want to go Vegan but have so many food allergies, it seems impossible.
> 
> Allergic to:
> 
> ...


I think you could do it, but it will take some effort to find the foods that will work for you.

I don't have allergies, but there are so many typical vegan foods I dislike that i had serious doubts about going plant-based. I don't consider myself vegan because it's not primarily for ethical reasons that I eat how I do now, and I still use animal products such as leather. Even so, my diet is meat and dairy free at least 98% of the time.

I eat a near vegan diet without eating salads, so it has taken me a while to find my way. Luckily, there aren't any beans/peas/lentils that I dislike, so they're a large part of the way I eat. I don't mind leafy vegetables cooked in soups or stews, so I do get some of them there. There aren't many spices that I dislike, so that's a big help.

Lately, I've been reducing simple starches(and sugar) in my diet(white potatoes, rice, flour, etc.), and I'm still finding being plant-based not unmanageable.

With your food issues, my advice to you would be to work your way toward being vegan(if that's your goal.) Consider it a process instead of something you just immediately switch to. I think you could get there.


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## LargeMan (May 20, 2017)

Geralt said:


> I think you could do it, but it will take some effort to find the foods that will work for you.
> 
> I don't have allergies, but there are so many typical vegan foods I dislike that i had serious doubts about going plant-based. I don't consider myself vegan because it's not primarily for ethical reasons that I eat how I do now, and I still use animal products such as leather. Even so, my diet is meat and dairy free at least 98% of the time.
> 
> ...


Thanks, some great thoughts there. I do like cabbage and could see maybe mixing it up with potatoes and sweet potatoes. Going to go for it, want to switch for better health and not the ethical reasons for myself. My diet has been such a challenge for so long that mixing things up or not having things has become the norm.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

New to a plant-based lifestyle? All the tips and tricks you need to get started with your plant-based diet, meeting your nutritional needs, and making it work in the real world



> *How To Go Plant Based- resources*
> 
> For your health, for the environment, or for the animals, there are plenty of good reasons to start eating a plant-based diet.
> 
> ...


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## kubikeman (Jun 4, 2010)

LargeMan said:


> Want to go Vegan but have so many food allergies, it seems impossible.
> 
> Allergic to:
> 
> ...


Seems like you're allergic to grasses. Try buckwheat and quinoa. Both can be eaten whole in recipes or used as a flour in baked goods. See also; chickpea flour and flax seeds. Lentils are another good option.

Obviously, you know you, so do your own research before you actually try any of these. I am just a humble foodie and bike enthusiast.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> As so many people go vegan at this time of year, for New Year's resolutions or because of 'Veganuary' we're going to be running a few tips to share with new vegans to make it easier. Tip #2: It's important to consume enough calories so you feel satisfied and maintain proper energy levels.
> 
> Following a vegan diet provides many health benefits, including a much lower risk of type-2 diabetes. Research has also shown that vegans have a lower risk of various cancers. Vegans also have, on average, lower cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and body fat.
> 
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*New study finds just 9 grams of processed meat per week can increase women's risk for breast cancer*



> New research has found that post-menopausal women who eat just 9g of processed meats a week could be at a greater risk of developing breast cancer.
> 
> The study published in the European Journal of Cancer examined 260,000 middle-aged British women and revealed that even those who ate less than 9g of processed meats a week were still 15 per cent more likely to get breast cancer than those who refrained completely.
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.riseofthevegan.com/blog/study-shows-9-grams-meat-increases-breast-cancer-risk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegetarian Sausages Are as Bad for You as Meat, Health Group Says

It would be pretty presumptuous to assume that vegetarians eat meat-free sausages purely for health reasons. Who doesn't enjoy a hit of fatty, salty food for breakfast, especially if it doesn't involve the odds and ends of animals being squished into a tube?

That being said, when it comes to sodium, a lot of meatless sausages can apparently be just as unhealthy as the meat for which they're ostensibly being substituted. The Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), which describes itself as "a group concerned with salt and its effects on health, supported by 25 expert scientific members," says that a recent survey of theirs "has exposed the shocking and excessively high amounts of salt in certain sausage brands."

In a press release issued on Wednesday, CASH called out a wide range of sausage producers included in their "Sausages Survey 2017," and a number of vegetarian brands were not spared. "Going meat free isn't always healthier in terms of salt either; some vegetarian options are just as salty," CASH wrote in the press release. "Quorn's 4 Best of British Sausages have a whopping 1.9g salt/100g dishing up 2.2g salt in 2 sausages-that's more salt than half a Pizza Hut Margherita Pizza!"

The survey was undertaken by CASH in concert with Queen Mary University of London, where CASH Chairman Graham MacGregor is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine. MacGregor was adamant about the potentially widespread health implications of a nation hooked on tubes of meat (or meat replacements) that make it very difficult for consumers to stay within their daily recommended sodium intake.

"Public Health England, who is now responsible, must get tough on those companies not complying and set new mandatory targets to be achieved by 2020 without further delay," MacGregor said. "Otherwise, thousands of people will die from unnecessary strokes and heart attacks every year. Salt reduction is the most cost-effective and most successful public health preventive measure made to date, and it is a national tragedy that it is being allowed to fail."

Public Health England's Chief Nutritionist Dr Alison Tedstone responded, in the same press release, by saying, "We've been very clear with the food industry on the importance of meeting the 2017 salt targets. We'll report on their progress next year and will provide advice to government on the next steps."

Sausage is a staple of the British diet, and last year, 175,713 tons of sausage made their way into 85 percent of households, according to the pig farm industry, so MacGregor's medical fears that "thousands of people will die from unnecessary strokes and heart attacks" may not be so hyperbolic. That level of sausage consumption equated to 61 grams of sodium, or 134 bags of pre-salted chips per person, per year, says CASH. So, that's a lot.

Of course, if you're eating sausages, hot dogs, or meat substitutes, you're probably not a health nut. But at least this clears it up: Plant-based foods can be pretty crappy for you, too.

sauce: https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/art...-health-group-says?utm_source=munchiesfbcaads


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's never too late to change.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How to fuel during your ride (or run). These tips (from a no-meat athlete's blog is also applicable to riding or any other endurance workout)



> *How to Eat and Drink During a Run*
> 
> 1. *Get off the commercial drinks and gels.* Or at least, check them out to make sure they don't contain artificial colors and sweeteners. While some sports drinks are truly designed for athletes, many of the more popular ones must also cater to the masses of non-athletes who buy them as soda alternatives. Much better to make your own natural sports drink and raw energy gel, both courtesy of pro vegan triathlete Brendan Brazier, in his book Thrive.
> 
> ...


The Least You Need to Know About Fueling Your Run


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Director James Cameron to release 'game changing' vegan documentary at Sundance

Award-winning director and vegan environmentalist has James Cameron executively produced new vegan documentary The Game Changers which will be debuted at Park City Utah's Sundance Film Festival on January 19th.

The film is a collaboration between Cameron, director Louis Psihoyos (who also directed Oscar-winning Japanese dolphin slaughter documentary The Cove), and mixed martial arts champion James Wilks.

According to the film's website, the film will focus on: "From the UFC Octagon in Las Vegas and the anthropology lab at Dartmouth, to a strongman gym in Berlin and the bushlands of Zimbabwe, The Game Changers will introduce the world to elite athletes, special ops soldiers, visionary scientists, cultural icons, and everyday heroes-each on a mission to create a seismic shift in the way we eat and live."

The Game Changers will feature a wide array of elite athletes, special operations soldiers, scientists, cultural icons, and everyday heroes who are all thriving on a plant-based diet.

"The world's strongest guy is a vegan," Psihoyos said. "The world's fastest guy, Carl Lewis, was the first to break 10 seconds, and he did it when he was a vegan. We're trying to dispel the myth that you need protein from animals to become a real man."

In recent years, Cameron has become an avid advocate for veganism and appears alongside actor Samuel L. Jackson in Eating You Alive-a new documentary that focuses on the adverse health effects of consuming animal products.

sauce: Director James Cameron to release â€˜game changingâ€™ vegan documentary at Sundance | Vegan Food & Living


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Plant based related... finally a use for dandelions and ragweed 



> *Scientists are making carbon fiber from plants instead of petroleum
> *
> 
> Carbon fiber is the Superman of materials. Five times stronger than steel and a fraction of the weight, it is used in everything from tennis rackets to golf clubs to bicycles to wind turbine blades to passenger airplanes to Formula One race cars. There's just one catch: Carbon fiber is made from oil and other costly ingredients, making the end product exceptionally expensive. That's why carbon fiber shows up in race cars but rarely makes it into minivans.
> ...


sauce: https://www.popsci.com/carbon-fiber-from-plants#page-3


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*3 Reasons Quinoa Is A Damn-Near-Perfect Fitness Food*

Boost your health and fitness gains by adding quinoa to your shopping cart more often.









Indigenous to South America and considered a sacred food staple in countries like Bolivia, quinoa was nearly wiped out by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, only to experience a renaissance as a supergrain in modern times.

It wasn't long ago that quinoa was considered exotic and rarely found on store shelves. But due to a rise in the popularity of gluten-free eating, quinoa has become a supermarket fixture. Its reputation as a nutritional powerhouse has also helped quinoa work its way into more pantries than ever. And harried cooks appreciate that it takes about half the time to cook as brown rice.

This poster child of nutritious gluten-free grains should find a place in your fitness diet, and these recipes make it easy for quinoa to nourish your body from morning to night.

*Reason 1: Quinoa Is Rich In Antioxidants*

As with fruits and vegetables, eating more quinoa will infuse your diet with antioxidants, compounds that prowl the body looking for cell-damaging free radicals to "mop up." For this reason, a higher intake of antioxidants is thought to be an important part of the equation in the battle against various diseases. Antioxidants like those found in quinoa might aid in exercise recovery by helping to limit the damage muscle cells experience after a vigorous workout.

Beyond the more customary beige grains, quinoa now comes in packages of red or black. Pigments that give black and red quinoa their striking hues are potent antioxidants; in fact, research shows colored quinoa can pack a bigger antioxidant punch than the paler counterpart. They also tend to be less grassy tasting and have firmer textures, making them ideal for salads.
*
Reason 2: Quinoa Is High In Protein*

One cup of cooked quinoa provides about 8 grams of protein, but it's not just any old lackluster plant-based protein we're talking about here. Quinoa is a "complete" protein, meaning it contains all nine essential amino acids-similar to animal proteins.

Of particular importance, quinoa contains the amino acid leucine, the same amino acid abundant in whey protein. Leucine is especially effective at promoting muscle repair and anabolism.
*
Reason 3: Quinoa Comes Loaded With Fiber*

Quinoa is a great way to infuse your diet with an extra dose of fiber. One cup of cooked quinoa delivers 5 grams of fiber (men and women should aim for 38 and 25 grams a day, respectively). That's an important dietary perk, considering higher intakes of fiber have been linked to lower blood pressure.

And since fiber promotes feelings of fullness, via its power to slow digestion and support blood-sugar levels, adding more high-fiber foods like quinoa to your daily diet could help put the brakes on overeating and mindless snacking.

sauce: https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...erfect-fitness-food.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## Guest (Jan 15, 2018)

We've replaced white rice with Quinoa in everything but Sushi. We still use wild rice for stuffed mushrooms and other winter wild rice dishes, but it's pretty hard to go wrong with that either.


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## Guest (Jan 15, 2018)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1176638


 Same thing with Cabbage. Start with a whole pan full and end up with two servings.


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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

I'm eating tons of spinach and that meme above is so true! :lol: Surprisingly, even though I was "anti-vegetable" as a kid growing up, I discovered spinach and really loved it steamed with a bit of butter and salt. Still do. We buy the big bags of leaves that are triple washed and ready to eat. The opposite of the cooked version, you open the bag and it fluffs up to 10x the volume. It just keeps growing and growing....until you cook it, of course.

Oh, I haven't done straight quinoa, yet. We get bags of long grain wild rices with a pretty sizable amount of quinoa in it but I'll need to give it a shot just straight up. I just bought a new rice cooker from Costco that does a great job. It has a setting exclusively for Quinoa, too. Costco also sells a few different versions of quinoa which I'll have to give a try.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Oh My Sack! said:


> I'm eating tons of spinach and that meme above is so true! :lol: Surprisingly, even though I was "anti-vegetable" as a kid growing up, I discovered spinach and really loved it steamed with a bit of butter and salt. Still do. We buy the big bags of leaves that are triple washed and ready to eat. The opposite of the cooked version, you open the bag and it fluffs up to 10x the volume. It just keeps growing and growing....until you cook it, of course.
> 
> Oh, I haven't done straight quinoa, yet. We get bags of long grain wild rices with a pretty sizable amount of quinoa in it but I'll need to give it a shot just straight up. I just bought a new rice cooker from Costco that does a great job. It has a setting exclusively for Quinoa, too. Costco also sells a few different versions of quinoa which I'll have to give a try.


Spinach (and most greens) are pretty versatile. If you get tired of butter and salt, try olive oil, garlic, and lime. As for quinoa, try toasting it first. This will help develop the flavor more.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

One of the things I hear from people about vegan or vegetarian diet is : Aren't you always hungry? My answer is always no. Here is a good article how to avoid nutritional mistakes

*3 Reasons You Always Feel Hungry*

You are interested in this article because you're hungry. All. The. Time. No sooner do you finish a meal than your stomach starts gurgling and growling, letting you know in no uncertain terms that you need pound back more food. It may make you wonder whether you have some sort of superhero metabolism, or if you're just not eating enough of the right foods at mealtime.

When was the last time you ate? If it was three or more hours ago, you're probably just due for your next meal. But if you ate an hour ago and your stomach is already starting to complain, it's probably time to look at what you're eating. Try these three tips to keep your belly feeling full and happy!
*
1. You Don't Drink Enough Fluids*
Our bodies need a lot of fluids every day to optimize cognitive and physical performance. The average woman should drink a minimum of 96 ounces of fluid a day (about 12 cups), while the average man needs at least 125 ounces (about 16 cups or 1 gallon).[1,2] That's a lot of liquid for your average busy person to consume every day. And if you're training, you need to drink even more.

For every 15 minutes you work out, you should drink another 5-8 ounces of fluid. That means if your workout lasts 60 minutes, you need to get another 20-32 ounces. One of the easiest ways to drink enough water is to carry around a water bottle. Not one of those tiny 8-ouncers, either; invest in a container that will hold one-fourth to one-half of your daily goal.

The mother of all fluids, water, can do a lot to help you deal with hunger pangs. First of all, it helps create a feeling of fullness. When you consume water (or any fluid), your stomach expands, which sends a signal to your brain that you are full.

Then there are those times when our bodies get confused. For example, we don't usually feel thirst until we're already slightly dehydrated. And our brains can confuse thirst with being hungry. Our brains tell us we need to eat, when all we really need to do is drink!

Keep filling up on fluids-preferably calorie-free fluids-and you can keep that relentless appetite of yours in line.

How to get more liquids: Keep a water bottle attached to your hip. Bring it with you in the car and into meetings. Put one at your desk during the day and on your nightstand overnight. Take a gulp every time you look at it, and keep replenishing it with a variety of fluids. Fill it with sports drinks when you're working out and with low-calorie juices and water when you're not.

If your hunger really gets out of hand, try drinking 12-16 ounces of water immediately before and after each meal to make sure your brain gets the signal that you are full! Then, just keep taking in those fluids until your next meal.

*2. You Don't Eat Enough Fiber*
Fiber is often one of the most overlooked parts of our diets. We think a lot about getting our macros-our carbs, fats, and protein. But our bodies need fiber too. In fact, the recommended daily intake for fiber is 38 grams for men and 25 grams for women.

But how much fiber people actually consume tends to be a lot less than that: 18 grams for men and 15 grams for women! Considering the powerful appetite-suppressing punch fiber packs, you might want to make sure you're getting at least the daily recommended amount-and it's not that hard to do.

How to get more fiber: Just by swapping white carbs (white bread and pasta, white rice, and white potatoes) for brown carbs (whole-grain breads and pastas, brown rice, and oats) you can increase your fiber by 4-5 grams per meal. Another great source of fiber is flaxseed. At 3 grams per tablespoon, flaxseed can give a big fiber boost to your morning oats, post-workout smoothie, or nightly Greek yogurt (vegetarian diets)!

*3. You Don't Eat Enough Vegetables*
I'm talking about a minimum of three servings (one handful is a serving) of leafy greens and bright orange, red, or yellow veggies such as carrots, beets, and peppers each day.

Vegetables suppress those feeling of hunger, because they're about 90 percent water-and loaded with fiber. Daily-double special! Veggies also contain very few calories per bite, so you can eat just about all of them you want without breaking the calorie bank.

How to get more vegetables: Consider sneaking in vegetables throughout your day by hiding them in smoothies, omelets and scrambles, and sandwiches. Or just have them straight up; they're pretty tasty fresh or slightly undercooked.

sauce: https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/3-reasons-you-always-feel-hungry.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Plant based or vegan it doesn't matter. Both deserve a high five

The philosophical case for going vegan is about pleasure-not preachiness



> "Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too." These are the words of philosopher Iris Murdoch, and I am inclined to agree with her. Food is not just important to our health and our pleasure, but because it helps define the kind of people we are. In this regard, one might say, you are what you eat.
> 
> Our society's growing interest in veganism is a sign that many people-at least those privileged enough to have a fair amount of choice in their dietary habits-feel driven to ensure that their food aligns with their sense of self. In part, this is because public perceptions of veganism have shifted. The old-fashioned idea is that veganism is an-hedonic lifestyle based on grim restrictions, requiring immense discipline and sacrifice. This attitude is neatly summarized in a recent tweet from the British tabloid journalist Piers Morgan, who, upon learning of people going vegan for the month of January, asked, "What new special kind of Hell is this?"
> 
> ...


sauce: https://qz.com/1180190/the-philosophical-case-for-going-vegan-is-about-pleasure-not-preachiness/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We had vegan burgers made with jackfruit. delish


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

If Fructose is Bad, What About Fruit?

Does the fructose naturally found in fruit and fruit juice have the same adverse effects as excess "industrial fructose" (table sugar and high fructose corn syrup) and if not, why not?


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

huckleberry hound said:


> I completely understand this. All these years I thought that a vegetarian just ate plants until I became one. But No! As Steve Martin used to say. Apparently there are Ovo vegetarians, Lacto vegetarians, Pollo vegetarians, Pesco vegetarians and every combination of these. I came to find out that people who just eat plants are Vegan. Why is that? You would think that the term vegetarian would mean only plants.


It gets all silly with the pointless 'is honey vegan?' argument. Yet no one condemns mushrooms or fungi, which are not plants and are a separate kingdom (actually more similar to animal cell biology than plant).
Eat what you want and leave the labels out of it.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

The Science and Pseudoscience in Vegetarian Culture | Office for Science and Society - McGill University


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ good article dave54


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm not a Guinness drinker (although I did try it when I visited Dublin many moons ago)









It's official - all Guinness is now suitable for vegans in draft, bottle and can form

In 2015, Guinness announced they would be implementing a new filtration system to eliminate the need to filter the drink with isinglass (fish bladders), a product made from fish bladders that helps to remove extra yeast from the stout, in order to make the stout suitable for vegans.

Stephen Kilcullen, master brewer and head of quality for Guinness, said that the stout would have been vegan a decade ago but the technology did not exist to filter out the yeast without isinglass. "Everything we tried lost that ruby red colour you see in the bottom of the glass which shows it's clear. We wouldn't compromise on quality so we had to wait for the technology," he said.

In April 2016, Diageo, the company which manufactures the stout, confirmed that all kegs of Guinness on the market are vegan-friendly as they had been made using a new process which does not use isinglass. However, whilst the kegs of Guinness were suitable for vegans, bottles and cans were still not vegan-friendly thanks to the fact the the manufacturer couldn't guarantee that old stock of the drink had been filtered using the new process.

So we're delighted to hear today that it's official - all Guinness worldwide is now isinglass-free and is suitable for vegans. Bottoms up!

sauce: It's official - all Guinness is now suitable for vegans in draft, bottle and can form | Vegan Food & Living


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why vegans always have to tell you they're vegan*



> How do you know if someone is vegan? Don't worry - they'll tell you." It's an old joke, but it's still doing the rounds. And now that we're more than three weeks into Veganuary, there's no getting away from veganism. I became a convert myself just over a year ago with the help of 2017's Veganuary campaign.
> 
> Oh, look. Just a few lines in and I've managed to tell you I'm a vegan.
> 
> ...


Sauce: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/26/vegan-diet-lifestyle-health-animals


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

After a tough workout we had a delicious lunch at Fresh (a vegan/vegetarian hotspot in Toronto)

Chris had the Holiday Wrap: avocado & marinated tofu cubes with garlic mayo, dill pickle, jicama, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, grated carrot, red onion & alfalfa sprouts

I had the Creole Red bean soup with grilled cornbread and hummus (I love hummus)

















Later we enjoyed Americanos and an early Valentine's sweet treat (from Bunner's Bakery... all vegan)

















Batteries recharged... we then went on an evening ride (fun day)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## kubikeman (Jun 4, 2010)

cyclelicious said:


> Happy Hump Day
> 
> View attachment 1179606


Is it possible to become a potato sommelier? Because if so, I'm in!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*10 Surprising Animal Ingredients Lurking on Store Shelves*



> Vegans know to avoid gelatin, lactose, and honey, but what about those other, unrecognizable ingredients found in packaged foods?
> 
> From dough made out of duck feathers to a glaze made from crushed bugs, animal-based ingredients are often unknowingly found in products across store shelves. As such, vegans need to be aware of the oft- hard-to-pronounce ingredients found on a package, which becomes problematic because neither the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has regulations for vegan or vegetarian ingredients. This lack of uniformed definition means the legality of vegan labeling falls under a marketing policy stating that a product label must be "truthful and not misleading."
> 
> ...


sauce: 10 Surprising Animal Ingredients Lurking on Store Shelves


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Six Ideal Recovery Snacks for Plant-Based Athletes



> If you are someone who trains and/or competes in a sport or a range of sports, you likely want to get the most benefit out of your workouts. You train hard, dedicate the time, and you want to see yourself getting stronger and faster as a result. Sure, you probably already know that pushing yourself physically to new limits can help you to achieve this. But did you know that how and when you refuel with nutrition after your training sessions and competitions is another crucial piece of enhancing your performance? This is where recovery snacks come in! If your aim is to build and/or maintain muscle mass and improve your performance when training with moderate to high intensity sessions, your recovery nutrition is an essential factor to consider.
> 
> In simple terms, recovery nutrition involves a beverage, meal, or snack consumed shortly after a training session or competition. Ideally, it should contain a source of protein and carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals. Since athletes are often short on time, snacks make the ideal option to ensure that your body gets the nutrition it needs. Plus, it is fun to snack.
> 
> ...


Sauce:
https://pamelafergusson.com/top-6-recovery-snacks-for-plant-based-athletes/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I had a super delicious lunch

Assembly Chef's Hall is a large warehouse space downtown Toronto with stalls of chefs preparing signature dishes. We ate at Mira Mira and I had the barbecue okra dish, a very hearty plate of okra covered in a custom BBQ sauce that's not too spicy and a little sweet. The dish also comes with a cauliflower gratin which is covered in a vegan queso made of potatoes and carrots.

Topped with a dollop of sunflower scallion crema, this dish has a cool punch of flavour with smokey flavours and just a hint of spice.


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## Guest (Feb 4, 2018)

We had Brussel Spouts with General Tso sauce the other night. Interesting twist on sprouts but they should have indicated that they were battered/fried. We're gonna use some Bulgogi marinade and try roasting them to see is we can come up with a little healthier version.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Person found a black widow spider in a head of broccoli they bought in Toronto (posted on Reddit)











> Here is what happened. On 01/30/18 I bought some broccoli form Freshco at Bloor&Dundas location. It was on sale, so I bought a lot and kept them in the fridge. Today morning when I cut one in half, I saw a litter black ball on the broccoli about one inch away from my finger. When I took a closer look, I realized it's a spider, and I suspect it's a black widow(I saw it on youtube b4). But the spider is not moving maybe because It was in the fridge for days. I thought it was dead so I grabbed my phone to take a pic and realized It is NOT dead. I then put the broccoli with the spider on it into a plastic box using a bbq tongue. After that, I checked all the remaining broccoli in the fridge for a spider. More update I have filed a report on CFIA website. I will keep the spider until they contact me


"Blankorison" posted their finding to Reddit, which had people going nuts. The comments were filled with all sorts of statements, from what to do if it were to bite you to people completely writing themselves off of broccoli for the year.

sauce:

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/7v0e53

"Blankorison" has been keeping all of us in the loop since Saturday, and its been pretty entertaining. The next update was something no one suspected - the spider was now their pet and the user needed name suggestions. The comments were filled with "Name it Freshie!" or "Code 4060" (Broccoli.) However, we've still been left hanging, waiting for the final decision.









Regardless of everything, Blankorison was obviously still going to contact the CFIA office. When they did, they got a rather vague response. They were told to contact the CFIA office closest to them. I guess it's a waiting game now!

sauce:

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/7v812h


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *The 5 Biggest Myths About Plant-Based Diets*
> 
> Many people are hesitant to fully embrace a plant-based diet because they are afraid. They're afraid they won't get enough nutrition (particularly protein), it might be too expensive or they just won't have time to prepare everything.
> 
> ...


sauce: The 5 Biggest Myths About Plant-Based Diets - UC Davis Integrative Medicine


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Vegan Olympic Athlete Wins Gold and Rescues Dog Destined for Dinner Table
> 
> 
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.riseofthevegan.com/blog/vegan-olympic-athlete-wins-gold-and-rescues-dog


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

New to the thread, and thought I'd share my story....

In 2010 I had emergency heart surgery to remove .8 of a liter of fluid from around my heart. During the 2 nights in ICU they found my CRP (C-Reactive Protein) was at a staggering 10.1 which is crazy high. They tested me for MS and Lupus as that high of an inflammation reading is usually due to some kind of autoimmune disease..... Everything came back negative. I've had my CRP checked twice a year since then and the lowest it has ever been is 5.1 ( 0-1 = Great / 1-3 = Good/Avg / 3 and above is high ).

In 2010 I was 300+lbs and quickly on my way to an early death but finally in Feb 2014 I began a life change that saved my life and you can read about it here: http://forums.mtbr.com/clydesdales-...uccess-story-photos-97174-5.html#post11579156 and here: http://forums.mtbr.com/clydesdales-...uccess-story-photos-97174-5.html#post11583359

Even though I lost 125lbs, was healthier than ever, and was eating 'clean' (no red meet, no dairy milk, lots of poultry and fish, veggies, fruit and grains) I could not get my CRP lower than 5.1.

....Then on one especially too-hot-to ride Aug 2017 Saturday, my 22yr old Phys Ed teacher / DPT to be daughter suggested we watch 'What the Health' and that 90 minutes changed my life..... I was immediately full on Plant Based.

I decided to give it just under 5 months before I went back to my Dr. for a blood test, and did so just before the end of the year as my deductible was already met. (got to love American health care)

Well, my CRP results came back at a 0.4!! I changed nothing else in my life, just my plant based diet..... Same exercise, same meds, same everything..... simply changed my nutrition.

So there you go, there is a hard scientific result of what a plant based diet can do..... it's easy to say "I feel great" when someone asks how your vegan diet is going, but to have a hard fast number to refer to is pretty freaking awesome.

I admit that I changed my way of life for me and me alone at first, but now I would be lying if I said I didn't feel great knowing that a single animal hasn't been harmed for me to exist on this planet.

Thanks for reading!


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## IPunchCholla (Dec 8, 2013)

Awesome and inspirational!


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

IPunchCholla said:


> Awesome and inspirational!


Thanks!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Cow escapes on way to slaughterhouse, smashes through metal fence, breaks arm of man trying to catch her then swims to safety on island in lake

Because the Bovine Revolution has begun.

Join with them, fellow cows. You have nothing to lose


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to Choose the Healthiest Veggie Burger for You*

Veggie burgers are one of our favorite vegan foods ever. And, with so many varieties (black bean, quinoa, tofu, etc) now available, we seem to be eating them more than ever. But how healthy are all these veggie patties, and should we be worried about the nutritional values of these cruelty-free foods? To answer this question, we looked at store-bought brands, those found at restaurants, and homemade recipes to determine the top qualities to look for when choosing a veggie burger.
*
The grocery store*
Selecting a store-bought veggie burger is easier than you might assume. And, if you haven't studied the labels on veggie burgers lately, you might be surprised to find that many brands are open about their "clean" ingredients list. Luckily, many of these companies use only real ingredients without artificial additives and preservatives, while a few let consumers know how the burger is processed (eg, without hexane or with non-irradiated spices). Still, sodium is an issue, as the closer the number is to zero, the better the product. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium (aka, salt) a day to prevent high blood pressure. This equates to approximately 500 milligrams per meal (200-300 milligrams per burger). In addition, three grams (or more) of dietary fiber on a label is considered a good source, while five grams (or more) is considered excellent. Next, look for the vitamins A and C content, as vegetables contain some of the highest amounts of these vitamins. Furthermore, look at the iron content. When reading labels, 10-19 percent of daily value is considered a good source, and more than 20 percent is considered excellent. Finally, scour the ingredients list to see if the burger is free of artificial ingredients. The old saying still rings true-"If you can't read it, don't eat it."

*Dining out*
If you prefer fresher ingredients, restaurant burgers are the way to go, as an increased interest in plant-based eating has lead many chefs to develop their own veggie burger recipes. Many of these patties contain simple ingredients made with just a few components and include quinoa, pinto beans, chipotle peppers, walnuts, carrots, beet juice, and spices. If you're eating a non-vegan restaurant, be sure to ask about the ingredients because some restaurants use eggs, milk, and sour cream in their recipes. For an example of a mainstream restaurant doing vegan burgers correctly, visit Denver's American Grind, where the cruelty-free patty was voted the best veggie burger of 2017 by Westword. This burger contains beets, sweet potatoes, carrots, chickpea, and chickpea flour, while aquafaba (cooked garbanzo bean liquid) is used as a binder.
*
From scratch*
There are many reasons to make veggie burgers at home. The first is the fact that you can control the ingredients and the nutritional content. For instance, the more plants you use, the more nutrition you'll receive, as plants contain phytochemicals, which protect us from disease. Next, you can opt for locally grown ingredients to help area businesses. Finally, you can cater the burger to your tastebuds' desires. Like salt? Add some. Want more heat? Top your patty with a jalapeño. Then, get wild with the condiments, and top with ketchup, onions, tomatoes, mustard, hot sauce, vegan avocado crema, chive aioli, cucumbers, lettuce, Swiss chard, vegan mayonnaise, or barbecue sauce. However you prefer your burger, you know you're having it your way!

Sauce: How to Choose the Healthiest Veggie Burger for You


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What to Eat Before a Workout: 8 Easy Meals to Maximize Your Performance*



> Eat something natural and quick, without a lot of planning, that'll getting you 90 percent of the way towards perfect.
> 
> So that's the motivation for this list: 8 simple, natural meals or snacks - vegan, of course - to eat before a workout. The criteria for in choosing a pre-workout meal:
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.nomeatathlete.com/eat-before-workout/


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

^ Thanks!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *We Don't Need as Much Protein as We Think We Do*
> 
> Any vegetarian can tell you that the most common question they get asked by omnivores is "how do you get enough protein?" (Aside from "don't you miss bacon?")
> 
> ...


sauce https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...e-do?utm_campaign=global&utm_source=vicefbanz


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Team Canada Wears All-Vegan Uniforms at Olympics









Animal-rights activists praise apparel brand Hudson's Bay Company for outfitting this year's Olympians in animal-free outwear.

Team Canada was outfitted in all-vegan uniforms during this year's winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Apparel brand Hudson's Bay Company (HBC)-which supplied the Olympians with uniforms-was praised by animal-rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for demonstrating that durable athletic wear can be made without animal products. "With their faux-fur pom-poms, wool-free sweaters, and synthetic-down insulation, Team Canada's uniforms prove how stylish and warm vegan outerwear can be," PETA director of corporate affairs Anne Brainard said. "PETA is celebrating the HBC for its compassionate and forward-thinking choice to outfit Canada's Olympians in high-tech, modern materials that don't harm a hair on an animal's head." During this year's Olympics, Canadian figure skater/vegan activist Meagan Duhamel helped the Canadian team score a gold medal by executing a flawless performance-the last of her Olympic career-with partner Eric Radford, the first openly gay Olympian to win such an accolade.

sauce Team Canada Wears All-Vegan Uniforms at Olympics


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Today's lunch









42 Ingredient Salad (with a raw cracker) at Hibiscus in Toronto: quinoa, sweet potato, broccoli, beets, beans, tofu, kale carrot kelp, okara


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Most Laid-Back Guide to Going Vegetarian You'll Ever Read*

From blogger Matt Frazier a.k.a. No Meat Athlete

"Should" you go vegetarian?

I'd be lying if I said I didn't want you to go vegetarian or vegan. Compassion for animals was big part of my reason for doing so, and so I'd love it if nobody ate them.

But I'm not going to tell you what's best for you. That's for you to decide.



> The easiest way to eat less meat
> 
> I made two attempts to go vegetarian. The first failed miserably after a week; the second has lasted three years and I have no plans to go back.
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.nomeatathlete.com/relax/


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

I really enjoy these posts.... thanks!


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

I will second Judy's continual efforts. She does a great job here!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^^ Thanks !!!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Kevin Smith Considers Going Vegan After Heart Attack









The Clerks director reconsiders his consumption of animal products after suffering a heart attack over the weekend.

Famed filmmaker/actor Kevin Smith announced he is considering adopting a plant-based diet. Smith suffered a heart attack-a total blockage of left anterior descending (LAD) artery, a severe type of heart attack known as "The Widow-Maker"-over the weekend and took to Instagram to discuss his brush with death. "Total strangers saved my life tonight," Smith said. "This is all a part of my mythology now, and I'm sure I'll be facing some lifestyle changes (maybe it's time to go vegan)." The director reflected on his long career and explained that while he was content with his life, he did not want to die before he had the chance to work on another Jay and Silent Bob film. Last year, Smith-whose father died of a heart attack-appeared in a video with his vegan daughter Harley Quinn Smith wherein the duo sampled vegan food from Doomie's Home Cookin' in Los Angeles. Smith was impressed by the eatery's plant-based pulled pork sandwich, stating, "If this is being vegan, I [could] get my head around it."

sauce Kevin Smith Considers Going Vegan After Heart Attack


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan 'Dessert' Island


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Is Honey Vegan?











> Honey is produced by bees, who gather nectar from flowers, partially digest it, and then regurgitate it once back in their hives for storage in honeycombs. Since honey is a bee product, and bees are animals, it is by definition not vegan. Here's a nuanced article about how the ethical issues related to honey fit into the broader concept of vegan living.
> 
> Several companies make vegan honey alternatives:
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.vegan.com/honey/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I've been vegetarian my entire adult life (since I was 19) and vegan the past 4 years. I don't miss the taste of meat but there are some people who do miss it and like the taste and texture... for them, there is an option.



> One in Three Consumers is Willing to Eat Clean Meat
> 
> New survey shows that 60 percent of vegan respondents are open to consuming slaughter-free meat.
> 
> ...


sauce One in Three Consumers is Willing to Eat Clean Meat


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

For those who like vegetable gardens: Here's a wonderful link to an article to help you grow 









Did you know that tomatoes hate cucumbers?
While they might taste great together in a salad, tomato plants actually dislike growing in close proximity to any member of the curcurbit family, which includes cucumbers.

Tomatos love carrots and basil, however - so planting these together will actually make them each grow more vigorously!

Sounds hokey? The idea that some plants and plant families are "friends" with others and grow better together is called companion planting, and it's been around since the dawn of food cultivation.

Planting your veggies in neat rows with labels is satisfying to the eye, and easier to harvest. However, when we look to nature, we don't see rows anywhere, nor do plants all grow clumped up in groups of the same thing together.

Mimicking nature's biodiversity might make your garden look messy, but it's been proven to help each individual plant to grow better. Plants in a polyculture are more resilient and tend to have fewer losses from insects or disease.

Things like carrots, dill, parsley, and parsnip will attract praying mantises, ladybugs, and spiders. These predator species of insects feast on the bugs who like to ruin your tomatoes, so it's a win-win for the tomatoes (and you)!

This is also why it's a great idea to interplant flowers with your vegetable plants-particularly marigolds and nasturtiums. These flowers will attract and feed beneficial pollinator insects, which will increase the fruit-set of many squashes, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, and other veggies. Nasturtiums are edible flowers and look lovely in salads, and their nutritious root, called mashua, used to be a staple crop in South American regions.

Finally, some plants simply don't get along, and won't do well when they're forced to share root space. Peppers and beans don't like being next to each other, nor do potatoes and tomatoes (both members of the nightshade family). Peas prefer being far away from onions, and lettuces do not like to be near broccoli plants.

Here's a great list of plants that grow well together as garden friends. https://www.almanac.com/content/companion-planting-chart-vegetables

Or, you can grab a copy of the Old Farmer's Almanac.

See link for the handy dandy chart!
Tomatoes Hate Cucumbers: Secrets of Companion Planting + Popular Planting Combinations | Homestead Guru


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Another gardening story:eekster:



> *5 Life Lessons I Learned in the Prison Garden*
> 
> In December 1995, when I was 16-years-old, I committed two robberies in inner-city St. Louis. I was charged with 17 counts and sentenced to 240 years in prison. Three years later, at Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, MO, I signed up for garden duty to get out of my cell.
> 
> ...


When he was 16, Bobby Bostic was sentenced to 240 years in prison. Recently, the United States Supreme Court ruled that juveniles who were under the age of 18 when they committed crimes cannot be sentenced to life in prison and must get a new sentencing hearing. "So now I have a chance for freedom, as well," Bostic says.

sauce 5 Life Lessons I Learned in the Prison Garden


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy hump day!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Who wants to live longer? [I do  ]



> *This Is How Much Longer You'll Live If You Stop Eating Meat*
> 
> The study concluded that despite some variability in the data, "the evidence is consistent that increased intake of red meat, especially processed red meat, is associated with increased all-cause mortality."
> 
> ...


sauce: https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/art...e-if-you-stop-eating-meat?utm_source=vicefbus


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*A Vegan Guide to Calcium*



> Of all the nutrients of special interest to vegans, calcium may require the most effort to get. Sure, other nutrients demand attention too, but for the most part they're all quite easy to obtain. Needs for Vitamins D and B12 are easily covered by popping supplements every two or three days. As for protein, there are tons of vegan foods loaded with it, plus you can always turn to vegan protein powder if you're falling short. Omega 3 needs can be met with a daily tablespoon of ground chia, plus a capsule or two of vegan DHA/EPA.
> 
> Attending to your body's requirements for calcium requires greater care than what's needed for the above nutrients, since most foods are relatively low in calcium and most people don't supplement for this nutrient, although supplementing would indeed be a wise choice for many.
> 
> ...


https://www.vegan.com/calcium/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

8 Green Foods to Eat on St. Patrick's Day

Beer isn't the only green thing you can consume when celebrating the Irish.

It's almost St. Patrick's Day, which means we're celebrating all things green! Yes, this might mean enjoying a green beer after work, but until happy hour hits, we've found eight delicious vegan foods to get us to the festive day. As a countdown to the celebrations, opt for these nutrient-rich fruit, herbs, and vegetables that will make your body happy and ready to party.

1. Avocados
Whether it's on a bagel, thrown in a salad, or spread onto a veggie sandwich, it's hard to get enough of avocado in your life. In addition to being downright delicious, this buttery fruit is filled with nutrient-rich properties. While many fruits are made of mainly carbohydrates, avocados are the only fruit that provides a substantial amount of healthy fatty acids. Avocados also contain approximately 20 different vitamins and minerals, including pantothenic acid, potassium, dietary fiber, and vitamins K, B6, E, and C.

2. Brussels sprouts
Similar to avocados, Brussels sprouts are an excellent source of vitamins C and K. They're also rich with essential B vitamins such as B6 and B1, as well as protein, iron, and omega-3 fatty acids. And if that isn't appealing enough, Brussels sprouts look like miniature versions of cabbage (because they are both part of the brassica family), making them perfect for your St. Patrick's Day feast!

3. Broccoli
Broccoli and Brussels both stem from the cruciferous vegetable family and share a lot of the same immune boosting properties. Broccoli is also high in fiber, which helps with digestion, lowering blood sugar, and curbing overeating. But that isn't all, as this green little dream is mainly known for its cancer-fighting properties. Broccoli is particularly beneficial for breast cancer and uterine cancer because it removes extra estrogen from the body. And it's delicious!

4. Limes
Not only are limes a major staple to zest up any meal but this fruit has also been a reliable source for medicinal uses for centuries. The health benefits of lime include (but are not limited to) weight loss, skin care, digestion improvement, and treating a number of diseases such as scurvy, respiratory disorders, and gout. Limes also rejuvenate the skin and help protect it from infections. Similar to many citrus fruits of its kind, limes are considered a diabetes superfood because the high levels of soluble fiber help regulate the body's absorption of sugar.

5. Mint
Mint can be used in tea, as a palate cleanser, blended into smoothies, or as a light garnish. But this small herb packs a serious punch when it comes to the benefits it holds in its leaves. The first and most well-known fact about mint is that its leaves promote digestion and soothe stomachaches, headaches, and migraines. Mint is also a natural stimulant, which helps create a feeling of clarity and alertness on days your head feels like it's in a fog.

6. Green tea
Green tea is known for being extremely beneficial to the human body. Similar to many teas, green tea is made of Camellia sinensis leaves, but unlike oolong, white or black teas, green tea is processed in a way that creates a different level of oxidation. Green tea has been known to boost metabolism and help the body detoxify naturally. It has also been said that green tea can delay the deterioration caused by Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, protect brain cells from dying, and restore damaged brain cells. Fun fact: matcha green tea has the nutritional equivalent of 10 cups of normal green tea.

7. Chives
Throw chives atop potatoes or sauté some in your stir-fry-either way this cousin of an onion is sure to give you your daily dose of vitamin K, which is your source of healthy bones. Vitamin K assists the regulation of cells that help to prevent bone demineralization. The sulfides and other unique organic compounds found in chives also deliver garlic-esque benefits and can effectively ease digestive discomfort.

8. Kiwi
Kiwis are a nutrient-dense fruit full of vitamin C and antioxidants, which studies have shown can help treat people with asthma. Kiwis also have high levels of zeaxanthin and lutein, both of which protect our eyes from harmful high-energy light waves such as ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Therefore, eating a few of these furry fruits (peeled, of course) can significantly reduce your risk of vision loss!

sauce 8 Green Foods to Eat on St. Patrick's Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A Supermarket in Germany Now Sells Nutella in Enormous Buckets









sauce: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/...tella-in-enormous-buckets?utm_source=vicefbuk

It comes with a free pancreas


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

7 Greens You're Probably Not Eating (But Should Be)

(click to enlarge)








Sauce https://www.nomeatathlete.com/7-greens-infographic/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I had never heard of Rich Roll until a couple years ago. He originally went plant-based due to a health crisis, not for performance issues. His story is interesting



> *The World's Fittest Vegan Is a 51-Year-Old Ultra-Endurance Athlete*
> 
> Skeptical of the purported health benefits of a vegan diet? You may have a right to be: while there's some evidence to suggest that going vegan can help improve your heart health, it might not necessarily help you lose weight, nor will it automatically make you healthier. But if you are considering going vegan, Rich Roll's mind-boggling athletic feats might have you trading in burgers for leafy greens.
> 
> ...


Sauce:
https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a19460422/rich-roll-workout-vegan-diet/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The BEST Carbs for Getting Leaner and Stronger (Now With More!)*

In recent years, while the rest of the world continued to live in fear of fat, the fitness community totally embraced it. Carbohydrates became the target of our frustrations; we blamed them for making us fat, compromising our immune function, keeping us inflamed, and generally ruining our lives. We've learned our lesson now and carbs have had their reputation restored. It's really about time, considering the role that carbohydrates play in exercise.

*Which Carb Sources Are Best?*

Without a doubt, one of the hardest things to tell someone that's seeking improved performance and body composition is that fruit should not be the primary source of carbohydrates in your diet. Hold on though - I am in NO WAY implying you shouldn't eat fruit. It's just not the easiest, most efficient way to fuel your body. One last tme; FRUIT IS GOOD. EAT PLENTY OF IT!

As valuable source of vitamins, minerals and fiber, fruits have definitely got their place in a balanced approach to nutrition. The issue with eating fruit to get all your carbs is that it's got relatively little energy in it per gram! Aside from bananas, you'd have to eat a lot (and I mean a lot) of fruit to satisfy your carbohydrate/Calorie requirements; it's just not optimal (or in some cases, feasible) to rely upon fruit as an energy source. Thankfully, there are other natural sources of carbohydrate available that are positively brimming with glucose as well as important micronutrients.

*Starches are an Athlete's Best Friend - Even If They Eat Paleo*

Starch is a glucose polymer found in most plants that is chemically similar to our endogenous glycogen; it's literally just a long chain of glucose molecules bonded together. Although humans have a tough time digesting the stuff raw, cooking breaks it down into pure glucose ready for utilization as a substrate to produce cellular energy throughout your body. Of course, whatever you don't use can be stored, preferably in your biceps, quadriceps or abdominals. While some of the most widely-consumed sources of starch (and thus glucose) are grains, like corn, wheat and rye, plenty of Paleo-friendly alternatives exist if that's your thing.

At the forefront, we have good ol' fashioned tubers, like potatoes and carrots, as well as rice (preferably white), but let us not forget chestnuts and acorns that are rich in starchy energy. Squash, peppers, zucchini and cauliflower round everything out and give you a wide palette of flavors to choose from.

You'll notice that I'm not including foods like broccoli, kale, and tomatoes in this list. That's because per weight, these sources provide very little in the way of carbs for your body to use. Like fruits, they're a great source of micronutrients and fiber. Leafy greens and veggies are an important part of a healthy diet and you should absolutely include them in your meals, but they're not high-powered workout fuel.

The most important take-away here is that you need to consume rich sources of dietary glucose to effectively replenish muscle glycogen and maximize performance/recovery. You can't rely on fat and protein, and you can't just get your carbs from veggies.

*Fast vs. Slow Carbs and Glycemic Index*

Glycemic index or GI refers to the rate at which a food consumed in isolation will raise blood sugar. Higher GI foods are typically called fast carbs because they raise blood sugar more quickly and lower GI foods are slow carbs because they raise blood sugar less quickly. A great example is brown rice (50 GI, making it a slower carb) compared to white rice which has a GI of 67 making it a fast carb. This difference is commonly attributed to the fiber content of the intact germ of brown rice, but when it comes down to it there's barely any more fiber per gram in white rice compared to brown rice.

Take a quick look at this chart from Harvard University's health website and get a feel for where your favorite foods fall along the continuum of fast and slow carbs.

With that lesson out of the way, you probably want to know whether or not it matters if you eat fast or slow carbs. For healthy, athletic people, it's not that big of a big deal. In fact, your response to carbohydrates may be different than mine. To further complicate the application of this information, mixing foods and the volume of the food you eat in a meal can totally change the GI of a carb. White vs. brown rice need not be a battle that ensues in your pantry. Sure, it's potentially dvantageous to have faster carbs in situations where you need to shoot for rapid replenishment of glycogen (like when you train twice a day). For the rest of us - folks who're in the gym for 1-2 hours a few times a week with plenty of time in between sessions - we can select our rice and potatoes based on taste!

If you're really looking to optimize your carbohydrate strategy, you can take things a step further and get into supplementation through a few different means.

*Carbohydrate Supplementation and Liquid Nutrition*

Whole, natural foods should absolutely comprise the foundation of your nutrition. I won't argue against that, but I do think that there are a few unique situations where integrating supplements into your plan can really bring your performance to the next level. One of the most important times to ensure you have adequate energy available is before and after training. By prioritizing carbohydrate intake around your workouts with liquid nutrition, you can make a dramatic impact on your energy levels and recovery (if it's formulated properly). You have a plethora of options available should you go this route.

On one end of the spectrum, you could throw a potato into a food processor along with some light coconut milk, and wind up with one of the most interesting-yet-effective workout drinks known to man. Alternatively, a mottled banana with some dark chocolate in a light coconut milk base may be slightly more appetizing (and socially acceptable!). Add teaspoon of sea salt to either of these concoctions and you've got the perfect storm in terms of quick gastric emptying and nutrient absorption at the small intestine.

If pureed foods aren't quite your style, you can go the more traditional route and purchase a commercially available supplement. At this avenue, your best bet is to go with modified starches like Vitargo, maltodextrin, dextrose and waxy maize; not only are they typically very affordable (especially if you buy in bulk), but they'll blend right in with your favorite protein powder and provide you with exactly what you need to begin restoring glycogen within your muscles as soon as possible. 50-100g of maltodextrin or waxy maize will do the job but you can experiment with more or less based upon training intensity, duration, and the amount of muscle mass you carry around.

As far as taste is concerned, dextrose is very sweet, whereas waxy maize and maltodextrin are generally bland and flavorless unless you use A LOT at once. This is worth considering, especially if you'd like to use a supplement as a means to beef up the carb content of an existing protein shake that you're already incorporating post-workout. You probably won't want to add any dextrose under these circumstances, but if you're starting completely from scratch, a little bit can go a long way towards making the maltodextrin/waxy maize palatable. In addition, a bit of sodium to your post-workout nutrition can increase the rate of absorption of whatever other nutrients you're ingesting, so throwing dextrose into the mix may be even more important (unless you grew up drinking salt water.)
*
Conclusion*

Hopefully this information will help you make more optimal decisions in regards to where you get your carbs from. It really doesn't make sense to exclude any one source, but the majority of your carbohydrates should come from starches and vegetables like potatoes, squash, quinoa and rice. This will keep your muscles full and give you the energy you need to perform. Fruit should be approached as a means to supplement your micronutrients and round out your carbohydrate intake. To top it all off and make the most of your training, you should also consider implementing a liquid nutrition strategy post-workout.

*Summary*

For a time, carbohydrates have been demonized, but they're a great source of energy and an integral part of any nutrition plan that's aimed at keeping performance at peak (or improving it).

Fruits are not necessarily the best choice as an energy source - it's just not dense enough.

Still, fruits are packed with vitamins and minerals and are absolutely a part of a great nutrition plan.

Starches are your best friend. Rice, potatoes, ripe bananas and oats are additions you might consider. Make sure that you eat plenty of these in the evening to replenish muscle glycogen.

Liquid nutrition in the form of pureed foods and supplements like maltodextrin powder can be consumed before, during, and after training; this can help you maintain performance during long training sessions or events.

sauce The Best Carbs for Getting Leaner and Stronger (Updated!)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I love bananas ... they get sweeter with age


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

Got a couple of pounds of those guys cut up and in my freezer waiting to become a smoothie.


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> I love bananas ... they get sweeter with age


Just like us.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

... the aftermath of Brussels sprouts lingers for a while too


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*10 Surprising Animal Ingredients Lurking on Store Shelves*

Vegans know to avoid gelatin, lactose, and honey, but what about those other, unrecognizable ingredients found in packaged foods?

From dough made out of duck feathers to a glaze made from crushed bugs, animal-based ingredients are often unknowingly found in products across store shelves. As such, vegans need to be aware of the oft- hard-to-pronounce ingredients found on a package, which becomes problematic because neither the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has regulations for vegan or vegetarian ingredients. This lack of uniformed definition means the legality of vegan labeling falls under a marketing policy stating that a product label must be "truthful and not misleading."

A labeling system for food additives referred to "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) is in place to ensure food safety requirements are met, but vegans are often the ones mislead when the sources (plant or animal) of GRAS ingredients aren't labeled. Unfortunately, United States law requires labels that distinguish "natural" or "artificial" flavors, but consumers have no way of figuring out what those flavors are because "natural" flavors can be derived from both plants and animals.

To help remedy this labeling confusion, we've created a list of popular ingredients every vegan needs to recognize &#8230; and steer clear from.

*Albumen*
A fancy term for egg white, albumen is used in many processed foods such as candy, cake, and cookies. Albumen is also a common fining agent in wine production.

*Casein*
Casein can be one of the trickier ingredients to navigate because it appears in seemingly vegan alternatives, and because it is found in foods in such small increments, some foods that include casein are labeled as "non-dairy." However, this does not mean the product is vegan, as casein-which can also come in the form of caseinates such as calcium caseinate, potassium caseinate, and sodium caseinate-is a protein found in the milk of all mammals and makes up 80 percent of the protein found in cows' milk. Casein is popular in protein powders, as well as paint, adhesives, cosmetics, and textiles.

*Confectioner's glaze*
Most commonly used as a coating on candy or other confections, confectioner's glaze (or "resinous glaze") is made of 35-percent shellac, an ingredient derived from the secretions of the female lac insect. Found in a variety of non-food products as well such as aluminum foil, furniture polish, and hairspray, confectioner's glaze has GRAS status in the US.

*Isinglass*
Derived from the membranes of fish bladders, isinglass is a gelatinous substance most commonly used to clarify wine and beer. Although isinglass is not in the finished product, it is still not suitable for vegans because it is part of the booze-making process.

*Lactic acid*
When you feel the burn after a good workout, that's your body producing lactate, or lactic acid. Lactic acid is also a very common additive found in a variety of foods such as soy sauce, sourdough bread, pickled vegetables, wine, candy, and soft drinks, and can also be derived from fermenting whey (milk), cornstarch, potatoes, or molasses. Unfortunately, most commercial producers don't label the origin of lactic acid, so it's better to be safe than sorry. Luckily, vegan companies generally indicate that their lactic acid is derived from plant-sources.

*L-Cysteine*
L-Cysteine is used to preserve and improve the texture of commercial dough and is mostly derived from duck feathers, hog hair (or hooves), or human hair (which is gathered from the floors of salons in China and dissolved in hydrochloric acid before the amino acid is isolated). Synthetically produced L-cysteine can be certified Kosher or Halal, but "natural" cannot. Considered GRAS, this ingredient is labeled when used for function, not for flavor. When it is labeled, the company does not need to specify its source.

*Methionine*
An amino acid that's derived from albumen or casein, methionine is often used to maintain freshness in potato chips and can sometimes even be found in tea.

*Red 4*
A red dye derived from drying, boiling, treating, and crushing cochineal bugs, Red 4 (also known as carmine or cochineal) is used in a variety of products ranging from juice to candy because of its deep red color. Because Red 4 can cause severe allergic reactions in some people, the FDA requires that it be specifically named on ingredient labels.

*Vitamin D*
Vegans already know that we can get vitamin D from the sun, fortified dairy alternatives, and supplements. Unfortunately, some seemingly vegan products with vitamin D such as orange juice derive vitamin D from non-vegan sources. Although D2 is derived from plant or yeast sources, the more-common D3 can be animal-based, so if it's a mainstream product, do your research before purchasing. Fatty fish liver, egg yolks, and milk are some of the animal-based origins of the vitamin.

*Whey*
A common ingredient in processed foods, whey (sometimes in form of whey protein isolate) is well-known for its use as a performance powder. Derived as a byproduct of cheese production and when added to whole milk after coagulation, the curds (solids) separate from the whey (liquid) so they become cheese and the whey becomes protein powder.

sauce: 10 Surprising Animal Ingredients Lurking on Store Shelves


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This Is Where Fat Goes When You Lose Weight, According To Scientists - And Research Suggests Doctors And Dietitians Have Got It All Wrong



> Australian scientists conducted a study to find out where fat goes when you lose weight.
> 
> As part of their research they asked 150 health professionals for their theories as to how it disappears, and most answered incorrectly.
> 
> ...











sauce This Is Where Fat Goes When You Lose Weight, According To Scientists â€" And Research Suggests Doctors And Dietitians Have Got It All Wrong | IFLScience


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> This Is Where Fat Goes When You Lose Weight, According To Scientists - And Research Suggests Doctors And Dietitians Have Got It All Wrong
> 
> sauce This Is Where Fat Goes When You Lose Weight, According To Scientists â€" And Research Suggests Doctors And Dietitians Have Got It All Wrong | IFLScience


Interesting. You mean it doesn't "melt" away like in those ads?  I guess if they said "breathe out your fat" everyone would think it was just marketing hype and not buy the magic pills.

I sure hope all those people they surveyed that said fat turns into muscle didn't think that is literally what happens.


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

I had no idea where body fat went.... very cool!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm Obsessed with Mock Meat and I'm Not Even a Vegetarian

A plant-based 'bleeding' burger, eggs made from water-dwelling algae, milk made from oats? Bring it on



> acon, tofurkey, chickenless tenders - overly processed mock meats have always sounded like punchlines, ludicrously named meat tribute acts. They are essentially the Faux Fighters, Proxy Music and Rolling Clones of the food world. Received opinion holds that if you want meat so badly, you should just eat it. The weird thing is that I have been obsessed with mock meats for a long time. The weirder thing is that I am not even a vegetarian.
> 
> For most people, nothing can be weirder than the textures of these oddities. How could they not be, predicated, as they are, on what they are not? But it is the creative ways around such incongruity I find compelling. I like food that answers a challenge. The milk I take in tea has been squeezed out of oats or rice. My childhood was consumed by a fascination about what was in crab sticks, because I knew it wasn't crab (although it is fish). Later, I felt the same way about Quorn - until a few years ago, the company didn't exactly shout about the fact that its product is made from mould and grown in vats. But to me, weird just means new and interesting. Weird is my jam.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.theguardian.com/comment...d-with-mock-meat-and-im-not-even-a-vegetarian


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The colonel killed a lot chickens


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Saturday afternoon lunch at Veggie D'Light. An awesome busy spot. The chef makes vegan Jamaican meals

Chris had brown rice, seitan and veg









I had the soup of the day. Chef Peter added some extra scotch bonnet sauce to my soup bowl because he said he knew I liked it hot ... Ha! how did he know? .. spicy yummy!









For dessert we went to Bunners for carrot cupcakes (topped with marshmallow) all vegan.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The intent is to satisfy cravings for jerk spices and curries within the constraints of a vegan diet. It's not an easy feat. Chef Peter (co-owner of Veggie D'Light) says that learning to cook vegan Caribbean food was a challenge but worth it (as witnessed by the steady clientele through the doors)

Caribbean cuisine is perilous for vegans - so many of the prized dishes are centred around stewed meats relegating vegans to side dishes alone. And even then, the seemingly meat-free foods (veggie patties for example) are traditionally made with suet or other animal byproducts.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Get a head start for Hump Day: another reason to eat your veggies (specifically flavonoids.)











> *The Link Between a High-Vegetable Diet and Better Erections
> A bonafide reason to spend more time in the produce section*.
> 
> Last November, the CDC released a report which confirmed something many of us have long sensed: Americans don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. "Enough," in this instance, means the USDA's recommendation of 1.5-2 cups per day of the former and 2-3 cups of the latter. Did you know that only 12 percent of Alaskans meet or exceed that amount of vegetables? If you think that sounds pitiful, you should know that residents of the largest state in the union are in fact at the very top of the vegetable consumption leaderboard.
> ...











Sauce: https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/xw7ymq/moe-fruits-and-vegetables-better-erection


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*6 Tips for Losing Weight on a Vegan Diet*

Get your summer beach bod in mere weeks by cutting out meat and dairy and eating nutrient-packed foods.

According to a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, individuals who follow a vegan diet for approximately 18 weeks shed, on average, four pounds more than those who follow animal-based diets. While this fact is great for anyone looking to lose weight, conversion to a plant-based regimen and weight loss are not always synonymous.

Many who switch to a vegan diet for weight-loss reasons often find themselves filling the meatless void with an array of plant-based processed food. Luckily, a veg diet is so much more than packaged food that just happens to be animal-free, especially for those looking to lose weight. By following these six tips, you'll fit into your favorite pair of jeans in no time, all while doing good for animals and the environment.

*1. Review the vegan food pyramid*
The foundation of the vegan food pyramid is greens and vegetables followed by fruit and whole grains. This is an updated version of MyPyramid-the food guide that replaced the Food Guide Pyramid in 2005-which emphasized grains, bread, cereal, and pasta as the foundation of a good nutritional regimen. Although the vegan food pyramid serves as a guide, caloric intake and portion control are key factors for any healthy weight-loss program.









*2. Eat greens*
The versatility of spinach, broccoli, Swiss chard, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, and zucchini makes dark leafy greens a wonderful addition to any meal. These foods are ideal for weight loss because they are the "most nutrient-dense healthy items" and "are extremely low in calorie and high in fiber," says Lisa Odenweller, CEO of Santa Monica-based superfood café Beaming. The high-fiber content keeps you satiated throughout the day while helping you avoid unhealthy snacking. Other high-fiber options include fruit (be mindful of the sugar content) and raw tree nuts (almonds, walnuts, and cashews), which are packed with protein and fiber and can help lower cholesterol.









*3. Up your protein*
Consumption of protein-rich food is vital in many weight-loss programs because protein fills you up faster; thus, you need less food to be satisfied. According to Stephanie Goldfinger of vegetarian website Cooking for Luv, proteins are available in many forms, which makes them convenient to incorporate into meals because they can be eaten raw or cooked quickly. Protein powders are ideal for a grab-and-go breakfast or mid-day smoothie, while other plant-based proteins such as tempeh, beans, lentils, quinoa, and oats are versatile and can serve as the main component of a veggie burrito, salad, or stir-fry.









*4. Limit processed soy*
Soy products can be the easiest and most convenient "go-to" items when transitioning to a vegan diet. Soy isn't necessarily unhealthy, but it is imperative that attention be paid to the amount of processed products in a meal plan. For instance, a tofu scramble for breakfast, soy veggie burger for lunch, and pad Thai with tofu for dinner is excessive. Instead, choose vegan cheese made with nuts, a black bean burger, or a pad Thai with vegetables and tempeh for whole-food versions of your favorite foods.

*5. Prepare healthy meals*
Meal planning is a vital component to ensure proper nutrition and weight loss, and, thankfully, supermarkets now sell pre-packaged vegetables that are table-ready in minutes. Examples of fast-and-easy dishes include quinoa bowls with tempeh; a mixed stir-fry blend of broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms; eggplant cutlets with marinara sauce, vegan cheese, and basil; and soba noodles with greens. If these meals are beyond your scope, meal delivery services such as HelloFresh and meal-planning services such as PlateJoy provide easy-to-follow recipes that are pre-measured and dietitian-approved.









*6. Get exercise and stay hydrated*
Healthy meals, water, and exercise are key components for any successful weight-loss program. People should engage in 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity weekly in order to burn calories and lose weight. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a form of cardiovascular interval training focusing on alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less-intense recovery periods. To achieve maximum results, HIIT should be practiced three times a week and supplemented with jogging or hiking, says Jorge Cruise, trainer and author of Tiny and Full. And don't forget to stay hydrated! Drinking a minimum of 64 ounces of water daily keeps your body cleansed, which improves fitness and overall health.









sauce 6 Tips for Losing Weight on a Vegan Diet


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Hydroponic setup, perhaps?



> *Scientists harvest 1st vegetables in Antarctic greenhouse*
> 
> BERLIN (AP) - Scientists in Antarctica have harvested their first crop of vegetables grown without earth, daylight or pesticides as part of a project designed to help astronauts cultivate fresh food on other planets.
> 
> ...


https://apnews.com/bb14d1bf3a6143118ba9910b11adb5d8


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2018)

cyclelicious said:


> Hydroponic setup, perhaps?
> 
> https://apnews.com/bb14d1bf3a6143118ba9910b11adb5d8


 Matt Damon beat them to the punch. Sorry science, movies outpaced you again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Bananas for the win! Bananas are good for the athletes who use them, but bad for those behind them, who tend to slip and slide on the discarded peels 



> *Bananas vs. Sports Drinks? Bananas Win in Study*
> 
> A banana might reasonably replace sports drinks for those of us who rely on carbohydrates to fuel exercise and speed recovery, according to a new study comparing the cellular effects of carbohydrates consumed during sports.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/...wp_1=1123033&dclid=CPKQ_8fEr9oCFQUcPwodkOACew


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

GMO yeast to produce vegan friendly animal protein?

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/casein-vegan-cheese/557615/

Mixed feelings about this, and lab grown meat. Yay for more unhealthy "vegan" options? But if that's what it takes to get more folks onboard...perfection is the enemy of progress yada yada


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> GMO yeast to produce vegan friendly animal protein?
> 
> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/casein-vegan-cheese/557615/
> 
> Mixed feelings about this, and lab grown meat. Yay for more unhealthy "vegan" options? But if that's what it takes to get more folks onboard...perfection is the enemy of progress yada yada


So question. If meat grown in a lab no longer leads to the death of animals, is it vegan? For me, I don't eat meat because I don't want too, not for animal rights (not that there is anything wrong with that, and I fully support treating all animals humanely). I probably wouldn't eat lab grown meat because it is still meat.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

dubthang said:


> So question. If meat grown in a lab no longer leads to the death of animals, is it vegan?


 Not if animals are still being exploited. I believe lab meat requires obtaining stem cells from live animals. Can stem cells be cloned and perpetuated indefinitely, so that one animal can feed millions without even being slaughtered? Again, not sure how I feel about that. If exploiting an animal to feed one person is wrong, and exploiting an animal to feed 10 people is wrong, what about a thousand, or a million, or a billion? Does wrong become right at some point? Which point, and why? Would lab grown golden retriever meat be acceptable? How about human meat? At least the stem cell donor could consent. Is bioengineered cannibalism the only ethical meat? Moralizing aside, lab meat could drastically reduce the amount of suffering animals have to experience for our enjoyment. While I won't eat it myself I fully support it if it helps displace factory farming.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

On a lighter note


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan protein is healthier for your heart than meat, study claims

The health benefits of veganism are almost as copious as the endless #avotoast snaps on Instagram.

Now, a new study is adding fuel to the plant-based fire by reporting that vegan protein is far healthier than meat for the heart.

Published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, researchers at Loma Linda University in California and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris found that people who consumed significant amounts of meat experienced an increased risk of heart disease.

The opposite was true for those who consumed the majority of their protein from plant-based sources, such as nuts and seeds.

After collecting data from more than 81,000 people, the researchers concluded that, on average, those who ate more meat experienced a 60 per cent increase in risk for heart disease whereas those who ate mostly vegan protein benefited from a 40 per cent reduced risk.

While lead author Gary Fraser, from Loma Linda University, had long-suspected that incorporating more nuts and seeds into the diet would help protect against heart disease, this study confirmed his theory.

"While dietary fats are part of the story in affecting risk of cardiovascular disease, proteins may also have important and largely overlooked independent effects on risk," he said.

"This new evidence suggests that the full picture probably also involves the biological effects of proteins in these foods."

Fraser believe these initial findings will prompt further research into how particular amino acids found in animal proteins contribute to increasing the risk of heart disease, in addition to investigations into the relevance of blood pressure, blood lipids and weight.

It's not the first time a plant-based diet has been credited for boosting heart health.

A study in November 2017 of the health benefits of five different kinds of diet revealed that vegans were 42 per cent less likely to suffer from heart failure than those who consumed fewer plant-based foods.

However, a study from July last year claimed that vegetarian diets can actually put people at a higher risk of heart disease.

Rather than being associated with protein intake, researchers wrote in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that a higher consumption of refined grains, sugary foods and potatoes, which dominates some vegetarian diets, can promote poor heart health.

"It's apparent that there is a wide variation in the nutritional quality of plant foods," lead author Dr Ambika Satija wrote, "making it crucial to take into consideration the quality of foods in a plant-based diet."

Meanwhile, the researchers praised nutrient-dense plant-based foods such as whole grains, unsaturated fats and fruits and vegetables for lowering the risk of heart disease.

Sauce:https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...disease-study-california-france-a8291506.html


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Going to give this #vegan thing a try ... Yes guys you heard that right. Gx









__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/985948048068145152


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## split (Jan 12, 2004)

My favorite recipe.






Kidding aside, I've been plant based for health reasons the past 2 years and will never look back.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The Germs That Love Diet Soda



> There are lots of reasons to avoid processed foods. They're often packed with sugar, fat and salt, and they tend to lack certain nutrients critical to health, like fiber. And now, new research suggests that some of the additives that extend the shelf life and improve the texture of these foods may have unintended side effects - not on our bodies directly, but on the human microbiome, the trillions of bacteria living in our guts.
> 
> These substances may selectively feed the more dangerous members of our microbial communities, causing illness and even death.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/...wp_1=1134241&dclid=CIfPx-3pwtoCFQ-myAodsfMEiA


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to Stop Eating Sugar*

If you're like most Americans, you eat more sugar than is good for you. But it's entirely possible to eat less sugar without sacrificing much - if any - of the pleasures of eating. Surprising as it may sound, many people who have cut back on sugar say they find their new eating habits more pleasurable than their old ones. This guide will walk you through why sugar matters, how you can make smart food choices to reduce sugar consumption, and how you can keep your life sweet, even without so many sweets.

*The Added-Sugar Problem*

Here's why you eat more sugar than you realize, and why it's a problem.The first thing to know: Added sugars, of one kind or another, are almost everywhere in the modern diet. They're in sandwich bread, chicken stock, pickles, salad dressing, crackers, yogurt and cereal, as well as in the obvious foods and drinks, like soda and desserts.

The biggest problem with added sweeteners is that they make it easy to overeat. They're tasty and highly caloric but they often don't make you feel full. Instead, they can trick you into wanting even more food. Because we're surrounded by added sweeteners - in our kitchens, in restaurants, at schools and offices - most of us will eat too much of them unless we consciously set out to do otherwise.

*HOW DID WE GET HERE*?

It's not an accident. The sugar industry has conducted an aggressive, decades-long campaign to blame the obesity epidemic on fats, not sugars. Fats, after all, seem as if they should cause obesity. Thanks partly to that campaign, sugar consumption soared in the United States even as people were trying to lose weight. But research increasingly indicates that an overabundance of simple carbohydrates, and sugar in particular, is the No. 1 problem in modern diets. Sugar is the driving force behind the diabetes and obesity epidemics. Fortunately, more people are realizing the harms of sugar and cutting back. 
*
WHAT TO CUT*

Health experts recommend that you focus on reducing added sweeteners - like granulated sugar, high fructose corn syrup, honey, maple syrup, stevia and molasses. You don't need to worry so much about the sugars that are a natural part of fruit, vegetables and dairy products. Most people don't overeat naturally occurring sugars, as Marion Nestle of New York University says. The fiber, vitamins and minerals that surround them fill you up.

A typical adult should not eat more than 50 grams (or about 12 teaspoons) of added sugars per day, and closer to 25 is healthier. The average American would need to reduce added-sweetener consumption by about 40 percent to get down to even the 50-gram threshold. Here's how you can do it - without spending more money on food than you already do.

*THE GAMEPLAN*

Changing your diet is hard. If your strategy involves thinking about sugar all the time - whenever you're shopping or eating - you'll likely fail. You'll also be miserable in the process. It's much more effective to come up with a few simple rules and habits that then become second nature. (One strategy to consider: Eliminate all added sugars for one month,and then add back only the ones you miss. It's easier than it sounds.)

Above all, most people's goal should be to find a few simple, lasting ways to cut back on sugar. Once you're done reading this guide, we suggest you choose two or three of our ideas and try them for a few weeks.

sauce: https://www.nytimes.com/guides/smar...wp_1=1114673&dclid=CK6U6cPJw9oCFc5ANwodQvYBTA


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

For Hump Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

France bans use of meat-like terms in packaging for vegetarian food



> Food producers in France will be forced to think of new ways to describe some of their vegetarian and vegan foods when they are banned from using terms such as "vegetarian sausages", "vegetarian mince" and "vegan bacon".
> 
> French MPs have voted to outlaw use of such vocabulary, claiming they mislead shoppers.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...s-packaging-burgers-steak-bacon-a8315626.html

How can names like vegetarian burger or vegan bacon be confusing to anyone? I think the rational is not to prevent confusion but rather for the meat and dairy industries to protect their interests

Yesterday I enjoyed a Cherry Garcia vegan donut... no confusion


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> France bans use of meat-like terms in packaging for vegetarian food
> 
> sauce https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...s-packaging-burgers-steak-bacon-a8315626.html
> 
> ...


Agreed, that sounds ridiculous and useless. I guess they'll be drinking "soy juice" or "soy nilk" and eating "veggie bergers".

EDIT: Actually, similar sounding names may land them in court for causing confusion.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

chazpat said:


> Agreed, that sounds ridiculous and useless. I guess they'll be drinking "soy juice" or "soy nilk" and eating "veggie bergers".
> 
> EDIT: Actually, similar sounding names may land them in court for causing confusion.


:lol:

There is a FB group dedicated to calling vegan cheese "gary"

https://mic.com/articles/155688/veg...ks-to-one-epic-viral-facebook-rant#.g61ub2shR


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

cyclelicious said:


> France bans use of meat-like terms in packaging for vegetarian food
> 
> sauce https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...s-packaging-burgers-steak-bacon-a8315626.html
> 
> ...


I am all for it. I really appreciate clarity and accuracy of language.

I get fed up with veggie products pretending to be things they aren't. One thing that's going on is more intense processing to make items into increasingly unrecognizable forms. I generally avoid most of that stuff, vegetarian or not.

I avoid lots of soy products for that reason alone. Lots of soy stuff is HEAVILY processed. Similar with the "milk" pretenders.

Had a delicious vegetarian burrito this morning. Tortilla filled with black beans, egg, and salsa.

And very true that France has a history of legislation that protects and establishes definitions. They are especially picky when it comes to language related to food and drink. That really exists all over the world. Plenty of definitions have been legislated that place restrictions on the naming of food/drink (lots of geographic restrictions like Kona coffee, Bordeaux wine, Bourbon whiskey, Vidalia onions, etc), or the composition of food/drink (Reinheitsgebot, air content of ice cream, Organic labeling definitions, etc). There have been problems with falsification of foods (seafoods, olive oils, and so on), too.

This legislation of which words vegetarian foods/drinks are not permitted to use is really just an extension of all that, which all has a very long history when it comes down to it.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Harold said:


> I am all for it. I really appreciate clarity and accuracy of language.
> 
> I get fed up with veggie products pretending to be things they aren't. One thing that's going on is more intense processing to make items into increasingly unrecognizable forms. I generally avoid most of that stuff, vegetarian or not.
> 
> ...


Idk, how far do we want to take that? When I was a kid, a sausage was pork or beef, then they came out with turkey sausage. Should that be allowed? "A hamburger, beefburger or burger is a sandwich consisting of one or more cooked patties of ground meat, usually beef, placed inside a sliced bread roll or bun." so is a turkey burger a burger? What about dishes that are traditionally vegetarian, if someone puts ham in potato salad should they still be able to call it potato salad? According to Wikipedia, in a burrito in Mexico "meat and refried beans are frequently the only fillings" but your veggie burrito had none of that so should they still be allowed to call it a burrito?

I'm fine with things like "veggie turkey" not being allowed but a "blackbean burger" seems ok, it's still a "cooked patty". But it's definitely not a "hamburger".

What I hate is anyone writing code or directing code calling themselves a "software architect". No, an architect is a completely different thing.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Tofu is not just for vegans and vegans don't necessarily label the products. The products are named after what it imitates, it allows the consumer to know (more or less) what to expect. That there are tofu products that imitate things like turkey, is likely because there is a demand for tofurkey. I suspect it is because people who start eating vegetarian miss certain foods, or do not want to 'feel left out' on holidays etc, but it doesn't really matter why they do it, that is up to the individual. Vegans who want regular tofu are free to buy it, I don't see a problem.

On a personal note: I don't like veggie faux meat products but it is because they are bad - in my opinion they taste neither like meat nor tofu and are highly processed, lots of salt etc. Bleh. I don't care that they pose as meat otherwise though, I don't see a moral concern personally.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *The losing war against fake meat*
> 
> When you visit a grocery, literal-mindedness is a handicap. Apple butter is actually not a dairy product. Grape-Nuts cereal omits grapes as well as nuts. Corn dogs don't need leashes.
> 
> ...


sauce The losing war against fake meat - Chicago Tribune


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegans are not responsible for the spread



> A Tick Bite Could Make You Allergic to Meat-and It's Spreading
> 
> Alpha-Gal may sound empowering, but the nickname, short for galactose-alpha-1, 3-galactose, is a sugar molecule that might just cause you to become allergic to meat.
> 
> ...


sauce https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/tick-bite-meat-allergy-spreading-spd/


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

^ I think I'll just have a portobello cap on a bun, thank you.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The Foods That Are The Most Likely To Make You Sick, According To The Centers For Disease Control

1) Spinach that's unwashed or raw can harbor E. coli and norovirus.
2) Chicken and turkey can be contaminated with listeriosis, which can be deadly.
3) Sprouts are frequently contaminated with salmonella.
4) Unpasteurized juice is easily tainted by raw fruit, which can harbor E. coli.
5) Because they are bottom feeders, shellfish like oysters can naturally concentrate bacteria.
6) Dairy and eggs can be contaminated with salmonella.
7) Ground beef can harbor Clostridium perfringens and E. coli - usually when your burger is undercooked.

sauce Food poisoning: Riskiest foods for getting sick, according to the CDC - Business Insider


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

On saturday we had soup (bean soup with scotch bonnet for some extra heat  ) and Chris had Roti (all vegan )

















Dessert was americanos and chocolate creme brulee donuts (vegan )









Sooooo good


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## DeadGrandpa (Aug 17, 2016)

I read the first and last pages of this thread, mostly because I'm dating a pescatarian lady. Although I really have no strong personal feelings about food and its alleged relationship to health, I'm considering going vegetarian just so we can eat the same food. My biggest hurdle will be eating fish (but I'm not likely to get help with that here). I'm glad those folks who abstain from meat feel healthier, as does my new lady friend, but I have another friend who feels much healthier since she gave up carbs, eating only meat, fish and a small amount of green veggies (14% of total calories). Meanwhile, I eat whatever I want, is easy to prepare and available, from highly processed foods, frozen pizza, boxed mac and cheese, ramen soup, frozen prepared veggie blends, jerky, Cheetos, crackers, cookies, sandwiches, chips, donuts, fast food and junk food, but not much candy. I eat lots of salt. I am, and have always been very healthy. So here's my question: Are we from the same planet?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

DeadGrandpa said:


> So here's my question: Are we from the same planet?


Yes we are


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

DeadGrandpa said:


> I read the first and last pages of this thread, mostly because I'm dating a pescatarian lady. Although I really have no strong personal feelings about food and its alleged relationship to health, I'm considering going vegetarian just so we can eat the same food. My biggest hurdle will be eating fish (but I'm not likely to get help with that here). I'm glad those folks who abstain from meat feel healthier, as does my new lady friend, but I have another friend who feels much healthier since she gave up carbs, eating only meat, fish and a small amount of green veggies (14% of total calories). Meanwhile, I eat whatever I want, is easy to prepare and available, from highly processed foods, frozen pizza, boxed mac and cheese, ramen soup, frozen prepared veggie blends, jerky, Cheetos, crackers, cookies, sandwiches, chips, donuts, fast food and junk food, but not much candy. I eat lots of salt. I am, and have always been very healthy. So here's my question: Are we from the same planet?


Perhaps you are healthy, but perhaps you'll feel even better after making the switch. Only trying it will let you know. If you feel off at first, stick with it because it may take a couple of weeks for your body to adjust.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Does diet really affect the brain? And other questions about the cranium, answered by a neurologist*

The human brain can seem like a complete mystery, and thinking about how much it controls your life and sense of self is enough to make your head hurt. But science has slowly caught up with our natural curiosity, and let us in on the secrets to how it actually functions. So we called on Dr. Sara Mitchell, neurologist at Sunnybrook Hospital, to answer all our burning questions about the human brain

*What happens in the brain while we sleep, and why are dreams so hard to remember?*

We spend about a third of our life sleeping, but while we're asleep our brain isn't offline. In fact, our brains are just as active when we're awake versus when we're asleep. Dr. Mitchell explained that here are two main phases of sleep that the brain cycles through - the first is called slow wave sleep (this is about ¾ of the average sleep-cycle sleep) and the second is called rapid eye movement sleep, REM sleep or dreaming sleep. This is when dreams happen and it accounts for about ¼ of a night's sleep. So, it really depends on which cycle you wake up from as to whether or not you're going to remember your dreams, so if you wake up during slow wave sleep you may not remember some of the dreams you had in REM.

*Does brain activity change during sex?*

Yes it does. Sexual pleasure is derived from an archaic part of the human brain called the Limbic system, which is the emotional centre of the brain. Dr. Mitchell explained that during sexual intercourse, lots of neurotransmitters and hormones are released and they circulate through the brain. One example is oxytocin, which she referred to as 'the cuddling hormone', and is known to give a feeling of closeness and intimacy after intercourse.

*Do our brains ever stop growing?*

The brain does stop growing, but it's later than most people think. A lot of maturation and development of the brain happens in infancy and in early adulthood, but as Dr. Mitchell pointed out, there is a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex that really separates us from other species. It's the area that sits right behind the eyes and allows us to do things like high-order decision making, monitoring behaviour, complex thinking etc. and this particular area doesn't fully mature until you're in your mid-twenties to early thirties. So if you examine the decisions that young adults are making before they have a fully-formed prefrontal cortex, it's interesting to note that they still haven't plateaued in their development.

*How do migraines affect the brain's function?*

During a migraine, something called cortical spreads depression, which is actually a series of self-propagating waves of electro-physiological hyper-reactivity in the brain. Dr. Mitchell specified that it starts in the back part of the brain which is called the visual or occipital cortex, and for those of you familiar with migraines, this is why you can get that onset of aura, or changes in your visual field. This is also when the actual onset of the migraine begins. It then propagates forward toward the front part of the brain followed by a wave of inhibition of brain function. Ultimately what happens is that the pain-sensitive structures of the brain are the coverings and these are activated at the end - that's why migraine-sufferers often get a headache after the visual symptoms of a migraine. Thankfully, Dr. Mitchell assured us that migraines don't cause any harm to your brain; they just come with a lot of discomfort and symptoms.

*Does diet really affect the brain?*

Dr. Mitchell says it absolutely can. There is a close interplay between the way that we nourish our bodies and how our brain is functioning. The Mediterranean diet, for example, has been linked to staving off neurodegenerative diseases. She also notes that deficiencies in certain vitamins can cause issues. For instance, a diet lacking in Vitamin B12 could lead to memory troubles and other nervous system manifestations. Dr. Mitchell also pointed out that diet can actually be used to treat certain neurological conditions, such as the ketogenic diet as a possible treatment for certain forms of epilepsy. Simply put, having a complete and varied diet is the key to brain health.

sauce 
Does diet really affect the brain? And other questions about the cranium, answered by a neurologist | CBC Life


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Iceberg ...lettuce... ahead!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

After a tough workout and before a ride... we enjoyed enjoyed a Japanese lunch (vegan) and a sweet treat raspberry chocolate donut (vegan). Each street food market had different ethic dishes (Jamaica , Columbia, Philippine, Afganistan, Japan, etc. )


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I am not a bodybuilder or powerlifter but do like to workout and lift heavy things . I ride, run and do crossfit... and I eat a plant-based (vegan) diet. I gave up dairy and followed a vegan diet for over 4 year (previously a life long vegetarian), lost fat and gained muscle. Some good tips in this article which leans to vegetarian diet but still relevant and helpful

*20 Tips For The Vegetarian Bodybuilder!*
Vegetarian eating is catching on with more people every day. Saying no to meat doesn't mean you have to say no to your fitness or muscle building goals!









If you're looking to build more muscle mass but enjoy eating a vegetarian style of diet, you may often feel as though you might be defeated before you get going. You hear so much talk about protein being the most important nutrient needed to build muscle and one that you should be consuming very large amounts of to achieve success.

Don't be so quick to jump to this conclusion however. While it definitely is true that protein is an extremely important nutrient to have in the diet, it's not true that you necessarily need copious amounts of it to make progress. There are plenty of ways for vegetarians to build the muscle they are after despite the fact that they aren't consuming any meat products.

Let's have a look at the 20 top tips that the vegetarian bodybuilder needs to know.

*1. Get Sufficient Calories*
The very first thing you must do as a vegetarian bodybuilder is make sure that you get enough calories. If you don't take in enough calories on a regular basis your body is much more likely to turn to incoming protein for fuel and you very well may see a deficit forming.

*2. Consume Plenty Of Fruits And Vegetables*
Second, be sure that you are taking in plenty of fruits and vegetables. These are going to supply you with a high quality source of nutrients as well as all the antioxidant protection to keep your immune system feeling strong.

*3. Don't Neglect Chickpeas And Legumes*
For vegetarians looking to build muscle, one of the key sources of protein they need to be looking into are chickpeas and other legumes. These will also be a good low-fat source of carbohydrates as well and make for a great snack before a hard workout.

*4. Swap Rice For Quinoa*
If you're in the habit of always eating brown rice with your meals, swap that up for some quinoa instead. Quinoa tastes much like brown rice (a combination of brown rice and oatmeal) and is higher in overall protein content than the brown rice. On top of that, quinoa is actually a complete source of protein, whereas brown rice is not. This is important for the process of muscle building to take place.

*5. Utilize Egg White Or Soy Protein Powders*
Fifth, it's a very wise move to make use of egg white protein powders, if you eat animal by-products, or soy protein powders if not. These will dramatically help to boost your protein intake and are quick and convenient for when you need them. As long as you do make sure to mix them up with other sources of protein, they are definitely a 'must-have' for your daily diet.

*6. Avoid A Heavy Reliance On Processed Foods*
One big mistake that many vegetarians make is relying a great deal on heavy, overly processed foods. Don't do this. Remember, being vegetarian doesn't mean you get free range to eat as many high-carb snack foods as you want. You still do definitely have to be eating healthy and making an effort to maintain a fresh diet that contains whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

*7. Keep Your Workouts Short But Intense*
When it comes to your workout, as a vegetarian you should aim for short but intense workouts. This will help prevent muscle mass loss from taking place and your body relying on protein to get through those workouts. If you were doing very long workout sessions that's when your protein needs will be really elevated, which could get more difficult being on a vegetarian diet.

*8. Be Sure To Vary Your Food Choices*
Also be sure that you're taking the time to vary your foods in your diet as well. As a vegetarian you may find that it's easy to gravitate to the same foods over and over and over again. Try to prevent this if you can. By making sure to take in a higher variety you will prevent nutrient deficiencies and have better luck with your diet program.

*9. Make Use Of Tempeh*
Another protein source that's highly beneficial for vegetarians is tempeh. This one is one that is often overlooked so start finding creative ways to add it to your diet today. Many people find they prefer this over tofu, which is the other main vegetarian option.

*10. Consider Going Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian*
One thing that you may want to consider, and this will highly be based on your personal beliefs, is going lacto-ovo vegetarian. What this means is that you will include both egg and dairy products in your diet. This will dramatically boost your protein options since then you can include egg and egg whites, cottage cheese, yogurt, cheese, and milk. It will definitely make your life as a vegetarian bodybuilder easier.

*11. Utilize Nuts For Fuel*
Another great food that you'll want to take in are nuts. Nuts provide a healthy source of fat and will provide a long-lasting form of energy as well. One handful will significantly boost your calorie intake and help make muscle gain that much easier.

*12. Take In Plenty Of Flaxseeds, Walnuts, And Flaxseed Oil*
For your essential fatty acids, since you likely won't be consuming fatty fish or fish oil, turn to flaxseeds, flaxseed oil, and walnuts. These will have to be your primary sources for this must-have nutrient.

*13. Start Adding Peanut Butter*
Another good way to boost your fat content is to start smearing natural peanut butter on as many foods as you can in your diet. This will also help to boost your overall calorie intake as well, which is obviously important when aiming to build muscle. Smear some peanut butter over your bananas, apples, mix it into oatmeal, or add it to any fruit smoothies you may be preparing.

*14. Consider Iron Supplementation*
One nutrient that you may fall short in without eating any red meat is iron. Since iron is responsible for good red blood cell development, it's not one you want to risk being low in. If you do, you're going to find you're fatiguing a lot faster in your workouts as well. If you plan on carrying out a vegetarian diet for the long term, consider adding an iron supplement to your day.

*15. Focus On Broccoli And Spinach Intakes*
Two other vegetables that you'll definitely want to think about adding in higher quantities as well are broccoli and spinach. These both will contain nice doses of calcium, which is another nutrient you may fall short in. In addition to both of these, also think about using a calcium supplement.

*16. Don't Let Others Get You Down*
Unfortunately one thing that many vegetarian bodybuilders deal with is others telling them they won't see success. Try and block this out as best as possible. If you want to really pack on the muscle, you need to stay in a healthy frame of mind - and their negative influence is definitely not going to help you do so.

*17. Eat More Frequently*
It's also important that you're making sure to eat frequently throughout the day. Since you won't be taking in as much protein with every meal you eat as someone who isn't a vegetarian, by getting in regular meals you'll help ensure that you do always have that steady stream of amino acids going into the muscle tissues.

*18. Monitor Your Body Fat Levels*
Since one thing many vegetarian bodybuilders are concerned over is muscle mass loss, be sure that you're regularly monitoring your body fat levels. This will give you a better indication if you are losing muscle mass so that action can be taken to help prevent this.

*19. Supplement With Branched Chain Amino Acids*
Another important supplement that you'll want to use is branched chain amino acids. These you should specifically take immediately before and after the workout is complete as they too will help to safeguard against muscle mass loss.

*20. Stay Positive*
Finally, the last tip is to stay positive. It may take slightly longer to build muscle as a vegetarian, but if you stay positive and keep working towards your goals, you definitely can get the results you're looking for.

*Conclusion*
So be sure that you're keeping all of these tips in mind. More and more people are turning to this style of eating and it definitely does not mean you need to give up on your fitness and muscle building goals.









Sauce: https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/vegetarian-bodybuilding.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

Great stuff as always! 

I went back to the Dr for my 2nd blood test since I went vegan. I did it to double check my CRP and cholesterol levels, and to really make sure that my massive CRP drop from my last test 6 months ago wasn't a fluke or an error.

The results came back great! My CRP remained at the same .04 and my cholesterol levels all plummeted to levels that I have personally never seen before...... We Are What We Eat!!

I have decided to make 1 change to my diet, and that is to add eggs (cage free, antibiotic free, hormone free).... I simply miss eggs too much, and adding them will really open up my menu, and on top of that, I could use the perfect protein that they supply as well.

There will be no other changes whatsoever and I plan to have another blood test in 6 months, so tracking any changes will be very easy to identify the source. 

I struggled with this decision for months now and initially felt like I was "taking the easy way out", but at the end of the day, I need to make sure that what I'm doing is sustainable for me and for the rest of my life, and this one change will help ensure that....... as long as the test results say it's OK that is.


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## RadBartTaylor (Dec 1, 2004)

cyclelicious said:


> I am not a bodybuilder or powerlifter but do like to workout and lift heavy things . I ride, run and do crossfit... and I eat a plant-based (vegan) diet. I gave up dairy and followed a vegan diet for over 4 year (previously a life long vegetarian), lost fat and gained muscle. Some good tips in this article which leans to vegetarian diet but still relevant and helpful
> 
> *20 Tips For The Vegetarian Bodybuilder!*
> Vegetarian eating is catching on with more people every day. Saying no to meat doesn't mean you have to say no to your fitness or muscle building goals!
> ...


You need to be really careful with Peanut Butter, besides the controversial Aflotoxin concerns:

https://www.drweil.com/diet-nutrition/food-safety/perplexed-about-peanuts/

Just because it says 'natural' certainly doesn't mean it doesn't have various stabilizing oils or sugar in it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Posted on Rich Roll's website today


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Five myths about organic food*

Concern about the safety and value of the food we eat is motivating more and more shoppers to fill their grocery carts with food labeled "organic." According to USDA statistics, annual spending on organic food and drinks has jumped from about $1 billion to $28 billion in the past 20 years. But how is organic defined, and is it always the healthiest choice?

*1. If a product is labeled organic, it hasn't been exposed to herbicides or pesticides.*

Only the "100% Organic" label guarantees the U.S. Department of Agriculture's definition of organic. That means meat, eggs and dairy products are free of antibiotics and growth hormones; produce is grown with fertilizers free of synthetic or sewage components; and no genetically modified organisms are part of the product. But the label doesn't necessarily mean zero pesticides or herbicides. Other factors contribute to whether food meets the USDA's varying organic definitions and those followed by organic purists: What's in the water used to irrigate the crop? What might waft over a field from nearby factory smokestacks? What pesticides drift onto crops from adjacent conventional farms? What GMO crops pollute organic fields? Last year a field of conventionally grown wheat in Oregon was corrupted by GMO wheat, and Jackson County residents responded by voting to ban genetically modified farming.

For products with the USDA "organic" label, only 95 percent of the ingredients must be organic. There are about 200 non-organic substances producers can to add to food without sacrificing the organic claim. And that non-organic 5 percent could be sprayed with herbicides and pesticides. The other 95 percent could be exposed to USDA-approved biological or botanical pest controls - or even chemicals from a list of allowable compounds poisonous to weeds and bugs but supposedly safe for people.

Products with the label "made with organic ingredients" can have as little as 70 percent organic content. Consider a bag of corn chips made with organic corn and non-organic oil: Since about 25 percent of a chip is oil, the processed product meets the government standard.

*2. Organic food is better for you.*

It is logical to think that organic food is healthier if it is relatively free of most herbicides and pesticides. The residue of such poisons on conventional food is not supposed to be a danger to human health, but since they kill weeds and pests - and accumulate in human bodies - it makes sense to avoid the chemicals.

Whether organic food is more nutritious is another question. While the American Academy of Pediatrics says that lower pesticide levels in organic foods could reduce the risk of ingesting drug-resistant bacteria, "in the long term, there is currently no direct evidence that consuming an organic diet leads to improved health or lower risk of disease." And a controversial 2012 Stanford University study reported that it's a waste of money to pay more for the organic label in an attempt to buy the most nutritious food available. "There isn't much difference between organic and conventional foods, if you're an adult and making a decision based solely on your health," wrote Dena Bravata, the study's lead researcher. However, critics of that study's conclusions point out that the researchers narrowly defined "more nutritious" as containing more vitamins.

*3. Organic food is better for the environment.*

There's no question that keeping farmland free of pesticides is better for the environment. So are other aspects of organic farming, such as crop rotation and periodically allowing land to lie fallow. But just because food is organic doesn't mean its production and distribution are necessarily good for the environment. Consider a can of organic black beans from Bolivia, a bag of organic rice from China or a box of organic apricots from Armenia. Transporting such products to your neighborhood grocery store creates a carbon footprint much bigger than transporting locally grown products.

Additionally, converting natural habitat to vast tracts of farmland can harm local flora and fauna. Coastline-preserving mangroves in Southeast Asia are ripped out, for example, to make space for palm-oil plantations, rice paddies and coconut farms.

Organic food grown and produced in distant lands may also come to U.S. stores with a social cost. What are the working conditions for the farm laborers and factory employees who tend and process those products? And how fair are their wages?

*4. Products labeled organic are inspected to guarantee their purity.*

Each apple or asparagus spear isn't checked for its organic veracity, nor is every container filled with processed food and labeled organic approved before it's stocked on market shelves. Such meticulous diligence would be impractical and inefficient.

The inspection process for products labeled organic often is superficial, and it is fraught with inconsistencies and potential conflicts of interest. At least once a year, a third party inspects farms and food manufacturers that claim their wares are organic. The rigor of these visits ranges from simply looking over paperwork to mucking about in the fields to conducting detailed interviews with farm owners and workers, along with processors and transporters. The farmers and food processors inspected pay certifiers for the opportunity to be approved, and the various certifiers compete with one another for business. So, if an inspection is rigorous, a farmer may opt to work with a competing certifier that does a less thorough job.

The official USDA certificates guaranteeing that a product is organic are relatively easy to forge. And because the organic rules are designed for larger-scale commercial operations, mom-and-pop farmstands may be exempt from inspections if they yield no more than $5,000 a year in sales. So, whether food really meets organic standards is more a matter of trusting purveyors than trusting the organic label.

*5. Imported products labeled as organic meet U.S. standards.*

Food labeled USDA Organic that originates outside the United States is supposed to meet U.S. standards. But the same potential problems confronting domestic certification are exacerbated when food is imported. Employees of the third-party certifiers rarely travel overseas to make inspections. Instead, the certifiers contract with local firms operating in the source countries. Such an extended bureaucratic chain increases the opportunities for fraud and lax enforcement, especially when food is imported from places rife with corruption, such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

Food that does not meet U.S. organic standards can also be shipped through third countries with loose regulatory enforcement. Italian authorities point to Malta as a transit point where paperwork is laundered to mark conventional food as organic. Though sometimes impractical, the best guide when shopping for organic food is: Think globally, but buy locally.

Sauce: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c923ea2d4cd5


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Meatless Monday


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan treats are irresistible... good eats!

Neopolitan vegan donuts (Caturday treat)








BEAR BREAKS INTO A CAR, STEALS 2 DOZEN VEGAN CUPCAKES



> A New Jersey black bear broke into the car of a local vegan baker, devoured two dozen cupcakes, and fled the scene, leaving only a broken window, pawprints, and frosting in his wake. Unlike notorious honey thief, Winnie the Pooh, the cupcakes this bear chose to satisfy his sweet tooth are vegan and free from the top eight allergens.
> 
> As reported by North Jersey, Christine Allen, owner of the vegan and gluten-free bakery Mo'Pweeze Bakery, had baked batches of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry cupcakes. Christine said that she was being productive by getting ahead on an order for a local soup kitchen and had loaded her car with the cupcakes on Wednesday night,. At around 2 am, Christine's dog started barking and she recalled hearing a crunching sound outside.
> 
> ...


Sauce:
https://www.livekindly.co/bear-breaks-into-a-car-steals-two-dozen-vegan-cupcakes/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> 9 New Medical Reasons to Never Eat Meat
> As if you needed more reasons not to eat animal products, here are nine ways in which a plant-based diet benefits your health.
> 
> While there are no new medical articles demonstrating the health benefits of adding bacon and burgers to your diet, there are many studies that reinforce that idea that eating nothing but fruit, vegetables, grains, and legumes is optimal for your health. In fact, new data consistently reminds us of the benefits of a vegan diet, which makes it fairly safe to conclude that avoiding meat is one of the most important health decisions a person can make. Although most of these studies are observational-meaning they could not feasibly randomize people to eat or skip meat and follow them for decades-together they illustrate that whether meat comes from cows raised on grass or corn, and whether you know the farmer or not, meat is an inflammatory food with an inherent chemical structure that promotes cancer growth. Unlike the new data showing that the more servings of fruit and vegetables you eat, the more likely you will avoid chronic diseases and delay death, eating meat has the opposite result, leading to disease and early death. If you were ever wavering about your commitment to make it a bean burger rather than a beef burger, reviewing these nine new medical observations should keep you on track for a long and healthy life.
> ...


Sauce 9 New Medical Reasons to Never Eat Meat


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Veganism Fueling Global Demand for Coconut Milk

The coconut milk industry is expected to boom as the world population continues to steer clear of cow's milk.

A recent report by market research firm Transparency Market Research (TMR) credited a rise in the world vegan population to driving the growth of the coconut milk industry. During the forecast period of 2016 to 2024, TMR predicted significant growth in the industry, attributed also to the growing knowledge of the health benefits of coconut milk. "There has been a significant rise in the vegan population due to increased concern about the environment and animals," TMR stated. "The adoption of natural food products and consumer preference for a vegan diet has fuelled [sic] the demand for coconut milk globally." Currently, North America and Europe are among the top regions where the increase in demand for coconut milk is the highest. TMR's prediction adds a number of recent market research reports that predict significant growth in the global plant-based industry, including tofu and plant-based yogurt, which are predicted to reach $24 billion by 2022 and $7.4 billion by 2027, respectively.

Sauce:Veganism Fueling Global Demand for Coconut Milk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

Okay, what are the rules for being vegan? I'm close enough already that I think I'll give it a go. 

Can I continue to use leather items I own now but just not buy any more?

I don't have much meat or dairy at the moment. Can I use it up? Do I have to wait until it's gone before I can say I'm vegan?

I think the vitamins I own are probably not vegan. Same questions about those as about the meat and dairy I already have.

I think Rich Roll eats honey and bee pollen and calls himself vegan. Is that a grey area or can vegans eat small amounts of non-vegan foods and still be considered vegan?

Can I feed chow that has meat ingredients to my dog?


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Geralt said:


> Okay, what are the rules for being vegan? I'm close enough already that I think I'll give it a go.
> 
> Can I continue to use leather items I own now but just not buy any more?
> 
> ...


It all depends. If your diet is simply vegan, you can use leather, feed your animals meat, and do whatever you deem appropriate. If your lifestyle is vegan, then you should not use any animal products in your daily living. That said, pushing a vegan lifestyle onto your pets is not appropriate since it is not their choice, especially if they would normally eat meat in the wild.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Dubthang said it well

Plant based diet is a diet and being vegan is a lifestyle.

Veganism is a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing and any other purpose.

Many plant-based people eat "mostly" plant based instead of 100% strictly, and will occasionally have animal products, don't care about gelatin and honey, will eat cookies with a little egg, etc.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*No-Meat Muscle: 4 Rules For Building Lean Mass On A Vegetarian Diet*

*Fact: *Humans need protein to grow and thrive. 
*Falsehood: *That protein has to come from dead critters. Meet your new muscle-building diet. No animals were harmed in making it!

If there's one thing that most vegetarians hate, it's having someone talk about their dietary system like it's a problem that needs to be solved. So let's get this out of the way: Vegetarians can build muscle and strength just like meat-eaters. Got that? Good.

There are hundreds of millions of vegetarians in the world, and people choose to embrace this lifestyle for countless reasons-from religious, to nutritional, to simple personal preference. As anyone who has embraced this lifestyle can attest, it's not as simple as "don't eat meat."

Everyone from your grandmother to your favorite whey manufacturer is a potential threat to sneak animal products into your food, meaning you have to be diligent about doing your research in addition to minding your macros.

Need a roadmap? Here are four simple rules that vegetarian athletes should keep in mind in order to maximize their nutrition. Heed them, and you'll have the fuel you need to grow like a weed.

*Rule 1: Know Your Whey*
Meat-eaters may classify the world in terms of carnivores and herbivores, but vegetarians know it's not so simple. There are several types of vegetarians including:

Lacto-vegetarians (dairy is allowed)
Pescatarians (fish is allowed)
Lacto-ovo vegetarians (dairy and eggs are allowed)
Vegans (No animal products of any kind are allowed)
Each variation presents its own set of unique challenges, as the people in these respective categories are well aware.

But one thing they all need when they're training is sufficient protein. Without it, they put themselves at serious risk for subpar results and just generally feeling like a wilted piece of celery.

What about whey and casein powders? Both are milk byproducts, so they're clearly off-limits to vegans and to strict pescatarians. But they should be A-OK for lacto- and lacto-ovo vegetarians, right? If only it were so simple. To separate milk into its component parts of curds (where casein and cheese come from) and whey, producers add an enzyme called rennet. There are vegetable and microbial sources for rennet, but the most common source is the stomachs of slaughtered veal calves. In other words, not so veggie-friendly.

One easy way to tell if your protein is vegetarian is if it's kosher, because milk and meat products can't mix in a kosher diet. Unfortunately, most proteins don't include this information on their labels or websites. So if you want to know where a certain company stands, the best bet is to do your homework: search around, or call them up and ask.

*Rule 2: Explore Plant Protein*

If the rennet dance sounds a little complicated, which is understandable, consider exploring other vegetarian protein sources. Luckily, there are plenty to choose from, most of which line up nicely against their animalistic competitors. Some of the most popular sources include:

_Egg protein, egg white protein, and liquid egg whites._ All three offer a protein punch similar to whey protein, but are far simpler and more predictable when it comes to ingredients.
_Soy protein._ Perhaps the most prominent vegetarian alternative to whey, soy proteins are similarly protein-packed but are incredibly low in fat and cholesterol. Soy generally offers more flavor options than other vegetarian proteins, but read your labels carefully, because some soy proteins contain milk and/or fish products.
_Pea protein._ The lowly pea is riding high these days due to the "Dr. Oz Effect," but the TV doc was only stating what savvy vegetarians already knew. Pea protein is high in protein, easy to digest, cholesterol-free, and has a solid branched-chain amino acid profile.
_Hemp protein._ Hemp seeds are packed with Omega-3s and high in magnesium and iron, to say nothing of their solid protein content. Plus, a serving also contains almost half your daily dose of fiber-remember that stuff?

Some manufacturers like Vega Sport, Garden of Life, and MRM also offer their own designer veggie protein blends that mix various plant and grain proteins. There are plenty to choose from, so a little research can go a long way.

*Rule 3: Eat Well*

I know it seems obvious, but most of us know at least one vegetarian who seems to magically survive on ramen noodles, fries, and sweets. Men's Health recently coined a term for these people: obesatarians.

Your vegetarian allies are begging you not to become one of these. Aside from the damage you do to yourself, you give the whole plant kingdom a bad name.

What's the alternative? Strive for balance! Include a barrage of fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet. These form the cornerstone of a healthy diet for herbivores and omnivores alike, and they offer incredible health benefits. Don't always fill up veggies and fruits (which is hard to do, by the way); most of your calories should come from dense foods-especially if you're trying to build muscle.

Hearty vegetarian protein sources that mix well with veggies:

Beans and legumes
Nuts and seeds
Tempeh
Tofu
Soybeans
Seitan

*
Rule 4: Watch Out For Deficiencies*

If you've been a vegetarian for a long time, then someone has doubtlessly already tried to warn you that an iron deficiency is likely to kill you in a matter of minutes. Is this a reason to give up and attack the nearest cow? Definitely not. But don't underestimate the degree to which micronutrient deficiencies can impact your health and well-being. Here are the four biggest threats to watch out for:

_1. Iron_

Iron can be subdivided into two types, heme and non-heme iron. Heme iron is commonly found in red meat and absorbs easiest into the body, making it the variety most vegetarians fall short in. Non-heme iron is found in many vegetable-based foods including:

Dark, leafy greens like spinach, kale, and collard greens
Dried peas
Beans and lentils
Artichokes
Dried fruit: raisins, prunes, and black currents

Females are more likely than males to experience iron-deficiency anemia because they lose iron during their menstrual cycle. Alone, non-heme iron alone usually can't overcome iron-deficiency anemia, so consider supplementation.

_2. Calcium_

Calcium is vital in maintaining strong bones and plays a crucial role in muscular contractions. Low calcium intake causes cramping during workouts, hindering performance and ability. In the long-term, it can also lead to thinning of the bones and osteoporosis.

Dietary calcium is typically found in dairy-rich foods, so it's easy to find for lacto-vegetarians. Alternate sources of calcium fit for a vegan diet include:

Spinach
Collard greens
Kale
Broccoli
Almonds
Absorption rate varies in each of these, so if you have any doubts, consider supplementing with calcium to meet your nutritional requirements.

_3. Zinc_

Zinc is an essential trace element that promotes proper growth and development across the body, and yet it's a mineral that many vegetarians neglect. Deficiencies can impact everything from appetite, to cognitive power and motor skills, to testosterone levels in men. The best zinc sources are generally animal products, so vegetarians need to prioritize this mineral.

To combat zinc depletion, vegetarians should supplement with zinc products or consume natural sources like:

Pumpkin seeds
Sesame seeds
Almonds, walnuts, or macadamia nuts
Fortified oatmeal or cereals

_4. Vitamin B12_

Vitamin B12 deficiencies can turn serious if not resolved immediately, creating a real area of concern for vegetarians.

The type of B12 found in plant-based foods is not absorbed by the body as efficiently as vitamin B12 found in animal-based foods, so this is an area where even healthy vegetarians often miss the boat.

Your best bet to overcome vitamin B12 deficiencies is to seek out foods fortified with adequate amounts, or supplement with vitamin B12 products.

No matter what some meathead on a message board says, "vegetarian" does not have to equal "weak"-unless you let it! Meet your essential mineral and vitamin needs so you can feel strong and make the most of your healthy lifestyle.

sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...-on-vegetarian-diet.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Geralt said:


> Okay, what are the rules for being vegan? I'm close enough already that I think I'll give it a go.
> 
> Can I continue to use leather items I own now but just not buy any more?
> 
> ...


In regards to the things you already have, I say use them up, no need to be wasteful. And stopping isn't going to bring the animals back. Unless you just don't want to eat that now.

I'm a pescatarian and I've gone bird hunting. I know that seems super contradictive. I used to hunt with my dad when I was younger and before changing my diet. He was in his '80s and still hunted. So it was the opportunity to spend more time with him doing something he loves and revisit the past for us both. I thought about it for awhile and my love and respect for my father won out. He has done a lot for nature, including developing my love for it. I also remember us participating in a huge clean up operation where we picked up tons of trash and backpacked/carried it out over several years. Anyway, I did shoot a couple of birds, knowing that even though I wouldn't be eating them, someone else would be so they would not go to waste. I became a pescatarian more due to the way animals are raised for food consumption, though I am fully aware that the wild population could not possibly meet the meat demands of our world today.

So what I am trying to say is that there aren't really any hard and fast rules. Do what you think you should do. You may not end up a 100% vegan by definition but if you are ok with that, then it is ok.


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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

chazpat said:


> So what I am trying to say is that there aren't really any hard and fast rules. Do what you think you should do. You may not end up a 100% vegan by definition but if you are ok with that, then it is ok.


I think I may just have a poor understanding of veganism. It's not something I've looked into in depth. My impression is that someone is either vegan or not. No such thing as someone who is 95% vegan or 90% or 50%. I don't think I'd consider Rich Roll to be vegan because he does eat animal products, but if there's a concensus in the vegan community, I'd be open to changing my viewpoint about that.

And there's no such thing as a dietary vegan as I understand(or maybe misunderstand) veganism. I'd call that person a strict vegetarian.

Maybe my thinking is too rigid. I'll admit that most of what I know about veganism(and vegans) comes from watching youtube videos--perhaps not the best way to learn about it (or anything else LOL).


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Yes, if you want to follow the definition of being vegan, that yes, you are correct. And if you don't follow that definition, you aren't truly a vegan. I'll usually correct people when they call me a vegetarian, though most still consider me a vegetarian and it does seem that there are various types of vegetarians and pescatarian is one of them. And I'll sometimes say I'm a vegetarian just to keep it simple as a lot of people do not know what a pescatarian is.


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

I just tell people that I only eat plants. It keeps it simple.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I was considering wearing this fascinator for the royal wedding but Camilla won the day! The hummus dip screams good taste!


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## Guest (May 25, 2018)

Based on the look on Charles' face and the style of the hat I'm guessing it's French Onion & Sour Cream dip.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forster said:


> Based on the look on Charles' face and the style of the hat I'm guessing it's French Onion & Sour Cream dip.


I stand corrected... Charles would smirk, pounce and ravage that dip if it were hummus


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why shoppers are losing their taste for Big Food*



> Big Food appears to be in permanent decline.
> 
> The household-name companies that have stocked North America's pantries for a century - firms like Kellogg Co., Kraft Heinz Co., General Mills Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. - are coping badly with seismic changes in the retail food industry.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.thestar.com/business/op...pers-are-losing-their-taste-for-big-food.html


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## Guest (May 25, 2018)

cyclelicious said:


> I stand corrected... Charles would smirk, pounce and ravage that dip if it were hummus


If memory serves, I seem to remember he like to dip his carrot in someone hummus from another bowl.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

What the Hell Is the Difference Between a Sweet Potato and Yam, Anyway?









Colorful, oddly-shaped, bright or white flesh, these starches taste heavenly no matter how you prepare them. I'm talking about sweet potatoes. Oh, wait, are those yams? Which is which, anyway? And, nutritionally speaking, does it matter?

Sweet potatoes and yams may be two of America's most misunderstood vegetables. As it turns out, they're pretty easy to tell apart from the outside. But are they the same inside?

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SWEET POTATOES AND YAMS?

If you walk into the fresh-vegetable section of your local grocery store and see piles of pointy, potato-like things in various colors and wonder what exactly they are, you are not alone. What one store might call a sweet potato another might declare a yam, and vice versa. Do only sweet potatoes have bright red skins? If it has purple flesh, is it a yam? And is a sweet potato really a potato? It's all very confusing-unnecessarily so, as it turns out.

In the U.S., 99 percent of the "sweet potatoes" and "yams" you see in the produce section are really all just different kinds of sweet potatoes. (FYI, neither sweet potatoes nor yams come from the potato family. Sweet potatoes are related to morning glories, and yams to lilies. Who knew?)

Sweet potatoes are usually tapered, often on both ends. They come in a variety of colors and textures, with skin ranging from light yellow to golden-orange, or even red, and flesh that ranges from white, yellow, and orange, to red and even purple. Sweet potatoes are the ones we are most likely to use in recipes.

If it looks more like a regular potato, it's probably a yam. Instead of being tapered, yams tend to be more rounded. Their skins are usually darker and look more like bark. Their flesh tends to be either white or white with purple, and they can grow to be much larger than sweet potatoes.

But don't worry too much about telling them apart, because yams are actually kind of hard to find in the U.S. If you really want one, try international or specialty markets.

CAN I SUBSTITUTE YAMS WITH SWEET POTATOES?
These two root vegetables might look a little different, but does it matter which one you eat? Right off the top, one important difference is that you can eat sweet potatoes raw (if you really want to). Raw yams, on the other hand, are toxic (but perfectly fine when cooked).

In terms of nutrition, these two sources of complex carbohydrates are fairly similar. Both are good sources of fiber and are relatively low on the GI scale (54 for yams and 71 for sweet potatoes), and both provide significant amounts of vitamin C, vitamin B-1, copper, and manganese.[2]

But the bright-orange flesh found in many sweet potatoes contains a lot more beta-carotene (vitamin A) than yams. In fact, a 100-gram serving (about a half-cup) provides 283 percent of your daily vitamin-A needs. The whiter flesh of yams, on the other hand, provides a meager 5 percent.

NUTRIENT	SWEET POTATO (100 G)	
Vitamin A	283%	
Vitamin c	4%	
Carbohydrates	20 g	
Fiber	3 g	
Glycemic index	71

YAM (100 G)
Vitamin A 2%
Vitamin c 28%
Carbohydrates	28 g
Fiber 4 g
Glycemic index	54


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## Guest (May 26, 2018)

If you haven't seen "In defense of food" on Netflix, it's definitely a must see.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Forster said:


> If you haven't seen "In defense of food" on Netflix, it's definitely a must see.


Thanks for the suggestion ... will do


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Michael Pollan has long interested me.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I enjoyed delicious Japanese vegan curry and a birthday strawberry shortcake vegan donut... great day!


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1201913


Try the new non-GMO gluten free water!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What Differentiates The Plant Based Diet From The Vegan Diet*



> Vegan, veggie, reducetarian, or plant-based eating regimens are some of the various ways of life people turn to when in need of a healthy diet. Most people get all of them mixed up which is why we decided to make everything clear and explain what each of them is consisted of.
> 
> But all of them have a certain catch. For instance, vegans never consume eggs and dairy products (milk, butter, yogurt and other) while on the other hand, vegetarians do. However, is eating potato chips healthier than consuming a cheese filled salad?
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.cleanfoodhouse.com/what-differentiates-the-plant-based-diet-from-the-vegan-diet/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

14 Plant-Based Foods That Contain Even More Iron than Meat

Spinach

The dark leafy greens are incredibly high in iron. Just three cups of it are filled with 18 mg of iron.

Broccoli

Broccoli is an extraordinary source of iron and other essential nutrients, such as vitamin K and magnesium, which we simply cannot do without. It is also abundant in vitamin C and optimizes the body's iron absorption capacity.

Lentils

A single cup of lentils will provide your organism with higher amounts of iron than an 8 oz steak! Lentils are packed with potassium, protein, and dietary fiber.

Kale

This vegetable combat exhaustion and anemia efficiently on account of its rich content of iron. 3.6 mg of iron is contained in 3 cups of kale.

Bok choy

This Chinese cabbage will supply you with the recommended dose of vitamin A and one cup of it will provide you with 1.8 mg of iron.

Baked Potato

One baked potato provides three times the iron in comparison of a 3 oz chicken serving.

Sesame Seeds

One tablespoon.of sesame seeds incorporates 1.3 mg of iron.

Cashews

All types of nuts are packed protein and are abundant in iron. ¼ cup of cashews supplies you with 2 gr of iron.

Soybeans

One cup of soybeans is filled with 8 mg of iron, which means that soybeans are an incredible protein source.

Chickpeas

One cup of chickpeas incorporates 4.7 mg of iron, which is over one half of the daily suggested dose for an adult man.

Dark Chocolate

It improves the quality of your teeth and skin. Dark chocolate is full of iron and can treat anxiety. One oz of it incorporates 2 mg of iron that is actually more than 1 oz of beef.

Swiss Chard

1 cup of swiss chardincorporates4 mg of iron that is more in comparison to a 6 oz of hamburger. Swiss chard is packed with folate, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins C, A, and K.

Tofu

One half a cup of tofu will provide your body with 3 mg of iron.

Kidney Bean

One cup of kidney beans incorporates3 mg of iron. Kidney beans are also used to treat anemia.

sauce https://www.cleanfoodhouse.com/14-plant-based-foods-that-contain-even-more-iron-than-meat/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why drinking diet pop isn't the best way to manage weight*



> Few words carry as much weight as the word "diet." But, when it comes to drinks, cutting calories with diet soda may not cut the pounds you think it does. Dr. Donald Hensrud, who heads up the Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program and is the author of the Mayo Clinic Diet Book, says drinking diet soda is not as effective at helping people manage their weight as many people think.
> 
> "A diet soda doesn't contain any calories," Dr. Hensrud says. "And, compared to a regular soda that has about 150 calories, people are consuming less calories. However, studies have shown that people who consume large amounts of diet soda tend to weight a little bit more."
> 
> ...


https://www.thestar.com/life/health...-soda-isnt-the-best-way-to-manage-weight.html


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## Guest (Jun 14, 2018)

I take all diet advice with a grain of salt (sea salt typically), but I think the PBS special "In defense of food" currently on Netflix comes pretty close to capturing the best practices. The underlying message "eat food, mostly plants, not too much" would seem to address most food related issues. If buy stuff your grandparents would recognize as food, you're probably going to eat healthier than if you buy stuff that's processes and packaged. Specifically related to "Diet Soda" I don't understand how drinking artificial sweetener makes you any healthier and I think it tends to affect how we taste other food. No Bueno.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Why plant protein is better for you than animal protein











> It'd be great if a burger-a-day diet was healthy. Don't get me wrong-it's not the worst. You've got protein in there and hopefully some veggies on top (and on the side) , and even some fiber from the roll (you used whole grain, right?).
> 
> Unfortunately, study after study shows that meat as a protein source just isn't that healthy. It's far better to get that necessary protein from plants. And yes, that association is a correlation, not a causation. There are some legitimate reasons that plant-based protein sources like beans are a healthier alternative to bacon. The researchers aren't saying you can't or shouldn't indulge in a thick Delmonico or a flame-grilled cheeseburger. Rather that you should enjoy them in moderation. Generally, research shows that less animal meat is better than more, in terms of long term health. You don't have to love tofu, either (it's not the best plant-based protein anyway), as long as you strive to eat more of your protein from the ground and less from animals.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.popsci.com/plant-protein-healthier#page-3


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Good information Judy!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^tx c2c 

I'm curious to watch this doc.



> Review: 'Eating Animals' Skewers Factory Farming
> 
> For the last 36 hours, since seeing "Eating Animals," I have had trouble consuming meat. O.K., I had some lox, but probably only because the movie doesn't deal with ocean fish.
> 
> ...


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/movies/eating-animals-review.html


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## glovemtb (Mar 12, 2006)

*Can't Watch It Too Cruel*



cyclelicious said:


> ^tx c2c
> 
> I'm curious to watch this doc.
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/movies/eating-animals-review.html


Hard to not be sickened by this, (glad it's out there for sure) but the suffering.....
This is from a former pro MMA fighter and trainer, weight/crossfit trainer and Vegan.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Veganism: Why is it on the up?*

Across Britain, people are spending more money on vegan products, and plant-based diets are trending online.

With major supermarkets catching on and stocking up on vegan-friendly food - BBC News asks what's behind the rise?

The number of vegans is on the up
A vegan diet involves cutting out animal products like meat, fish, dairy and eggs.

According to the latest research by the Vegan Society, conducted in 2016, there are estimated to be around 540,000 vegans in Great Britain.









It's estimated that this is up from 150,000 in 2006, and that there are twice as many women than men who are vegan.

Around 360,000 people also describe themselves as lifestyle vegans, who commit to only using or buying cosmetics and clothes free from animal products, for example.

Supermarkets are staying on-trend
Supermarket chains in the UK are stocking more vegan options to keep up with consumers' food choices.

Waitrose recently launched a dedicated vegan section in more than 130 shops, while Iceland reported that sales of its plant-based food have risen by 10% over the last year.

The UK market for meat-free foods was reportedly worth £572m in 2017, according to market researchers Mintel, up from £539m only two years earlier.









Interest in vegetarian and vegan products shows no sign of slowing down, as retail sales are expected to increase to £658m by 2021.

Do influencers influence what we eat?
Social media has had a big part to play in the rise of the plant-based lifestyle.

Celebrities like Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus and Ellen DeGeneres are some of the well-known figures who don't eat animal products, while #vegan has more than 61 million posts listed on Instagram.

Veganism is a hot topic - the number of Google searches worldwide has also spiked in recent years.

The search engine uses a number out of 100 to represent interest in a search term. In 2008, the word "veganism" had a popularity score of only 17 but it has increased to 88 only 10 years later.









The top five most-searched questions on the topic in the UK ask what veganism is and what the arguments are for and against cutting out animal products.

Giles Quick, director at market researcher Kantar Worldpanel, said: "The vegan market has changed fundamentally in the last six or seven years - it's now for everyone.

"Social media has brought it to the forefront of customer's minds, and the mainstream. It's not seen any more as a choice for life, but as a choice for one meal, one moment, for one or two days a week."

Flexitarianism, part-time vegetarianism or veganism, is becoming more and more popular. This January, more than 168,000 people pledged to go vegan for the first month of the year, under the Veganuary campaign.

Why are more people going vegan?
According to analysts, young women are driving the growth of the vegan movement.

But, a range of reasons lie behind veganism's rise.









A total of 49% of those interested in cutting down on their meat consumption said they would do so for health reasons, according to a survey of more than 1,000 adults in Great Britain by Mintel.

Weight management, animal welfare and environmental concerns were also big motivators.

With interest increasing all the time in healthy eating, part-time veganism might well become a full-time fixture in many people's lives.

sauce https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44488051


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Records are meant to be broken 









Vegan Runner Breaks Guinness Record in Cow Costume

Plant-based athlete Fiona Oaks battled Norway's freezing rain and 20-mile-per-hour winds to gain the Guiness Book of World Record title of the fastest woman to complete a half-marathon wearing a costume.

The Guiness Book of World Records recently crowned vegan runner Fiona Oakes as the fastest woman to complete a half marathon wearing a costume. Outfitted in a cow costume, Oakes ran the Tromso Half Marathon in Norway, which started at 10:30pm, in unforgiving conditions such as rain and more than 20-mile-per-hour winds. "I have trained massive mileage and hardly any speed but I wanted to do something for the animals and to promote veganism," Oakes told media outlet Great Vegan Athletes. Oakes was training for a series of "ultra stage" runs-an ultramarathon that spans 250 km (approximately 155 miles)-in four deserts around the world before deciding to complete the Tomoso half-marathon for the record. "The cow suit acted like a kite at some points and I feared being whisked off into the Arctic Ocean and ending up as Polar Bear breakfast!" Fiona said. "Holding my ears and horns on was another challenge as was the weight of a wet, soggy, freezing cold cow suit clinging to you." Oakes finished the race in one hour and 32 minutes, 14 minutes faster than the old world-record time. "The suit did hamper me considerably and was very uncomfortable but not nearly as bad as [it is for] so many animals-human and non-human-[who] suffer every single minute of every single day of their horrendous existences," Oakes said. The runner holds multiple world records and recently purchased new land to expand her farmed animal sanctuary Tower Hill Stables in the United Kingdom which she may attend to in lieu of completing the ultra stage Gobi Desert run next month.

Moo! awesome

Vegan Runner Breaks Guinness Record in Cow Costume


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Mr. Rogers wasn't just a friendly neighbor to humans - he often spoke up for animals and was a long-time vegetarian









Everyone's friendliest neighbor-the late Fred Rogers-is a cultural icon of kindness, and now we can learn all about his legacy of compassion toward humans and animals in the new documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The Most Nutritious Fruits And Vegetables



> Losing fat and gaining muscle often means that the food you eat is based upon what macronutrient ratio is best for your goal. Because we're so focused on how much carbs, fat, and protein we're getting in each meal, we often forget that micronutrients are also an essential part of a healthy body and a great physique.
> 
> Micronutrients are essential vitamins and minerals that your body doesn't make; they need to come from your diet. Although your body doesn't need much of them, they are necessary for your body's systems to function optimally. It's very possible to become deficient in certain micronutrients, which can cause all kinds of health issues. For example, too little potassium can cause muscle cramping, weakness, and even heart arrhythmias.
> 
> ...











Fruit

*Mango *can be slightly harder to find and even more challenging to eat than some fruits, but it's a great addition to your nutrition plan. One mango provides 5 grams of fiber, as well as potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, and huge doses of vitamins A and C.

It's slightly more caloric than most fruits, so be aware of how much you're eating.

Serving size: 1 mango
Calories 201
Fat 0.8 g
Carbs 32.3 g
Protein 1.7 g









*Pomegranate* has received some special attention in the last few years-and for good reason! Pomegranate has a unique, delicious flavor and is chock-full of nutrients. One half cup of pomegranate seeds provides lots of potassium, magnesium, fiber, and vitamins B-1, B-2, B-6, C, E, and K.

Pomegranates are a little bit difficult to eat, but they're well worth the effort. The taste and nutritional benefits outweigh a little effort on your part!

Serving size: 1/2 cup pomegranate seeds
Calories 72
Fat 1 g
Carbs 16 g
Protein 1.4 g









*Guava *might sound like a fruit you should only enjoy while you're lounging on a beach, but it's actually a great addition to your everyday diet. Guava is high in fiber, niacin, and vitamins A, B-3, B-6, C, and K. Guava is also rich in lycopene, a powerful antioxidant.

Guava is generally a summer fruit, so get some while you can!

Serving size: 1 guava
Calories 112
Fat 1.6 g
Carbs 23.6 g
Protein 4.2 g









Blueberries get tons of love in fitness, and deservedly so, but *raspberries *are a great year-round option. They're delicious, for one, but they are also high in vitamins C and K, and have a healthy amount of folate. One cup of raspberries also provides 8 grams of dietary fiber.

Freeze them and add them to your protein shakes, or just enjoy a handful on top of your Greek yogurt (not vegan).

Serving size: 1 cup raspberries
Calories 64
Fat 0.8 g
Carbs 14.7 g
Protein 1.5 g









*Oranges* are pretty easy to get your hands on year round. They may be common, but their ubiquity doesn't make them any less healthy. Oranges are excellent sources of vitamins A and C, beta-carotene, and minerals such as potassium and calcium. They're also high in soluble and insoluble fiber.

One of the best things about oranges is that they keep well for a long time. Get some the next time you're at the store and enjoy!

Serving size: 1 medium orange
Calories 62
Fat 0.2 g
Carbs 15.4 g
Protein 1.2 g









Although we usually think of *avocado *as a fat source, it's actually a fruit, and a really healthy fruit at that! One cup of sliced avocado contains 10 grams of dietary fiber, 42 percent of your daily value of vitamin B-5, and 35 percent of your daily value of vitamin K. Avocado also provides big doses of vitamin C and potassium.

If you're not already eating avocado regularly for healthy fat, now is the time to start! It's one of those foods everyone should enjoy. They're great in a shake as well as atop a salad.

Serving size: 1 cup sliced avocado
Calories 234
Fat 21.4 g
Carbs 12.5 g
Protein 2.9 g









veggies

*Kale* might be trendy, but it's trendy because it's so damn healthy. It's rich in vitamins A and C. It also has tons of vitamin K, a fat-soluble vitamin that allows proteins to bond to calcium ions. Kale is also a great source of manganese, copper, fiber, calcium, potassium, and vitamin B-6, and even contains some omega-3 fatty acid.

For maximum nutritional benefit, steam kale for about 5 minutes before eating it.

Serving size: 1 cup chopped kale
Calories 33
Fat 0.6 g
Carbs 6 g
Protein 2.9 g









Love 'em or hate 'em, *Brussels sprouts *have found a home in the fitness community. This cruciferous vegetable is rich in sulfur-containing nutrients that enhance our body's detox systems, and offers plenty of fiber to aid digestion. Brussels sprouts are also rich in vitamins K, C, and B-6, and minerals like manganese, folate, and copper. Brussels sprouts also contain omega-3 fatty acids.

Do yourself a favor and eat these little guys at least once per week!

Serving size: 1 cup Brussels sprouts
Calories 38
Fat 0.3 g
Carbs 8 g
Protein 3 g









Ah, *broccoli*-of course we had to include this popular veggie on our list. Broccoli is a bodybuilding staple because it is one of the most nutritious vegetables on the planet. In just one cup of chopped broccoli, you'll get more vitamin K and C than you need in a day and lots of other awesome minerals like potassium, calcium, and selenium. Broccoli is also full of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits.

Broccoli is low in calories, which makes it a good addition to your diet if you're trying to cut fat, lower your carbohydrate intake, or both. Even if it's not on your favorite vegetable list, we think it's a great idea to find some way to cook broccoli so you like it. It's just a great, healthy vegetable that belongs in your nutrition program, no matter your fitness goal.

Serving size: 1 cup chopped broccoli
Calories 31
Fat 0.3 g
Carbs 6 g
Protein 2.6 g









Because *artichokes* are a little weird, people forget they're a legitimate vegetable, not just a pizza topping! Artichoke is high in dietary fiber, folic acid, and vitamin C. It's also one of the best vegetable sources of vitamin K. Aside from vitamins, artichoke is also rich in minerals like copper, calcium, potassium, and iron.

One of the best and easiest ways to prepare an artichoke is to steam it with some garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Yum!

Serving size: 1 medium cooked artichoke
Calories 60
Fat 0.2 g
Carbs 13 g
Protein 4.2 g









*Bell peppers *of all colors are an amazing addition to your diet. They have a huge amount of vitamin C, and are also great sources of vitamin B-6, vitamin A, folate, and fiber. Although bell peppers are very low in fat, the little they do have ensures that you'll get some fat-soluble nutrients like vitamins A and E.

Bell peppers are delicious in salads, grilled, or just sliced and enjoyed as a snack. If you like them, eat up!

Serving size: 1 large yellow pepper
Calories 50
Fat 0.4 g
Carbs 12 g
Protein 2 g









Popeye was no dummy. *Spinach* belongs in your muscle-building nutrition plan. You can eat it raw, or, you can increase the fiber content by boiling it. Spinach's dark color means it's full of phytochemicals that have anti-inflammatory properties. Spinach is also a great source of vitamins A, K, and E as well as calcium.

Serving size: 1 cup boiled spinach
Calories 41
Fat 0.5 g
Carbs 7 g
Protein 5 g









https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/the-most-nutritious-fruits-and-vegetables.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Red Meat Allergies Caused By Tick Bites Are On The Rise











> Tick bites can cause all sorts of nasty afflictions. And if you're bitten by a Lone Star tick, here's one more to add to the list: a red meat allergy.
> 
> Laura Stirling, 51, a Realtor who lives in Severna Park, Md., was diagnosed with the allergy last year. She got a tick bite while walking on a trail with her dog, Gunner, near her home.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...llergies-caused-by-tick-bites-are-on-the-rise


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Beans beans good for your heart. The more you eat,... the less cholesterol, lower the blood pressure...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Mangoes into a bar...


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## Guest (Jun 29, 2018)

Club Citrus with no citrus? I think there's some fruit gentrification going on in that neighborhood.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Had lunch in Kensington Market today ... vegan Curry Japanese.









We had Canada Day vegan donuts and Americanos. Hot and spicy foods on a hot and steamy day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Progress! Canada's New Draft Food Guide Favors Plant-Based Protein And Eliminates Dairy As A Food Group

Last fall, when the Canadian government began consulting the public on its plan to revise national food guidelines, I wrote that the existing food guide had lost all usefulness and credibility because lobbyists and economic concerns, rather than science, had been the driving force behind their structure and content.

I wrote that we don't need food categories (other countries have done away with them) but if we retain them we absolutely don't need a milk category, and the "meat and alternatives" category should instead be "protein" that gives due prominence, given their health advantages, to legumes.

Frankly, this was pie-in-the-sky. Despite these suggestions being based on sound nutrition science, I wasn't optimistic that government would escape the long reach of the animal foods industries that have been effective in maintaining undue prominence in dietary guidelines since the 1940s.

Happily, I was very wrong.

The Canadian government has issued new draft healthy eating recommendations, which would overhaul the antiquated system of food categories-focusing instead on eating patterns-and emphasize the importance of including a "high proportion of plant-based foods." The milk category is indeed gone in the draft recommendations, and the powerhouse legume has been elevated above animal foods.

The draft food guide's first, foundational recommendation establishes the importance of whole foods and specifies that plant-based foods (such as legumes) are a preferred source of protein. The recommendation is for "regular intake of vegetables, fruit, whole grains and protein-rich foods, especially plant-based sources of protein."

The draft guidelines also encourage a shift away from animal foods by advising that people eat foods with unsaturated fat instead of saturated fat (saturated fat is found almost exclusively in animal foods). The recommendation is for the "inclusion of foods that contain mostly unsaturated fat, instead of foods that contain mostly saturated fat."

There's no more dairy food group, a win not only for public health but also cultural inclusivity, given that up to 90 percent of some non-European ethnicities are lactose intolerant. It's also a huge win for the cows who really don't want us to kill their babies so we can steal their milk. Instead, the guidelines will sensibly advise people to drink water.

The draft guidelines acknowledge that our food system is inextricably linked to our environment, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, soil degradation, decreases in water quality and availability, and wildlife loss. The draft food guide states that "diets higher in plant-based foods and lower in animal-based foods are associated with a lesser environmental impact." Expanding our conception of health to include environmental considerations makes sense because our short- and long-term mental and physical health are directly related to the health-or not-of our environment.

The guidelines are based on a comprehensive review of health evidence, considering both quality and source of the information, as well as actual information about Canadians' eating habits. Industry-commissioned reports were excluded from consideration.

Still, the draft guidelines are not without concerns. Industry and economic influences linger. For example, in the first guiding principle-after acknowledging up-front the healthfulness of plant-based foods-an unnecessary non-sequitur sentence talks about the nutritive value of animal foods. And it is recommended that people "limit"-rather than "avoid"-saturated fat, even though this unhealthy form of primarily animal fat is linked to a variety of preventable lifestyle diseases.

Nevertheless, these draft guidelines are a dramatic improvement, putting Canada alongside Brazil as a world leader in taking back our eating recommendations from industry and promoting evidence-based eating patterns to benefit our health and planet.

This food guide hasn't been finalized yet, so now is a critical time to participate by saying what you like (and don't like) about the draft. Industry is already organizing and lobbying, trying to unfairly retain its foothold at the expense of our health. We need our voices to be equally loud.

Sauce https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...-will-favor-plant_us_5966eb4ce4b07b5e1d96ed5e


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Keeping your gut happy and healthy on a vegan diet*











> Felt a little out of sorts recently? Is a lack of energy making you feel sluggish or lethargic? Perhaps you're never hungry, or rather the opposite? Turns out, we all need to follow our gut feeling - quite literally. Your digestive tract, believe it or not, is by far one of the most important systems of the body to keep in check. But yet, 40% of us still report experiencing one or more digestive complaints, with more and more of us turning to all sorts of constipation-concoctions, belly-blasters and detox aids that promise to renew your body and help to kick-start your system. Well, what if I told you there was a simpler way to keep your gut happy?
> 
> *Get To Know Your Gut*
> 
> ...


sauce Keeping your gut happy and healthy on a vegan diet | Vegan Food & Living


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I love boneless watermelon !


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> I love boneless watermelon !
> 
> View attachment 1206924


Boneless is over priced.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Can eating spinach help to reduce muscle soreness after exercise?






https://nutritionfacts.org/video/foods-to-improve-athletic-performance-and-recovery/


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## Guest (Jul 11, 2018)

We knew that in 1909.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

1. Quinoa. Not only it improves blood sugar control, but it's also high in protein and fiber.
-
2. Oats. Oats have been shown to lower blood sugar levels and choloesterol levels
-
3. Buckwheat. They contain lots of antioxidants and minerals. Eating buckwheat may have benefits for heart health
-
4. Bananas. They're high in potassium, which helps regulate blood pressure.
-
5. Sweet potatoes. They're great source of vitamin A, as well as other vitamins and antioxidants.
-
6. Beetroots. Beets are loaded with vetamins minerals and plant compounds.
-
7. Oranges. They're full of vitamin C and they can even help prevent anemia.
-
8. Blueberries. Besides its vitamins and antioxidants, it protect the body from oxidative damage.
-
9. Grapefruit. A study from NCBI found that grapefruit can aid weight loss and reduce insulin resistance.
-
10. Apples. Apple improves blood sugar control, as well as reduce the risk of heart disease and some cancers
-
11. Kidney beans. Cooked kidney beans are a great source of protein
-
12. Chickpeas. Also known as garbanzo beans, contain many vitamins and minerals, including iron, phosphorus and B-vitaminns


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2018)

We don't do a lot of carbs but when we do, we try to make them count. Quinoa has all but replaced rice in out diets. Buckwheat pancakes (with flax, chia and Oats) topped 100% maple syrup is our weekend go to for breakfast. I figure you're gonna eat some sugars and carbs (unless you go Keto for a short while or with a doctor's oversight) so they may as well count in the nutrition/texture/flavor categories.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *Vegans report less stress and anxiety than omnivores.*
> Beezhold B, Radnitz C, Rinne A, DiMatteo J.
> Abstract
> OBJECTIVE:
> ...


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25415255


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Top 5 Benefits Of Vitamin D

You probably know it as the "sunshine vitamin," or the vitamin that helps maintain strong bones, but there's a lot more to Vitamin D than meets the eye. It serves a variety of functions in the body, including maintaining optimal bone and muscle health, as well as having favorable effects on inflammation.1 Unfortunately, most of us don't get enough vitamin D on a daily basis, with a reported one billion people worldwide having a deficiency.2

While your training regimen and supplement stack may be on point, missing out on this oh-so-important nutrient can wreak havoc on overall health, as well as reduce performance in the gym. So it's about time we give this nutrient the attention it deserves. Pour yourself a glass of milk (fortified with vitamin D of course) and read up on the latest findings on how vitamin D can optimize your health.

BENEFIT 1: STRONGER BONES
When you think of strong bones, calcium often comes to mind. Calcium is the major player when it comes to bone health and increasing bone mineral density, but don't overlook the importance of vitamin D.

Previous research has shown that vitamin D is a strong stimulator of calcium deposition in bones, making them stronger and healthier.2 If you're not getting enough vitamin D, your body begins to slow or stop depositing calcium into bones, eventually drawing calcium out from your bones back into the bloodstream. Over time, this constant cycle of deposit and withdrawal will make your bones weak and at high risk for fractures.3

BENEFIT 2: IMPROVED MUSCLE FUNCTION
Short-changing yourself when it comes to vitamin D supplementation could be interfering with your strength gains. Research published in the Iranian Journal of Public Health in 2010 reported that over 70 percent of men ages 20-29 had some level of vitamin D deficiency.4

Additionally, vitamin D deficiency is relatively common in athletes and is associated with muscle weakness and atrophy, specifically Type 2 muscle fiber atrophy. Skipping out on this vitamin is just as bad as skipping out on leg day.

BENEFIT 3: PROTECTION FROM CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE
The classic function of vitamin D is to increase absorption of calcium to maintain proper bone health, but did you know it has a protective effect on your heart? Recent evidence has demonstrated that individuals deficient in vitamin D are at an increased risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, sudden cardiac death, or heart failure.5-7

Although the exact mechanisms are unclear at this time, it appears that vitamin D can help lower blood pressure, improve vascular compliance (how elastic your arteries are), and improve glycemic control. Save your heart by supplementing with the D!

BENEFIT 4: DECREASED RISK OF TYPE 2 DIABETES
Type 2 diabetes can lead to some devastating long-term complications, including nerve damage, heart disease, eye damage and vision loss, and kidney failure. Recent evidence suggests that vitamin D may play a significant role in reducing the risk for type 2 diabetes-especially in those who are at an increased risk for this deadly disease.

Several observational studies have shown improvements in beta cell function, insulin sensitivity, and whole-body inflammation with higher levels of vitamin D. A recent study calculated the risk of developing type 2 diabetes according to baseline vitamin D status and found those with the highest baseline levels had a 38 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those with the lowest vitamin D levels.

BENEFIT 5: REDUCED RISK OF CANCER
Is there anything this vitamin can't do? Research suggests that sufficient vitamin D levels in adulthood may significantly reduce the risk for many types of cancer, including colon, breast, ovarian, and prostate.

Vitamin D is one of the most potent inhibitors of cancer-cell growth, and reduces the risk of cancer by increasing calcium absorption and cell differentiation, while reducing metastasis (the spread of cancer from one organ to another).9

Have I convinced you yet to start supplementing with vitamin D?

BEWARE OF D-FICIENCY
How much of this overlooked vitamin should you be getting a day? Currently, the Institute of Medicine Food and Nutrition Board is the governing body that sets guidelines for intakes of all kinds of nutrients, including vitamin and minerals. The recommended daily allowance (or RDA) for vitamin D is currently 600 IU per day for men and women between the ages of 9 and 70.10

However, it is likely that this value is an underestimation. The currently established upper intake level is 4,000 IU per day, but research has reported no adverse health effects to taking 6,000 IU per day for up to 12 weeks.11

Keep in mind that the RDA value is primarily based off of outcomes centered around bone health, without taking all of the other beneficial things that vitamin D does into account. The take-home point is that you should be much more worried about getting too little vitamin D than too much.

BEST SOURCES OF VITAMIN D
How can you make sure you're getting enough of this incredible nutrient? Here are three easy ways to get vitamin D, none of which will break the bank.

THE SUN
One of the easiest, and not to mention free, ways to be on your way to your daily dose of Vitamin D is to just get out in the sun! When your skin is exposed to UVB radiation from sunlight, previtamin D is formed before being shuttled into the bloodstream. From there, it is quickly moved to the liver and converted to vitamin D.

Production in the skin is maximized in roughly 10-15 minutes, depending mainly on skin pigment (darker skin colors may require a little more time out in the sun).13 Anything longer than that will just result in the formation of byproducts, such as tachysterol and lumisterol, possibly as a way to prevent toxicity.

YOUR DIET
Another way to make sure you hit your daily allotment is through your diet. While vitamin D is not naturally plentiful in many foods, oily fish like salmon and trout, as well as dairy, eggs, plants, and fungi all contain varying amounts. In an effort to combat high incidences of vitamin deficiencies, many foods are now fortified with vitamin D as well, such as breads, cereals, and milk.









SUPPLEMENTATION
If you find yourself short on time or just don't want to have to think about it too much, a great way to get your vitamin D for the day (and lots of other vitamins too) is through a multivitamin. Most multivitamin supplements include at least the RDA value of 600 IU, with many containing between 1,000 and 2,000 IU.

Supplementation becomes extremely important during the winter months, when you're more likely to have limited exposure to sunlight. Try to take in at least 600 IU per day to get your daily allowance, but since this may be an underestimation, don't be afraid to go a little bit higher.

While we may not know the exact amount needed, there's no questioning the importance of vitamin D. Make it a staple in your diet, and take your health and performance to the next level.

sauce: https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/top-5-benefits-of-vitamin-d.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I tango for mango


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Friday funnies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

9 NEW MEDICAL REASONS TO NEVER EAT MEAT

While there are no new medical articles demonstrating the health benefits of adding bacon and burgers to your diet, there are many studies that reinforce that idea that eating nothing but fruit, vegetables, grains, and legumes is optimal for your health. In fact, new data consistently reminds us of the benefits of a vegan diet, which makes it fairly safe to conclude that avoiding meat is one of the most important health decisions a person can make. Although most of these studies are observational-meaning they could not feasibly randomize people to eat or skip meat and follow them for decades-together they illustrate that whether meat comes from cows raised on grass or corn, and whether you know the farmer or not, meat is an inflammatory food with an inherent chemical structure that promotes cancer growth. Unlike the new data showing that the more servings of fruit and vegetables you eat, the more likely you will avoid chronic diseases and delay death, eating meat has the opposite result, leading to disease and early death. If you were ever wavering about your commitment to make it a bean burger rather than a beef burger, reviewing these nine new medical observations should keep you on track for a long and healthy life.

1. Type 2 diabetes
In a long-term study from Finland that followed more than 2,000 men over the course of 19 years, replacing even one percent of calories from animal proteins with plant proteins lowered the risk of developing diabetes by 18 percent.

2. Liver disease
A growing health concern is called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). In an analysis of more than 3,000 subjects in the Netherlands, increased dietary proteins from animal sources (meat) were associated with a greater risk (reaching 50 percent higher) of developing NAFLD.

3. Asthma
A study that focused on the relationship between processed red meat consumption and asthma symptoms found that eating cured red meat more than four times a week increased the odds of having worsened asthma by 76 percent.

4. Colon cancer
The health community was stunned (although some of us weren't) when, in October 2015, the World Health Organization announced its results of a comprehensive analysis demonstrating that processed red meats such as bacon and hot dogs cause colorectal cancer. In a more recent analysis, 400 studies were examined and found that the risk of colorectal cancer increased by 12 percent for each 100 grams of red and processed meats eaten daily. The study also found that whole grains and vegetables decreased the risk.

5. Depression
In an analysis of 21 studies examining diet and depression, eating red and processed meats increased the risk of depression by more than 25 percent, while fruit and vegetables had the opposite effect by 20 percent.

6. Stomach cancer
Researchers combined 42 studies relating diet to stomach cancer and found that a higher intake of red meat increased the risk of stomach cancer by 70 percent, while processed red meat increased the risk by 80 percent compared to those who shunned meats.

7. Head and neck cancer
A Netherlands study of more than 120,000 subjects (who were followed for more than 20 years) says that the consumption of processed red meat is associated with developing cancers of the head and neck. The risk was increased as much as 50 percent compared to the low- or non-meat eaters studied.

8. Gestational diabetes
Developing diabetes during pregnancy (known as "gestational diabetes") can complicate pregnancies and have an impact on the health of the offspring. However, recent analysis suggests that high red-meat consumption increased the risk of gestational diabetes by more than 200 percent. Once again, processed red meat also increased the risk by approximately double compared to people who eat fewer amounts of meat.

9. Degenerative arthritis
For the first time, diets high in saturated fats like butter, egg yolks, meats, and even palm oil have been linked to increased risks of destruction of joint cartilage commonly known as degenerative joint disease or DJD. The inflammatory nature of meat was identified in the study. Saturated fatty acids in meat deposit on the cartilage in joints, weakening them and making them more prone to damage.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2017/4/9-new-medical-reasons-to-never-eat-meat


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Why E. coli keeps getting into our lettuce



> Consumers have grown to love convenience salads, from tubs of pre-washed baby spinach to bags of chopped romaine.
> 
> There's only one problem with these modern-day conveniences: They're regularly implicated in foodborne illness outbreaks.
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...lettuce/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.29e7cb8ccc07


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Another good reason to grow your own. There's something about organic vegetable gardening that just feels right. Wonderful therapy too.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The 5 Keys To A Rock-Solid Vegetarian Diet*









Tell someone that you're on or thinking about going on a vegetarian diet, and you may receive responses along the following lines:

"Humans have been eating meat for tens of thousands of years; We're designed to eat it" 
"How will you ever get all the nutrients you need?"
"I guess that means you can't lift weights anymore; you won't have enough strength." 
Contrary to popular belief, a vegetarian diet can help you improve your health, shed unwanted body fat, and build muscle. You just need to make sure you lay out a meat-free approach that helps you reach your goals instead of working against them. Here are some of the key building blocks of a solid vegetarian-diet foundation.

*1. Finding Your "Why"*
Whether for environmental, political, dietary, ethical, or personal reasons, be clear from the onset why you want to follow a vegetarian diet. This way of eating may require a little more thought, planning, time, and money than you're used to. Being clear on your reason can help you stay motivated when you're thinking it's about time for a bacon cheeseburger.

*2. Figuring Out Your Version Of Vegetarianism* 
Choosing to follow a vegetarian diet entails more than removing meat from your plate. What about milk? What about eggs? Will you still eat fish?

Vegetarianism is a catchall category that can be broken down into more specific diets:

Lacto-vegetarian: Includes all dairy products, but omit eggs
Ovo-vegetarian: Includes eggs, but omit dairy
Lacto-ovo: Includes both dairy and eggs
Pescatarian: Includes dairy, eggs, and fish
Veganism: Abstains from all animal meat and products, including eggs, dairy, and honey, as well as potentially abstaining from all products made from animals, such as gelatin
Keep in mind the local availability and price of the key foods in each diet, and understand how to combine them to meet your minimum daily nutritional requirements.

*3. Learning How To Combine Proteins*
To maintain your health, you need the nine essential amino acids (EAAs) not produced by your body. A protein that contains all nine EAAs is considered a complete protein; conversely, a protein source that is missing one or more of these EAAs is an incomplete protein.

Without these nine essential amino acids, your body can't take full advantage of the protein you consume. You can get all nine from animal-based protein sources and from a handful of plant-based sources, such as soy and quinoa. But most plant-based protein sources are incomplete, so you have to learn how to combine these sources to get all nine EAAs.

*4. Supplementing Your Diet Wisely*
As a rule, people following a vegetarian diet don't get all the iron, vitamin B-12, and zinc they would if they consumed animal proteins. Depending on whether you include dairy, you may also need additional calcium.

These essential nutrients play an integral role in growth and development, metabolism, neurological function, and energy production. Supplemental sources can help you meet your minimum daily nutritional needs. You may also want to add beta-alanine and creatine to your diet to get the most benefit from your exercise routine.

*5. Being Conscious Of Calories*
The foundation of a well-rounded vegetarian diet includes high-fiber, nutrient-dense foods. But some plant-based food sources, such as beans and meat substitutes, pack in a surprisingly large amount of carbs and extra calories. The challenge of some vegetarian diets is to get all the complete protein you need without overshooting the mark on daily calories.

But fear not: There are plenty of vegetarian food options that can get you the fiber and protein you need without all the extra calories-and that still give you the feeling of fullness that helps you stick with any diet.

And the next time someone at the gym asks you why you have so much energy, you can just give them a nod and a wink and tell them it's all about what you eat.

https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...lid-vegetarian-diet.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## BrianR60077 (Jul 25, 2018)

a friend of mine is trying to convince me to eat healthy, he will eat meat at times but perfers the vegan diet.... he is trying to tell me that i should be concerned about the amount of meat i eat.... I mainly eat meat, very seldom eat any form of veggies except for hot peppers and sweet corn. I would be perfectally happy just eating a steak or 2 for dinner and some hot peppers with maybe an ear of sweet corn. I ride my mountain bike for my job as an uber bike messenger and also just joined IMBA and Cambir in the chicago area and am planning on checking out some trails in the area as well. not sure if i could ever eat a primay diet of plant based foods, however he made something with black beans, corn and brown rice that was good. Also am one not to believe in having a regular physician or regular medical examinations.... if you feel ok why stir up trouble. however some of the vegan recipes do look interesting and may be worth an occasional try.


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

Welcome, Brian.

Probably the best suggestion to give you would be to have your blood tested during a physical. If that comes back with no issues, carry on! 

You don't mention your age, but when still in my 40s I was bullet proof and could wolf down steaks with poppers (jalapenos stuffed with cheese). Eventually it all caught up and damn near killed me. Now pushing 64 with a much more balanced diet, act like a kid on the bike for hours. It all comes down to choices, and some diet choices not only gunk up your engine, it makes your joints swell and hurt before you move. Where's the fun in that?

Ohhh, I'm not "vegan" as I still enjoy milk, eggs, fish and chicken...with veggies and fruits


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## BrianR60077 (Jul 25, 2018)

i am 45, have not been to a doctor for a physical in at least 15 years, my thought is if you feel ok there is no reason to go look for trouble. I am on the bike for at least anywhere from 5 miles to 30 miles a day 5 days a week since i do uber eats delivery by bike. thinking about trying his food occasionally but i love my 3/4 raw daily red meat like steak and burgers


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## kubikeman (Jun 4, 2010)

BrianR60077 said:


> i am 45, have not been to a doctor for a physical in at least 15 years, my thought is if you feel ok there is no reason to go look for trouble. I am on the bike for at least anywhere from 5 miles to 30 miles a day 5 days a week since i do uber eats delivery by bike. thinking about trying his food occasionally but i love my 3/4 raw daily red meat like steak and burgers


There is a little bit of a logical flaw in this line of thinking. Many conditions can be caught early with simple, routine checks, which prevent them from becoming a real problem. I'm 32 with a healthy weight and last year I was diagnosed with essential hypertension. Basically, high blood pressure with absolutely no known cause. It's just there. I felt fine for 30 years, but left untreated, I absolutely put myself at risk for stroke, heart problems, or kidney issues. One little pill a day, and I'm good.

As an anecdotal side note, I keep track of my BP at home and it tends to be a few points lower if I eat primarily veg. Not so much to go off medication, but it does have an affect.

Don't think of it as all or nothing. Start slow. Try for one meatless meal a day, or meatless Monday, or whatever works for you. A big source of 'failure' is when people assume it's all or nothing, and they drastically change their diet, feel crappy, fall back to their old way, and then feel guilty for failing.


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

kubikeman said:


> There is a little bit of a logical flaw in this line of thinking. Many conditions can be caught early with simple, routine checks, which prevent them from becoming a real problem


^ A thousand times this.


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## BrianR60077 (Jul 25, 2018)

typically i do not trust any medical doctor, i trust my mechanic that works on my car, harley and bike without a doubt but a doctor.... umm no. my friend is all about being health concious since he turned 31... i still believe i am totally bullet proof and nothing to worry about and being adopted have no clue to my actual parents health history but enjoy being outside doing the bike delivery for work, right now sitting by the lake on the beach waiting for the next delivery


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

Well, if a head in the sand approach works well for you, then that's all that matters I guess. However prostate cancer is just one example where your approach will go from curable to terminal because it wasn't caught early enough with a simple office visit and blood test.

To each their own.........


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## BrianR60077 (Jul 25, 2018)

prostate cancer doesnt happen until much later in life like most anything else


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

Wow.... just wow


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## BrianR60077 (Jul 25, 2018)

the biggest problem i have with doctors is you have to pay something generally in the form of a co pay to listen to them telling you dont drink 7 to 10 cups of coffee a day, dont drink a 6 pack or more a day of soda, sleep more than 4 to 5 hours a night, drink water, dont go out and drink every day, make sure you eat more fruits and vegetables, dont eat of red meat or fried food.... like there is any proof that they know what they are saying.


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

....... ah, my bad.

1) Registered today
2) 1st post is in a vegan/vegetarian health based thread and it's that you only eat meat
3) .... 

I could go on, but it's clear to me now that I fell for your trolling. Congrats! Job well done! You da man!


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## BrianR60077 (Jul 25, 2018)

i will sometimes eat his type of food, but i know someone who lived to be 80 eating only meat never ate any fruits or vegetables, never drank any water either coffee, coke, and alcohol and soda, smoked 2 cartons of cigarettes a week, no exercise and worked the highest stress job there is a police officer. he didnt die from health issues he died in a car crash. so these doctors tell you what they want and really cannot prove they know what they are talking about plus get kick backs from drug companies


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## BrianR60077 (Jul 25, 2018)

I do love the smoothies my friend makes, they are the best breakfast ever, usually he uses like 3 bananas, blue berries, strawberries, depending on the store sometimes we get raspberries and black berries too. I like fruit but typically stay away from vegetables in favor of red meat. but fruit smoothies are the bomb....


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day!


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Works that slow, huh?

If you're lucky, you'll make it to "much later in life" one of these days.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The fish knew this all along.

A cohort study conducted by researchers at nonprofit medical research organization Cochrane found that consuming fish oil supplements has no positive benefits on cardiovascular health.

Fish oil supplements for a healthy heart 'nonsense'



> Cochrane researchers looked at trials in over 100,000 people and found little proof that it prevented heart disease.
> 
> They say the chance of getting any meaningful benefit from taking omega-3 is one in 1,000.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.bbc.com/news/health-44845879


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## BrianR60077 (Jul 25, 2018)

i am still considering trying my friends vegan diet.... however i have never been concerned about physical health and figure there is nothing to worry about being only 45 and invincable and bullet proof. have not had a physical in 15 years and in no rush too either


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## JDTorr (Jul 26, 2018)

Here is my pre ride smoothie.

Oatmeal 1/4 cup
Walnuts 1/8 cup
Strawberries 1/4 cup or one large or two small
Frozen pineapple 1/4cup
Banana 1
Soy milk 1 cup
Pitted Dates 3 or 2 depending size

Blend 40 second in the bullet.

Enjoy










Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1210447


No almond butter?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Cleared2land said:


> No almond butter?


I checked: A serving of almond butter is equal to approximately 2 tablespoons. If you eat this amount of almond butter, you'll get approximately 7 grams of protein. It's slightly less than the 8 grams in a 2-tablespoon serving of peanut butter.


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Thanks for your efforts! 

For some unsubstantiated reason, I have thought almond butter would have been higher in protein than peanut butter. 

Personally, I like almond butter better. I will warm a jar of almond butter (short nuke) to soften, add sea salt, honey and some dried berries like cranberries, acai, or goji and enjoy.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## deerkiller (Aug 5, 2015)

I’d been feeling poorly, so I went to a natural physician a year ago on a recommendation. Turns out my liver wasn’t functioning due to heavy toxins from construction materials and parasites, probably from third world countries I’ve lived in. I just got done with nearly a year long liver cleanse, and feel great. Mostly beef bile salt cleanse. 

That said, I eat a heavy diet of meat. Mostly wild game I’ve killed and processed myself. I don’t think there is a healthier food you can put in you’re body than elk meat. Look up it’s nutrition facts, it astoundingly healthy. 

I think most of the problem with meat is in nitrates and fats. Fatty meats like bacon and burgers, and processed meats will put you in the grave. Lean meats are legit.

We’ve also started a small organic garden for our kids. Hopefully we can do more of that in the future. I’d love one day to get off of processed foods altogether.

I don’t think I could ever intentionally be vegan or vegetarian. Elk roast and sweet potatoes are all you need.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

14 Vegetarian Foods That Have More Iron Than Meat!

1. Spinach

Spinach is a dull verdant green which is stacked with press, and only 3 measures of it contain 18 mg of spinach.

2. Broccoli

Broccoli is another astounding wellspring of iron and in addition other fundamental supplements, for example, vitamin K, magnesium, vitamin C and invigorates the assimilation of iron.

3. Lentils

Only some lentils contains more iron than a 8-ounce steak, alongside protein, potassium and dietary fiber.

4. Kale

Kale has a high substance of iron, with only 3 measures of it containing 3.6 mg of iron. It can productively treat iron deficiency and weakness.

5. Bok Choy

Bok Choy is a heavenly Chinese cabbage which is stacked with iron and vitamin A.
6. Heated Potato

Only 1 extensive potato contains 3 times more iron than 3-ounces of chicken, and additionally, it can be arranged scrumptiously.

7. Sesame Seeds

Trust it or not, a solitary tablespoon of sesame seeds contains 1.3 mg of iron which can without much of a stretch be added to your day by day abstain from food.

8. Cashews

Cashews are stacked with protein and have a high substance of iron, with 1 container containing 2 grams of iron.

9. Soybeans

Only a solitary measure of cooked soybeans contains 8-9 mg of iron, and over that, they are an extraordinary wellspring of protein also.

10. Chickpeas

1 single measure of chicken peas contains 4.7 mg of iron, which is the greater part of the every day prescribed dose for a grown-up male.

More: :
◾dark Chocolate
◾Tofu
◾Swiss Chard
◾Kidney Beans

sauce 14 Vegetarian Foods That Have More Iron Than Meat! - Mr Healthy Advisor


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Wow 0 calories, 0 fat, 0 cholesterol, 0 sugar, 0 sodium... wonder if these assorted cupcakes are vegan too?


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## deerkiller (Aug 5, 2015)

https://draxe.com/elk-meat/

I hate to troll, but some vegans continuously lump all meat into one category. All meat is not hot dog quality. I'm all for personal food choices without giving any grief about it, but I think we need to be honest about healthy meat options that do exist.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

If you're vegan and like football, the Tennessee Titans are the team to root for this season.



> *Vegan meals all the rage for Titans, with 15 players converted
> *
> Something about the word "vegan" scares many athletes away. Doubts about protein, taste and fulfillment immediately arise. Some never can get past that point.
> 
> ...


Sauce NFL - Preseason Week 1 live - schedule, key players, fantasy impact, injuries and more


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## deerkiller (Aug 5, 2015)

sorry, double post, i deleted it.

see my link above.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I buy blueberries year round but nothing beats the taste of fresh wild blueberries. We picked up 2 baskets of wild blueberries on our recent trip to Timmins, Ontario. Blueberries grow wild in northern Ontario, and we often stop along the way on the rides to pick and eat a handful.

































And yes bears love blueberries too.... we saw alot of bear poop


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## Aglo (Dec 16, 2014)

Out of curiosity, how much did you pay for each basket?
Around here (Portugal), and also in France going by my cousins word, we only found them in small packages, between 100g and 200g.


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## winginit (Apr 23, 2012)

BrianR60077 said:


> prostate cancer doesnt happen until much later in life like most anything else


really an ignorant statement. just sayin. And if you have medical insurance and don't use it you are really foolish.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Aglo said:


> Out of curiosity, how much did you pay for each basket?
> Around here (Portugal), and also in France going by my cousins word, we only found them in small packages, between 100g and 200g.


We paid $30 cdn per basket. I'll try to find out how large the baskets are... I can only go by the pic. As soon as we got them home we freeze them.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

deerkiller said:


> https://draxe.com/elk-meat/
> 
> I hate to troll, but some vegans continuously lump all meat into one category. Al meat is not hot dog quality. I all for personal food choices without giving any grief about it, but I think we need to be honest about healthy meat options that do exist.


If you aren't going to post in the Single Speed forum with links and commentary about the virtues of gears, or in the Fat Bike forum about the benefits of skinny tires, then you don't need to do the same here.

That said, please feel free to start your own thread about healthy meats, and hunting/farming practices. I am sure that there are many MTBR folks that are interested in exactly that. People that will find the knowledge beneficial to their lives that would not look within this (or any vegan/vegetarian) thread for information regarding the consumption of animals. I'm not saying that your input is wrong, but it would be better served in a location that warrants it.


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## deerkiller (Aug 5, 2015)

...


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## winginit (Apr 23, 2012)

If I am staying away from beef and I crave a hamburger. Is my body telling me I am missing protien or iron or something from my diet? Thanks.


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## DeadGrandpa (Aug 17, 2016)

winginit said:


> really an ignorant statement. just sayin. And if you have medical insurance and don't use it you are really foolish.


That depends on the person. I believe the current "treatments" for prostate cancer are one or more of: surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. I reject all those as being too debilitating, so what is the point of having the test? That being said, I'm going for my first physical exam in 40 years. It won't make any difference to me, but my gf is making me go.


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

winginit said:


> If I am staying away from beef and I crave a hamburger. Is my body telling me I am missing protien or iron or something from my diet? Thanks.


Probably not anymore than an alcoholic that is trying to quit craving a drink. I've been on a plant based diet now for 7 years after being a meat and potatoes kind of guy for 48 years. I am also a recovering alcoholic/pot head/addict with almost 25 years of sobriety. 
it will just take time and clean living to get over the cravings. I don't miss any of that stuff now and haven't for many years.


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## winginit (Apr 23, 2012)

huckleberry hound said:


> Probably not anymore than an alcoholic that is trying to quit craving a drink. I've been on a plant based diet now for 7 years after being a meat and potatoes kind of guy for 48 years. I am also a recovering alcoholic/pot head with almost 25 years of sobriety.
> it will just take time and clean living to get over the cravings. I don't miss either now and haven't for many years.


Thanks for your reply!


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

winginit said:


> If I am staying away from beef and I crave a hamburger. Is my body telling me I am missing protien or iron or something from my diet? Thanks.


Read up on vegetarians and protein and iron sources and how much you need, Cyclelicious has posted some articles/links above.


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## deerkiller (Aug 5, 2015)

dubthang said:


> If you aren't going to post in the Single Speed forum with links and commentary about the virtues of gears, or in the Fat Bike forum about the benefits of skinny tires, then you don't need to do the same here.
> 
> That said, please feel free to start your own thread about healthy meats, and hunting/farming practices. I am sure that there are many MTBR folks that are interested in exactly that. People that will find the knowledge beneficial to their lives that would not look within this (or any vegan/vegetarian) thread for information regarding the consumption of animals. I'm not saying that your input is wrong, but it would be better served in a location that warrants it.


Well, I understand your frustrations with my post, but misinformation is misinformation. For instance, in the above post about vegan foods that contain more iron than meat, the measurements and types of meats are ambiguous and misleading. The units or portions of vegan foods have been referred to as a "measure" or some other undefined or unpopular term, and there is no chart of comparison to popular meat choices of equal quantity.

An 8 oz elk steak has approximately 7.467 miligrams of iron. Other meats probably have less. But lets be honest, instead of using arbitrary quantities.

Veganism has probably done great things for a lot of people. I clicked on this thread to learn more about it.

I'm certainly becoming more of an organic food type person, especially the older i get. If i can learn something here, i'm all ears. Currently, i strive to be gluten and dairy free whenever i can without offending the cook, and i'd like to move on to cutting out processed or "cured" meats as well.

However, information must be factual, to the best of our abilities. If i find something here to be misleading, or intentionally unclear, i don't feel remorse in pointing that out.

Meat may not be for you, and veganism may not be for you.

But truth is for everyone.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

deerkiller said:


> Well, I understand your frustrations with my post, but misinformation is misinformation. For instance, in the above post about vegan foods that contain more iron than meat, the measurements and types of meats are ambiguous and misleading. The units or portions of vegan foods have been referred to as a "measure" or some other undefined or unpopular term, and there is no chart of comparison to popular meat choices of equal quantity.
> 
> An 8 oz elk steak has approximately 7.467 miligrams of iron. Other meats probably have less. But lets be honest, instead of using arbitrary quantities.
> 
> ...


Here is what you don't grasp. This is a vegan thread aimed at vegans. Vegans don't care about the comparison to meat because meat is not a food option for them. Remember, the thread is titled Vegetarian and Vegan Passion.

It doesn't matter if the measurements are not 100% accurate because the science is still sound. Yes, spinach does have a lot of iron in it, and that is all that really matters. An adult male only needs 8 mg of iron a day. Cyclelicious brings a lot to this thread, but this is not the end all, be all for vegan and vegetarian info. This place should be a jumping off point to do your own research about what is right for you and your dietary choices.

I commend you for wanting to eat better. You evidently have a love for elk, and that is your choice for your region. Here in Maine, it would be deer or moose if I was a meat eater, but I am not. Going organic is great, especially if you are supporting your local farmers, and being dairy free will provide you with more energy and less chemical dependencies (dairy creates similar euphoria to some drugs). I have yet to fully break free from the dairy grasp, but I try (I love pizza though).

Best of luck in your own search for better health.


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## Slowhead (Feb 20, 2014)

Does anyone follow Pamela Popper ? She has some good video shorts and lectures on YouTube. It is scientific based, not just opinions.
I have been 'low' grain, meat and dairy for a few years now. It has worked well for me.
But, Doctor Popper has made a solid argument for a plant based lifestyle. I may be ready to cross over to the dark side.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Slowhead said:


> Does anyone follow Pamela Popper ? She has some good video shorts and lectures on YouTube. It is scientific based, not just opinions.
> I have been 'low' grain, meat and dairy for a few years now. It has worked well for me.
> But, Doctor Popper has made a solid argument for a plant based lifestyle. I may be ready to cross over to the dark side.


I haven't heard about Doctor Popper. Please post up a video  I'm curious to learn more


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## deerkiller (Aug 5, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> 14 Vegetarian Foods That Have More Iron Than Meat!
> 
> sauce 14 Vegetarian Foods That Have More Iron Than Meat! - Mr Healthy Advisor





dubthang said:


> Vegans don't care about the comparison to meat because meat is not a food option for them. .


The vegan comparison to meat is my whole complaint with veganism. I have respect for veganism, until they start with their phony stats about meat.


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## deerkiller (Aug 5, 2015)

that said, what are you guys using for non dairy creamer for your coffee?

I'm looking for something good, right now i'm using almond mild and stevia, which is ok, but not great. 

Everything i've tried is kind of, well, blah.


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## Slowhead (Feb 20, 2014)

cyclelicious said:


> I haven't heard about Doctor Popper. Please post up a video  I'm curious to learn more






This video is her commenting on several popular topics. I think she mentions her involvement with Forks Over Knives at the 3:00 mark.


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

deerkiller said:


> that said, what are you guys using for non dairy creamer for your coffee?
> 
> I'm looking for something good, right now i'm using almond mild and stevia, which is ok, but not great.
> 
> Everything i've tried is kind of, well, blah.


I drink it black. If the coffee is good it doesn't need anything in it..


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Report Finds Traces of a Controversial Herbicide in Cheerios and Quaker Oats



> An environmental research and advocacy group has found traces of a controversial herbicide in Cheerios, Quaker Oats and other breakfast foods that it says could increase cancer risk for children.
> 
> The report comes amid longstanding debate about the safety of the chemical glyphosate, which federal regulators maintain is not likely to cause cancer.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/...tmeal-children.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Apparently only the squirrels understand


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good vid explaining the role of fat


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Eating pasta could save your life



> Eating pasta could help you live longer, a new study suggests.
> 
> Following low-carb diets, such as Atkins, increases the risk of dying young, experts found.
> 
> ...


sauce https://nypost.com/2018/08/17/cutting-carbs-is-linked-to-dying-young/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*WOODY HARRELSON IS PRODUCING VEGAN DOCU-SERIES WICKED HEALTHY WORLD*

The new series will feature chef brothers Chad and Derek Sarno along with other innovators working to make a sustainable food system worldwide.











> New vegan docu-series Wicked Healthy World is currently being executively produced by vegan actor Woody Harrelson. The series will feature vegan chefs (and brothers) Chad and Derek Sarno, who will highlight individuals around the world-such as indoor mushroom farmers in South Korea and rooftop farmers in Tel Aviv-that are working to build a sustainable food system.
> 
> "My brother and I are excited to meet other innovators who share our passion and who have developed solutions to bring about change," Chad said about the new project. Harrelson penned the forward for the brothers' first plant-based book The Wicked Healthy Cookbook, published in May. "Chad and Derek are doing some incredible work," Harrelson wrote. "They are at the forefront of a plant-based movement that's been building for decades and is now becoming a tsunami."
> 
> Derek currently works as the Executive Chef and Director of Plant Based Innovation at United Kingdom-based supermarket chain Tesco, and launched the Wicked Healthy line of plant-based grab-and-go meals-of which, the chain sold 2.5 million units within 20 weeks. The brothers are also part of the team behind Good Catch Foods, an upcoming vegan seafood brand that secured $8.7 million in investment capital last month.


sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/8/woody-harrelson-is-producing-vegan-docu-series-wicked-healthy-world


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Does just reducing one's intake of meat, dairy, and eggs significantly reduce mortality?






Some people are semi-vegetarian or vegan a.k.a. flexitarian and you find this video helpful


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How Do Commercials Make Food Look Amazing?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Melon murderer at large!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

"Smelly tofu"... I didn't try it ::lol::lol::lol: (I played it safe and had a tomato and avocado salad instead)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Mmmm? Cherries, pistachios, walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds


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## D Bone (Jul 20, 2014)

Cherries, sunflower seeds, peanuts, almonds, pretzels, walnuts


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

D Bone said:


> Cherries, sunflower seeds, peanuts, almonds, pretzels, walnuts


Nice combo!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

5 Vegan Foods Your Brain Will Thank You For

Are you in need of a boost? Most of the time, when we try to eat better or more healthily, we do so for the sake of our physique-but what about our brain? This vital organ needs consideration and attention as well. So I whipped up this here feature on how to be kind to this essential part of our bodies. Read on to nourish your mind, and then eat with a purpose thanks to these healthy brainpower-boosting foods.

*1. Chia Seeds:*
These little buddies are versatile, nutrient-rich, and packed full of omega-3 fatty acids, which have been linked to improved concentration and memory function. Sprinkle these tiny delights on just about anything, or try out this simple three-ingredient peanut butter and chocolate chia seed pudding

*2. Blueberries*
Ahhh, yes, we can't forget about blueberries. They're full of special antioxidants, which help slow down memory loss while improving learning and general cognitive function. Mix them into your oatmeal, blend them into a smoothie, or pop these bad boys right into your mouth for a quick and healthy snack.

*3. Avocados*
What can I say about my favorite fruit and superfood other than "thank you for your deliciousness"? Eating avocados improves blood supply to the brain, and their healthy fat helps lower your risk of heart problems, which are also linked to cognitive function, aka "your brain." One of my favorite snacks of all time is avocado toast-check out this quick and simple recipe for making the perfect slice (or three).

*4. Sunflower Seeds*
Need another reason to eat this yummy snack? I got you. These seeds contain an excellent source of vitamin E, and they're said to help prevent brain function decline, making them your memories' best friend.

*5. Celery*
This light but nutrient-dense veggie is packed full of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Celery is also reportedly rich in a certain plant compound that may reduce inflammation in the brain, which can be a primary cause of brain degeneration over time. So tear off a stalk and munch away.

So what have we learned here, folks? Giving your brain a boost with vegan foods is pretty easy. Food is meant to provide us with energy and nutrients, so opt out of eating stuff that's unhealthy and unnecessary, such as meat and dairy foods. Not only are animal-derived foods bad news for animals and the environment, they can also contribute to preventable illnesses in humans!

With school, work, and everything else going on in your life, it's important to nourish your mind. Help your brain out by eating vegan foods and you'll boost your learning ability, protect your memories, and improve your overall brain function.

Sauce https://www.peta2.com/vegan-life/ve...eg::peta2::Facebook::vegan brain food::::link


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Animal activist schools tucker carlson about veganism on fox news



> Animal activist Gene Baur-author and founder of farmed animal rescue organization Farm Sanctuary-appeared on a recent episode of Fox News' "Tucker Takes On &#8230;" entitled "Tucker vs. Veganism."
> 
> During the episode, host Tucker Carlson debated the merits of veganism with Baur in his usual, critical tone. Carlson revealed that he enjoys burrata, but does not urge others to eat the cheese variety, and asked Baur why he advocates veganism to others. "Well, I'm actually not telling other people what they must and must not eat," Baur responded. "I just want people to think more about their food choices and recognize the consequences of those, and also to recognize that not eating animals is actually an option we have."
> 
> ...


sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/9/animal-activist-schools-tucker-carlson-about-veganism-on-fox-news

Full interview: Tucker Carlson | Fox News


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Chaos breaks out over cheap corn at No Frills Grocery Store in Toronto






Sauce: https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2018/09/corn-no-frills-toronto/


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## milliesand (Jun 29, 2015)

Somehow it is comforting to know people are just as crazy on your side of the border as down here. 

"We're not alone" lol


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## Aglo (Dec 16, 2014)

You shouldn't feel alone, on this side of the pond, couple weeks back a chain of supermarket made a 50% discount on the milk's price, people were stealing 6-packs of 1L pack from each other's hands, even in the presence of the police .


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> "The purpose of cow's milk is to turn a 65-pound calf into a 700-pound cow as rapidly as possible. Cow's milk IS baby calf growth fluid. No matter what you do to it, that is what the stuff is.
> Everything in that white liquid - the hormones, the lipids, the proteins, the sodium, the growth factors like IGF-I - are all there to start that calf growing into a great big cow, or else they would not be there.
> Whether you pour it on your cereal as a liquid, churn it into butter, curdle it into yogurt, ferment it into cheese, or add sugar and freeze it to make ice cream&#8230; It's baby calf growth fluid!
> Its purpose is to increase weight and promote growth in tissues throughout the mammalian body. It's great stuff if you are a baby calf, but if you are a human trying to create a lean, healthy body, it will NOT "do a body good." -Dr. Michael Klaper


sauce https://www.facebook.com/wthfilm/photos/a.967893519970977/1910931139000539/?type=3


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

On my way back from my Sunday morning run, I smelled something cooking! The neighbours were making tomato sauce in the garage the old fashion way! Very cool that 3 generations were involved in the production. Next time I run, I'll carry a bowl of pasta with me


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## Aglo (Dec 16, 2014)

^We used to do that, two grand parent, ten uncles/unties/parents, and at the time, four children, myself included, it was fun .


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A longish read but good review of metabolism and weight control. Bottom line - it's all about calories in vs calories out, and calories out is dominated by your basal metabolic rate.

*What I learned about weight loss from spending a day inside a metabolic chamber
One of science's best tools for understanding obesity is debunking myths about metabolism.*



> When scientists offer mice or rats a spread of junk food, they consistently find that only some overeat and puff out into little rodent blimps, while others maintain a normal body size.
> 
> A similar thing happens in people. In the US, and around the world, we are now overwhelmed with highly palatable, cheap calories. This has helped obesity rates soar on average. But not everyone overeats and becomes overweight, and not everyone who becomes overweight or obese develops illnesses like diabetes or heart disease. This individual variation - why we have different responses to extra calories and weight - is one of the greatest mysteries of modern medicine.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17486110/metabolism-diet-fast-weight-loss


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## kubikeman (Jun 4, 2010)

Sleeping with ginger on my palms will remove all the toxins?!

BRB. Going to stock up on ginger!


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Visualizing garlic on my third eye will help me find love...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

:lol: ^ good ones 

Sprinkling turmeric around your neck fixes back pain ... I wish :lol:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Both are terrific!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

What monsters would do this? :idea:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Why It's So Hard to Give Up Cheese

Which foods do you find most addictive? That's the question University of Michigan researchers asked. The idea was, which foods lead you to lose control over how much you eat? Which ones are hard to limit? Which ones do you eat despite negative consequences? The researchers surveyed 384 people and here is what they found:

Problem food #5 is ice cream.
Problem food #4 is cookies.

Chips and chocolate were tied for #3 and #2.

But the most problematic food of all was-drum roll, please-pizza. Yes, gooey cheese melting over a hot crust and dribbling down your fingers-it beat everything else.

And here is what matters: The question was not, which foods do you especially like, or which foods leave you feeling good and satisfied. Rather, the question was, which foods do you have a problem with? Which ones lead you into overeating, gaining weight, and feeling lousy? Which foods seduce you, then leave you with regrets?

So, why did pizza top the list? Why are we so often tempted to dig in and overdo it?
Three reasons: salt, grease, and opiates.

As you have no doubt experienced, salty foods can be habit-forming. French fries, salted peanuts, pretzels, and other salty foods are hard to resist, and food manufacturers know that adding salt to a recipe adds cash to the register. A Lay's potato chips commercial in the 1960s said, "Bet you can't eat one"-meaning it's impossible to eat just one. Once the first salty chip passes your lips, you want more and more.

Your body does need some salt-about a gram and a half per day, according to U.S. health guidelines. In prehistoric times, however, salt was not so easy to come by. After all, potato chips and pretzels had not yet been invented. So people who managed to get their hands on salt were more likely to survive. Your neurological circuitry is set up to detect it, crave it, and jump in when you've found it.

As you will remember from fifth-grade biology, your tongue is very sensitive to the taste of salt. And brain scanning studies show that your brain is extra attuned to it, too. Deep inside the brain, in what is commonly called the "reward center," brain cells make the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine, and in certain situations it floods out of the cells, stimulating neighboring cells. If you find a particularly abundant source of food, your brain rewards you by releasing some dopamine. If you were to have-shall we say-a romantic, intimate encounter, your brain has a similar reaction. It gives you more dopamine. Dopamine rewards you for doing things that help you or your progeny to live on. And scientists believe that dopamine plays a role in our desire for salt.

So is there really a lot of salt in pizza? A fourteen-inch Domino's cheese pizza has-catch this-3,391 milligrams of sodium. Just one slice delivers 400 milligrams. It's in the crust and in the toppings, and there is a lot in the cheese. So salt is one of the reasons that pizza attracts us.

Pizza is also greasy, and that greasy-salty combination seems to get us hooked, too, just as it does for chips, fries, and onion rings. But pizza has one more thing. It has cheese, and cheese not only contributes its own load of salt and grease. It also contains traces of a very special kind of opiate.

Casomorphins
[In an earlier chapter of The Cheese Trap], I briefly mentioned casein, the protein that is concentrated in cheese. And casein has some secrets to tell.

If you were to look at a protein molecule with a powerful microscope, it would look like a long string of beads. Each "bead" is a protein building block called an amino acid, and, during digestion, the individual amino acids come apart and are absorbed into your bloodstream so that your body can use them to build proteins of its own.

So the calf digests the proteins in milk, breaking apart the chain of beads and using these amino acids to build skin cells, muscle cells, organs, and the other parts of the body.

However, casein is an unusual protein. While it does break apart to release individual beads, it also releases longer fragments-chains that might be four, five, or seven amino acid beads in length. These casein fragments are called casomorphins-that is, casein-derived morphine-like compounds. And they can attach to the same brain receptors that heroin and other narcotics attach to.

In other words, dairy protein has opiate molecules built right into it.

Opiates in dairy products? What the heck are they doing there, you might ask. Well, imagine if a calf did not want to nurse. Or if a human baby was not interested in nursing. They would not do very well. So, along with protein, fat, sugar, and a sprinkling of hormones, milk contains opiates that reward the baby for nursing.

Have you ever looked at a nursing baby's face? The infant has a look of great intensity and then collapses into sleep. Of course, we imagine that to be the beauty of the mother-infant bond. But the fact is, mother's milk delivers a mild drug to the child, albeit in a benign and loving way. If that sounds coldly biological, it pays to remember that nature never leaves anything as important as a baby's survival to chance.

Opiates have a calming effect, and they also cause the brain to release dopamine, leading to a sense of reward and pleasure.

A cup of milk contains about 7.7 grams of protein, 80 percent of which is casein, more or less. Turning it into Cheddar cheese multiplies the protein content seven-fold, to 56 grams. It is the most concentrated form of casein in any food in the grocery store.

Call it dairy crack. Just as cocaine manufacturers have found ways to turn an addictive drug (cocaine) into an extremely addictive one (crack), dairy producers have found their own ways to keep you coming back. In the Middle Ages, cheese makers had no idea that cheese might concentrate milk's addictive qualities. But today's cheese industry knows all about cheese craving and is eager to exploit it. It is doing its level best to trigger cheese craving in vulnerable people.

sauce https://www.forksoverknives.com/addictive-food-cheese-pizza/#gs.goT7d0w


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The 5 Keys To A Rock-Solid Vegetarian Diet*



> Tell someone that you're on or thinking about going on a vegetarian diet, and you may receive responses along the following lines:
> 
> "Humans have been eating meat for tens of thousands of years; We're designed to eat it"
> "How will you ever get all the nutrients you need?"
> ...











Sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...lid-vegetarian-diet.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This Vegan Brand Just Proved That Plant-Based Burgers Are More Sustainable Than Those Made Of Beef



> In the aftermath of flooding from Hurricane Florence, which saw 3.4 million chickens and 5,500 pigs drown as a result of being abandoned and trapped in pens throughout farms in North Carolina recently, fecal waste escaped into the water system. According to the North Carolina Department for Environmental Quality, at the time of writing, pig manure and urine from 27 hog farms had spilled out of the lagoons and into the environment, due to heavy rains, posing a risk of possible contamination from E.coli, salmonella, pharmaceuticals and insecticides.
> 
> While freak weather conditions instigated this particular scenario, the reality is that animal agriculture is an environmental disaster. Research in 2006 by the United Nations, as well as a more recent study from Oxford University in the UK earlier this year, reveals a shocking picture of animal-based farming contributing to the over-use of land and water, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and deforestation, as well as being one of the leading causes of greenhouse gas emissions.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.forbes.com/sites/katrin...ainable-than-those-made-of-beef/#1937bf00475a


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Google Removes Egg from Salad Emoji to Make It 'More Inclusive' for Vegans











> How do vegans survive? Not only must they avoid all meat and dairy, but they cannot so much as glance at a virtual representation of an animal product. No cheese, no honey, no leather shoes, and absolutely no using an emoji with an egg [gasp] in it.
> 
> Well, thank God Google has recognised the hugely unethical nature of pixels in the form of an egg. Yesterday, the tech company announced that it would be removing the hard-boiled egg from its salad emoji, thus allowing Android-owning vegans to regain the use of their phones.
> 
> ...


Next step to world domination.

sauce https://munchies.vice.com/en_uk/art...gans?utm_campaign=global&utm_source=vicefbanz


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> Why It's So Hard to Give Up Cheese&#8230;


Pizza is definitely crack for me; by far my favorite food. I vividly remember several times after college going out with my housemates, consuming way too much pizza and then going to see a band and having to just stand around for the first few hours as I there was no way I could even drink a beer on top of my overly full stomach. I'm still almost as bad. Oddly, I'm not really a fan of cheddar and in general, not all that big on salty foods and I never add salt to anything. Most greasy foods have me feeling queasy after a few bites but no problem with pizza.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Well at least it's dairy-free.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Tuscan Bean soup, salad and corn bread... (it was alot of food so I had to share  ) all vegan at Fresh https://freshrestaurants.ca/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Tomorrow is our Thanksgiving


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The 5 Healthiest Types Of Rice*









Rice is an ancient staple for billions of the planet's modern denizens, but it has come under attack in recent decades. First came the low-carb craze, which considered eating rice an express ticket to Pudgeville. Now the upswing in Paleo eating has spurred a new generation of rice bashers into full gallop.

For many cultures, this humble grain symbolizes nourishment, prosperity, beauty, and even fertility-hence the custom of tossing rice at newly wedded couples). For people who train hard, rice can provide a winning mix of the nutrients an active body needs to perform its best.

Though other gluten-free grains like quinoa and amaranth are all the rage these days, rice remains a nutritious choice if you know what to look for.

Health-food stores, ethnic markets, and even larger supermarkets are increasingly full of the most healthful and flavorful varieties of rice from around the globe. Here's how to get the most out of the world's most abundant foodstuff.

Let's take a look at the pros and cons of several popular types.

*1. Brown Rice*
Varieties of brown rice such as Jasmine or Basmati still contain their germ and bran layers, meaning they provide fitness buffs with a range of important nutrients including B vitamins, bone-building phosphorus, and magnesium. Although data shows that about half of all Americans don't consume their daily quota of magnesium, this mineral is needed for proper muscle functioning. Low levels of magnesium may also contribute to or at least predict heart disease.

The dietary fiber that brown rice provides-about 5 grams in each cooked cup-can help quell the hunger pangs that lead to gut-busting junk-food binges by slowing down digestion. Brown rice has a great nutty flavor absent from the white variety.

Directions for a perfect pot of rice every time:

Place 1 cup brown rice, 1 1/2 cups water, and a couple pinches of salt in a medium-sized saucepan.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer covered until rice is tender; it takes about 30 minutes.
Remove from heat and let stand covered for 10 minutes.
Fluff rice with a fork.
For better flavor, cook your rice in coconut water. One taste of the finished extra-sweet rice and you'll never go back to using regular water again.

*2. Wild Rice*
It looks like rice and grows like rice but, botanically speaking, wild rice is not rice at all. Native to North America, wild rice is a seed of an aquatic grass traditionally harvested via canoe by indigenous populations. Much of the modern wild rice on store shelves has been tamed, cultivated in man-made paddies.









You can still find some organic, hand-harvested, lake-grown wild rice in certain speciality stores. Wild rice delivers an impressive range of nutrients: phosphorus, immune- and testosterone-boosting zinc, magnesium, and B vitamins, including the cancer-protective folate.

Wild rice has a chewy texture and smoky, nutty flavor which stands up well to rich-tasting items like game meats or when used in soups and salads. The only downside is that wild rice can take up to 60 minutes to cook, so consider preparing a big batch. Or soak the grains overnight, which will slash the cooking time by about 30 percent.

*3. Sprouted Rice*
If you want the most nutritional bang for your buck, pick up a bag of sprouted rice. To make sprouted rice, companies kickstart the process of germinating the grain. The process encourages the rice to start growing into a plant-which increases its nutritional value.

A "Journal of Functional Foods" study found that germinating brown rice caused an uptick in levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a compound which may support your mood and heart health. Sprouted foods such as rice are easier to digest and are quicker to cook since the hard outer shell is softened during the sprouting process.

Made with California-grown sprouted brown rice, Planet Rice is a top-notch brand.

*4. Wehani Rice*
A creation of the forward-thinking Lundberg Family Farms in northern California, Wehani is a russet-colored, slightly chewy, long-grain heirloom rice which fills the house with the appetite-inducing aroma of buttery popcorn as it cooks. Its flavor is somewhat reminiscent of brown basmati rice. Keep an eye out for the stellar black Japonica rice.









As with other whole-grain rice, Wehani is rich in complex, slow-digesting carbohydrates needed to fuel hard-charging muscles. While we love all protein does for a sculpted physique, it's important to remember that carbohydrates deliver most of the energy needed to sustain those high-intensity gym sessions. Think of a side dish of whole-grain rice with your meal as fuel for your engines during workouts.

But beware: Go easy on Wehani and other less-processed rice types shortly before its time to hoist that iron; the extra fiber may leave your tummy crying foul mid-workout.

*5. Black Rice*
This striking variety is cultivated in China and possesses a praise-worthy sweet, nutty taste, and chewy texture. Recent research discovered that the bran layer of black rice contains a surfeit of anthocyanins. These are the same type of antioxidants, found in dark berries such as blueberries, which sweep through a body looking for cell-damaging free radicals to knock out.









Look for Chinese black rice at some health-food stores and Asian markets. A reliable brand is Lotus Foods, which sells the grain under the name Forbidden Rice ... folklore says that the prized grains were once only served to emperors in ancient China.

Not to be confused with wild rice or Thai black sticky rice, this non-sticky medium-grain rice becomes a vibrant purple when cooked and can add a real "wow" factor to mealtime. It's especially good in a stir-fry or salad.

*Breakfast Tropical Black Rice*
Ingredients

1 cup black rice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
3 tbsp raw honey (optional or use Agave for vegan)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups coconut milk beverage
1 mango, cubed
1/2 cup unsalted shelled pistachios, roughly chopped
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
Directions

Place 2 cups water, black rice, cinnamon, and ginger into a medium-sized saucepan.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer covered until all of the water has been absorbed-about 30 minutes.
Stir in honey and vanilla.
Let cool for five minutes.
Divide among 4 serving bowls and top with coconut milk, mango, pistachios, and coconut flakes.

*The Post-Workout Option Only White Rice*
Rice consists of three components: the endosperm, the bran, and the germ. The bran is where much of the dietary fiber is found. The germ harbors a bundle of vitamins and minerals. When brown rice is processed to make its ghostly counterpart, the bran and germ are removed, leaving behind what's mainly just endosperm.

In the endosperm, you find little more than quick-digesting carbohydrates, making white rice a nutritional dud compared to more nutrient-dense brown. By encouraging a sudden rise in blood sugar, forkfuls of white rice can also spiral into fat gain. For this reason, it's best to prioritize the whole-grain guises of rice discussed below.

If you need a sushi fix, however, the best time to do so is after a vigorous workout when your body can better benefit from the fast-digesting carbohydrates white rice provides. For the most part, the carbs will be quickly taken up by your muscles at such times to replace spent energy stores.

sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/the-5-healthiest-types-of-rice.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

"PUDDLES PITY PARTY"-THE SAD, 7-FOOT TALL, SINGING CLOWN-IS VEGAN






Singing sad clown Mike Geier (known professionally as "Puddles Pity Party") revealed during a rare interview recently that he is vegan. Speaking with Iowa-based publication Little Village Magazine, the shy, 6' 8'' performer discussed his headlining show at Witching Hour Festival in Iowa City next week. "I have some great friends from Iowa City, Marshalltown, and Davenport," Geier said. "And, although I'm vegan, I'm intrigued by the pie shake at the Hamburg Inn."

The clown usually pantomimes to communicate, but on stage, his singing voice is an impressive baritone that fellow vegan musician DJ Khaled praised during the clown's surprising audition performance-when he sang "Chandeliers" by vegan singer Sia-on reality show America's Got Talent, albeit with the recommendation that Geier cheer up. Geier revealed that some of his favorite beings on the planet are cats, dogs, and Kevin Costner, before explaining that he is not a typical horror movie clown. "I don't know why only scary clowns get all the press. There are plenty of non-scary clowns out there," the vegan clown said. "I'm a hugger, not a mugger! My show is all about acceptance. Unconditional support for all. And sing-alongs!"

sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/10/puddles-pity-partythe-sad-7-foot-tall-singing-clownis-vegan


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Puddles is awesome. He did some great work with Postmodern Jukebox also.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

dubthang said:


> Puddles is awesome. He did some great work with Postmodern Jukebox also.


Yes he is! We have a signed photo of him holding a kitty cat. love his music


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Throw back funnies









.... or just turn out your porch light and close the curtains


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A documentary (narrated by Rich Roll) about world record marathon runner Fiona Oakes who (is vegan and manages an animal santuary) decides to run the worlds toughest ultra marathon ( 250km race through the Sahara Desert.)



> Fiona Oakes has made a name for herself as a unique endurance runner. She is the fastest woman in the world to run a marathon on all seven continents, and the north pole, in both cumulative and elapsed time. Fiona's achievements are made even more astounding due to the fact that she was told at age 14 that she would never walk properly, let alone ever run. She would undergo more than 17 radical knee surgeries which ultimately led to having her entire right kneecap removed. The process was agonizing, the rehab worse, the records she's gone on to set even more astounding.
> 
> With overcoming her own adversity, Fiona's true drive to achieve incredible feats of speed and human endurance are motivated by a deep desire to raise awareness for the plight of animals. Her achievements help fund a 450+ animal sanctuary that she takes care of every day.


https://runningforgoodfilm.com/#about1-section


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

PSA: Drunk, Belligerent Wasps Are Terrorizing Beer Gardens



> How much cider does it take to get a wasp drunk is not, as it turns out, a riddle. Rather, it's a real problem, considering the answer is "very little" and the result is irritable, sting-happy wasps.
> 
> Recently, the Daily Mail proclaimed that, "Britain is under attack from 'lager lout' wasps who are going on stinging rampages after getting drunk on fermented fruit and leftover pub-garden cider," which is big, if true. Their story cites the Sussex Wildlife Trust, so we reached out to the British conservation charity ourselves to find out whether this was indeed a whole new way that the world just sorta sucks.
> 
> ...


sauce https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/art...-are-terrorizing-beer-gardens?utm_source=dmfb


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Are Protein Bars Good For You?

Protein bars certainly can be good for you. They can also be little better than a candy bar. It depends on the ingredients. And if you compare a few protein bar labels, you'll probably be amazed at how widely they can vary in terms of the calories they contain.

Food manufacturers often create products they call "protein bars," but which don't offer much protein, and contain plenty of non-protein ingredients you may not want. Choose protein bars that provide an ample amount of high-quality protein without high amounts of calories, carbohydrates, and fats to help you lose weight, build muscle mass, and control hunger. If the bar has a very poor protein-to-carb ratio, meaning there are far more carbs than protein, you may be paying premium prices for what is basically junk food.

*A solid benchmark to aim for: If it doesn't have at least 10 grams of protein per serving, don't consider it a "protein bar." If it has a full 20-30 grams per bar, even better.
*
Pick from this sample LIST of the best protein bars to make sure you're not just eating candy bars in disguise. You can also make your own! By using the right ingredients, you can rest assured that the protein bars you eat are good for you.

sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/content/are-protein-bars-good-for-you.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## Slowhead (Feb 20, 2014)

I saw this the other night. The woman is as tough as they come, yet so humble.



cyclelicious said:


> A documentary (narrated by Rich Roll) about world record marathon runner Fiona Oakes who (is vegan and manages an animal santuary) decides to run the worlds toughest ultra marathon ( 250km race through the Sahara Desert.)
> 
> https://runningforgoodfilm.com/#about1-section


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Runner Wins Ultra Race - And Smashes Course Record
The athlete has been vegan since 2010*









A vegan athlete has won the Bromont Ultra 80km race - smashing the course record at the same time.

The Bromont hosts races at different lengths - Canadian Alister Gardner achieved a convincing win last year tackling the 160km course - but lined up for the 80km this time around.

*Distance*
Gardner had initially planned to take on the 25km distance. "The Bromont Ultra was not originally on my race calendar as I am training towards Philadelphia marathon in November," he said after the event.

"The plan was to do the 25km race as a 'fun' long run, but I had a feeling I was in good shape to have a crack at a new course record on the 80 km course. So the day before the race I changed my plans."

The course record was eight hours and 21 minutes, a strong pace for any 80km race, but a step above this for the Bromont with an incredible 3,500 metres of height gain. Of course, nobody breaks the course record without winning the race, and the win was far from inevitable for the Canadian vegan.

*Vegan victory*
"I was far from confident of a win in the first 30km," he said. "At the 15km mark, I felt the lead group (about six of us) were going to fast so I eased off to do my own thing.

"Almost immediately I reconsidered that decision as I wondered if the pace could actually be held for the whole race. At around the 35km, I had caught up with first and second place, but wasn't confident of a win until around the 70 km mark."

Coming in first at seven hours and 53 minutes, Gardner took a large chunk off the old course record. He was grateful for good weather conditions.

*Vegan fuel*
Fuelling during a race of this distance is crucial, and Fruit2 and Fruit3 energy bars, maple energy gels, and pretzels were essential for the athlete who turned vegan in 2010, after reading about modern farming in a series of articles by The Guardian.

"I was horrified to realize I was being a part of that by buying meat products so I told my wife we had to source only local, 'free range' meat produce," he said.

"Then I read the final article about the abattoir and it stopped me dead - I had never considered it - so when I got home I said that was it, no more meat. It all happened in a week. I tried to source local eggs from neighbours farms and organic cheese (assuming it was more humane) but after two years I knew I was kidding myself and so stopped completely and have never looked back."

*Not the only vegan*
Gardner was pleased to note that he was not the only vegan taking a course record on the day. Elliot Cardin ran the 55km race and set a course record there too.

The runner felt that between them they had made a point, and told Great Vegan Athletes: "I am stoked to be demonstrating that vegans can dominate in such tough sports."

sauce https://www.plantbasednews.org/post...Q92boD7LbRIqREZiWCIfM_zJGNxolo3QG2t6QhuCGSvH0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The comic is amusing... the reality not so much











> The overuse of antibiotics in livestock production significantly contributes to the spread of antibiotic resistance.
> The World Health Organization, the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider antibiotic resistance a threat to public health.
> Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be spread to humans in a number of ways, the CDC says. For example, resistant germs can lurk in the gut of an animal when it is killed, contaminating meat and other products, or animal waste containing resistant germs can be used as fertilizer or for irrigation on produce.
> The CDC has reported that every year in the United States, at least 23,000 people die and 2 million get sick with antibiotic-resistant infections. Two of the bacteria that are commonly spread through food, salmonella and campylobacter, make more the 400,000 Americans sick each year.
> "In simplest terms, what it means is that once a bacteria are resistant to antibiotics, that means the ability of doctors to treat the infection becomes extremely limited, and so that's really scary, because it means that infections that were once really easily and commonly treated could actually be fatal, or common medical procedures would no longer be possible because of a risk of infection without antibiotics."-Lena Brook, lead researcher and interim director of the food and agriculture program at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.


sauce: https://www.facebook.com/wthfilm/?__xts__[0]=68.ARBLWXf6Q03SIlxtWVbKKIgp3dde3f4Uy6q8wXXiI47x66AEZD4UybTOCQ2JGzujFTV9RjsXlExfotavH0S7dYQDY_8l4JD7m_8uz2mCD5o4EKi1RhMFuYRoND-NPJQ1eN2fgtJuxn2ay2bL1KZwWtSYkaBEmwmu0nAoL2NnGZ_bCDxYWm9X1xa8nDycCm4PizkcLoTIa2bkG-BmDmnDmSlZ-5AcLDAsrH4BLUki6lrv4iB6wkxqxX44&__tn__=k*F&tn-str=k*F


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Am I the only one who saw this and thought, "ooh, I'll bet that's delicious with a little sea salt and dark chocolate?"


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Coconut Oil Is Not 'Good for You'
"You can put it on your body, but don't put it in your body," warns a new advisory.



> According to Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle website Goop, coconut oil is akin to a miracle drug. The site says the benefits of coconut oil-organic and virgin, of course-are "practically endless": "Switch it out in place of conventional vegetable oil or butter for extra-healthy stir-fries, sauces, and even in baking recipes-it's a delicious pantry-detox must." Many other self-styled health gurus tout the stuff as a surefire preventative for everything from Alzheimer's to obesity. Coconut oil is having its 15 minutes of fame, for sure.
> 
> But this week, the American Heart Association issued an advisory that says coconut oil isn't particularly good for you to eat. Never was. Still isn't. According to the statement, which cites a variety of scientific evidence, you shouldn't be eating coconut oil at all, really.
> 
> ...


sauce

https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/art...f6ybmOylAavjR9VwCkEt8qasc&utm_source=vicefbus


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Thanks for sharing all the funny, informative, and positive content cyclicious!


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## mack_turtle (Jan 6, 2009)

cyclelicious said:


> Am I the only one who saw this and thought, "ooh, I'll bet that's delicious with a little sea salt and dark chocolate?"
> 
> View attachment 1221698


odd as that sounds, you might be onto something. I hate brussels until my wife makes them- sliced in half, basted in olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt, and broiled until the outsides get just a tad crispy. the salt counteracts the bitter.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I love avocados!

*3 Reasons And Ways To Eat More Avocado*









Ah, the miraculous avocado! This fruit does a lot more than make a great guacamole; it can also improve your health. Learn how to choose the right avocado, then whip up one of these creamy recipes!

The flesh of the ripe avocado berry (yes, it's a berry!) offers a creamy buttery texture that, when mashed, makes an irresistible corn chip dip or spread for your morning toast. But this fruit is no slouch when it comes to good nutrition. Once avoided because of its high fat content, the avocado is now praised for the "good" fat it provides.

Here's why it's time to recast the avocado as a bright star of the fruit aisle (even though it's usually over with the vegetables).

*FAT FIGHTER*

Who knew that something so full of fats could actually help keep the flab at bay? Despite the berry's high calorie count, people who make it a regular part of their diet tend to have healthier body weights and smaller waists. This could be due to the synergy of the more than 20 essential vitamins and minerals found in avocados, or to the possibility that people who eat them tend to make healthier food choices.

A 2013 study published in Nutrition Journal found that people who ate avocados regularly also improved the quality of their diets, thanks to the avocado's heavy load of healthy fats, fiber, vitamin E, and magnesium.

*HEALTHY HEART PROTECTOR*

Eating avocados can keep your heart beating strong, too. A meta-analysis published in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology determined that avocado-rich diets can lower total cholesterol levels, reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol), and decrease blood triglyceride levels.[2]

The study's authors suggest that eating more avocado can help protect your heart from disease-especially if you use avocado as a substitute for less heart-healthy saturated and trans fats. Roughly two-thirds of all the fat present in avocado is monounsaturated fat, which can improve the levels of good cholesterols and fats in your blood.

*HUNGER TAMER*

One of the biggest obstacles many people face when fighting the battle of the bulge is keeping hunger at bay. When you crave food all the time, you're more likely to be tempted by junk food and large portions. Avocados to the rescue again! Researchers at Loma Linda University have found that study subjects who were served a lunch that included half an avocado reported a 26 percent increase in meal satisfaction and a 40 percent decrease in the desire to eat within three hours.[3]

The avocado did add 112 calories to the subjects' meals, but the great taste, dietary fiber (about 7 grams in half a fruit), and good-for-you fats can help you stay on the path to clean eating and a beach-ready six-pack.
*
PICK A GOOD ONE*

In addition to their health-enhancing benefits, avocados also produce antioxidants that can help reduce the risk for everything from Alzheimer's to cataracts. Something so good for you should be a staple part of just about anyone's diet, but you've got to know how to choose the right specimen.

To determine if an avocado is recipe-ready, pull off the stem at the top. If you see green underneath, the fruit is at its creamy best. If the flesh is brown, it's getting overripe and should be used soon. An avocado is ready to eat immediately when it is firm to the touch, with just a slight give when you squeeze it. (Squeeze it very gently or you'll bruise the flesh).

Mushiness to the touch and dents in the skin are two indicators that this big, savory berry is past its prime. Rather than pick an overly ripe avocado, choose one that's a little on the firm side, put it in a paper bag with an apple or banana, and check periodically until it's just right.

To remove the pit, strike it with the sharp edge of a knife, give the knife a quick turn, and strike the pit against the side of a bowl to dislodge it from the knife.

*GREEN GODDESS DRESSING*








Avocado and punchy herbs team up to make a creamy, tangy dressing that'll leave you craving your next salad. Plus, research shows that adding the quality fat found in avocado to vegetables like tomatoes and carrots can boost your absorption of fat-soluble antioxidants, including beta-carotene.recipe

*CHOCOLATE FUDGE PANCAKES*








Avocado gives these dessert-like pancakes a creamy fudge consistency. The batter won't spread like typical pancake batter, so be prepared to spread it out with a spatula or spoon. Try topping the finished pancakes with raspberries and a drizzle of pure maple syrup. The batter can be made in advance and kept in the refrigerator for up to two days. recipe (substitute skim milk with non dairy for vegan)

sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/3-reasons-and-3-ways-to-eat-more-avocado.html?mcid=SM_FB_Nutrition


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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

Uh oh, avocado (and not just avocado.)






Are there really vegans who are that strict about it?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^can't overthink this


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I thought this was a well made video. It's about a couple who thought they were adopting a mini-pig but it turned out to be a baby breeding pig rescued from a factory farm.

(warning, graphic footage 2:44-2:52 and 3:24-3:56)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^they gave that beautiful piggy a wonderful life  Pigs are sentient and incredibly intelligent and like all animals deserve nothing that happens to them on factory, free range, or organic farms.﻿


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Dang it, thought it must have been long enough by now!

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to cyclelicious again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

PSA: November 1st is World Vegan Day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> PSA: November 1st is World Vegan Day


Cool!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting



> *This Is What Happens to Your Body if You Eat Almost No Carbs*
> 
> In many ways, refined carbohydrates-bread, pasta, white rice-are like fossil fuels. They contain a lot of energy, they're cheap to produce, and just when it seems as though supply can't keep up with demand, some technological innovation enables us to extract and produce more of them. And like fossil fuels, the scientific consensus is that an over reliance on refined carbohydrates is going to end badly.
> 
> ...


sauce https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/articl...HjrJVwHy89FtTPGuft6FyzTsE&utm_source=vicefbus


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *'The womanization of protein consumption': Canadians quickly turning away from meat, study finds'
> 
> Canadian men, more than women, consider meat one of life's greatest pleasures and older men in particular think nothing compares to a good steak, a new survey finds.
> 
> ...


sauce https://nationalpost.com/trending/t...-quickly-turning-away-from-meat-study-finds-2


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Your Expert Guide To Aloe Vera









Chances are, at least once in your life you've gotten a little too much sun and spent the next few days slathered in aloe vera gel. Aloe vera has become well known for its ability to soothe sunburns, but it offers many other benefits as well.

What Is Aloe Vera?
Aloe vera is tropical in origin, but it has become increasingly popular as a household plant. It's easy to care for and visually pleasing, and the gel from its leaves can be used to treat all manner of human ailments.

Aloe vera's fleshy leaves contain both a gel and a juice, known as latex. The gel is clear, contains more than 75 different components, and is safe to ingest. The juice is found on the outer rim of the inside of the leaf, has a yellow color, and can have a laxative effect when ingested.[1]

What Are The Uses Of Aloe Vera?
Records of aloe vera being used for its medicinal properties date as far back as ancient Egypt. Today, it offers a whole host of benefits:

Delivers Vitamins And Minerals
Aloe vera is often considered to belong to the superfood family along with kale, pomegranate, and blueberries. These foods earn the name "super" because of their ability to fight infection and heal cell damage.[2]

Aloe vera contains many minerals including calcium, chromium, copper, selenium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium, and zinc. It's also a ready source of vitamins A, C, and E-all of which are powerful antioxidants-and of B-12, folic acid, and choline.

Helps Hydrate The Body
Aloe has a similar vitamin and mineral profile to most common sports drinks, so it's a good way to rehydrate after a tough workout. True aloe vera has a taste that is tangy and tart, so read your aloe juice labels since some manufacturers try to hide the tart taste with excessive sugar.

Note that the plant's nutritive post-workout value is found in the gel alone. Since the latex can have a laxative effect, aloe-juice-based drinks can deplete the body of electrolytes.

Soothes The Gastrointestinal Tract
Data suggests that aloe vera could be used to calm heart burn and indigestion symptoms.[3]

Moisturizes The Skin
Aloe vera is also widely used in cosmetics. A 2014 clinical study highlighted the gel's hydrating effects when applied to the skin.[4] Many anti-aging and skin-brightening creams use aloe vera in their ingredient list because of its ability to stimulate collagen and elastin, which help maintain skin resilience.[5] The combination of hydration and skin-tightening properties make aloe vera ideal for skin-care routines.

Keeps Hair Strong And Healthy
Due to aloe's rich vitamin composition, it has become a standard ingredient for many hair-care products. Deficiency in vitamin B-12 and folic acid can cause hair to become brittle and prone to falling out. Regular use of aloe vera-based shampoos can help keep hair strong and healthy.

Since B-12 and folic acid are more abundant in animal products, aloe vera dietary products may help people who follow a vegan or vegetarian diet maintain good hair health.

The vitamins A, C, and E in aloe can help keep hair shiny and smooth. And its benefits to the skin can decrease scalp irritations and relieve dandruff and dry scalp to help hair to grow faster and fuller.[6]

How Do I Make Aloe Vera Gel At Home?
To prepare aloe vera gel at home, snip a leaf from the plant and stand it upright on a saucer to let the latex juice drain from the plant. When the latex has drained off, cut open the leaf and scoop out the clear gel from the inside. You can use the gel immediately. If you want to use it later, put it in a glass jar and freeze it. Some people pour the gel into ice cube trays for use later in protein shakes.

Does Aloe Vera Have Any Negative Effects?
Aloe vera side effects can include skin irritations in the area where it was applied. While it can sooth gastrointestinal distress in individuals, it may cause abdominal cramps and electrolyte imbalances in others-especially if they ingest the plant's latex juice. Make sure your aloe drink is made from the plant's gel, not its juice.[3]

Bottom line, it's never too late to make this plant and its related products a permanent feature of your home medicine cabinet.

sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...m=social_media&utm_campaign=content_nutrition


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> A MAN FROM OAKVILLE JUST GOT ARRESTED FOR STEALING $60,000 WORTH OF AVOCADO
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 "Due to the peculiar nature of the robbery, the police are still looking into the possibility of other suspects that may be involved in the theft". ....Just look for the guy buying a **** ton of bread and an industrial toaster. 

sauce https://indie88.com/a-man-from-oakv...ccf7PJEZrMS_u80g-UFn_2x6jZxFwqDr1Cp1b4A_IVK6o


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

If you want to protect the environment, your own health and other living beings, veganism is a good first step.

The Growing Acceptance Of Veganism

On Thursday, vegans around the world commemorated the creation of the "v" word. World Vegan Day was launched on Nov. 1, 1994 to celebrate the 50th birthday of the founding of the UK Vegan Society. The day begins World Vegan Month, and recognition of it has grown exponentially in recent years with the rise of Facebook and other social media sites, where those dedicated to plant-based lifestyles share memes and messages with all the ethical and health-related reasons to go vegan.

This year, the day fell in a week that saw the forced resignation of a high-profile UK magazine editor after his email to a writer who had pitched a plant-based series went public. William Sitwell, the editor of the popular Waitrose Food magazine, responded to the pitch with what he later called a joke.

"How about a series on killing vegans, one by one. Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat? Make them eat steak and drink red wine?" he wrote to the freelancer, who happened to be vegan.

After his words went public, Sitwell called his comments a joke, apologized to those who were offended and stepped down from his job after 20 years.

The comments were extreme, but it's not unusual for vegans and vegetarians to be the butt of the joke and even to find themselves on the receiving end of vitriol for living by their beliefs, said Rich Landau, a chef and restaurateur whose plant-based eateries include Vedge, V Street and Wiz Kid in Philadelphia. Landau, with his wife and business partner, Kate Jacoby, have also expanded in the past year with the opening of Fancy Radish in Washington, D.C.

People opt to go plant-based for various reasons, but the big three are animals, the planet and personal health. Whatever the causes, challenges come with the decision to trade lifelong traditions for a new way of eating, and negativity from others can make the transition even tougher.

"It's easy to hate what you don't understand, it's easy to make fun of what you don't understand," Landau said. "Our culture as a civilization is very young and immature. It's the classic case of just hating something that's just not your way."

Increasingly, though, the rise of the vegan food industry is changing ways for more people.

"If I had a dime for every time someone made fun of what we do, then came into the restaurant and shook my hand at the end of the meal," Landau said.

People tell him on a regular basis that tasting the vegan food at his restaurants has started them making healthier, more humane changes in their diets, he said.

Others in the industry, including JUST Inc. founder Josh Tetrick, agree that things are changing, and the pace of change is accelerating.

"Plant-based foods used to be for folks eating breakfast at vegan cafes in Northern California, but today plant-based foods are increasingly for folks I was raised with, eating breakfast in diners or at their kitchen tables in Birmingham, Alabama," he said. "The change is happening in cities, suburbs and in rural areas. It's happening in red states and in blue states. It's not a niche food movement."

The number of U.S. consumers identifying as vegan grew from 1% to 6% between 2014 and 2017, a 600% increase, according to GlobalData. That's still a pretty small portion of the total, but other data reveal growing interest in plant-based foods by consumers who don't consider themselves vegetarian or vegan.

Sales of plant-based alternatives to animal-based foods including meat, cheese, milk and eggs grew 17% over the past year, while overall U.S. food sales rose only 2%, according to data from Nielsen and the Good Food Institute. The market for such foods totaled more than $3.7 billion.

Veganism has more role models today who are open about their lifestyles and the reasons behind them, from actors including Natalie Portman and Emily Deschanel to musicians like Moby and Stevie Wonder to politicians such as New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. And a slew of recent documentaries including "What the Health" and "Dominion" are gaining wider audiences.

While those who go vegan or vegetarian tend to do so for the animals, the planet, their health or some combination thereof, consumers start out choosing their foods based on different criteria.

Taste, price and convenience are the key factors consumers consider when making food choices, said Caroline Bushnell, senior marketing manager at the Good Food Institute.

"Our goal is to help companies make products that are the most delicious foods and help them make more of them so they can be cost competitive, so it's an affordable and accessible option and so consumers don't feel like they're missing anything," she said.

There's evidence that a growing number of companies of all sizes have the same goals.

"We've seen a huge spike in demand for plant-based meat and dairy alternatives as more and more consumers look to diversify their diet with plant-based foods or are moving to an entirely plant-based diet," said Michele Simon, executive director of the Plant Based Foods Association.

The trade group representing plant-based food and beverage companies has grown to 118 members, and it's promoting the industry through partnerships with grocers and foodservice companies, including Lucky Supermarkets which has teamed on a campaign dubbed "Fall in Love with Plant Based." In fact, 95% of U.S. grocery stores now sell plant-based meat products.

Plant-based foods are getting more notice in the press, as startups and mid-sized brands win bigger backing from venture capital firms and big food players looking for new growth areas.

Almond-based cheese and yogurt maker Kite Hill recently won $40 million in new venture capital funding it will use to expand to meet fast-growing demand and develop new products.

Artisan plant-based cheese and butter brand Miyoko's Kitchen moved into a bigger space last year and was recently chosen by Nestlé as one of three plant-based brands to partner in the next round of the Terra Accelerator. The other two are Jackson's Honest and Here Foods.

The accelerator, created by Rabobank and RocketSpace, is just as much about the big companies learning innovation and agility from the smaller ones as it is about helping the startups develop new tools for growth.

JUST, which first made its name with the release several years ago of plant-based JUST Mayo, drew attention this year with the launch of JUST Egg, an egg replacer made with pea protein that's on the menu in a growing number of restaurants and last month landed for a limited time at Aramark's corporate, higher education and healthcare company dining halls.

The company has also partnered with an accelerator to help plant-based foods flourish around the world. JUST has teamed with Hong Kong-based Brinc's Food Technology Accelerator to help other plant-based food businesses bring their products to market.

Catering giant Sodexo recently worked with the Humane Society of the United States to develop 200 plant-based and plant-forward menu items for its corporate foodservice facilities and campus dining halls.

Plant-based companies are also carving out a niche in the meal kit and meal delivery space, with players like Purple Carrot and Veestro offering convenient ways to try more vegan foods.

Some of the fastest growing companies are those that are creating vegan replacements for animal-based products that come as close as possible to the taste and texture of the products people are used to. At Wiz Kid in Philadelphia, Landau and Jacoby created a fast-casual joint selling vegan versions of the iconic Philly cheesesteak.

The city has embraced the concept, said Landau, who sees a time in the future when the entire food system is plant-based, and animal agriculture is a thing of the past.

"Things have moved so fast in such a short amount of time. People are realizing veganism is not a cult or a religion."

Two main changes have driven the faster acceptance of and interest in veganism, he said. First, the Internet - people can share the message easily and as graphically as they want.

Second?

"People have started to embrace the word 'vegan.'"

sauce; https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetf...7s5K0jLfusoFw8xqjrwJ86XX6_na90C8#595779962f2b


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's never too late... to go vegan or reset your clocks and watches ... stove clock, runner watch, car clock etc


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Shrooms Are the Safest Drug You Can Take
> 
> Magic mushrooms, the psychedelic drug that can help treat anxiety and depression and could help with addiction, are the safest recreational drug you can take. That's according to the annual Global Drug Survey, which polled close to 120,000 people in 50 countries about their drug and alcohol use.
> 
> ...


sauce https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/articl...cM3kOGmf0JtlPqCwSjmuWlgb5O1CCV9g0Lo4I51kpGPpE


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Just finished Pleasurable Kingdom by Jonathan Balcombe, about the capacity of animals to experience all kinds of happiness and joy. It's common to imagine wild animals' lives as miserable struggles for survival, when in fact they have room for play, leisure, love, affection, humor, even appreciation of beauty - virtually all the experiences that make our own lives valuable and worth living.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^Thanks for sharing!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

and Korn, Cranberries....


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Looks festive!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Just in time for the holidays


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Slowhead (Feb 20, 2014)

cyclelicious said:


>


Dr Greger videos are always informative. He has covered about every food topic, the good and bad.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Americans, Canadians warned to not eat romaine lettuce due to E. coli outbreak



> NEW YORK -- Health officials in the U.S. and Canada told people Tuesday to stop eating romaine lettuce because of a new E. coli outbreak.
> 
> The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it is working with officials in Canada on the outbreak, which has sickened 32 people in 11 states and 18 people in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.cp24.com/world/american...1jy056w6h3HVgnQ5BRWWidFJY4G51WUnkJvYlR0unwm0g


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

High fibre diet rules!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

South Korea closes largest dog slaughterhouse



> The Korean Animal Rights Advocates group said the complex's closure was a "historic moment." It said in a blogpost: "It will open the door for more closures of dog meat slaughterhouses across the country, expediting the decline of the overall dog meat industry."
> 
> According to a survey last year, 70% of South Koreans do not eat dogs, but far fewer - about 40 % - believe the practice should be banned. It also found 65% support for raising and slaughtering dogs in more humane conditions.
> 
> There are no laws on how to treat or slaughter canines for meat in South Korea. While farmers have urged Seoul to include dogs under livestock welfare regulations, animal rights groups oppose doing so, seeking abolition instead.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's a step in the right direction. My understanding is that there are horrible conditions for meat animals regardless of species.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Bleeeeck!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

With changing tastes, flexitarianism is the most popular item on the menu



> With consumers rapidly changing their eating habits and moving away from meat, restaurants are struggling to get a good handle on the shift. According to a recent study by Dalhousie University, nearly 1 in 5 Canadians have decided to either reduce the amount of meat they consume or have outright eliminated it from their diets. When you also consider that 63 per cent of the 6.4 million Canadians who purposely restrict meat are aged 38 or under, the economic influence of the anti-meat movement is clear. For steakhouses, this is a scary thought.
> 
> But the food-service industry is showing it can adapt and be successful in an environment where demand for meat is becoming more fragmented. One reason for that fragmentation? The growing popularity of flexitarianism. Flexitarians have consciously decided to reduce their meat consumption, but only on a part-time basis. More than 3.5 million Canadians consider themselves flexitarians, or what some may call conscious carnivores.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opi...exitarianism-is-the-most-popular-item-on-the/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> How to Go Vegan: Key Info & Essential Advice
> 
> Switching to a vegan diet is easier than you would ever expect-just a little reading puts you halfway there. Let's begin by looking at how to construct a smart overall approach. The most obvious way to become vegan is to focus on eliminating animal products from your diet. Surprisingly, however, this method of transitioning is needlessly difficult. People who go vegan by gritting their teeth and exerting willpower are probably least likely to make a lifelong change.
> 
> ...


sauce and links https://www.vegan.com/how/?fbclid=IwAR3utQoriABUfZJTOAqLdUVhJ4niCt3_3BfJfbz3kYRazqkF7GlgJrcrLN0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It Takes 1.71 Days to Poop Out a Lego











> Parents go to great lengths to make sure their toddlers don't swallow coins, batteries, toy pieces, pebbles, bugs and other chokable items that litter a child's world. But, inevitably, kids swallow things. That's why a group of healthcare professionals decided to find out just how long a Lego stayed in the human body by experimenting on themselves.
> 
> Amanda Kooser at CNET reports that doctors associated with the medical blog Don't Forget the Bubbles knew that there was a lot of data about swallowing coins, the foreign object most commonly swallowed by children, which take about 2 weeks to pass. But data on how long it takes a plastic toy piece to worm its way through the body is scanty. That's why they recruited test subjects with no history of intestinal surgery to swallow the plastic head of a Lego figurine. They then examined their poo to see how long it took until the decapitated Lego head came out.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...2-Foy2DljS_iUNlt40g32cuei1nznui_nFsNyKRi7XyKQ


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to actually remove pesticides from your fruit*

There's a lot to worry about when it comes to food-or rather, there's a lot that people want you to worry about. Every mommy blogger and natural living life coach with a URL to their name is bursting with helpful tips on how to rid yourself of toxins and chemicals. If you google "how to get pesticides off fruit" you're greeted by a flurry of blogs all promising the solution.

t's not unreasonable to want to consume fewer of the chemicals we use to kill off bugs and weeds. You should just make sure that what you're doing is actually effective. Plenty of people wash their chicken before cooking it, even though that method does nothing to kill bacteria, and in fact spreads potentially dangerous pathogens all over your kitchen sink and such. So let's look at the evidence:

*Store-bought veggie washes don't work, but baking soda does*
Water can remove some of the pesticides from a piece of fruit, so a basic scrub under the tap will help at least a little. The extent to which this rather lackadaisical method works will depends on the fruit itself; some skins will more readily release the pesticides contained therein. Others, like apples treated with wax for extra shine, will retain them despite your scrubbing. But water's occasional ineffectiveness doesn't mean you should waste money on store-bought veggie washes-they don't seem to work, either. And even if it worked (which it's not clear that it does), regular soap is liable to seep into the surface.

A recent study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found one better alternative: baking soda. A solution of sodium bicarbonate and water can remove even more pesticides than water alone, provided you have more than a minute to spare. In the experiments, Gala apples that were allowed to soak in baking soda for eight minutes had significantly reduced pesticide residue on the surface, and at 12-15 minutes there were virtually no pesticides left. This is because sodium bicarbonate can help degrade the two types of pesticides used in this study, thiabendazole and phosmet. Other chemicals might not react the same way, so this solution isn't a guarantee of a pesticide-free snack. It's just a lot better than the alternatives.

Even after the long soak time, though, there were some pesticides that the baking soda couldn't get to. Thiabendazole and phosmet, like many other substances, seep into the skin and flesh of the produce they're applied to. There's an upper limit to the amount that the fruit can absorb, since the added chemicals will come to an equilibrium inside the cells, but none of it will come out in the wash.

*Buying organic can help, though not much*
If you're hoping to avoid pesticides altogether, you'll have to look beyond the organic aisle. Produce grown under organic conditions can still have pesticides, it's just a different-and supposedly less toxic-set of them. But they're still chemicals that can seep into your fruit through the skin or even leech into the flesh itself via the plant's water supply, both of which prevent you from washing them away.

The most common piece of advice here is to avoid those fruits that pose more of a pesticide risk, often known as the "Dirty Dozen." An environmental group called the Environmental Working Group has claimed that switching to the organic versions of those 12 fruits and veggies could substantially improve your health. It's true that organic versions will generally contain fewer and less harmful chemicals, and there's certainly no harm in eating organic, but it's worth noting that EWG's methodology is far from scientific. Their analysis relied on unproven theories about how pesticides might interact with one another, and thus has skewed results. A rebuttal in the Journal of Toxicology found that EWG didn't even attempt to estimate pesticide exposure in the first place, and that "substitution of organic forms of the twelve commodities for conventional forms does not result in any appreciable reduction of consumer risks."

In other words: science does not back up the Dirty Dozen advice. But it's your money; you can eat organic if you want to.

*It's not clear how worried you should be about those pesticides in the first place*
That same Journal of Toxicology analysis also found that the levels of pesticides detected in the so-called Dirty Dozen all fell below the acceptable limit set by the Environmental Protection Agency. And we're not talking just slightly below the limit. The allowable dose for methamidophos on bell peppers was 49.5 times higher than the actual amount of pesticide, and that was the fruit with the highest exposure. Many of them came 1,000-or 30,000-fold under the legal limit. It is worth noting that legal limits aren't infallible. Human exposures and their bodily impacts are difficult to study (and oft under-studied), and too often we don't know exactly how a particular pesticide might affect us. If the EPA bases their acceptable limit on faulty science, it may overestimate how much exposure we can tolerate. And that's assuming that the EPA is even doing their job properly in the first place.

If you're still not sure-maybe you don't trust the EPA, or you think pesticides haven't been studied well enough (both perfectly fair points)-try going to your local farmer's market. There, you can talk to the growers and discuss which pesticides they use. Of course, there seems to be an ever-growing trend of farmer's markets filling up with folks simply reselling wholesale produce. So you might want to do an extra baking soda wash just to be sure.

sauce https://www.popsci.com/how-to-actua...Wl3j8UQiixiq1FsimqLzQyg-CLxfPjTCHz8iXg#page-2


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Plants do a body good! ?
> "The bone-thinning condition called osteoporosis can lead to small and not-so-small fractures. Although many people think of calcium in the diet as good protection for their bones, this is not at all the whole story. In fact, in a 12-year Harvard study of 78,000 women, those who drank milk three times a day actually broke more bones than women who rarely drank milk. Similarly, a 1994 study of elderly men and women in Sydney, Australia, showed that higher dairy product consumption was associated with increased fracture risk. Those with the highest dairy product consumption had approximately double the risk of hip fracture compared to those with the lowest consumption.
> To protect your bones you do need calcium in your diet, but you also need to keep calcium in your bones."
> How to Get Calcium into Your Bones
> ...











sauce https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition...lJOXbLuDbPpu22BAXHDEgRXe-HJL9cHeY-5nTJIcX4SPI


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Do we need the government to tell us that almond milk doesn't come from a cow?
*
_Almond milk, coconut milk and other plant-based foods might soon be labeled as 'imitation' if a class action suit succeeds._

Can you imagine starting your day with imitation milk in your coffee? Then making a sandwich on imitation bread for lunch and serving imitation noodles to your family for dinner?

If plaintiffs in a class action in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals get their way, that will be our brave new world. Any variation from the government's canon of standardized foods - milk must be from cows, bread and noodles must be made of wheat, and much, much more - will be deemed "imitation."

Farewell, almond milk, rye bread and rice noodles.

Californians have a ringside seat to this battle, as disgruntled consumers go in for a rematch against Blue Diamond, the maker of Almond Breeze, after a stinging defeat in May of last year.

Even the FDA wants to loosen regulations
Painter v. Blue Diamond alleges that Blue Diamond is fooling consumers into buying more and more plant-based milk - because almond milk uses the word "milk" on its label after the word "almond" rather than "imitation." Yes, really.

Of course, even the government knows this is ludicrous. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is on a mission to relax old rules about how many cherries must be in frozen cherry pie and the exact composition of French dressing. His reason: to remove what he calls "old-fashioned barriers to innovation."

But that doesn't stop the proponents of cow's milk from advancing an anachronistic legal theory in federal court, deeming everything that is not a cow's lacteal secretion is an "imitation."

Are we so out of touch with food that censorship is required to remind us that almonds don't lactate? Are product labels really tricking consumers into buying almond milk instead of cow's milk?

Unsurprisingly, these arguments have been shut down by courts on multiple occasions

When the Painter case was dismissed last year, the district court held that"no reasonable consumer could be misled by defendant's unambiguous labeling or factually accurate nutrition statements." Rather, "by using the term 'almond milk,' even the least sophisticated consumer would know instantly what type of product they are purchasing."

In another case, the maker of Silk plant-based milks was sued over its allegedly deceptive labels. There, the court found that the claim of deception "stretches the bounds of credulity" and that under the same logic, "a reasonable consumer might also believe that veggie bacon contains pork, that flourless chocolate cake contains flour, or that e-books are made out of paper."

Good thing, or else this newspaper might have had to refer to its online edition as imitation news.

Perhaps the reason we're seeing these lawsuits is because cow's milk is struggling to win back consumers' affections as they increasingly switch to plant-based alternatives, which now command 13 percent of the market.

But just as newspapers now offer online content, so too have some dairy companies responded by making strategic moves into the sector, with dairy giant Danone enriching its portfolio through the acquisition of Silk plant-based milks and the century-old Elmhurst Dairy switching to entirely plant-based milk products.

Consumers are choosing plant-based milk
Other companies, however, continue to struggle. The rise in plant-based milks' share of the market is a function both of increased sales for plant-based milks and a steady drop in cow's milk consumption over recent decades.

But rather than woo customers back with better offerings, the proponents of cow's milk have increasingly turned their attention to promoting draconian restrictions on the words that the competition can put on their labels.

From a dead piece of legislation with the unfortunate name "Defending Against Imitations and Replacements of Yogurt, Milk and Cheese to Promote Regular Intake of Dairy Everyday" Act (because that spells DAIRY PRIDE) to yet another lawsuit - this time against Miyoko's Kitchen, the maker of vegan butter - the theory seems to be, if you can't beat 'em, censor 'em.

And that brings us back to Blue Diamond, which now must defend against the insistence of plaintiffs that it should be forced to bear the term "imitation" on its label.

Plaintiffs complain about statements like this: "Made from real California almonds, Almond Breeze Original is a deliciously creamy alternative to dairy and soy milk. Almond Breeze Original is lactose free, soy free, calcium enriched, and contains only 60 calories per glass - that's half the calories of 2 percent milk."

To be clear, there is no suggestion these statements are false. Instead, the argument is that because it is different than cow's milk, almond milk is somehow an imitation. By that logic, so are rye bread (not enough wheat!) and rice noodles (no wheat at all!).

We're at a fork in the road. One direction leads to the featureless aisles of a supermarket where package after package bears the label "imitation" in an attempt to get people to buy what the government thinks is best. The other showcases a vibrant marketplace full of foods from around the world where we choose what we want based on what matters to us and our families.

sauce https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...j8LcTZCoZgjJcrnMyUY4IOwdQf6zQyn-WY-TEKt7DA5l0


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Cow's milk: Imitation breast milk for big boys!


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## deerkiller (Aug 5, 2015)

seems like i read the other day of an Amish dude who got jailed for selling organic milk. the dairy industry has become a bully, with state governments eating out of their hand.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Bottom right has always held some sort of sentimental value for me


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

STUDY FINDS NEW LINK BETWEEN MEAT AND HEART DISEASE



> A red meat-heavy diet significantly increases levels of a gut bacteria that has been linked to the development of heart disease, according to a study published this week in the European Heart Journal. The research, led by Stanley Hazen, MD, Ph.D., builds upon previous research showing a high level of Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO)-a gut bacteria byproduct formed during digestion-is a powerful tool for predicting future heart attack, stroke, and death risks. The new study showed chronic red meat consumption enhanced the production of TMAO and reduced the kidneys' efficiency of expelling it, compared to diets of non-animal protein sources. The study included 113 participants who were provided complete meals prepared using either red meat, white meat, or vegetarian protein sources that made up 25 percent of their daily calories. After one month, the vast majority of study participants on the red-meat diet experienced an elevation of three to ten times the level of TMAO. However, after patients stopped consuming red meat, TMAO levels subsided. "We know lifestyle factors are critical for cardiovascular health, and these findings build upon our previous research on TMAO's link with heart disease," Hazen said. "They provide further evidence for how dietary interventions may be an effective treatment strategy to reduce TMAO levels and lower subsequent risk of heart disease."


Link: https://www.mdlinx.com/gastroenterology/top-medical-news/article/2018/12/11/7551086

Sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/12/study-f...eyykppBEqM7h2zy5E_rJTn4a7_yQYHt_PUVWwERF_HDUg


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Did you know? One medium pear has about 100 calories, is a good source of fibre and a source of Vitamin C, Potassium and Folacin.

The popular:

Bartlett, the most common pear world-wide, is bell-shaped, sweet and soft with a light green skin that turns yellow when ripe.









Clapp's Favourite is similar in shape, with white flesh and exceptional sweetness. Its skin turns golden yellow when ripe.









Anjou is more egg-shaped, very aromatic and mildly sweet; the skin shows only traces of yellow over green when ripe.









Bosc has an elegant elongated shape with a slender neck; fine textured, russet colored and still relatively crunchy when ripe.








Flemish Beauty is roundish, with thick clear yellow skin speckled with red when ripe. The creamy colored flesh becomes meltingly tender when ripe.









More info: 
https://www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/fruit/pears.html

Buying and storing
Unlike most other fruits, pears don't ripen well on the tree (these can be soft and mushy at the centre). Pears are harvested when mature and allowed to finish ripening under controlled conditions. However, for Pick Your Own, varieties on dwarfing rootstock are popular and can be picked firm-ripe for final ripening at home.

A ripe pear is relatively firm but gives a little when pressed gently. Coloring should be appropriate to its variety (see varieties above). Good quality pears are smooth-skinned, unshrivelled and free of surface markings.

Ripe pears can spoil easily and their flavor is best when cool. So it's wise to refrigerate them and use within a couple of days of purchase.

Preparing
Handle pears with care to avoid bruising. Simply rinse under cool running water prior to use. Do not peel or core until ready to use.

Pears are ideal as a fresh impromptu snack or a natural dessert. They can also be used for pies and tarts, for baked cakes, crisps and crumbles, dumplings, sherbet, preserves, and even pastas and main-course salads.

Bartletts are good both fresh and for desserts, and they preserve well. Clapps are also well-suited to eating raw and to cooking and poaching.

Anjou is a succulent fresh dessert pear which also cooks and bakes well. Bosc is also great fresh and works well in gently cooked dishes. The Flemish Beauty is good as a raw dessert pear and for baking.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

She has a few age spots


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We've been cool for awhile 

Veganism is now "cool" according to social scientists



> ustralian social researchers Michelle Phillipov and Katherine Kirkwood say being vegan is now considered "cool", and most people no longer think eating meat makes men more masculine. Their new book, Alternative Food Politics: From the Margins to the Mainstream, examines the impact of popular media and culture on contemporary food trends and politics, covering topics such as food-technology startups, social justice projects, and the influence of celebrities and cooking shows on dietary trends. A chapter-co-authored by academics Stephen Harrington, Christy Collis, and Ozgur Dedehayir-is dedicated to the increasing popularity of plant-based diets and the shift in perception that has helped push veganism into the spotlight. "Their chapter argues that entertainment has played a key role in softening perceptions of veganism and fostering a heightened awareness of the broader implications of dietary choice," Kirkwood said. "Popular documentaries like Cowspiracy, Forks Over Knives, and What the Health have shone a light on the environmental and health benefits. At the same time, media personalities like Rich Roll-a self-described wellness and plant-based nutrition advocate-have helped popularize plant-based diets and re-define the links between meat and masculinity."











sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/12/veganis...Awf1sG6EgMjvcm8iX9jTZ-ls7OiC8p34LL1kCMPQxZ0Bo


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The planet is having a cow*
We're headed for an 80 per cent increase in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture if global dietary trends continue to go unchecked











> A wildly simple path to halting ecological collapse is right in front of our mouths.
> 
> But like the federal government's view of pipeline expansion schemes as "a way to finance the future green economy," its agriculture policy ignores "the advantage of cutting out meat," says Caterina Lindman of the Citizens' Climate Lobby.
> 
> ...


sauce https://nowtoronto.com/news/agricul...0zIMbCU0BwVqFe_pTtvko4UKUYoYch9VIb6juv43fesBM


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Alias Saucy Nutloaf :yesnod::lol:


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## Slowhead (Feb 20, 2014)

Sticky Double Dip


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Genetics also have a pretty big part to play in longevity but a vegan diet helps (lower cholesterol levels, less obesity, blocked arteries, diabetes etc. )

BELOVED VEGAN SURGEON DIES AT 104-YEARS-OLD

Ellsworth E. Wareham, MD credited veganism for his long, healthy life and influential career.









egan surgeon Ellsworth E. Wareham, MD-a pioneer of open heart surgery-passed away on Saturday at the age of 104. Wareham was born in 1914 in Texas and lived through the Great Depression before pursuing an education in medicine at Loma Linda University in 1942. The surgeon spent much of his life in Loma Linda, CA in a Seventh Day Adventist religious community that is one of the world's five "blue zones"-areas where the mostly vegetarian population tends to live longer than others. Up until his death, Wareham continued to drive, garden, and retired from his surgical practice at the age of 96. "I've never cared for animal products," Wareham told CCTV America in 2015, crediting his vegan lifestyle for the longevity of his health and career. "I'm basically no different than I was 50 years ago." Wareham is survived by his wife of 68 years Barbara, four children, eight grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren-who will gather for a memorial in remembrance of the revered vegan surgeon on December 30 at the Loma Linda University Church.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/12/beloved...D4bbXs-8kJOO-8w1Vc-RlTsteUq5qBxFa4GFoUx49QeGI


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is odd but it's a thing!



> On Wednesday Fast Company published an article revealing that vegetables and fruits embossed with logos are the hottest new swag for tech companies.
> 
> It all started in 2015 when Serial artrepreneur Danielle Baskin was asked to bring avocados to a friends barbecue to celebrate the sale of their startup, & she thought it would be funny to brand the vegetables with their logo.
> 
> What started off as a joke ended up being a big hit. She's been taking orders ever since through her company BrandedFruit.com, & has worked with giant companies including Pizza Hut, AT&T, & Heroku.











sauce https://www.neatorama.com/2018/12/17/Branded-Fruit-Is-The-Hottest-New-Tech-Company-Trend/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The 5 Nuts Fit People Eat*

Due to their high fat content, nuts were once thought of as a food to be avoided. Of course, that was back when people thought eating fat made you fat, which started the low-fat, high-carb craze of the 1980s that proved disastrous for the health and weight management of millions of Americans.

We now understand the importance of fat in the diet, to encourage fat loss and promote overall health. Getting ample amounts of monounsaturated, and even saturated fat, can support healthy levels of testosterone in men.[1] Most nuts are high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

But not all nuts are created equal! Grab a handful of one of these healthy options for a quick snack, or incorporate them into your baking and salads. You'll be doing your physique and your heart a solid!

*1. Almonds*
Of all the nuts, almonds have the most going for them. They're fairly high in protein, and half of their carbs come from fiber. Plus, the monounsaturated fat, vitamin E, and magnesium content of almonds may promote heart health.









Research even suggests that consuming almonds can aid fat loss, finding that subjects eating 1.5 ounces of almonds per day reduced their waist circumference, abdominal fat mass, and leg fat mass significantly more than subjects getting a similar calorie amount from complex carbs.

Watch out for products that take a perfectly healthy almond (or any nut) and add sugar to it with delicious-sounding flavors. I recommend steering clear of anything that says "honey roasted" or "barbecue."

Nutrition Per 1-Oz. Serving Of Almonds
164 calories
6 g protein
6 g carbs
14 g fat
3 g fiber

*2. Walnuts*
Walnuts are the only nut to provide a decent amount of alpha-linolenic acid, the plant form of omega-3 fatty acids.









Walnuts have also been shown to support heart health. They aid your body's production of nitric oxide, which is critical to maintaining the elasticity and dilation of blood vessels, and help maintain healthy cholesterol levels.

Some people don't like the bitter taste of walnuts. A delicious way to include walnuts in your diet is to add a half-ounce of walnuts to a cup Greek yogurt along with some honey. This works well to cover up most of the bitterness.

Nutrition Per 1-Oz. Serving Of Walnuts
185 calories
4 g protein
4 g carbs
19 g fat
2 g fiber

*3. Peanuts*
Peanuts are an excellent source of monounsaturated fat, which can support testosterone levels. They're also higher in protein than most other nuts, and low in carbs, making the peanut one of the healthier, more beneficial nuts you can eat.









The same pretty much holds for peanut butter, making it a perfect treat to enjoy when following a low-carb diet. Go for all-natural peanut butters without added sugars to avoid trans fats.

Nutrition Per 1-Oz. Serving Of Peanuts
161 calories
7 g protein
14 g fat
5 g carbs
2 g fiber

Nutrition Per 2-Tbsp Serving Of Peanut Butter
190 calories
7 g protein
16 g fat
6 g carbs
2 g fiber

*4. Brazil Nuts*









Brazil nuts are higher in fat and lower in carbs than many other nuts, with most of the carbs being fiber. That makes them a great snack on low-carb days. They're also loaded with selenium (about 90 micrograms per nut), a mineral that helps to support thyroid function, which in turn controls metabolism. Selenium is also involved in immune function and evidence also suggests that selenium is critical for maintaining muscle strength.

Eat two Brazil nuts, and your selenium needs for the day are met!

Nutrition Per 1-Oz. Serving Of Brazil Nuts
184 calories
4 g protein
19 g fat
3 g carbs
2 g fiber

*5. Cashews*









Cashews tend to be popular due to their taste, though they have less healthy fat (and therefore fewer calories) per ounce than other nuts. Cashews are also higher in carbs than most other nuts, with only 1 gram per ounce coming from fiber. They do, however, have a decent amount of protein, so keep that in mind when choosing which nut you want for your snack.

Nutrition Per 1-Oz. Serving Of Cashews
157 calories
5 g protein
12 g fat
9 g carbs
1 g fiber

sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...m=social_media&utm_campaign=content_nutrition


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Why I'm looking forward to my first vegan Christmas
> 
> This Christmas is the first time I won't be eating turkey. I've become a vegetarian. Actually, at home I'm a vegan. And very occasionally, when travelling, I'll eat chicken, when it's that or go hungry. I wonder what you think about that. That I'm a patronising hypocrite? That I'm deeply confused? Maybe you couldn't care less. Few things are more personal than what you choose to eat, but few choices have more impact on the health of our bodies and our planet. That's a recipe for a very challenging debate, so let's tuck in.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.theguardian.com/comment...52K2OeAm_3aW-lMUSCjpo7_y6NLufT4qTusKwCS1Z_DGU


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This technology can ultimately keep tens of millions of male chicks a year from being ground up alive. As long as people will continue to eat eggs, this is a massively important technological advance.

*World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin*

The world's first ever no-kill eggs are now on sale in Berlin after German scientists found an easy way to determine a chick's gender before it hatches, in a breakthrough that could put an end to the annual live shredding of billions of male chicks worldwide.

The patented "Seleggt" process can determine the sex of a chick just nine days after an egg has been fertilised. Male eggs are processed into animal feed, leaving only female chicks to hatch at the end of a 21-day incubation period.

"If you can determine the sex of a hatching egg you can entirely dispense with the culling of live male chicks," said Seleggt managing director Dr Ludger Breloh, who spearheaded the four-year programme by German supermarket Rewe Group to make its own-brand eggs more sustainable.

"It's not about winning or losing," he added of the worldwide race to find a marketable solution. "We all have the same goal, which is to end the culling of chicks in the supply chain. Of course, there's competition, but it's positive in that it keeps us all focused on that goal."

An estimated 4-6 billion male chicks are slaughtered globally every year because they serve no economic purpose. Some are suffocated, others are fed alive into grinding or shredding machines to be processed into reptile food.

The culling is a messy solution to a thorny problem of modern poultry farming. Humans have bred chickens for one of two purposes: to produce eggs, or meat. Yet half of all the animals bred for this purpose are considered useless. Male chicks lay no eggs and don't grow fast enough to justify the cost of feeding them up for meat. So, they are simply destroyed.

Chick culling has become increasingly controversial. In 2015, a video went viral of an Israeli animal rights activist shutting down a chick shredding machine and challenging a police officer to turn it back on. Consumer kickback has prompted a global race to develop a more humane solution.

Breloh said his first breakthrough came when he approached scientists at the University of Leipzig where Prof Almuth Einspanier had developed a chemical marker - similar to a pregnancy test - that could detect a hormone present in high quantities in female eggs. Mixed with fluid from fertilised eggs at nine days, the marker changes blue for a male and white for a female, with a 98.5% accuracy rate.

Next Breloh had to find a way of making the test easy for everyday use in hatcheries. He approached Dutch technology company HatchTech and asked them to make an automated machine to conduct Einspanier's test from beginning to end.
It had to be easy to use, scalable, flexible, precise, hygienic and above all, fast - the eggs couldn't be out of the incubator for more than two hours. The biggest problem was how to extract test fluid quickly from the egg without damaging it. A needle would work, but it was invasive and also brought additional hygienic problems.

Instead, a laser beam burns a 0.3mm-wide hole in the shell. Then, air pressure is applied to the shell exterior, pushing a drop of fluid out of the hole. The process takes one second per egg and enables fluid to be collected from eggs without touching them.

"It worked absolutely faultlessly," said Breloh of the test phase. "Today, female hens are laying eggs in farms in Germany that have been bred without killing any male chicks."

Earlier this year Seleggt hatched the first brood of hens bred using the method. Their eggs - the first to be sold from hens reared without killing male chicks - hit supermarket shelves in Berlin in November, bearing the seal "respeggt".

Rewe Group plan to roll out the eggs across German stores next year, while Seleggt plans to install the technology in independent hatcheries from 2020. Seleggt will require supermarkets to pay a few extra cents on every box of eggs sold with their "respeggt" seal. Eventually, the group hopes to expand the model across Europe.

"With the market readiness of [this] process, Germany is a pioneer," said German minister of food and agriculture, Julia Klöckner, whose ministry funded the project. "Once the process is made available to all and the hatcheries have implemented [it], there will be no reason and no justification for chick culling."

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-AvKEWmsCRQSrfMsVTIFp4tnWXLhFfmN81IZA8Gl8Te4


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan roti









Enjoying a vegan ginger cookie.... happy festivus!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We enjoyed more gingerbread cookies on yesterday's festivus ride


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Year in review for animals:

"This year saw some big advances for animals in the federal legislature, in the midterm elections, and in grocery stores.

California voters approved a law requiring larger cages for pigs and chickens; nearly 400 companies, including Hyatt and Marriott, committed themselves to better conditions for animals; and plant-based meat alternatives exploded in popularity - even among consumers who aren't vegetarian or vegan.

Not all the news was good, though. The overwhelming majority of animals raised for food are still raised on factory farms, where 50 billion animals lived and died this year. In the US, the rise of plant-based meats has provoked a backlash from agriculture lobbyists, who've fought to make it harder to sell soy milk, almond milk, veggie burgers, and similar products.

So 2018 offered reasons for optimism - but the promising developments took place against a dismal backdrop. Here's a brief rundown of what happened on the animal welfare front in the past year."

https://www.vox.com/2018/12/24/18148698/2018-year-in-review-for-animals


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## nisti (Feb 12, 2015)

Checking in, and subscribed.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*WTF are purple carrots and where did they come from?*











> Purple carrots have been around farmers' markets for a while now, but more recently they've gone mainstream. Pretty soon we might have a full-fledged food fad on our hands. So where did the plum-colored carrot come from, and why is it showing up in my grocery store all of a sudden?
> 
> *A colorful history*
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.popsci.com/wtf-are-purp...2hSfBIRW0JX4weLAWb7mx67V0_Z2KVnSBRNak4_KfgRn8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

THE ECONOMIST PREDICTS 2019 WILL BE THE "YEAR OF THE VEGAN"

The Economist recently released its annual "The World in 2019" magazine that predicts the themes that will be most popular in the coming year. In the report, correspondent John Parker explains that 2019 will be "the year of the vegan," citing that 25 percent of the United States population in the 25- to 34-year-old demographic now identify as vegan, meat companies such as Tyson hold equity in vegan brands, a growing number of schools and hospitals are now required to offer vegan meals, and chains such as McDonald's and TGI Fridays have introduced plant-based options. "Interest in a way of life in which people eschew not just meat and leather, but all animal products including eggs, wool, and silk is soaring, especially among millennials," Parker writes. Parker predicted that vegan meat replacements will have the greatest impact in taking veganism from "a minority within a minority" to "mainstream" in 2019, highlighting the popularity of Beyond Meat's Beyond Burgers and Dutch brand Vivera's vegan steaks-which sold 40,000 units within the first week of launching at Tesco this year. "If plant-based meats take off, they could become a transformative technology, improving Westerners' protein-heavy diets, reducing the environmental hoofprint of animal husbandry, and perhaps even cutting the cost of food in poor countries," Parker concluded.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/12/the-eco...FLKwhjaUmsCCeWCw1MYMODEDwZeCmuQhrV5ksePPwb23w

2019 will be my 5th year vegan (prior to that I was vegetarian since age 19)


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> 25 percent of the United States population in the 25- to 34-year-old demographic now identify as vegan


Holy crap. Is that true? If so that's the best thing I've heard all year.

I'm 33 so I'm in that camp...been vegan for 1.5yr, full omni before that. Never going back.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Okay, it's 25% are vegan _or_ vegetarian according to The Economist

Still more than I would have thought.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

so much for the Paleo Diet then


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## drich (Oct 9, 2015)

I really like Beyond Meat burgers, but I recently tried the Impossible burger (only sold in restaurants right now) and it is the best veggie burger I've ever had. Even my (carnivore) wife loved it, and she said that she would choose the impossible burger over a regular hamburger any day. The only disadvantage--or advantage--depending on your preferences, is that it really has the texture and feel of a hamburger. I had to ask the server if she was sure that she hadn't given us real meat by mistake.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Cross-posting this from another forum I'm on:

I first heard about veganism from a punk I went to high schoool with. In college I was served vegan meals at a punk house some friends lived at. A few years back the writings of Rudimentary Peni's Nick Blinko made me realize I couldn't live my values while continuing to eat animal products. Aus-Rotten's lyrical messages gave me the final push to make the change.

Last night I came across an essay, orginally published as a zine, on the links between punk and veganism. The sound and aesthetic of punk can turn a lot of people off so they might not be aware of the role it's played in spreading veganism and spurring activism.

The economic recession in the 70s, and violence and turmoil of the 20th century in general, helped infuse anarchism and anti-capitalism into the UK punk scene of the late seventies. Animal liberation naturally dovetails with those ideologies it soon became one of the central lyrical themes of anarcho-punk. Punks played charity gigs for animal rights organizations like the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and became heavily involved in direct action such as hunt sabotage. Among certain circles being vegan was almost a requirement, with some prominent vegan punks later reverting and saying they only went vegan to fit in.

Modern punk has evolved a lot since then and the animal rights theme has been diluted but the genres I most closely associate with old school UK anarcho-punk...crust punk and straight-edge hardcore...still feature it, either as the main topic or as one of many tragedies resulting from capitalism.

Anyhow, here's the essay:

Nailing Descartes to the Wall: animal rights, veganism and punk culture

And an example of the early anarcho-punk that helped form the connection:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ cool article. Punk-vegan Iggy Pop


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why plant protein is better for you than animal protein*



> It'd be great if a burger-a-day diet was healthy. Don't get me wrong-it's not the worst. You've got protein in there and hopefully some veggies on top (and on the side) , and even some fiber from the roll (you used whole grain, right?).
> 
> Unfortunately, study after study shows that meat as a protein source just isn't that healthy. It's far better to get that necessary protein from plants. And yes, that association is a correlation, not a causation. There are some legitimate reasons that plant-based protein sources like beans are a healthier alternative to bacon. The researchers aren't saying you can't or shouldn't indulge in a thick Delmonico or a flame-grilled cheeseburger. Rather that you should enjoy them in moderation. Generally, research shows that less animal meat is better than more, in terms of long term health. You don't have to love tofu, either (it's not the best plant-based protein anyway), as long as you strive to eat more of your protein from the ground and less from animals.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.popsci.com/plant-protei...MVUJuFurjXb3saRbVRC5i3m4b4-ZJsi_HKw8CM#page-2


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan Food Will Be Top Trend For 2019, Says Uber Eats

Vegan food is set to be a top trend in 2019, according to food delivery service Uber Eats.

The company revealed the prediction in its latest annual report, in which it also shared some of the most popular snacks from 2018.

*Vegan 2018*
Speaking about the year's top food picks, it said: "The power couple toast and avocado reigned supreme, with the highly [Insta]grammable 'goth food' trend close behind."

Other vegan foods in the top 20 included cucumber, tofu, celery, coconut, brown rice, hummus, kale, seaweed, and acai.

*Vegan 2019*
Speaking about the upcoming year, the report said: "We also took a look at foods that are popping up more frequently in Eats orders, and uncovered a few rising food trends for 2019.

"Clean Eating, Delivered: People aren't just ordering in Chinese food and pizza anymore. As wellness gets more and more popular, we've seen a spike in searches for clean eating staples from meat-alternatives like tofu and seitan...Alternative milk options continue to climb the ranks, with pea milk rising to the top."

Topping the list for 2019 was plant-based food, with seitan, bulgar, tofu, pumpkin, chia, agave, and farro all included.

sauce https://www.plantbasednews.org/post...Gz8jN9L8kSSvMpK89LgM9Ak6lX2ClLbFdtn8UOxnd2C2A


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*If You're Going Bald, Consider Rubbing Wasabi on Your Head
*
Apparently, that's what they're doing in Japan.

Wasabi, judiciously spread on the underside of a slice of hamachi and topped with paper-thin slices of negi makes for a divine bite of sushi-but what happens when you spread the spicy green plant all over your head?

Japanese wasabi company Kinin recently made an announcement that chemicals found within the wasabi plant help regrow hair faster than current hair-loss remedies such as Rogaine (minoxidil).

Keep in mind that they mean real wasabi, and not that toxic-green playdough sitting in a mound next to the birthday-pink pickled ginger that you're undoubtedly familiar with. Considering fresh wasabi typically goes for around $80 per pound, and has a rather pungent odor, you might be better off picking up some Rogaine.

While there is no currently no official scientific work to substantiate the claims made by kinin, there is some pre-existing scientific literature on wasabi in medical settings.

The chemical isosaponarin, which Kinin claims helps stimulate hair regrowth, was previously noted to aid in human collagen production. The second chemical of note in wasabi, 6-MSITC, has been shown to inhibit breast cancer cell growth.

If you're looking for other questionable, all-natural ways to regrown some hair, wasabi is but one of many things you can throw in a blender and spread on across your pate.

Onions (pick your favorite variety) can be frapped and put on the head. A study from 2002, claims that onion juice is actually effective in treating alopecia areata, a less common form of hair loss. You could also pull a PBR from the fridge for a beer hair rinse, and let all that yeasty goodness go to work. There's no real scientific basis for that one, but hey, apparently Catherine Zeta-jones thinks it's great.

If all else fails, you can try the standard Japanese anti-baldness cure of just straight up stuffing your face with curry-like all the time.

sauee https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/art...WwQLtGCnUc4Hxrb-a-1m_c3afSQanBySaorQYcSgQjrJE


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Diets 'Lead To Better Health', Says Major New Study*

_A meta-analysis analyzed 40 studies from more than a dozen countries, comparing outcomes for those on vegan and omnivorous diets_

People following a vegan diet are less likely to have cardiometabolic risk factors compared with those who eat animal products, according to a new meta-analysis.

Researchers behind the new paper, Cardiometabolic risk factors in vegans; A meta-analysis of observational studies, analyzed 40 studies from more than a dozen countries to compare outcomes for people consuming vegan diets with those consuming omnivorous diets.

"In most countries a vegan diet is associated with a more favourable cardio- metabolic profile compared to an omnivorous diet," the authors concluded.

Vegan diet health benefits
"Researchers found that people following vegan diets consumed fewer calories and less saturated fat and had lower body mass, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, and fasting blood glucose, compared with controls," said the Physicians Committee, a pro-plant-based health organization led by acclaimed physician Dr. Neal Barnard.

"In Taiwan, there were fewer differences between the vegan and non-vegan groups.

"The authors suspect those defined as vegans in Taiwan adhere less strictly to a vegan diet while the omnivores there consume fewer animal products, compared with populations in other countries."

sauce https://www.plantbasednews.org/post...QUHGPP9A09N6T9hEfVR6n6ItJYnA6bSY8ITCEJHIswjlQ


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

So true!









*Healthy Weight Loss = 80% Nutrition + 20% Exercise*

sauce https://nutritionstudies.org/health...cI_t5giTs40-4uLZk2V93q3ouO4VXtnESthEm0AGony_c


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Do you have a resolution for 2019? Consider Veganuary

Year of the vegan? Record numbers sign up for Veganuary



> As the hangovers kick in and promises are made at the end of the festive season, more and more people are committing to making a lifestyle change that may require stronger willpower than, say, going to the gym more than once in the first month of the year.
> 
> Record numbers have signed up to "Veganuary" and will try living on a plant-based diet, at least for a few weeks. With vegan options becoming cheaper, and more widespread and convenient, organisers of the initiative believe 2019 will be the year of the vegan.
> 
> ...


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

RANKING VEGETABLES BY HOW HEALTHY THEY ARE



> I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Everyone should eat more vegetables. But if navigating the produce section gives you anxiety, don't worry: I asked nutritionist David Friedman, author of Food Sanity: How to Eat in a World of Fads and Fiction, to help me rank popular vegetables - from superfood to just plain really healthy.
> 
> Before plunging into our ranking, though, Friedman feels the need to debunk some carnivorous propaganda. "The one misconception I hear a lot is that vegetables don't provide us with enough protein, and therefore, we need to eat meat," Friedman says. "The truth is that a vegetarian diet can provide sufficient protein requirements for humans. For example, 100 calories of ground beef contain 10 grams of protein, whereas 100 calories of baby spinach contain 12 grams of protein." Friedman also mentions that beans and nuts - both of which fit into a vegetarian diet - are high in protein.
> 
> ...













> 1. Asparagus: "This tasty green stalk comes in first place on my vegetable ranking," Friedman says. "Asparagus is a great source of vitamin K, which helps with blood clotting and building strong bones." Friedman also mentions that asparagus provides vitamin A (which prevents heart disease), vitamin C (which supports the immune system), vitamin E (which acts as an antioxidant) and vitamin B6 (which, like vitamin A, also prevents heart disease).
> 
> Asparagus is also loaded with minerals, including iron (which supports oxygen-carrying red blood cells), copper (which improves energy production) and calcium (which improves bone health). "Asparagus increases your energy levels, protects your skin from sun damage and helps with weight loss," Friedman continues. "It's also an excellent source of inulin, a type of carbohydrate that acts as a prebiotic, supporting the growth of health-promoting bacteria in the colon."
> 
> ...


sauce https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story...sk7zXGsY53JGV6HyUHbKgNpeMsWeSByBQcf_Vl6s_yg10


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Blame the meat!

90 year Old Cyclist Fails Doping Tests, Blames Contaminated Meat


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*This Is What Happens to Your Body When You Give Up Meat*









Many esteemed evolutionary anthropologists point to a growing body of evidence showing that our earlier ancestors weren't the skilled and canny hunters of popular imagination. Increasingly, they posit that we got our taste for the flesh of other beasts from scavenging from animals that really are natural born killers. A 2015 study measured how much meat lions and leopards left on a kill and concluded that they'd be plenty left to meet the total daily caloric requirements of at least one male **** erectus, possibly more.

There's a broad consensus among scientists that the frequent consumption of meat enabled our brain volume and mental capacity to grow far beyond that of the other hominidae-the taxonomic family that includes all the extant species of gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and bonobos. Though many of us might blanch at the thought, eating meat has made us who we are as a species. (As a side note, we are now on the cusp of consuming meat that comes without all the death that, until now, has been part and parcel of every delicious, nutritious mouthful.)

Given how important meat has been to the human story, and how vegetarianism and veganism has done a takeover of your Instagram feed, you might wonder what happens to the human body if you walk away from it completely. Well, wonder no more.

*Inflammation decreases*
The complex biological response of body tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants is commonly known as inflammation. In essence, it's a protective response-considered a mechanism of "innate immunity" and in many circumstances, it's your friend. Still, you don't want inflammation to come to your "rescue" when you have been chowing down on a ribeye, yet that's what can happen.

"Animal products contain inflammatory compounds such as saturated fats and endotoxins," says Virginia Beach-based dietician Jim White. He adds that by contrast, plant-based diets are naturally anti-inflammatory due to their high fiber and antioxidant content. White points us to a study which demonstrated that plant-based diets result in a decrease of the C-reactive protein, an indicator of inflammation within the body.

*You may run low on certain vitamins and minerals*
Most of us are well aware that meat packs a lot of protein and, depending on the animal, cut and preparation method, a fair amount of fat, too. What we don't talk about as much is the vitamins and minerals present in things we eat that once mooed, clucked, baaaed, or oinked. Going without some of these vitamins and minerals for extended periods of time can have health consequences. That's why vegetarians and especially vegans often need to seek them elsewhere.

"Not eating meat does require you to pay more attention to certain nutrients," says Atlanta-based nutritionist Marisa Moore. Moore explains that B12, omega-3 fatty acids, and iron are a few of the top ones you'd need to keep an eye on. They can be found in places other than flesh: B12 is abundant in nutritional yeast and fortified foods, for instance, and "you can get vegetarian sources of iron in beans and leafy greens"-enhanced when combined with a source of vitamin C. Omega-3s, found in fish, come in an algae supplement or foods like chia or hemp seeds.

*Your microbiome changes*
Your microbiome is the word used to describe the the trillions of microorganisms living in your body. Long overlooked, these microorganisms are increasingly recognized as being crucial to our overall health. They produce important nutrients, train our immune systems, turn genes on and off, help protect us from cancer, and keep the tissue in our gut healthy. Studies have demonstrated they play a role in obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, atherosclerosis, autoimmune disease and liver disease.

The bad news for meat lovers is that meat and other animal products can a create something called trimethylamine oxide, or TMAO, in the gut that frankly, you don't want in there. "Meat consumption triggers bacteria within the gut to produce a substance that the liver converts to the toxic product TMAO, which [at high levels] increases cholesterol, which could up your risk of cardiovascular disease," White says, explaining that plant-based diets produce little to no TMAO and their high fiber content promotes growth of healthy bacteria within the gut.

What's more, research suggests that people who have been sticking to a plant-based diet for some time make little or no TMAO after a meal containing meat, because they have a different gut microbiome. It only takes only a few days of cutting out animal products for our gut bacteria to change.

*Living longer is not out of the question*

Seventh Day Adventists are a protestant Christian denomination whose American members, on average, live several years longer than the national average. The fact that their church discourages them from smoking and drinking alcohol is likely responsible for some of that difference, as are their tight-knit communities. They are also non-meat eaters. Given that the regular consumption of meat is associated with a slew of chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, infections, kidney disease, liver disease or lung disease, the significance of this particular behavior on longevity can't be ignored.

At the DNA level, there's evidence showing that plant-based diets are better at stopping people from fraying at the ends-literally. "A plant-based diet has been shown to lengthen telomeres, or the caps at the end of chromosomes that keep DNA stable, resulting in cells and tissue to age more slowly," says White, adding that shortened telomeres are associated with earlier death and aging. "Additionally, the nutrients in plant-based diets optimize how cells repair damaged DNA."

sauce https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/articl...UmQhok5WakGjW1G8QR7gdQjnhzbEk44Rjk-SbG9-bU-lQ


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Iowa ag-gag law struck down

Iowa is the biggest pig farming state in the US, killing 50 million of these sentient individuals per year. The ag-gag law criminalized undercover investigations of animal agriculture, shielding the animal agriculture industry from accountability. The law was struck down by a federal judge on first amendment grounds, which would seemingly apply to all other states' ag-gag laws. Hopefully the judges overseeing those legal challenges agree.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Imagine a factory farm with poodles instead of pigs. Most people would be rightly upset at the conditions and treatment of the dogs and demand an investigation and change. Why should we not hold the same or even a similar standard towards pigs, cows, etc.?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Taco Bell Is Testing Out Its First Dedicated Vegetarian Menu in 2019*

As meat-free stoners and cheese-centric vegetarians nationwide can have long known, Taco Bell is a legitimately good spot to find cheap, veg-friendly junk food. With its beans, potatoes, rice, guac, and tortillas all prepared vegan already, Taco Bell has earned not only the approval of hard-to-please PETA but also the American Vegetarian Association.

In 2019, however, the chain will be making eating meatless even easier. Taco Bell announced in a press release yesterday that it will be testing a dedicated vegetarian menu later this year. For Taco Bell, those options are meant to make ordering "easier and better for vegetarians and flexitarians" and fit into a push towards better quality and sustainability. Currently, it's not totally clear what this new menu might look like, but some fans are hoping for meat alternatives like Beyond Meat.

These changes come in addition to Taco Bell's many vegetarian options already. Considering that you can mix and match from the rest of the menu by replacing meat with beans or potatoes, Taco Bell says they currently offer 8 million potential vegetarian combinations. That's apparently "enough to customize a new meal every day for nearly 20,000 years." (As my talents lie more in eating and less in math, I'll take them at their word that one could make that many different treats.)

The very online world of Taco Bell fans on Reddit seems mostly nonplussed by the announcement, but for them, the chain's friendliness to vegetarians isn't a surprise. Just last month, one Redditor wrote, "I am a vegan thankful for Taco Bell every day." The 92 comments, as of this writing, include lots of tips for making the Mexican-inspired mall food meatless-like ordering anything "Fresco-style," which replaces all dairy with pico de gallo; or getting the Mexican Pizza with black beans instead of meat, a swap that one person calls "actually spectacular."

*Worldwide, it's becoming easier and easier to get your fill of vegan and vegetarian fast food. A recent Vox article called 2018 "the year of vegan junk food," mostly because of the growing popularity of Impossible Foods and Beyond Burger.* As MUNCHIES UK recently explored, more and more chains are incorporating "chicken" cutlets, non-dairy cheese, barbecue jackfruit, and veggie "sausage" rolls onto their menus as initiatives like Veganuary help animal-free diets grow increasingly more mainstream.

While meatless eaters wait for the new menu's rollout, I offer this piece of advice: Order everything with potatoes instead of meat-that's the key to living más and meat-free. Plenty of people will tell you that beans are the best veg swap, but that's a rookie move.

sauce https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/art...XaF7qP-H-DVg8VLAVY9ARnGRttllPlVOuxR-lOPZDZW88


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

^^^^
I saw the Taco Bell article the other day. It's a great step in the right direction. I'm not a fast food guy, but I do love me some Taco Bell every once and awhile. My go to is the Power Break burrito without the meat, sour cream, and ranch.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

Surprising myself again!

Butler Soy Curls. Made them for the first time last night as a topper on organic edamame spaghetti noodles with parmesan.

Tried them yet?

Discuss.....


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Oh My Sack! said:


> Butler Soy Curls.
> 
> Discuss.....


I've never seen them. How did they taste?


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

dubthang said:


> I've never seen them. How did they taste?


Me neither, or even heard of them. So how was it?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

https://www.butlerfoods.com/index.html

^ Looks good! I'm going to pick some up and try it.

Thank you OMS!


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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

It has a consistency similar to meat. It's pretty much tasteless, just like I was told by a friend that gave me a bag to try. It takes on the flavor of whatever flavoring you add to the hydration and/or cooking process. I just hydrated mine in water and then fried it up with just a small amount of butter, crushed garlic, and a dash of salt. I'm going to buy their Chik season product to try with it. You could hydrate it with a beef or chicken bouillon or anything of that sort to makebit what you want.

It makes a whole lot so you can have it on standby in the reefer and use it for many different things. Today, I threw a big handful into a skillet on medium high heat to get it sizzlin' and browned then squirted an adequate amount of Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce into it then put it on a wheat burger bun and it was just like eating bbq pork/chicken sammich.

It's easy on the gut where I'm experiencing some lengthy issue lately after a bout of Diverticulitis that turned into a double dose of C.Diff infection which I am battling with antibiotics for the second time. So much fun!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to build muscle on a vegan diet*

When articles proclaim that "veganism is growing in popularity," it's not just because Instagram and Youtube makes it feel that way. It's because veganism is, in fact, growing in popularity.

*Some fast facts:*

On Dec. 30, 2018 more than 14,000 people formally promised (by signing up through this website) to not eat animal products in January. Participation in Veganuary has more than doubled every year since the campaign began in 2014.

Last year, restaurant consulting group Baum + Whitman identified plant-based food as a major trend for 2018. "That's still true" for 2019, the copywriter(s) note [PDF], adding that this year lab-grown meats "look like profound long-range game changers." (The brief writer also describes cows as "prolific poopers," so BRB going to hire them to write for Popular Science.)

In 2017, Nestle-whose brands range from Hot Pockets to Coffeemate to Haagen-Dazs to Digiorno-also identified plant-based foods a trend the company, in the words of its Executive Vice President of Strategic Business Units, "believe is here to stay and amplify."

6 percent of U.S. consumers now claim to be vegan, up from 1 percent in 2014. That's a 500 percent increase, or a difference of 1.6 million people.

Ariana Grande is vegan.

If you are one of the millions of folks who now call themselves vegan (or plant-based or whatever) and you have divulged this fact to anybody, you have probably been asked about your protein intake. People may have wondered about your muscle mass, or your strength. And it's not a totally unreasonable concern. Generous protein intake is essential for maintaining and building muscle. Eggs, meat, and dairy make up roughly 62 percent of the protein consumed by U.S. adults-and that number may actually be greater when you consider that 8 percent of the protein consumed "could not be classified" (hot dogs??). The remaining 30 percent is plant protein, the largest dietary source of which is bread, which doesn't exactly have a reputation for being protein-rich.

When I transitioned out of animal products a year ago-there are many science-backed reasons to reduce your animal product intake-the move seemed to run counter to my goals for athleticism and overall beefcakiness (pun intended). I've drained hours researching what humans need to build muscle optimally. When I tried to find research on how people who don't eat egg whites, whey protein powder, or 93-percent-lean ground beef can optimize their gains, the Google Scholar well ran dry.

But even without recent or replicated peer-reviews papers, we have proof enough that getting buff with plants is, in fact, possible. There are enough vegan bodybuilders and Olympic athletes to show us it can be done. But how? I asked four experts and compiled their knowledge below.

Our panel: (1) Dr. Anastasia Zinchenko, a vegan bodybuilder, powerlifter, and coach with a PhD in biochemistry and books full of high-protein bake recipes. (2) Jordan David, a vegan bodybuilder, health coach, and founder of Conscious Muscle, which sells coaching, apparel, and supplements. (3) Dr. Rachele Pojednic, an assistant professor of nutrition at Simmons University. (4) Kendrick Farris, a vegan weightlifter who represented the U.S.A. in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympic Games.

It's worth noting that you don't need to follow their guidelines to get adequate nutrition. These people are experts on gaining maximum strength and/or muscle mass, so they're giving advice on getting jacked-not on simply being healthy. Humans actually do not need very much protein to stay well. But if you want to get buff with plants, read on.

*How much protein the aspiring buff vegan should eat?*
As previously mentioned, the survival of our species does not require as much protein as many Westerners are led to believe. Adequacy, according to the United States' recommended dietary allowance, is just 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. So, for example, a person who weighs 170 pounds (or 77 kilograms) should eat about 62 grams of protein (that's 77 x 0.8). Most people (especially meat eaters) get that without even really trying. A peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread, for example, has about 18 grams of protein.

But how much protein should people eat if they want to get ripped? "It depends on the training stage," Zinchenko says. "Usually people who are new to lifting can build muscle faster than those who are already advanced. So a beginner lifter should eat more protein. But I usually recommend the same for all stages of training, because more protein doesn't hurt anything."

Zinchenko, who shares tips on her website Science Strength, recommends vegans eat 2.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (or about 1.1 grams per pound). That's a lot higher than what governmental organizations recommend, but her clients want to bulk up, not simply be healthy. And muscle gain requires the amino acids in protein. (More on that below.)

People who go to David for coaching are prescribed 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, which shakes out to just a bit less protein than Zinchenko prescribes. Pojednic, a nutritionist, recommends training athletes get anywhere from 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

For context, a 170-pound individual would consume 185 grams of protein on Zinchenko's plan, 170 grams of protein on David's plan, and 123-169 grams of protein on Pojednic's plan. That difference in protein consumption equates to roughly two protein shakes, or a block and a half of tofu.

The difference between vegan proteins and proteins that come from animal products
If you aren't vegan, Zinchenko says, you can get away with eating 2.1 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, because the amino acid profiles in animal products are slightly better for making muscle. Pojednic notes that amino acid composition is "one of the key distinctions" between a vegan and an omnivorous diet.

Both Zinchenko and Pojednic call out amino acids leucine and lysine, in particular. Animal proteins generally have more of these amino acids than plant proteins (here's a graph), which is significant because these building blocks seem to be particularly good drivers of muscle protein synthesis. You can boost your levels by incorporating a supplement, which Zinchenko recommends, though Pojednic notes that there are plenty of vegan sources of leucine: soy isolates (like soy protein powder), seaweed and spirulina, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, and tofu.

It's not just about getting enough protein," Zinchenko says, "The distribution of amino acid types is also important. It's like building a house. It must have windows, bricks, and doors. You can have all the bricks in the world, but without a door, it's not going to be a house."

That doesn't mean you need to make sure each serving of protein includes a mix of all the necessary amino acids, Pojednic says. If you're eating a variety of foods throughout the day, there's no need to pair up rice and beans for every meal. Your body can still put all the pieces together.

*Fiber and protein bioavailability*
Even if your lunchtime salad has all the nutrients you want, your body may not be absorbing them. Some foods are harder for the human digestive system to turn into nutrients. Compared to meats, eggs, and dairy, vegetal proteins are not as bioavailable, meaning your body might not actually get to use all the protein contained in the raw spinach you scarfed.

Whole (also known as unprocessed) foods, which are recommended by the USDA, contain fiber and other substances that can limit absorption in the small intestine. "If you eat a raw vegan diet, you may need to aim for 2.7 grams per kilogram of body weight, which is just an insane amount of broccoli and beans," Zinchenko says.

Whole foods generally take longer to digest, which is why serious muscle-builders may want to chug a protein shake on a relatively empty stomach-and why both David and Zinchenko recommend some sort of protein supplementation. Pojednic suggests it too, particularly if your stomach can't handle a full meal after lifting.

*Do vegans need to supplement?*
Vegans need to take a B12 supplement. Most of the B12 humans get in their diet comes from animal products, as a result of microorganisms being processed in the guts of cattle and sheep. Without foods from those critters, it's a lot harder to get adequate B12, which means vegans rely on fortified plant milks and cereals or supplementation. (Unless they are really into eating seaweeds like spirulina or dried nori, which contain B12.)

Otherwise, no, you don't need to use a protein shake or branched chain amino acid powder-but they can make it a whole lot easier to get your protein in. Otherwise, 150 grams of protein a day (without just oodles of carbs) can be overwhelming.

*The ideal ratio of vegan protein sources*
David was a bodybuilder before he went vegan. In fact, he was "a total meathead." His transition to vegan bodybuilding was simple: replace meat with meat substitutes. He is a "big proponent of tempeh" and usually advises his clients to eat two whole foods meals (like black beans and veggies or lentil soup), one meat substitute meal (like tacos with beefless ground), and one or two shakes.

Zinchenko encourages vegan lifters to "err on the side of caution" and eat about 50 percent of your protein from legumes (beans, peas, soy, etc.), 25 percent from grains, and 25 percent from nuts and seeds to make sure you're getting adequate amounts of the necessary amino acids.

*Meal timing*
"The most recent recommendations clarify not just how many grams of protein you should eat, but also how those grams are pulsed throughout the day," Pojednic says. "Scientists are thinking now that there's only a certain amount of protein your muscles can uptake and utilize in one sitting. If you flood your system with amino acids, at some point they're a little bit wasted."

Aim to get 0.25 and 0.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per meal. Or, to put it way simpler, space out your protein over 3 or 4 meals a day, not just all at once in a mega smoothie.

The other science-backed tip is to make sure you're eating 20-30 grams of protein within 30 minutes (up to an hour is probably fine) of training. "The literature shows that ingesting both protein and carbs in that window promotes muscle growth and recovery, which helps you stay up on your training regimen." Yes, that can be a protein shake-but it can also be a peanut butter sandwich.

The science is a little bit muddier for eating before and during training. Pojednic says to go with your preference, and how much food you want in your digestive tract while you're doing heavy squats. Overloading your G.I. system is particularly easy for vegans, whose foods contain so much fiber. You can definitely get a tummy ache from eating a salad before training, because all the blood is "shunted away" from your digestive organs in favor of, say, your quads. If you don't want to eat before training, but want to make sure you've got enough sugar in your system to get the most out of your workout, Pojednic recommends fruit juice.

*But the most crucial aspects of gaining muscle have nothing to do with being vegan.*
It's not all about getting enough amino acids. You've got to eat enough calories to gain mass, and you've got to train hard. Farris, who went plant-based in November 2014 (between Olympics appearances), is a world-class athlete who happens to be vegan-and he doesn't track his protein at all. Still, he was able to "make some gains and, more importantly, stay healthy." He says a vegan diet has let him recover faster. "If you can do that, you can do more work. You can beat your body up more. Simply, just train."

(It's worth noting that part of the reason Farris had no qualms about changing his diet while in a high point of his career was because he spent his prime lifting years (19-22) gaining strength without reliable access to any type of food at all. "If I could lift and do it all when I didn't have access to regular meals, how was I going to get weaker eating enough food but switching out the ingredients?")

In case that doesn't drive the point home, know that every single person I spoke to for this article mentioned the importance of simply eating enough food.

"A big problem for vegans is that they can easily under eat," Zinchenko says. "Especially active people who eat a lot of whole foods. Without calories, your body can't make muscle."

"The main thing is high-volume weight training and getting adequate nutrients," David says. "That's it. There are no shortcuts. The harder you hit it, the more you feed it, the more it will grow." (I believe we were talking about butts at this point in the conversation.)

"Obviously diet is going to give you that tiny push at the end, but the training and the dedication is really what's going matter in the long term for high-level athletes," Polojic says.

Oh, and for what it's worth, we sorely need more research on vegans. "Even the studies that examine vegan protein powders are not done on vegans," Zinchenko says. "If there is somebody who would like to donate money to study vegan muscle growth, I would be happy to run the study."

sauce https://www.popsci.com/vegan-diet-w...W2h3vb2L4hKFmYx_3UfzxmYwdCGg0IIQaOafXU#page-3


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*4 Spices That Enhance Your Workout Recovery!*

Consistency is crucial in the weight room and the kitchen. For example, to get bigger and stronger, you'll probably need to perform some of the same exercises over and over again. In your diet, eating variations on the same dishes can help you keep your nutritional plan airtight and your meal prep straightforward.

Sticking to the same monotonous flavors can leave you dreading the meal to come, however. Adding spice is the easiest way to breathe new life into the same old food! And not only are these spices delicious and calorie-free, they've been shown to have a beneficial impact on body composition and performance.

Is your spice rack up to date? If not, add these four to your grocery list!

*1. Turmeric*
Turmeric is a plant native to Southeast Asia, and it's a staple in many Indian dishes. Beyond the unique savory flavor it provides, this golden spice has a rich history of providing many health benefits, which is why it's been used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries









One possible benefit that has gotten a lot of press in recent years is turmeric's anti-inflammatory properties. It's purported that turmeric can help to alleviate muscle soreness and also lessen the stress response to exercise. A study published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition provided turmeric to cyclists undergoing exhaustive exercise and found that those taking the turmeric had significantly lower levels of stress and inflammatory markers upon completion of the exhaustive bouts.

Furthermore, a study done in rats found that those supplementing with turmeric showed significantly less muscle damage following a muscle-damaging exercise protocol.

Spice it up: Try adding ground turmeric powder to curry dishes or stews, frittatas or scrambles, and all things grains and veggies.

*2. Cinnamon*
Cinnamon is one of the world's great spices, not only for its flavor, but also its ability to turn up the flavor in both sweet and savory dishes. But this potent brown powder also delivers a slew of benefits that may just help you present your best beach body yet.

For one, cinnamon has a profound impact on glucose control. This is related to high levels of the bioactive compound methylhydroxychalcone polymer (MHCP), which provides an insulin-mimicking effect. When you eat cinnamon, several enzymatic reactions are triggered that ultimately lead to prolonged digestion and slower entry of glucose into the blood









Ingesting 3-6 grams of cinnamon has been shown to have a positive impact on blood glucose levels following a meal, as well as significantly delaying gastric emptying rates. Although it hasn't been shown to directly influence satiety, a slower digestion rate may keep you from snacking in between meals.

Spice it up: Cinnamon tastes great on just about anything. Throw it in your morning smoothie, protein shake, or oats, sprinkle it atop Greek yogurt, or even mix it into your ground turkey.

*3. Cayenne Pepper*
Cayenne pepper is part of the Capsicum annuum family, which makes it a relative of paprika, bell peppers, and jalapenos. You may know that this bright red powder provides intense flavor, but it can kick up your fat-loss efforts.

The active ingredient in cayenne pepper is capsaicin. Capsaicin has been shown to increase energy expenditure and fat oxidation via increase in sympathetic (nervous system) activity. No wonder it's a staple ingredient in plenty of contemporary fat-burning supplements!

The capsaicin content of cayenne pepper varies greatly, but it's thought to be between 0.1-60.0 milligrams per gram of capsaicin. Based on these numbers, it's estimated that a single tablespoon may contain between 0.8-480 milligrams of capsaicin. Most studies examining the impact of capsaicin have used a teaspoon or less.









A study published in the Public Library of Science (PLOS) found favorable and significant changes in the rate of fat oxidation and total calorie balance in subjects supplementing with just 2.56 milligrams of capsaicin at each meal during a one-day period.

Furthermore, supplementing with capsaicin has been shown to maintain a higher rate of reliance on fat as fuel coming out of a diet. In a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, 91 individuals underwent a four-week very-low-calorie diet, followed by a three-month maintenance period. During the maintenance period, half of the subjects took 135 milligrams of supplemental capsaicin per day. Subjects taking the capsaicin maintained higher levels of fat oxidation throughout the three-month maintenance period compared to those not taking capsaicin.

Spice it up: Add cayenne to any cooked protein, stew, soup, or egg dish you make, but be warned that the heat is strong and can vary by brand or age. Start with a little, and assess your tolerance before piling it on.

*4. Ginger*
Ginger is a pungent spice that has a distinctive and instantly recognizable flavor. In root form, it comes shaped like a tree trunk, with a pale brown exterior and fibrous, slightly yellow interior. Native to many Asian countries, its culinary use spans the continent, but this root has been used in folk medicine for decades-and for good reason! One of its many health benefits is its anti-inflammatory effect.









In a study published in The Journal of Pain, researchers looked at the impact of consuming 2 grams of ginger daily on reducing muscle soreness following a bout of 18 eccentric-focused exercises. The supplementation group reported less muscle soreness compared to the placebo group throughout the next 24 hours.

If you're new to training, or starting a new exercise routine, experiencing delayed-onset muscle soreness will be inevitable. But adding ginger to your nutritional routine may help you get back into the gym sooner rather than later.

Spice it up: Ginger is available both in its fresh root form or powdered form. When working with the root version, it can be stored peeled in the fridge, wrapped in a wet paper towel, for up to three weeks.

Powdered ginger can be stored in your spice cabinet, but many people find the flavor of the fresh item superior. Try blending fresh ginger in your stir-fry, soup, or if you're feeling spicy, a smoothie or protein shake!

sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...m=social_media&utm_campaign=content_nutrition


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What is the true cost of eating meat?

What are the economics of meat?*

Food and farming is one of the biggest economic sectors in the world. We are no longer in the 14th century, when as much as 76% of the population worked in agriculture - but farming still employs more than 26% of all workers globally. And that does not include the people who work along the meat supply chain: the slaughterers, packagers, retailers and chefs.

In 2016, the world's meat production was estimated at 317m metric tons, and that is expected to continue to grow. Figures for the value of the global meat industry vary wildly from $90bn to as much as $741bn.

Although the number of people directly employed by farming is currently less than 2% in the UK, the food chain now includes the agribusiness companies, the retailers, and the entertainment sector. According to the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in 2014 the food and drink manufacturing sector contributed £27bn to the economy, and employed 3.8 million people.

It is not simple to separate out the contribution that meat production makes to this - particularly globally. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation states that livestock is about 40% of the global value of agricultural output and supports the livelihoods and food security of almost a 1.3 billion people.



> What about animal welfare?
> In Britain we've been regulating animal welfare since the slightly unfortunately named "Humanity Dick" (real name Richard Martin) got the Cruel and Improper treatment of cattle bill passed in 1822.
> 
> But the idea of animal welfare and animal rights remains a hugely controversial one. In 1975 philosopher Peter Singer argued in Animal Liberation that the boundary between humans and animals is completely arbitrary. Although campaign groups such as the RSPCA (founded in the 19th century) had long been trying to improve animal welfare, Singer's book arguably kicked off the modern animal rights movement.
> ...


*What about its cultural and social importance?*

Cooked meat may have been partially responsible for the large brains that characterise **** sapiens and have put humans where we are now. Cooking made calories from meat (and from vegetables) easier to consume and absorb than in a raw form.

And the domestication of certain animals - along with the domestication of wild grains and vegetables - marked the beginning of human agricultural history in the "fertile crescent". Throughout human history the hunting and farming of meat has been part of our stories and mythologies and some of our legal and religious systems; the fatted calf for the prodigal son; the medieval forest laws that created areas where no one but English royalty could hunt; the sacrifical sheep to mark the beginning of Eid Al-Adha; even the roasted wild boars consumed at the end of every adventure by Asterix and Obelix.

But is meat still crucial to human life? Some argue that, just because we've always eaten meat, that doesn't mean we always have to. If we can get all the dietary nutrients and protein that we need elsewhere, should we?

*How has meat production changed?*

The old-fashioned vision of a mixed farm with wheat and chickens and pigs still exists. More than half of the farms in the US, for example, were small enough in 2012 to have sales of less than $10,000 dollars. But the 20th century saw the application of the principles of the industrial revolution to agriculture - how could inputs be minimised and profits be maximised?

The result was the factory farm, first for chickens, then pigs, and more recently cattle. Producers discovered that animals could be kept inside, and fed grain, and could be bred to grow more quickly and get fatter in the right places. Since 1925, the average days to market for a US chicken has been reduced from 112 to 48, while its weight has ballooned from a market weight of 2.5 pounds to 6.2.

Pig and cattle farming has followed suit. Sows are held in gestation crates for up to four weeks once they are pregnant, and then put into farrowing crates once they've had their piglets to prevent them accidentally crushing their young. Industrially reared pigs spend their lives in indoor pens. Cattle farming is now being similarly streamlined, with cows in the last few months of their lives being fattened in feedlots with no access to grass and sometimes no shelter.



> *What impact does meat have on human health?*
> There are a number of concerns about the impacts of industrial meat production on our own health, beyond the environmental issues. Bacterial infections that can be transmitted to humans, such as salmonella and campylobacter, can spread through large farms. The ability of these pathogens to enter the environment around farms and slaughterhouses, and to make humans ill, is a major modern worry.
> 
> Although there is a problematic shortage of research into the link between antibiotic use in animals and the growing problem of antibiotic resistance in humans, scientists and policymakers agree that it is a significant part of the problem. The volumes here are large: in the US it's been estimated that 80% of all antibiotics go to farm animals. When Jim O'Neill, the chair of a UK independent review on antimicrobial resistance, published his recommendations for action, reducing unnecessary use of antimicrobials in agriculture was the third item on his list.


*What is the environmental impact of our current farming model?*

It is extremely difficult to separate out the different impacts of different farming models and types. Many measurements look at agricultural impact without making a distinction between arable v livestock, or industrial v small farms. However, the following information begins to indicate the scale of the problem.

Water use
An influential study in 2010 of the water footprints for meat estimated that while vegetables had a footprint of about 322 litres per kg, and fruits drank up 962, meat was far more thirsty: chicken came in at 4,325l/kg, pork at 5,988l/kg, sheep/goat meat at 8,763l/kg, and beef at a stupendous 15,415l/kg. Some non-meat products were also pretty eye-watering: nuts came in at 9,063l/kg.

To put these figures into context: the planet faces growing water constraints as our freshwater reservoirs and aquifers dry up. On some estimates farming accounts for about 70% of water used in the world today, but a 2013 study found that it uses up to 92% of our freshwater, with nearly one-third of that related to animal products.

Water pollution
Farms contribute to water pollution in a range of ways: some of those are associated more closely with arable farming, and some with livestock, but it's worth remembering that one-third of the world's grain is now fed to animals. The FAO believes that the livestock sector, which is growing and intensifying faster than crop production, has "serious implications" for water quality.

The types of water pollution include: nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilisers and animal excreta); pesticides; sediment; organic matter (oxygen demanding substances such as plant matter and livestock excreta); pathogens (E coli etc); metals (selenium etc) and emerging pollutants (drug residues, hormones and feed additives).

The impacts are wide-reaching. Eutrophication is caused by excesses of nutrients and organic matter (animal faeces, leftover feed and crop residues) - which cause algae and plants to grow excessively and use up all the oxygen in the body of wate at the expense of other species. A review in 2015 identified 415 coastal bodies already suffering these problems. Pesticide pollution can kill weeds and insects away from the agricultural area, with impacts that may be felt all the way up the food chain. And although scientists do not yet have full data on the connection between antibiotic use in animals and rising levels of antibiotic resistance in the human population, water pollution by antibiotics (which continue to have an active life even after going through the animal and into the water) is definitely in the frame.

Land use and deforestation
Livestock is the world's largest user of land resources, says the FAO, "with grazing land and cropland dedicated to the production of feed representing almost 80% of all agricultural land. Feed crops are grown in one-third of total cropland, while the total land area occupied by pasture is equivalent to 26% of the ice-free terrestrial surface".

Climate change
It's hard to work out exactly what quantity of greenhouse gases (GHG) is emitted by the meat industry from farm to fork; carbon emissions are not officially counted along entire chains in that way, and so a number of complicated studies and calculations have attempted to fill the gap.

According to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, agriculture, forestry and other land use accounts for 24% of greenhouse gases. Attempts to pick out the role of animal farming within that have come up with a huge range of numbers, from 6-32%: the difference, according to the Meat Atlas, "depends on the basis of measurement". Should it just be livestock, or should it include a whole lot of other factors? Different models of farming have different levels of emissions: this has generated an energetic discussion around extensive versus intensive farming, and regenerative farming - a model that aims to combine technologies and techniques to regenerate soils and biodiversity levels while also sequestrating carbon.

What about the giant companies that dominate the sector? A 2017 landmark studyfound that the top three meat firms - JBS, Cargill and Tyson - emitted more greenhouse gases in 2016 than all of France.

*What next?*

Some argue that veganism is the only sane way forward. A study last year showed, for example, that if all Americans substituted beans for beef, the country would be close to meeting the greenhouse gas goals agreed by Barack Obama.

But there are some alternatives. Reducing the amount of meat you eat while improving its quality is advocated by many environmental groups. But where do you find this meat? The organic movement was founded on the pioneering work of Sir Alfred Howard. It is still relatively small - in Europe 5.7% of agricultural land is - but influential. There are other agricultural models, such as biodynamic farming and permaculture. More recently some innovators have been fusing technology with environmental principles in the form of agroforestry, silvopasture, , or regenerative agriculture to create farming methods which all encompass carbon sequestration, high biodiversity and good animal welfare. A recent study showed that managed grazing (a technique which involves moving cows around to graze) is an . However, while organic and biodynamic meats have labels, regenerative farming, as yet, does not - so you need to investigate your farmer yourself.

*Further reading*

The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation has a huge collection of data, and has also published some crucial reports on this issue, including the groundbreaking Livestock's long shadow.

sauce and links in the article https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...AdmhouavS1BgliYV5Jyo_zLPEwjN5hXunzNJ1e4bb_gnU


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

One of the most influential and powerful endorsements for plant-based diets by the Lancelot Medical Journal to save the planet and feed the earth's population. Yes, we're on the right track!

*Seven dietary changes to protect your health - and the planet*



> Consider a diet that can prolong your life and, at the same time, feed a growing global population without causing further damage to the environment.
> 
> That's just what 37 scientists from 16 countries (the EAT-Lancet Commission) did for two years. Their findings resulted in recommendations for a healthy diet that can feed the world's population from sustainable food systems and were published on Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.theglobeandmail.com/lif...LZirZvmCSHTS3OLM8rH-s6H-5PFqShU_Ppz3dDaAe3buE


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Deadly meat recalls spiked by 83 percent since 2013*

Factory farms continue to poison the American food supply, including romaine lettuce and spinach which are tainted with pathogens by animal waste.

Government recalls of Class 1 meat products has increased by 83 percent from 2013 to 2018, according to a new report by consumer watchdog organization Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). The report link , which is based on USDA and FDA data, describes this category of animal products as "a health hazard situation in which there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems or death." The report also revealed that recalls of all meat products have increased by 67 percent, with beef recalls up by 55 percent, pork recalls by 67 percent, and poultry recalls up by 70 percent since 2013. PIRG also identified that recalls of certain vegetable crops, such as romaine lettuce and spinach, are on the rise due to poor sanitation standards at factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). "These [contaminants] can spread beyond the CAFO to nearby produce farms as runoff from animal waste from cattle operations can contaminate irrigation water for clean crops and cause contamination," the report stated.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/1/deadly-m...LI-_ZQlFhpbvGag7jXCi5aIWBY8ENfuOYHAUmPx324Gs0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I recently tried the Ikea vegan hotdog. The new plant-based frank costs 75 cents and is served with mustard, red cabbage and fried onions. It was pretty good... almost as good as their chickpea-based version of the iconic Swedish meatball, dubbed veggie balls. I'll give it

















It's been a year since our last Ikea visit. I swear that there are real people actually living in those condo displays.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Canada's revamped Food Guide has finally caught up with scientific evidence*

Three years ago, when the federal government asked Canadians about their needs and expectations for their national food guide, I offered a wish list of changes in my column. Turns out, my wishes were granted this week when Health Canada revealed its overhauled Canada's Food Guide.

This version has caught up with scientific evidence on diet and health. Here's why.









*Easy to understand*. The guide's dietary recommendations aren't complicated. Eat a variety of healthy foods each day. Have plenty of fruits and vegetables. Eat protein foods. Choose whole-grain foods. Make water your drink of choice.

The picture on the front of the guide, a photograph of real food on a plate (not illustrated foods on a rainbow) is also effective. The message is pretty simple: Fill half of your plate with vegetables and fruits, one-quarter with protein and one-quarter with whole grains.

*Whole foods, not nutrients.* The Food Guide now directs people to whole foods, and has done away with recommending a certain number of daily food-group servings to meet nutrient needs (e.g., calcium from dairy, iron from meat).

Eating the right foods instead of fussing over individual nutrients is the way to go, because if you base your diet on whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans and lentils, fish, lean meat, yogurt and so on, you're going to be consuming plenty of nutrients.

Since 2007, nutrition research has taught us that it's the overall pattern of our diet that matters when it comes to health.

*No more focus on meat*. The decision to replace nutrient-based food groups with groupings of foods (e.g., protein foods versus "Meat and Alternatives") has removed the emphasis on meat.

Lean meat is included as one of the guide's protein foods (along with fish, eggs, dairy, beans, lentils and nuts), but it's no longer the main attraction. And that's a good thing.

High intakes of red meat have been tied to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer. Eating more protein from plants compared to meat, on the other hand, has been associated with a lower risk of premature death from cardiovascular disease.

Downsizing the importance of meat in the diet also reflects findings from environmental research on optimal food choices.

*Advice on highly processed foods.* The revised guide recommends that we don't eat processed or prepared foods and beverages on a regular basis, to avoid consuming too much added sugar, sodium and saturated fat.

That's important advice since our increasing reliance on ready-to-eat, ready-to-drink and ready-to-heat highly processed foods has been correlated with higher obesity rates, metabolic syndrome and unhealthy blood-cholesterol levels.

Thanks to their high content of unhealthy fats, sugars, salt and other additives, highly processed foods are intensely palatable, which can make them habit-forming. Plus, they're low in or lacking fibre, protective phytochemicals and vitamins and minerals that whole foods contain.

Includes advice on how to eat. Over the past several decades, the way we purchase and prepare foods has dramatically changed. We eat more meals away from home, we spend less time cooking and we eat too many processed, packaged foods.

The implications: unhealthy diets, missed opportunities for kids to gain cooking skills and knowledge, and the decline of family meals, which have been associated with nutritional and psychosocial benefits for children.

For the first time, Canada's Food Guide strongly makes the important point that "healthy eating is more than the foods you eat." It's also about the context in which we eat.

Advice to "be mindful of your eating habits," "cook more often," "enjoy your food," "eat meals with others," "use food labels" and "be aware of food marketing" encourage food skills that support healthy eating.

Health Canada has committed to stay on top of the evidence to ensure that our food guidance is continually relevant. We shouldn't have to wait another 12 years for an update.

sauce https://www.theglobeandmail.com/lif...WqYPxrI5LJ0rOU7EhrF7HROPm6q5v3pFfFHAepPVKyWu0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Gluten Is Perfectly Fine for the Vast Majority of People
There's almost no proof that going gluten-free will do the average person any favors.*

By some estimates, roughly one in three Americans is actively trying to cut back on gluten, and gluten-free foods are now a $5-billion industry. Those are pretty stupefying figures when you consider there's almost no proof that going gluten-free will do the average person any favors. In fact, most of the research to date suggests gluten-free diets are unhealthy.

"The low-gluten fad can cause harm, and there is no evidence of a benefit unless someone has evidence of an allergy to gluten, as in celiac disease," says Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health.

Celiac disease is an inherited autoimmune disorder that affects less than one percent of the population-a rate that seems to be holding steady, not climbing, according to a 2016 study in JAMA Internal Medicine. For celiac patients, eating gluten can cause symptoms ranging from abdominal pain and vomiting to seizures. A blood test can confirm if you have the disease.

A small percentage of people-perhaps up to five percent of the population-may have a condition known as non-Celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), says Alessio Fasano, director of the Center for Celiac Research at Massachusetts General Hospital. For these people, gluten seems to cause some of the same symptoms that turn up among celiac patients. But NCGS is controversial; not all gut experts are convinced it's a real condition, and there's currently no test to confirm whether a person has it.

Whether or not NCGS is legit, nutrition researchers agree that the vast majority of Americans don't have any gluten-related issues. For these people, cutting out gluten is more likely to do harm than good. "We have seen that people who do not have celiac disease, but who [do] have low gluten intake tend to have higher risk of type 2 diabetes," Willett says, citing some of his own research. Another recent study concluded that avoiding gluten could raise a healthy adult's risk for heart disease. Gluten-free diets may cause these and other issues because they steer people away from nutrient- and fiber-rich whole grains and toward less-healthy alternatives, Willett says.

"Gluten-free foods are not inherently healthy, and a lot of these commercially-produced gluten-free foods are not good for you by and large," adds Joseph Murray, a gastroenterologist and professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Murray says that, even for patients with celiac, he advises caution when it comes to buying gluten-free packaged products. And like Willett, he says missing out on whole grains is a big concern associated with gluten avoidance.

While it may come as a surprise to those who buy the current low-carb hype, whole grain foods have established health benefits. Two large long-term 2015 studies found people who eat heavy amounts of whole grains enjoy significantly lower rates of heart disease and mortality. More evidence suggests eating whole grains lowers your risk for diabetes and some forms of cancer. There's also a wealth of data backing the benefits of Mediterranean-style diets. While olive oil and fish draw most of the focus when it comes to healthy Mediterranean eating, these plans are traditionally high in whole grains.

Apart from being packed with vitamins, whole grains are great sources of fiber-a type of carbohydrate that feeds healthy gut bacteria and supports digestion. "There's just this huge spectrum of health benefits associated with high fiber intakes, and whole grains are one of the best and most-affordable sources of fiber," says Wendy Dahl, an associate professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Florida. Research shows the average American is already woefully deficient when it comes to fiber. And gluten-free eating is likely contributing to this issue. "People on these anti gluten or anti grain diets-they're cutting off the largest source of fiber from their diets," Dahl says.

On the other hand, there's no doubt that many gluten-packed foods are crappy for you. Cookies, crackers, baked goods, and other heavily processed grain-based snack foods are on every dietician's list of foods to avoid. If you tend to eat a lot of this junk, going gluten-free could steer you toward some healthier eating patterns.

There's also evidence that people with irritable bowel syndrome and some other gut conditions can reduce their symptoms by cutting out some short-chain carbohydrates known as FODMAPs. Since many gluten-containing foods also contain these short-chain carbs, it's a certainty that some people who cut out gluten are going to feel a bit better. "They benefit, but not from life without gluten," says Peter Gibson, a professor of gastroenterology at Monash University in Australia. Some of Gibson's research has shown that people with non-Celiac gluten sensitivity who cut out FODMAPs felt a lot better, while removing gluten from their diets-without their knowing it-didn't make much difference. He says a low-FODMAP diet would benefit these people more and would not be as restrictive as a gluten-free diet.

But let's not muddy the waters. The case for or against eating gluten is pretty straight-forward: If you're dealing with chronic gut pain, diarrhea, unexplained weight loss, or other symptoms that suggest a GI disorder, talk with your doctor. He or she may determine that a gluten-free diet is for you. If you're not experiencing those symptoms, there is no reason to avoid gluten.

sauce https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/articl...Y2hI_uUqU_pMZbKXh6aO2eIQZ1XHe5Xd8FKmgNeaQvuSU


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

... the Super Bowl


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Things are changing! Canada's revised food guide emphasizes eating plants, drinking water and cooking at home. When picking proteins, the food guide suggests eating plant-based proteins, like legumes, beans, and tofu more often than those from animal sources, like dairy, eggs, meat and fish.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*When We Eat, or Don't Eat, May Be Critical for Health*

_A growing body of research suggests that our bodies function optimally when we align our eating patterns with our circadian rhythms._



> Nutrition scientists have long debated the best diet for optimal health. But now some experts believe that it's not just what we eat that's critical for good health, but when we eat it.
> 
> A growing body of research suggests that our bodies function optimally when we align our eating patterns with our circadian rhythms, the innate 24-hour cycles that tell our bodies when to wake up, when to eat and when to fall asleep. Studies show that chronically disrupting this rhythm - by eating late meals or nibbling on midnight snacks, for example - could be a recipe for weight gain and metabolic trouble.
> 
> ...


sauce: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/...7diA4CMzGrwQBz5zOO9Wf-ZPvZw#commentsContainer

I'm wondering how the study would have resulted had women been studied as well?

I also wonder if it applies to people that work shift work? I spent the first several years of my career working shifts and 12hr shifts... it affected my sleep and weight.

An interesting article though


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*GREAT GUT HEALTH, NO BONES ABOUT IT*

As the gut health obsession takes the health and wellness arena by storm, many seekers of the next miracle food have turned to bone broth. But the broth, typically produced using sawed-open cow bones, is more of a horror story than the miracle medicine consumers hoped for. Great gut health is important in supporting your entire body, from your skin to your immune system. Here are 10 vegan ingredients that will help you achieve that sought-after balance in your belly.

*1. Drinking vinegars*
Drinking vinegars have exploded in popularity, but these trending beverages have health benefits, to boot. Reported to aid in digestion and help keep stomach acid levels balanced, you can count on more drinking vinegar companies like Bauman's Best Botanicals popping up as demand grows.

*2. Sauerkraut *
Fermented foods are a key ingredient in achieving great gut health. That zesty sauerkraut that you pile on your Beyond Sausage can also offer probiotics that support healthy digestion. To be sure that your sauerkraut is the kind that contains those helpful microorganisms, look for jars with "naturally fermented" on the label.

*3. Avocado *
An important component of gut health is balancing the bacteria in our bellies. While fermented edibles such as sauerkraut deliver probiotics, one of the world's most perfect foods-avocados-offer us the prebiotic fibers we also need for balance. So, go ahead: toss more slices on that salad, and indulge in the avo toast for breakfast. It's for your own good health, after all!

*4. Miso *
Miso, a fermented soybean paste, has a funny way of popping up in recipes when we least expect it. It can make vegan mac and cheese magical, and has even made appearances in savory waffles. A staple of Japanese and Chinese cuisines, as a probiotic-containing fermented food, miso also provides health benefits for the gut.

*5. Blueberries *
Simple. Perfect. Bluerries. We can eat them straight from the plant or blend them into delicious icy-cold smoothies. Not only are these sweet finger foods as great raw as they are in desserts, but they are full of healthful antioxidants and phytoflavinoids, while also high in Vitamin C and potassium. And, they're great for our gut health. A study led by University of Maine scientists provided evidence that blueberries help keep our digestive systems in great shape.

*6. Tempeh*
Another fermented soy food that offers great benefits for the gut is the protein-packed and super-versatile vegan favorite: tempeh. Whether served as smoky plant-based bacon or tossed in a salad, tempeh seems able to adjust to just about any culinary context. A 2013 study showed that this flexible food also boosts healthy bacteria in the belly.

*7. Seaweed*
About 71 percent of the Earth's surface is water, so why should we limit ourselves to the food that grows on less than a third of the planet. Mysterious, dark, and rich tasting seaweed adds an element of the unusual to our savory dishes, while delivering a variety of health benefits. It provides vitamins and minerals, contains antioxidants, and is an excellent source of fiber, helping to keep our guts healthy. Seaweed also contains sulfated polysaccharides which are known to boost good gut bacteria. So dive in and indulge in this surprising sea food.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/10/great-g...qR9kwJgV8_y3K61vpndNcmAvmbehOSZ6KQvoGWPtSWmTc


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Good luck finding tofu on Canada's east coast*

Tofu shortages have been spreading across parts of Eastern Canada as demand for plant-based diets surge.

At one Montreal supermarket, interest appeared to jump after the release of Health Canada's latest Food Guide, which emphasized plant-based proteins such as beans, nuts and pulses.

"A lot of people are getting more educated," said Supermarché PA manager Nick Lup.

Quebec might be the hardest hit of all provinces by a shortage, according to Nielsen market research data. The province has long been one of the biggest consumers of tofu products, with some 26 per cent of Quebecers eating it on a regular basis. Just 16 per cent enjoy tofu elsewhere in the country.

Sales data suggests those numbers could be on the rise too. "Sales of tofu have increased by almost 20 per cent every year for the last five, six years," said Sylvain Charlebois, Dalhousie University professor of food distribution and policy. "We don't see how this will slow down anytime soon."

Quebec's largest tofu producers are struggling to meet demand. Unisoya and Soyarie are working on increasing production by expanding factories, but Unisoya told CTV Montreal that they won't be selling to big chains like Costco and Provigo until that process is complete. Smaller stores like Lup's may continue to be more well-stocked during a shortage than some of Quebec's bigger stores.

"Grocery chains tend to demand a lot of product," said Charlebois. "When there are back orders it will affect several stores at once."

sauce https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/good-luck-finding-tofu-on-canada-s-east-coast-1.4278680

Great stuff. Canada's new Food Guide says to eat more plant-based proteins, there's more demand for tofu, and the main tofu companies in Quebec are increasing their production capacity to meet demands The market is changing, this is beautiful


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*SUPER BOWL RUNS ITS FIRST PLANT-BASED BURGER COMMERCIAL*









Carl's Jr.'s commercial for the Beyond Famous Star will air during the Super Bowl on Sunday-marking the first time that a plant-based burger advertisement has been featured during the big game. The 30-second commercial depicts a Wild West cowboy character doing yoga on the beach while eating a Beyond Famous Star. "Yeah. I've seen a lot out here in the West. But a juicy charbroiled burger with a patty made from plants &#8230; Only the folks at Carl's Jr. can pull off something that bold." the cowboy says. "All the legendary flavor; none of the meat. When the wagon of change comes, you ride along with it." On January 2, Carl's Jr. added the Beyond Famous Star (which can be ordered vegan by omitting cheese and mayonnaise) to more than 1,000 locations nationwide, making it the largest fast-food chain to offer the vegan Beyond Meat patty. Marketing tactics for the Beyond Famous Star are a major pivot for the company as Carl's Jr.'s previous Super Bowl commercials featured scantily clad women eating meat-based burgers. Last month, Carl's Jr. became one of the first restaurants to use the Beyond Burger 2.0-a "meatier" version of Beyond Meat's original patty.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/2/super-bo...pgAKKvxkDXg1n30-EQ_EOTyQI2ph90ixRmVUuIBPhzjLs


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Go vegan!

*Mississauga cashier stops robbery by striking suspect with banana*
Published Saturday, February 2, 2019 9:24PM EST

A convenience store cashier in Mississauga foiled an attempted robbery Saturday night by striking the suspect with a banana, Peel Regional Police say.

Const. Akhil Mooken says officers were called to a shop at Hurontario and John streets on Saturday night for an attempted robbery.

Police said the cashier at the store told them that a suspect entered the store and approached the cash register.

The employee then grabbed one of several bananas on display nearby and struck the suspect with it.

The suspect then fled the scene on foot.

Mooken said the employee was not injured in the encounter but was "a little shaken up."

Officers remained at the scene to conduct a search.

Police often urge retail employees not to resist during robberies but this is not always followed.

Last November, three employees of a jewelry store in Mississauga repelled armed robbers by brandishing swords.

sauce https://www.cp24.com/mobile/news/mi...ery-by-striking-suspect-with-banana-1.4280548

Yesterday on my walk downtown Toronto (Spadina & St Andrew) I found a busted up cash register... obviously stolen in a robbery. No banana peels were seen


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Fresh is one of my favorite restaurant's in Toronto. It's vegetarian /vegan and I have only had vegan dishes so it's great they are going the full vegan!

*TORONTO EATERY GOES VEGAN BEFORE EXPANDING TO US*

opular Toronto-based eatery Fresh Restaurant recently announced the opening of a new location in Los Angeles along with plans to make all of its established locations fully vegan by June 2019. The restaurant, while currently offering all-vegan dishes, still provides dairy milk for coffee and tea, and cheese as a topping option for salads, burritos, and burgers. Fresh's new LA location will offer a fully vegan menu of signature dishes such as Quinoa Onion Rings, Dragon Fries, Tiger Bowls, BBQ Burgers, and Poutine, vegan cashew cheese, and a few new additions that will be unique to that location. The eatery will also offer raw, cold-pressed juices, power shakes, botanical lattes, and green smoothies. Owner Ruth Tal plans to evoke a luxe California atmosphere with private velvet curved booths, two craft cocktail bars, a greenhouse dining room, and a balcony with a view overlooking West Hollywood. "Being a vegan 'pioneer' in Toronto for over two decades was lonely at times," Tal told VegNews. "I've taken so much inspiration from LA over the years, so it's pretty special to finally be opening a restaurant there." Tal's decision to update the restaurant menus to be fully vegan came from the knowledge that guests are no longer intimated to eat at vegan establishments compared to 20 years ago. "It's a different world now," Tal said. "People have the information, and we don't have to work as hard to help people come to us and to not feel intimidated. It's a pretty easy transition since none of our recipes have ever had any dairy in them, so we don't actually need to remake any of our recipes." Tal plans to further expand the restaurant brand across both Canada and LA.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/2/toronto-...c-MB10p4sYglrriitZzhPkiTdAzHq6UyDiEQ8oG70aJTo

Soup of the day with corn bread and a little salad at Fresh


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The 9 Healthiest Fruits To Beat Inflammation, Lose Weight & Boost Brain Health*

In a strict sense, it's impossible to rank the healthiest fruits. They're all good, and most of us don't eat as many servings as we should. In fact, one large survey found that a poor diet was the leading cause of death and disability in the United States-worse even than smoking-and one of the most damaging aspects of that crummy diet was not eating enough fruit.

But of all the choices out there, from fiber-rich apples to antioxidant-packed blueberries and everything in between, which fruits pack the most powerful punch for overall health and weight loss?

Knowing which fruits to prioritize can go a long way in boosting your health while eliminating that all too common choice paralysis you experience in the produce section of Whole Foods Market. So we tapped some of our favorite nutrition experts for their top picks

*What makes a fruit extra healthy?*
Before we dive into our list of healthiest fruits, it's important to have a rough understanding of what makes a particular fruit a standout choice. So we asked nutrition experts for some perspective.

"I tend to encourage high-fiber, lower-sugar fruits and to watch portion sizes. Ideally, you also should consume fruit in the context of a balanced meal or snack that also provides protein and/or fat," says Jessica Cording, M.S., R.D., CDN, registered dietitian and health coach.

Here are some other good tips to keep in mind:

*Colorful is good, the deeper the better. *The fruit's immune system lies in its skin in the form of dark phytonutrient pigments. These phytonutrients (e.g., anthocyanins in blueberries and carotenoids in apricots) protect the fruit from environmental stressors like the sun's UV rays and insects, and they're also what impart many of fruits' powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. "These phytochemicals stress our own cells in small, healthy ways that stimulate our immune system's antioxidant defenses against threats like inflammation, cancer, and premature aging," says Maya Shetreat, M.D., integrative pediatric neurologist, author of The Dirt Cure, and an all-around plant food expert.

*Tart is good, the tarter the better.* Some plants also evolved to contain phytonutrient compounds that impart a sharp taste to their fruit in order to ward off predators (e.g., the tanginess of raspberries or the pucker of pomegranates). Much like phytonutrient pigments, these tart compounds often indicate a richer storehouse of micronutrients and phytonutrients that function as powerful antioxidants.

*Organic means more antioxidants. *Organic fruits and vegetables have also been shown to contain, on average, 20 to 40 percent more antioxidants than their conventionally grown counterparts-so if you do opt for organic, any of the choices below will be even healthier. Plus, you'll be steering clear of literally hundreds of pesticides.

*Both fresh and frozen are good options.* All fruits lose nutrients over time, too, so it's important to eat them while they're fresh. Buying locally grown vegetables from a farmers market or food co-op is great for this reason but not essential. Buying organic frozen fruits is great, too, as they're frozen at peak freshness.

All that said, don't get stuck on just one fruit being healthy or the healthiest, says Dr. Shetreat. Develop your palate and go for variety. The broadest range of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients is what you're after. Use this list simply as a guide to help you narrow down your choices when you're feeling indecisive.

9 of the healthiest fruits on the planet.
Even with the guidelines above, we wanted the experts to help us identify which fruits really go above and beyond, based on their nutrient profile and the latest research. So we asked Cording and Dr. Shetreat to share some top picks that would make it onto their healthiest fruits list:

*1. Raspberries*

With a quick scan of this list, it's safe to say berries are the equivalent of leafy greens in the vegetable world. They're packed with fiber (8 grams per cup-that's about a third of your daily needs!), contain a variety of phytonutrients, and their net antioxidant effect is, gram for gram, second only to herbs and spices.

Raspberries and black raspberries may be one of the most potent berry picks of all. A 2011 study showed that consuming 60 grams of black raspberry powder slowed the growth rate of colorectal cancer cells and the blood vessels that supply them in two to four weeks. Researchers believe that the fruit phytochemicals stimulate

our own enzyme defenses that neutralize cellular waste products known as free radicals, which, left unchecked, promote cellular deterioration and lead to cancerous mutations.

Admittedly, most of the berry/cancer research has measured the effect of a berry extract on human cancer cells in a test tube. But Dr. Shetreat believes that berries as a complementary therapy for cancers of the colon, prostate, and breast looks promising. The colon cancer connection makes especially good intuitive sense, she adds, since the fiber in the fruit feeds good bacteria in the gut, which then produce organic acids, which then feed the cells that protect the colon's lining. Bonus: Raspberries are also a great source of vitamin C.

*Try it:* This beet, apple, and raspberry salad with herbed millet is loaded with filling, digestion-friendly fiber.

*2. Cranberries*
These little red berries pack a similar phytochemical punch as their berry brethren but with an added bonus. They're a potent antimicrobial and have been well-studied for their ability to protect against the strains of bacteria that cause urinary tract infections (UTIs). They're not an antibiotic and may not do much for a full-blown UTI but rather a prophylactic, "preventing bacteria from latching on to the epithelial cells that line the urinary tract," says Dr. Shetreat.

*Try it: *This cranberry thyme spritz lets you imbibe without the guilt.

*3. Blueberries*
Smaller, tarter wild blueberries are phytonutrient powerhouses. But even the plump blueberries at your local grocery store or farmers market are remarkable. They have a pleasingly sweet taste but are fairly low in calories and low on the glycemic index, says Dr. Shetreat. In fact, the best research suggests that berries are positively good for blood sugar control. The fiber in the fruit forms a gel in the gut that can slow down the release of glucose into the bloodstream, and certain phytonutrients in the fruit may actually block sugar from being absorbed through the gut wall and into the bloodstream.

Additionally, research suggests that blueberries help protect the heart, lowering "bad" LDL cholesterol and slowing plaque buildup, thanks in part to their soluble pectin fibers. While other research suggests blueberries help protect the brain from oxidative stress and may be protective against dementia. "They're also included in the MIND diet, which was designed to protect against Alzheimer's disease," says Cording.

*Try it: *This brain-boosting blueberry smoothie will keep you focused all morning long.

*4. Tart cherries*
All cherries are loaded with the usual polyphenolic phytonutrient suspects as well as a good dose of heart-healthy potassium. But tart cherries, especially in the form of tart cherry juice, have been the best studied for their anti-inflammatory effects, including their ability to reduce joint pain and muscle soreness after exercise. A 2018 review of the health benefits also found some evidence for a reduction in hemoglobin A1C, which indicates improved blood sugar control.
*
Try it:* This beet and cherry smoothie is the ideal post-workout drink.

*5. Elderberry*
Elderberries are a special case, says Dr. Shetreat, who grows them in her backyard in the Bronx. They're not meant to be eaten raw-they'll cause stomach upset-but when they're cooked and reduced into a syrup or a jam, they're remarkably effective against the flu. In Dr. Shetreat's family, a daily teaspoon of the syrup usually wards off that unwelcome wintertime visitor when taken at the first signs of illness. Research also suggests that the syrup may fight back against MRSA (methicillin-resistant staph aureus) and reduce inflammation in the brain.

*Try it: *Here's how to make an elderberry syrup shot at home-which our health editor recommends taking before every flight!

*6. Pomegranates*
Pomegranate seeds and their juice-filled compartments are phytonutrient giants, with two to three times as much antioxidant activity as green tea or red wine, according to the U.C.-Berkeley School of Nutrition. Not surprisingly, there is tantalizing preliminary research that suggests pomegranates can help protect against cancer, lower blood pressure, improve cholesterol levels, and improve cognitive function. In one small study, a group of older subjects who drank 8 ounces of pomegranate juice daily for four weeks scored higher on memory tests than a control group. One downside: They're not the easiest fruit to eat. If you opt for a pomegranate juice, mix it with seltzer to keep the sugar content under control.

*Try it: *This Turkish-spiced wild rice salad contains whole pomegranate seeds and is the perfect sweet-savory combo.

*7. Red grapes*
Red grapes, like the red wine they produce, may be beneficial thanks to one of their polyphenolic compounds. Resveratrol became a media darling when a Harvard researcher produced some preliminary animal studies suggesting that the compound was a cellular fountain of youth. The jury is still out on that one, but there's a large pool of literature suggesting that resveratrol is important for heart health, Dr. Shetreat says, reducing arterial plaque buildup and lowering blood pressure.

*Try it:* This ultimate kale salad is absolutely packed with fruits and veggies, including red grapes and a number of our healthiest vegetable picks.

*8. Citrus fruits*
Citrus fruits like oranges, grapefruit, and lemons have traditionally been touted as great sources of vitamin C, which is important for maintaining immune defenses during the winter cold and flu season. They're packed with folate, too, "which is important for supporting stable levels of the pleasure-inducing brain chemical dopamine," says Cording.

Citrus is also a double-threat, Dr. Shetreat says: The pulpy fruit contains most of the vitamins and minerals, while the skin, with its characteristically bitter flavor, contains loads of phytonutrients. While most of us don't eat orange or lemon rind, you can shave some off with a zester and add it to smoothies, or you can buy kumquats and eat the fruit and the skin.

*Try it: *These warm dates with orange zest and olive oil are what Mediterranean dessert dreams are made of.

*9. Apples*
Sure, apples aren't the most glamorous fruit-you're not likely to find them on many superfood roundups-but they have plenty of virtues, not the least of which is that they store and travel well. Apples are also an excellent source of the phytonutrient quercetin (so are red onions, one of the healthiest vegetables), which, in a number of studies has been shown to reduce inflammation and counteract asthma and allergy symptoms. Because apples are so packed with fiber, both soluble and insoluble, they are also much more filling than their modest number of calories would suggest. A number of studies have shown that apples can provide a helpful assist in a weight-loss program.

*Try it:* This apple-raspberry crisp combines two super-fruits in one!

sauce https://www.mindbodygreen.com/artic...Wp7YXrjH8PELK4oi4jRyP6IoG9ubOJb7iT3mL3ot8HdFM


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

"I hit him hard with the bananas and he ran away."


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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

Lucky the robber hadn't trained for that sort of situation.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Wait...so Peel Regional Police wasn't part of the joke and that actually happened?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The real victim in all of this is the banana and the Peel Regional police are on the case


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*US academics feel the invisible hand of politicians and big agriculture*

In a windowless conference room epidemiologist Steve Wing was frantically blacking out chunks of his own research.

Wing had been working on a study looking into the impacts of industrial-scale hog operations on health for the University of North Carolina. But the state's Pork Council had caught wind of the research, and filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) to gain access to his findings. "They went after Steve, asking him to turn over any documentation. They went directly to the university and got the lawyers to try and make him hand it over," says Naeema Muhammad, one of Wing's community partners.

Wing had promised the community members who had spoken to him that he'd protect their privacy. Revealing even a few basic details could have compromised their identities. "Because &#8230; if their occupation was a nurse, they lived in a household with three other people, they were aged 35-39 &#8230; there's only one person like that in a rural area," Wing said in a 2015 interview.

The university warned Wing that if he failed to hand over the documents, he could be arrested for theft of state property and even sent to jail. The data didn't belong to him, it belonged to the state. But handing over the identities put his subjects in jeopardy. It wasn't unheard of for people to lose their jobs for taking a public stand against the politically powerful pork industry.

Wing's lawyer negotiated heavy redactions in response to the FOIA request. "We did give over the records, and I actually to this day remain regretful that I didn't resist more," Wing said in the 2015 interview. In November 2016 Wing died. "He went to his deathbed with them still harassing him to turn over his information," says Muhammad.

*Industry pressure*

Work like Wing's is exactly the kind research institutions are meant to carry out. And academia writ large is supposed to be independent. Scientists at public universities work for the taxpayers. Their research is supposed to advance the public interest.

But over the past 30 years, as public funding for university research has dried up, private industry money has poured in. And with industry money comes industry priorities. Agribusiness has funded research that has advanced its interests and suppressed research that undermines its ability to chase unfettered growth. The levers of power at play can seem anecdotal - a late-night phone call here, a missed professional opportunity there. But interviews with researchers across the US revealed stories of industry pressure on individuals, university deans and state legislatures to follow an agenda that prioritises business over human health and the environment.

Take Iowa, a state that is, in both identity and capacity, American farm country. According to data released by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in October 2018, the state produces more commodity corn and hogs - and in many years, soybeans - than any other US state. In Iowa, pigs outnumber people by nearly eight to one.

For decades, deep relationships have existed between the agriculture industry and the state's politicians - and increasingly those alliances are catching the state's universities in their crosshairs. In 1980, when the federal government passed the Bayh-Dole Act, encouraging universities to partner with the private sector on agricultural research, leaders at academic institutions were incentivised to seek money from agribusiness. Two of the state's universities in particular seem to have felt the reach of this policy: Iowa State, which is a land-grant institution, and the University of Iowa, which doesn't have an agriculture school but feels the pressure of agribusiness influence. Researchers at both institutions told us they had felt the direct impact of agribusiness dollars on their work.

So who's pulling the strings? Take, for example, the looming presence of the Iowa Farm Bureau - 100 years old, with more than 150,000 members, and sitting on $1.4bn (£1bn) in total assets, having taken in nearly $88 million in revenue in 2015 alone. While the public can't see the specifics of private-sector funding for universities, we do know that the Iowa Farm Bureau has contributed more than $3m to Iowa State University over the past 30 years.

Other industry-specific lobbies - the Iowa Pork Council and other commodity groups - also contribute directly to universities. The Pork Council, for instance, provides scholarship opportunities to Iowa State University students majoring in agriculture-related fields. Additionally, it contributed $200,000 directly to the university, according to tax filings from 2016.

And then there are the politically influential businessmen Charles and David Koch, intensely pro-free market billionaires who line the coffers of far-right politicians, and who owe their immense fortunes in part to manufacturing fertiliser. In 2017, the Koch Foundation announced a donation of nearly $1.7m to Iowa State University for an economics programme.

That makes the agribusiness industry a powerful special interest in Iowa's universities.

Of course, this money has helped to create world-class courses and opportunities for many students and academics. Nevertheless, some would argue that it has also created an atmosphere in which research that is not directly helpful to the industry can appear to bite the hand that fed it.

In 2017, for example, after 30 years of research into alternative methods of agriculture, the Aldo Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State was deprived of funds in the state budget in a bill signed off by former governor Terry Branstad (whose own campaign received $88,000 from the Iowa Farm Bureau, coincidentally). It left the institution alive in name only.

Or back a little further, when Jim Merchant, the founding dean of the University of Iowa College of Public Health, retired, he planned to continue analysing an existing data set, the Keokuk County Rural Health Study. (Professors are often allowed to conduct research after they retire.) He'd already published work using the same data set to link industrial-scale hog farms with asthma rates in local children. Still, he thought there were more insights to be gleaned from the information that had been collected.

Money wasn't a problem. Merchant had secured funding to carry out his work. Yet, he says, the administration of the School of Public Health stalled the project in 2014. He was told he couldn't do research as an emeritus professor, even though it had been permitted in the past.

He suspected that the school's concerns about potential blowback from Iowa's $7bn livestock agriculture industry had something to do with it. His work was a threat: establishing a link between hog farming and childhood asthma rates could prompt the state legislature to regulate emissions - an expensive proposition for the industry. If Merchant was right, it wouldn't have been his first encounter with the industry's invisible reach. In 2002, an entire school of agriculture distanced itself from a seemingly rock-solid, collaborative study - of which he was a part - on air emissions from animal operations. Some two dozen scientists and researchers from the state's two major universities were involved.

Then-governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack had asked them to collaborate on a study of CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations) impact on air quality. The researchers submitted a 221-page response. At the time, Merchant says the collaborators had reached a consensus on the executive summary. "We agreed on every word," he says.

David Osterberg, professor emeritus in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Iowa, and a fellow member of the study group, remembers it the same way. "After the report came out - immediately afterwards - the Farm Bureau demanded that Iowa State professors come to their headquarters to get beat up," he says. "It was like, the next morning: 'You be here tomorrow.' They were livid."

Shortly after, the public distancing started. A story in National Hog Farmer, an industry-backed publication, quoted several anonymous sources who undermined Merchant's claim of academic consensus. Then, at a meeting with state legislators, Wendy Wintersteen, the current university president who was then associate dean of the College of Agriculture at Iowa State, said her university was backing away from the report. She declined to comment for this story.

"This is individual work of 12 Iowa State faculty members - not a report of Iowa State University - the work of 12 faculty members, of their individual research," Merchant says, still indignant years later.

The danger that Merchant was highlighting - compromised academic integrity by way of industry-related golden handcuffs - isn't limited to Iowa. In the mid-2000s, the Pew Charitable Trusts commissioned a large study on animal agriculture and antibiotics. Bob Martin, director of food system policy at the Johns Hopkins University's Center for a Livable Future in Baltimore, Maryland, led the project. By most measures, it was unique in its scope and scale. It was one of the first to critically examine the role of antibiotics in meat production, and friends told Martin the findings had a major impact on the Obama administration's agricultural agenda.

But as he got deeper into the work, Martin says he noticed that researchers were afraid to be associated with it. "We were approached every time we went near a land-grant school - Iowa State, NC State, University of Arkansas. Professors would pull us aside and say they're under enormous pressure when they get industry funding to kind of cater their research to that."

Martin estimates that about half a dozen contributing researchers asked for their names to be withheld from the list of authors in the final draft for fear of retribution.

*Academic freedom*

A number of researchers we spoke to across the country echoed similar concerns. Their experiences range from seeing their published work undermined in industry magazines to being discouraged from conducting certain research or feeling undermined by their own deans, and one person was even driven out of the field entirely. Another researcher, who agreed to testify in a lawsuit that threatened to hold industry accountable for pollution, saw his position eliminated just before the court battle began. As soon as the plaintiffs lost, he was re-hired.

Of course, it's not all fear and loathing in academia. Marty Strange, who teaches agriculture history and policy at Green Mountain College in Vermont, says the private sector offers tantalising incentives, too. Industry-backed groups host conferences, pay high speaker fees, and hire academics for lucrative consulting jobs. "Any time you have people who work in the public trust who can freelance and get private-sector money for doing private-sector things, you're going to get intellectual corruption," says Strange.

And for a university administrator, balancing industry priorities and academic freedom may be more complex than it appears. Incentive structures for school leaders in agriculture states are entirely different from those for independent researchers. Administrators' success is measured in part by the money they bring in, and the Pew Commission found that they've been forced to rely more on industry money to keep their institutions afloat.

But the change has not gone unnoticed. In 2013, former Iowa senator Tom Harkin revoked plans to donate his papers from 40 years in the House and Senate to a namesake public policy institute at Iowa State, his alma mater. As Politico reported at the time, Harkin's reason was startling: "He said he was backing out after it became clear he could not trust university leaders to allow unrestricted academic freedom at the institute."

Academic freedom appears increasingly conditional. But that's not the premise on which public research universities were founded. They are supposed to prioritise the public interest. Arguably, ag-friendly universities have left that behind in favour of research that benefits their agribusiness benefactors. And for researchers in certain fields, life can be made easier by just sticking to the script.

"If you wish to get ahead in academia - particularly in a land-grant university, and we saw this again and again through our Pew Report - Big Ag has a stranglehold over land grant universities," says Jim Merchant, the former dean of Iowa University's School of Public Health, who was barred from completing his funded research as an emeritus professor.

Ultimately, he says, "agribusiness has tremendous influence on their research &#8230; as a result of that, the administrators and the faculty at these land-grant universities are heavily influenced, if not beholden, to agricultural interests."

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/environ...i2eA3mB1ZXY6tjTh2w7D_dnG5OHxoieQjHnlQTxtGEluI


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump day


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*TOFU SHORTAGES SPREAD ACROSS CANADA AFTER RELEASE OF NEW FOOD GUIDE*









Tofu shortages have been reported in parts of Canada after the country's new 2019 Food Guide was released earlier this month. The food guide was given a major overhaul that included omitting dairy as a food group and emphasizing the consumption of fruit, vegetables, and plant-based proteins such as beans, nuts, and tofu. Now, a surge of interest in plant-based foods, particularly in tofu, has been reported. The biggest tofu shortage is in Quebec, where the province's largest tofu producers, Unisoya and Soyarie, are struggling to meet demand. Both companies are working on increasing production by expanding factories but won't be able to sell to big chains such as Costco and Provigo until the expansion is complete. According to Nielsen market research data, Quebec has long been one of the biggest consumers of tofu products, with 26 percent of Quebecers eating the vegan bean curd on a regular basis.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/2/tofu-sho...YM0cFo78_XKulP3ONFXe6Rsd30zwXI1Lg4OpxhyOEJfxU


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

More food for thought; American Pharmaceutical companies have been getting a huge payday selling their drugs to dairy and pig farmers. 80% of all the drugs that they produce is sold to these farmers as antibiotics. There are as many as 20 different drugs being given to cows and pigs at any given time. "Many researchers worry that the abundant use of antibiotics on farms is unraveling our ability to cure bacterial infections. This latest research, scientists now say, shows resistance to drugs can spread more widely than previously thought and firms up links in the resistance chain leading from animal farm to human table."

*How Drug-Resistant Bacteria Travel from the Farm to Your Table*











> *IN BRIEF*
> Antibiotics are used more heavily in farm animals than in people. This may be the largest source of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
> 
> Drug-resistance genes spread more widely and rapidly on farms than scientists ever thought, new discoveries show.
> ...


It wasn't until a pig nosed me in the backside, in a friendly way, that I mustered the courage to touch one. I had seen thousands of hogs over the past 18 hours, but I had been nervously keeping my hands to myself. This particular pig seemed to disapprove of my restraint. I scratched him on the crown of his pink, wiry-haired head. He snorted loudly.

I was in a pungent, crowded barn on a farm that raises 30,000 pigs a year in Frankfort, Ind., a sleepy farming town 45 miles northwest of Indianapolis. The farm belonged to Mike Beard, who was standing next to me. The pigs belonged not to Beard but to TDM Farms, a hog production company. Beard has a contract to raise TDM's pigs from when they are 14 days old, just weaned from their mother's milk, until the age of six months, when they are trucked to a processing plant and made into pork chops, sausages and tenderloins. The 40-by-200-foot barn housed 1,100 pigs. Because Beard is paid for the space he provides rather than by the number of pigs, "it's to the company's advantage to keep the buildings as full as they can," he explained. At 7:30 that evening, a tractor-trailer would deliver 400 more piglets, and as soon as they got settled, Beard planned to give them TDM-approved feed containing antibiotics-a necessity if they were to stay healthy in their crowded, manure-gilded home. Antibiotics also help farm animals grow faster on less food, so their use has long been a staple of industrial farming.

But there is a terrifying downside to this practice, which was one reason I had been hesitant to touch my porcine pal. Antibiotics seem to be transforming innocent farm animals into disease factories. The animals become sources of deadly microorganisms, such as the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacterium, which is resistant to several major classes of antibiotics and has become a real problem in hospitals. The drugs may work on farms at first, but a few microbes with the genes to resist them can survive and pass this ability to fight off the drugs to a larger group. Recent research shows that segments of DNA conferring drug resistance can jump between different species and strains of bacteria with disturbing ease, an alarming discovery. By simply driving behind chicken transport trucks, scientists collected drug-resistant microbes from the air within their cars. Early this year scientists discovered that a gene coding for resistance to a last-resort antibiotic has been circulating in the U.S. and was in bacteria infecting a woman in Pennsylvania.

Many researchers worry-and the new findings add fresh urgency to their concerns-that the abundant use of antibiotics on farms is unraveling our ability to cure bacterial infections. This latest research, scientists now say, shows resistance to drugs can spread more widely than previously thought and firms up links in the resistance chain leading from animal farm to human table. In 2014 pharmaceutical companies sold nearly 21 million pounds of medically important antibiotics for use in food animals, more than three times the amount sold for use in people. Stripped of the power of protective drugs, today's pedestrian health nuisances-ear infections, cuts, bronchitis-will become tomorrow's potential death sentences.

Yet the farm industry argues these worries have been wildly overblown. The idea that antibiotics "in animals directly relates to a risk to human health, we believe, has been greatly exaggerated," says Richard Carnevale, vice president of regulatory, scientific and international affairs at the Animal Health Institute, a trade group that represents veterinary pharmaceutical companies. Researchers have not directly shown that farm antibiotic use is sparking more resistant infections in people, he and other industry representatives point out. Many of the drug-resistant infections circulating in today's hospitals have never been linked to farms or animal meat.

Scientists now counter that the farm industry is the one exaggerating-even engineering-scientific uncertainty to protect their interests. "Frankly, it reminds me of the tobacco industry, the asbestos industry and the oil industry," says James Johnson, an infectious disease physician at the University of Minnesota who studies antibiotic-resistant pathogens. "We have a long history of industries subverting public health." He and other researchers admit that it is difficult to connect all the dots, but the farm industry, they say, deliberately makes it harder. Some big meat companies instruct their farmers to keep researchers away, arguing they need to keep animals free of outsiders and their diseases, which makes it impossible for scientists to solidify the science. As Tara Smith, an epidemiologist who studies emerging infections at Kent State University, tells me, the companies "want us to prove all these steps, but they're really tying our hands."

I traveled to Beard's farm, as well as two others, in an attempt to find the truth. I decided to follow in the footsteps of scientists who have been trying to trace antibiotic resistance down the long road from farm to food plate to understand whether pigs, cows, chickens or turkeys raised with antibiotics really could bring on the apocalypse-or whether these innocent-looking animals, and the billions of bacteria teeming inside them, are nothing to fear.

*PROTECTED PIGS*
Eighteen hours earlier I had pulled into the driveway of Schoettmer Prime Pork in Tipton, Ind. The first thing that greeted me was not the sight of pigs or the pungent smell of manure. It was a menacing yellow sign: "WARNING: DISEASE PREVENTION PROGRAM. DO NOT ENTER."

Because I was there by invitation, I drove in anyway and parked two cars behind a Ford Taurus with the license plate "EATPORK." Keith Schoettmer, the farm's owner and my tour guide, waved me over from a doorway on my right.

The intimidating sign, Schoettmer explained, was among his careful efforts to prevent pathogens from sickening the 22,000 pigs he raises every year. "The old adage 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' is never more true than on a pig farm," said Schoettmer, whose receding white hair and broad smile reminded me of John McCain, although his accent-"manure," a frequent utterance, was "min-URR"-placed him firmly in the Midwest. Schoettmer asked me to don protective coveralls and plastic shoe covers while we walked around, too, to protect his hogs from any microbes I might be harboring.

Bacteria are everywhere, but they are more everywhere on livestock farms because everybody is literally walking around in poop. (Even though I was covered in plastic the whole time I toured Schoettmer's farm, I reeked when I checked into my hotel room hours later.) And like germs in an elementary school, the bacteria in this excrement get shared widely-they get burrowed under the fingernails of visitors who scratch the animals' heads, and they contaminate the hands of farm employees. *(I never saw anyone wearing gloves.)*

In 2005 researchers in the Netherlands, which has a large pig industry, determined that livestock-associated strains of MRSA were ailing Dutch pig farmers and their families. MRSA can cause deadly skin, blood and lung infections; it has circulated in hospitals for decades and, more recently, has been affecting people outside of medical settings. By 2007 one fifth of the Netherlands' human MRSA infections were identical to bacteria that had come from Dutch livestock. After this discovery, in 2008, the Dutch government announced strict policies to reduce farm antibiotic use, which then dropped by 59 percent between 2009 and 2011. Denmark, another major pork exporter, had already banned the use of antibiotics in healthy pigs in 1999; in general, Europe has taken a harder line against animal antibiotics than has the U.S.

Now scientists know that this livestock-associated MRSA is spreading throughout the U.S., too. When Tara Smith, then at the University of Iowa, heard what was going on in the Netherlands, she decided to test pigs for MRSA at a few Iowa farms where one of her colleagues, a veterinarian, had connections. "We ended up sampling 270 pigs in the first round-we just went out and swabbed a lot of pig noses and had no idea what we'd find," Smith recalls. *"About 70 percent of them were positive for MRSA."*

Smith and her colleagues have continued to publish a series of disturbing studies showing that MRSA is all over American hog farms. They found MRSA growing in the nostrils of 64 percent of workers at one large farm and found that feed on another farm harbored MRSA even before it got unloaded from the delivery truck. Two hundred thirty-five yards downwind of another farm, Smith found MRSA floating in the air. Other resistant bacteria have been found around poultry farms: after researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health drove cars, windows down, behind trucks that were transporting chickens in Maryland and Virginia, along the Delmarva Peninsula, they found antibiotic-resistant enterococci-a group of bacteria that causes 20,000 infections in the U.S. every year-in the air inside the cars, as well as resting on the top of soda cans in the cars' cup holder.

Animal poop is used to fertilize crop fields, too, which means that its bacteria are literally spread on the soil used to grow our food. A 2016 study reported that after manure from hog and dairy farms was applied to soil, the relative abundance of antibiotic-resistance genes in the dirt shot up by a factor of four. In a study conducted in Pennsylvania, people who were the most heavily exposed to crop fields treated with pig manure-for instance, because they lived near to them-had more than 30 percent increased odds of developing MRSA infections compared with people who were the least exposed. Beard runs a second business as a manure applicator-he loads 6,500 gallons of his hog manure into a single tanker truck and applies it to nearby fields-and as he noted, the process is tightly regulated. He has to perform soil tests to ensure that fields can absorb the manure nutrients, and he has to apply the manure at a slow enough rate to prevent runoff. But problems can still occur. A 2006 Escherichia coli outbreak in spinach was traced back to crop irrigation water that, investigators believe, had been contaminated by pig and cow manure from a nearby farm. The outbreak killed three people.

*SPREADING RESISTANCE*
Clearly, antibiotic resistance is a problem both for people and for livestock. But how can we be sure that the two are connected and that resistance is exacerbated by on-farm antibiotic use? In 1975 the Animal Health Institute asked this very question and recruited Tufts University biologist Stuart Levy to find out. Levy and his colleagues fed low doses of the antibiotic tetracycline to a group of 150 chickens on a nearby farm that had never gotten antibiotics in their feed and monitored them to see what happened. Within a week, almost all the E. coli bacteria in their intestines were tetracycline-resistant. Three months in, the bacteria growing inside the chickens were also resistant to four other types of antibiotics. After four months, the bacteria growing inside chickens on the farm that had not been fed tetracycline also harbored resistance to the drug. When Levy and his colleagues analyzed the bacteria growing inside the farm owners, they found that 36 percent were tetracycline-resistant, compared with only 6 percent of bacteria from their neighbors. At the time, the findings came as a shock. "The idea that you would be able to give animals antibiotics at low levels and not have them develop resistance was the word of the day, and that made our study that much more interesting and unexpected," Levy recalls. (The Animal Health Institute has not funded any additional studies to confirm his findings.)

One study reported that more than 90 percent of E. coli in pigs raised on conventional farms are resistant to tetracycline, whereas a whopping 71 percent of E. coli in pigs raised on farms without antibiotics are also resistant. That is because resistance genes spread so well. In a landmark 2012 study, microbiologist Lance Price, now director of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health, and his colleagues traced the evolutionary origins of the livestock-associated MRSA that was being shared among pigs and their farmers in Europe and the U.S. by sequencing the whole genomes of 88 diverse MRSA samples. Their findings showed that this MRSA strain started out in people as a methicillin-susceptible form of S. aureus. Then the bacteria jumped into livestock, where they swiftly acquired resistance to methicillin and tetracycline and spread further.

At first, antibiotic resistance spreads slowly and through parent-offspring relationships-the descendants of resistant bacteria are born resistant, too. But emerging research shows that over time, resistance genes find their way onto nimble pieces of DNA that dance around the bacterial genome, and many end up on small circles of DNA called plasmids-copies of which can easily be shared among bacteria of different species. In a 2014 study, a group of international researchers collected samples of antibiotic-resistant E. coli from both people and chickens. Although the bacteria were genetically different, many contained nearly identical plasmids with the same antibiotic-resistance genes. It was the organism-jumping plasmids, rather than the bacteria themselves, that spread resistance.

The fact that resistance can be spread in this way-microbiologists call it "horizontally"-changes everything. It is as if doctors suddenly discovered that Huntington's disease was not just passed down from parent to child but could also infect people who touch one another in passing. It also means that exposing one type of bacteria to one antibiotic in one place has the potential to change how other types of bacteria respond to other antibiotics in other places.

Resistance typically comes at a cost: The mutations draw down the cellular energy a microbe uses to reproduce. Individuals survive, but the whole population grows more slowly. So when bacteria stop being exposed to antibiotics, they ditch their resistance genes over multiple generations. Yet new research suggests that when bacteria are repeatedly exposed to antibiotics, they evolve resistance mutations that let them maintain higher reproductive rates-and then they stay resistant even if antibiotics are taken away. "What's really scary is that we've seen these examples in the gut where sometimes plasmids will transfer from one bacterium to another in a patient, and then they'll rearrange," says Tim Johnson, a microbiologist at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine. "It's like it's evolving in real time in the host to become more efficient."

Multiple resistance genes also may end up on the same plasmid, so when one gene gives bacteria a survival advantage, other resistance genes come along for the ride. The extent of this co-selection, as it is called, is still a mystery; there is likely to be a lot "that we're not yet even aware of," Tim Johnson says. Yet figuring it out will be crucial for understanding how resistance spreads and how it could threaten us. Some of the antibiotics used by the farm industry are rarely or never used in humans, and the assumption-often touted by industry-is that resistance that develops to these nonhuman drugs will not pose a risk to people. But co-selection means that the use of one antibiotic could "select for resistance in another," according to Scott McEwen, an epidemiologist who studies antibiotic resistance at the University of Guelph's Ontario Veterinary College. Growing levels of resistance to a farm antibiotic may also increase levels of resistance to, say, penicillin.

Making matters worse, new research suggests that when bacteria get exposed to antibiotics, they share their resistance plasmids at a faster rate. It is as if the microbes band together in the face of a common enemy, sharing their strongest weapons with their comrades. And once bacteria become resistant, the presence of antibiotics only makes them more successful. One reason that resistant infections are so common in hospitals is because antibiotic use there is so common: the drugs kill off susceptible bacteria yet allow the resistant bugs, suddenly devoid of competition, to thrive-making it easier for them to contaminate medical equipment, staff and other patients.

*GOVERNMENT COUNTERATTACK*
In the face of these terrifying observations, one might think the U.S. government is cracking down on agricultural antibiotic use. It is-kind of. The Food and Drug Administration released two voluntary recommendations in 2012 and 2013-the agency calls them "guidances"-that will be phased in by January 2017. In them, the agency has asked veterinary pharmaceutical companies to change the labels of their medically important antibiotics to say they should no longer be given to animals just to help them grow larger on less feed. The guidances also ask companies to stop selling feed- or water-grade antibiotics over the counter, requiring prescriptions from veterinarians instead.

Most companies have agreed to comply with the suggested rules. The problem is that a lot of livestock farms, including Schoettmer's and Beard's, say they stopped using antibiotics for growth promotion a long time ago. Their main reason for using antibiotics now, they say, is for "disease prevention and control," a purpose that will not be affected by the new rules. As long as their vets agree, farmers will still be able to mass-treat their animals with antibiotics when they fear that they may be vulnerable to infection. "I think you'll find [this use] relatively normal in the industry," says Schoettmer, who in 2015 was crowned America's Pig Farmer of the Year by the National Pork Board. (The board was created by Congress to promote the industry and is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.) He notes that the goal is "to make sure any of these very common pathogens don't get a toehold and start to make these pigs suffer."

According to 2012 USDA data, almost 70 percent of American hog farms mass-feed antibiotics to their animals to prevent or control the spread of disease; nearly all give their pigs antibiotic-laced feed at some point in their lives. Likewise, more than 70 percent of cattle raised on large U.S. feedlots are fed medically important antibiotics, and between 20 and 52 percent of healthy chickens get antibiotics at some time as well. Yet farmers who contract with big companies may not even know when they are giving antibiotics, because they are provided with pretreated feed. When I asked Beard at what ages his pigs were given antibiotics, he said he had to contact TDM to find out.

It makes sense that animals on crowded industrial farms need antibiotics; the conditions of their lives leave them vulnerable to disease. "Density makes it more difficult to eliminate pathogens, and the risk of infection is greater," says Steve Dritz, a veterinarian at Kansas State University. The pigs I saw were crawling and lying on one another; some were snoozing in or nosing around in feces. U.S. livestock farms have been exploding in size in recent decades: in 1992 only 30 percent of farms raised more than 2,000 hogs at a time, but by 2009 farms this large accounted for 86 percent of the country's hog industry-in large part because so many small farms went out of business. There is a lot of economic pressure on these farmers. Hog prices have dropped. Companies that contract with poultry farmers insist the farms regularly upgrade their already expensive equipment and bear the cost. In 2014 only 56 percent of intermediate-sized farms reported any actual income from their farming work.

With this setup, "farmers basically have to have perfect management and perfect environments-perfect everything to keep disease out. Otherwise, they lose their flocks," Tim Johnson says. "It's not the farmer's fault, because the industry has pushed them toward this."

*LINKS IN THE SAUSAGE CHAIN*
The morning after I toured Schoettmer's farm, before leaving for Beard's, I went down to the buffet breakfast at my hotel. I paused in front of the sausage: Had any of it come from Schoettmer's pigs? He sells most of his hogs to Indiana Packers Corporation, which processes and sells the pork to local retailers. It was possible that the patties in front of me were made from some of his animals.

I took one, albeit reluctantly. What were the chances, I wondered, that this meat would give me a resistant infection? When livestock are slaughtered, their meat can get splashed with bacteria from their intestines. In a 2012 study, FDA scientists analyzed raw retail meats sold around the country and found that 84 percent of chicken breasts, 82 percent of ground turkey, 69 percent of ground beef and 44 percent of pork chops were contaminated with intestinal E. coli. More than half of the bacteria in the ground turkey were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics. These microbes can cause food poisoning if meat is not cooked properly before it is eaten or if a person handling the raw meat does not wash his or her hands properly afterward.

But new research suggests that foodborne pathogens can make us sick in other ways, too. Price and his colleagues study strains of E. coli that he calls COPs-colonizing opportunistic pathogens. As he outlined in a 2013 paper, these bacteria most likely get inside people via food but do not, at first, cause illness; they simply colonize the gut, joining the billions of other "good" bacteria there. Later, they can infect other parts of the body, such as the urinary tract, and cause serious illness. Urinary tract infections among women at the University of California, Berkeley, between 1999 and 2000 were found to be caused by identical strains of E. coli, which, the authors wrote, could have arisen after the women ate contaminated food.

In recent years the CDC has successfully identified the source of contamination in large foodborne disease outbreaks only about half the time. But the origins of slow-brewing infections are far more challenging to pinpoint. Even if the sausage I ate that morning was contaminated with drug-resistant COPs, I would never know it. If I got a serious infection months later, I could never prove that it came from this breakfast. I would probably never even think about this breakfast.

This is the crux of the problem: it is difficult, if not impossible, to trace resistant infections back in time to their microbial ground zeros. "It is a long way-geographically, temporally and in other ways-from the farm to the fork," McEwen says. A hamburger can be made of meat from 100 different cows, so it is hard to pinpoint the one contributor that was contaminated. And scientists not only need to do that but also need to find out whether the way the animals were raised-whether or not they received antibiotics, for how long, at what dose and for what purpose-affected their bacteria in ways that could have spurred or worsened the outbreak. Industries also argue that farm bacteria only pose a risk to those working and living nearby, not the general public-which is why scientists try to get onto farms, to compare bacteria there with what ails the larger population.

Yet no one is gathering this kind of information. "There are very limited data collected at the farm level," concedes Bill Flynn, deputy director for science policy at the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine. In September 2015 the FDA, the USDA and the CDC held a meeting in which they devised a plan to start collecting more on-farm data, but they did not receive the funding they requested to actually start doing it. In fact, for fiscal year 2016, the FDA received none of the $7.1 million it requested to study antibiotic resistance in animals.

Academic scientists are desperate to go on farms and study farm animals, too, but they are rarely granted access unless they have connections. When Smith hoped to collect samples from industrial turkey farms, she contacted every single registered turkey farm in Iowa. "None of them let us on," she recalls. To study hog bacteria, Price and his colleagues have resorted to buying pig snouts at North Carolina butchers and swabbing them for bacteria because they cannot get to live animals. And remember that study in which Johns Hopkins researchers tailed chicken delivery trucks in cars? They had to conduct the study like that because they had no other way of getting close to the chickens-the researchers were not allowed on the farms.

It is not that livestock farmers are antiscience; it is that their employers, the meat companies, instruct them to keep outsiders away. A whopping 90 to 95 percent of U.S. poultry farmers and 48 percent of hog farmers (Beard being one) are contract growers-they sign contracts to raise animals for large companies like Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods or Perdue Farms. Farmers are beholden to these companies because they undertake a huge amount of debt to start their business-a new poultry or hog farm costs a farmer about $1 million-yet they do not earn any money without a company contract; often farmers have only one choice of employer because a single company operates in their area.

Yet these company contracts-SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN obtained a recent contract from a former grower for Pilgrim's Pride, the largest chicken producer in the U.S.-contain clauses about animal protection, instructing farmers to "limit the movement of non-essential people, vehicles and equipment" around the farms. My visit to Beard's and Schoettmer's farms was preapproved by the National Pork Board. But when West Virginia poultry grower Mike Weaver invited a journalist onto his farm several years ago and his employer found out, "I was forced to attend 'biosecurity retraining' and was delayed receiving a new flock an extra two weeks, which amounts to a loss of revenue of around $5,000 for me," he says. Price, as a scientist, convinced a handful of farmers to grant him farm access years ago, but then, he recalls, they "lost their contracts."

Despite repeated requests, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the farm industry trade group, and Smithfield Foods, the world's largest hog producer and pork processor, declined to comment for this article and address the issue of whether industries were keeping scientists off farms.

Whatever the reason, the lack of data has made it easier for industry to fight regulations. In 1977, soon after Levy's study was published, the FDA announced that it was considering banning several antibiotics from animal feed over safety concerns. In the 39 years since, the industry has fought hard against these plans by arguing there was no definitive proof of harm. These arguments ultimately caused the FDA to change tactics, Flynn says, and to pursue the voluntary guidances instead.

But the disease-control exemption is a gaping hole in the guidances, many complain. "Do I think the total volume of antibiotic use will go down? I absolutely do not," says H. Morgan Scott, a veterinary epidemiologist at Texas A & M University. In fact, antibiotic sales to farms have increased each year since the draft guidances were announced. In 2014 the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts analyzed the drug labels of all 287 antibiotic products that will be affected by the guidances and found that farmers will still be able to administer one quarter of the drugs at the same dosages and with no limits on treatment duration-as long as they say they are using them to prevent or control disease. Even the Animal Health Institute's Carnevale says the FDA guidances "could change the overall picture of how [antibiotics] are used, but whether [they're] going to affect total quantities of antibiotics remains to be seen."

The requirement for veterinary prescriptions may not put a dent in antibiotic use, either. Many veterinarians prescribe and sell antibiotics for a profit or work closely with the food or pharmaceutical industries. A 2014 Reuters news investigation reported that half of all the veterinarians who advised the FDA on antibiotic use in food animals in recent years had received money from drug companies. "There are a lot of veterinarians who are attached to industry, who have a conflict of interest and who are beholden to the large producers-so they are inclined to go along with the status quo," James Johnson says.

Several members of the U.S. Congress, including New York State Representative and microbiologist Louise Slaughter, have introduced bills to more tightly regulate antibiotic use on farms. Slaughter has pushed for her Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act for more than a decade. It has been supported by 454 organizations, including the American Medical Association. But after being referred to the Health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the bill never reaches a vote.

One committee member who does not support the bill at this point, Representative Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, has gone on record warning against the continued low-level use of antibiotics in food animals and the dangers that resistant bacteria pose to our food supply, says his press secretary, Carly Atchison. But he does not think the bill "strikes the appropriate balance needed in the use of medically important antibiotics in agriculture and farming," Atchison says. There is also significant opposition to the bill from industry. The National Chicken Council spent $640,000 in 2015 to lobby, in part, against antibiotic-related legislation, and the Animal Health Institute spent $130,000, according to records from the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. Center data also show that veterinary pharmaceutical companies or livestock farming organizations have made campaign donations of more than $15,000 to more than half of the members of the Health subcommittee. "The trade organizations have been down there saying, 'You can't show it's us-that we're causing the resistance,'" says Patty Lovera, assistant director of the nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based Food and Water Watch. "That has really gummed up the works for a long time."

*A SMALL SOLUTION*
After I left Beard's farm, I drove two hours to my final destination: Seven Sons Farms in Roanoke, Ind., which raises pigs on pastures and woodlands without antibiotics. A decade ago Seven Sons was a lot like the two farms I had just seen-it raised 2,300 hogs a year for Tyson Foods, regularly using drugs. But the family was worried about health effects, so it made some changes. In 2000 Seven Sons became what it calls a regenerative diversified farm, and today it raises about 400 pigs, 2,500 egg-laying hens and 120 forage-fed cattle on 550 acres of pasture.

Blaine Hitzfield, the second of the farm's seven namesake sons, took me on a short tour. I saw fewer than a dozen hogs lounging around a half-acre expanse of dirt and grass. Hitzfield did not ask me to wear coveralls, and he was not concerned that I had come directly from another hog farm. The animals on his farm, he explained, are hardier than those raised in confinement: not only do they have more space and mobility, but they are also weaned later so that they develop stronger immune systems. Nature helps as well. "The sun is a wonderful sanitizer, and the mud does wonders for keeping the parasites off," he said. (If a pig does get sick, Seven Sons treats it with antibiotics but then sells it at auction rather than with their label.) His claims have research behind them. In a 2007 study, Texas Tech University researchers reported that pigs that had been raised outside had enhanced activity of bacteria-fighting immune cells called neutrophils when compared with animals raised inside.

Hitzfield conceded that Seven Sons' approach could be hard to envision as the future of industrial farming. "Conventional-minded farmers would say, 'This is ridiculous; it would never work; it's not scalable'-and to a certain extent they're right," he said. Seven Sons is just a small prototype, but Hitzfield said that with time and more research, much bigger versions would be possible. "On a per-acre basis, we're much more productive than we've ever been," he added.

Some industrial farms are making changes, thanks in large part to consumer demand. They are not becoming small, diversified operations. But in February 2016 Perdue Farms announced that two thirds of its chickens would be raised without medically important antibiotics; Tyson Foods has pledged to stop using human antibiotics to raise its U.S. chickens by September 2017. Broiler chickens are far easier to industrially raise without antibiotics than pigs, cows or turkeys because they are slaughtered at younger ages.

But demand is driving some large-scale pork producers to scale back, too. "It is not an easy thing to do," says Bart Vittori, vice president and general manager for pork at Perdue Farms' food division, which has an arm called Coleman Natural Foods. Coleman raises pigs on a vegetarian, antibiotic-free diet. "The demand is out there. Our consumers are smarter than ever, more informed than ever, asking more questions than ever," Vittori says. The meat that comes out of Niman Ranch, a network of more than 725 family-run hog, lamb, cow and egg-laying hen farms throughout the U.S., has also been raised without drugs.

Products from Coleman, as well those from niche farms such as Seven Sons and Niman Ranch, are out of the financial reach of many Americans today. But the more that consumers demand antibiotic-free meat, the more supply there will be and-if basic economics holds true-the less it will cost.

Scientists still have many, many questions about antibiotic resistance-questions that may never get answered if food companies continue to ban outsiders from their farms. Even so, the weight of the evidence points strongly toward reducing antibiotic use on farms, relying instead on novel infection-control regimens or age-old strategies such as providing animals with ample space. Until some of those changes occur, researchers and the rest of us will continue to worry about the growing strength of foodborne bacteria and the increasing weakness of our medicine against them.

sauce https://www.scientificamerican.com/...-bacteria-travel-from-the-farm-to-your-table/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is a long but interesting read about the unstoppable rise of milk alternatives (and plant based diets)

White gold: the unstoppable rise of alternative milks


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*VEGAN FILM NOMINATED FOR A BRITISH ACADEMY AWARD*

Documentary short film 73 Cows is a contender for the 15-Minute Best Short Film at the 2019 BAFTA Awards, which will be held in the United Kingdom tomorrow. The film, directed and produced by Alex Lockwood with no budget, first premiered at the UK's 2018 Raindance Film Festival and has been watched worldwide online nearly 130,000 times. The documentary tells the story of Derbyshire farmer Jay Wilde, who inherited his father's animal farm but not his father's stomach for sending the cows to slaughter. The film follows Wilde as he realizes something has to change, and finds a sanctuary willing to take the herd while he transitions his farm from animals to vegetables-which is expensive and practically unheard of in the small farming communities of England. So far, the film has won the grand prize for Best Film at the Ottawa International Vegan Film Festival, the "Short of the Week," and selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick.

Here's a snippet






sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/2/vegan-fi...r4diN47YbUGDGLvP7zk OIp3RAqhhb7-800fJ-BvD6ms


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Great lunch downtown Toronto ... at Little Khao

Vegan red curry tofu for me


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan film wins British Academy Award

Vegan film *73 Cows* won the 15-Minute Best Short Film category during the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards this weekend. Directed by Alex Lockwood, the film follows former cattle farmer Jay Wilde as he decides to send his entire herd to a local sanctuary instead of sending them to slaughter. Wilde was vegetarian when he inherited the farm from his father and went vegan after realizing that cows have emotions. The film depicts Wilde's transition from cattle ranger to a vegetable farmer, and points out the difficult decisions the Englishman had to make along the way. "It's very surreal because I've led an isolated life on this farm," Wilde, who watched the awards ceremony with two dog companions from his home, told BBC. "Alex [Lockwood] filmed this isolation and the desperation I was feeling and to some extent still do. It's true to life, unfortunately. I almost forgot it was me [on the screen] because Alex told the story so well. It's a brilliant piece of work. He reflected reality." Wilde is currently building necessary infrastructure on his land to produce organic vegetables and hopes to open a vegan bed and breakfast on the property in the future.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/2/vegan-fi...VVnxUMpLR1pb5qelRqotzv89VDewJSBCiQXCR9ZzQcfwe


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Largest Meat Producer in the U.S. (Tyson Foods) to Launch Vegan Protein

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Yes it's happening


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Tomorrow is valentine's day!


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

^^^^

The perfect gift!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## joshtee (Jun 30, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> *SUPER BOWL RUNS ITS FIRST PLANT-BASED BURGER COMMERCIAL*
> 
> View attachment 1236247
> 
> ...


Has anyone had a chance to try this Burger out? Pretty good?


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

joshtee said:


> Has anyone had a chance to try this Burger out? Pretty good?


I haven't tried it. I pretty much never eat fast food.

But as vegan food goes mainstream I feel like it poses a dilemma. Should I go out of my way to buy it, to show companies vegan food is profitable? While I'm not particularly interested in vegan junk food I think having those options available is good for increasing awareness of veganism and lowering barriers to transitioning to vegan, and that's something I'd like to encourage. Yet besides health, a lot of these companies (Tyson in particular!) have profited off inconceivable levels of cruelty and suffering.

For now I've decided that the example I can set for non-vegans is more influential than the small amount of money I can give to or withhold from billion dollar corporations. So if I'm out with friends and vegan junk food is on the menu I'll buy it, even though it isn't very healthy and it profits companies I'd like to see go bankrupt, just to set an example that veganism doesn't mean missing out.

So I won't be going out of my way to try the Carls Jr. vegan burger, but maybe I'll have it at some point. If you try it out let us know what you think!


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

joshtee said:


> Has anyone had a chance to try this Burger out? Pretty good?


I have not tried it, but I have had Beyond before. It is not my favorite since it is quite meaty tasting. I found the flavor off putting.



squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> I haven't tried it. I pretty much never eat fast food.
> 
> But as vegan food goes mainstream I feel like it poses a dilemma. Should I go out of my way to buy it, to show companies vegan food is profitable?


I'm not a huge fast food fan either, but I do enjoy Taco Bell every once and awhile. Their menu is super easy to make vegetarian/vegan, and they are actively trying to make healthier options so I don't mind running for the border.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I share both your perspectives squeakymcgillicuddy and dubthang.

Here in Canada A&W burger shops has offered the Beyond Meat burger on its menu for a couple years. I haven't had an A&W burger since I was a child. I have heard from some people (meat eaters) that have tried the Beyond Meat burger and they say it's very difficult to tell the difference between this and actual meat burgers. Texture, taste is almost a near replica. Maybe that's a good thing for some people.

I have eaten some very tasty veggie burgers and veggie dogs, in restaurants and I've tried plant -based patties sold in grocery store or made my own but those aren't fast food. 

More fast food chains will follow suit. Plant based is becoming more available and a subsitute for meat. I remember (way back in the 80's) going to a Dairy Queen when they used to make "Brazier Burgers", asking for a no-patty veggie burger and get a bun with lettuce and onions. :lol: Plant based/vegan food has come a long way and that makes me happy


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Dates Are The Healthiest Fruit And Also A Natural Cure*









Dates are undoubtedly one of the healthiest and most nutritious fruits known to mankind. Their nutritional profile is indeed impressive, as a 100-gram serving provides:

Calories: 277
Carbs: 75 grams
Fiber: 7 grams
Protein: 2 grams
Potassium: 20% of the RDI
Magnesium: 14% of the RDI
Iron: 5% of the RDI
Vitamin B6: 12% of the RDI
Manganese: 15% of the RDI
Copper: 18% of the RDI

Additionally, dates are an excellent source of antioxidants. Specifically, these are the most powerful, according to Healthline,

"Flavonoids: Flavonoids are powerful antioxidants that may help reduce inflammation and have been studied for their potential to reduce the risk of diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and certain types of cancer.

Carotenoids: Carotenoids are proven to promote heart health and may also reduce the risk of eye-related disorders, such as macular degeneration.

Phenolic acid: Known for its anti-inflammatory properties, phenolic acid may help lower the risk of cancer and heart disease"

*Top Health Benefits of Dates*

Dates are packed with potassium, a nutrient which lowers the risk of stroke by up to 40 percent and improves overall function of the nervous system.
The high phosphorus content improves brain function.
Dates are high in calcium, a mineral which treats diarrhea.
Dates contain zeaxanthin and lutein which improve vision and prevent age-related macular damage.
Dates support weight loss by creating a feeling of fullness.
Soak dates in goat milk, add honey and cardamom, and consume on daily basis to improve libido and sex life.
Dates are extremely beneficial during pregnancy, relieve pain during the process of delivery, reduce bleeding, and prevent postpartum depression.
Soak dates overnight and blend them in the morning. Use daily to improve heart health!
Thanks to their high fiber content, dates improve digestive health and suppress appetite.
As one of the best iron sources, dates are great in treating anemia.
Dates are rich in magnesium, a mineral which lowers blood pressure levels.
Last but not least, dates detoxify the body, boost the metabolism, treat constipation and improve function of the intestinal tract.
*
Five Ways to Eat Dates*

Stuff 'em: fills them with the "ideal mixture" of crushed walnuts, almonds and pistachios with a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Drink 'em: Yvonne Maffei, founder of the My Halal Kitchen blog, combines dates and whole milk (or dairy-free) to produce a thick, creamy milkshake. Her two suggestions: use a strong blender, and serve it fresh. "It's an interesting and fun way to incorporate dates," she says.
Bake 'em: In cookies, cakes, bread, pies, and cupcakes.
Chop 'em: Chop or slice pitted dates and throw them into salads, on sandwiches or as garnish on pasta.

sauce https://www.globalremedyhouse.com/d...5y_g8_mv4t5vHwuhO7dDyyEVk2Oejxbjw2BnZiL8sxxsQ


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Nuts are full of fat and calories-and you should probably eat more of them*











> Nuts are full of fat-it's what makes peanut butter tastes so good. Heck, it's why you can even turn a hard nut into a butter-like paste in the first place. All that fat means they pack a caloric punch, yet nutritionists the world over recommend you eat them daily. What gives?
> 
> For years now, researchers have found that the much-maligned food is far healthier than you might think. Year after year, studies find correlations between nut-eaters and good overall health, including this one, published this week in the journal Circulation Research, tying nut consumption to heart health in people with diabetes. Here's why these fatty morsels are so good for you.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.popsci.com/nuts-fats-he...hC-8LKIGc9_A9ntiPfMb10D7W1uOACsmZCT6gs#page-3


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> I share both your perspectives squeakymcgillicuddy and dubthang.


Ditto. Gimme a black bean burger, please.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Know the signs...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Avoiding meat and dairy is 'single biggest way' to reduce your impact on Earth*









Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet, according to the scientists behind the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet.

The new research shows that without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% - an area equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined - and still feed the world. Loss of wild areas to agriculture is the leading cause of the current mass extinction of wildlife.

The new analysis shows that while meat and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses the vast majority - 83% - of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions. Other recent research shows 86% of all land mammals are now livestock or humans. The scientists also found that even the very lowest impact meat and dairy products still cause much more environmental harm than the least sustainable vegetable and cereal growing.

The study, published in the journal Science, created a huge dataset based on almost 40,000 farms in 119 countries and covering 40 food products that represent 90% of all that is eaten. It assessed the full impact of these foods, from farm to fork, on land use, climate change emissions, freshwater use and water pollution (eutrophication) and air pollution (acidification).

"A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use," said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. "It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car," he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.

"Agriculture is a sector that spans all the multitude of environmental problems," he said. "Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy."

The analysis also revealed a huge variability between different ways of producing the same food. For example, beef cattle raised on deforested land result in 12 times more greenhouse gases and use 50 times more land than those grazing rich natural pasture. But the comparison of beef with plant protein such as peas is stark, with even the lowest impact beef responsible for six times more greenhouse gases and 36 times more land.

The large variability in environmental impact from different farms does present an opportunity for reducing the harm, Poore said, without needing the global population to become vegan. If the most harmful half of meat and dairy production was replaced by plant-based food, this still delivers about two-thirds of the benefits of getting rid of all meat and dairy production.

Cutting the environmental impact of farming is not easy, Poore warned: "There are over 570m farms all of which need slightly different ways to reduce their impact. It is an [environmental] challenge like no other sector of the economy." But he said at least $500bn is spent every year on agricultural subsidies, and probably much more: "There is a lot of money there to do something really good with."

Labels that reveal the impact of products would be a good start, so consumers could choose the least damaging options, he said, but subsidies for sustainable and healthy foods and taxes on meat and dairy will probably also be necessary.

One surprise from the work was the large impact of freshwater fish farming, which provides two-thirds of such fish in Asia and 96% in Europe, and was thought to be relatively environmentally friendly. "You get all these fish depositing excreta and unconsumed feed down to the bottom of the pond, where there is barely any oxygen, making it the perfect environment for methane production," a potent greenhouse gas, Poore said.

The research also found grass-fed beef, thought to be relatively low impact, was still responsible for much higher impacts than plant-based food. "Converting grass into [meat] is like converting coal to energy. It comes with an immense cost in emissions," Poore said.

The new research has received strong praise from other food experts. Prof Gidon Eshel, at Bard College, US, said: "I was awestruck. It is really important, sound, ambitious, revealing and beautifully done."

He said previous work on quantifying farming's impacts, including his own, had taken a top-down approach using national level data, but the new work used a bottom-up approach, with farm-by-farm data. "It is very reassuring to see they yield essentially the same results. But the new work has very many important details that are profoundly revealing."

Prof Tim Benton, at the University of Leeds, UK, said: "This is an immensely useful study. It brings together a huge amount of data and that makes its conclusions much more robust. The way we produce food, consume and waste food is unsustainable from a planetary perspective. Given the global obesity crisis, changing diets - eating less livestock produce and more vegetables and fruit - has the potential to make both us and the planet healthier."

Dr Peter Alexander, at the University of Edinburgh, UK, was also impressed but noted: "There may be environmental benefits, eg for biodiversity, from sustainably managed grazing and increasing animal product consumption may improve nutrition for some of the poorest globally. My personal opinion is we should interpret these results not as the need to become vegan overnight, but rather to moderate our [meat] consumption."

Poore said: "The reason I started this project was to understand if there were sustainable animal producers out there. But I have stopped consuming animal products over the last four years of this project. These impacts are not necessary to sustain our current way of life. The question is how much can we reduce them and the answer is a lot."

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/environ...e4pdPwBVYM0-RNepKORD9KjA6jaJ0vo249at_zOolab9I


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Bananas would have less bruises if they stopped getting in so many fights. They think they are so tough when they are in a bunch, but get one alone by itself... instant bruises.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> I recently tried the Ikea vegan hotdog. The new plant-based frank costs 75 cents and is served with mustard, red cabbage and fried onions. It was pretty good... almost as good as their chickpea-based version of the iconic Swedish meatball, dubbed veggie balls. I'll give it
> 
> View attachment 1234618
> 
> ...


update


IKEA NOW SELLS 10-PACKS OF VEGAN HOT DOGS SO YOU CAN MAKE THEM AT HOME


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Should You Go Vegan for the Sake of Your Gut?*



> Around 10 years ago, Neil Potts, co-founder of vegan diner The Vurger Co, was working long hours in a stressful job when he started getting stomach pains.
> 
> They came on once every few weeks, and lasted around 12 hours each time, for the next five years, but tests didn't find anything more than a "slightly inflamed stomach".
> 
> ...


sauce BBC - Future - Should you go vegan for the sake of your gut?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Last night's SNL had an interesting take on how meat producers can respond to veganism's growth:






"Smokery Farms will only serve meat from animals that are individually stupid and bad"


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^I watched it last night! Thanks for posting.

The hypocrisy of loving animals and eating them... brilliant


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ultimate Guide to Different Types of Kale and How to Use Them









Longtime health food staple kale became a trend at some point (thanks, Brooklyn), but it's stayed so popular that now it's just a fact of life. No longer destined just for juicers, it still gets the royal treatment on menus and even at home-including massages. Oh yeah. Those of us unafraid to get intimate with our food give the dark, bitter green a vigorous rubdown before chopping it up for a raw salad. This extensive guide returns the favor for your extra efforts, revealing the details of seven different types of kale and what to do with them, so you never get bored. And you always leave the table satisfied.

An ancient member of the Brassica family, kale is the sometimes spicy, other times a bit sweet, usually slightly bitter ancestor of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi. "Kale has roots deep in the horticultural soul," says Suzanne DeJohn in her report for the Gardening Association of America.

The most common variety is deep green, but other kales are yellow-green, white, red, or purple, with either flat or ruffled leaves, according to Berkeley Wellness at University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health. The colored varieties - sometimes called salad Savoy - are most often grown for ornamental purposes, but they're edible.

You've probably heard (for some, ad nauseam) that kale is a superfood. Yes, this green is packed with protein, calcium, iron, vitamin A, fiber, and anti-cancer properties. And it has more vitamin C than any other leafy green. But "besides its good looks, flavor, and benefits to garden ecology, kale is good food," DeJohn says.

Kale is one of the few leafy greens that doesn't shrink much when you cook it, and it's great sautéed, baked, roasted, and stewed. Just don't over-cook it, because it can get more bitter than it was when raw.

Even better than a dry massage, us Kale University grads like to drizzle olive oil, salt, and lemon juice while rubbing the leaves together in our hands to quicken the massage's process of breaking up the cellulose structure. That way, you'll get a slightly sweeter, much silkier kale. Also, you can just cut it in thin, confetti-like ribbons. But always, always remove the ribs, whether you go raw or turn up the heat. You can trash those ribs or chop them up and throw them into a soup or broth later.

Check out these seven kale varieties and how to eat them:

*Common Curly Kale*









This is the type of kale you usually see in the grocery store. It's a pale to deep green with large, frilly-edged leaves and long stems. It's often sold as loose leaves bound together, even though it grows as a loose head. Put it in salad (using our softening tips), sauté, toss it in a hearty bean soup, or blend it in a fruit smoothie.

*Lacinato Kale (Dinosaur Kale, Tuscan Kale, Cavolo Nero)*









his Italian variety of kale was grown by Thomas Jefferson in his garden at Monticello, according to Berkley Wellness. The dark blue-green, slender, long leaves have none of the curls and frills common in kales. Rather, the leaves are rumpled and puckered like savoy cabbage and curled under along the entire margin, DeJohn says. The leaf texture also looks a bit reptilian, so the coolest nickname for this kind of kale goes to the dinosaur. Lacinato is used for Tuscan soups and stews, but you could use it in salad too.

*Ornamental (Salad Savoy)*









Frilly and fluffy, ranging in color from white to pink and to purple to magenta, this colorful variety is used on buffet tables for displays. It forms a rosette, which looks like an opened-up flower. While its leaves are somewhat coarse, it is edible. Try it as a way to add color and texture to your plate. Or a garnish, if you're entertaining.

*Red Russian (Ragged Jack)*









This kale heirloom looks like overgrown oak leaves in colors ranging from blue-green to purple-red. It's essentially a rutabaga developed for its top growth rather than its root, DeJohn says. Among its major advantages, it tastes good (semi-sweet) raw in salads, and looks pretty too. Cold weather intensifies its color. It's sweeter and more tender than common kale.

*Chinese Kale (Chinese Broccoli, Kailaan, or Gai Lan)*









Chinese kale can be substituted for regular broccoli in many recipes. High in calcium, iron, vitamins A and C, it's very popular for stir-fry dishes; you can also steam or boil it.

*Siberian Kale*









One of the most cold-hardy varieties available (go figure), Siberian kale has enormous leaves and can take quite a beating from cold or pests, according to One Green Planet. It has gray-green ruffled leaves and is grown as a winter crop in the southern United States. This kale is better when cooked. Sauté it with some onions or shallots and bacon, then steam it with a bit of cider vinegar.

*Redbor Kale*









The stunning 3-foot-tall hybrid can be both ornamental and edible. Its mass of well-curled reddish leaves with deep purple veins turns a solid, deep violet in cool weather, DeJohn says. Redbor is a great plant for an ornamental garden, where you occasionally pluck off few leaves to use as edible plate decor.

sauce https://www.chowhound.com/food-news...mciNlCXc4uKWEnf3XgOQt3aeNpC19AgAZ1cOJ5AtFEA7M


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## Oh My Sack! (Aug 21, 2006)

Timely Kale post. 
My house is surrounded by prime ag land and one of the predominant crops is Kale. A very close colleague/trail builder that I am working with on a new trail design just last night, owns a seed development company and just took me through his greenhouses the other day to show me his kale seed production and his test plot fields where he's growing hordes of different varietys and cross pollinating for different characteristics in kale and it's all done under organic conditions. Really interesting stuff.

Kale has really been off my food radar until very recently thanks to Costco. They have a packaged, pre washed kale pack that has many different varieties all chopped up in bits and they include a poppy seed dressing along with packages of pepita seeds and cranberries. The mix in a wrap, of course I'll add some chicken breast sometimes, is absolutely the shiznit! I went from never eating the stuff to eating it every day! I'm actually craving it! The textures are awesome and the flavors from all the different varieties really play off of each other. 

I don't know that we're the capital of Kale here but my region is big vegetable production and Kale is one of the predominant crops of our area. Good stuff!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ love kale especially steamed


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Powerlifter Becomes the "Strongest Man in California"*









Vegan powerlifter and animal rights activist Nick Squires joined the United States Powerlifting Association (USPA) weight-lifting competition this week, snatching a gold medal.









Squires - who lives in Sacramento, California with his vegan wife, child, and 2 rescue dogs - started powerlifting in late 2013 then became vegan for ethics in May 2014.

"At the time, I wasn't even sure if the two were compatible, but I knew I couldn't continue to eat animals," he said.

Since then, he has competed in various open powerlifting competitions, placing first in 3 of them, second at the 2018 USPA Drug Tested California State Championships, then qualifying and competing at the 2018 IPL Drug Tested Powerlifting World Championships in Las Vegas.

Now, he has been able to win a gold medal in the 242 lb open raw division and join the top 10% of the whole open raw class.

"Sharing my story on Twitter has inevitably lead to hundreds of questions from the skeptical to those who want to make similar steps in their own life," Squires shared.

"I'm hoping to put as much knowledge as I can to help more people than I'm able to on a one-on-one basis."

Squires continues to speak up for the animals and educate the public regarding the benefits of veganism for the health, environment, and the animals.

sauce https://vegannews.co/vegan-powerlif...pLTzL9N5EKee_OXb-xuMitxC9h0dj0-Sz3AXlXAKIAf1c

He posted his win on Reddit too :

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/apvdo6


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

No spelling errors and it wasn't written in Comic Sans... looks good to me


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Women warriors of Zimbabwe. Plant-based powered too. A group of women is helping to protect one of the largest remaining elephant populations in Africa.

Happy International Women's Day!

Zimbabwe women's anti-poaching group protecting elephants: Hunt my animals and I will catch you


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I think the milk board is dazed and confused :crazy:

Maybe the dairy industry needs to illustrate it's product containers with images of factory farms with rows of sad cows hooked up to milk machines... just so there's no confusion . The non dairy products can continue to use almonds, oats, rice, hemp, soy etc 

*Don't blame dairy's decline on consumer confusion*

The National Milk Producers Federation is petitioning the FDA to prohibit dairy-free products from being labeled with terms like milk or yogurt. Such government action would be costly for plant-based producers and it would also be bad for consumers.

Industrialized meat, milk and egg production is an affront to our humanity. It undermines our health and destroys the environment, while most citizens unwittingly support it with their daily food choices and tax dollar subsidies. But as consumers learn more about the negative consequences of factory farming and how it violates their values and interests, more people are seeking alternatives.

Animal agriculture is facing increasing competition from more humane, sustainable and healthful products in the marketplace. The industry resorting to heavy-handed measures to maintain their preferential status and profitability. They've lobbied for anti-whistleblower "ag-gag" laws to prevent consumers from witnessing the cruelty of factory farming because when citizens are informed, they don't want to support it. Agribusiness' latest tactic is trying to undermine the increasing sales of plant-based products by regulating and preventing commonly used food labels. They're going to court and lobbying to ban products like almond milk or soy milk, from being labeled as "milk," spuriously arguing that these descriptions are confusing to consumers. In fact, these labels are more clear and truthful than labels used on cartons of cows' milk, and consumers are not confused.

Last year, a federal appeals court dismissed a lawsuit brought by dairy interests against Blue Diamond, an almond milk producer, stating "[no] reasonable consumer could be misled by [Blue Diamond's] unambiguous labeling or factually accurate nutritional statements." And, a survey of 1000 adults by Lincoln Park Strategies found that fewer than one in ten respondents believed that branded versions of soy milk, almond milk, cashew milk, and rice milk contained milk from cows. The authors reported that "&#8230;a significant majority of people understand correctly which products contain and which do not contain milk from cows when shopping for various types of products labeled using the word 'milk'." Consumers are knowingly and increasingly purchasing alternatives to cows' milk.

All milks, whether from plants or animals, should be labeled accurately and descriptively, including milk from cows, which should be labeled "cows' milk." A Zogby poll of more than 1,000 adults in the U.S. conducted in January 2019, found that 82 percent agree that the source of cows' milk should be disclosed on labels, just like other milks. Zogby reported, "Many more adults these days are health conscious, and care about how their food is being sourced. It's not surprising more than four in five adults support cow's milk being required to label the source of its milk, if soy and almond milk are required to." Makers of plant-based milks and other alternatives to animal products should be allowed to continue labeling their products in a clear and truthful manner, using everyday terminology that consumers understand.

Replacements for cows' milk are commonly described with terms like "vegan," "dairy-free," or "non-dairy," and consumers are increasingly seeking them out. According to the agribusiness journal Feedstuffs, "Per capita consumption of fluid milk beverages decreased by close to 22% from 2000 to 2016, yet during the same period, consumption of non-dairy plant-based milk alternatives increased by triple digits." This trend is expected to continue, and it's not because people are confused. It's because people are informed.

Meanwhile, plant-based "meats" are also gaining ground with consumers. As in the case of dairy, the slaughter industry has attempted to quash competition by controlling how the word "meat" can be used and making a bogus argument that citizens are confused. In fact, companies selling veggie burgers and other plant-based alternatives to animal flesh want people to know their products are vegan, and they describe them accurately with labels like "made from plants" or "plant-based." More and more consumers are trying them. The plant-based movement is gaining traction, which led The Economist to declare 2019, "The Year of the Vegan." This lifestyle is soaring, especially among millennials, with a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds saying they are vegans or vegetarians.

Animal agriculture depends on secrecy and euphemisms because its conduct is disturbing and outside the bounds of acceptable conduct in our society. If dairy and meat marketers really wanted consumers to know what they are buying, they would be transparent, and they would use descriptions like "bovine mammary secretion" for cows' milk and "carcass" for meat from slaughtered animals, but they don't. The good news is that consumers are becoming more aware, and they are acting on ethical, environmental, and health concerns, which means that the days of factory farming are numbered.

sauce https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-...Oo40BolhCK_pa_xT9WHQuDJaUv7M9GB1YOfM1hZvTrJVg


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

If something seems to be too good to be true... it probably is 

*Does apple cider vinegar actually do anything?*



> If something claims to be a miracle cure-for cancer, for overeating, for run-of-the-mill acne-you should start by assuming it isn't. Life is hard and long and there are no easy shortcuts, especially when it comes to your health. That includes the internet darling that is apple cider vinegar.
> 
> Proponents of the fermented liquid seem to think it can cure just about any ailment, and sometimes advise taking shots of it to stave off illness. Cider vinegar is just one in a sea of trendy superfoods that plague the web, but it's a great example of how easy it is to ascribe unfounded health benefits to generally innocuous ingredients. Apple cider vinegar won't magically make your problems go away, no matter how much you believe in it. Most of the "evidence" in support of its benefits comes from shoddy journals and pseudo-doctors.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.popsci.com/does-apple-c...JVUdOJNkudGU1hIa_Vc_Qt3jSYiZ4vwv5f8Amw#page-7


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*A&W Canada Just Released A Brand New "Beyond Meat" Breakfast Sandwich And Twitter Is Freaking Out*









Last year A&W became the first major fast-food restaurant chain in Canada to introduce a Beyond Meat burger. The burger became iconic for "bleeding" just like real meat while still maintaining its vegan status. Needless to say, the burger has been a massive hit, prompting A&W Canada to introduce their next big vegan meal option: the Beyond Meat breakfast sandwich.

Imagine a traditional sausage and egg breakfast sandwich topped with a slice of cheddar cheese. It's the classic breakfast meal with a vegan twist! The new sandwich was released this morning, with thousands of Canadians rushing to their nearest A&W for a chance to try the new meatless product. So far, its been a massive hit.

sauce https://www.mtlblog.com/news/canada...LFxiVUBA9d9uCETalcJ47ABXKF7KztdzDd5yNBPYnGuQ0

I'm excited about new plant based options but like most fast food, probably high in sodium. If you're on a reduced sodium diet, it's probably not good for you. (the beyond meat 4oz patty is approx 380mg sodium) If you're high risk for cardiovascular disease, sure. If you're not, less than 1000mg sodium per meal is not so bad considering the average daily consumption in Canada is 3400mg.

It's still processed


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## drich (Oct 9, 2015)

Here in the states Carls Jr. recently added a beyond meat burger to their menu. I haven't stepped foot in a fast food place since i became a vegetarian over 15 years ago. Having the beyond meat burger with cheese and fries definitely does not qualify as a healthy meal, but it was pretty cool to be able to go through a drive-through burger joint and grab a quick bite.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Ides of March!









I'll have spinach with avocado... hold the dressing and stab it gently


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting combo


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ramsay is prickly and maybe opportunistic but his message does support more plant-based choices and alternatives

GORDON RAMSAY'S ADVICE TO CHEFS: ADAPT TO VEGANISM











> Gordon Ramsay no longer hates vegan food. And he doesn't think anyone else should, either.
> 
> The chef told self-confessed vegan food-hater, television personality Piers Morgan to "go [expletive] himself" in a recent interview with James Corden on "The Late Late Show."
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.livekindly.co/gordon-ra...VadtneiFJqnyAJQ5alN21ceIBVch3tpr75jLntDP66qF4


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is worth repeating

*Sugary Drinks Linked to Heart Disease*

A new studyadds confirmation to what we have already been seeing in the data - drinking a lot of sugar-sweetened drinks, like soda, is linked to an increased risk of heart disease and death in men and women. This may seem obvious, but it is worth repeating precisely because it is a pretty straightforward bit of health advice that tends to get lost in the noise of bad health advice.

For example, during my visit a few years ago to Google I noted that the company tries to offer a healthy environment for its workers, providing the space and time to exercise, and a freely available snack room filled with healthful snacks. However, their refrigerator was filled with drinks that were sweetened with "all natural cane sugar" and none with artificial sweetener. This is backwards, falling for recent health fads and the appeal-to-nature fallacy. It doesn't matter if sugar comes from sugar canes, sugar beets, is raw, natural, non-GMO, organic, or whatever. In the end it is all crystalized sucrose. And it's really no different than high fructose corn syrup.

What matters is how many calories you are consuming from concentrated simple sugars. We evolved to like the taste of sweetness because simple carbohydrates provide much needed calories and glucose. We evolved in a calorie-limited environment, and so seek out high-calorie food. But we then used technology to hack our love of sweet foods. It didn't take modern technology either. Native Americans figured out how to get syrup from maple trees, and that innovation is linked to a spike in various diseases, such as tooth decay, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Honey is another low-tech source of concentrated sugar.

But nothing beats table sugar or similar sources of concentrated calories and sweetness. We have also become accustomed to certain foods being sweet, such as our beverages. Sugar-sweetened beverages are now a significant course of empty calories and excess carbohydrates. One 12 oz can of Coke or similar soda is 140 calories. If you drink 72 oz per day, which is a typical amount to drink, that's 840 calories - every day. That's massive. An average daily caloric need is about 2,000 calories, so you are already almost half way there. Even if you have just one can per day, that's enough calories to equal 14.6 pounds in one year.

You could, of course, decrease your food consumption to compensate, but then you are decreasing food with actual nutritional benefit.

So, it's no surprise that regular consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks is associated with increased risk of heart disease and death. It contributes to obesity and diabetes, which are huge risk factors. But the data shows it is an independent risk factor even if you control for things like obesity. I doubt this is due to a direct effect of the sugar, but is likely due to all the secondary metabolic and nutritional effects that come from consuming regular calories through concentrated sugar.

The new study is not actually new, in that it is taking an updated look at databases that have existed for years and already have produced studies with similar results. For example, here is a study from 2012 looking at the same data set in men, the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. For women they used data from the Nurses' Health Study. So the new study is confirming what we already new from the same data.

The data also shows that if you replace sugar-sweetened drinks with ones that use artificial sweeteners (are you paying attention, Google?) then the risk of heart disease and death is decreased. Of course it is. An yet people will prefer "all natural" sugar cane to artificial sweeteners because they have been confused by the heavily marketed health halo around anything arbitrarily labeled as "natural".

Artificial sweeteners have also been demonized by the usual suspects pushing conspiracy theories and raging against anything establishment. I recently reviewed the published evidence regarding artificial sweeteners and the bottom line is that they are safe and a healthy option for weight management. So listen to the evidence, not the marketing hype.

In the current study, for men, there was an association with greater health and consumption of drinks with artificial sweeteners. In the women half of the study, having one drink per day with artificial sweeteners was associated with lower risk of heart disease, but more than one with a slightly increased risk. Although this correlation was very weak, and the authors say it needs to be confirmed with additional data. Such weak correlations are likely to be found in large data sets, and do not mean much by themselves - especially in the face of many other studies showing the opposite. Further, this is correlational only and even if you try to account for confounding factors, it's very difficult to account for them all.

That's why we have to look at all the scientific evidence - and when you do that, it's pretty clear that there is a net health advantage to consuming drinks with artificial sweeteners because it helps people limit their sugar intake. But, if you have any lingering concerns, there is always straight water.

So yet again, it is better to listen to the consensus of scientific evidence, rather than marketing hype and fears. Avoid sugar-sweetened drinks. They are empty calories that overwhelms your body's ability to safely metabolize the sugar-load. We did not evolve to consume large amounts of refined sugar. That is best left for an occasional treat. Meanwhile, low-calorie sweeteners are a perfectly safe alternative. They are among the most studied food ingredients in the world, and every country and health organization that has reviewed the mountain of evidence agrees that they are safe. Don't listen to the conspiracy theories.

sauce https://theness.com/neurologicablog...JFTsPbJLtB64VDWmKkaIX-QvzRqslcI4DoU5e-_ziTYI0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*MORGAN FREEMAN TURNS HIS 124-ACRE RANCH INTO BEE SANCTUARY*









Iconic actor Morgan Freeman recently converted his 124-acre ranch in Mississippi into a bee sanctuary. The actor first began caring for bees in 2014 and recently imported 26 beehives from an Arkansas farm to expand his insect sanctuary. At the ranch, Freeman feeds the bees and allows them to engage in their activities as pollinators without harvesting their honey.

"There is a concerted effort for bringing bees back onto the planet," Freeman said during an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Show. "We do not realize that they are the foundation, I think, of the growth of the planet, the vegetation &#8230;" The actor is planting bee-friendly vegetation such as magnolia trees, clover, and lavender to help the bees thrive. "I have not ever used the beekeeping hat with my bees," Freeman said. "They haven't stung me yet, as right now I am not trying to harvest honey or anything, but I just feed them &#8230; I also think that they understand, 'Hey, don't bother this guy, he's got sugar water here.'"

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/3/morgan-f...6XbxUpnZztHLCge1xcFfBlHl762B8f1X7ueGRp_eqRW9c


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## 6D ATB-1T EVO (Jul 13, 2010)

cyclelicious said:


> *MORGAN FREEMAN TURNS HIS 124-ACRE RANCH INTO BEE SANCTUARY*
> 
> View attachment 1243269
> 
> ...


Some say that the beehives with "tame" or domesticated bees are out-competing the wild bees and that will eventually lead to no more bees (plus maybe no more plants).


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

VEGAN DIET DECREASES COLON CANCER RISK BUT PALEO AND KETO SHOW INCREASE

Following a vegan diet can reduce the risk of colon cancer, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

The study, which evaluated 77,000 adults, found that on average eating a vegan diet heavy in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts, may lower the risk of colon cancer by 16 percent. For rectal cancer, a meat-free diet lowers the risk by 29 percent. For flexitarians or meat-reducers, or those who ate meat less than once a week, the colon cancer risk was lowered by eight percent.

However, medical professionals have found that diets high in animal products, like keto and paleo, often do not decrease the risk. In fact, one recent study linked the regular consumption of red meat with colon cancer in women. For 17 years, researchers tracked 32,000 women; those who regularly ate red meat increased their risk of developing colon cancer, compared to those who consumed a smaller amount or no meat at all.

The ketogenic diet, or the "keto" diet, according to dietician Tamara Deuker Freuman, is also a high-risk diet in terms of serious disease. The diet is high-fat, meaning 70 to 80 percent of calories come from fat, and only 10 to 20 percent of calories are derived from protein, and 5 to 10 percent from carbohydrates. The diet has soared in popularity over the last few years, hailed for its weight-loss benefits; however, Freuman is holding up "a giant red flag" to the lifestyle.

The dietician wrote in an article for U.S. News & World Report at the beginning of the year, "The ketogenic diet is a textbook example of a high cancer-risk dietary pattern," she noted. "[It's] very high in animal fat in general and red meat in particular, and very low in fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains."

She warned that everyone, not only older people, need to take the health risks of following these kinds of diets more seriously. "Colon cancer is not just something that happens to grandparents; it increasingly affects their millennial grandchildren as well," she noted.

Freuman isn't the only one warning people away from keto and paleo diets; earlier this year, new research suggested that low-carbohydrate and high-meat diets may shorten a person's life expectancy in general. Out of 432,000 people, those who consumed a moderate amount of carbohydrates (around 50 percent of their daily calorie intake) showed lower mortality rates than those who followed low carbohydrate diets.

sauce https://www.livekindly.co/vegan-die...8wdJjNssaoq50rmIACQOTQfiT5DaDYqPzJNseiHnjjioA


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Easter, in advance! You can send a Fudgeina-vegan fudge in the shape of a vagina-to anyone worldwide, including yourself. Yeet!











> United Kingdom-based Fudgeina recently developed an innovative gift : a vagina-shaped vegan fudge that can be delivered anonymously in a discreet box. "The internet is full of services to send your friends (or enemies) dicks, poop, or potatoes; but I couldn't find a way to send a vagina, so I thought why not start it myself," Fudgeina founder Matt Garbutt told Metro UK. "While searching for what I could make the vaginas out of, I stumbled upon fudge, and then the name really made itself. The fudge is made by our artisan fudge maker, and then hand poured into our one of a kind mold." Garbutt's vegan fudge vaginas (technically vulvas) are available in strawberry, vanilla, and a special crème egg-inspired (à la Cadbury) Easter flavor, along with a solid chocolate vagina variety. Fudgeina offers free shipping across the United Kingdom and can deliver its vegan vaginas, with an optional hand-written note, to customers worldwide.


sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/3/cadbury-...0g7JnXXcQAe-rinWYlmc8s3GXW3ULRAYQYqRjZW5XQ_9I


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The centers of these vegan (cookies and cream) donuts are 100% calorie free 









A nice caturday treat. Raining all day during our long adventure walk in Toronto.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

IKEA DEBUTS CBD-INFUSED VEGAN SWEDISH MEATBALLS 









_The furniture giant aims to make navigating its stores a far more pleasurable, and tasty, experience. _



> International furniture company IKEA is introducing another vegan menu option to its in-store bistros. In line with current trends, IKEA has developed CBD-infused vegan Swedish meatballs which will debut at select stores beginning on April 20 of this year. The chickpea and vegetable-based balls are seared with a proprietary food-grade CBD oil then covered in CBD-infused vegan gravy. IKEA test kitchen recipe developers claim that consuming CBD with food allows the diner to slow down while eating and fully appreciate and savor each bite. Due to the relaxing and anxiety-reducing benefits of CBD, IKEA purports that these meatballs may also relieve some of the stress of furniture shopping and assembly. The company stresses that CBD does not contain marijuana (THC), and the meatballs do not contain any psychoactive ingredients. The CBD oil used is safe for all ages and legal in all 50 states.
> 
> For now, stores in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, and Sweden will serve this new vegan item, though the company plans to add it to the menus of all cafés by the end of 2020. A serving of six meatballs with gravy will cost $4.20, or 38.98 krona in Sweden. Catering and take-home trays which feed a family of four will roll out one week after the initial launch. The IKEA kitchen is also working on a frozen product which will include the vegan meatballs, CBD-infused gravy, and a packet of CBD oil for sautéeing and drizzling.
> 
> ...


Sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/4/ikea-deb...GuSwuyTyexfV8VlNWIZyhdpPRyRMJ2X1LdCDmKY8MFxqk

April 1


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

If there was hummus dip I'd be allover that


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Sadly, that cover is a photoshop.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> If there was hummus dip I'd be allover that
> 
> View attachment 1244933
> View attachment 1244934


Gotta remember this one for next year!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

dubthang said:


> Sadly, that cover is a photoshop.


Darn!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We celebrated Chris' birthday with an awesome vegan lunch at Planta on Queen West

SHANGHAI SLAW- green papaya, cabbage, lemongrass, coriander, shaved onion rings








SEAWEED SALAD- soya, sesame dressing, cucumber








RAINBOW ROLL- ahi watermelon, avocado, crispy mushroom, gochujang
SPICY TUNA ROLL- ahi watermelon, tempura, spicy aïoli, pickled watermelon

POTATO TRUFFLE- cabbage, coconut milk lemongrass broth


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Bad Diets Are Responsible For More Deaths Than Smoking, Global Study Finds*









About 11 million deaths a year are linked to poor diets around the globe.

And what's driving this? As a planet we don't eat enough healthy foods including whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables. At the same time, we consume too many sugary drinks, too much salt and too much processed meat.

As part of a new study published in The Lancet, researchers analyzed the diets of people in 195 countries using survey data, as well as sales data and household expenditure data. Then they estimated the impact of poor diets on the risk of death from diseases including heart disease, certain cancers and diabetes. (They also calculated the number of deaths related to other risk factors, such as smoking and drug use, at the global level.)

"This study shows that poor diet is the leading risk factor for deaths in the majority of the countries of the world," says study author Ashkan Afshin of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Unhealthy diets are "a larger determinant of ill health than either tobacco or high blood pressure," he says.

So which countries do best when it comes to diet? Israel, France, Spain and Japan were among the countries with the lowest rates of diet-related disease. The U.S ranked 43rd, and China ranked 140th. It should be noted that there were data gaps for intake of key foods in some countries, so some estimates could be off.

"Generally, the countries that have a diet close to the Mediterranean diet, which has higher intake of fruits, vegetables, nuts and healthy oils [including olive oil and omega-3 fatty acids from fish] are the countries where we see the lowest number of [diet-related] deaths," Afshin says. And as we've reported, the Mediterranean pattern of eating is linked to a reduced risk of heart attacks and memory decline.

I asked Afshin which ranking surprised him and why. "Mexico is interesting," Afshin told me. The country ranked 11th on the list. On the one hand, people in Mexico consume a lot of whole grain corn tortillas, he says - and whole grains are beneficial. But on the other hand, "Mexico has one of the highest levels of consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages." It's hard to say how the benefits of whole grains may influence the risks of too much sugar, but Afshin says it underscores a problem seen in many countries: the overall pattern of eating could be improved.

Of course, there are obstacles to eating well, including access and affordability. As the Trump administration and U.S. lawmakers debate whether able-bodied people who don't work should be entitled to public food assistance, it's clear that many people around the globe struggle to afford healthy foods.

And at a time when 800 million people around the globe don't get enough to eat, and 1.9 billion people weigh too much, it's important to remember that hunger and obesity are both forms of malnutrition. And the costs are staggering. Consider a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which notes: "Worldwide, malnutrition costs $3.5 trillion annually, with overweight- and obesity-related noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, adding $2 trillion."

Globally, these findings may serve as a reminder that when it comes to ending hunger and improving health, people don't just need food. They need nourishment. If you fill up on a diet of packaged snacks made from refined-carbohydrates and sugary sodas, you may get the calories you need. But those calories will put you on a path toward disease.

So, what would happen if everyone around the globe began to eat a healthy diet, filling three-fourths of their plates with fruits, vegetables and whole grains? We'd run out. Yep, that's right. A recent study published in the journal PLOS One by researchers at the University of Guelph found that there would not be enough fruit and vegetables to go around.

"We simply can't all adopt a healthy diet under the current global agriculture system," says study co-author Evan Fraser, director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph. Fraser says we produce too much fat, too much sugar and too many starchy products. So, food companies and farmers play a role, too. "At a global level, we have a mismatch between what we should be eating, and what we're producing," Fraser told me.

Perhaps that's why the authors of the new Lancet study say their findings point to the need for coordinated, global efforts. Improving diets won't be easy: A range of initiatives may be needed, including nutrition education and increased access to healthy foods, as well as rethinking agricultural production.

sauce https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...Pn-gtLErzPniltxak6fAaczWuuQOqIsJAcfQ56mS3XFPA


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Here's another article about diet on a global basis, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

What we aren't eating is killing us, global study finds


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I'm glad to see Burger King offering some plant based stuff!

Worth noting the Impossible Burger was tested on animals and is pretty far from a health food.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Short film "73 Cows". Great story, really well done. No animals harmed.

https://vimeo.com/293352305/descrip...A9owkZMrwVkTe-mG6fnq6SAHY4k-uppcSdmdiXWe1YaIQ


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Heart-wrenching, thought-provoking and uplifting all at the same time. 

I really hope they’re both doing well and the farm is flourishing.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegans have a 'healthier biomarker profile'*

Over recent years, vegetarianism and veganism have experienced a boost in popularity.

Although people might switch to a plant-based diet for a range of reasons, many choose this path for its health benefits.

For instance, there is some evidence to suggest that a diet that includes fewer animal products reduces the risk of colorectal and prostate cancers.

Also, vegetarianism appears to reduce the risk of diabetes and help control the condition for those who already have it.

There is also evidence to suggest that adopting a vegetarian diet can boost weight loss.

*Why the benefits?*
Scientists are steadily unpicking how plant-based diets can improve health. It is clear that there are many factors involved.

One obvious place to start is that vegetarians and vegans do not eat red meat or processed meat products, both of which experts consider to increase the risk of cancer.

As well as choosing not to eat meat, people who follow a plant-based diet also tend to consume more vegetables, fruits, and nuts. With this increase in plant matter comes a similar increase in nutrients, fiber, and other potentially beneficial compounds.

Vegetarians and vegans also typically have higher levels of compounds with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity, such as carotenoids and flavonoids, in their bodies. According to the team behind the new study, these chemicals protect against cell damage and chronic diseases.

Also, vegetarians are likely to have higher levels of lignans and isoflavones in their blood serum; experts believe that both of these can protect against cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Recently, a group of researchers at Loma Linda University School of Public Health in California took a detailed look at the metabolic changes that a vegetarian diet can bring. They published their findings in The Journal of Nutrition.

The scientists wanted to understand whether dietary choices made a significant difference to the levels of disease-fighting markers in blood, urine, and fat tissue. To explore, they recruited 840 participants from five dietary categories:

*vegans,* who consume no animal products
*lacto-ovo vegetarians*, who consume eggs and dairy more than once per month but consume no meat or fish
*pesco-vegetarians*, who consume fish once or more times each month but avoid meat
*semi-vegetarians*, who eat meat more than once per month but less than once each week
*nonvegetarians,* who eat meat at least once each week

*The analysis*
The scientists analyzed plasma, urine, and adipose (fatty) tissue from each of the participants. They tested for a range of markers, including carotenoids, isoflavonoids, saturated fat and unsaturated fats, and vitamins.

As expected, the vegan group had the highest levels of bioactive markers that prevent disease.

For instance, the highest levels of carotenoids, isoflavones, and enterolactone were present in the vegans, followed closely by vegetarians.

Vegans also had the highest levels of omega-3 and the lowest levels of fatty acids.

"*An awareness that a healthier biomarker profile is obtained with a plant-based diet should motivate people to be proactive about dietary habits that promote good health and prevent disease."
Lead study author Fayth Miles, Ph.D.*

Also, interestingly, Miles explains that the "results for semi-vegetarians look very similar to [those of] nonvegetarians."

The study involved a large number of participants, which gives the findings weight. However, it is worth noting that the scientists only took tissue samples once for each participant.

Also, they do not know how these biomarkers might fluctuate depending on nondietary factors, such as an individual's metabolic rate and their microbiome.

The findings are good news for those who follow a plant-based diet, but the study will also be useful for researchers. Currently, scientists depend on participants to report their dietary intake using food diaries, which is not always reliable. As the study authors explain:

"Under- or overreporting is common, attributable to subjects' perceptions of social desirability, poor recall, questionnaire design, and other issues."

However, if researchers can develop a reliable way of assessing diet using biomarkers, it may help validate findings and avoid some of the issues that come with self-reporting.

Understanding how nutrition affects health is a complex area of study; no two people eat the exact same diet. Hopefully, by understanding the biomarker profiles associated with different foods, it might be easier to pick out links between variations in levels and increased risk of disease.

sauce https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...Z1ARXxQsBQM8-zMuncCJItRxrFtMtDnPYbmryYbUp2QD0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Unhealthy diets now kill more people than tobacco and high blood pressure, study finds*



> Poor diet is associated with 1 in 5 deaths worldwide, according to a new, large study. That's equivalent to 11 million deaths a year, making unhealthy eating habits responsible for more deaths than tobacco and high blood pressure.
> 
> "Poor dietary habits, which is a combination of high intake of unhealthy foods, such as red meat, processed meat, and sugar-sweetened beverages and a low intake of healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and seeds, overall causes more deaths than any other risk factors globally," study author Dr. Ashkan Afshin, an assistant professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington, told CBS News.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unheal...kCW1CTYVd1W_bfBfXQ82BlPcQSZfmT8uJSI9dVCVmGxx4


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What to Eat Instead of Meat*

There's been lots of news coverage over the last while that hasn't been exactly favourable to the meat industry. Processed meats were classified as a group 1 carcinogen, and red meat was tagged with the 'probable' label in terms of cancer-causing ability. Papers have come out talking about the environmental toll animal agriculture takes on this planet. I've talked about the differences in how animal proteins react in the body versus plant proteins. Even Canada's new food guide emphasizes choosing plant-based proteins. All of this may have you looking for a little something else to fill your plate. So, I'm here to help with some suggestions for great meat substitutes. Let's take a look at what you can eat instead of meat.

*Mushrooms*
Mushrooms make a great substitute for meat. They are low in fat, calories and cholesterol free, making them a much healthier option. Mushrooms are a really versatile food with a pretty neutral flavour. This makes it easy to marinate and spice them as you wish. They sub in nicely in dishes like shepherd's pie, pasta dishes and more. Varieties like king oyster mushrooms work really well in any meal where you'd typically use shredded meat. Portobello mushrooms are also a popular choice. They work well sliced into a stir fry, or fajitas, or marinated and grilled up as a portobello burger or portobello steak.

*Tofu*
Tofu is another great versatile food. It's a great source of protein, iron and calcium. It comes in many forms, which allows it to be used in multiple ways. Soft or silken tofu is great for dips and adding to smoothies. Anything where a smooth consistency would work well. Firm or extra firm is great for crumbling into tofu scramble or tofu crumbles. They also work well for tofu steaks or cubes. Tofu also has a very neutral flavour. This allows you to use it in both sweet and savoury preparations.

*Tempeh*
Tempeh is another good substitute that is high in protein as well as minerals like iron, calcium and magnesium. It's made from fermented soybeans that have been pressed into a block. The result is a texture that is firmer and meatier than tofu. That meaty texture makes it a popular choice as a meat substitute. It can be sliced into tempeh steaks or strips or even chunks that resemble ribs. It can also be flavoured any way you like, which is why tempeh bacon is totally a thing. Strips work great on sandwiches, wraps, salads and even pizza.

*Beans*
Beans, beans, the magical fruit&#8230; Laugh all you want, but these beauties are full of powerful nutrition. They are packed with protein, fibre and all kinds of vitamins and minerals. In case you've forgotten, fibre does all kinds of great things for your body, and most people don't get even close to their recommended daily intake. They help to feed the good bacteria in your gut and can blunt the effect of sugars, even in the meal consumed after them! That's a pretty awesome superpower.

Beans are an easy sub in a lot of dishes. They work really well in burritos, soups and stews, rice dishes or even just tossed on top of a salad or bowl. You can also slip beans into baked goods like brownies, and make hummus from them. Versatile and full of goodness. What's not to love?

*Lentils*
Lentils come with all the same health benefits of beans, in a smaller package. They make a great starting point for those who have a hard time with beans, as they are smaller. Certain varieties, like red lentils or split peas, are, as the name suggests, split. This allows them to break down nicely in a soup or stew, adding some nice creamy texture as well as some filling bulk to the dish. They sub well in dishes like shepherd's pie or pasta sauce. You can even form them to make things like lentil loaf or lentil meatballs. They also work great added to salads or bowls.

*Seitan*
Not exactly a whole food, seitan is made from vital wheat gluten. While it is not suitable for those with gluten intolerance, it is a popular choice among those who can tolerate gluten. This is due to the fact that once properly prepared, seitan's texture most closely resembles meat. It's also neutrally flavoured, so you can spice it up any way you like. Seitan can be used in a number of ways. I've even seen it pass convincingly as 'steak' or 'chicken wings'. It's high in protein and iron, but not something I'd suggest to eat every day. More of a once-in-awhile novelty.

*Eggplant*
Eggplants, also known as aubergines, are low in fat, cholesterol free and rich in fibre and antioxidants. With its meaty texture and umami flavour, it makes a great substitute for meat. You've probably seen it used in many Italian dishes, like eggplant parmesan. It can also be sliced and grilled for sandwiches and wraps, or even stuffed and baked.

*Jackfruit*
If you've never tried jackfruit as a meat substitute, then you are missing out. It comes in a giant fruit that requires a little work to break down. Once cooked through, jackfruit is typically shredded and has a texture remarkably similar to pulled pork. It can be cooked in whatever marinade you like and generally works best as a shredded meat substitute.

*Cauliflower*
Oh, cauliflower. One of my favourites. This cruciferous vegetable is very low in fat and calories, but just brimming with nutrients like vitamin C, vitamin K and folate. It also contains some pretty amazing antioxidants with cancer-fighting abilities. As such, you should definitely try adding cauliflower to your daily cruciferous veggie intake.

You can season and roast a whole head of cauliflower like a roast, or slice it and grill like a steak. Cauliflower florets are also delicious roasted in the oven to add to salads and bowls. My favourite preparation is probably the cauliflower hot wing. Yes, I said hot wings. Coat those lovely little florets and bake them in the oven. They are seriously delicious.

*Potatoes*
Potatoes are one of the most satiating foods out there. You've seen them prepared in lots of different ways. Typically, as a side, such as scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes roasted potatoes or oven fries. Or even twice baked, like these delicious gems.

Who said potatoes need to be relegated to the 'sides' section of the menu? I mean, they do work well as an all-purpose side, but they can be used for so much more than that. If you think a potato can't be considered a main dish then you've never loaded up a baked potato or sweet potato. I love to top these with greens, beans, and all kinds of sautéed vegetables. Add a little drizzle of your favourite sauce and you're good to go with a hearty and satisfying meal.
*
Quinoa*
Quinoa, technically a pseudo-grain, makes a great substitute for meat in many dishes. It's naturally gluten-free and full of protein, fibre and lots of important minerals. It can be added to soups and stews to add some bulk, tossed onto a salad or bowl, or even formed into balls to make quinoa bites.

I personally love adding some beans, spices and sautéed veggies and using that mixture in place of taco meat.

*Nuts*
Nuts and nut butters are high in protein, which makes them a great substitute for meat in your diet. They also contain other important minerals, in differing amounts, depending on the nut. Minced up, nuts like walnuts can work really well to add some texture to a sauce you'd typically add meat to. Just a word of warning, that while full of healthy fats, nuts are pretty high in fat and calories. So perhaps not a sub you want to be using every day if you're trying to release some weight.

*Soy Curls*
Soy curls are basically dehydrated strips of soy, made completely from soybeans, with no added fats or flours. They are high in fibre and protein, which makes them a great meat substitute. I would file these under that category 'minimally processed', which means these are a-okay on a whole food, plant-based diet. Nothing harmful added, and nothing healthy taken away.

They come dehydrated, and after rehydrating, can be added to a number of different dishes. Their flavour is rather neutral, so you can season in any style you prefer. They have a meaty texture, similar to chicken, so these would be well accepted by any non-vegans you may have to feed.

*Carrots*
Right about now you're thinking I've lost my mind, but I promise you I haven't. Carrots made the list for one main reason, carrot dogs! Now, I know this sounds like some crazy hippie ****, but seriously, give it a try. Once marinated and cooked through, the taste and texture are remarkably similar to a hotdog, without the saturated fat, nitrates and, oh yeah, carcinogens, you get with the old version.

If you're feeling fancy, you can also try carrot lox. Carrots sub really well for salmon in this classic, brunch-style dish.

*The Bottom Line*
There you have it, lots of alternatives to meat that you can use in your next meal. There are other meat substitutes on the market, but I've tried to list the least processed alternatives here. Many packaged alternatives are either highly processed or contain oils. They also tend to be more expensive than simple plant foods.

Whether you're new to plant-based eating or just trying to reduce the amount of meat in your diet, these ideas should help spark some creativity in your kitchen. Don't be afraid to open your mind a little and change your outlook on what needs to be on your plate. It can take some getting used to, as many of us grew up with meat as the main part of our meals. But just because it's always been, doesn't mean it always must be. Experiment and get creative, before long you'll be rocking the meat-free dishes.

sauce https://mentalforlentils.com/meat-s...PtA_J48u39-SdFOzx7QSqRBt2zUz4h6elDhEDJ8307NWc


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Carrot dogs!? I have never heard of this one. Will have to give them a try.


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

dubthang said:


> Carrot dogs!? I have never heard of this one. Will have to give them a try.


They are a big hit when my wife makes them for a big event.. they go fast and everyone talks about them the rest of the day.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interview with Kevin Smith and Rich Roll.











> About 610,000 people die of heart disease in the United States every year. That means America's number one killer claims 1 out of every 4 deaths.
> . . . . .
> Not all heart attacks are fatal. But when your heart's left anterior descending artery becomes 100% blocked, the result is a massive heart event known as The Widowmaker.
> Few survive it's devastating clutch.
> ...


sauce

https://www.richroll.com/podcast/ke...kianX4dciv7yRdrPuSFf4XUmeSOFFilY53VHP-V7TXOLo


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Boxed Mac n' Cheese Contains a Chemical You Don't Want to Eat*









Anyone who's pondered the powder inside boxed macaroni and cheese has probably intuited that it's not terribly healthy. There's just something about powdered food products that sets off alarm bells. A new report, though, suggests a more concrete reason to be wary: That cheese powder may contain *phthalates*, a group of chemicals linked to birth defects and learning and behavior problems in children.

The study, from a group of organizations that make up the Coalition for Safer Food and Processing, examined 30 cheese products, which were bought in grocery stores in the United States and shipped directly to a testing lab. All but one tested positive for phthalates, with the highest concentrations found in the cheese powder in boxed mac and cheese; ten varieties of mac and cheese were tested (including some labeled organic), and all showed high levels of phthalates.

"The phthalate concentrations in powder from mac and cheese mixes were more than four times higher than in block cheese and other natural cheeses like shredded cheese, string cheese, and cottage cheese," Mike Belliveau, executive director of the Environmental Health Strategy Center, told The New York Times.

One org in the coalition, the Environmental Health Strategy Center, along with three other advocacy groups (Ecology Center, Healthy Babies Bright Futures, and Safer States), urges consumers to pressure manufacturers to ensure their products are phthalate-free. It's directing that pressure at Kraft Foods, which makes most of the two million boxes of mac and cheese sold every day in the United States. The groups believe that if Kraft takes action, smaller producers will follow. It's worked before-the company recently removed artificial dyes from products aimed at children following a petition from consumers. (Kraft did not respond to Tonic's request for comment, nor did it respond to the Times.)

Phthalates aren't intentionally added to food products. Instead, they're found in plastic materials such as tubing (where they're added to increase flexibility) used in food processing. From there, and from some types of packaging, they can seep into food. In an effort to keep children from consuming phthalates, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has banned six types of them from children's toys. Europe has gone further, banning them from products that contact fatty food, which is especially good at absorbing phthalates. The Food and Drug Administration allows them to be used, classifying them as indirect food additives.

Research suggests that relatively small amounts of phthalates can disrupt hormone production. Specifically, they block testosterone production in pregnant women, which can affect the reproductive development of male fetuses, leading to birth defects, infertility, low sperm count, and a heightened risk of testicular cancer later in life. Exposure to phthalates in young children has been linked to learning and behavior problems, including aggression and hyperactivity.

"Mounting scientific evidence links phthalates to problems with brain development. Pregnant women's exposures to these chemicals in products and food may put their babies at higher risk for learning and developmental disabilities," Maureen Swanson, director of the Healthy Children Project at the Learning Disabilities Association of America, said in a statement.

Unfortunately, phthalates are called "the everywhere chemical" by the National Institutes of Health, which advises consumers trying to avoid exposure to "support companies committed to producing phthalate-free products." For now, that also means avoiding boxed mac and cheese.

Correction (7/13/2017): A previous version of this story said that nine out of ten boxes tested contained phthalates. In fact all varieties of mac and cheese tested contained the chemicals.

sauce https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/articl...rJR_hYrMhkOsHPreL011FF8hFVVlakm6YiD75BS_FT0gw


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*6 TIPS FOR LOSING WEIGHT ON A VEGAN DIET*

_Up your protein, lower your soy, and as always: go for the greens_

According to a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, individuals who follow a vegan diet for approximately 18 weeks shed, on average, four pounds more than those who follow animal-based diets. While this fact is great for anyone looking to lose weight, conversion to a plant-based regimen and weight loss are not always synonymous.

Many who switch to a vegan diet for weight-loss reasons often find themselves filling the meatless void with an array of plant-based processed food. Luckily, a veg diet is so much more than packaged food that just happens to be animal-free, especially for those looking to lose weight. By following these six tips, you'll fit into your favorite pair of jeans in no time, all while doing good for animals and the environment.

*1. Review the vegan food pyramid*
The foundation of the vegan food pyramid is greens and vegetables followed by fruit and whole grains. This is an updated version of MyPyramid-the food guide that replaced the Food Guide Pyramid in 2005-which emphasized grains, bread, cereal, and pasta as the foundation of a good nutritional regimen. Although the vegan food pyramid serves as a guide, caloric intake and portion control are key factors for any healthy weight-loss program.

*2. Eat greens*
The versatility of spinach, broccoli, Swiss chard, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, and zucchini makes dark leafy greens a wonderful addition to any meal. These foods are ideal for weight loss because they are the "most nutrient-dense healthy items" and "are extremely low in calorie and high in fiber," says Lisa Odenweller, CEO of Santa Monica-based superfood café Beaming. The high-fiber content keeps you satiated throughout the day while helping you avoid unhealthy snacking. Other high-fiber options include fruit (be mindful of the sugar content) and raw tree nuts (almonds, walnuts, and cashews), which are packed with protein and fiber and can help lower cholesterol.

*3. Up your protein*
Consumption of protein-rich food is vital in many weight-loss programs because protein fills you up faster; thus, you need less food to be satisfied. According to Stephanie Goldfinger of vegetarian website Cooking for Luv, proteins are available in many forms, which makes them convenient to incorporate into meals because they can be eaten raw or cooked quickly. Protein powders are ideal for a grab-and-go breakfast or mid-day smoothie, while other plant-based proteins such as tempeh, beans, lentils, quinoa, and oats are versatile and can serve as the main component of a veggie burrito, salad, or stir-fry.
* 
4. Limit processed soy*
Soy products can be the easiest and most convenient "go-to" items when transitioning to a vegan diet. Soy isn't necessarily unhealthy, but it is imperative that attention be paid to the amount of processed products in a meal plan. For instance, a tofu scramble for breakfast, soy veggie burger for lunch, and pad Thai with tofu for dinner is excessive. Instead, choose vegan cheese made with nuts, a black bean burger, or a pad Thai with vegetables and tempeh for whole-food versions of your favorite foods.

*5. Prepare healthy meals*
Meal planning is a vital component to ensure proper nutrition and weight loss, and, thankfully, supermarkets now sell pre-packaged vegetables that are table-ready in minutes. Examples of fast-and-easy dishes include quinoa bowls with tempeh; a mixed stir-fry blend of broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms; eggplant cutlets with marinara sauce, vegan cheese, and basil; and soba noodles with greens. If these meals are beyond your scope, meal delivery services such as Purple Carrot and meal-planning services such as Forks Meal Planner provide easy-to-follow recipes that are pre-measured and dietitian-approved.

*6. Get exercise and stay hydrated*
Healthy meals, water, and exercise are key components for any successful weight-loss program. People should engage in 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity weekly in order to burn calories and lose weight. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a form of cardiovascular interval training focusing on alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less-intense recovery periods. To achieve maximum results, HIIT should be practiced three times a week and supplemented with jogging or hiking, says Jorge Cruise, trainer and author of Tiny and Full. And don't forget to stay hydrated! Drinking a minimum of 64 ounces of water daily keeps your body cleansed, which improves fitness and overall health.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/6/6-tips-f...Dey_fwCMYsx3-cImMNN_s2dhaFPRMabCw3n0K5d5KfZPg


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Not specifically vegan/vegetarian but an interesting article:

The Land of Immortals: How and what Japan's oldest population eats

A few highlights incase you don't want to go to the link:

_Nearly two-thirds of the residents of Okinawa are still functioning independently at age 97. That meant they were in their own homes, cooking their own meals and living their lives fully -- at nearly 100 years old!

The elders there are less likely than their counterparts in the United States to have heart disease, dementia or certain cancers.

Remember this term: hara hachi bu. Translation: Stop eating when you are 80% full. With all the talk about calorie restriction, this notion is often hard to incorporate into your life, especially in a "clean your plate" culture.
With hara hachi bu, the philosophy is that you should still be a little hungry when you push the plate away. 
_

I'm not very good at hara hachi bu, even though I lived in Japan.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> *6 TIPS FOR LOSING WEIGHT ON A VEGAN DIET*


I recently went oil-free and I'm losing weight while eating my fill. That coincides with not eating tofu, since it's sticks to the pan so badly without oil.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

cyclelicious said:


> *6 TIPS FOR LOSING WEIGHT ON A VEGAN DIET*
> 
> *
> 4. Limit processed soy*
> Soy products can be the easiest and most convenient "go-to" items when transitioning to a vegan diet. Soy isn't necessarily unhealthy, but it is imperative that attention be paid to the amount of processed products in a meal plan. For instance, a tofu scramble for breakfast, soy veggie burger for lunch, and pad Thai with tofu for dinner is excessive. Instead, choose vegan cheese made with nuts, a black bean burger, or a pad Thai with vegetables and tempeh for whole-food versions of your favorite foods.


Limit processed soy, but replace it with processed vegan cheese, veggie burger, or lower processed tempeh? That doesn't seem to make sense to me. I do agree that tempeh is a better alternative to tofu, but unless the cheese and burger are made in house or are home made, they are just as processed.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

chazpat said:


> The Land of Immortals: How and what Japan's oldest population eats


Interesting read, thanks! I think this helps point out one of the bigger downfalls of the western world which is that we are always looking for a fix to an issue instead of seeing the entire picture. The Okinawans have an entire lifestyle that allows them to lead healthier lives. Personally, I am working toward that myself. My diet has always been good, but I need to ride more, and work less. I also need to move out of the city.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*A Guide to Sustainable Eating*
Have you considered the effects of what you eat on the planet, and made changes that will protect not only the Earth but also your health and the well-being of generations to come?

I suspect most of you already do many things to help preserve the viability of the planet we all call home. Perhaps you recycle glass, plastic and paper and compost organic waste; shop with reusable bags; rely heavily on public transportation or bicycles or, failing that, at least drive fuel-efficient cars.

But have you given serious thought to the planetary effects of what you eat and made changes that will protect not only terra firma and surrounding waters but also your health and the well-being of generations to come?

In January, The New York Times described a comprehensive new report from the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet and Health. It was compiled by 37 scientists and other experts from 16 countries, with the aim of establishing a global food economy that could combat chronic diseases in wealthy nations like ours and provide better nutrition for poor ones, all without destroying the planet. The scientists' goal was to outline a healthy sustainable diet that could feed the nearly 10 billion people expected to inhabit the world by 2050.

For more than a century, most Americans have been eating far too high on the hog for the sake of their own health and the health of the planet. In 1900, two-thirds of our protein came not from animals but from plant foods. By 1985, that statistic was reversed, with more than two-thirds of our protein coming from animals, primarily beef cattle. They consume up to eight pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat and release tons of greenhouse gases in the process while their saturated fat and calories contribute heavily to our high rates of chronic diseases.

As Dr. Walter C. Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a contributor to the Lancet report told Nutrition Action Healthletter, "We simply cannot eat the amounts of beef that we're now consuming and still have a future for our grandchildren."

In an editorial, The Lancet wrote: "Intensive meat production is on an unstoppable trajectory comprising the single greatest contributor to climate change. Humanity's dominant diets are not good for us, and they are not good for the planet."

The Lancet report does not insist that everyone become a vegetarian or vegan, but does set as a goal that people in wealthy countries limit consumption of red meat - beef and lamb in particular - to one 3-ounce serving a week, or one 6-ounce serving every two weeks. You can be somewhat more generous with pork, poultry and fish, which are better for your health and less damaging to the earth. The grain-to-meat ratio for poultry and hogs is only about 2.5 to 1, and the fat in fish is mostly unsaturated and high in omega-3 fatty acids.

But you would do best for your health and the planet by gradually adopting a diet that derives most of its protein from plants - including legumes and nuts - with farmed seafood as your primary animal food along with moderate amounts of poultry and eggs. The fact is, we don't need nearly as much protein as most Americans now consume. Studies in both animals and people have shown that high-protein diets limit longevity.

Chickpeas and lentils account for a large percentage of the protein in my current diet, which has gradually become heavily plant-based. A favorite recipe starts with 2 cups of cubed butternut squash and 1 cup of coarsely chopped onion tossed with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, roasted on a sheet pan at 450 degrees for 20 minutes. Combine this with a 15-ounce can of drained chickpeas tossed with 2 teaspoons of curry powder, ¼ teaspoon coarse salt and 1 tablespoon olive oil that has been roasted separately on a sheet pan for 15 minutes. Yum! For more ideas, check out Menus of Change 2018 conference recipes.

I often have what some may consider an unusual breakfast - soup laden with baby spinach and/or kale and roasted baby carrots, and a salad supper with salmon, tuna, low-fat chicken sausage, beans or chickpeas for protein. An alternate breakfast consists of slices of banana topped with peanut butter. Hummus on whole-wheat bread or crackers with grape tomatoes is a favorite lunch or snack.

Another critically important change is in our consumption of carbohydrates, nearly half of which come in the form of nutrition-deficient unhealthy carbs: mostly refined starches like white bread and white rice, added sugars and potatoes, all of which contribute to the rampant incidence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes in this country. Nearly all my carbohydrates come from beans, whole-grain breads and milk, and I'm gradually decreasing consumption of my favorite treat: low-fat ice cream.

As Dr. Willett pointed out, "Switching from refined starches to whole grains doesn't make a big difference to the environment, but it does for your health."

My biggest failing vis-à-vis the EAT-Lancet dietary advice is the amount of dairy products - primarily nonfat, lactose-free milk and nonfat yogurt - I consume. Dr. Willett suggests only one serving a day while I usually consume three, making dairy a large portion of my protein and calcium intake.

Suggestions about dietary fats mimic those you've been hearing for years: stick with unsaturated vegetable oils like olive, canola, soybean and corn oils, but steer clear of palm oil, which is high in saturated fats and its production is responsible for massive destruction of tropical rain forests needed to protect both the earth's climate and diversity of wildlife.

Coconut oil is currently enjoying a moment in dietary fame; even though it is a highly saturated fat, the particular type of fat in coconut oil gives a greater-than-usual boost to blood levels of HDL cholesterol, which is considered heart-protective. Dr. Willett suggests limiting it to occasional use, perhaps for Thai cooking or (do we dare?) making a pie crust or other baked goods that call for a solid fat.

The EAT-Lancet Commission emphasized that its advice to eat more plant-based foods and fewer foods from animals is "not a question of all or nothing, but rather small changes for a large and positive impact." It pointed out that "foods sourced from animals, especially red meat, have relatively high environmental footprints per serving compared to other food groups," which Dr. Willett called "unsustainable."

But even if environmental issues are not high on your list of concerns, health should be. As the commission concluded, "Today, over two billion adults are overweight and obese, and diet-related noncommunicable diseases including diabetes, cancer and heart diseases are among the leading causes of global deaths," risks now being exported worldwide.

sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/...0SchJvG5sxzMqt6dB4tVcDTRrwCqdBBAd6xbrwGRAfM5k


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Since going vegan /plant-based 5 years ago, I get asked this often. The short answer is "plants" but here is another explanation 

*PROTEIN REQUIREMENTS FOR VEGANS-KEY RECOMMENDATIONS*

From the 1970s to the 1990s, people widely believed that vegetarians and vegans ran severe risks of protein deficiency. Much of this concern arose from the first bestselling vegetarian advocacy book, Diet for a Small Planet (published in 1971), which offered protein recommendations that, in hindsight, were needlessly stringent.

Today, many vegans show disregard for the topic. In fact, many some vegans dismiss all concerns about protein intake. But belittling the importance of protein is as unwise as believing that vegans are taking grave risks with their health. The truth is that while it's easy for vegans to get plenty of protein, it's also easy to come up short. And in fact, it's fair to assume that many vegans fall far short of achieving an optimal protein intake. So if you believe that protein needs don't merit attention you could be setting yourself up for trouble.

Perhaps the main source of confusion about this topic relates to a dire medical condition called kwashiorkor. The reason you may never have heard of kwashiorkor is because it arises from an extreme protein deficiency, which basically unheard of in thriving parts of the world. It's impossible to develop kwashiorkor without a diet that's extraordinarily protein deficient. In fact, kwashiorkor only appears in areas of famine, or among people with severe eating disorders. Relatively tiny amounts of protein are all it takes to avoid kwashiorkor, so for obvious reasons this deficiency disease is unheard of in the vegan community.

But just because you don't have kwashiorkor doesn't mean your protein intake is even close to ideal. What's more, even blood tests can't reliably tell you if your intake is a bit short of ideal. Instead, there are a variety of symptoms that may be associated with deficiency:

chronic fatigue
high blood sugar or triglyceride levels
inability to maintain sufficient muscle mass
depression
While there are countless terrible things about meat, milk, and eggs, it's undeniable that all these foods are rich in protein. So if you stop eating animal products and don't replace them with vegan foods that are protein-rich, there's a possibility that your intake will decline from adequate to insufficient. Fortunately, just a little effort can ensure your protein needs are nicely met on a vegan diet.

RECOMMENDED PROTEIN SOURCES AND DAILY INTAKE
VeganHealth.org recommends a daily intake of 1 to 1.1 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. In practice this means a 68 kilogram (150 pound) adult needs to take in about 70 grams a day. What's more, much of this protein ought to be rich in the amino acid lysine. Beans are rich in lysine, whereas rice, wheat, and nuts are significantly lower in this amino acid.

If you crunch the numbers and see how this advice translates to everyday eating you'll discover that you may need to make a concerted effort to cover your needs. One way to step up your intake is to get into the habit of incorporating rich protein sources into the majority of your meals, including foods like:

Soy milk
Tofu
Seitan (Wheat Gluten)
Beans, including lentils and split peas
Nuts & peanuts
Green peas
Orgain and other vegan protein powders
Quinoa
Buckwheat
Clif Bars and Probars
One food that is surprisingly low in protein is commercially-made almond milk. The stuff generally contains loads of sugar but very little protein. Soy milk is therefore typically a better choice for people wanting to boost their protein intake. In fact, it's common for soy milk to have about six times more protein than almond milk!

TIPS FOR STEPPING UP YOUR PROTEIN CONSUMPTION
If you don't like the taste of beans or you have trouble digesting them, it can be a challenge to get sufficient protein on a vegan diet. Our beans page offers advice about how to prepare beans in ways that maximize digestibility. You may find that tofu, tempeh, and soymilk easier to digest than other bean-based foods. Alternately, nuts, seeds, and quinoa are all rich in protein, and easily digested.

Protein powders can be a godsend to anyone who can't tolerate beans or nuts. They can give you a big dose of protein, in a form that's more digestible than meals made with beans. Most brands of protein powder deliver about 20 grams of lysine-rich protein per scoop. Orgain makes an inexpensive all-organic vegan protein powder, and it sells for about half the price of some comparable organic brands. Buy a shaker cup and you won't have to dirty a blender each time you prepare a serving.

Adding just a few protein-rich meals to your cooking repertoire may be all it takes to boost your intake to adequate levels. There is an entire cookbook devoted to these sorts of vegan meals. This book contains more than 100 recipes, each based on protein-rich foods like beans, nuts, quinoa, tempeh, and tofu.

It's reasonable to speculate that many people who fail to thrive on a vegan diet aren't eating sufficient protein. Since meat is loaded with protein, a vegan who becomes protein deficient would doubtless feel better within days of putting meat back into the diet. The best way to ensure that you don't develop a deficiency is to keep an eye on getting sufficient amounts each day. A little attention and vigilance is all it takes to avoid problems down the road.

sauce and links: https://www.vegan.com/protein/?fbclid=IwAR19taCDP2WAQeHUA09MGNrmlsA6ohU4TxvA5euy8uW_7XX3P07Km6PX718


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Throwback Thursday! Looking waaaaaay back


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Haha! Pour out a little beet juice.

I like to think early humans were very knowledgeable about their natural surroundings, even if understood through myth/taboo/shamanism etc rather than science.

Some Neanderthals were vegetarians who used natural forms of penicillin and aspirin as medicine


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why plant protein is better for you than animal protein*









It'd be great if a burger-a-day diet was healthy. Don't get me wrong-it's not the worst. You've got protein in there and hopefully some veggies on top (and on the side) , and even some fiber from the roll (you used whole grain, right?).

Unfortunately, study after  study  shows that meat as a protein source just isn't that healthy. It's far better to get that necessary protein from plants. And yes, that association is a correlation, not a causation. There are some legitimate reasons that plant-based protein sources like beans are a healthier alternative to bacon. The researchers aren't saying you can't or shouldn't indulge in a thick Delmonico or a flame-grilled cheeseburger. Rather that you should enjoy them in moderation. Generally, research shows that less animal meat is better than more, in terms of long term health. You don't have to love tofu, either (it's not the best plant-based protein anyway), as long as you strive to eat more of your protein from the ground and less from animals.

Here's a deeper dive into why:

*Plant protein has more nutrients and fiber (though not all of the amino acids)*

Animal meat is known for its many nutrients. If you eat a variety of animal meats (light and dark, not just beef, as well as various organs), you can take in all the amino acids you need to manufacture your own bodily proteins plus vitamins like B12, niacin, thiamine, B5, B6, B7, and vitamins A and K.

But here's the thing: If you swap all that animal protein for an equally diverse diet of plant-based proteins like nuts, seeds, and beans, you are no worse off. That's because these foods are also packed full of a similar spectrum of nutrients. The biggest difference is vitamin B12, which most plants cannot produce on their own. You can get B12 from edible seaweed and in fortified cereals, though the easiest way is through supplementation or by eating animal products.

Given their equal vitamin profile, Andrea Giancoli, a registered dietitian in California says plant-based proteins are far healthier than their meat counterparts. That's because, pound-for-pound they pack more nutrients into fewer calories. They also have one thing that animal proteins completely lack: fiber. (That's of course except for things like tofu, which is processed, Giancoli notes.) Let's not forget the fiber. Fiber aids in digestion, promotes a healthy gut microbiome, and is strongly associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk.

*People who eat plant proteins in part have healthier habits*

Meta-analyses that compared people who eat animal versus plant proteins consistently find that, even after adjusting for other influential factors like socioeconomic class, weight, and exercise habits, those who eat plants tend to live longer, healthier lives. They tend to have less cardiovascular disease and fewer cancer cases, though especially the cancer association tends to drop away once other factors have been controlled for. Despite all that controlling, though, there's still an association with living a longer life with fewer heart problems. There are almost certainly some small factors contributing to the association. People who eat plant proteins may see their doctor more regularly and thus get better preventive care. Maybe they tend to live in quieter, less polluted places.

Since correlations still exist between eating plant proteins and overall health, even after controlling for other factors, meta-analyses have generally concluded that lifestyle factors alone can't account for the correlation. One recent such analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that "Substitution of plant protein for animal protein, especially from processed red meat, may confer a substantial health benefit" and advised that policies promote plant proteins.

*Meat has more saturated fats*

Another reason that steak isn't great for you: the fat that often accompanies it. Fat is part of why steaks and burgers are delicious-it adds mouthfeel and flavor. But it also tend to clog up your heart. "[With plant proteins] you get less saturated fat and no cholesterol," Giancoli explains, "so you're getting that benefit as well."

Saturated fats are those that are solid at room temperature and tend to contribute to cardiovascular disease (though not as much as trans fats) because it drives up your total cholesterol levels. That may, in the long run, tip the scales towards the LDL (low density lipid) side, which is what clogs up arteries. Foods like nuts, avocados, and fish have far less saturated fats than red and other dark meats. As such, they are dubbed healthy fats.

*Processed, red meat is carcinogenic, and grilled meat may be too*

You probably heard about the massive World Health Organization (WHO) report a few years ago proclaiming that processed, red meats were carcinogenic. Colorectal cancer in particular has been associated with eating red meat, and so have pancreatic and prostate cancer. Processed meats, like bacon and sausage, also contribute to colorectal cancer. Even grilled meat is known to have some carcinogenic compounds in it (those black char marks are where they mostly lie); seared meat has a similar effect.

In the grand scheme of cancer, meat isn't the biggest player. Recent estimates by the Global Burden of Disease Project, a subset of the WHO, put the number of annual cancer cases from red meat at 50,000. That's compared to 200,000 from air pollution, 600,000 from alcohol, and one million from tobacco. But it's not nothing.

If we're taking an exclusively long-range, zoomed-out, big picture view it's fairly undeniable that getting your protein from plants would be healthier overall. But nutritionists like Giancoli are also adamant about one other important thing: Food should be enjoyable. We shouldn't spend our lives gorging only on ice cream and pizza, but if you love burgers you should have them. Not every night-just sometimes. The key to a successful diet, as many dieticians will tell you, is balance and moderation. And beans.

sauce https://www.popsci.com/plant-protei...tV5q5i6KfIwXAgro-J69tLPqbfCwCFoLPRgGGI#page-2


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm 5 years vegan (vegetarian since 20) plus doing weightlifting (ie crossfit) 6 days/wk, mountain biking (2 x's /week) and running (approx 50km/week). Not easy when you're over 50 with a full time career but it works for me. For me eating plant based isn't complicated. I have plenty of strength and energy and feel very fit and healthy. This is an interesting article









*How to build muscle on a vegan diet*

When articles proclaim that "veganism is growing in popularity," it's not just because Instagram and Youtube makes it feel that way. It's because veganism is, in fact, growing in popularity.

Some fast facts:

On Dec. 30, 2018 more than 14,000 people formally promised (by signing up through this website) to not eat animal products in January. Participation in Veganuary has more than doubled every year since the campaign began in 2014.

Last year, restaurant consulting group Baum + Whitman identified plant-based food as a major trend for 2018. "That's still true" for 2019, the copywriter(s) note [PDF], adding that this year lab-grown meats "look like profound long-range game changers." (The brief writer also describes cows as "prolific poopers," so BRB going to hire them to write for Popular Science.)

In 2017, Nestle-whose brands range from Hot Pockets to Coffeemate to Haagen-Dazs to Digiorno-also identified plant-based foods a trend the company, in the words of its Executive Vice President of Strategic Business Units, "believe is here to stay and amplify."

6 percent of U.S. consumers now claim to be vegan, up from 1 percent in 2014. That's a 500 percent increase, or a difference of 1.6 million people.

Ariana Grande is vegan.

If you are one of the millions of folks who now call themselves vegan (or plant-based or whatever) and you have divulged this fact to anybody, you have probably been asked about your protein intake. People may have wondered about your muscle mass, or your strength. And it's not a totally unreasonable concern. Generous protein intake is essential for maintaining and building muscle. Eggs, meat, and dairy make up roughly 62 percent of the protein consumed by U.S. adults-and that number may actually be greater when you consider that 8 percent of the protein consumed "could not be classified" (hot dogs??). The remaining 30 percent is plant protein, the largest dietary source of which is bread, which doesn't exactly have a reputation for being protein-rich.

When I transitioned out of animal products a year ago-there are many science-backed reasons to reduce your animal product intake-the move seemed to run counter to my goals for athleticism and overall beefcakiness (pun intended). I've drained hours researching what humans need to build muscle optimally. When I tried to find research on how people who don't eat egg whites, whey protein powder, or 93-percent-lean ground beef can optimize their gains, the Google Scholar well ran dry.

But even without recent or replicated peer-reviews papers, we have proof enough that getting buff with plants is, in fact, possible. There are enough vegan bodybuilders and Olympic athletes to show us it can be done. But how? I asked four experts and compiled their knowledge below.

Our panel: (1) Dr. Anastasia Zinchenko, a vegan bodybuilder, powerlifter, and coach with a PhD in biochemistry and books full of high-protein bake recipes. (2) Jordan David, a vegan bodybuilder, health coach, and founder of Conscious Muscle, which sells coaching, apparel, and supplements. (3) Dr. Rachele Pojednic, an assistant professor of nutrition at Simmons University. (4) Kendrick Farris, a vegan weightlifter who represented the U.S.A. in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympic Games.

It's worth noting that you don't need to follow their guidelines to get adequate nutrition. These people are experts on gaining maximum strength and/or muscle mass, so they're giving advice on getting jacked-not on simply being healthy. Humans actually do not need very much protein to stay well. But if you want to get buff with plants, read on.

*How much protein the aspiring buff vegan should eat*
As previously mentioned, the survival of our species does not require as much protein as many Westerners are led to believe. Adequacy, according to the United States' recommended dietary allowance, is just 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. So, for example, a person who weighs 170 pounds (or 77 kilograms) should eat about 62 grams of protein (that's 77 x 0.8). Most people (especially meat eaters) get that without even really trying. A peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread, for example, has about 18 grams of protein.

But how much protein should people eat if they want to get ripped? "It depends on the training stage," Zinchenko says. "Usually people who are new to lifting can build muscle faster than those who are already advanced. So a beginner lifter should eat more protein. But I usually recommend the same for all stages of training, because more protein doesn't hurt anything."

Zinchenko, who shares tips on her website Science Strength, recommends vegans eat 2.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (or about 1.1 grams per pound). That's a lot higher than what governmental organizations recommend, but her clients want to bulk up, not simply be healthy. And muscle gain requires the amino acids in protein. (More on that below.)

People who go to David for coaching are prescribed 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, which shakes out to just a bit less protein than Zinchenko prescribes. Pojednic, a nutritionist, recommends training athletes get anywhere from 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

For context, a 170-pound individual would consume 185 grams of protein on Zinchenko's plan, 170 grams of protein on David's plan, and 123-169 grams of protein on Pojednic's plan. That difference in protein consumption equates to roughly two protein shakes, or a block and a half of tofu.

*The difference between vegan proteins and proteins that come from animal products*
If you aren't vegan, Zinchenko says, you can get away with eating 2.1 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, because the amino acid profiles in animal products are slightly better for making muscle. Pojednic notes that amino acid composition is "one of the key distinctions" between a vegan and an omnivorous diet.

Both Zinchenko and Pojednic call out amino acids leucine and lysine, in particular. Animal proteins generally have more of these amino acids than plant proteins (here's a graph), which is significant because these building blocks seem to be particularly good drivers of muscle protein synthesis. You can boost your levels by incorporating a supplement, which Zinchenko recommends, though Pojednic notes that there are plenty of vegan sources of leucine: soy isolates (like soy protein powder), seaweed and spirulina, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, and tofu.

"It's not just about getting enough protein," Zinchenko says, "The distribution of amino acid types is also important. It's like building a house. It must have windows, bricks, and doors. You can have all the bricks in the world, but without a door, it's not going to be a house."

That doesn't mean you need to make sure each serving of protein includes a mix of all the necessary amino acids, Pojednic says. If you're eating a variety of foods throughout the day, there's no need to pair up rice and beans for every meal. Your body can still put all the pieces together.

*Fiber and protein bioavailability*
Even if your lunchtime salad has all the nutrients you want, your body may not be absorbing them. Some foods are harder for the human digestive system to turn into nutrients. Compared to meats, eggs, and dairy, vegetal proteins are not as bioavailable, meaning your body might not actually get to use all the protein contained in the raw spinach you scarfed.

Whole (also known as unprocessed) foods, which are recommended by the USDA, contain fiber and other substances that can limit absorption in the small intestine. "If you eat a raw vegan diet, you may need to aim for 2.7 grams per kilogram of body weight, which is just an insane amount of broccoli and beans," Zinchenko says.

Whole foods generally take longer to digest, which is why serious muscle-builders may want to chug a protein shake on a relatively empty stomach-and why both David and Zinchenko recommend some sort of protein supplementation. Pojednic suggests it too, particularly if your stomach can't handle a full meal after lifting.

*Do vegans need to supplement?*
Vegans need to take a B12 supplement. Most of the B12 humans get in their diet comes from animal products, as a result of microorganisms being processed in the guts of cattle and sheep. Without foods from those critters, it's a lot harder to get adequate B12, which means vegans rely on fortified plant milks and cereals or supplementation. (Unless they are really into eating seaweeds like spirulina or dried nori, which contain B12.)

Otherwise, no, you don't need to use a protein shake or branched chain amino acid powder-but they can make it a whole lot easier to get your protein in. Otherwise, 150 grams of protein a day (without just oodles of carbs) can be overwhelming.

*The ideal ratio of vegan protein sources*
David was a bodybuilder before he went vegan. In fact, he was "a total meathead." His transition to vegan bodybuilding was simple: replace meat with meat substitutes. He is a "big proponent of tempeh" and usually advises his clients to eat two whole foods meals (like black beans and veggies or lentil soup), one meat substitute meal (like tacos with beefless ground), and one or two shakes.

Zinchenko encourages vegan lifters to "err on the side of caution" and eat about 50 percent of your protein from legumes (beans, peas, soy, etc.), 25 percent from grains, and 25 percent from nuts and seeds to make sure you're getting adequate amounts of the necessary amino acids.

*Meal timing*
"The most recent recommendations clarify not just how many grams of protein you should eat, but also how those grams are pulsed throughout the day," Pojednic says. "Scientists are thinking now that there's only a certain amount of protein your muscles can uptake and utilize in one sitting. If you flood your system with amino acids, at some point they're a little bit wasted."

Aim to get 0.25 and 0.4 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per meal. Or, to put it way simpler, space out your protein over 3 or 4 meals a day, not just all at once in a mega smoothie.

The other science-backed tip is to make sure you're eating 20-30 grams of protein within 30 minutes (up to an hour is probably fine) of training. "The literature shows that ingesting both protein and carbs in that window promotes muscle growth and recovery, which helps you stay up on your training regimen." Yes, that can be a protein shake-but it can also be a peanut butter sandwich.

The science is a little bit muddier for eating before and during training. Pojednic says to go with your preference, and how much food you want in your digestive tract while you're doing heavy squats. Overloading your G.I. system is particularly easy for vegans, whose foods contain so much fiber. You can definitely get a tummy ache from eating a salad before training, because all the blood is "shunted away" from your digestive organs in favor of, say, your quads. If you don't want to eat before training, but want to make sure you've got enough sugar in your system to get the most out of your workout, Pojednic recommends fruit juice.

*But the most crucial aspects of gaining muscle have nothing to do with being vegan.*

It's not all about getting enough amino acids. You've got to eat enough calories to gain mass, and you've got to train hard. Farris, who went plant-based in November 2014 (between Olympics appearances), is a world-class athlete who happens to be vegan-and he doesn't track his protein at all. Still, he was able to "make some gains and, more importantly, stay healthy." He says a vegan diet has let him recover faster. "If you can do that, you can do more work. You can beat your body up more. Simply, just train."

(It's worth noting that part of the reason Farris had no qualms about changing his diet while in a high point of his career was because he spent his prime lifting years (19-22) gaining strength without reliable access to any type of food at all. "If I could lift and do it all when I didn't have access to regular meals, how was I going to get weaker eating enough food but switching out the ingredients?")

In case that doesn't drive the point home, know that every single person I spoke to for this article mentioned the importance of simply eating enough food.

"A big problem for vegans is that they can easily under eat," Zinchenko says. "Especially active people who eat a lot of whole foods. Without calories, your body can't make muscle."

"The main thing is high-volume weight training and getting adequate nutrients," David says. "That's it. There are no shortcuts. The harder you hit it, the more you feed it, the more it will grow." (I believe we were talking about butts at this point in the conversation.)

"Obviously diet is going to give you that tiny push at the end, but the training and the dedication is really what's going matter in the long term for high-level athletes," Polojic says.

Oh, and for what it's worth, we sorely need more research on vegans. "Even the studies that examine vegan protein powders are not done on vegans," Zinchenko says. "If there is somebody who would like to donate money to study vegan muscle growth, I would be happy to run the study."

sauce https://www.popsci.com/vegan-diet-w...n8jSxvUZ2Nr_y2kkbk-6XSEI78D4UGVzPEuToY#page-3


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

*Vegan Engineer Predicts 'UK Will Be Vegan By 2030'*

Vegan Engineer Predicts 'UK Will Be Vegan By 2030'
https://www.plantbasednews.org/post/engineer-predicts-uk-vegan-2030



> The researcher suggests animal agriculture will 'financially collapse' when the UK has a vegan population of 15 percent
> 
> Vegan engineer, Tom Milner, has predicted that the UK will be vegan by the year 2030.
> 
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*12,000 DOCTORS FILE LAWSUIT AGAINST USDA TO GET FECAL MATTER OUT OF MEAT *:eekster:

This week, medical group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) filed a lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the removal of fecal matter from meat products. Currently, the USDA prohibits visible fecal matter on meat, stating it can be removed during the trimming process.

PCRM-which is comprised of 12,000 medical professionals who advocate for a plant-based diet-contends that fecal matter is currently present in meat products that are available to the consumer. The new lawsuit is a measure to compel the USDA to act on a petition PCRM filed in 2013 after conducting independent tests on 120 chicken products sold in 15 supermarkets across 10 cities-48 percent of which contained fecal matter. "We often see birds going down the line with intestines still attached, which are full of fecal contamination," a federal inspector is quoted saying in the lawsuit. "If there is no fecal contamination on the bird's skin, however, we can do nothing to stop that bird from going down that line. It is more than reasonable to assume that once the bird gets into the chill tank (a large vat of cold water), that contamination will enter the water and contaminate all of the other carcasses in the chiller. That's why it is sometimes called 'fecal soup.'"

The lawsuit demands that the USDA remove labels that tout the term "wholesome" from packaged meat and, because contamination is "common and even expected," according to the lawsuit, replace it with messaging that warns the consumer of possible fecal contamination. "USDA misleads consumers every time inspectors slap a 'wholesome' label on contaminated food," Deborah Dubow Press, associate general counsel for PCRM, who authored the lawsuit, said. "Consumers should be horrified to know that USDA's standard for wholesomeness is 'no visible feces.'" On Friday, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention linked ground beef to the E. coli outbreak that sickened 109 people across six states. E. coli is only found in fecal matter.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/4/12000-do...VXJE8mKJBmA5xguSzwPoRgy1l1o5zSZOv9rDekeWClHeM


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sexy Fruit... happy hump day!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Beyond Meat is going public. Investors are betting on a new future for food.*









Beyond Meat, the plant-based meat company, is going public next week.

The company sells burgers that contain no meat, but taste like they do. Its stated goal is to fix our food system. Its initial public offering (IPO) is the latest sign that alt-meat is going mainstream - and that's a big deal.

It's been a good few years for Beyond Meat. National chains including Del Taco, Carl's Jr., and T.G.I. Friday's have started carrying their products. They've also found their way onto grocery store shelves at Whole Foods, Kroger, and Target. In total, Beyond Meat says its products are available in more than 35,000 outlets, from hotels and college campuses to grocery stores and sports stadiums. Sales have been growing fast - last year the company reported revenues of $87.9 million, up from $32.6 million in 2017.

Now, the company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an IPO, scheduled for next week. They'll sell shares in the company for between $19 and $21 per share, allowing them to raise $183 million for additional manufacturing facilities, research and development, and sales. If their stock sells at the high end of that, the company would be valued at $1.2 billion. They'll be listed on NASDAQ as BYND.

Founded in 2009 by CEO Ethan Brown, the Los Angeles-based company's products first hit supermarket shelves in 2013. Its rapid rise - food is not an easy industry to break into - reflects intense consumer demand and investor interest in meat alternatives. The company has never been profitable, and lost $29 million in 2018, but its rapidly growing revenues made it a good bet to many investors - as did its positioning on the frontier of a transformation of our food system.

"Beyond Meat was the first company to really set its sights on creating meat from plants that could compete on the basis of the things that meat eaters like about meat," Bruce Friedrich of the Good Food Institute, which works on policy and investment surrounding meat alternatives, told me. "Before Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, there was really this sense that plant-based foods was for vegetarians. People like Ethan Brown said, 'No, we can make plant-based foods that meat eaters like just as much.'"

Brown will soon have a billion-dollar company to prove it. And while it's the first plant-based meat company to go public, it looks likely that it won't be the last. The trend that brought Beyond Meat racing to its billion-dollar valuation and IPO are just getting started - and that has the potential to be game-changing, not just for the industry, but for the world.

Plant-based meat alternatives are getting big

There's a lot wrong with our food system. Producing meat by raising animals on factory farms produces tons of greenhouse gases, and many analysts think we can't tackle climate change without tackling the enormous emissions that go into agriculture. Animals in close quarters are fed low-dose antibiotics constantly so they don't make one another sick, which contributes to antibiotic resistance, a huge threat on the horizon for public health. And animals on factory farms are routinely subjected to intense cruelty and conditions that disgust the average American consumer.

That's what inspired people to start working on meat alternatives - and it may be what's inspiring the consumer enthusiasm that has buoyed them in recent years. Products like veggie burgers, fake chicken, and soy and almond milk are growing in popularity and market share - and even better, they're getting tastier and harder to distinguish from animal products.

New breakthroughs in food science have made it easier to imitate the flavor and texture of real meat. While early veggie burgers were almost exclusively purchased by vegetarians, Brown says that 93 percent of Beyond Meat customers buy regular meat too - suggesting the company has succeeded at making something that appeals to meat eaters.

Beyond Meat was among the pioneers of this new generation of plant-based meat, which aimed to replace bean-based veggie burgers marketed mostly to vegans. Now, they'll be the first plant-based meat company to have an IPO. It's a remarkable success for the company. It's also remarkable because food companies rarely go public, Friedrich told me: "The food industry is highly centralized, and most exits are mergers or acquisitions by large food conglomerates."

Last year, there were rumors that industry giant (and Beyond Meat investor) Tyson Foods was considering buying the company. Beyond Meat stayed independent, though. A few months later, the company added the chief financial officers of Coca-Cola and of Twitter to their board, signaling that it was getting the expertise on-board that it needed to become a huge public company.

The rest of the plant-based meat industry has been thriving too. Qdoba announced last week that it would be serving Beyond Meat competitor Impossible Foods. Earlier in April, Burger King launched the Impossible Whopper. Industry giants Tyson and Purdue are pursuing their own plant-based product lines. A few years ago, the Impossible Burger was available in a handful of restaurants - now it can be found in more than 5,000.

"There's a sense that there's a movement going on that's much bigger than any one company," Brown told Vox two weeks ago.

The interesting thing about that movement is that plant-based meats don't have to displace all animal meats in order to make a big difference. Every burger replaced with a Beyond Burger has an impact on CO2 emissions, demand for factory farming, and demand for antibiotics. The more the plant-based meat industry grows, the more those impacts will be visible - and that might, in turn, itself fuel more interest in plant-based meats. Beyond Burger's team doesn't just believe they've found a niche - they say they've figured out the "Future of Protein." Here's hoping they're right.

Sauce https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/25/18514798/beyond-meat-ipo-vegan-sustainable-food

I have never tried Beyond Meat but I am curious. Since I am not a meat eater and haven't been for over 40 years, I can't compare it to meat eg texture

Some consumers feel the price is steep. I believe livestock farming gets subsidized.

Hopefully as the products get more popular there's more demand and they'll become cheaper.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

I am not a fan of their burgers. I did try their brat style sausages they other day, and was pleasantly surprised. I was never a big sausage fan when I was a meat eater some 20 years ago, but these were quite tasty. Do they feel and taste like real meat? I have no idea, but my meat eating gf liked them. The weird thing about them is that they make fat in the pan when cooked. It is really quite odd.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thanks for your comments dubthang

I like the taste and texture of veggie patties. Beyond meat is high in protein and low in carbs so it's a good healthy choice for anyone. I just haven't had a chance to try it in pattie or sausage form.

I went vegan for 2 reasons, health, and animal welfare. But health was first.
The more we can make copycat meat products that can actually replace meat, the more people will switch over.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A good rebuttal to antivitamin forces


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*4 Caffeine Myths Debunked*









Caffeine is right up there with salt and water as one of the bedrocks of the human diet. In fact, caffeine is the world's most frequently consumed ingredient. You can find it in coffee, tea, soda, chocolate, alcohol, ice cream, pain relievers, and breath fresheners. It's even finding its way into unexpected places like specially formulated sunflower seeds, beef jerky, oatmeal, and, yes, water. And, of course, caffeine is in lots of sports nutrition products.

And why not? No matter how you consume it, caffeine can increase your mental acuity, improve your mood, and ratchet up your performance. What's not to like? But, given its popularity inside the gym and out, you'd think we'd all know everything about this wondrous substance. And yet the caffeine myths persist. Here's my take on four of the most common ones.

*Myth 1: Caffeine Causes Dehydration*
Most people who drink coffee regularly know from experience that caffeine can have a strong diuretic effect, meaning it can make you urinate. If you partake in activities that make it hard to continually replenish your fluids, this can be cause for concern since dehydration and fluid loss can affect athletic performance.

But, since most people get their caffeine from drinking coffee, black tea, or a pre-workout, the water they consume as a part of those beverages makes up for some of this fluid loss. Studies have found that a 155-pound person can drink as many as 7 cups (about 600 milligrams of caffeine) of coffee a day without experiencing a significant increase in fluid loss.

Even if you did experience increased urination or fluid loss, you'd just have to drink an extra 8 ounces of water or so for every 100 milligrams of caffeine you consume. Some people who drink a lot of coffee can even build up resistance to the potentially dehydrating effects of caffeine.

*Myth 2: Caffeine Is Bad For Your Heart*
There is a traditional belief among cardiologists that caffeine consumption can lead to cardiovascular disease, but studies show that is not true for people who consume normal amounts of it.

A study of almost 50,000 coffee drinkers found no association between moderate caffeine intake (set at 10 cups per day in this study) and cardiovascular disease. A Harvard University study also found no association between coffee consumption and coronary heart disease

Ultimately, the devil is in the dose. If you're drinking three pots of very strong coffee each day, you may want to cut back on your consumption, but 2-3 cups a day won't hurt.

*Myth 3: There's No Caffeine In Decaf Coffee*
When people who enjoy coffee are sometimes asked to avoid it for various reasons (allergies, interactions with other medications, certain illnesses, during pregnancy), they usually switch to decaffeinated coffee. But "decaffeinated" isn't the same as caffeine-free. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration regulations specify that coffee makers must remove 97 percent of the caffeine for a coffee to be considered decaffeinated. University of Florida researchers found up to 15 milligrams of caffeine in 16 ounces of a commercial "decaffeinated" beverage. That's not zero caffeine, but it is close.

*Myth 4: Caffeine Is Addictive*
It isn't uncommon to develop a tolerance to caffeine, which is why so many people need to drink more and more of it to get the same buzz. If you no longer get that familiar high from your cuppa joe, cut back on your intake for a few weeks.

Having said that, if you stop abruptly, you may experience withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, irritability, and difficulty concentrating in the short term.

The good news is that these symptoms are usually short-lived. Once you start up again, the symptoms should diminish and your heightened sensitivity to caffeine reemerge. The less-than-good news is that along with this renewed caffeine sensitivity can come side effects, including sleep disruption, restlessness, and heightened feelings of stress.

Before you hit the gym, there's nothing more helpful than the kick you get from a good pre-workout. Just pay attention to how it-and caffeine in all its forms-affects your performance, sleep, appetite, and mood. As they say: Moderation in all things-including moderation.

sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...LHe2Bwgobu_IUfGwjBtdZXeS8yFpKGvLbuMXwej7YBO1o


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## tjchad (Aug 15, 2009)

While I like the Beyond Burgers I have had, I find them to be very salty tasting- could be the place I eat it.

My wife felt the same from that place but does like the ones she gets from Carl's Jr.

The Beyond Tacos at Del Taco are OK... but the best I have had are the asada tacos from the "La Taqueria Vegiee SD" taco truck- OMG... so good...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Meat Producers File Official Complaint Against Beyond Meat With Canada Food Inspection Agency*
They're saying "plant-based meat" is false representation...









The Quebec Cattle Producers alongside the Union of Agricultural Producers of Quebec have filed an official complaint with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to stop the "Beyond Meat" brand from using the phrase plant-based "meat" on their products.

Beyond Meat burgers and other vegetarian products became available in Canadian grocery stores at the beginning of this month, while their burgers have been for sale at quick-serve franchises like A&W for months.

The meat producers are making the claim that calling these vegetarian products "meat" is a method of "false representation," according to TVA Nouvelles.

The meat producers are hoping the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will side with them and stop plant-based food producers from using the word "meat" in their advertisements - which would likely mean the removal of the word "meat" from all packaging.

In the TVA Nouvelles article the president of the Producteurs Agricoles du Quebec makes the statement that in his experience, "meat comes from an animal" and he's worried using the word "meat" for plant-based products will "lead to confusion."









The primary concern, according to the President of the PBQ, is that plant-based products don't have the same nutritional value as similar looking meat-based products.

He also notes that meat products are "completely pure," while the plant-based patties, for example, are "a processed product" made in California with "about forty ingredients."

To their credit, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency does, in fact, define "meat" on their website as the "edible part of a carcass" - which does imply animal involvement in the production process.

However, the claim that consumers are going to be confused or mislead by the use of the word "meat" is weak. Most people eating these products know full well there are no animal by-products involved - that's exactly why they're eating it.

sauce https://www.mtlblog.com/news/canada...Y3N-jpz1-tb-UM6pe7zvfZO4xhgMdVCuIKXRH9fjR0h5Q


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Another reason .... Thanks, I'm vegan

*Your Meat-Heavy Diet Might Be Giving You 'Keto Crotch'*

You know all of the jokes, yeah? Like how you can tell if someone is *vegan*, or if someone does *Crossfit*, or if someone is convinced that a room filled with essential oil diffusers is just as effective as all of those silly-billy vaccines? The answer to all three is "Don't worry, they'll tell you about it, and they'll post on Facebook about it, and they'll angrily comment on all of the posts you've made complaining about it until you ultimately have to report them for hate speech."

But the keto diet requires a slightly different punchline for its slightly different side-effects. Given that ketosis can cause your breath, your pee, and everything else that comes out of any number of your orifices to have a strong odor, you don't need to tell anyone that you're on keto; we might already be able to smell it. (BUT YOU LOOK GREAT, AUNT BRENDA. REALLY.).

According to Women's Health, some women on the keto diet have noticed that their personal areas have a more distinct smell, a phenomenon that has been described as 'keto crotch.' One thread on the r/xxketo subreddit attempted to address this topic with a desperate "HELP LADIES!" in its title. "I am very SMELLY. It started on this diet and BV (bacteria vaginosis) just popped up with a vengeance," a user named imisswaffles wrote. "I've read [it] could be KETO CROTCH (yeast die off/hormonal changes with the diet), like getting smelly breath? I'm only 2 weeks in. No other symptoms but smell."

Several other Redditors said they'd noticed the same thing (about themselves, not about that particular Reddit user), and were able to share some rational-sounding advice. "Make an appointment with your [gynecologist] ASAP," one person responded, before suggesting that the unpleasant situation could be caused by not showering or changing into non-sweaty clothing immediately after a workout. "Hot and moist areas are breeding grounds for bacteria," she added.

That echoes what one gynecologist told Women's Health as well. Dr. Jessica Shepherd said that any diet-not just the keto one-can change a woman's vaginal pH, which might affect the way it smells. Another gyno said that any other changes, like rashes, abnormal discharge, or an unpleasant itch, should be mentioned to a medical professional. (The subtext there is "Don't just type about it on an internet forum, even if you use all capital letters to write the word HELP." Oh, and this is a good time to re-remind you not to put parsley in your vaginas either.)

And sorry, gentlemen, but you might not be exempt from your own keto-related genital issues. A post on r/keto that doubly specified "For guys" and "Male" suggested that some men may have problems with dryness down there. "Take some of that coconut oil we all have on hand and lather up," a person named Mr_Apocalyptic_ wrote. "I do that with dry skin due to cold air on my legs and such. It works like magic and your twig and berries region will smell like a tropical getaway."

Well, we've all learned something today, mostly that there are worse things than your former college roommate telling you about the Crossfit Open in great detail.

sauce https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...SnfIGFP80hOkG0hbB7TVxyjqPjgTK0qYcYLDcPjxEkP_o


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*4 reasons you should eat more mushrooms*









Even setting aside magic mushrooms, our favorite fungal fruiting bodies supposedly have some spectacular healing properties. Search for the health benefits of mushrooms and you'll turn up pages of info about how they can treat or prevent everything from cancer to heart disease.

But as a savvy reader, you might wonder how much of the hype is really true. Should I be eating mushrooms all the time? Or is this all just overblown? We dug into the science and came up with four excellent reasons to eat your 'shrooms.

*They're one of the few vegan sources of vitamin D (kind of)*
You only need 10 to 15 minutes of sunshine three times a week to get your necessary dose of vitamin D, but if you're still running low you can supplement with food sources. The only problem? They're all from animals. Fatty fishes (or fish liver oil) and fortified dairy products are the main repositories. Some cereals are fortified with it, but they don't pack much of a punch. Mushrooms, on the other hand, produce vitamin D naturally and in abundance. One study estimates that a 100-gram serving (that's 3.5 ounces) would give you 50 to 100 percent of your daily dose. There's just one problem: they only make vitamin D if they're exposed to UV light. According to studies about the vitamin D content of mushrooms, fresh mushrooms should get plenty of exposure. But many commercially available sources are grown in the dark, then shipped around in closed containers. Some large growers do intentionally irradiate their crop, however.
*
They're full of fiber and low in fat*
By weight, many mushroom species are at least 50 percent carbohydrates (many are well above 60 or 70), and though we think of carbs as starchy or unhealthy, most of the carbs in mushrooms are actually fiber. A mushroom's cells have all kinds of non-digestible carbohydrates, which is what we call dietary fiber, and that fiber fuels the healthy microbes in your gut.

As a bonus, they also have other nutrients like selenium, copper, niacin, phosphorous, and potassium-all elements important (in small amounts) for your health. Cooking mushrooms helps release these, so toss those 'shrooms in a frying pan before chowing down.

*They might help stave off cancer, heart disease, and neurodegenerative diseases (but we're not sure yet)*
There have been a number of studies claiming to find links between mushrooms and various diseases. Some note that people who eat more mushrooms tend to have lower rates of cancer or heart disease, while others look at how specific nutrients isolated from mushrooms affect cells in the lab. Various components are anti-inflammatory, for instance, and others purportedly fight tumors or protect the nervous system. One recent study linked mushroom consumption to less cognitive decline in old age.

But these claims lack solid proof. A meta-analysis of such studies concluded that most were poorly designed, had small sample sizes, failed to replicate their work, and had troublesome statistics. The authors wrote that it was unwise to extrapolate the results of these mushroom studies to humans, and advocated for better clinical trials to investigate whether fungal food can actually improve our health.

Another analysis, this time focusing on mushrooms as used in traditional Chinese medicine, not only concluded that "there is no scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of these preparations in the treatment of human disease," but also warned about potentially dangerous contaminants in mushroom-based herbal medicines.

It could very well be that the associations we see between people who eat more mushrooms and better health are just that-associations. Much like those who eat plenty of leafy greens or folks who consume nuts on a daily basis, they may just live healthier lives in general. Or maybe mushrooms really are helping! Maybe they do have chemicals that help stave off cancer or Alzheimer's. Or maybe they're nutritious and full of fiber, and that's all part of the type of healthy diet we already know reduces your risk for a wide variety of disease.

No one is quite sure yet.

*They're delicious!*
Here's the thing: mushrooms are definitely nutritious, but they're also just darn tasty. Sauté up some onions and mushrooms in a little butter with a sprinkling of salt and try to deny it. And apart from foraging for them yourself (please don't do this unless you're properly trained!), there's really no reason to eat less of them. So go for it. Mushrooms don't need to be some kind of superfood that staves off brain plaque or protects your cells from cancer for it to be a good idea to eat more of them. Remember: no one food is going to make or break your diet. Enjoy some mushrooms if you like, and don't worry about it if you don't.

sauce https://www.popsci.com/mushrooms-he...2jXqeJIMGmeV8WXvi19OiWQsl354eIPvkY4XC8#page-2


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Doris Day was an actor, singer and vegetarian... and animal champion. From refusing to work on set when animals were mistreated, to personally rescuing and finding homes for countless animals - she left a legacy of pure integrity and love.









R.I.P. Apr 3, 1922 - May 13, 2019 (age 97)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Processed food is unhealthy; we know that. More research why and how

*Processed food really does make you gain weight*

You probably already know that processed food is bad for you. Twinkies, after all, are not eaten for health, but for the joy of chewing yellow sponge cake injected with non-perishable cream. But it might surprise you to know that there's never been any real data to back this up.

Most researchers and nutritionists theorized that ultra-processed food makes you overeat, on top of being high in calories, sugar, and fat while being low in fiber. To test that hypothesis, researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases recruited 20 volunteers, evenly split by gender, and kept them in a special wing of the NIH Clinical Center for 28 days straight. Nutrition studies are often plagued by having too many variables you can't control for. People who eat more processed foods also tend to have other factors that might influence their health, like having less money to pay for healthcare or less time to spend exercising. Just observing the general traits of folks consuming junk food won't get you to any definitive conclusions-you can only ever get associations.

So instead of just observing what people ate, the NIH researchers prescribed and controlled every single meal, plus the amount of daily exercise the participants got. For the first two weeks, half of the group ate a diet rich in veggies, whole grains, and other unprocessed food, while the other half ate ultra-processed stuff. Every meal contained twice as many calories as the person would actually need to maintain their body weight, and everyone was told to eat as much or as little as they wanted. Then the groups swapped menus for the last two weeks of the study, which was published this week in the journal Cell Metabolism.

The most important part of this study, though, is that the meals were matched on their macros. Whether you were on the processed or unprocessed week, each meal had roughly the same number of carbs, fat, protein, fiber, sugar, and total calories. The researchers couldn't match more specific categories, like added sugar or saturated fat, simply because it's hard to find chips and fruit juice that are as low in those unhealthy nutrients as whole foods are.

Even eating these macro-matched meals, the folks eating ultra-processed food consumed an average of 508 calories more per day, mostly in the form of carbs and fat (protein intake remained the same, as did total fiber and total sugar consumption). Those extra calories added up to about 0.9 pounds of extra weight at the end of the two weeks compared to their baseline. In the end, though, they came out even-folks eating only unprocessed food lost an average of 0.9 pounds.

Part of this difference may have been from changes in appetite. While participants were downing whole foods, the hormones controlling appetite-PYY and ghrelin-shifted to favor less hunger. And it may also have had to do with the speed at which they ate. Chowing on processed stuff made folks eat faster, both in terms of grams and calories. Because it takes a while for your brain to get the signal that your stomach is full, eating too quickly can make a big difference in the total amount you consume.

Interestingly, the participants' glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, and average blood glucose levels all remained unchanged. The researchers think this might have to do with the physical activity the participants engaged in. Prior research has suggested that exercise can temper the glucose response, though that's not why the volunteers were prescribed physical activity. Most studies of metabolism involve being trapped in a hospital for days, where you're mostly sedentary. The exercise in the study was just meant to match the amount of activity one would get on an average day in the outside world, so it was very low intensity-just three 20-minute bouts of cycling at 30 to 40 percent of their max heart rate. If even that amount of working out can influence glucose metabolism, that's a great sign for promoting even small amounts of exercise.

Of course, none of this solves the systemic reasons that some people overindulge in junk food. As the researchers point out, processed foods cost less in both time and money, both of which may be in short supply if you're not wealthy. But whatever level of whole-food-iness you can afford, this study suggests it's well worth the investment.

sauce https://www.popsci.com/processed-fo...NuChxxKaqXsNI07TL7WTCFd_lSi8tVxzXJFYtY#page-2


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Neat story. I'm sure there is a vegan cyclist out there with the same goals.









*WHEN A VEGAN RUNS ACROSS AMERICA, HERE'S WHAT HE EATS*

Robbie Balenger is running across America. That's 3,200 miles, in 75 days, averaging just under 45 miles each day. Beyond one heck of a runner's high, he took on this self-imposed challenge to spread the plant-based word. Accompanied by a bright blue camper van displaying the NadaMoo! vegan ice cream and the dairy-free nonprofit Switch4Good branding, he's running to leave a lasting impression and prove that one can accomplish incredible physical feats when powered by plants. We were curious about what his nutrition plan looked like, so we caught up with Balenger and his crew to see what makes up his 8,000-calorie days.

*Meal Planning is Non-Negotiable*
When running across the country on a vegan diet, there is no choice but to meal plan. Balenger's nutritionist (and soon-to-be sister-in-law) Jackie Howard shared her immaculate nutrition spreadsheet with us. The exceptionally detailed tool laid out every single edible item accompanying him on the trip including the caloric content, serving size, cost, and more. A few items that caught our eye were Soylent, Daiya Mac and Cheese, a variety of naturally made vegan gels and electrolyte drinks, smoothie ingredients, and various Bobo's products such as the Toast'r Protein Pastries. Howard is an athlete in her own right, having accomplished several endurance challenges such as hiking the Appalachian Trail and "dabbling in the 50k trail running scene." In regards to her "giant spreadsheet with tons of tabs," Howard told VegNews, "I was able to adopt this planning sheet from my Appalachian Trail spreadsheet template. I customized the sheet to be tailored specifically for Robbie's Run. Once we had the ideas housed in an organized fashion, we shared it with the whole crew; it makes it much easier to make any tweaks needed to the original plan."

*A Note on Macros*
Athletes are trained to view nutrition through the lens of macronutrients-protein, carbs, and fats. While vegan athletes understand that micronutrients are truly their secret weapon, Howard was kind enough to break down the macros to help us plebeians understand the basics. She explained: "[Balenger] consumes a lot of good fats (1.5-2 cans of coconut milk per day!) trying to get plenty of carbs as well (oats, tortillas, and pasta). Peanut butter, cashews, and leafy greens all contribute to his protein. We are working under the basic assumption that when you get enough calories on a whole foods plant-based diet it is impossible to be protein deficient." There you have it. That's where he gets his protein. Moving on.

*The Essentials* 
Despite the orthodox runner's diet of gels, powders, and bars, Balenger consumes most of his nutrition in the form of whole foods. This requires equipment. He told VegNews that his camper is equipped with three burners, a mini-fridge and freezer, and the holy grail of all kitchen equipment: a Vitamix. The crew relies on these simple appliances to prepare his morning oats, blend up superfood smoothies, and whip up a hot meal when he gets in for the night. Howard also let us in on a secret: the fridge is vital to keeping the beer cold, something that helps Balenger wind down after a long day of running. Another end-of-the-day treat is a spoonful or two of NadaMoo! The vegan ice cream brand is a sponsor, which means Balenger and the crew always have several pints in stock. Balenger noted that Maple Pecan is his favorite flavor and enjoys it on occasion. He joked that Elliot Preater, his crew-based running buddy from the UK, dives into a bowl every day (NadaMoo! hasn't made it to the UK &#8230; yet!).

*An 8,000 Calorie-Day of Food*
Balenger's early morning begins with coffee and a loaded bowl of hot instant oats made with chia seeds, maple syrup, bananas, walnuts or peanut butter, and raisins. Throughout the day of running, he takes in a plant-powered smoothie every ten miles and a form of carbohydrates (such as fruit or Pringles-he needs the salt) every five miles. He also fuels with Soylent, vegan cheese quesadillas, Spring Energy Gels, and tofu wraps. We were surprised when he mentioned his hydration routine. "I don't drink a lot of water," Balenger noted. "I mostly drink Skratch," which is a natural vegan hydration mix that provides key electrolytes. For dinner, Balenger enjoys a meal prepared by his crew, many of which consist of Outdoor Herbivore vegan-friendly camping meals; however, on occasion, the crew will order takeout if available. "In small towns, we seek out Thai places. Those are always vegan-friendly. However, I just had a beet burger at Three Carrots in Indianapolis, and that was good. Also, the Flagstaff [AZ] vegan scene is on point. The Thai food there was absolutely fantastic." When asked if he was tired of any particular road food, he sighed and replied, "I'm just tired of eating. The constant eating and the amount of food &#8230; it's just a lot." However, Balenger did admit to daydreaming about one specific meal back in his hometown of Denver, CO: seitan wings from City, O' City. Further, when he completes his journey in New York City (tentatively predicted for May 29), he's looking forward to trying the pizza at Matthew Kenney's Double Zero. Balenger was a pizzeria restaurant manager in his former life and remains a self-proclaimed lover of all (vegan) pizza.

*The Mission* 
Balenger has put more than just miles past him. He has served his purpose to change the way people think about plant-based fuel. However, he was surprised to find that "Everyone is really aware of [veganism]. It's something people are thinking about or at least have even just heard about even in extremely rural areas." He noted that many of his non-vegan friends who came out to run with him went home and either adopted a fully vegan diet or at least made significant changes to be "more conscious" eaters. Looking ahead, Balenger hopes to use his platform to continue spreading the plant-based message through endurance events. Whether he'll be attempting another fantastic challenge or aiding others, Balenger is in it for the long haul.

To track Robbie's Run, see the Robbie's Tracker . He invites anyone to run a mile or a marathon with him as he completes the final few weeks of this adventure. His crew also encourages all to send him virtual kudos by following him on Instagram @RobbieBalenger and engaging with his daily posts and stories. Finally, to run with Balenger on his final day (or even participate in the Central Park celebration with complimentary NadaMoo! ice cream), RSVP to the event's Facebook page or join the vegan pizza and ice cream party at Screamer's Pizzeria the following day.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/5/when-a-v...Jyx1KgMFxhb5kibhWiOVZSbxVAHWszJl3nMuaRW8z769w


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Millions of Birds Are Vacuumed to Death Every Year for Our Martini Olives

I had no idea olives were harvested like this. So many questions. Article ends on the right note though...we'll be fine with slightly less flavorful olives. Seems like animals are always on the losing end of the profit incentive.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I didn't know this! Thanks for the link


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Processed foods make us fatter, lead to cancer, and are linked with early death. But what exactly is a processed food?*

They're quick, easy, cheap, and really bad for us.

Processed foods are under fresh scrutiny this week after a groundbreaking study from the National Institutes of Health found that people on ultra-processed diets ate more calories and gained more weight than they did when offered the same amount of nutrients from less processed food.

The finding suggests there's something different about how quickly our bodies take in processed foods and how those foods interact with key hormones that help regulate our appetites.

But this is far from the first time that processed foods have been linked to dangerous outcomes. Other researchers have connected packaged and ready-made foods with more cancer cases and more early deaths.

This mounting evidence raises a somewhat tricky question: What exactly designates a certain food as processed? After all, a chicken-salad sandwich prepared at home may still qualify as a processed meal, as could a cheesy quesadilla.

To answer that question, scientists and nutrition experts often use a four-tiered system called NOVA that classifies everything we eat as one of these four categories: unprocessed or minimally processed, processed culinary ingredients, processed foods, and ultra-processed food and drink products.

*Unprocessed foods* include edible parts of plants (fruits, vegetables, seeds, roots, etc.) or animals, as well as fungi and algae. These can be fresh, frozen, or even fermented - the important distinction is that they have not been treated with additives, injected with salt, or rubbed with oil until they're about to be eaten. Examples include dry beans; grains like rice; fresh or dried mushrooms; meat and dairy products; seafood; plain yogurt; nuts; and spices.

*Processed culinary ingredients* involve a step up in production. These are ingredients made from unprocessed foods, like vegetable oils, butter, and lard. This category also includes extracted food, like honey from combs, sugar from cane, and syrup from maple trees.

*Processed foods* are items that get infused with ingredients like sugar, salt, and fat to help keep them edible longer. Canned fruits, fermented breads (which most breads are, as they're made with yeast), alcohol, cheese, pickles, and salted nuts all make this list.

Finally, there are* ultra-processed foods*. These items are designed to be ready to eat and ready to heat at a moment's notice. To make that possible, these foods are often made in a factory, broken down from their whole or fresh form and treated with thickeners, colors, glazes, and additives. They may be fried before they're packed in cans or wrappers. They might contain high-fructose corn syrup, protein isolates, or interesterified oils (replacements for trans fats, which are now widely banned). Examples of ultra-processed foods include packaged granola bars, carbonated soft drinks, candy, mass-produced breads, margarine, energy drinks, flavored yogurt, chicken nuggets, and hot dogs.

These are the items researchers are referring to when they say that ultra-processed foods are linked to more cancer cases, early deaths, and weight gain.

Of course, these items also tend to be more convenient and cheaper than less processed food, since they're less perishable.

"Ultra-processed food has a lot of advantages in terms of its convenience," Kevin Hall, the lead author of the NIH study, told Business Insider. "It's cheap. It sticks around for a while. You don't have to have all the fresh ingredients on hand, which might spoil. You don't have to have all the equipment to prepare these meals from scratch."

But experts, including Hall, say that if you can afford it, cutting back on ultra-processed food is a good strategy for maintaining a healthy weight and staying disease-free.

"You can't just tax them and make them more expensive and less convenient for people," he said. "You also have to support access and availability to unprocessed meals."

sauce https://www.businessinsider.com/wha...o5m2A8PkWiwAyTwAS-verMsTK6FAYQO_wEVl80btsWQlA


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Real-Life Diet of John Joseph, the 56-Year-Old Punk Icon Who Hates Meat*









Before I even get a question out, John Joseph tells me he's having surgery in less than 24 hours. "Nothing major, just a hernia," he says. "I raced my last two Ironmans with it actually-you can see a picture of me at an Ironman in Thailand, and I'm running and holding the ****ing hernia."

Joseph, the longtime singer for the legendary hardcore band the Cro-Mags, is a tough dude. He's still touring and performing, and he's *raced in ten Ironmans*. His secret for staying so tough? *A plant-based diet*. The 56-year-old will eat a little bit of anything, and cook a little bit of anything on his YouTube channel, as long as there are no animal products involved. He was even given the honor of naming a meal at the vegan Organic Grill in New York City-he anointed the pulled jackfruit sandwich the "Triple J."

Joseph spoke to GQ about the benefits of eating veggies, his fond memories of cooking big family dinners with the members of Motörhead and Bad Brains, and his favorite vegan restaurants from around the world.

*GQ: You maintain a plant-based diet, right?*

John Joseph: Absolutely, 100 percent organic and locally sourced as much as possible. I'll tell you what, man, I had a really tough upbringing. I was raised in the foster system, got out in '77, hit the streets, and started getting into trouble for a few years. After that, I joined the Navy and met some Rastas in Jamaica in 1980. They ended up schooling me on "Ital," which is a pure vegan diet. It didn't really resonate with me for a bit, but the seed was planted.

*Right, so when did you go all the way with it?*

A few months later, I met the Bad Brains at a gig in Norfolk, Virginia. H.R. [the lead singer] took me aside and schooled me on keeping a positive mental attitude and eating a plant-based diet. After my tour in the Navy was over, I came back to New York, and who do I see standing on the corner of Avenue A? H.R.-he's there with the Beastie Boys.

I started hanging with them, and they got me a job in a health-food store. While I was working there, I started doing research and came to the conclusion that cutting out all the meat, dairy, and processed foods was the right thing to do. It helped me out so much.

*How so?*

Back then, I walked around with a lot of anger. When I started to eat like this, that anger began subsiding. With all I was reading those days-different books about spirituality and such-I realized that we were ingesting the suffering of these animals by consuming their flesh. After that I was like, "I ain't ever going back," and I never have.

It was really a decision that was firstly for the animals. "Rastafari" means "prince of peace," and it was broken down to me by H.R. that we want peace on this planet, but we're creating a hell and torturing animals by unnecessarily thinking that they're our food.

I got deeper into it, started studying with the nutritionist Viktoras Kulvinskas about the raw-food diet and how it can fight and prevent disease. In the United States and most of the world, medicine is all about treating disease after it comes, but I started trying to prevent it in my body.

*It sounds like that was a pretty radical shift in your life.*

From where I was, yeah. People can't even believe the **** that I went through as a kid on the streets-I got shot at, I sold drugs, I watched someone almost get killed in front of me. Just insane stuff that no 14-year-old kid should have to go through, especially in this system with my brothers in basically an insane asylum of a foster home. You know, people may look at who I am in 2019, but they don't understand the 40 years of work to get to this point. And I'm still a work in progress.

*I feel like there's a perception that a plant-based or vegan diet is a rigorous and difficult thing to maintain. Is that your experience?*

Not at all, dude. It's second nature at this point. You know, we look at everything that we put into our cars, we're obsessed with the fine details of all those sorts of things. But when it comes to what we put in our bodies, man, if you read the label and you can't pronounce this ****, you shouldn't be eating it. Our body is our only vehicle to get through life.

When I started doing this diet and I went on tour with the Bad Brains, we had to bring all this rice and beans and tahini on the road with us. Now, I'm 57 years old this year, and we've got Happy Cow, health-food stores, Whole Foods, healthy restaurants everywhere. It's easier than before, but it requires a little work on your part, time-wise. But you know what? Where else are you gonna spend the time? Because if you don't spend it taking care of yourself and eating properly, your quality of life is gonna go to hell.

I'm vegetarian, and I noticed that once I stopped eating meat and changed my diet, I started to shop differently, cook more, and experiment with a lot more food. Do you think that's happened for you, too?

Oh, absolutely. You have this learning curve. But back in 1981, when I was like, "Wow, I wanna eat this food all the time," there weren't any places that cooked this stuff. That encouraged me to go on a search-we didn't even have the Internet back then, if you can imagine that.

But that's how I learned to cook. There were a few big life experiences: I lived as a monk for two years in a Hare Krishna temple and learned a bunch there. When I went on tour, we were making family dinners, and I learned from people like the Bad Brains. We would get together and have these family dinners. It was something I never had in the foster system. Sometimes we literally had to eat dog food. So it was an amazing feeling when it got to the point where it was like, "Hey, man, I can cook this food and have these beautiful dinners with my friends." I would get high as a ****ing kite, but off my food and the positive energy we had at these dinners. Nowadays, you got all these amazing vegan chefs who have books out, and it's never been easier to get the products and recipes they use.

*There's something so nice about that family dinner and the community aspect behind it.*

Exactly, man. Back in the day, we went on tour with Motörhead. We were basically not even getting paid. Our manager was ripping us off, so we would take our per diem and pool it all together, and I would go to the supermarket and cook for all of us. One day, one of the roadies from Motörhead comes in and he's like [in an English accent], "Hey, man, what are you cooking in here, mate? That smells pretty ****ing good!" I ended up cooking for all of us all together. Lemmy [the bassist from Motörhead] came up to me and was like, "That's pretty ****ing cool." There's so much camaraderie around food.

*That rules. I also wanted to ask you about your Ironman training, which seems like a pretty grueling thing to get into. Do you think your diet helps you at all with that?*

Absolutely-a high-alkaline diet reverses inflammation and helps you to recover quicker. The superfoods, the chia seeds, the greens, all of that helps get you going the next day. That's why so many athletes are going plant-based now. I'm banging out hundred-mile rides, get off my bike, and then run 15 miles right after. How the **** are you going to come back from that the next day when you're eating a bunch of meat that's sitting in your gut? It's not even just the meat either, it's the processed foods, too. That's the key: a whole-food, plant-based diet.

*Do you have any good vegan or vegetarian spots that you love going to?*

I just came back from Miami, and the most amazing restaurant down there is Love Life Cafe. In New York City, you've got to check out Candle 79, Organic Grill, and Modern Love. In Los Angeles, you've got Crossroads. Berlin, this place called Yellow Sunshine, which has, like, organic fast food.

*Lastly, as a veteran of the hardcore/punk/metal scene, what's one thing that you see going on today that you think is really cool?
*
Fitness, fitness, fitness. What the **** is so punk rock about being sick in your 40s? I want to be out there kicking ass like I was in my 20s, and I still am. The real thing is to take care of yourself and be healthy. The drummer from Terror ran the Boston Marathon and then played a show later that day. If you watch him play drums, he friggin' beats the crap out of those drums. One of the things I was always taught was "Example is always better than precept." Basically, it doesn't mean a hill of ****ing beans unless you're showing others the example. You've got to share the knowledge with everybody else, and this is the best way to do it.

sauce https://www.gq.com/story/real-life-...0XWiUIVm8vk5KI4KhdmRS8pxxEAwUsm9CjDcSf_Mqz0Oc


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

^ I watched a short documentary on youtube about that guy, great life story and message


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

He's a bit intense. He has some cooking shows and other stuff on YouTube.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I don't eat at Mikey D's but this lack of vision is not going to help this old dinosaur.

They tested a vegan burger in Europe (Germany) not long ago... not sure why it didn't expand. Commercially supporting better practices makes it viable for the company to keep backing it. Obviously, people should skip out if they don't find it healthy or appealing enough but ethically seems fine to me.

*MCDONALD'S CEO EXPLAINS LACK OF VEGAN OPTIONS *

McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook explained the reason behind the fast-food chain's lack of vegan options during a call with shareholders this week. Easterbrook revealed that the company is currently discussing plant-based options and examining the potential roadblocks it might encounter in updating its menu. "Is there an additional complexity?" Easterbrook asked rhetorically about the addition of plant-based options. "And if there is, is that complexity worth it?" This year, McDonald's fast-food competitors have resolved any "complexities" associated with adding vegan-friendly options, including Carl's Jr. which launched the Beyond Famous Star in January and Burger King's announcement this week of its expansion of the Impossible Whopper to more than 7,000 locations nationwide. When it comes to the payoff of resolving those complexities, a vegan option at McDonald's would be welcomed by at least 200,000 United States consumers-as supported by a petition for such options.

Sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/5/mcdonald...amUp0A7NpY4kfwX77UC_ZxCIctJMC5Th-6tRJX0w0T3sk


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm excited to see all the new vegan products, and increase in accessibility plus the investment in Beyond Meat. The benefit to this product is meat eaters will be more inclined to try vegan foods if it resembles meat; additionally it is a high source of protein. It's still pricey but I'm sure that will change.

However I still love my veggies burgers where I see the beans or the grains 

*Here's why Beyond Meat rose as much as 36.5% today*

Shares of Beyond Meat(NASDAQ: BYND) rose over 36% today, rising to a market cap of more than $7 billion, after the company reported first-quarter 2019 operating results. Investors were eagerly awaiting the latest update on the company's growth trajectory -- and the animal-free protein pioneer certainly delivered.

Beyond Meat grew total revenue 215% thanks to a massive surge from restaurant distribution channels, which helped to drive gross profit 424% higher. The business achieved a gross margin of 25% in Q1. While investors might think that'll be difficult to keep up, management's expectations for the year ahead prove otherwise.

As of 10:19 a.m. EDT, the stock had settled to a 27.7% gain

*So what*

Management issued full-year 2019 guidance calling for revenue of at least $210 million, representing year-over-year growth of over 140%, and neutral adjusted EBITDA. That's pretty impressive considering Beyond Meat pulled in revenue of only $16.2 million in 2016.

While investors are basking in the glory of epic growth, it's worth mentioning that the animal-free protein developer is now worth more than $7 billion. If the business achieves revenue of $210 million this year, then it will be valued at 33 times sales. That's pretty pricey for a food company.

Consider two high-profile, albeit imperfect, comparisons. Tyson Foods trades at 0.8 times sales, while Whole Foods Market was acquired by Amazon at a multiple of 0.85 times sales. As more animal-free protein products arrive on the market, restaurants will have more leverage when negotiating partnerships, which will likely erode Beyond Meat's margins.

*Now what*

Beyond Meat is one of the fastest-growing companies on the public markets right now, but investors might want to consider if the business will be able to grow into and earn its premium before animal-free protein competition heats up. Then again, I said that a few billion dollars ago.

sauce Here's why Beyond Meat rose as much as 36.5% today


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

cyclelicious said:


> I'm excited to see all the new vegan products, and increase in accessibility plus the investment in Beyond Meat. The benefit to this product is meat eaters will be more inclined to try vegan foods if it resembles meat; additionally it is a high source of protein. It's still pricey but I'm sure that will change.
> 
> However I still love my veggies burgers where I see the beans or the grains
> 
> ...


This pisses me off! I was going to buy 2000 shares on the first day when they were selling for around $50 but that is over priced IMO for what the company is actually worth. I follow a Value Investing approach to buying stock and do well short and long term that way so it is hard for me to justify something so over valued... but, if I could've read the future . I am going to get it if it every becomes a value.

On a better note.. I went vegan because of my high blood pressure and cholesterol and didn't like being on medicine. I've been a junk food vegan since and eat crap like the Beyond Burgers, etc. but I don't have the genetics to eat a crappy American diet. Last check and my Total Cholesterol was 220 and LDL was 150.. not good enough but much better than before I was vegan. My triglycerides are actually pretty good at 109 because of eating vegan though. Well, I finally did Dr. Esselstyn's how to prevent and reverse heart disease diet and one and a half months later my LDL is 71 and my total is 121 (though many say someone eating this diet should remove the HDL results from this number which would bring it lower than 100). I think I'm going to keep eating healthy vegan.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is Soy Bad For You?*

Soy has played an integral part of the traditional Asian diet for thousands of years. And while it has carried over into some vegan and vegetarian diets, today, more and more people are afraid to eat any soy-based foods, as they've been accused of causing a plethora of problems including fatigue, digestive ills, weight gain, hormonal imbalances, and even cancer.

But when you dig through the science on soy, it becomes clear that it isn't (or shouldn't be) public enemy number one and need not be avoided like cyanide. Instead, there are reasons why you want to welcome soy foods like tempeh and miso into your kitchen more often.

*Soy in Our Diets*
Be it tofu or textured vegetable protein, these foods hail from the soybean, which originated in East Asia before being introduced to Western nations including the U.S. Soy plays a big part of the traditional diets of many Asian societies, where it's consumed in forms such as tofu, tempeh, soy sauce, miso, and funky natto. But you might be surprised to hear that American soil is now responsible for about one third of global soy production-a big chunk of which is used for livestock feed. As a major commodity crop, today you'll find soy is in all kinds of foods that go well beyond tofu and soy milk. You'll spot guises of soy including soy lecithin and soy protein isolate in energy bars, cereals, vegetable oils, faux cheese, ice cream, yogurt, hot dogs, and a myriad of other imitation animal products. The ubiquitousness of soy makes it hard to avoid eating it in one form or another.

*The Benefits of Soy*
When you dig into the nutrition numbers of lesser processed forms of soy foods, it's pretty darn impressive. "From protein to fiber to vitamins, soy has a little bit of everything to help meet the nutritional needs of runners, says Lauren Antonucci, a board-certified sports dietitian based in New York. "In all the hoopla surrounding soy, it's important to remember that it's a legume, which is one of nature's healthiest types of foods."

Soy is one of greatest food sources of phytoestrogens (a.k.a. isoflavones) including genistein and diadzein, and it's these compounds that make eating it good or bad for health depending on who you ask. But what is not up for debate is the antioxidant prowess of these compounds. One study showed that runners who consumed soy-derived isoflavones experienced an increase in their antioxidant defenses against the rigors of exercise. "The more you exercise, the greater the chance for a higher amount of oxidative damage to occur in your body, making antioxidants like isoflavones potentially useful to help combat the damage," explains Antonucci. She adds that it's always ideal to get your antioxidants from whole foods like soy as opposed to that from a pill.

Plus, a new report in the Journal of Nutrition found that women with higher intakes of soy foods as a whole and also soy isoflavones appear to be at a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. But for unknown reasons, this benefit was not found in male subjects. What's more, there is some evidence to show that greater intakes of isoflavones from soy can help keep our bones strong and healthy, mainly by reducing bone resorption. But this impact seems to be greatest in menopausal women. It's worth noting that the average daily intake of soy-derived phytoestrogens is considerably higher in Japan and China than on this side of the Pacific.

For vegetarians, soybeans are one of the few plant-based proteins that are considered complete, which means they have all the essential amino acids needed for bodily processes such as making muscle, explains Antonucci. "Runners have higher protein needs than the general public, so they will benefit from consuming more food sources of complete protein," she adds. While it's best to focus on eating less processed forms of soy, research shows that adding a scoop of soy protein powder to your post-run smoothie is a viable vegetarian option for bolstering muscle repair and growth. And doing so does not appear to

nosedive testosterone levels.

And it's worth noting that research is piling up to show that people who eat more plant-based protein like tofu at the expense of animal-based protein may live longer. Case in point: An investigation in the European Journal of Nutrition found that after three months, people who replaced 30 grams of animal protein daily with the same amount of protein from whole soy foods experienced a drop in body weight and blood triglyceride numbers, both of which can be protective against cardiovascular disease. Further, a Dutch study found that women who swapped out some of the animal protein in their diets with soy protein saw their cholesterol and insulin sensitivity improve. "When you eat more plant proteins you also get some nutritional benefits like an increased intake of fiber and certain micronutrients not found in animal protein," notes Antonucci.

Noshing on soy can also directly do the heart some good. A meta-analysis of 17 previous studies conducted by researchers in China concluded that eating more soy foods is associated with a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and coronary heart disease (although, the impact of soy on heart health was stronger among individuals in Asian countries than those residing in Western countries). This discrepancy could be owed to the simple fact that, overall, people in countries like China typically have a much higher soy intake than those living in North America and Europe. Another report found that individuals who ate soy foods three or more times a week had a lower risk for all-cause mortality, including that from heart disease, than those who consumed less. There is also some evidence that a higher intake of soy isoflavones via soy protein can modestly reduce blood pressure numbers, particularly in people who already have hypertension.

While yes, soybeans contain a stew of beneficial compounds such as amino acids, fiber, isoflavones and lecithins that may work synergistically to improve metrics like cholesterol numbers associated with heart health, keep in mind that highly-processed forms of soy aren't likely to have the same impact. For example, soy protein isolate-a protein that has been isolated from soybeans using chemical engineering and added to everything from veggie burgers to boxed cereal-won't improve your heart health in the same way fresh edamame would.

To that point, a research review in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology found no evidence that the consumption of isolated soy isoflavones impacts blood levels of lipoprotein, a substance that appears to be an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Citing "inconsistent findings" since the claim was authorized in 1999, the Food and Drug Administration has proposed to revoke food companies' ability to use a label claim stating that there is a relationship between soy protein intake (a dose of 25 grams a day) and reduced risk of coronary heart disease-mainly via a reduction in cholesterol numbers.

Now, this does not suggest that soy protein can't play a role in a heart-healthy diet, as research shows it indeed can, but just that on its own, it might not be as powerful as was once thought. "The overall nutritional profile of soy is still heart-healthy, which is why I will continue to recommend it as part of a diet designed to improve heart functioning," states Antonucci. "Even though a bag of apples can't make a heart health claim, nobody should question that they aren't good for your heart."

Additionally, whole forms of soy such as tempeh deliver oligosaccharides, a special type of carbohydrate that acts as a prebiotic to nurture the beneficial bacteria in your gut which may bring about positive improvements in immunity and digestive health. But these can come with gassy side-effects to the uninitiated, so if you've never typically eaten too much soy, it's best to ease into this food group.

*The Misunderstood Aspects of Soy*
The phytoestrogens in soy have a structural similarity to estradiol, the main estrogen in both men and premenopausal women, so it's not uncommon to come across advice that men should steer clear of soy foods or risk feminization.

The theory goes that soy's phytoestrogens can inhibit the activity of enzymes involved in testosterone production, and thereby lower its levels while simultaneously increasing estrogen levels. But men should fret not; serving up a tofu stir-fry won't deflate your muscles. Research has shown that men who consume soy in a variety of forms-foods, protein powders, isoflavone supplements-do not have a clinically significant impact on testosterone levels. Soy also doesn't appear to negatively impact the testosterone-to-estrogen ratio in men or reduce fertility via lower sperm counts or erectile dysfunction. And contrary the preaching's of some anti-soy bloggers, including soy foods in your diet appears to help-not hurt-in the battle against prostate cancer.

This isn't to say that excessively high intakes of soy isoflavones won't negatively impact hormone levels in males, but unless you eat tofu with a shovel and drink a tanker of soy milk, the amounts of soy consumed in a typical diet, say a serving or two a day, appear to be of little concern. As they say, it's the dose that makes the poison.

Since phytoestrogens are chemically similar to estrogen and therefore can attach themselves to estrogen receptors and activate them, there is a perception that eating soy may play a role in hormone-influenced conditions in women such as breast cancer because estrogen may encourage the growth of certain breast cancer tumors. Yet, research suggests that consuming soy and its phytoestrogens won't throw your hormones out of whack, only has a modest impact on estrogen and other hormone levels in women, and doesn't have a worrisome impact on breast cancer risk.

It's likely that soy phytoestrogens can't activate estrogen receptors to the same degree as does real estrogen. In fact, eating soy food appears to lessen the risk for developing breast cancer, but only in Asian populations and not among women living in Western nations, which hints at the idea that for a benefit to occur, soy also needs to be consumed regularly during childhood. "Human studies linking soy intake and breast cancer occurrence just haven't panned out, but this association continues to be blown out of proportion," Antonucci says. Still, women deemed to have a higher risk of developing breast cancer like having a strong family history of the disease are best to eat whole soy foods and not use high amounts of pure isoflavone supplements.

Based on some animal and test tube studies, there have been rumors that making soy foods a dietary staple can negatively impact thyroid health by encouraging hypothyroidism. But the available research on humans does not seem to support that eating soy adversely affects thyroid functioning in people with healthy thyroids. For instance, a randomized controlled study, which followed 403 menopausal women for two years, reported that daily supplementation with 80 and 120 mg of soy isoflavones had no significant effect on thyroid hormone functioning. But with that said, there is a need for studies that are designed solely for investigating the effects of high amounts of soy food consumption on thyroid functioning among various demographics. "If you have a thyroid condition such as hypothyroidism or taking thyroid medication, it's best to discuss your soy consumption with a physician or dietitian to determine if you need to moderate your intake," advises Antonucci.

Soybeans also contain "anti-nutrients" such as phytates and tannins which are compounds that can impair the digestion and absorption of protein, vitamins, and minerals. But before you freak out and toss your veggie burger in the trash, you need to know that processing methods such as soaking and boiling soybeans, commonly used when making items like soy milk, greatly reduces levels of these anti-nutrients. Fermenting soy such as during the production of tempeh and miso also further removes some of these troubling compounds.

*The Dangers of Soy*
Not all soy is created equal. Antonucci cautions against eating too many highly processed forms of soy including soy protein bars and soy-infused veggie burgers with a laundry list of ingredients. "Sugar-sweetened soy yogurt is not a health food," she says. A diet that includes high amounts of products made with processed forms of soy is likely an unbalanced diet that won't help runners get all the nutrients they need.

And remember that soy sauce won't give you much, if any, of the nutritional benefits of soy, but will almost certainly eat into your daily sodium allotment. People often report feeling better after cutting out soy from their diet because in doing so, they are eating fewer ultra-processed foods and not because they have taken a pass on edamame when going out for a sushi night.

Because it's so cheap, soybean oil, made by extracting the fat from soybeans, is the grease of choice, either on its own or as part of a vegetable oil blend in restaurant kitchens and packaged processed foods. Soybean oil is especially high in omega-6 fat, which can be concerning. It's not that omega-6 fat is unhealthy-in fact one type called linoleic acid is essential, which means you have to get some in your diet-it's just that most Americans consume much higher levels of omega-6 fats in comparison to omega-3 fats. "This problem arises when people eat too much greasy fast-food and processed foods and not enough omega-3 rich foods like fatty fish and walnuts," says Antonucci. A ratio skewed heavily towards omega-6 fats may promote unwanted weight gain and drive up inflammation in the body, which can place you at a greater risk of ailments like heart disease and may even reduce recovery from hard runs. So it's okay to include some soybean oil in your diet (it has a fairly high smoke point making it a good option for searing steak), but only as long as you balance things out by also eating plenty of omega-3 heavyweights.

In terms of concern about eating soy foods because they might be made from genetically modified soybeans, look for certified organic products, as they must be made from non-GMO beans.

*The Bottom Line:*
Yes, you can go ahead and eat soy daily and feel good about it. Just be sure that you're consuming an appropriate amount-about three servings-of lesser processed soy foods. Some forms of soy like these below are more nutritious than others, so here's a quick rundown.

*Soy Nuts*
These are dried and toasted soybeans and have even more protein and fiber than typical nuts like almonds. They're also a leading source of isoflavones. Snack on them by the handful or toss onto salads for some satisfying crunch.

*Tempeh*
Made from soybeans that are soaked, cooked, slightly fermented and then formed into a firm patty, meaty tempeh is like tofu on nutritional steroids. Try it grilled like steak or crumble and use in pasta sauce, chili, tacos or stuffed potatoes.

*Miso*
Packing an umami-punch, pasty miso is made by combining cooked soybeans with salt, koji (a starter enzyme that breaks down proteins), and rice or barley. It's home to gut-friendly bugs. Whisk it into salad dressings, a glaze for fish, mashed potatoes, and dips.

*Tofu*
Made from curdling soy milk, tofu is a versatile meat protein alternative. Brands that list calcium sulfate as an ingredient contain more of this bone-friendly mineral. Use firm versions in stir-fries and kebabs and blend silky soft tofu into smoothies, dips, and salad dressings.

*Edamame*
These nutrient-dense green immature soybeans are high in plant protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Boil up a bunch of frozen shelled edamame for an ultra-healthy snack or add them to soups and salads.

*Soy Milk*
Some of the nutrients are lost during processing, but most brands are fortified with vitamin B12 and vitamin D. Plus, it's one of the very few plant-based "milks" to have protein numbers that approach what is found in the moo variety. To side-step added sugars, choose cartons labeled "unsweetened."

sauce https://www.runnersworld.com/nutrit..._mx7ds82AZxrdMFeOOukFDFSykRpEzAXvbvhFJ_-UzmW0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Don't cry, but milk sales plummeted by $1.1 billion last year*



> Our obsession with milk alternatives-nut, soy, oat, rice, etc.-is taking a toll on the real thing.
> 
> The Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) announced that traditional milk sales plummeted by $1.1 billion in 2018. Last year's net sales totaled $13.6 billion, compared to $14.7 billion in 2017.
> 
> ...


sauce https://www.fastcompany.com/9032485...RNWeDXrBXcTYsykg47-RMQqyHzusvJRCevIhhjiVbZx-M


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Pigs are just as playful and affectionate and more intelligent than the dogs we love so much.









*Pigs Are Highly Social And Really Smart. So, Um, About Eating Them...*

Pigs like to play. They're smart. They have good long-term memories, and they can be socially manipulative with other pigs. They can tell which people are nice to them and which aren't. They're also able to distinguish between pigs they know and pigs that are strangers.

Does all of this sound like it might have implications for bacon lovers? If so, that's no accident.

A paper published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Comparative Psychology surveys the existing peer-reviewed scientific literature to round up what we know about pigs' inner lives.

Authors Lori Marino, a neuroscientist and founder of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy, and Christina M. Colvin, a professor at Emory University, note in their paper that pigs have been found to be mentally and socially similar to dogs and chimpanzees.

"What is known suggests that pigs are cognitively complex and share many traits with animals whom we consider intelligent," they write in the paper, titled "Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus domesticus."

The paper was funded by Someone, Not Something, a project of Farm Sanctuary, an animal rescue organization. Someone, Not Something is an exploration of the science behind the emotions, intellect and social behavior of farm animals, with the aim of extending greater compassion and legal protection to these creatures.

This group is trying to increase the amount of noninvasive research on farm animals. The paper ends with a call for more studies.

There's another goal, too.

"Ultimately, in an ideal world people would use this information to stop eating meat," Marino told The Huffington Post. "But I think that we would be happy to just give people the information and let them make their own decisions."

We caught up with Marino by email to find out more.

*How smart are pigs?*

What we are trying to do with this paper is get away from the "linear scale of intelligence" that sets one species above or below another. That is too simplistic.

What we are trying to do is to get a better understanding of who pigs are. Not necessarily where they stack up against others.

But, with that said, as we compared the literature on pigs and other animals we did find that in many domains pigs are as cognitively complex as dogs, primates. This is not to say that pigs are equivalent to chimpanzees in intelligence. It is just to show that there are some very compelling reasons to regard pigs as intelligent, aware, emotionally and socially sophisticated beings.

We went to the peer-reviewed scientific literature to determine that. The objective of the Someone, Not Something project is to bring scientific credibility to our understanding of who pigs are and serve as the basis for re-educating the public about them. We hope that this review will serve as a more substantive argument for cognitive complexity in pigs.

*Were there any findings that surprised you? That you think folks who aren't already immersed in the world of animal cognition might find surprising?
*
I found the findings on tactical deception in pigs very compelling. We are familiar with the use of this kind of perspective-taking in chimpanzees as they compete for food against conspecifics [members of the same species].

But there is evidence that we review showing that pigs, too, are Machiavellian and strategize about how to out-compete their friends in foraging situations.

I think there has been relatively little research done with pigs compared to some other animals because pigs are mainly viewed as food and as biomedical subjects. They aren't seen for the complex and fascinating beings that they are.

I know you're vegan. I myself am a near-lifelong vegetarian. So we're both disposed to be moved by these findings. What would you say to people who find out about how smart, how emotionally complex, pigs are, and still want to eat them?

I'm not sure that there is anything I can say that would convince them not to eat pigs. I hope the evidence on how aware, emotional and sensitive they are will reach some people who have the capacity to be empathic.

*It seems like every year, we learn about more animals having complex inner lives. Fish, pigs. Are there any animals who you think probably don't share these cognitive and emotional traits?
*
The more I learn about other animals the more I am realizing that there is a common level of intelligence across all life forms with brains. Each species is a variation on a theme.

sauce https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/06/15/are-pigs-intelligent_n_7585582.html

Meat, egg and dairy alternatives

https://www.vegan.com/vegan-alterna...MmOoQrcu4sT_AtjVJ3j2KAOtuY9yYtqWFq5TQAxmUUwKc


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Also relevant "What can you carry on your bike"

https://forums.mtbr.com/general-discussion/what-can-you-carry-your-bike-1023734.html


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Swap: Less Processed Meat, More Plant-Based Foods May Boost Longevity*

A new study published in The BMJ can't tell you exactly how much red meat is OK to eat to maintain good health or prevent disease.

But it does help sort out a big-picture, and perhaps more important, question: What does a healthy pattern of eating look like?

A diet that includes plenty of nuts, seeds, fish, vegetables and whole grains - and perhaps up to an egg a day - appears to be better than a diet rich in red meat, especially processed meats such as bacon and hot dogs.

Already a large body of evidence links processed red meats to an increased risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and certain cancers.

And this new study, which included about 80,000 men and women, finds that limiting red and processed meats may help reduce the risk of premature death.

"We tracked the eating habits of our participants for several decades," explains study author Frank Hu, chair of the nutrition department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. This allowed Hu and his colleagues to compare people who increased their red and processed meat intake over time with those who had a relatively stable intake. On average, adults in the U.S. consume about a serving per day.

Overall, those who increased their intake of processed red meat by about 3.5 servings a week had about a 13 percent higher risk of death during the study's eight-year follow-up period.

"We estimated that when people replaced red and processed meat with nuts, seeds, fish [and other alternatives sources of protein, as well as vegetables and whole grains], they experienced more than a 10 percent reduction in their risk of mortality" during the follow-up period, Hu explains.

I asked Tom Sherman, a professor at Georgetown University who teaches nutrition to medical students, to take a look at the study. "At first, I thought, 'oh no, another paper showing that eating red meat is bad,' " Sherman wrote via email. "But in fact, this one is pretty interesting" because it looks at changes in behavior.

"Changes in behavior are fairly illuminating, and diagnostic," Sherman says. He says changes can signal that a person is starting to pay attention to one's diet - or starting to actively disregard it. And these changes "have consistently positive or negative impacts, respectively, on their risk for chronic disease: obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer," he says.

This is an observational study, so it can't prove cause and effect between diet and death. But it can establish an association. Sherman says one drawback of all observational nutrition studies is that it's hard to disentangle the independent effect of changes in meat consumption from other lifestyle factors such as body weight, exercise, alcohol consumption, etc. But these new findings are consistent with a larger body of evidence.

Hu notes that in this new study, as well as in previous research, the risks associated with red meat consumption are higher - and most pronounced - with processed red meats.

"Processed meats typically contain high amounts of sodium and preservatives," Hu says. In addition, high-heat cooking methods, such as grilling, can produce carcinogens. And recent research has linked high red meat consumption - especially processed meats - with less diversity and abundance of healthy bacteria in the gut. "This may contribute to an increased risk," Hu says.

Sherman adds, "I always brace myself before sharing the data on red and processed meat consumption and mortality, CVD [cardiovascular disease] or cancer risks with my students because it sounds so unbelievably scary."

"Unfortunately," he says, "it appears to be accurate."

sauce https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...eD-pcMxzqOH1FCbOIGo80yMoHiX7tQP60Ll1KhnrHuw4Q


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*We're consuming a lot of plastic and have no idea of the risks*

A new study by Canadian scientists has calculated that we're probably consuming on the order of a hundred thousand plastic particles a year, and that may well be a low estimate of the amount of microplastic in our diet.

In the past few years, studies have shown that our environment is saturated with tiny microplastic particles. Fragments ranging in from five millimetres down to microns in size are contaminating arctic ice, the deep ocean, freshwater lakes and rivers and agricultural soils. Even air samples taken around the world show tiny particles of plastic pollution.

*Our appetite for plastics *
The research team from the University of Victoria and Fisheries and Oceans Canada reviewed the scientific literature about plastic contamination of food, drink and air to try and figure out how much plastic we're consuming. The studies on food and drink included information on seafood, salt, sugar, beer and water.

They found that people were consuming between 40,000 and 50,000 microplastic particles per year in food and drink. People who drank bottled water exclusively, which contains a large number of plastic particles, might be consuming double or triple that. "We estimated that bottled water could contain 22 times more micro plastic particles than tap water," said marine biologist Garth Covernton, who was part of the research team.

In addition, they calculated that we're probably breathing in another 30,000 to 70,000 particles from the air around us.

*Plastics everywhere* 
The sources of these particles are diverse. Seafood and sea-salt, for example, can be contaminated with particles from refuse that ends up in the oceans and plastic fishing gear. The plastic in food and beverages can come from plastic packaging.

"One big source actually is fibers," Covernton told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald. "This could be things from textiles like our clothing such as polyester or nylon or acrylic as well as anything like a carpet."

The researchers also point out that their estimates for microplastic plastic consumption are likely low. Studies have not been done on plastic contamination of a large range of foods, including meat, poultry, vegetables and grains, so there was no way to include these in their estimates.

*Health risks of consuming plastics*
Another significant unknown, the researchers said, is what risk the consumption of plastics might pose to human health.

Much of the plastic we consume is probably excreted from the body through the digestive tract. Most of the plastic inhaled into the lungs is probably cleared by the same mechanisms that clear other kinds of particulates - the mucosal and ciliary systems that capture particles and transport them out of the lungs.

On the other hand, there is some evidence in animal studies that consumption of microplastics can lead to health risks, particularly from the smallest particles. "There are sometimes changes in gene regulation that can be associated with some sort of inflammation or stress response," said Covernton. He cautioned, however, that this evidence comes from studies with much higher consumption levels than the researchers found for humans.

One lesson from this study is how much more we need to understand about this issue considering how much we're exposed to microplastic.

"Microplastics really are everywhere," said Covernton, and we're surrounded by materials "shedding thousands of particles in any given moment that could end up in our food and in our drinking water."

sauce https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/we-...-HpigGk_gA5v7j9P4lu2hkVlJJVsPU1lRdXnzMNJiwN9s


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Should have this sign on display in every grocery store


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The environmental, health and ethical benefits of veganism are beyond doubt. But what if you feel a bit intimidated by the idea? Some experts offer their advice

*The 14 things you need to know before you go vegan*

More and more of us are going vegan. The environmental and ethical case for a diet free of all animal products, including meat, fish, dairy and eggs, is compelling. According to research from the University of Oxford, going vegan is the "single biggest way" to reduce your impact on the planet. And that is before you consider the ethical arguments against eating industrially farmed animals, which have an appalling quality of life and are often pumped full of powerful antibiotics that may pose a risk to human health.

But if you are a lifelong meat-eater, it is hard to know where to start. We asked some leading vegans for their advice for adults who want to make the transition.

*Should you jump right in? Or is it better to dip your toe into a plant-based diet first?*

"I don't think there is a right answer about whether to do it immediately or not," says Henry Firth, one half of the vegan social-media sensation Bosh!. "It's about what's right for you and what's sustainable for your lifestyle." Some experts suggest easing into veganism via a sightseeing tour of the world of vegetarianism, while others favour going cold tofu.

Katy Beskow, a longtime vegan and the author of three bestselling cookbooks, suggests a gradual approach. "The availability of vegan products means you can do it so much more easily than before. My advice is to replace products in your diet with alternatives step by step, be it milk, mayonnaise or yoghurt. That way, you won't see a difference."

*How do I deal with negative responses from meat-loving family and friends?*

Kill the haters with kindness - and delicious food. "You can make your meat jokes or tell me I'm going to die, but I'm comfortable with my decision," says the author and columnist Isa Chandra Moskowitz. "Treat people with kindness, even if they are being jerks. And cook for them - you get to show them how yummy things are. It's a really beautiful gesture that stops people from being aggressive and helps them to see that the food is good - and you're OK."

Be empathic towards people expressing negative attitudes. "I can understand when people have some negativity towards veganism because I was in that position once," says the YouTuber, chef and author Gaz Oakley. "It was just fear of the unknown and not being educated on the matter." Treat such encounters as a teaching opportunity - but don't lecture people. "If I'm at a party and someone makes a little dig about veganism, it's just about educating them and making them feel at ease. Say stuff such as: 'I never thought I would be a vegan until I saw this or found out this.' Don't be judgmental or argue back. Just try to educate them as best you can."

Humour helps. "I remember doing a TV programme once where someone asked me: 'How bad are your farts because you're a vegan?'" says the poet, actor and musician Benjamin Zephaniah. "I said: 'Your farts smell of dead, rotting flesh. My farts smell like broccoli. Don't worry about mine, man - think about yours.'"

*How do I make sure I am getting enough protein?*
"It's the only time people ever ask you about protein, when you go vegan," Beskow says. "Protein deficiency is a really rare thing in the western world. It's just about combining protein such as beans, pulses, seeds and nuts. It sounds as if you're eating rabbit food, but you're not. You can just sprinkle a handful of toasted pine nuts over some pasta or add a can of beans into your chilli."

Heather Russell, a registered dietician at the Vegan Society, says there is no cause for concern. "A common myth is that it's difficult to get protein from plant foods. In reality, they can provide all the essential protein building blocks that we call amino acids. Good sources include beans, lentils, chickpeas, soya products, peanut butter, cashew nuts and pumpkin seeds."

*What about vitamins and minerals?*
If you are going vegan, it is important to make sure you get enough vitamin B12 - commonly found in meat, eggs and fish - as without it, you will feel exhausted and weak. You can get B12 from fortified foods including "dairy alternatives, breakfast cereal, dairy-free spread and yeast extract", says Russell. Alternatively, you can take a B12 supplement, which you can buy in most pharmacies and health-food stores. Russell also advises you think about your calcium intake. "Fortified plant milk contains the same amount of calcium as cow's milk, and fortified yoghurt alternatives, calcium-set tofu, and a soya and linseed bread fortified with extra calcium are also really rich sources."

*Veganism seems expensive. How do I make a plant-based diet affordable?*
Zephaniah hears this a lot. "I speak to single parents who say: 'When I'm going down to the supermarket, you think I've got time to go and nip into a health food store and read all the labels? I've got three kids in tow!'" He tries to allay their concerns. "Basically, we want fruit, vegetables and lentils of various kinds. Forget about all the posh cuisines and all that stuff. That's all right if you've got the money for it. But veganism, in principle, should be really cheap."

If you are on a limited budget, steer clear of processed foods. "It's a myth that vegan food has to be expensive," says Firth. "In order to keep it cheap, though, it's a good idea to avoid products that even say 'vegan' on them. So you're not going to go to the expensive supermarkets and buy products in plastic that have been made in labs or factories; they're going to be expensive. You're just going to go back to basics and eat fruit, vegetables, grains, nuts and beans - and you are going to be incredibly healthy, as well as saving money."

*Do I have to give up going to dinner at other people's houses?*
That depends on whether you trust them to respect your dietary preferences. "If I'm going to a friend's house who really respects my veganism and will make the effort to look after me, I will," Zephaniah says. "But, on the whole, I don't want people to bend over backwards for me, so I'll say: 'Let's go out,' or: 'I'll come round and you have your dinner and we'll have some drinks.'"

A good approach for any well-mannered guest is to offer to bring a vegan dish with them. "By offering to bring some food, you're contributing and you're getting a chance to show delicious food to everyone who is not vegan, as well as taking the stress or annoyance out of the hands of the host," says Firth. If the host prefers to cook, remind them of what you can and can't eat - animal products have a way of slipping into things - so that they don't accidentally put fish sauce in your curry. You may even want to suggest a recipe for them to try. But the most important thing is to have a frank conversation with your host before you turn up at their front door. "The one thing you don't want to do is just turn up without having made a plan or had a conversation," says Firth. "That's going to annoy anyone."

*What should I do if I have a wobble and really crave some meat?*

Breaking a decades-long attachment to the smells, flavours and textures of meat can be hard. Perhaps you are hungover and craving a bacon sandwich or at a barbecue when the smell of sausages wafts over to you. The good news is that nowadays it is easy to recreate the flavours and textures of meat in vegan food, whether it is a plant-based burger that bleeds like real meat, jackfruit "pulled pork" or seitan with the texture and crunch of fried chicken. "In my recipes and YouTube videos, often I recreate certain dishes, whether it's vegan chicken, beefsteaks or turkey - whatever else I can veganise," says Oakley. "You can get that same texture and taste when you're vegan. You're spoilt for choice these days. You can get chicken, ribs, bacon, steaks, burgers, sausages - everything is available. When I went vegan four years ago, those things weren't there."

*What if I am not that keen on eating plants?*
"Eat familiar recipes and replace ingredients with plant-based alternatives," says Beskow. Take shepherd's pie: "Instead of mince, you can use a can of green lentils. That way, you are getting some of your five a day because you have onion, carrot and celery, just as you would with any shepherd's pie, but you're hiding those lentils in there." If you simply cannot eat your greens, do as parents of toddlers do and puree some vegetables, then bung them in a pasta sauce.

But you are going to have to get over your vegetable phobia at some point. "Vegan or not, you should be working vegetables into your life," says Moskowitz. "I don't know if it's good to say: 'I don't like any vegetables, so I can't go vegan.' You're going to have trouble actually living."

*Is it difficult to maintain a healthy weight on a vegan diet?*
If you only eat salad, perhaps - but what a joyless life that would be. "Well-planned vegan diets can support healthy living in people of all ages," says Russell. "They can provide all the calories and nutrients needed to hit nutritional targets and maintain a healthy weight."

Being vegan doesn't mean you are on a diet. Beskow urges converts to indulge in all their favourite treats from their pre-vegan lifestyle, in moderation. "If you are used to eating biscuits, you can buy lots of biscuits in supermarkets that are accidentally vegan &#8230; Have some crisps, enjoy your food - that's what it's all about. People see veganism as so restrictive and about saying no, but it's about saying yes - but to different things."

*It is difficult to find vegan options where I live. How can I keep my diet varied and interesting?*
If you are fortunate enough to have access to a garden or an allotment, get out there. Growing your own fruit and vegetables can be a great way to keep a vegan diet interesting. "I live in the middle of a field in Lincolnshire," says Zephaniah. He has devoted a part of his garden to growing vegetables; in summer, he always has a glut. "I hardly have to go to a supermarket - I've got too much food. I have to give it away to the neighbours."

Firth says: "You don't need loads and loads of quirky ingredients. You can get a few base ingredients from your local shop and cook up thousands of delicious treats." Most supermarkets, even in rural areas, will be able to cater to vegan diets. "I live in east Yorkshire and we don't have any specialist vegan shops around us," says Beskow. "But that's OK because I don't tend to shop in health-food shops or vegan shops anyway. Everything that I need is in the supermarket or the local market." She advises following the Instagram account Accidentally Vegan, which uploads supermarket products that happen to be vegan.

*What if my partner doesn't want to go vegan? Will it affect our relationship?*
Let's face it: all couples do these days is eat food in front of box sets. But what if your partner is an avowed steak-eater? Will it affect your relationship? Not necessarily, says Moskowitz. "Find food you both like, eat separately, do whatever you have to do. There are lots of relationships where people have different political ideologies; most people have other things in common and that's the reason they're together." Beskow's fiance isn't a vegan, but they muddle through: he doesn't cook meat at home, but will eat meat when they go out for dinner. "I think it's about making food you are both happy with, so they're not missing out on anything."

*What about children? Is veganism safe for them?*
Children can be healthy vegans. "It is possible to provide all the nutrients needed for growth and development without animal products," Russell says. She advises parents to consult the Vegan Society website, which has detailed guidance on vegan diets for children of all ages, including infants, and can offer advice on which fortified foods and supplements it may be necessary for them to take.

*What are your favourite very simple vegan recipes?*
Bosh!'s Ian Theasby suggests a simple pasta dish: take vegetables, roast them in olive oil for half an hour, take them out of the oven and cover them with tinned tomatoes, then stick them back in for another 10 minutes. "What you are left with is an extremely tasty, really nutritious pasta sauce that will satisfy anybody." Oakley suggests learning how to make a simple ramen. "Stir-fry some vegan protein, whether it's tofu or vegan chicken, along with some vegetables. Get a nice vegetable stock, squeeze some miso paste in there, add some soy sauce and chilli, and throw in some noodles. You've got a quick ramen that takes you about 15 minutes."

*What if I slip up and break my vegan streak? Should I just give up?*
We're only human and we make mistakes. If you do end up eating some meat, take the time to rediscover why you went vegan in the first place. "Don't get too down about it," says Oakley. "We don't live in a vegan world yet. It may even be out of your hands: perhaps you are given something that isn't vegan. But refer back to the initial thing that made you go vegan. Get your real motivation and you won't slip up."

The crucial thing, all the experts agree, is not to beat yourself up about it. "Vegans aren't perfect," says Zephaniah. "We just think it's worth it. We're trying to do the most good and the least harm. And that's the best you can do. So just keep trying."

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...hRCAuyKneFTvyGMCyZnshXZP9V455erH-SV45PzFaHl_c


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Maybe he meant seitan's work? 

*Meatless burgers are Satan's work*

[video]




Rick Wiles: Plant-Based Meat Alternatives Are a Satanic Plot to 'Create a Race of Soulless Creatures' from Right Wing Watch on Vimeo.

[/video]

Rick Wiles, host of the racist and anti-semitic "Christian" media outlet TruNews, reveals that meatless burgers are "plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy products, is part of a satanic plot to alter human DNA so that people can no longer worship God." Listen up:

When you go to your favorite fast food restaurant, you are going to be eating a fake hamburger. You're going to go to the grocery store and buy a pound of fake hamburger or a fake steak, and you won't know that it was grown in some big corporation's laboratory. This is the nightmare world that they are taking us into. They're changing God's creation. Why? Because they want to be God....

God is an environmentalist. He takes this very seriously. He created this planet, he created the universe and he's watching these Luciferians destroy this planet, destroy the animal kingdom, destroy the plant kingdom, change human DNA. Why? They want to change human DNA so that you can't be born again. That's where they're going with this, to change the DNA of humans so it will be impossible for a human to be born again. They want to create a race of soulless creatures on this planet.

sauce https://boingboing.net/2019/06/17/m...cn44PTo6huZMy BWdq3fC65YMlFDHYwXUHzTSxciUZf8


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## milleyj83 (Feb 11, 2019)

*Vegan Passion*



cyclelicious said:


> Should have this sign on display in every grocery store
> 
> View attachment 1257873


This is an awesome sign I'm up for it. I am a vegan and I am pregnant with my first child now. I also want my future kids to learn the essentials of being a vegan.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Vegan Athlete Breaks Women's World Record For Longest Plank


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> Vegan Athlete Breaks Women's World Record For Longest Plank


Ha!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Has Fake Meat Reached a Tipping Point? All of a Sudden, Plant-Based Meat Alternatives Are Everywhere*

It's no secret that plant-based alternative meat products manufactured by Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, and others are hot right now. In fact, at a current price of about $171 per share, the value of Beyond Meat stock has surged more than 580 percent since the company's IPO in early May. So, it's no surprise that all sorts of restaurants are adding plant-based alternative meat products to their menus.

In just one example, today, Mexican food chain Del Taco announced that it is going to join in the fun with the introduction of two new signature burritos pictured above--the Beyond 8 Layer Burrito, and the Epic Beyond Cali Burrito--made with Beyond Meat plant-based protein. When the company introduced its new Beyond Tacos in April, they quickly became one of the company's most successful new product launches ever.

While McDonald's has notably avoided non-meat burgers and other products in the United States (the company is selling plant-based McVegan burgers in Scandinavia, the Big Vegan TS in Germany, and vegan "chicken" nuggets in Norway), other fast-food chains and fast-casual restaurants have jumped on the plant-based burger bandwagon in a big way. So far, burgers made by Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are available at:

Burger King
White Castle
Red Robin
Umami Burger
Fatburger
Cheesecake Factory
Applebee's
Dave and Busters
A&W (Canada)
Hard Rock Cafe
TGI Fridays
Carl's Jr.

And more...
In addition, you can get pizzas made with plant-based meat at Little Caesars, Blaze Pizza, and others, and Mexican food with plant-based meat at Qdoba, and of course, Del Taco.

Clearly, this is a trend that has legs. Plant-based dining was named the number one dining trend for 2018 by international food and restaurant consultants Baum & Whiteman, and Mintel's market research revealed these trends:

31 percent of Americans choose to have meat-free days.
35 percent of Americans get most of their protein from sources other than red meat.
66 percent of people who eat non-meat protein believe these are healthier than red meat.
83 percent of US consumers are adding plant-based foods to their diets to improve their health.
62 percent are adding plant-based foods to their diets to help with weight management.
58 percent of US adults drink non-dairy milk.
In addition to meat substitutes, plant-based food products include such things as cheese, yogurt, milk, and much more. So, if they're not currently on your menu, chances are one or more of these plant-based products will be on it in the not-too-distant future.

sauce https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/h...fwYBNuI2nyZzck9I2bKCNSJfGwG0x0NThGGXC1D1BXz1w


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm strong to the finich, 'cause I eats me Spinach, I'm Popeye the sailor man!

*Scientists Say Chemical Found in Spinach Is Basically a Steroid, Should Be Banned for Athletes*

American sprinter Dennis Mitchell missed a bronze medal by 0.05 seconds in the Men's 100-meter Final at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. That event was hyped as "the Greatest Race in History." But winner Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal after failing a drug test; second-place-turned-gold-medalist Carl Lewis had previously tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs; and it has since been rechristened as "the Dirtiest Race in History." When Mitchell failed a drug test a decade later, he blamed the results on drinking five beers and having sex with his wife four times the night before. "It was her birthday," he said. "The lady deserved a treat."

LaShawn Merritt, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 400-meter and 4x400-meter relay, said his own positive drug tests were from taking ExtenZe, one of those gas station dick-enlargement-slash-boner pills. "His mindset when purchasing the product was thinking about having sex with a woman," American Arbitration Association said in its ruling against him. "He admitted he did not look at the label." And when five members of North Korea's women's soccer team failed drug tests during the 2011 Women's World Cup, North Korean officials said that the players had been struck by lightning before their match, and were subsequently treated with "deer musk gland." That, they insisted, caused their positive tests.

Yes, that's all a load of BS-except maybe for that ExtenZe thing-but if a professional athlete ever flunks a drug test and then tries to blame it on eating several pounds of spinach, well, that might be legit. Scientists at the Freie Universität Berlin have recently recommended that ecdysterone, a chemical found in spinach, should be added to the World Anti-Doping Authority's (WADA) list of banned substances because of its potentially steroid-like effects.

According to DW, the researchers conducted a 10-week study of 46 men, who were each given either a placebo or a daily supplement that contained as much ecdysterone as 8.8 pounds of spinach. The participants all followed the same strength training program, but the men who received the ecdysterone pills developed more muscle mass, and had up to three times the strength gains as the placebo group. "Even more relevant with respect to sports performance, significantly more pronounced increases in one-repetition bench press performance were observed," the authors wrote in their abstract. "These data underline the effectivity of an ecdysterone supplementation with respect to sports performance."

The researchers said that, based on previous studies involving ecdysterone, they expected the supplement group to outperform the placebo-ers, but not by that much. "Our hypothesis was that we would see an increase in performance, but we didn't expect it to be that big," study co-author Maria Parr said. "We recommended to WADA in our report that the substance be added to the doping list. We think that if it increases performance, then that unfair advantage should be eliminated."

This isn't the first time that Parr and her team have suggested that ecdysterone should make its way onto WADA's banned substances list. In 2015, she co-authored a different study called "Ecdysteroids: A novel class of anabolic agents?" that tested the effects of the chemical on rats, and those results showed that ecdysterone could induce the same kind of hypertrophy (muscle growth) as some anabolic steroids. "With respect to doping prevention the high anabolic potency of ecdysterone justifies its classification as an anabolic agent and therefore needs to be listed in the category 'S1 Anabolic Agents' of the list of prohibited substances of the World Anti-Doping Agency," they wrote.

Who knows whether WADA will add ecdysterone to its collection of banned substances, but we look forward to future sprinters or cyclists or soccer players holding press conferences to talk about, like, all that spinach they supposedly ate before their drug tests.

sauce https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/arti...dY9psTNnZLFug4ggEpZHgVlX9z2OTK9opfeu-iDvYSZuA


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## drich (Oct 9, 2015)

I haven't eaten meat for 20+ years, and have avoided fast-food restaurants as well. It was an odd feeling to order something from Carls Jr. last week (fast-food hamburger place in US). I had a beyond meat burger and was able to also get fries which are vegan at Carls. Pretty cool that we now have options! The impossible burger is amazing, but it really depends on how it is cooked. I have had several at Umami and they were cooked perfectly. Red Robin overcooked the burger which really ruined the taste and texture. Next stop--Del taco.



cyclelicious said:


> *Has Fake Meat Reached a Tipping Point? All of a Sudden, Plant-Based Meat Alternatives Are Everywhere*
> 
> It's no secret that plant-based alternative meat products manufactured by Impossible Foods, Beyond Meat, and others are hot right now. In fact, at a current price of about $171 per share, the value of Beyond Meat stock has surged more than 580 percent since the company's IPO in early May. So, it's no surprise that all sorts of restaurants are adding plant-based alternative meat products to their menus.
> 
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thank you for your review drich!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

https://www.plantbasednews.org/post/vegan-beyond-burger-more-sustainable-beef


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*VEGAN PIONEER RIP ESSELSTYN SETS NEW WORLD SWIMMING RECORD*









On June 30, vegan activist Rip Esselstyn set a new record during the 2019 Summer Sizzler LC Masters Meet in Houston, TX. At 56-years-old, Esselstyn swam the 200-meter backstroke in the time of 2:21.72, setting a new national and world record in the men's 55 to 59 age group.

The former firefighter and triathlete-founder of the plant-based brand Engine 2 Diet and host of podcast "Plant-Strong"-credits his plant-based diet for his record-setting swim. "Eating a vegan diet based on plants is crucial for my athletic performance," Esselstyn told VegNews. "Plants propelled me to my world record in the 200-meter backstroke for a number of reasons." The longtime athlete believes that a plant-based diet is a veritable "fountain of youth" that helps to keep him at his optimal racing weight and allows him to train harder and recover faster. "Plants allow the 65,000 miles of my vessels to bind with nitric oxide, one of the best vasodilators," Esselstyn said. "This equates to more blood flow to all my working muscles when I am putting forth maximum effort. Plants are a smart, clean, and strong fuel."

In January, Esselstyn set off on a tour to promote plant-based living in-store at 25 Whole Foods Markets in Florida, Texas, California, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana, with more stops in the works. In addition to inspiring countless firefighters and others to eschew animal products throughout his career, Esselstyn was added as an executive producer-alongside martial arts master Jackie Chan, iconic director James Cameron, and world race car champion Lewis Hamilton-of upcoming vegan documentary The Game Changers which is set to premiere at more than 1,000 theaters globally on September 16.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/7/vegan-pi...9BbfOeECfTONeUYpi-MMQsh7IaNUGWfT6d82D_ytIzPUc


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Someone must have asked...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why Do Some People Suddenly Develop Food Allergies Later in Life?*

In 2013, my digestive life went to crap, nearly literally. I started to have strange episodes where my stomach would feel like it was crushing in on itself, leaving me bent over in the bathroom for hours. Then, I would randomly break out in hives on my arms, or around my mouth. Other times my throat felt extremely tight, never enough to cause breathing problems, but enough to freak me out. I sought out a doctor to tell me what was going on

She put me on an elimination diet, when you stop eating the top eight food allergens, and made an appointment for me to get tested for a food allergy. I had never been allergic to anything before (though I am lactose intolerant), so I was skeptical that a food was the culprit.

But a few weeks later, she gave me the news: Congratulations, I was allergic to soy. (I've since confirmed this again and again through accidental and painful exposures to it.)

I ate soy throughout my whole childhood. My mother is Chinese and did the bulk of the cooking: soy sauce, tofu, edamame, tempeh-we regularly indulged in the soy smorgasbord. How could I suddenly have become allergic?

My doctor's answer: "I don't know."

Food allergies are a mysterious affliction, and perhaps the one thing we know for sure about them is that they are increasing-as much as 20 percent in the past decade. A study that came out in the first week of 2019 in T he Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that in a survey of 40,443 US adults, an estimated 10.8 percent of them had a food allergy, and nearly half of those people had at least one food allergy that had cropped up in adulthood. A quarter of them, like me, had never had a food allergy as a child.

"That was pretty surprising to me," says first author Ruchi Gupta, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at Lurie Children's Hospital in Northwestern Medicine. "You can extrapolate that to say that at least half of adults carry their food allergy into adulthood. And then there's this additional [group] that are developing newer food allergies as adults."

Gupta confirms it's a confusing situation for patients. We wonder to ourselves, what happened to our bodies? What has changed?

Cathryn Nagler, a scientist and professor at the University of Chicago, says that the speed at which food allergies have been increasing rules out certain causes. "Our hypothesis is the increase in prevalence can't be genetic," she tells me. "Genetics don't change that quickly. It must be due to the environment."

She tells me that she, and others, think the rise in allergies is explained by environmental factors changing our microbiome, the bacteria that live in our bodies.

The two biggest offenders? "Misuse of antibiotics and the loss of dietary fiber from our diets," Nagler says. "Even if you personally shun antibiotics, they're fairly stable as drugs, and they're present in more foods and in our water supply than you'd like to know. The loss of dietary fiber from the diet has been observed pretty consistently. Americans are famously enamored with fast food, or processed food that all of which are low in fiber."

Certain bacteria feed off of fiber, and by lowering the amount of it in our diets, we could also be altering our bacteria populations-starving some bugs and encouraging the growth of others. Similarly, antibiotics might be changing the types and amounts of bacteria that make up our microbiome by killing some and favoring others.

In another recent study, out in Nature last week, Nagler and her colleagues took one step towards uncovering how exactly the microbiome could be linked to food allergies. They found that when gut bacteria from healthy human babies were put into germ-free mice, those mice were protected from an allergic reaction to cow's milk. But if the mice got bacteria from babies who were allergic to milk, the mice had an allergic reaction to milk, and not a mild one. The mice experienced anaphylaxis when they were given cow's milk for the first time.

"We can show very, very clearly that the mice that got the microbiota from the healthy infants were completely protected from an allergic response," Nagler says.

The researchers looked at which microbes were present in both the healthy and allergic mice, and found that one particular bacteria species, called Anaerostipes caccae, seemed to be helping protect the mice from the allergic reaction when it was present.

When they compared differences in the mice's gene expression, or which genes were more or less active, they saw differences in the intestinal epithelium, which is the thin lining of the small and large intestine. The next steps are to uncover exactly what Anaerostipes caccae is doing to change this lining, and how exactly that change alters the immune response.

The new findings line up with her and her collaborators' other work: In 2014, Nagler and others found that a class of bacteria called Clostridia could help protect against nut allergies. (Intriguing, Anaerostipes caccae is part of the Clostridia class.) This class of bacteria produces a compound called butyrate, which is an important nutrient for a healthy microbiome, she tells me.

In 2015, Nagler and her collaborator Roberto Berni Canani at the University Federico II of Naples in Italy found there were big differences in the gut bacteria of babies with and without cow's milk allergies. Children who became tolerant to cow's milk through dietary management had higher levels of butyrate in their feces, emphasizing that butyrate might play an important role in allergy protection.

In June 2016, Nagler co-founded ClostraBio, a company dedicated to creating a pill that could reintroduce a man-made version of butyrate to the gut. Given their new promising results with Anaerostipes caccae, she says they're now also interested in developing that bacteria separately as a live therapeutic.

At the moment, there aren't many options for people with food allergies. The best advice is to avoid, avoid, avoid. I obsessively read food labels and bully waiters at restaurants, but it's not a perfect system. My most recent exposure was when, on an airplane, a friendly stranger lent me a cough drop for a tickle in my throat. That cough drop had soy in it. It wasn't pleasant, but I'm lucky that my allergy isn't life-threatening. Last year, a 15-year-old girl died on a plane after eating a sandwich from Pret a Manger that had sesame in it.

People with fatal allergies need solutions now. Some are trying oral immunotherapy, which exposes you to tiny amounts of the food you're allergic to in order to become desensitized to it. In a 2018 article in Science Magazine, Jennifer Couzin-Frankel reported that more than 3,000 people worldwide are now trying peanut immunotherapy and that the technique is being extended to other foods, like eggs, milk, and tree nuts. "In a field that for decades has had nothing to offer patients beyond avoidance, immunotherapy marks a seismic shift," Couzin-Frankel wrote.

The treatment hasn't gone perfectly, since it does require exposing someone to something they're allergic to-often extremely allergic to. In 2017, a three-year-old died in Alabama during an oral food challenge, and there have been other bad outcomes while the procedure and dosages get figured out.

Personally, I would rather take a pill that simulates a healthy microbiome than eat small amounts of soy and risk feeling lousy. But Nagler tells me that she sees any treatment inspired by the microbiome as something that would be used alongside immunotherapy. She thinks that tolerance needs both desensitization and a bacteria-induced barrier protective response, they're two interlocking pieces of a puzzle.

"If you desensitize without dealing with the underlying bacteria barrier protective response, you're still going to have problem," Nagler says.

"The increase in prevalence of food allergy is likely to be a multifactorial issue," says Ahmad Hamad an allergist and immunologist at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, who wasn't involved in Nagler's work. But he added that: "Microbiota seems indeed to play a role in inducing sensitization or tolerance to food antigens as Dr. Nagler showed beautifully in her research."

He tells me about another recent randomized controlled trial that found that adding probiotics to peanut oral immunotherapy helped kids not respond to the allergen, an example of the two approaches working hand in hand.

When I tell people I'm now allergic to soy, they often ask if it's because I ate too much soy. I've also had servers not take my allergy seriously, because there's some people who avoid soy for other "health" reasons besides an allergy.

Gupta tells me that when her study in JAMA came out, many media outlets focused only one statistic from it: While 1 in 10 people had a food allergy, almost double believed they had a food allergy, but their symptoms didn't match a true food allergy.

On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah commented on the research, saying, "Allergies: they affect the lives of many *****-ass Americans. But according to a new study, the most common affliction is hypochondria."

Thing is, it's likely not hypochondria but rather another reaction that's not an allergy-like an intolerance. Allergies are responses from the immune system, while intolerances are a predictable negative response to a certain food, but not because of an immune response. Gupta says she thinks intolerances are real. For example, lactose intolerance is very real, but is caused by the deficiency of an enzyme, not the immune system. Both she considers valid, and she included the figure about those without true food allergies not to mock them, but to show how many of us have negative side effects after eating.

Is it annoying that everyone suddenly has a grudge against gluten? Sure. But that doesn't justify what feels like a growing antagonism against specific dietary needs.

When people ask me if I'm allergic to soy because I ate too much it, it weirdly feels like it's my own fault, rather than a product of systemic diet and environmental issues. Gupta tells me that when she looks at food allergies around the world, there do tend to be more food allergies of what people eat more often, and each country has slightly different top allergens. For example, in Europe, hazelnuts are one of the most common allergies, but not in the United States. Nonetheless, there's no evidence that eating too much of something ever leads to an allergy to it.

In fact, exposure to top allergens can also be protective (and is the whole premise behind oral immunotherapy). The LEAP study (Learning Early About Peanut allergy) found that in 640 children who were high-risk for a peanut allergy, those who ate peanuts at an early age were prevented from developing that allergy. The results suggest that "the previous recommendations of delaying introduction of allergenic food into infants' diet (which have been changed recently) could have contributed to an increase in food allergies," Hamad tells.

So at the moment, there's no current evidence to support that overexposure leads to allergies, or that it's anyone's personal responsibility that they're allergic to a food.

Nagler says that she would guess what happened to me was something outside of my control.

"It suggests environmental influence, right?" She says. "Your genetics haven't changed. The way that I would explain it, in theory, would be to say that something has happened to change the composition of your microbiome at a point in time that allowed your body to start to become sensitized to this. Some defect perhaps in barrier function, or depletion of healthy populations of bacteria."

It's unclear how long adult-onset allergies will last. Some kids grow out of their allergies when they grow up, but if I'm already grown, what will happen? "That's a great question that we're going to have to observe moving forward," Gupta tells. "I think we don't have any large adult cohorts of adults that we're following over time, and that's really what you need to figure that out."

For now, those of us with adult allergies can decide to try oral immunotherapy, or wait until potential microbiome drugs come to market. Until then, be kind to your food allergic friends, and I will be wistfully watching others eat miso soup.

sauce https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...vJAYirbr-Tzm2fgzhUOgERVXEhjSkVrx51isDL1mHvoNE


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Meatless Monday 

*FARMERS PLANT 20 PERCENT MORE PEAS TO MEET DEMAND FOR VEGAN MEAT*

This year, farmers in the United States and Canada have planted 20 percent more peas and approximately three percent less corn, soy, and wheat-crops typically produced as feed for the animal agriculture industry. The increase in pea farming is largely in part due to the popularity of plant-based meat products, such as those made by Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, that contain the legume as a key ingredient, according to *Bloomberg*.

"I'm excited about things like Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger that are putting pea protein in their burgers. It's awesome," Paul Kanning, a Montana farmer who crows peas, said. "The demand is going to do nothing but increase, I believe, and you will see production increase in various areas of the US." Tony Fast, another Montana farmer and self-proclaimed "traditional meat guy and pro-rancher," increased his pea crop by 20 percent this year to 1,800 acres with plans to expand to 2,000 acres next year. "At the beginning we didn't see [peas] as a money maker-they just made the farm more sustainable," Fast said. "I am excited for new markets for the peas."

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/7/farmers-...WnAdIr1oLK-Tg-BSduwYi8nyj4gUm7noyGqKJLOI5kjC0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Beyond Meat Fever Turns the Tiny Pea Into America's Hot New Crop*

There is, it would seem, nothing but bleak news in U.S. farm country. Soybean prices are down. Corn is also still way below its highs, as is wheat. Then there's the trade war with China, which has cost farmers access to one of their biggest markets, and the non-stop spring rains, which inundated fields.

But there is one bright spot: the pea. Long an afterthought for most farmers -- largely just something planted to help with crop rotations -- the tiny legume has suddenly gotten pulled into the alt-protein craze fueled by the likes of Beyond Meat Inc. and the Impossible Burger.

Prices are moving higher, buoyed as well by rising demand from pet-food makers, and growers in the U.S. and Canada are now rushing to put more peas in the ground. Even those who are a bit put off by the whole vegetarian movement that's driving the demand. Like Tony Fast. Beyond Meat's goal of helping wean humans off meat consumption "does not interest me at all," Fast says. "I am a traditional meat guy and pro-rancher."

But with demand flat for the crops he's been planting for years -- alfalfa for use in livestock feed and wheat -- Fast has turned to peas as a possible growth market. At his farm in northeastern Montana, the top U.S. pea growing state, he increased his plantings of the legume by about 20% to total 1,800 acres this season. Next year, he might sow 2,000 acres.

"At the beginning we didn't see it as a money maker -- it just made the farm more sustainable," Fast said by phone. But that's changing now with his peas fetching close to $5 a bushel, up from about $2.80 a few years ago, which was roughly a break-even price. "I am excited for new markets for the peas."

*Alternative Crops*
Part of the excitement comes after tariffs from India had clobbered the market. Prices for peas aren't as transparent as say corn, where futures set a global benchmark, but many growers report they weren't making much money from the legume. Still, the story was the same for many staple crops, where excess supplies forced growers to look for alternatives.

So now whether they like the vegan burgers or not, North American farmers are boosting plantings. Growers in Canada and the U.S. are expected to seed about 20% more field peas this year, government data show. That's happening even as U.S. farmers cut acres of principal crops including corn, soy and wheat by about 3%.

Plant-based companies have been around for decades, but products were aimed at vegans and vegetarians, a tiny market, according to Greg Wank, food and beverage lead at New York-based accounting and consulting firm Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP. Now that even meat-eating consumers are trying to get more of their protein from alternative sources, demand is taking off, underscoring the blistering debut of Beyond Meat. The shares are up about 500% since they started trading in May.

"It's the right place and the right time," Wank said.

To be sure, the market for pea crops is by no means as hot as the plant-protein stock. India's tariffs have been in place for more than a year amid a global glut that's kept a lid on prices. It's also a tiny share of U.S. agriculture compared with mammoth crops like corn or soy. But the trade tensions have also forced the development of more processing capacity in North America.

In Saskatchewan, Oscar winner James Cameron announced an investment in Vanscoy-based pulse processing plant Verdient Foods, which U.S. ingredient maker Ingredion Inc. has also partnered with. In Manitoba, France-based nutrition company Roquette is building a pea protein plant that's set to open next year. The company already operates a pea-protein plant in Vic-sur-Aisne, France, and has a supply agreement in place with Beyond Meat for this year.

Meanwhile, incessant rains in the U.S. meant not all farmers were able to get peas in the ground even if they wanted to.

*Foiled Plantings*
Jordan Carlson, 35, farms 3,500 acres with his dad near Gothenburg, Nebraska. He didn't plant any peas for the first time in 10 years because of the deluge, and he's predicting there could be some local shortages.

Even with India's tariffs "the demand in food products is fairly high, and that's keeping us from sinking on the price completely," he said.

Some farmers are ready to welcome the changes that are ushering in that growth in demand. Even U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, a self-declared meat eater, wasn't immune to the lure of a vegan burger on a recent visit to the Impossible Foods Inc. headquarters, where he said the company's signature offering tasted "very good."

"I'm excited about things like Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger that are putting pea protein in their burgers. It's awesome," said Paul Kanning, who grows yellow edible field peas in Flaxville, Montana. Kanning didn't increase his pea acreage this season, but if consumer interest is strong, he'll consider it for next year.

"The demand is going to do nothing but increase, I believe, and you will see production increase in various areas of the U.S.," he said.

sauce https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...urns-the-tiny-pea-into-america-s-hot-new-crop


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

"All these health reasons, combined with the ethical, environmental, and world hunger reasons, who wouldn't want to go vegan?"






1:05 Diseases of heart
10:12 Cancer
23:37 Emphysema
25:40 Stroke
27:06 Unintentional injuries
27:23 Alzheimer's disease
28:04 Diabetes
33:55 Kidney failure
35:13 Influenza and pneumonia
35:54 Suicide
37:54 Blood infection
42:12 Liver failure
43:08 High blood pressure
44:49 Parkinson's disease
46:03 Aspiration pneumonia


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

NOVAK DJOKAVIC WINS WIMBLEDON ON PLANT-BASED DIET









On Sunday, plant-powered tennis star Novak Djokavic won the Wimbledon Men's Singles final for the fifth time. Djokavic beat former champion Roger Federer in the four-hour-long match-the longest single's final game in Wimbledon history. The Serbian-born athlete adopted a plant-based diet for health reasons several years ago and credits his animal-free diet for boosting his performance on the court.

"I do eat plant-based. I don't like the labels, to be honest," Djokavic explained his preference to not call himself vegan during a recent conference. "But because of the misinterpretations of labels and misuse of labels, I just don't like that kind of name. I do eat plant-based. I think that's one of the reasons why I recover well. I don't have allergies that I used to have any more. And I like it." From world race car champion Lewis Hamilton to NBA star Kyrie Irving, elite athletes across a variety of sports have adopted a plant-based diet to optimize their performances.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/7/novak-dj...K8pv_sS140c5KIE_weSIjMEinR0ZSD66mOzcMZt_8cRbE


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Avocado Craze*









Actually, the avocado is a berry. This million-plus year old tree grew in many regions around the world, but the more modern version (Persea americana) may have been domesticated in Central and South America. The ancient Aztecs believed the fruit to have aphrodisiac qualities. Eating an avocado can sure make you feel good, whether as a meal, snack or even dessert.

Real superfoods are natural, unprocessed items with very high quality nutritional profiles.

Here are three more benefits of eating the right kind of avocados:

The high nutritional value.
Increased fat-burning (especially with sour cream, salsa and hot peppers).
The reduction of hunger.
They're absolutely delicious.
Today most avocados are grown in Mexico, with California, Chile, Peru and New Zealand among the many other host countries. However, as demand has increased, you find them growing in all tropical and Mediterranean climates around the world.

While defining just what is a fruit, vegetable, or berry can be a bit confusing and it's not precise, they are all clearly and simply plant foods. Typically, plants with a seed are fruits, but we tend to think of some less-sweet fruits like avocados as vegetables. Whatever you call them, I highly recommend eating them regularly.

While I try to avoid trendiness, often poking fun of the related social quirkiness attached to it, the avocado craze has been fun to watch over the decades. Early on, few would buy these greenish-black bumpy things. After all, inside they were a green blob of fat. With less demand, the price was relatively high. Most people avoided them, occasionally dipping into them with chips when dining out, or nibbling on the tiny bits in a salad. Then, as the trend developed, people started liking them, and as they got more popular, the prices rose. Now, half the restaurants in the U.S. serve avocados.

Today, people use them as a big part of a meal - or even eat one as a meal. While I also avoid talking about any one perfect food, avocado would be part of an almost perfect healthy meal, which, of course, varies depending on whom is eating it. I like mine plain with sea salt, sometimes having cheese with it for a great, quick, easy and satisfying meal. Sometimes I combine the sour cream spicy salsa option on top of eggs. It's also great in a smoothie!

However, health-conscious consumers should beware. Unfortunately, an avocado is not always a real avocado!

With the new millennium came the popularity of a new breed of genetically modified, low-fat avocado. Thanks to agriculture scientists, it's a left-over remnant of the low-fat era - and it's really low-fat! As a result, they don't taste as good as the real thing. Grown in Florida, with some found in the Caribbean and Central America, they have only been a niche-market product. The nutritional difference is important.

Two tablespoons of a Hass avocado contain 50 calories including 4.6 grams of fat, while that amount of the low-fat Florida avocado averages 36 calories and 3 grams of fat. Most of the fat is the healthy monounsaturated, about 17 of the 27 grams, and most of the carbohydrate is fiber (about 12 of the 15 grams).

Fortunately, Florida avocados have not caught on - perhaps 90 percent of the market today wants the real deal, Hass, which is most of the world's production (other similar versions exist as well).

When avocado supplies are high, they are scooped out and sold in a tub. But be advised that many of these products have unhealthy ingredients, like sugar, added so read the label.

The buttery flavor of a Hass avocado is unique, and delicious, and even called "butter fruit" in parts of India. This is due to the high healthy fat content. Along with high fiber and low-carb, this makes it a perfect food for the Two-Week Test, the Keto Two Week Test, and for those keeping carbohydrate foods low and fat high. It even has a few grams of protein.

Avocados are also relatively high in vitamins (including folate) and minerals (with more potassium than bananas), including antioxidants. They're also great mashed up for babies just starting to eat solid food at around six months. And, if you want a great green treat, see my recipe for avocado pudding!

Adding avocados to your menu can reduce cardiovascular disease risk by improving cholesterol balance by raising HDLs and lowering total and LDL cholesterol (and triglycerides), perhaps due to the high monounsaturated fat (a Mediterranean 'diet' effect). Another benefit is its great satiating properties. Have a half, or whole avocado, and you feel full. Add more protein, like a slice or two of cheese, and you have a small meal or delicious snack.

Another plus for avocados is that even the conventional versions are very low in pesticide residues according to The Environmental Working Group. In fact avocado tops their "Clean 15" list.

Although avocado costs vary with the season, production and demand, prices increased 40 percent between 2015 and 2017, then in 2019 dramatically jumped in the U.S. almost as much, as the U.S. president threatened to close the border with Mexico.

sauce https://philmaffetone.com/the-avoca...pxLMv8wpEHjH3_2gi67ClsL_mzfqSmB9tekezz-1QRKH8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Foods You Should Always Buy Organic: The Dirty Dozen Plus*

Nearly all of the data used took into account how people typically wash and prepare produce - for example, apples were washed and bananas peeled before testing. The following "Dirty Dozen Plus" had the highest pesticide load, making them the most important to buy organic versions - or to grow them organically yourself.

The Dirty Dozen Plus (2019)
*Strawberries
Spinach
Kale
Nectarines
Apples
Grapes
Peaches
Cherries
Pears
Tomatoes
Celery
Potatoes
Hot peppers*

Why should you care about pesticides? The EWG points out that there is a growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can have adverse effects on health, especially during vulnerable periods such as fetal development and childhood. Here's a video in which I address the importance of avoiding pesticides.

Also keep in mind that maintaining your family's health is not the only reason to choose organic food. Pesticide and herbicide use contaminates groundwater, ruins soil structures and promotes erosion, and may be a contributor to "colony collapse disorder," the sudden and mysterious die-off of pollinating honeybees that threatens the American food supply. Buying or growing organic food is good for the health of the planet.

sauce https://www.drweil.com/diet-nutriti...-pyramid/foods-you-should-always-buy-organic/

*Foods You Don't Have To Buy Organic: The Clean 15*

Nearly all of the data used took into account how people typically wash and prepare produce - for example, apples were washed and bananas peeled before testing. Of the fruit and vegetable categories tested, the following "Clean 15" foods had the lowest pesticide load, and consequently are the safest conventionally grown crops to consume from the standpoint of pesticide contamination:

The Clean 15 (2019)
*Avocados
Sweet corn*
Pineapples
Sweet peas (frozen)
Onions
Papayas*
Eggplants
Asparagus
Kiwis
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Cantaloupes
Broccoli
Mushrooms
Honeydew melons*

* A small amount of sweet corn, papaya and summer squash sold in the United States is produced from genetically modified seeds. Buy organic varieties of these crops if you want to avoid genetically modified produce.

Why should you care about pesticides in your fruits and vegetables? The EWG points out that there is a growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can have adverse effects on health, especially during vulnerable periods such as fetal development and childhood.

Here's a video in which I address the importance of avoiding pesticides.

To this list, I would add one caveat: When it comes to pesticide use, there is more to consider than just the residues that are ingested by the consumer. Although peeled foods such as mangoes, avocadoes and kiwis may spare the consumer from significant pesticide exposure, it is possible that large amounts of pesticides and herbicides are used on the farms from which these originate, contaminating groundwater, promoting erosion and otherwise damaging local ecosystems. To help promote the health of the planet as well as your own health, it's best to buy organic whenever possible, including when you are purchasing the foods listed above.

At the opposite end of the contamination spectrum, check out the list of Foods That You Should Always Buy Organic, also known as the "Dirty Dozen Plus."

sauce https://www.drweil.com/diet-nutriti...t-pyramid/foods-you-dont-have-to-buy-organic/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*When farmers go vegan: the science behind changing your mind*

A farmer was recently on the road to the abattoir when he changed direction and drove his trailer full of lambs 200 miles to an animal sanctuary instead. Sivalingam Vasanthakumar, 60, from Devon, now plans to grow vegetables.

Vasanthakumar is not the only farmer to perform this kind of reversal. In 2017, Jay Wilde, of Bradley Nook farm in Derbyshire, took his cattle to a sanctuary and decided to become a vegan farmer (the film telling this story, 73 Cows, has been nominated for a Bafta). In the US, the Illinois-based charity Free From Harm has gathered tales of many farmers who have had epiphanies and switched to veganism.

Farmers know the job when they start it - so what brings about such a major turnaround? "What you are looking at is basic cognitive dissonance," says Fiona Buckland, a life coach. This occurs when "the way you are living your life is no longer fully in line with the way that you feel", and personal values slip out of alignment with personal performance.

Cognitive dissonance builds until an individual can no longer sustain the resultant unease and instigates change. "It's the reason someone sits at their desk and thinks: 'I can't do this any more,' or walks out of a marriage," Buckland says. "The cognitive dissonance is too great. They have to get themselves into alignment."

Even apparently snap decisions - changing destination mid-journey, as Vasanthakumar did - "percolate in our unconscious" for weeks, months or years. "Maybe he had taken himself to the abattoir too many times," Buckland adds wryly. She describes Vasanthakumar's rerouting as "a moment of creative problem-solving": here are some sheep I would like to keep alive, here is a sanctuary that will take them.

Stephen Palmer, a member of the British Psychological Society, points out that the year is still fairly new, and such decisions may be the result of some January stock-taking. Midlife, he says, is a classic time when people "search out a new purpose and meaning". But often these reflections don't come when humans sit and think, but ambush them while they fill the washing machine or queue in the supermarket.

"Your life perspective can take a sudden leap," psychologist Mike Hughesman explains. A person who had been inured to what they do suddenly realises they don't want to do it any more. (Hughesman himself temporarily switched to vegetarianism when he couldn't face the fact that he was eating something sentient.)

"People need to think more and not get trammelled into routines. If something doesn't feel right, give it thought," he says. "Sometimes you have to ask those pivotal questions."

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/environ...BsMHxFOF2eAMAcuMsJ67NG8q9G23O-eLe7wZbvCxPHZxo


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Non dairy passionfruit ice cream (made from oatmilk) on a very hot and humid day 2 thumbs up.









*Actually, Vegan Ice Cream Is Just as Good as the Dairy Kind*



> If you want someone to stare and curse at you like you just kicked a dog, but you (hopefully) don't want to kick a dog, there's an easier way to become a recipient of that level of vitriol: Tell them you think non-dairy ice cream is good. My own sister recently called me a "little b***h" when I excitedly told her about a particularly good vegan ice cream. My girlfriend uttered similar words when I mentioned getting a scoop of the stuff from another place. Why does approval of this seemingly benign genre of dessert evoke such a passionate response?
> 
> According to a report from the New York Times last August, consumption of "alternative milks" is rising, to the chagrin of dairy farmers and to the pleasure of people who like to say "nut milk." Yet despite the growth of this trend, I continue to experience a palpable aversion to my (nut)milquetoast opinion that non-dairy ice cream is fine. There are so many different types; you can find ones that suck, and ones that exceed expectations, just like regular ice cream. Still, many people say, "vegan ice cream wtf."
> To be clear: I'm not vegan. I'm not approaching this from an ethical perspective, though the consideration of where and how our food is made is increasingly unavoidable. I'm not coming from a professional perspective, either; shockingly, I'm not a doctor.
> ...


sauce https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...-ice-cream-is-just-as-good-as-the-dairy-stuff


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*VEGAN GELATIN MAY REPLACE ANIMAL PRODUCTS BY 2020*

Silicon Valley company Geltor is aiming to replace animal-derived gelatin in products such as Jell-O, Yoplait yogurt, and more in the next three years.

Socal media outlet San Francisco Chronicle about its efforts to replace animal-derived gelatin in common foods. Geltor CEO Alexander Lorestani explained the process of creating animal-free gelatin-likening it to a brewery that makes proteins instead of alcohol-which includes fermenting bacteria that mimics animal proteins in a yeast-based mixture. Traditionally, gelatin is derived from animal bones and is used as a texturizer in products such as gummy bears, Jell-O, and yogurt. Lorestani revealed that Geltor is currently readying to debut its vegan alternative-which provides a better texture than plant-based ingredients such as agar-agar-and plans to send samples to interested manufacturers for testing. "The opportunity to get something that is molecularly and functionally identical (to animal gelatin) is really exciting for them," Lorestani said. While Geltor's product does not contain animal cells, companies such as Memphis Meats, Israel-based SuperMeat, and Mosa Meat are working to create cultured meat (made with a small sample of animal cells) in an effort to displace traditional animal agriculture.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2017/5/vegan-ge...eVFi2QjsdChTU-jmc6kZecUUNLAs3Y_FxsjuuwHj1ziE8


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## Jem7sk (Jan 17, 2013)

*Looks like Arnold is going plant based!?!?*


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The bananamobile is making it's rounds around Toronto

















https://www.yellofruit.com/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

In honour of National Avocado Day!









a) Guacamole 
b) Avocado Toast
c) Avocado Smoothie
d) Avocado Salad


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*We must change food production to save the world, says leaked report*

Attempts to solve the climate crisis by cutting carbon emissions from only cars, factories and power plants are doomed to failure, scientists will warn this week.

A leaked draft of a report on climate change and land use, which is now being debated in Geneva by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels unless there is also a transformation in the way the world produces food and manages land.

Humans now exploit 72% of the planet's ice-free surface to feed, clothe and support Earth's growing population, the report warns. At the same time, agriculture, forestry and other land use produces almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, about half of all emissions of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, come from cattle and rice fields, while deforestation and the removal of peat lands cause further significant levels of carbon emissions. The impact of intensive agriculture - which has helped the world's population soar from 1.9 billion a century ago to 7.7 billion - has also increased soil erosion and reduced amounts of organic material in the ground.

In future these problems are likely to get worse. "Climate change exacerbates land degradation through increases in rainfall intensity, flooding, drought frequency and severity, heat stress, wind, sea-level rise and wave action," the report states.

It is a bleak analysis of the dangers ahead and comes when rising greenhouse gas emissions have made news after triggering a range of severe meteorological events. These include news that:

• Arctic sea-ice coverage reached near record lows for July;

• The heatwaves that hit Europe last month were between 1.5C and 3C higher because of climate change;

• Global temperatures for July were 1.2C above pre-industrial levels for the month.

This last figure is particularly alarming, as the IPCC has warned that rises greater than 1.5C risk triggering climatic destabilisation while those higher than 2C make such events even more likely. "We are now getting very close to some dangerous tipping points in the behaviour of the climate - but as this latest leaked report of the IPCC's work reveals, it is going to be very difficult to achieve the cuts we need to make to prevent that happening," said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

The new IPCC report emphasises that land will have to be managed more sustainably so that it releases much less carbon than at present. Peat lands will need to be restored by halting drainage schemes; meat consumption will have to be cut to reduce methane production; while food waste will have to be reduced.

Among the measures put forward by the report is the proposal of a major shift towards vegetarian and vegan diets. "The consumption of healthy and sustainable diets, such as those based on coarse grains, pulses and vegetables, and nuts and seeds &#8230; presents major opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions," the report states.

There also needs to be a big change in how land is used, it adds. Policies need to include "improved access to markets, empowering women farmers, expanding access to agricultural services and strengthening land tenure security", it states. "Early warning systems for weather, crop yields, and seasonal climate events are also critical."

The chances of politicians and scientists achieving these goals are uncertain, however. Nations are scheduled to meet in late 2020, probably in the UK, at a key conference where delegates will plant how to achieve effective zero-carbon emission policies over the next few decades.

The US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, will have just had its presidential elections. A new Democrat incumbent would likely be sympathetic to moves to control global heating. Re-election of Donald Trump, who has called climate change "a hoax", would put a very different, far gloomier perspective on hopes of achieving a consensus.

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/environ...XLMBTq0cwnRPaTvXisbHqu-st9V8FxzsoWPkLSr5zosP8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good article: It's one of the best take I've ever seen on why the meat industry is screwed.

*This Is the Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry*

There's a famous Gandhi aphorism about how movements progress: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." That was actually written by the Workshop on Nonviolence Institute as a summary of Gandhi's philosophy, but regardless, it's remarkable how often it accurately describes the evolution of causes, from legal cannabis to gay marriage. I've been thinking about that quote since I wrote my first piece about plant-based meat (or alt meat, as I like to call it) for Outside in 2014. Back then, we were firmly in the "laugh at you" stage. Beyond Meat, the first of the Silicon Valley startups to use advanced technology to produce extremely meat-like burgers, had been ignored for its first few years, but in 2014, it released its Beast Burger, which was treated by the press and public as a slightly off-putting curiosity. What was this stuff? Would anyone actually eat it? Ewwww.

That product wasn't very good-I compared it to Salisbury steak-and when Ethan Brown, Beyond Meat's founder, announced his intention to end livestock production, you could almost hear the National Cattlemen's Beef Association laughing in the background.

But I didn't laugh. I knew it would keep getting better and beef wouldn't. And I thought the bar was pretty low. Sure, steak is great, but ground beef makes up 60 percent of beef sales, and most of it is more Salisbury than salutary, a greasy vehicle for the yummy stuff: ketchup, mushrooms, pickles, bacon, sriracha mayo. I knew I wouldn't object if my central puck came from a plant, as long as it chewed right and tasted right. I suspected others might feel the same.

In the following years, Beyond Meat was joined by Impossible Foods, a more sophisticated startup with even more venture capital. Its Impossible Burger was way better than Salisbury steak. All the cool cats started serving it, from David Chang in New York to Traci Des Jardins in San Francisco. My conviction grew.

Part of the appeal of the new burgers is their smaller environmental footprint. Beef is the most wasteful food on the planet. Cows are not optimized to make meat; they're optimized to be cows. It takes 36,000 calories of feed to produce 1,000 calories of beef. In the process, it uses more than 430 gallons of water and 1,500 square feet of land, and it generates nearly ten kilograms of greenhouse-gas emissions. In comparison, an Impossible Burger uses 87 percent less water, 96 percent less land, and produces 89 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions. Beyond Meat's footprint is similarly svelte.

Yes, a good argument can be made that small-farm, grass-fed beef production (in places that can grow abundant grass) has a very different ethical and environmental landscape, but unfortunately, that's just not a significant factor. America gets 97 percent of its beef from feedlots. And feedlots are irredeemable.

By 2018, sales of both the Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger were surging, and the companies began to ink deals with restaurant chains. Beyond Meat got Carl's Jr. and A&W (as well as supermarket chains like Food Lion and Safeway), while Impossible got White Castle.

I tracked down a White Castle shortly after the Impossible Slider arrived in the spring of 2018. I'd never been to a White Castle, so I ordered an Impossible Slider and a regular slider. The Impossible was...fine. About what you'd expect. White Castle steams all its meat, which is hard to get past, but with plenty of cheese, it went down easy.

The regular slider, on the other hand, was horrific. I peeled back the pasty bun and stared at the fetid shingle inside. It was appallingly thin and grimy. It made the Impossible Slider look lush and juicy. The bar for fast-food burgers is even lower than I thought. Nobody will miss these shitty little brown things when they're gone.

Perhaps this explains why the chains are latching on to plant-based burgers as if they were life rings. White Castle initially tested its Impossible Slider in just a few locations in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago in April 2018. It was such a hit that the company quickly expanded the program to all 380 outlets. "People are coming back for it again and again," White Castle's vice president, Jamie Richardson, said with a touch of astonishment.

They're coming back at Del Taco, too, which launched a Beyond Meat taco in April. Within two months, it had sold two million, one of the most successful product launches in its history, so it decided to add Beyond Meat burritos as well.

And then there's Burger King. The second-largest fast-food chain in the world rattled big beef's cage by testing an Impossible Whopper in St. Louis in April. Resulting foot traffic was so strong that Burger King decided to serve the Impossible Whopper in all 7,200 restaurants, marking the moment when alt meat stopped being alt.

That was enough to get the meat industry to snap to attention. "About a year and a half ago, this wasn't on my radar whatsoever," said Mark Dopp, head of regulatory affairs for the North American Meat Association, to The New York Times. "All of a sudden, this is getting closer."

The strategy, predictably yet pathetically, was to engage in an ontological battle over the term meat itself. Big beef successfully lobbied for a labeling law in Missouri banning any products from identifying themselves as meat unless they are "derived from harvested production livestock or poultry." (But this is wrong; the word simply meant sustenance for the first thousand years of its existence.) Similar labeling laws have passed or are pending in a dozen more states, most of them big ranching ones.

Obviously, none of this has stemmed the rise of alt meat. But it did make me think again of Gandhi (a staunch vegetarian, FYI). They ignored, they laughed, and now they were fighting.

This stuff, I thought, just might win.

This year is shaping up to be the inflection point when this becomes obvious to everybody else. Beyond Meat's products are in 15,000 grocery stores in the U.S., and its sales have more than doubled each year. On May 2, it held its IPO, offering stock at $25, which turned out to be a wild underestimation of what investors thought the company was worth. It immediately leaped to $46 and closed the day at $65.75. That one-day pop of 163 percent was one of the best in decades, putting to shame such 2019 IPOs as Lyft (21 percent) and Pinterest (25 percent), to say nothing of Uber (negative 3 percent). In the following days, it kept ripping, climbing above $150, where it has stayed. The market currently estimates Beyond Meat's worth at close to $10 billion.

Not to be outdone, that same month, Impossible Foods raised an additional $300 million dollars from private investors (for a running total of $740 million and a valuation of $2 billion) and announced it would be joining Beyond Meat in America's grocery stores later this year. These companies are no longer little mammals scurrying around the feet of the big-beef dinosaurs. And they are gearing up for an epic head-to-head battle.

Both Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods recently released new, improved versions of their meat. For the past week, I've subsisted on little else. It feels great. Both have the same amount of protein as ground beef (about 20 grams per quarter-pound serving) and less fat. Being plant-based, they also provide a healthy shot of fiber. Both get their unctuousness from coconut oil.

But the core of each formula is very different. Beyond uses pea protein, while Impossible uses soy. Beyond gets its bloody color from beet juice; Impossible uses heme-the same molecule that makes our blood red-to achieve its meaty color and flavor. This is its killer app. Beef gets its beefiness from heme. When you cook heme, it produces the distinctive savory, metallic flavor of meat. Since heme is normally found in blood, no veggie concoction has ever used it. Soy plants do make microscopic amounts of it, but not enough to ever use. Impossible Foods' breakthrough was to genetically engineer yeast to produce soy heme in a tank, like beer. This GMO process is a deal breaker for some people, but it makes all the difference. The Impossible Burger is incredible, the Beyond Burger merely passable.

The Beyond Burger comes as two premade four-ounce patties (packaged in a plastic tray wrapped in more plastic-strike one). They don't quite pass as hamburgers. They're too wet and too pink. They almost resemble finely ground salmon burgers. They cook to a satisfying toothiness on either a grill or a griddle, but there's an inexplicable cellulose quality to the texture. (This is even more pronounced in the Beyond Sausage.) The flavor is also slightly off. There's a hint of fake smoke and an earthiness I'm guessing comes from the beet juice. (My wife would argue that it's more than slightly off; she has to leave the room when the Beyond Burger is cooking. But she also hates beets.) It's not an unpleasant experience, just don't expect the burgergasm you get from a quarter pound of USDA prime.

Impossible Foods, on the other hand, has delivered burgergasm after burgergasm. It's shine-up-the-Nobel-Prize good. Not only does it taste like ground beef, it looks and acts like it, too. It's truly plug and play.

That wasn't true for the previous version. When I first wrote about Impossible Foods three years ago, I had to beg the company to send me one patty. It was hesitant. Back then, the burger was fussy. It didn't work well on a grill, so you had to pan-fry it just right. The company made me do a Skype tutorial first, and when the micropatty arrived in a refrigerated box, with a special bun and special sauce, it was accompanied by pages of printed instructions. The burger was good, certainly the most meat-like plant patty up to that point, but it still tasted like a lite product-a little cleaner, a little less decadent, a little bit like filler.

This time, when I asked the company to send me a burger, a five-pound block of meat-clearly what it normally ships to food-service companies-arrived on my doorstep. No instructions, no hand-holding. It looked identical to ground beef, so that's how I treated it. And that's how it performed. I made sliders, kebabs, nachos, chili, Bolognese sauce, even a little tartare (note: the company frowns hard on this).

If I'm being honest, I find that I slightly prefer it to real beef. It's rich and juicy, more savory, but still somehow cleaner and less cloying. Now when I go back to regular beef, I notice a whiff of the charnel house in it, something musty and gray that I don't like and don't need.

In the coming years, expect a lot of other omnivores to have similar epiphanies. Impossible Foods has performed more than 26,000 blind taste tests on its burger, which is on track to surpass ground beef in those tests in the near future. What happens then? Impossible has been laser focused on creating the perfect simulacrum of ground beef. But why? The cow never had a lock on gastronomic perfection. It was just the best we could do given the limitations of the natural material. Firelight was fine until electricity came along. Then things got really interesting.

Look for something similar to happen with alt meat. For now, it's necessary to make people comfortable with the familiar, the way Steve Jobs loaded the early iPhones with faux felt and wood grain. But once people stop expecting burgers to refer to a hunk of flesh, the brakes on deliciousness will be released.

This will be generational. All change is. Most Baby Boomers are going to stick with their beef, right up to the point where their dentures can't take it anymore. But Gen Z will find the stuff as embarrassing as Def Leppard and dad jeans.

As this shift accelerates, the beef industry will lose its last advantage-price. Most offerings made with Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are about a buck a burger more expensive. But it's inherently cheaper to make a burger directly out of plants than it is to feed those plants to an animal first. Beef is currently cheaper because of scale. Big food companies can negotiate tremendously reduced prices for feed, and gigantic factories and supply chains are much more efficient to run.

But the playing field is leveling fast. Last week, Dunkin' announced a new Beyond Sausage breakfast sandwich that will be just 14 cents more than the meat version. But more than anything Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods has accomplished, the true death knell for the cattlemen is how the mainstream food industry has embraced alt meat. Whole Foods just announced it will start selling burgers from the UK-based startup the Meatless Farm in all of its stores. Nestlé is launching its Awesome Burger this fall. Tyson Foods, America's largest meat producer, just debuted its own plant-based nuggets, with more products to come. Tyson CEO Noel White said he expects Tyson "to be a market leader in alternative protein, which is experiencing double-digit growth and could someday be a billion-dollar business for our company."

If that quote isn't enough to send chills down the spine of any meat producer, try this one from Perdue Farms chairman Jim Perdue: "Our vision is to be the most trusted name in premium protein. It doesn't say premium meat protein, just premium protein. That's where consumers are going."

And that's where these companies will go. Beef is a headache. It comes with a lot of baggage to worry about: antibiotic resistance, E. coli outbreaks, animal welfare, climate change. It's the kind of icky biological variable that corporate America would love to leave behind-and as soon as beef becomes less profitable, it will.

Recent projections suggest that 60 percent of the meat eaten in 2040 will be alt, a figure I think may actually be too conservative. An estimated 95 percent of the people buying alt burgers are meat-eaters. This is not about making vegetarians happy. It's not even about climate change. This is a battle for America's flame-broiled soul. Meat is about to break free from its animal past. As traditional meat companies embrace alt meat with the fervor of the just converted, making it cheap and ubiquitous, it's unclear if Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods can survive the feeding frenzy (though Impossible's patents on its core IP may help), but at least they'll be able to comfort themselves with a modern take on Gandhi's wisdom:

First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they sue you.
Then they try to buy you.
Then they copy you.
Then they steal your shelf space.
Then they put you out of business.
Then you've won.

sauce https://www.outsideonline.com/23997...VA1U4ZFIeSjVYyePGa_chn5-aTJ--J-elFOYuQ92rXCwo


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Good article. "America's flame-broiled soul" cracked me up.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

PLANT-BASED DIET SLASHES RISK OF DYING FROM HEART DISEASE BY 32 PERCENT, STUDY FINDS

A plant-based diet is linked to a 32-percent decreased chance of dying from cardiovascular related illness, including heart attack and stroke, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers studied the eating habits of 10,000 middle-aged people in the United States from 1987 to 2016 who did not have cardiovascular disease at the onset of the study. In addition to a greatly decreased chance of dying from heart disease, participants whose diets were proportionally highest in plant-based foods than animal-based foods had a 16-percent lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Additionally, participants that consumed the least animal-based foods had a 25-percent lower risk of dying from any health-related cause when compared to those who ate the highest amount of animal products.

"Our findings underscore the importance of focusing on your diet," said lead researcher Casey M. Rebholz, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "There might be some variability in terms of individual foods, but to reduce cardiovascular disease risk people should eat more vegetables, nuts, whole grains, fruits, legumes, and fewer animal-based foods." These findings reinforce a large body of scientific evidence that links the consumption of animal products to an increased risk of heart disease, including a study released in March that found consuming even a small amount of meat can lead to an early death.

Full Study: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/JAHA.119.012865



> *Plant‐Based Diets Are Associated With a Lower Risk of Incident Cardiovascular Disease, Cardiovascular Disease Mortality, and All‐Cause Mortality in a General Population of Middle‐Aged Adults*
> 
> *In Summary:
> Abstract
> ...


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## drich (Oct 9, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> Good article: It's one of the best take I've ever seen on why the meat industry is screwed.
> 
> *This Is the Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry*
> 
> ...


I think the Impossible Burger is a game changer. Here in California it is turning up everywhere. A few nights ago we ordered a pizza with vegan cheese and impossible burger crumbles from a popular pizza restaurant, and last night we went to a burger joint and nearly everyone in the restaurant was eating Impossible Burgers instead of regular meat. A new fast food vegan restaurant (Plant Power) now has 5 locations in So Ca. and you can everything from 'big macs' to shakes.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

an old vegan wives tale ...

*Woman with freezer full of overripe bananas dies never having made banana bread*









UXBRIDGE, ON - Maureen Gibson, passed away at the age of 87 this Monday surrounded by loved ones and a freezer full of bananas she had been meaning to make into banana bread.

"I've lived a beautiful life of love and adventure," Gibson wrote in a final letter, "If only I had more time to spend with my family, I could have finally made that banana bread I kept promising. Not doing so might be my biggest regret."

Gibson was an esteemed elementary teacher and active member of her community. She loved friendly tennis matches, embroidered pillows, and bookmarking banana bread recipes she would never come to use.

Gibson had devised an ingenious system wherein she'd buy a bunch of bananas and eat only one or two. A few days later she'd notice that all her bananas had gone black. Instead of panicking at the sight of her rotting produce, Gibson would instead chuck the remaining bunch into her freezer.

She repeated this cycle once a month for the past 63 years.

"It saves you money!" Gibson would often repeat when anyone questioned her about her refusal to simply throw away her bananas, "Why do that when I can and eventually will just make it into banana bread? The sturdiest of the loaves!"

Over her 87 years, Gibson had reportedly devoted most of her savings to the utilities company responsible for powering the electricity to her 24 chest deep freezers.

"This is a burden, I mean gift that I hope to bestow on all my grandchildren. They will become the rightful heirs to my 3,402 over-ripe bananas," she dedicated in her will. "There might be a few bags of walnuts in the freezer too, now that I think of it."

sauce https://www.thebeaverton.com/2017/0...verripe-bananas-dies-never-made-banana-bread/


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

^ They need to correct the headline:

*Woman with 24 chest deep freezers full of overripe bananas dies never having made banana bread
*
I guess if you're going to be crazy, that may be one of the better ways to go about it?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Lol


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

BEEF INDUSTRY IS TO BLAME FOR AMAZON FIRES, ENVIRONMENTALISTS SAY

The record-breaking fires that are currently blazing in the Brazilian rainforest were likely set by farmers who want to clear the land for cattle ranching, environmental organizations say. The human-made fires happen every year in specific areas, and are a common last stage of the deforestation process in the Amazon region.

"The fire that we're seeing today is a fire that's directly related to deforestation," Ane Alencar, scientific director of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, told environmental news outlet Mongabay. "They cut the trees, leave the wood to dry and later put fire to it, so that the ashes can fertilize the soil."

This year, the number of active fires amounted to 74,155 between January 1 and August 20, a spike of 85 percent compared to the same period in 2018, according to data from the Brazilian National Institute of Space Research. This region contains the largest rainforest in the world, which produces approximately 20 percent of the world's oxygen and is often called "the planet's lungs."

Cattle ranching is responsible for as much as 80 percent of the ongoing deforestation of the Amazon, and a significant portion of the global beef supply originates on land that was once rainforest. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro pledged to further develop the region for farming and mining-intentionally displacing indigenous people-when he took office in January, despite warnings by environmentalists about the impact of deforestation. In response, Bolsonaro is blaming environmentalists for starting the fires in a bid to embarrass the government.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/8/beef-ind...mwlyh0GQNJSmqhrz4mJS2_BfeZKJzq2ElrWXuFCjKSP8s


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

You And Meat Can Save The Planet

The Amazon rainforest is on fire. Last month was the hottest on record. The first glacier has disappeared due to human activity. In India, a city the size of Manhattan just ran out of water.

By the end of the summer, scientists estimate about 440 billion tons of ice will have melted or calved off Greenland's giant ice sheet. That's enough water to flood Pennsylvania about a foot deep.

Every year, we learn that our scientific assumptions underestimate just how bad things are, and that the amount of time left to address this crisis is rapidly shrinking.

Are you depressed yet? Well, perk up. There's something each of us can do about it. And it begins at breakfast.

Readers are likely to be surprised by a statistic very few of us know, nor fully absorb. It's a statistic that is so huge, it's kind of hard to believe it's not on the tips of all our tongues every waking moment. Here it is:

Livestock production accounts for at least 51% of all greenhouse gases (GHG). Said another way, eating animals accounts for over half of all the climate carnage that we're witnessing across the world.

In many respects, that's good news. Bare with me.

Most of the challenges we face around the world are difficult to solve through individual action. It's hard to do much about the humanitarian crisis in Syria, or the detention centers at the border.

And yes, it's nice to buy an electric car (depending on the energy source), but in order to transition away from fossil fuels, it's estimated that we'd need north of $50 trillion dollars over a twenty year period. That is neither financially feasible nor immediate enough to address the fact that our house is burning right now. Meanwhile, we get closer and closer to our climate tipping point, whereby no amount of action will fix what we have broken.

Our diets, on the other hand, can change today. You and me can collectively eat a plant-based diet two times a day or more, and effectively solve our entire climate crisis, one bite at a time.

Here are some stats to drive the point home:

26% of our land globally is used to raise livestock, and 33% for growing feed. If we allowed this land to generate back into forest, we could offset up to half of all GHGs, and possibly all of them.
Animal agriculture is responsible for 90% of deforestation in the Amazon. It's also the leading cause of methane and nitrous oxide emissions.
Methane has 34 times the ability to trap heat in our atmosphere compared to CO2. Nitrous oxide has over 300 times that amount. 
Forests have more carbon stored in them than all of the known / discovered fossil fuels in the world. If we keep burning them down to grow cows/feed, it'll be like burning all the oil/gas/coal in the ground, burning the planet up in the process.
If cows were a country, they'd be the 3rd largest carbon emitter behind China and the US.
Livestock also requires more refrigeration, which releases more fluorocarbons (thousands of times more global warming potential than CO2) into the air.
Rainforests normally store 200 tons of carbon per hectare. When you convert it to grassland to graze cows, its drops to 8. In contrast, when these forests are burned, they can release 200 tons of carbon per hectare.
In a 19-page report, Robert Goodland, a former lead environmental adviser to the World Bank, and Jeff Anhang, a current adviser, suggest that domesticated animals cause 32 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), more than the combined impact of industry and energy.

"If this argument is right," write Goodland and Anhang, "it implies that replacing livestock products with better alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change. In fact, this approach would have far more rapid effects on greenhouse gas emissions and their atmospheric concentrations than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy."

The Chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, has described eating less meat as "the most attractive opportunity" for making immediate changes to climate change.

The Solutions

It's not rocket science. We need to eat fewer animal products. And by fewer, I mean a lot less. A great start, as recommended by Jonathan Safran Foer in his new book, would be to eat a plant-based diet for breakfast and lunch every day. Others preach for vegan weekdays or Meatless Mondays. Whatever your method, there is no room for inaction. As the President of France Emanuel Macron declared yesterday, "Our house is burning."

Here are some helpful tips for anyone looking to cut down on their animal consumption, but not quite ready to eat kale and quinoa for breakfast and lunch:

Beef: Impossible Burger, Beyond Burger
Chicken: Nuggs, Gardein 
Fish: Ocean Hugger, Good Catch
Cheese (fun fact: cheese is more carbon intensive than pork and chicken): Violife, Follow Your Heart, Miyokos, NUMU
Eggs: JUST Egg
Eating Out: Copper Branch, Veggie Grill, Le Pain Quotidien, Pret A Manger
Meal plans: 22 Days Nutrition, Purple Carrot
Finding options near you: Happy Cow, A Billion Veg

Ideally, you'll also be able to source products grown organically, but that's not always easy. If you do plan on eating animal protein, buy it from producers that raise them in a pasture using regenerative practices. It produces a lot less GHGs and it's way better for the animals.

It's not enough to believe that climate change is real. You have to act on that belief, otherwise it's not much different than those who deny it. Will future generations care if you believed, or took action to stop it?

Changing your diet can feel intimidating. It certainly was for me. My advice is, don't think about changing your diet forever. Just focus on eating sustainably for your next meal. And then try it again. And don't stop trying every meal. That's it.

sauce and links https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...XWQMsu3-JIxalJNK4cpIfuEoLfRkjRPQ#39766e124c6d

soft vegan tacos from Tacofino Cantina in Tofino BC


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Boom she comin'

*Huge drugs bust' at Gatwick Airport turns out to be vegan cake ingredients*



> BTP Sussex (British Transport Police) said on twitter: "Huge drugs bust at Gatwick airport. In collaboration with @ukhomeoffice powders tested and discovered to be vegan cake ingredients."


The BTP urged passengers to label foods and to 'bring samples of cakes' on their next visit.

A spokesman for the British Transport Police said: "We received a report at 1.34pm.

"Cleaners found a bag contained many bags [of what appeared to be drugs] in the first class compartment of a train.

"Obviously it was tested and found to be exactly what it says in the tweet. We spoke with the owner and there was no concerns."









sauce https://www.wscountytimes.co.uk/new...D1RCdKn_Mw_9pK5I1qMpgpwijKlapAmQUrJgPb-jv5sUM


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*NEW YORK TIMES: "STOP MOCKING VEGANS"*

In a recent op-ed, New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo urged readers to stop mocking vegans, who he explained were right about the ethics of abstaining from animal products all along. "Many of us, myself included, engage in painless, performative environmentalism," Majoo writes. "We'll give up plastic straws and tweet passionately that someone should do something about the Amazon, yet few of us make space in our worldview to acknowledge the carcass in the room: the irrefutable evidence that our addiction to meat is killing the planet right before our eyes."

Manjoo points to the hypocrisy of Popeye's launching its new chicken sandwich during a time when Amazon rainforest is burning due to animal agriculture, acknowledging the "squalid, overcrowded, constantly-lit, 40-day life span of the typical factory-farmed, fast-food chicken." While admitting that he struggles with eschewing animal products himself, Manjoo asks readers to stop making fun of vegans. "I want to urge you to give vegans a chance-to love and to celebrate them instead of ridiculing them," Majoo writes. "We need more vegan voices, because on the big issues-the criminal cruelty of industrial farming; the sentience and emotional depth of food animals; the environmental toll of meat and the unsustainable of its global rise-vegans are irrefutably on the right side of history."

Manjoo explains that omnivores classify vegans as "preachy" only because their mere existence exposes the cognitive dissonance people experience when continuing to support animal cruelty and environmental destruction by eating animal products. "The vegans are right. The vegans were always right," Manjoo writes. "The least you can do is shower them with respect and our gratitude, because they deserve it." Today at 1 pm EST, Manjoo will answer questions about his column on Twitter and urges readers to contact him for a phone discussion via a submission form beneath his article, titled "Stop Mocking Vegans."

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/8/new-york...c3m1xzIpyoDsRr4hOguN9zrwPPKYPMdwiPkXP_68niwKQ


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*A Plant-Based Diet Fuels This Punk-Rock Ironman*









John Joseph probably should have died a long time ago. Born into an abusive family, he lived on the streets as a teenager, eventually falling into drug addiction and doing time in prison in the 1970s. Things were going south for the front man of the punk band Cro-Mags. After relapsing in 1988, Joseph took a two-year break from the band and started cycling. "People talk about rock bottom, but I was under the rock," Joseph says. "I started working as a bike messenger 'cause that was the only job I could get. I was good at it, I could ride all day. Then I started doing pack rides with other messengers at night and taking long-ass rides out to the Hamptons to swim in the ocean." He got sober in 1990 and soon returned to the Cro-Mags.

Now the 57-year-old New York City native is an Ironman finisher and the author of three books, including an autobiography and a self-help guide. Not only has he been sober for 29 years, he's also arguably the healthiest person in the room. "The whole sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll thing is bullshit," Joseph says from his home, fresh off a tour in Europe. "It's a fantasy life. It's not sustainable."

Juggling an intense Ironman training routine and a jet-setting job has given Joseph the stamina he needs to perform in high-energy punk-rock shows. A typical Cro-Mags performance is exhausting: screaming fast-paced lyrics over guitar and drums, stage diving, mosh pits. But Joseph's life on the road sounds more like the regimented routine of a professional athlete. After each show, he retreats to his hotel room for an Epsom-salt bath, some foam rolling, and a dose of CBD oil. He sleeps for five hours, then wakes early for a run, typically 10 to 15 miles. "I have to train when I travel, because when you're competing in Ironman, you can't just take a month off when you're building up to a race," Joseph says. "You have to stay at it."

Joseph tells me that his plant-based diet is key to this healthy lifestyle and has helped him reconcile his traumatic past. In 1980, H.R., the lead singer of the seminal punk band Bad Brains, convinced him to give up eating meat. "Since the moment of conception, I've been in a violent world, and I had a lot of anger from it," Joseph says. "As soon as I eliminated meat, something clicked. This huge weight was lifted off of me. This violent nature that I had was gone. The diet was the first step. That's when I started caring about what was going into my body." Since then, Joseph has followed a strict plant-based diet for 39 years, even writing a how-to guide on the subject in 2014.

While Joseph is happy to discuss the environmental and moral implications of a meat-based diet (catch his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast for a primer), he's just as passionate about optimizing plant-based diets for athletic performance. He didn't start competing in Ironman-distance triathlons until he was 50, when a friend scored him an entry into the New York City Ironman. Even though Joseph says his training was off for that first race, he was hooked. "I was crying as I crossed the finish line, thinking about all the people in my life who said I wouldn't amount to anything," Joseph says. "It was an emotional experience. Doing an Ironman reveals your true character." Since then, Joseph has knocked out ten more Ironman-distance races, including two Kona World Championships.

A typical day for Joseph starts with fresh juice: usually a mix of pineapple, turmeric, ginger, and spinach, which he says helps fight inflammation. He follows this with a breakfast of acai berries topped with almond butter. After breakfast he'll tackle a brick workout, which includes a lengthy bike ride followed by a long run. On the bike, he'll eat Clif Bloks and plant-based raw bars, followed by watermelon, water with amino acids, and a banana before he runs. His postworkout drink of choice is fresh beet juice, which he says helps increase the oxygen in his blood. Dinner is a bowl of brown rice, beans, avocado, broccoli, and a tahini sauce.

Joseph says he's seeing more athletes in the Ironman community switch to a plant-based diet, and he's on a mission to help others understand that this approach can fuel serious athletes. Joseph hosts his own YouTube cooking show, Hard Truth, which has him cooking vegan meals with special guests, whipping up classics like lasagna and pasta Alfredo with fresh, organic ingredients. "You give me one day, I'll feed you three meals, and you tell me how good it tastes and how good you feel after you eat it," Joseph says. "You'll get energized by the food. Every single nutrient can be obtained from a whole-food, plant-based diet. And it gives you the fiber you can't get from those meat-based diets." (While ditching meat is certainly working for Joseph, there's an ongoing debate about the merits of a plant-based diet for athletes.)

He's training for the Ironman Cozumel in Mexico in November and is working on a cookbook that is scheduled for release in 2020. For Joseph, the diet feeds the racing, and the racing keeps him on a healthy path. "You have to stay very regulated and disciplined when you're racing Ironman," Joseph says. "Your eating has to be regulated. Your sleeping. Your training. Living that lifestyle keeps me focused. It keeps my mind engaged in positive things and keeps me around positive people."

sauce https://www.outsideonline.com/24011...P32Q-aY7hIfQ31Ri8xzQ5Kvlq9C71TiNcB4tx_U-zxX2s


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## tubbnation (Jul 6, 2015)

I'll jump in ...

I rarely eat red meat - maybe once or twice every other year or so.

So, when I feel like a burger, I'll have one of these veggie patties, or something like it. Dress em' up with mustard, red onion, tomato, pickles and avocado.

Tasty!


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1277145


Where's mashed?


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

woodchips said:


> I'll jump in ...
> 
> I rarely eat red meat - maybe once or twice every other year or so.
> 
> ...


Curious, how does your body handle it when you do eat red meat? I think it would really make my stomach ache.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm curious too. What caused you to switch back to an omni diet? And would you try the beyond meat instead of red meat?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We attended the 35th Annual Veg Fest here in Toronto. We sampled an awesome variety of food


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Joaquin Phoenix is here in at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) for the premier of his film Joker.

Three-time Oscar nominee, TIFF Tribute award winner, and star of the highly-anticipated new Joker film Joaquin Phoenix just took time out of his wildly-busy schedule to show support for animal rights at a Toronto subway station.

In town for the 44th annual Toronto International Film Festival, Phoenix appeared at St. George Station shortly before 4 p.m. on Monday afternoon - just hours before he was set to receive TIFF's inaugural Tribute Actor Award alongside Meryl Streep at a gala thrown in their honour.

While there, the actor posed for photos alongside a provocative ad campaign from the animal justice advocacy group BeFairBeVegan.

"A vegan since the age of three, Phoenix has frequently lent his celebrity to support the cause of animal rights, expressing his support for BeFairBeVegan as early as 2016, when the campaign first launched in New York City," wrote the organization in a press release.

"BeFairBeVegan's message focuses on the inner experiences of the animals we use for food, fabric, research, entertainment, and other exploitative purposes," the release continues.

"The ads are intended to remind viewers that our fellow animals are much more similar to us than we usually acknowledge, and that it is the consumer choices of each individual that keeps these sentient beings in bondage."

Truth be told, the ads at St. George Station would likely be getting attention even without the aid of an international superstar.

The campaign, which will run for eight weeks throughout Toronto, is gripping and almost painful to take in.

Photos of frightened animals are interspersed with true, horrific facts about the industries that exploit them, as well as powerful phrases such as "Imagine being born to be destroyed" and "Imagine losing every one of your babies"

Phoenix wasn't able to comment on the campaign at St. George station on Monday, though he did thank event organizers for their hard work and spoke to local animal rights activists.

You can catch him on the red carpet this evening outside Roy Thomson Hall for Joker, if you're lucky enough to score a space.

You can catch the BeFairBeVegan ads Phoenix champions, however, in the form of streetcars, bus murals and transit shelter posters between now and November.

https://www.blogto.com/city/2019/09...Zt0bjWOuqVtrSqaj6tswvzu15K0HCVUgrKhHkJHZ7ezC4


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Veg fest looks cool!

Joaquin seems pretty rad, looking forward to catching his new movie.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Joaquin does seem rad...and a very good actor! We popped in at TIFF on Saturday after VegFest. We did not see any celebrities. We did see long lineups for free popcorn though 

People were lined up to get their pic taken in front of the TIFF sign. So I went behind.... no line up








Photoshop flip the sign ...voila 








Line up for free popcorn








Where the celebrities were hiding


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We've long known the role B12 played in stroke prevention and the need for plant based diets to take supplements.

Is vitamin B12 deficiency a risk factor for cardiovascular disease in vegetarians?

Everyone vegan takes B12 and deficiency is common amongst omnivores as well.

Vitamin B12
There are three options for people age 14-65 who aren't pregnant or breastfeeding-see chart below for others:

Fortified foods of 2.0-3.5 µg per serving, twice a day.
Daily supplement of 25-100 µg per day.
Supplement of 1,000 µg, twice per week.
People over 65 can also follow the above recommendations, but some research has suggested that those with low levels of B12 need a 500-1,000 µg supplement per day. For older adults who have been supplementing and have recent labs confirming their markers of B12 status (MMA and homocysteine) are normal, supplementation of 50 to 100 µg per day or 1,000 µg at least twice per week should be sufficient. Talk to your health care provider for personalized supplementation recommendations.

age: 14-64 yrs 
Option 1: Twice Daily 2.0-3.5 
Option 2: Daily 25-100 
Option 3: Twice Weekly 1000

Notes on vitamin B12:

If you haven't had a regular source of B12 for more than a few months, take 2,000 µg once a day for 2 weeks to replenish your stores.
The Daily Value for B12 found on food labels is based on 6 µg, which was the RDA in 1968. If a label says a food has, for example, 25% of the Daily Value of B12, it has 1.5 µg (25% of 6 µg = 1.5 µg).
These recommendations are for the cyanocobalamin form of B12 only-the form in fortified foods and most supplements.
For other forms of vitamin B12, see Methylcobalamin and Adenosylcobalamin.
µg = mcg = microgram = 1/1,000 of a milligram (mg)
There is a large difference between amounts taken twice daily and once daily because beyond 3 µg (for adults), absorption drops significantly.
Amounts much larger than these are considered safe, but it's probably best not to take more than twice the recommended amounts.
Large doses of B12 can trigger acne-like symptoms in a small percentage of people.

link https://veganhealth.org/daily-needs/#Vitamin-B12

* For clarity The table is found in the link


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Which Plant-Based Foods Make You A Better Athlete?
> 
> Based on a study of over 2,000 adolescents, higher fruit and vegetable consumption was found to be positively associated with muscle power in teens, but that's not who really needs it. What about the consumption of fruit and vegetables and risk by adults and athletes?
> 
> ...


sauce 
https://www.nomeatathlete.com/athle...QG77I5aGDHRN7kBO82qT4qiCWdOu-rM64cbe5zz5G1zWg


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

When you reach vegan level 1,000 and lettuce becomes your God.









Lettuce pray


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Climate change drives restaurants to reduce use of meat to lower environmental impact*

If you feel guilty about your meat consumption and how it's hurting the environment, multiply that by thousands. That's the position of any meat-serving restaurateur looking at the climate-change impact of their business. Because that's how much more meat they go through than the average household.

That's why the owners of Grand Electric have chosen to turn one of their popular taquerias into a vegetarian restaurant as they transition the business away from rabid meat consumption.

Meat and dairy production are responsible for 14.5 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions, beef being the worst offender by far. The average Canadian consumes about 18.5 kilos of beef a year. Each of Grand Electric's three locations goes through double that amount in a day.

"It's undeniable that climate change, amongst other considerations, is directly linked to the consumption of meat and fish," co-owner Ian McGrenaghan says. "In that way, serving the volume of animal product that we do, we are undeniably negatively affecting the environment."

Lately, Mr. McGrenaghan and his partner, chef Colin Tooke, have realized that this is a problem. Launched in 2011, the wildly popular Parkdale taqueria has expanded with two outposts; one across from Trinity Bellwoods Park and another in the cottage region of Muskoka. A barbecue offshoot, Electric Mud, forced them to take a second look at what they were doing.

"The success of that restaurant started triggering questions in my head - seeing the volume of product we were going through," Mr. McGrenaghan said. Proud of the organic and antibiotic-free meats they sourced, the owners arranged for their staff to take a tour of a slaughterhouse. Mr. McGrenaghan had seen animals killed before and wasn't upset by that. But witnessing so much of it at once, connecting meat production with climate change and realizing their role in this supply chain, it suddenly wasn't acceptable.

"Even if you're okay with killing animals, the sheer volume of that was disconcerting."

Also, the two were getting older, and not wanting to feel the sluggishness of a meat-heavy diet, or to own a restaurant where they didn't feel comfortable eating more than once a month. So they closed Electric Mud.

Around the same time, they were planning to expand Grand Electric, the three locations of which serve about 650 meals a day, comprised overwhelmingly of meat.

"We were actually in discussion with an investor and close to inking it," Mr. McGrenaghan says. "But we just couldn't do it: all that meat and fish and grease and oil."

Instead, they have decided to close their Bellwoods location, which does about half the sales of the flagship despite having 10 seats to Parkdale's 80. It will reopen as Tacos Rico, serving vegetarian guisado, a style of taco filled with stewed ingredients. After that, they plan to overhaul the Parkdale menu to reduce its volume of meat.

Grand Electric's owners are not the first Toronto restaurateurs to drive into this moral cul-de-sac. In 2016, Chase Hospitality Group chief executive Steven Salm came to the same awakening about selling meat. Mr. Salm's strategy was to transition all his businesses, which include steak and seafood restaurants, to 25 per cent vegan menus.

"Straight vegetarian items have always sold well," Mr. Salm says from Florida, where he is seeking to expand his Planta brand, a vegan restaurant he opened with chef David Lee.

"Today, the summer pea agnolotti on the menu at The Chase, that's replacing the previous duck or lamb dish. So ultimately, every guest that's ordering that is ordering a dish that previously was an animal protein."

Most restaurateurs, however, own very small businesses, and do not have the resources for the kind of large-scale overhaul made by a group like Chase Hospitality.

Canadian comfort food restaurant Woodlot has offered a separate vegetarian menu since opening in 2010, and the Bloor Street restaurant Sabai Sabai features an alternate vegan menu of Thai favourites.

When the Soo family reached an impasse on how to serve less meat at their 49-seat Malaysian restaurant, they had to be more creative. Since 2013, Soos on Ossington Avenue has served a lot of red chili chicken wings, pork belly pancakes and rendang beef short ribs. A few years ago, partner Lauren Soo and her husband transitioned to a plant-based diet. As their vegan cooking migrated from dinner at home into staff meals, they questioned how their business could adapt.

They came up with a novel compromise.

On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, Soos operates under the name Fat Choi, which allows the family to experiment with a vegan Malaysian concept without additional investment while building an audience for a potential second business.

When we think of switching to vegan cooking, we first picture how we're going to replace the heavy, expensive proteins at the centre of dishes. Malaysian cuisine, an intersection of Southeast Asian cooking traditions, frequently depends on nam pla (fish sauce) and belacan (shrimp paste) as building blocks of flavour, posing an additional creative challenge in going animal-free.

"You have to give it a lot more love and thought when you're doing vegan cooking," says chef Tricia Soo, Lauren's mother. "Because I can't just put fish sauce and belacan or oyster sauce when I want." Freshness, cooking in small batches, strong spices and an abundance of good produce - lemongrass, shallot, fresh turmeric, garlic, ginger, galangal - are built to shine, rather than understudy those big fishy flavours.

"So when you eat it, you don't miss the shrimp paste. And then for umami, sometimes you can use bean sauce and miso."

Sabai Sabai's chef/owner Nuit Regular uses Healthy Boy brand tao jiew, a fermented soy bean paste, for that umami flavour.

"It can seem a little challenging to create dishes using more vegetables and less meat products, but once you know what to use, you will see it is very easy," says Ms. Regular, who is planning a vegan menu for her restaurant Pai. "You can find these products fairly easily in Asian markets."

For talented chefs, it's not challenging to lean on the use of salt, sugar and fat to make food delicious.

When planning the original menu for Grand Electric, Mr. Tooke had wanted to make food that was addictive. Developing the dishes for Taco Rico, experimenting with rice and beans, Swiss chard and carrot mole tacos, his stomach is in a different place.

"When I was 25, I craved mayonnaise, spicy stuff and fat," Mr. Tooke recalls. "I like beef. I like fried chicken. But do I need to eat this seven times a week? Or even once a week or month?" Having moved toward a more balanced diet, focused on vegetables, Mr. Tooke says he no longer craves that kind of rich eating. "The more I eat and cook this way, the more I find that vegetables can be enticing. That this stuff can be addicting. I find that now I crave this."

Real change to our environment won't come from individual consumer choices. Only policy can move the dial that much. But Mr. McGrenaghan understands that this reality doesn't let restaurateurs off the hook.

"On a practical level, we will be directly impacting the food our customers consume. On a moral level, we hope to contribute to the idea that food businesses can be both positive forces for environmental change and successful," Mr. McGrenaghan says. "Hopefully, other restaurateurs might say, okay, well, the guys from Grand Electric actually changed their entire menu and brand to make a positive change, so this is something that might be doable."

sauce https://www.theglobeandmail.com/can...chpxAs0aEkPT2jDjM0duhRGNVLbTaxh9pPzY#comments


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

mmmmm! Thanksgiving is October 14 (Canada)

*WHOLE FOODS MARKET LAUNCHES VEGAN HOLIDAY MENU IN CANADA*









Supermarket chain Whole Foods Market recently introduced new vegan holiday meals across its Canadian locations in time for the country's Thanksgiving holiday on October 14.

In Ontario, the holiday menu was developed by New York-based vegan chef and cookbook author Jenné Claiborne and will include Southern style dishes such as a mushroom étouffée, braised collard greens with tomatoes, spicy cornbread dressing, black eyed pea fritters, mashed potatoes, pumpkin curry soup, and pumpkin pie. The meal is offered as separate dishes or as a "Vegan Meal for 2" which includes two servings of each dish along with half of an apple pie.

In British Columbia, Whole Foods offers a different "Vegan Meal for 4" which features a ready-to-eat vegan sausage and hazelnut roast wrapped in flaky puff pastry, green beans with shallots, wild rice stuffing with pearl onions and cranberries, baked winter squash, olive oil smashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, and classic cranberry sauce. A sampling of items is already in the chef cases and prepared foods department of some stores and the side dishes will be expanded to all stores beginning on October 9. The dishes and full meals can also be ordered online now through October 12.

Sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/9/whole-fo...9FTXgE8Jp7_R4UmIhK5GmfwwjsIkYN7CsiJKhHLScW7mw


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Our fresh produce doesn't need throwaway plastic packaging.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Some of these may not be vegan


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I haven't eaten anything from McDonald's in over 20 years. They once had a veggie burger but stopped selling them. Looks like they are getting on the Beyond Meat band wagon now

*McDonald's to offer Beyond Meat burger in Ontario pilot project starting next week

*







Beyond Meat may have lost Tim Hortons, but it has partnered with another popular fast-food chain in Canada: McDonald's.
The iconic burger chain announced Wednesday it will test a new plant-based burger known as the P.L.T. - plant, lettuce and tomato - in 28 McDonald's locations in southwestern Ontario starting Monday.
The patty would be made of Beyond Meat, the plant-based protein that entered the scene this year on grocery store shelves and in various fast-food chains. Canadian coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons launched several versions of the product earlier this summer, but has since scaled back availability from across the country to just Ontario and British Columbia.
It's not immediately clear why McDonald's has selected Canada alone to be the test market for its first plant-based sandwich for the North American market. Of the 28 locations, 18 will be in London, Ont., while the rest will be in other communities elsewhere in southwestern Ontario.

California-based Beyond Meat Inc. went public earlier this year, and it quickly became one of the fastest-rising new stocks of the year, although it has pulled back from its recent highs over concerns its growth may be unsustainable, and some criticism over how healthy the patties are.
Shares in Beyond Meat jumped 13 per cent in premarket trading on the stock market when news of the McDonald's partnership came out.
The promotion, a pilot project set to last to the end of the year, represents the burger chain's biggest push into plant-based eating. The chain previously offered a soy-based veggie burger at the turn of the century but soon halted production due to slow sales.
If successful, it could become a permanent offering at some of the chains 38,000 locations in more than 100 countries around the world.
The burger will be priced at $6.49 Cdn.
The launch also comes a few months after McDonald's fierce rival Burger King launched its own meatless burger, in partnership with Beyond Meat's biggest competitor to launch the Impossible Whopper last spring.
Beyond Meat is the core ingredient in a number of fast-food offerings, including meatballs, chicken and other forms at various other fast-food chains including A&W, Subway and KFC.

McDonald's says its version won't taste the way Beyond Meat burgers at other chains and grocery stores do, because the chain says it has been "working on its recipe" for a while.
"We know we're not first," Michaela Charette, the company's head of consumer insights, told The Canadian Press. "We've been taking our time to get it right."

sauce https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/be...GRRrZO8IOIJB3jgBP-tXbI_sicR79XGxjTNdtTqumF08k


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Remember that McDonald's fries are flavored with beef...not even vegetarian!

Great to see alt-meat continue to rise. I'm pretty optimistic that we'll see slaughter counts trend downwards before long, maybe even hit a tipping point of rapid, permanent decline. What a day that will be.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I like that there are alternate choices. I think the only valid complaint I've seen is it has quite a bit more sodium, which can have some health implications. Thanks for the tip re the fries 

Re nut allergies Beyond uses lentils, not pea protein. It's Impossible burgers that use pea protein.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## OzarkFathom (Jul 2, 2019)

So do vegans get lost in the woods and talk to themselves?


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

OzarkFathom said:


> So do vegans get lost in the woods and talk to themselves?


No, they just listen for the voice of the lost Cross Fitter first.


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## OzarkFathom (Jul 2, 2019)

I have an Omega masticator that makes great banana ice cream. No cream or ice, just frozen ripe bananas run through make the best creamiest ice cream you’ll ever have without dairy or added sugar.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Bananas are also great cooked on the grill!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

OzarkFathom said:


> I have an Omega masticator that makes great banana ice cream. No cream or ice, just frozen ripe bananas run through make the best creamiest ice cream you'll ever have without dairy or added sugar.


That would be yummy


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

impossible burger contains gmo's, where beyond does not. just an fyi for those that care


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Plant based for the win (again). Harvey is 43 yrs old

*VEGAN ULTRARUNNER WINS 24-HOUR RACE FOR THE THIRD TIME*









Vegan ultrarunner Harvey Lewis recently won the 24-Hour National Championship for the third time. With just over 130 miles, Lewis conquered the NorthCoast 24-Hour Endurance Run in Cleveland, OH. He previously won the championship in 2015 and 2017.

Lewis went vegan three years ago after being vegetarian since 1996, and he attributes proper plant-based nourishment for his running success and quick recovery."It's the single most important ingredient to my longevity in the sport," Lewis told VegNews. "My health, energy, and performance as a runner changed dramatically when I became vegetarian [and, more recently, vegan]. I truly believe it's possible that I could win 24-hour races for many years to come.

One of my friends, Marco Olmo of Italy, won the famed UTMB at age 57 eating plant-based and another friend, Mike Fremont, is still setting records in the half marathon at age 97 eating all vegan." As a member of the US National 24-Hour Running Team, Lewis has competed internationally, and has also won the Badwater 135 ultramarathon in 2014-a gruelling, 135-mile course through Death Valley in California.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/9/vegan-ul...bG37W123aF5-o6l-admXcajNdvzWhxg12nF3CArJ7NUNA


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Follow the money on that study. Response from Harvard School of Public Health: "the public could be put at risk" by such "dangerously misguided" research.

*New "guidelines" say continue red meat consumption habits, but recommendations contradict evidence*

A controversial "dietary guidelines recommendation" published in Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that adults can continue to consume red meat and processed meat at current levels of intake.

This recommendation runs contradictory to the large body of evidence indicating higher consumption of red meat-especially processed red meat-is associated with higher risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancers, and premature death. However, according to the Annals authors, their guidelines were based on a series of "rigorous" systematic reviews (published simultaneously ) that would presumably account for all this available evidence.

Confused? We asked our experts to take a closer look at the research behind these guidelines. You can find the in-depth analysis below, but here are their key takeaways:

The new guidelines are not justified as they contradict the evidence generated from their own meta-analyses. Among the five published systematic reviews, three meta-analyses basically confirmed previous findings on red meat and negative health effects.

The publication of these studies and the meat guidelines in a major medical journal is unfortunate because following the new guidelines may potentially harm individuals' health, public health, and planetary health. It may also harm the credibility of nutrition science and erode public trust in scientific research. In addition, it may lead to further misuse of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, which could ultimately result in further confusion among the general public and health professionals.

This is a prime example where one must look beyond the headlines and abstract conclusions. It is important for journalists, health professionals, and researchers to look beyond the sensational headlines and even the abstracts of the papers to verify the evidence behind the claims. It's also crucial to understand that nutrition research is a long and evolving process, and therefore critical to look at the totality of the evidence.

These studies should not change current recommendations on healthy and balanced eating patterns for the prevention of chronic diseases. Existing recommendations are based on solid evidence from randomized controlled studies with cardiovascular risk factors as the outcomes, as well as long-term epidemiologic studies with cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and mortality as outcomes. To improve both human health and environmental sustainability, it is important to adopt dietary patterns that are high in healthy plant-based foods and relatively low in red and processed meats.

*In summary, what are the major problems with these new guidelines concerning red and processed meat?*

1) These guidelines are inconsistent with the principle of "first do no harm." In clinical practice, it would be irresponsible if a patient who reports eating two servings of red/processed meat daily is told by their doctor not to worry and continue the habit.

2)These guidelines are inconsistent with the precautionary principle in public health. From a public health point of view, it is irresponsible and unethical to issue dietary guidelines that are tantamount to promoting meat consumption, even if there is still some uncertainty about the strength of the evidence.

3)The panel declared "considerations of environmental impact" out of the scope of their recommendations. This is a missed opportunity because climate change and environmental degradation have serious effects on human health, and thus is important to consider when making recommendations on diet, even if this is addressed separately from direct effects on individual health.

Link and more info: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutrit...P3nlfp6nll8sWIRALRMmupFDqsN8YqhanaZ3lTHxVv_kY


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

NEW STUDY SAYS CUTTING DOWN ON MEAT IS POINTLESS, AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY AND 12,000 DOCTORS DISAGREE

A new study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine (AIM) that recommends continuing the consumption of all meat, including processed meat, has stirred controversy among the medical community. The analysis in question was carried out by a panel of 14 international researchers who determined that reducing meat consumption does not produce measurable health benefits and recommended that people "continue their current consumption of both unprocessed red meat and processed meat." The study goes against current research, including work conducted by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) which classified processed meats as potential carcinogens in 2015. In response, several organizations, including the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), along with other researchers, have publicly objected to the study and its ill-informed recommendations.

PCRM-a 12,000 doctor-member group that advocates for plant-based nutrition-filed a petition this week with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against AIM for disseminating publically harmful information. "AIM's message is not only an inaccurate statement of the findings, it is a major disservice to public health," PCRM president Neal Barnard, MD, FACC, said. "These misrepresentations are directly at odds with abundant scientific evidence demonstrating the potential ill health effects of red and processed meat and the benefits of reducing consumption of red and processed meat." PCRM's petition calls upon the FTC to "permanently prohibit AIM from disseminating, or causing the dissemination of the advertisement at issue and require AIM to issue a public retraction of and corrective statement regarding the advertisement."

To support the claims in its petition, PCRM cited several studies that point to the health dangers of consuming meat, including a Harvard School of Public Health study that linked the consumption of red meat to a 12-percent higher risk of premature death; a study published in the International Journal of Cancer that shows a diet high in red meat increases the risk of colon cancer in women; and a University of Oxford study that links the consumption of just one piece of bacon per day to an increased risk of colorectal cancer.

Sauce https://vegnews.com/2019/10/new-stu...GtDXbjmmhMz_AnnpeeiP_0YCyhH1yuIEXvt1GPcYQEOF4


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Cardiologist to Bernie Sanders:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ so true!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*6 TIPS FOR LOSING WEIGHT ON A VEGAN DIET*

According to a study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, individuals who follow a vegan diet for approximately 18 weeks shed, on average, four pounds more than those who follow animal-based diets. While this fact is great for anyone looking to lose weight, conversion to a plant-based regimen and weight loss are not always synonymous.

Many who switch to a vegan diet for weight-loss reasons often find themselves filling the meatless void with an array of plant-based processed food. Luckily, a veg diet is so much more than packaged food that just happens to be animal-free, especially for those looking to lose weight. By following these six tips, you'll fit into your favorite pair of jeans in no time, all while doing good for animals and the environment.

*1. Review the vegan food pyramid*
The foundation of the vegan food pyramid is greens and vegetables followed by fruit and whole grains. This is an updated version of MyPyramid-the food guide that replaced the Food Guide Pyramid in 2005-which emphasized grains, bread, cereal, and pasta as the foundation of a good nutritional regimen. Although the vegan food pyramid serves as a guide, caloric intake and portion control are key factors for any healthy weight-loss program.









*2. Eat greens*
The versatility of spinach, broccoli, Swiss chard, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, and zucchini makes dark leafy greens a wonderful addition to any meal. These foods are ideal for weight loss because they are the "most nutrient-dense healthy items" and "are extremely low in calorie and high in fiber," says Lisa Odenweller, CEO of Santa Monica-based superfood café Beaming. The high-fiber content keeps you satiated throughout the day while helping you avoid unhealthy snacking. Other high-fiber options include fruit (be mindful of the sugar content) and raw tree nuts (almonds, walnuts, and cashews), which are packed with protein and fiber and can help lower cholesterol.

*3. Up your protein*
Consumption of protein-rich food is vital in many weight-loss programs because protein fills you up faster; thus, you need less food to be satisfied. According to Stephanie Goldfinger of vegetarian website Cooking for Luv, proteins are available in many forms, which makes them convenient to incorporate into meals because they can be eaten raw or cooked quickly. Protein powders are ideal for a grab-and-go breakfast or mid-day smoothie, while other plant-based proteins such as tempeh, beans, lentils, quinoa, and oats are versatile and can serve as the main component of a veggie burrito, salad, or stir-fry.

*4. Limit processed soy*
Soy products can be the easiest and most convenient "go-to" items when transitioning to a vegan diet. Soy isn't necessarily unhealthy, but it is imperative that attention be paid to the amount of processed products in a meal plan. For instance, a tofu scramble for breakfast, soy veggie burger for lunch, and pad Thai with tofu for dinner is excessive. Instead, choose vegan cheese made with nuts, a black bean burger, or a pad Thai with vegetables and tempeh for whole-food versions of your favorite foods.

*5. Prepare healthy meals*
Meal planning is a vital component to ensure proper nutrition and weight loss, and, thankfully, supermarkets now sell pre-packaged vegetables that are table-ready in minutes. Examples of fast-and-easy dishes include quinoa bowls with tempeh; a mixed stir-fry blend of broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms; eggplant cutlets with marinara sauce, vegan cheese, and basil; and soba noodles with greens. If these meals are beyond your scope, meal delivery services such as Purple Carrot and meal-planning services such as Forks Meal Planner provide easy-to-follow recipes that are pre-measured and dietitian-approved.

*6. Get exercise and stay hydrated*
Healthy meals, water, and exercise are key components for any successful weight-loss program. People should engage in 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity weekly in order to burn calories and lose weight. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is a form of cardiovascular interval training focusing on alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less-intense recovery periods. To achieve maximum results, HIIT should be practiced three times a week and supplemented with jogging or hiking, says Jorge Cruise, trainer and author of Tiny and Full. And don't forget to stay hydrated! Drinking a minimum of 64 ounces of water daily keeps your body cleansed, which improves fitness and overall health.









sauce https://vegnews.com/2018/6/6-tips-f...Pxn_Wx8J1sjVhYPvt3EE8NQ9Ru2shU5tq0btW3fHc8cGo


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

The Executive Editor of Science Based Medicine (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org) says the _Annals_ red meat paper is good science: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-red-meat-controversy/


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

The Secret Lives of Cows https://www.animalsaustralia.org/issues/secret-lives-of-cows.php

Have you ever seen a cow put her problem solving skills to the test? Or heard of cows who like jazz? No? Then prepare to be amazed! Behind the doe-eyed gaze of these unique individuals lies a hidden depth that might surprise you.

*They're individuals.*

No two cows are alike - some are bold, some timid, some curious, some affectionate. Research has shown that from a young age, calves each react very differently to stimuli in their surroundings - reflecting their individual likes, dislikes and personality.

*They're smart.*

Cows can solve puzzles. What's more, they enjoy it! When they work out the solution to a problem, one study found that young heifers would get excited, some even jumping into the air - seemingly in celebration of their Eureka moment. Researchers are finding that cattle are far more intelligent than people give them credit for - and may actually possess heightened brain function and decision-making abilities.

"These are highly developed mammals that have been solving problems for a long, long time. If anything, it reflects poorly on us that we're surprised that these animals are smart. Of course these animals are smart." - Dr. Daniel Weary, Animal Welfare Program, University of British Columbia

*They have best friends.*

In fact, they're quite the socialites. They seek out and nurture relationships with other individuals in the herd - often forming cooperative grooming partnerships. When separated from their best buddy, they become stressed.

*They have leaders.*

What do cows look for in a leader? Much the same things as us. Studies have suggested that intelligence, inquisitiveness, confidence, experience and good social skills all help to determine who will become the leader within a herd.

*They are loving and protective mums.*

Like humans, a mother cow and her calf share a strong and special bond - one that can form within minutes of birth. When mother cows and their calves are left to live a natural life, the calf will suckle from his mother for several months, even up to a year. Research has shown that adult cows remain deeply affected by the emotional pain of being separated as calves from their mothers, which is standard practice in the dairy industry.
Their kids are kind of like ours.

In all the best ways, calves are a lot like kids! They're cheeky, and super playful. When they want to play, they will signal to each other with their tails and a special call - so that it's clear they mean no harm when mimicking the behaviour of adult cattle.

*They enjoy music.*

Researchers now believe that music with a slow tempo reduces cows' stress levels. It seems that jazz isn't off the playlist just yet either though...

*Stand up for cows!*

Make your choices count: Cows are intelligent, social and emotional animals, but these aren't the only reasons they deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. The fact that they are living, feeling beings capable of experiencing joy, pain and fear is reason enough.

The most effective way to help these gentle and affectionate animals is by choosing not to eat them. With so many delicious animal-free alternatives now available, it's no wonder that more people are choosing to incorporate more plant-based food into their lives. Why not give it a try?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I love cows


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> You know who the biggest consumers of soy in the world are? Certainly, not us vegans. But the animals raised for food.
> 
> "Did you know that 90 percent of the soybeans grown worldwide, 50 percent of the grain, and 40 percent of the fish caught are fed to livestock?" https://www.simply-live-consciously.com/english/food-resources/food-consumption-of-animals/ ; https://www.ucsusa.org/
> 
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Seven sympathy gifts for anyone who just learned the truth about canned pumpkin*

Sorry to break the news, but that pumpkin pie you've been looking forward to this fall? It's really a squash pie. Take a close look at that canned pumpkin and you'll see that the tasty orange puree consists of one or more types of winter squash, including butternut, Hubbard, and golden delicious. (Libby's by Nestle is an exception: It's made of Cucurbita moschata, a Central American vegetable that looks like a squash but is deemed a pumpkin.) The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lets all this slide, citing the lack of a clear scientific divide between squash and pumpkins.

This may be little comfort for pumpkin purists-but thankfully, you can pay homage with our list of eight pumpkin-related gifts for anyone who needs to forget the pain.

*Pumpkin-scented home bundle*









Channel the powers of the pumpkin to fight bacteria with the ultimate cleaning set, consisting of dish soap, hand soap, multi-surface solution, and a soy candle. If your household smells like pie, you can continue to live in ignorance?

*Pumpkin spice toilet paper*









Use this on-theme toilet paper to wipe away the tears. The cardboard roll (not the absorbent itself) is coated in essential oils that are approved for general skincare products.

*Pumpkin eye gel patch*









Try an eye mask that's formulated with pumpkin-ferment extract to help de-puff the bags from all the sleep you've lost over the squash conspiracy. The two-step treatment starts with a cream and ends with an easy gel-patch application.

*Pumpkin-shaped pie plate*








Split the difference by serving your squash pie on a pumpkin-shaped dish. The stoneware is a little under 11 inches across, which measures out to about eight slices for you, yourself, and maybe two other loved ones.

*Pumpkin pie Kit Kats*








They only come around once a year, so stock up for your home and the trick-or-treaters. Pumpkin-flavored Kit Kats are the perfect blend between everyone's wafer-y, crunchy chocolate and seasonal flavor.

*Pumpkin spice cocktail mix*









Learning the truth about canned pumpkin is a tough pill to swallow, but this alcoholic accessory might help wash it down. The cinnamon, clove, and cardamom mix goes well with tequila or citrus-flavored liquors.

*Pumpkin and squash print*








A handmade chart that displays the Cucurbita family's variety is the next best thing to a full-on field guide. Get some help sifting through the varieties at your local farmers' market-or making your own puree at home.

sauce https://www.popsci.com/pumpkin-them...DUt5M3Z032ck1Qp1V13LSwd3-VxdfasI2Hpqgb4tdzEVs


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why Does Animal Protein Cause Weight Gain?*









You might be asking yourself how protein can be associated with weight gain when you have always been told to eat protein to lose weight. There are many possible answers to this very complex question. One comprehensive 2009 review considers mounting evidence that the chronic acid intake from high-protein diets may actually cause cellular dysfunction and eventual weight gain (Berkemeyer 2009). While this article is an interesting read (to me, at least), I think the answer is much more simple.

*Volumetrics and Calorie Density*
You may have heard of a term called "volumetrics." Barbara Rolls, Ph.D., a nutritionist at Penn State, invented this term to describe a very simple idea: if you eat food with low-calorie density, then you will not gain weight. The idea is that the stomach has stretch receptors that feed back to the brain when our stomachs are full. If you eat food with lots of calories per weight, by the time your stretch receptors alert your brain that you're full, you have already eaten too many calories. However, if you eat food with a low amount of calories [per weight], you can stuff your face until your stomach tells you that you're full without overconsuming calories (Rolls 2000; Rolls and Bell 1999; Rolls, Ello-Martin, et al. 2004).









*The Fiber Factor*
Fruits, vegetables, and beans are high in fiber, which is not absorbed into our bloodstream. So some of the weight of these plant foods does not translate into calories absorbed. Likewise, the fiber holds water and obviously water won't cause fat gain. So if you eat a giant 280 gram slice of watermelon, due to the fiber and water, you get only 85 calories. A 280 gram piece of chicken delivers almost six times the calories (480). If you could actually consume 280 grams of olive oil (20 tablespoons, in case you're crazy), you'd take in a whopping 2,380 calories.

This is why I tell my patients they do not need to count calories when they eat a plant-based diet. I don't care how many apples they eat, or how much kale they consume. I have never seen anybody get fat from broccoli or bananas. One patient didn't believe me and tried to prove me wrong by eating six apples a day. She still lost weight. Even the most dedicated overeater will become full before eating too many calories.

As an added bonus, the fiber in fruits and vegetables acts as a binder to the sugar they contain. I don't recommend drinking juices because they remove the fiber from the sugar. When you drink orange juice, the sugar goes into your system real fast. This doesn't make you fat, but it does make you hungry in an hour or so. Eat an orange, on the other hand, and the fiber turns the sugar into a slow release pill so you don't experience the same sugar rush. High fiber decreases the glycemic load of the food, and studies have shown that this really does decrease hunger (Lennerz, Alsop, et al. 2013). I believe this is why fiber is so well associated with weight loss. When you look at large studies, people eating the most fruits, veggies, and grains are eating the highest fiber and thereby eating lower calories and losing more weight than meat eaters (Mozaffarian, Hao, et al. 2011).

*Plant-Based Diet for Weight Loss*
I have been using plant-based diets for weight loss for many years with considerable success. My goal is not to make everybody vegan, but rather to greatly increase the amount of fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes consumed, while decreasing our usual reliance on [animal] protein. I want my patients to turn their plate around. I tell them to dethrone the meat from its starring role in the center of the plate. I always hear that plant-based diets are hard to do, but it hasn't been for my patients. It's not just me; studies have found that vegetarian diets are very well tolerated in clinical settings (Berkow, Barnard, et al. 2010; Thedford and Raj 2011).

A plant-based diet liberates us from counting calories, but it goes further; I tell my patients not to count anything. Years of counting points and carbs, and weighing portions, has made them addicted to measuring. It is a huge relief for them to stop having to starve themselves and worrying about portions. I instruct them to eat the rainbow with a wide variety of fruits and veggies, without limits. If you are hungry, I tell them again and again, have an apple. Enjoy it fully and don't worry. I provide them with delicious recipes that allow large portions but with low-calorie content. Time and again they tell me how easy it is to eat this way. They gush over how delicious the food is, how they are never hungry, and how they feel fantastic. Remember, my business is helping people lose weight. If they didn't lose weight, I wouldn't be successful. Thankfully, this diet is extremely successful, which is why I recommend it.

sauce https://www.forksoverknives.com/ani...ulgExJEFN5MvyVGinhWKK9rKVaYfkqtqvPo#gs.awo9z1


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

An unintended consequence of meatless burger boom: Vegans lives got easier


Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods target flexitarians, not vegetarians or vegans, with their meat alternatives.

Vegans and vegetarians, who have long struggled to find appetizing options on restaurant menus, are excited about the trend anyway.

They are less excited about plant-based options from Big Food, particularly traditional meat producers like Tyson Foods or Smithfield.









Plant-based burgers weren't created with vegans and vegetarians in mind.

But they're cheering for the trend anyway.

In the United States, the percentage of vegans and vegetarians has remained relatively stagnant over the last 30 years, according to Gallup. A 2018 poll from the firm found that 5% of Americans identify as vegetarians and 3% as vegans.

Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and other companies making meat alternatives that mimic real beef, chicken or sausage are instead targeting a different kind of customer: flexitarians. That's the name used to describe the growing number of consumers who are trying to reduce how much meat they are eating, usually for health or environmental reasons. Eighteen percent of U.S. consumers are trying to eat more plant-based foods, according to the NPD Group.

In part thanks to the popularity of meatless products from Beyond and Impossible, 55 of the top 100 U.S. restaurant chains have a plant-based entree, according to a 2018 report from the Good Food Institute, an advocacy group for the plant-based food and beverage industry.

And that number will keep growing, meaning more options for vegetarians and vegans after years of choosing between a salad or an unappetizing black bean burger at restaurants.

At fast-food chains, the options were even more limited. Bruce Friedrich, co-founder and executive director of the Good Food Institute and a former PETA executive, said that he's eaten his fair share of Wendy's baked potatoes and McDonald's fries in the decades that he has followed a vegan diet. (Wendy's is currently testing a black bean burger and exploring other meat alternatives, while McDonald's is testing a Beyond burger in some Ontario restaurants.)

Teagan George, a 22-year-old data analyst based in Pasadena, California, has been a vegan for more than three years. Living near Los Angeles, she has plenty of options when it comes to choosing vegan restaurants. But when it comes to eating out with friends who eat animal products, it can be tricky.

"You don't always have the option in restaurants," George said. "If I'm with non-vegans, I don't want to make a fuss and fulfill that negative stereotype."

But as the popularity of Beyond and Impossible products soar, so does their availability. Ed Winter, a 25-year-old British vegan activist and YouTuber with over 200,000 subscribers, said that he now regularly sees Beyond burgers on the menus of traditional English pubs that would never be considered vegan friendly. The Impossible Burger is not sold yet in the United Kingdom.

Some restaurants, in an effort to simplify the process of cooking plant-based burgers, cook them alongside beef patties. At Restaurant Brand International's Burger King, for example, customers have to request that their Impossible Whoppers are cooked separately.

George said that she does not mind if her plant-based meat is cooked in the same place as meat.

Winter, on the other hand, said that he wouldn't feel comfortable eating a burger fried on the same grill or cooked in the same oil as a beef patty. But he still thinks having meat alternatives in fast-food chains is a positive step because it helps dispel the idea that veganism is an elitist, middle class diet that means shopping at Whole Foods or Sprouts.

"It's not even about turning people vegan. It's about showing people that becoming vegan is so easy," Winter said.

Still, the widespread availability of plant-based meats does not mean that vegans and vegetarians are eating them everyday. Nick Squires, a 33-year-old vegan living in Sacramento, said that he'll eat Beyond or Impossible products several days a week. As a competitive powerlifter, he leans on them for high-protein meals.

As Beyond and Impossible have gained steam with consumers, traditional food companies are branching out and creating their own meat alternatives. Kellogg, Nestle, Tyson Foods, Hormel and Smithfield are among the big names launching their own lines to appeal to a flexitarian consumer.

But unlike the start-ups that launched the trend, Big Food - particularly traditional meat producers - likely will not count many vegans and vegetarians as customers.

George said that she would rather support a plant-based company when she is shopping for vegan meats at her local grocery store.

Winter echoed that sentiment, saying that he recommends that vegans should be more mindful of where they shop, but he is glad that it makes it easier for non-vegans to buy plant-based meat.

To Friedrich, the entrance of the world's largest meat and food companies is "fantastic." He sees it as beneficial to Beyond's and Impossible's businesses. With traditional food companies' large consumer bases and distribution channels, the popularity of plant-based meat will just keep growing and become a greater threat to animal meat.

"This is not a zero-sum game," Friedrich said. "It really is a rising tide lifts all boats."

sauce https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/26/an-...GCEQtz675jIljmVcEhUnmH00ucv6X_rOITR9KDMVDTd4A


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Another reason to wash your hands (especially before you eat) and... avoid McDonalds 

*Scientists Tested McDonald's Touchscreen Menus and Found Poo on All of Them*

Ever used one of those self-order touchscreens at McDonald's? Obviously you have. Humans don't want to talk to other humans, especially when putting down an order for 36 chicken nuggets, and self-service terminals cater for that exact sociopathic desire.

You've probably used the self-order touchscreens at McDonald's several times, and that's a shame, because scientists have discovered that they're covered in ****.

Microbiologists from London Metropolitan University and Metro.co.uk recently investigated the cleanliness of the fast food chain's touchscreen menus, taking swabs from a total of eight restaurants in the UK. And they found that every single one of them showed traces of human feces and tested positive to coliform bacteria-indicating feces or sewage contamination.

"We were all surprised how much gut and fecal bacteria there was on the touchscreen machines," senior lecturer in microbiology Dr Paul Matewele told Metro. "These cause the kind of infections that people pick up in hospitals."

The probable cause for this is pretty simple: people go to the bathroom and don't wash their hands, then they go and mash their grubby, bacteria-ridden digits all over the menu. Business Insider explained that the touchscreens are designed to speed up the ordering process "while reducing opportunities for human error." Apparently the rampant human error involved in basic cleanliness and hygiene wasn't accounted for.

"Touchscreen technology is being used more and more in our daily lives but these results show people should not eat food straight after touching them, they are unhygienic and can spread disease," says Paul. "These bacteria can be on touchscreen machines for days on end."

McDonald's rolled out their expensive self-service terminals in the global market after first trialling them in Australia four years ago. They've reportedly spent millions of dollars on the devices-only for legions of unsanitary customers to leave their filthy fingerprints all over them.

Responding to the findings, a McDonald's spokesperson insisted that staff and restaurants do everything they can to keep the terminals unsullied. "Our self-order screens are cleaned frequently throughout the day with a sanitizer solution," they said. "All of our restaurants also provide facilities for customers to wash their hands before eating."

It's also worth pointing out that you could probably scratch the surface of literally anything anyone's ever touched and find poo. Humans are grubs, and the whole world is soiled. Maybe just start taking hand sanitizer everywhere you go.

sauce https://www.vice.com/en_asia/articl...OumhDJwE27B0PdjQEgy0g2qqaL5L8Z5QsB40q3N38tBw8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*People think beef is manly, and that's a big problem*

The guy in Burger King's 2006 "Manthem" campaign for the Texas Double Whopper sits in a fancy restaurant and looks at his food. He's appalled. The portion is tiny, and for some reason, it comes with a pink rosebud on the side. In a feat of utmost masculinity, he starts singing an altered version of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman," boasting that he can't settle for "chick food" and needs to eat meat.

The Double Whopper commercial aired more than 10 years ago, but the truth is, stereotypes around meat and masculinity haven't changed much. To this day, there's a cultural tendency to link the two together-particularly when it comes to red meat. Scientists have been digging into the connection since the 1980s to see how it adds up to traditional gender roles in different societies. Numerous studies have found that larger portions and unhealthy food are perceived as more masculine, while healthy food and smaller portions are considered more feminine. In fact, a 2010 study by researchers at the University of Toronto found that women tend to eat less in a romantic dinner situation to "make a good impression" on their male partners.

These patterns go hand in hand with other research that's looked at the way we perceive vegetarians and omnivores, and how that plays out when the binary-gender factor is thrown in. Vegetarianism and veganism are perceived as feminine practices, so when men engage in them, they face harsher judgement.

"People generally are more critical of men who eat plant-based than they are of women who eat plant-based, partly because of the common belief that meat is a 'man's food,' " says Matthew Ruby, a professor at the School of Psychology and Public Health at La Trobe University in Albury-Wodonga, Australia.

Both genders use descriptors like "less masculine" "physically weaker", and "less likeable" when talking about men who eschew meat; some women even find them less attractive. Last year Italian researchers from the University of Padova looked at how dietary choices in men affected heterosexual dating preferences. In a series of studies, they found that omnivorous men had more success with women, even when women didn't present a previous negative bias towards vegetarian men.

"Women are often expected to take care of themselves more; they're expected to be more compassionate and empathetic. Given that a lot of people don't eat meat for concern for animals or the environment, that fits into those conceptions of what women should be like," Ruby explains.

Meanwhile, when men quit meat for ethical or compassionate reasons, Ruby says they get flagged for adopting a feminine behavior that could jeopardize their position of strength and power.

*Why do we think eating meat is masculine?*

In a time where the gender binary and gender roles have been questioned and debunked, it's hard to put a finger on what masculinity actually is-and why meat has any role in it. While there's no consensus on why we associate red meat to masculinity, experts have presented a few tasty hypotheses by bridging ancient societies with modern ones.

*No. 1: Men are the providers*

The most widespread explanation, first presented by Julia Twigg in 1979, dates back to our hunter-gatherer roots. "In many cultures, hunting was a very male activity," Ruby says. "Men were the ones going out, doing the hunting, and providing that meat."

The most successful hunters were often large, strong men who could take on a wild animal and survive. These men were regarded as powerful, and the availability of meat in the community's meals was a direct reflection of their power.

This association might still be hardwired into our brains, Ruby says, even though "hunting meat" now only requires the strength to tap some buttons and open the door for the delivery guy.

*No. 2: Eating meat is a risky business*

In sociology, masculinity is described as a precarious state that men must assert regularly and publicly. One of the main ways to do this is by engaging in risky behavior, be that avoiding medical or mental health care, or engaging in risky sexual behavior or substance abuse.

A diet that includes large portions and plenty of red meat, which is proven to be unhealthier than poultry and fish, can also count as a risky behavior. "There's this association between unhealthy eating and masculinity, that if you're a real man you shouldn't be so concerned about your health," Ruby says.

He's cautious, though, and clarifies that this is only a possible explanation, given that the idea of red meat being unhealthy is rather new. Only a few decades ago, red meat was seen as a key element of any recommended diet

*No. 3: Meat is a symbol of white-male privilege*

According to Carol Adams, a feminist-vegan advocate and author of the book The Sexual Politics of Meat, the myth that you need meat for strength is "traceable to this intersection of colonialism, white supremacy, and masculinity."

Historically, Adams says red meat was a luxury reserved for aristocrats, who, at the turn of the 19th century, were largely male and white. The bourgeois didn't hunt or raise the cattle they ate; servants and peasants did all the physical work, though they themselves couldn't afford to eat meat on a regular basis.

Regardless, Europeans upheld the concept that meat equals strength, masculinity, and ultimately, superiority. Adams notes that the English bragged about how they were able to colonize India because their soldiers ate red meat unlike the native men. She also mentions that in World War II, the US and UK rationed meat at home so that soldiers on the front lines would have more fuel for the fight. The governments also launched a victory-garden initiative using propaganda that featured only womenplanting and harvesting vegetables.

*Winds of (cultural) change*

Though it's safe to say that the link between meat and masculinity is widespread, its expression varies between cultures. Understanding the nuances helps us to better dissect the stereotypes and learn how to get past them.

That's no small order, of course. Culture is flexible and changes constantly, but it may take a while to get over entrenched beliefs on meat and gender roles. While feminist and LGBTQI+ movements across the world have forced societies to question their definition of masculinity, the industry has been slower on the uptake. Fast food ads continue to target men with gendered cliches and expectations. "All of these are ways of trying to recuperate something that has already been lost," Adams says.

The popularity of plant-based diets has, in some part, forced meat-centric companies to invest in vegetarian and vegan trends. Maybe 2020 will be the year Burger King finally revamps its "Manthem" campaign to include a chicken nugget-or even a carrot.

sauce https://www.popsci.com/meat-masculi...k2TrKv1Sh1kp17E7SgdJ7xWjWG6H3s_cY4rccEChtET88


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Come on. cyclelicious, it's very manly to procure meat for your family. You risk getting freezer burn reaching into that cooler at the grocery store.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

chazpat said:


> Come on. cyclelicious, it's very manly to procure meat for your family. You risk getting freezer burn reaching into that cooler at the grocery store.


lol


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

November 1 is:









I do it for the animals plus the health aspects most certainly helped.


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## jupiter58 (Jan 13, 2016)

I really enjoy being an omnivore, I have the ability to digest both plant and animal matter


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## jupiter58 (Jan 13, 2016)

to each his own....right?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*For World Vegan Day: 5 Things to Know About Veganism*

November 1 is World Vegan Day marking 75 years since the word vegan was coined. Even though the concept of veganism has been around for a while, there are plenty of misconceptions about it. Here are five things to know about veganism.

1) For most people, going vegan is a process, not an overnight transformation. Staying focused on that process, making one choice at a time, can make the endeavor seem way less daunting. That is, instead of worrying about whether you can ever be vegan, just start making more vegan choices and see where you end up.

2) Veganism is not a diet. According to the Vegan Society, it is "a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose." You could just as easily start with a focus on cruelty-free personal care and cleaning products, or non-wool yarn if you're a knitter, or by swearing off all forms of entertainment that involve animals. A mix of steps that involve diet choices as well as wardrobe, personal care, craft, and household purchases, can keep you moving forward. It gives you more opportunities to make choices that reduce your reliance on animal products. Keeping at least part of your focus on food choices is important, though, because it's where purchases have the biggest impact on animals. For example, you might start your foray into veganism by doing these three things: stop eating chicken (it's tremendously impactful on animal suffering), commit to buying cruelty-free cleaning products (it's relatively easy), and explore vegan craft supplies (it's fun).

3) There is no one right way to eat as a vegan. For everyone, vegan or not, it's a good idea to build meals around legumes, nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats, and to eat fewer sweets and foods made with lots of refined carbs. But you'll probably find that a vegan diet is easier and more enjoyable if you allow some flexibility in your menus. It's okay to take advantage of vegan versions of foods that mimic familiar animal products like burgers, sausages, and cheese if it makes a vegan diet feel more realistic to you. And added fats and treats can fit in a healthy vegan diet.

4) Good nutrition doesn't just happen. It takes a little knowledge and attention. Learning a few tips for meeting nutrient needs on a vegan diet can give you confidence and a sense of security in moving forward. To eliminate any worry you might have about nutrition, this short article has everything you need to know.

5) Veganism is about intention and effort, not perfection. For one thing, it's impossible to avoid all animal products. Musical instruments might contain animal-derived glue, and car and bicycle tires commonly contain animal ingredients. Many people need medications that are tested are animals. Sometimes, like in the case of vaccines, the responsible choice is a non-vegan one. It's much easier to find vegan alternatives to traditional animal-derived products today than it was 75 years ago, but there is still no way to avoid animal products completely. This is why the Vegan Society included the "as far as possible and practicable" clause in their definition. The important thing is that every choice you can make is a way to move the world toward a more just and compassionate one for animals

SAUCE https://www.theveganrd.com/2019/11/...IFWgsvnfY9OHeAO1BCRRBVF3q9AXanlBrT5RzZPLu5pSY


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

jupiter58 said:


> to each his own....right?


I agree with that so much I apply it to each animal and their own bodies


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> *Here are five things to know about veganism.
> 
> *


*

But they left out the burning question I want to know: why is it veegan? It's not veegetarian or veegetables.
This kind of thing drives me crazy. Where's the common sense?*


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## jupiter58 (Jan 13, 2016)

what percentage of the american population identify as vegetarian? 2%- 5%?


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

jupiter58 said:


> what percentage of the american population identify as vegetarian? 2%- 5%?


I believe it is 12%.


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## jupiter58 (Jan 13, 2016)

Are Norweeeegens veegans


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting article. When I first started weight lifting 6 years ago, some trainers (who were advocates of paleo diets... and had very little knowledge about vegetarian/vegan diets) encouraged me to try protein drinks "for energy and to build muscle". I took their advice, and tried a couple of brands that were pea protein (and vegan) as most brands contain whey. I tried the drinks for a few weeks and lost interest because 1) tasted awful 2) caused bloating 3) I was getting enough energy from whole foods etc. I stopped taking these drinks and just adjusted my intake. Fast forward 6 years, I'm leaner, stronger, faster etc... without "protein powder"

This article is not anti-protein powder but does encourage consumers to do some research, understand your needs and goals, read labels and be aware of what you are putting into your body rather than relying on someone's recommendation. 

*3 Things that Shouldn't Be in Your Protein Powder (But Probably Are)*

Over the years, we've talked a lot about protein: How much you need, how to get it from food, and whether or not you should supplement.

And there's no one-size-fits-all answer to that last question&#8230;

Although I've managed to get plenty of protein from whole foods for the past few years, I've always acknowledged that for certain people - people who want to add muscle, try to hit macronutrient levels, or just want some peace of mind - supplementing makes more sense.

But if you take protein powder yourself, there's one question you should most definitely know the answer to:

*What's in your protein powder?*

I started looking more closely at protein powders a few months ago, for my kids' sake. They're both young plant-based athletes, and - call it parental paranoia if you want - I find myself worrying about their picky eating habits, specifically that most of the foods they love (fresh fruits and vegetables, especially in smoothies) aren't necessarily dense in protein or, more generally, in total calories.

But when I started looking at the ingredient lists of the common plant-based powders, I was surprised and disappointed. Unfamiliar and artificial ingredients, plus sweeteners (even natural ones) that I knew they wouldn't like the taste of in their smoothies.

So I did some more digging&#8230;

And it got worse. Waaay worse.

Today I want to share a bit about what I found, in hopes that it helps you to make more informed decisions when choosing a protein powder, if you choose to use them.

And I'll start with the one that scares me the most&#8230;

*1. Heavy Metals and Other Carcinogens*
Now, I know what you're thinking.

Heavy metals and chemicals in my protein powder? Nah. No way. I get the good stuff. And it comes from plants.

Think again. Last year, the Clean Label Project™ completed a study examining 134 plant-based and animal-based protein powder products from 52 different brands. They screened for over 130 toxins, including heavy metals, BPA, pesticides, and other contaminants with ties to health problems.

And you know what they found? (You might want to sit down for this one.)

Many of the most popular plant-based powders were ranked the worst for their high levels of contaminants like heavy metals. In fact, plant-based proteins ranked lower than animal-based proteins on average.

So how does that nasty stuff get into your powder?

According to Clean Label Project, "Contaminants are the result of sourcing and production practices. Contaminants can be found in soils because of pesticides and mining run-off (ex. heavy metals) and can be absorbed into plants just like nutrients. They can also be the result of the manufacturing process (ex. BPA/BPS is using the lining of cans and containers and leach into the protein powder.)"

Let's take a closer look at some of the most common heavy metals and chemicals to see what the study actually found:

*BPA (bisphenol A)*
By now you've probably heard of BPA, but most people don't actually know what it is. BPA, or bisphenol A, is a chemical used in a lot of commercial product packaging as a way to strengthen the plastic.

High amounts of BPA, however, is known to cause cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other mental and physical health issues.

A few years ago, BPA garnered a lot of attention when it was discovered to leach from that plastic into drinks, like water. Since then, many popular water bottles have gone BPA-free, but it's still commonly used in many food containers, including some plastic containers that store protein powder, or even the plastic measuring scoop often included in the tub.

The Clean Label Project study found that 55% of protein powders tested had high levels of BPA, and one had over 25 times the allowed regulatory limit in just one serving.

*Lead*
According to the study, nearly 70% of plant-based protein powders contained measurable amounts of lead. The potential mental and physical health problems associated with lead are well documented, so why is it showing up in these protein powders?

The primary problem seems to be where the ingredients are sourced from. Lead in the ground seeps into the growing food before harvesting, and stays there as it's turned into your powder.

*Arsenic*
Arsenic is a naturally occurring chemical often found in water, food, and soil.

This is a particular problem with rice-based products, which is grown in water-flooded conditions, and arsenic in the soil finds its way into the roots of rice crops and is eventually stored in the grains.

Arsenic, of course, is also known to cause a number of health problems including cancer.

So why is it in plant-based protein powder? Primarily because of poorly sourced brown rice protein isolate.

*Cadmium*
According to the same Clean Label Project study, 74% of protein powders contained measurable amounts of cadmium.

Cadmium is another natural toxic element often found in rocks and soil, and because it does not corrode easily, it's often used in batteries. That's right, batteries.

And you guessed it, cadmium also has links to cancer.

But what if my powder is organic?

That was one of my first questions as well. But organic, although good for other reasons, is no help when it comes to heavy metals. Organic protein powders had on average twice the amount of heavy metals as non-organic options, so if a brand doesn't disclose heavy metal information to you, you're left wondering.

*2. Sweeteners and Flavorings*
These days, sweeteners are added to just about every processed food, so it should come as no surprise that they're also often added to protein powders.

But here's the thing.

Sweeteners are totally unnecessary. Same goes with flavors (natural or not) like vanilla. The only reason companies often adds the sweeteners and flavors is to try and mask the taste.

In turn, however, they're adding unnatural ingredients that not only taste fake, but are potentially harmful.

Take a look at common artificial sweeteners like acesulfame potassium, sucralose, or splenda, for example. These sweeteners with their potent taste not only train the brain to crave sweet foods, but are known to increase the risk of diabetes and obesity.

How about natural sweeteners like stevia or monk fruit, you ask?

In my opinion, if it isn't serving me (or my kids), I don't want to add it to my smoothie, where the additional sweetness only makes things taste less natural. I want my smoothie to taste like the fruit that's in it, and no sweeter.

*3. Fillers, Preservatives, and Gums*
While the contaminants scare me most, the biggest shocker I came across in my research on protein powders was what I learned about fillers.

First, there's a reason why you don't see percentages next to protein powder ingredients on labels.

Many brands, like the one I used to take, boast a "blend of pea, rice, hemp, and chia" (for example) to create the appearance of a complete amino acid profile. But if they're not telling you the amounts of each in the product, then nothing prevents them from using 95 or even 99 percent of the cheapest powder, and only blending the others to make up the remaining 5 percent or less.

There's nothing to tell you it's pretty much just one type of protein. And that the amino acid profile is incomplete.

In an industry so unregulated as supplements are, it's not hard to imagine that's what they do.

Besides cheap proteins, dextrin (a carbohydrate from starch) and maltodextrin (produced from corn, rice, potato starch, or wheat) are common fillers added to protein powder to bulk it up.

Then there are gums, like xanthan gum, which is derived from corn and soy and often used as a thickener in protein power. These gums are totally unnatural, and often cause bloating and gas.

The misleading packaging means you don't ever really know what's in your powder. Sure, you might have an ordered ingredient list, but when you don't know how much of each ingredient is included, you have know idea if your powder is really what it claims to be.

*What's In Your Protein Powder Matters*
When I first started doing this research, it terrified me. Since I was just looking for a small boost to their intake, not a 40-gram megadose of protein, I had assumed choosing a natural, plant-based option would be easy.

But toxic heavy metals?

BPA?

Artificial sweeteners?

And not really knowing how much of each protein is in it?

As a parent, the last thing I'd want is to think I'm making a smart decision to help my kids' health and athletic potential - and actually be giving them something that does the opposite.

So: armed with this knowledge of the problems with most protein powders, what do you do?

For starters, your research.

A quick search will produce a number of lists created by reputable sources of powders that are better than others. Companies that source ingredients from the right places and spend the time to do the appropriate testing.

Or there's the other option&#8230; create your own.

Ultimately, when I couldn't find what I wanted on the market, that's what I opted to do. (Just like with Complement, where I wanted a way to be able to get just the handful of important nutrients missing from a plant-based diet in from a single source.)

For the past several months, the No Meat Athlete team and I - along with the help from a small group of super-engaged community members - have been working on a cleaner, healthier, plant-based protein powder, free of heavy metals, sweeteners, and other fillers. And one which we can be completely transparent about which ingredients are included and exactly how much of each.

Not a giant dose of protein, just a boost, meant to "complement" what's already in a healthy plant-based diet.

In other words, a protein powder I'd be comfortable giving to my own kids.

That new (better, cleaner) powder is now available to the public. And I couldn't be happier to get it out into the world.

sauce https://www.nomeatathlete.com/prote...C2sNDNik2sfx0cNfAtEDuU1NX5O_xQQxKFtZs0KDPqbHI


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## jupiter58 (Jan 13, 2016)

what she said


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## Sir kayakalot (Jul 23, 2017)

Wow! Very informative Cyclelicious, thanks for posting. It’s just downright scary all of the bad stuff out there.


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

Hi Everyone checking in. 57 years old been eating meat all my life. I ride quite a bit and race occasionally. I’d like to drop 25 lbs and feel better. Not fat now but not at race weight. My wife and I eliminated all meat a week ago. So far so good! I have studied nutrition and think I am fairly aware of the alleged pitfalls of eliminating meat like calcium, vitamins D and B12, Zinc and Iron deficiencies some claim to be aware of. Last couple fairly intense rides like today I felt fine and no different than running on a meat based diet. We’re not eating super clean but no meat of any kind. So far so good!!! Thanks 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Way to go trmn8er! Let us know how it's going. Trim back on dairy (there's plenty of alternatives). High fibre and drink water


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Dean Foods, America's largest milk producer, is filing for bankruptcy.*

The 94-year-old company has struggled in recent years because Americans are drinking less cows milk. 2019 has been particularly brutal: the company's sales tumbled 7% in the first half of the year, and profit fell 14%. Dean Foods stock has lost 80% this year

The company, which makes some of the country's most recognizable milk and dairy products, including Dairy Pure, Organic Valley and Land O'Lakes, has blamed its struggles on the "accelerated decline in the conventional white milk category." Once a staple of the American refrigerator, milk has slowly fallen out of favor with consumers as they seek less-sugary or plant-based alternatives.
The global market for milk alternatives is expected to top $18 billion this year, up 3.5% from 2018, according to Euromonitor. That's still a fraction of the traditional milk market which will come in at just under $120 billion globally this year.

Sales for cow's milk has been declining for the past four years. Sales for the past 52 weeks, ending on October 26, was around $12 billion, according to data Nielsen provided to CNN Business. That's a decline from $15 billion during a similar time period in 2015. All types of cow's milk, such as 1%, 2%, skim and fat-free milk sales have all declined.

In contrast, and while still much smaller, sales of oat milk has jumped 636% to $53 million over the past year.


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## drich (Oct 9, 2015)

trmn8er said:


> Hi Everyone checking in. 57 years old been eating meat all my life. I ride quite a bit and race occasionally . . .
> 
> Nice work! I haven't had any meat or fish for close to 20 years and it has not hurt my athletic performance. I'm currently reading "End of Dieting" by Joel Fuhrman. He also wrote "Eat to Live." He is basically advocating a vegan diet and it might be a good book for you to read in order to stay motivated. Keep riding.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Apparently old news but news to me

*RESEARCHERS DISCOVER SEAWEED THAT TASTES LIKE BACON AND IS TWICE AS HEALTHY AS KALE*









Researchers at Oregon State have patented a new strain of seaweed that tastes like bacon when it's cooked.

The seaweed, a form of red marine algae, looks like translucent red lettuce. It also has twice the nutritional value of kale and grows very quickly. Did we mention it tastes like bacon?

According to Oregon State researcher Chris Langdon, his team started growing the new strain while trying to find a good food source for edible sea snails, or abalone, a very popular food in many parts of Asia. The strain is a new type of red algae that normally grows along the Pacific and Atlantic coastlines.

But Langdon realized he had his hands on something with a lot more potential when his colleague Chuck Toombs visited his office and caught a glimpse of the growing seaweed. Toombs said he thought the bacon-seaweed had "the potential for a new industry for Oregon," he told Oregon State in a press release.

Langdon said no US companies grow red algae for people to eat, but the seaweed had been consumed by people in northern Europe for centuries.

"This stuff is pretty amazing," Langdon told OSU. "When you fry it, which I have done, it tastes like bacon, not seaweed. And it's a pretty strong bacon flavor."

Though no analysis has been done yet to find out whether commercializing the bacon-seaweed would be practical, the team thinks the vegan and vegetarian markets may be interested. Toombs' MBA students are hard at work on a marketing plan for a new line of specialty foods.

Some red algae is sold in the US now, but it is a different strain from the one harvested at OSU. Langdon says he is growing about 20 to 30 pounds of the stuff a week, but he plans to more than triple the production.

sauce https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...zeCuVIdhEHbz9PXQmT-Nud2eW-2Rc5vORTaE7KRbqDtPk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*United Airlines 'Focusing Heavily' On Plant-Based Options*

Travel company United Airlines says it is 'focusing heavily' on plant-based options in a bid to keep up with 'evolving food trends'.

The organization, who stopped selling SeaWorld tickets earlier this summer over animal-welfare issues, released 'healthier options' earlier this year - but is now overhauling its menu to focus on vegan in-flight dining.

According to CNBC, Executive Chef Gerry Gulli revealed some of the plant-based dishes that will roll out in 2020 - including red beet hummus with roasted vegetables, roasted curry cauliflower with whipped hummus and pomegranate, and vegan stuffed grape leaf with dolma infused yogurt.

Vegan in-flight dining 
Earlier this year, major airline Jet2.com launched two new vegan dishes in response to the growing demand for plant-based food.

The organization rolled out an All-Day Vegan Breakfast, featuring vegan sausage, rosti potatoes, and sautéed mushrooms in tomato sauce, and a Vegan Moroccan Vegetable Tagine served with couscous.

"Customer feedback shows that there is strong demand for vegan options, so we are delighted to be introducing these two delicious meals, giving customers more choice on our award-winning airline," Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays, said in a statement.

"We are always looking at ways in which we can develop our offering and VIP customer experience, and we are sure that these new pre-ordered meals will be just as popular as the exciting in-flight menu changes that we have already announced this year."

sauce https://www.plantbasednews.org/life...L2NOQ_zzwIOhDI7rA1mh6MmvIQWoRZ7O6dqTnpJjwldQI


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Coconut oil is marketed as healthy, but it has more saturated fat than butter or lard*









It's regularly touted as a "superfood" or a "healthy fat" and is found in supermarkets and health food stores across the country.

But coconut oil is made up almost entirely of saturated fat. In a 14-gram tablespoon, about 13 grams - over 90 per cent - is saturated fat.

That's nearly double the amount in the same volume of butter, 2.5 times as much as lard, and more than six times the saturated fat of olive oil.

Marketplace reviewed the study that seemed to spark the coconut oil health craze, and found that even its author isn't buying into the health trend.

"It's unfortunate that coconut oil has been given this health halo," said Marie-Pierre St-Onge, whose research is often used to make coconut oil health claims. "Especially since we know that saturated fats increase cholesterol concentrations, which increases your risk of cardiovascular disease."

St-Onge's research, dating back to 2003, looked to find solutions to the obesity epidemic. She found that the use of a specific kind of saturated fat known as medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) could help overweight subjects lose weight.

The chemical structure of MCT is slightly different - and slightly shorter - than the more common long-chain saturated fatty acids. Some of the saturated fat in coconut oil is considered medium-chain.

Soon after St-Onge's research was published, coconut oil began to be promoted as a health food that helps with weight loss. But she said only about 15 per cent of coconut oil should be considered MCT.

"I think companies should be responsible in their communication to the public and making sure that a research that's been done is being translated accurately," she said.

"I would not consume it on a regular basis in large quantities."

Still, coconut oil is often recommended as a one-for-one substitute for butter and oil in recipes and as a trendy "keto" addition to coffee in the morning - despite the fact just one spoonful would put you at 70 per cent of Health Canada's recommended daily limit of saturated fat.

Saturated fat has long been associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease due to decades of studies that have influenced public health policies around the world.

Industry says saturated fat from coconut oil is better
St-Onge's studies aren't the only research used to back up health claims for coconut oil.

The Coconut Coalition of the Americas (CCA) - the industry group that represents some of the major coconut oil brands - asked Marketplace to consider studies that conclude that saturated fat doesn't affect cardiovascular risk.

But experts Marketplace spoke with said there is not enough evidence to counter decades of research linking saturated fat to heart and stroke risk.

One study that the CCA referenced is what's known as the "PURE" study, which didn't study coconut oil specifically, but concluded that test subjects eating more saturated fat had a better health outcome than those eating less of it.

Even though the study was published in the prestigious Lancet medical journal, experts still disagree on how to interpret those results.

The conclusions were criticized by the Harvard School of Public Health for using test subjects from developing countries whose diets were particularly high in refined carbohydrates and indicative of a "poverty diet."

A review in the American Journal of Medicine also pointed this out, stating "adequate nourishment in the diet was likely the reason for less death" and that the results "may reflect a need for any type of fat in the diet to treat nutritional deficiencies."

Industry experts say conclusions of nutritional studies can sometimes be controversial since they are largely observational, which can make them more subjective

"You can pull all the research together and look for consistency," said Dr. Michael Greger, an American physician, author and public speaker who founded NutritionFacts.org to help consumers make sense of nutrition studies.

The gold standard for a typical pharmaceutical clinical trial is a randomized double-blind test. But according to Greger, this becomes trickier with nutrition.

"It's easy to randomize people to 10 weeks of eating in a certain way. But they can't randomize people eating for decades in a certain way," he said. "Some of these chronic diseases take decades to develop."

Government proposing saturated fat warnings
Most of the science over the past several decades has shown that a high intake of saturated fat can raise LDL, or the "bad" cholesterol, in the blood, which has been associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease in many studies.

In Canada, one in two people eat saturated fat in quantities beyond the recommended daily limit, which works out to about 20 grams, including trans fat.

Along with trans fat, Health Canada recommends keeping saturated fat intake as "low as possible," and suggests replacing it with mono-unsaturated or poly-unsaturated fats found in liquid oils, like olive and canola oils.

It's not always obvious what products are high in saturated fat, especially if they are marketed as a health food.

In the United States, Costco was involved in a class-action lawsuit over their Kirkland brand of coconut oil.

"Costco misleadingly labels and markets its Kirkland Coconut Oil as both inherently healthy, and a healthy alternative to butter and other oils, despite the fact that it is actually inherently unhealthy and a less healthy alternative," read the statement of claim.

The dispute was settled with an award of $775,000 US to the plaintiffs and an agreement that the company would not use the terms "health," "healthful," or any other derivative of the term "healthy" on their oil's labels.

According to a response from Costco, the agreement to change the wording on the labels, and any actions taken to carry the agreement, should not be taken as admission that the company's labelling was misleading.

The Kirkland coconut oil sold in Canada does not currently have health claims on its labels.

The American Heart Association recently published a public health advisory warning consumers of diets high in saturated fat - including coconut oil - and the associated cardiovascular risk.

Canada may soon be going even further to curb misinformation and help Canadians make healthier choices.

Health Canada has proposed putting front-of-label advisories on all foods that are especially high in sugar, salt or saturated fat.

In a statement, Health Canada told Marketplace that according to the proposed regulations, "coconut oil would be required to carry a 'high in saturated fat' symbol." That proposal is currently being reviewed after "extensive consultations" over the past few years and would be part of the Healthy Eating Strategy that revamped Canada's Food Guide earlier this year.

Until then, it's up to Canadians to take the time to read nutrition labels to see if the health claims add up - and take flashy news headlines with a grain of salt.

"If you actually look at the peer-reviewed medical literature going back decades, it's really a consensus around the core elements of healthy eating. But they're still able to get clickbait papers published," said Greger. "It sells a lot of magazines, but it sells the public short."

sauce https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/coco...VRZ_FEONO_LCCoZK_acYGetOHgQobWszZEqQGDE3svqWY


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

First it was pineapple... now bananas!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How much would giving up meat help the environment?*









IT IS NO secret that steaks and chops are delicious. But guzzling them incurs high costs for both carnivorous humans and the planet. Over half of adults in both America and Britain say they want to reduce their meat consumption, according to Mintel, a market-research firm. Whether they will is a different matter. The amount of meat that Americans and Britons consume per day has risen by 10% since 1970, according to figures from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation.

People who want to eat less livestock-but who can't quite bring themselves to exchange burgers for beans-might take inspiration from two recent academic papers. A study published this week by scientists at Oxford University and the University of Minnesota estimates both the medical and environmental burdens of having an extra serving per day of various food types. The health findings were sobering. Compared with a typical Western adult of the same age who eats an average diet, a person who guzzles an additional 50g of processed red meat (about two rashers of bacon) per day has a 41% higher chance of dying in a given year.

Meat has an even starker impact on the environment. Compared with a 100g portion of vegetables-the standard serving size considered in academic papers-a 50g chunk of red meat is associated with at least 20 times as much greenhouse-gas emitted and 100 times as much land use. Averaged across all the ecological indicators the authors used, red meat was about 35 times as damaging as a bowl of greens.

However, a newly converted vegetarian who replaces every 50g of beef she usually eats with 100g of kale would soon be famished. A standard portion of greens contains far fewer calories than a slab of meat. So an aspiring herbivore would have to eat far more servings of salad than the number of burgers she has forsaken.

Earlier this year a group of academics, based mainly at Johns Hopkins University, simulated the environmental effects of such substitutions. They used consumption and trading data from 140 countries to estimate which foodstuffs people might switch to in order to help the planet, and came up with several hypothetical diet plans. These would allow people to achieve the recommended amounts of energy and protein in various ways.

Giving up meat makes a big difference. For instance, compared with an American who eats 2,300 calories of a typical mix of foods, one who became vegetarian would knock 30% off their annual greenhouse-gas emissions from eating. But dairy, produced by methane-emitting cows, is still costly. Environmentally conscious omnivores can get similar reductions in their carbon footprints by cutting out milk and cheese.

A better option still would be go to vegan for two-thirds of meals, while still occasionally indulging in animal products. Doing so would cut food-related greenhouse-gas emissions by nearly 60%. Absolute veganism, unsurprisingly, is the most environmentally friendly. Die-hard leaf-eaters can claim to have knocked off 85% off their carbon footprint.

sauce https://www.economist.com/graphic-d...9C96x6zUMPYurS9PM6YIOszJfUtY-4Svxo_5pfl6Dwyp8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Party On Jebediah!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's a Thanksgiving Miracle


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

'Hasta la vista, baby'


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

lol I'm stealing that


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Boost Your Health With These 3 Fall Foods!*

Eating fruits and vegetables daily should be a priority no matter what your goals are. After all, few other foods can elevate your health and physique gains the way nutrient-dense fruits and veggies can. But why load up your grocery cart with asparagus from Peru or blueberries from who-knows-where when Mother Nature provides a new, domestic batch of nutritious and delicious options with every season change?

As sweater weather arrives, it's time for you to embrace the numerous health benefits that several in-season fruits and vegetables have to offer. With that said, these three fall standouts are the cream of the crop and worth making a regular part of your fall menu. Heck, you may even save a couple bucks each grocery trip, too.

*1. Pears*
No doubt you've heard the old saying, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." But it turns out that a different fall fruit may provide greater benefits than the wholesome apple: The pear. A 2015 study from Louisiana State University discovered that people who eat pears regularly are less likely to pack on unwanted fat pounds.[1] Using nearly a decade of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which involved 24,808 adult participants, researchers found that people who regularly ate pears weighed an average of 8 pounds less than those who didn't, despite the fact that overall caloric intake was about the same.

One reason pears are an excellent tool when fighting the battle of the bulge is that one medium pear contains 6 grams of fiber-almost 33 percent more than an equal portion of apples![2] Dietary fiber helps to support healthy blood sugar already in normal range; promote satiety, which can reduce cravings; and curb hunger throughout the day, ultimately helping you adhere to your diet.









Furthermore, the investigators in the aforementioned study found that despite the laudable benefits of eating more pears, only 2 percent of Americans ate a single one on any given day. That's a shame, considering that people who ate pears were also 35 percent less likely to be overweight and were found to have higher intakes of additional essential nutrients such as vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium.

Need to Know: There are two major types of pears: European and Asian pears. The former provide the bottom-heavy shape you are most likely familiar with, whereas Asian pears are often more uniform in color and shaped similarly to apples.

Bartlett pears are a supermarket stalwart, and the most popularly produced and sold pear in the United States, but other delicious varieties include Bosc, Anjou, Seckel, and the ultra-crisp Asian.

Eat More: Pears make for a perfect out-of-hand snack option, but also consider adding slices to oatmeal, yogurt, toast (try placing slices on top of almond butter), and even salads for a sweet counterpoint to the earthy-tasting vegetables.

*2. Parsnips*
Parsnips belong to the Apiaceae or Umbelliferae family, which the more popular carrot is a part of. Perhaps, however, Bugs Bunny should have opted for parsnips over carrots, considering the ghostly cousin provides a powerful punch of nutrients!

For starters, parsnips supply a bounty of dietary fiber-roughly 7 grams per cup. That's nearly twice as much as the same serving size of carrots (6.5 grams and 3.4 grams per cup, respectively). We've already praised fiber for its role in keeping body fat in check, but it's also an overall health booster. Case in point: A study published in the Journal of Gerontology discovered that a high-fiber diet can bring about healthier aging.









So, if you want to enjoy plenty of birthdays in tip-top shape, stick to a healthy diet including fiber-packed foods like parsnips. Other nutritional highlights of the root vegetable include a range of vitamins and minerals such as vitamin K, vitamin C, magnesium, potassium, and folate. These nutritional treats are also very low-calorie and can help increase your food volume without the caloric overload.

Need to Know: Smaller, thinner parsnips tend to taste sweeter and less woody. Unlike carrots, parsnips almost always taste better when they have been cooked, because of the bitter tastes they exude raw.

Eat More: Roasting, steaming, stir-frying and pureeing into soups are some of the many ways to enjoy parsnips. For a simple preparation that enhances the nutty, sweet flavor of the vegetable, try tossing a bunch of chopped parsnips with some olive oil, then spread them out on a baking sheet. Roast them in the oven at 400 degrees F until darkened and tender, which usually takes about 30 minutes.

*3. Jerusalem Artichokes*
These gnarled tubers of the sunflower family have nothing to do with the famous city or artichokes. Illogical names aside, Jerusalem artichokes, also called sunchokes or earth apples, can add crisp texture and bright flavor reminiscent of jicama, water chestnuts, and apple to your fall menu.

Their nutritional trump card is a high amount of the soluble fiber inulin. Inulin is a prebiotic, meaning it serves as a food source for the beneficial bacteria in your gut. A diet high in prebiotics has been shown to have a positive impact on gut and immune health.









Need to Know: The best Jerusalem artichokes are firm with a uniform light-brown hue. Steer clear of those with sprouts, wrinkled skin, or blotches, as the taste is far from stellar. Mercifully, their thin skin does not need to be peeled before eating, but you can if you so choose.

Eat More: Jerusalem artichokes can be eaten raw, so try slicing them very thinly and adding them to salads or pasta dishes for some delicious crunch. Or, cut them into larger pieces and use as a delivery system for dips.

For a healthier take on French fries, slice sunchokes into matchsticks, then toss them with olive oil, chopped fresh thyme or rosemary, salt, and pepper. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 15 minutes, or until crisp.

sauce https://www.bodybuilding.com/conten...5gpsZk5dWaxYA6Zd-6KqOBM23Jd2G4uInp9uc92cxWv14


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

drich said:


> trmn8er said:
> 
> 
> > Hi Everyone checking in. 57 years old been eating meat all my life. I ride quite a bit and race occasionally . . .
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Way to go trmn8er! From my research and experience, if you eat a whole foods plant based diet with minimal processed foods and keep well hydrated you will get enough protein, fibre and energy. Congratulations on improving not only your life, but the lives of many animals too!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

More good news!

*PLANT-BASED DIET SLASHES COGNITIVE DECLINE IN OLD AGE BY UP TO 33 PERCENT, STUDY FINDS*

Eating a plant-based diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and lower in animal products lowers the risk of cognitive decline later in life, a new study suggests.

Led by Koh Woon Puay, a professor at the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and the Duke-NUS Medical School, the study examined data available from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, a population cohort study of 63,257 Chinese people living in Singapore. Puay and her colleagues interviewed adults aged 45 to 74 about their diet and lifestyle between April 1993 and December 1998, with three follow-up visits until 2016. For the study, Puay used the data to select information on 16,948 individuals (aged 53, on average) as a baseline. These participants only completed cognitive function assessments during their follow-up visit, in 2014 to 2016, and of them, 14.4 percent had cognitive impairment. The researchers found that people who had strongly adhered to plant-based dietary patterns during midlife were less likely to develop cognitive impairment later on. Specifically, those whose diets were plant-based were 18 to 33 percent less likely to develop cognitive impairment than those who don't follow a plant-heavy diet.

"Previous studies have shown mixed results when it comes to diet and the risk of cognitive impairment, with few studies conducted in Asian populations," Puay told media outlet Medical News Today. "Our study suggests that maintaining a [healthful] dietary pattern is important for the prevention of onset and delay of cognitive impairment."

https://vegnews.com/2019/11/plant-b...L4z7oza_LAwSiTkfpnCQ4WNp7c5JzgKQLOfNxbzTgLtPc


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sharing my lunch


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The obscenity of pardoning two turkeys*

View attachment 1295133


On the national stage, two turkeys shipped alive from North Carolina to Washington D.C., named Bread and Butter, will get a presidential "pardon" on Tuesday. One will be put on display while President Trump issues the pardon for the cameras.

Meanwhile, nearly 50 million other turkeys have been shipped dead to stores across this country. They were all babies. Turkeys are born in large incubators - most will never meet their mothers, who are fiercely protective and wonderful parents. After a few weeks, they are moved to large, windowless sheds, where they will live for five months, surrounded by thousands of other baby turkeys. Their beaks and feet are mutilated so they won't hurt each other due to the tight confines.

They are bred to get as large as possible, so oftentimes their legs and feet give way under them. They sit and suffer until someone kills them or they starve. At around five months, they finally see the sun as they are loaded into trucks and sent to be killed. They often break their wings and legs during transport and are given no food or water on the trip.

This is all legal and considered standard agricultural practice.

A mutilated and sick bird will not be put on display in front of cameras in D.C. They will be adults, and not covered in feces like the birds headed to slaughterhouses sometimes are. They look clean and healthy and have become accustomed to humans.

But they will not be exempt from the conditions for which they are bred, which include heart disease, strokes and joint issues. Modern commercial turkeys have wild ancestors who can live 10 years, roost in trees and fly. They are brilliant and social birds who have large territories of forest.

Since President Truman pardoned the first turkey in 1947, their captured descendants, domesticated turkeys, have doubled in size and continue to be bred to grow bigger and be killed younger. They cannot fly and most do not reproduce naturally; they are forcibly impregnated.

But even though he is subject to unnatural breeding and evolution, the bird who will be paraded in front of Trump will look healthier and happier than 99% of the turkeys being killed for Thanksgiving.

Sorry not sorry to ruin your feast: The actual face of Thanksgiving is a sick and dying baby bird.

Morning television viewers who watch the pardoning will not see millions of bird faces. They will, therefore, continue to be kept in the dark about animal agriculture while participating in a mass mocking of turkeys and normalization of eating their bodies.

The two turkeys pardoned last year were named Peas and Carrots. Before them were Wishbone and Drumstick. Even the names they are called are dismissive and mean. This is a ritual of mocking those whom are entirely at our disposal by people with absolute power.

For what are we pardoning these birds? No crime has been committed but the crime of not being born the dominant species. They are helpless and vulnerable because of what we have done to them and how we treat them, and then we mock them with this act of false mercy. Enough.

sauce https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion...eNK9CsoHkivijQPDQ1SGTe7MChqdpTyEv1VQlhFx_gTA0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Cheers!


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

No Meat Thanksgiving first time ever for me. Had a great meal without the meat and it was fine. Gotta admit the Honeybaked Han sounded good but there were lots of other things to eat. Now time for Pumpkin Pie. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Congratulations trmn8er on your first no meat Thanksgiving. Milestones are important and should be enjoyed. I'm glad it was wonderful.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Indian Food: A Guide to Cooking & Dining Out*

Finding reliably vegan Indian food is tricky, which is a surprising situation for the world's most vegetarian-friendly cuisine. But no worries-in this guide we'll dive deep into Indian cooking to uncover some of the most delicious vegan foods you'll ever taste.

*Indian Food: One Country, Many Cuisines*
When it comes to diversity, India is unmatched. No other nation features such a dizzying assortment of languages, religions, and cultures. What's more, profound climate variations cause different foods to dominate each region. Every part of India has consequently evolved its own unique cuisine, based on its dominant cultures and whichever crops thrive locally.

My favorite Vlogger, Mr. Bald and Bankrupt himself, put it wonderfully: "[India's] cuisine changes from state to state, even sometimes from city to city. It's such a varied country. They say In India, every 100 kilometers the food changes and the language changes."

But no matter where you travel in India, vegetarianism is often the norm. For thousands of years, the pervasiveness of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism caused most Indians to reject meat, fish, and eggs. No other part of the world has seen so many people eating so much vegetarian food for such a long time. So when it comes to offering up an endless assortment of vegetarian dishes, no cuisine compares to India's.

Given the staggering variety of popular vegetarian Indian dishes, we have a lot to cover here. So feel free to use the following links to skip ahead to the sections that particularly interest you. Following this brief introduction to India's cuisine, I'll introduce you to the country's most prominent cooking ingredients, meals, and snacks. After that, I'll offer advice on how to reliably order vegan meals served at Indian restaurants. Then I'll try to talk you into visiting the Indian grocery nearest you by telling you about some must-purchase items. Finally, I'll end with coverage of how to cook vegan Indian meals at home.

*How Dairy Products Took Over Indian Cooking*
Widespread belief in karma and reincarnation helped establish vegetarianism as the default diet throughout much of India. Hindu scripture played a crucial role here by elevating the moral status of cows. Under Hinduism, cows occupy an exalted level of consciousness-a level even more rarified than that attained by ordinary people. To a devout Hindu, slaughtering cows therefore amounts to a sin with grave karmic repercussions.

Yet, simultaneously, Hinduism regards dairy products as a uniquely valuable food. Why? Primarily because, if cows indeed inhabit sublime realms of consciousness, it's sensible to presume their milk confers unique benefits. Lord Krishna is famously associated with dairy products, and one of the most widely-remembered passages of the vedas has him, as a mischievous boy, stealing butter from the kitchen.

Many Indians today take the healthfulness of dairy as a matter of faith, and consider milk an indispensable food. They further assume that India's cows enjoy a good quality of life (even though they generally don't.)

Lest you think I'm exaggerating the importance that Hinduism assigns to dairy products, here's what the Hare Krishnas have to say about the matter:

The teachings of Krishna consciousness emphasize the many transcendental benefits of milk. The Vedas say the cow is one of the mothers of mankind; cow's milk and its many preparations are a key part of the recommended diet for human beings. Milk is considered essential for the proper development of the human brain, enhancing our ability to understand and apply spiritual knowledge.
These are some pretty strong claims that deserve some pushback and challenge. But no amount of evidence and debate is likely to knock dairy products off its pedestal when it comes to how many Indians think about nutrition.

Dairy products became further entrenched in Indian cooking by virtue of their being a protein-rich alternative to meat. In a region long plagued by hunger, there's no disputing that dairy products can provide valuable nutrients to people at risk of malnutrition. Many Indians believe that dairy involves transmuting the blood of the cow into a purer, healthier substance that does not require killing.

All these factors make dairy-based ingredients widespread in Indian cooking. The stuff appears everywhere and in every form. When eating at Indian restaurants, vegans must watch out for dishes containing milk, cheese, and yogurt sauces. Clarified butter (ghee) may appear in any sort of fried dish. Luckily, vegetable oil is much cheaper than ghee. Many Indian restaurants refuse to cook with ghee because it is remarkably expensive compared to vegetable oil.

Although no other world cuisine leans so heavily on dairy products, it's certainly possible to find terrific vegan Indian food. Later in this guide, we'll look at how to avoid dairy products when dining at vegan restaurants. And of course, when you're cooking at home, any vegetarian Indian dish can readily be prepared dairy-free.

*Essential Indian Cooking Ingredients*
Let's now look at some of the most common ingredients in Indian cooking. In just a few pages, we'll cover the main ingredients in most Indian meals.

Rice and Beans
Just as they do in Latin America, rice and beans provide the bulk of the calories in many Indian meals. But the varieties of rice and beans used in Indian cooking are different than those favored in Latin America.

Popular Rice Varieties
India is one of the world's largest producers and consumers of rice, and many Indians eat it daily. The two most common varieties in India are white long grain rice, and a reddish whole grain rice. If you want to know why diabetes rates are off the charts in India, the habit of many Indians to eat white rice with practically every meal is surely a primary factor.

India is also famous for a fragrant long-grain rice variety called basmati, which is grown in the foothills in the northern part of the country. Basmati is nearly always milled into white rice. This is bad for nutrition, but convenient for home cooking, since the rice cooks almost immediately. You can cook white basmati rice in a pot in barely about twelve minutes, compared to about 40 minutes for brown rice.

Basmati is among the most expensive rice varieties, and many Indians therefore eat it only on special occasions. In South India it's rarely eaten at all, and about half of India's basmati rice crop is exported. Basmati happens to be the only variety of rice that I prefer white. I normally favor whole grain bread and brown rice, but I think brown basmati rice lacks the delicate texture of white basmati. Sure, white basmati is pure carbs, and contains no fiber or other nutrients, but it's a delicious occasional treat.

When preparing basmati rice at home, drop a cardamom pod or some cardamom seeds into the water prior to cooking. The way that cardamom's gentle flavor blends with basmati is one of the world's great flavor combinations, right up there with chocolate and peanuts.

Beans
Beans are a crucial part of Indian cooking, and since they are loaded with protein they play an indispensable role in the country's nutrition.

One of my Indian friends insists that, "Indian restaurants give a bad name to Indian cuisine." By this, she means that many restaurants cook with only a tiny variety of foods. This is especially the case with beans, and most Indian restaurants use just four varieties:

Lentils
Split peas
Garbanzos
Kidney beans
Of these beans, lentils and are probably the most important, since they're used to make both soups and dosas (we'll cover both these foods later on). Lentils come in several varieties, including black, brown, and red. Yellow split peas are also widely used for soup. Since lentils and split peas are so tiny, they cook much more quickly than larger varieties of beans.

Garbanzos and kidney beans appear in a variety of curried stews. Of the beans that are widely eaten worldwide, garbanzos and kidney beans are unusual since they both contain significant amounts of fat. This gives them a richer texture and flavor than other beans, most of which are practically fat-free.

While Indian restaurants cook only a few varieties of beans, there are no such limitations for people cooking at home. The cuisine features all sorts of obscure bean varieties that, while rarely prepared in restaurants, are beloved by home cooks. A serious Indian cook will have a dozen varieties of dried beans in their pantry. And any good Indian grocery will feature nearly an entire aisle devoted to different varieties of lentils.

Despite its immense popularity throughout most of Asia, tofu never became established in traditional Indian cooking. That's a shame since this nutritious soybean product could have displaced a great deal of dairy foods, thereby improving the nutrient status of countless millions of people. While it's certainly not a traditional ingredient of Indian cooking, sliced tofu works remarkably well in most spicy curry stews. So be open to adding tofu to your curries even if the recipe doesn't call for it.

While tofu is rarely used in India, textured vegetable protein is a popular meat replacement in Indian cooking. The stuff is cheap, filling, full of protein, and goes wonderfully in any sort of curried dish. One of the most popular such brands is Butler Soy Curls.

Popular Vegetables in Indian Cooking
Just as Indian restaurants use only a few types of beans, most are likewise surprisingly limited when it comes to vegetables. Here are by far the eight most common vegetables in Indian cooking.

Potatoes
Carrots
Spinach
Cauliflower
Onions
Peas
Okra
Eggplant
If there's a vegetable in your Indian restaurant meal, chances are it's one of these. Luckily, both spinach and cauliflower are remarkably nutritious, and peas are loaded with protein.

In contrast to Indian restaurants, home chefs make extensive use of vegetables. A nutritious dish based on leafy greens commonly makes up one course of any home-cooked Indian meal. No cuisine makes heavier use of fresh beans than does Indian food, and hard squash and gourds also appear in a wide assortment of meals. Tomatoes are also remarkably common in Indian cooking, which is hardly surprising since tomato plants thrive in hot weather.

Many Indian cooks sprout mung beans and garbanzo beans in their kitchen. The sprouts are either cooked in curries or added fresh to salads.

Indian Spices
Spices are the foundation of Indian cooking. No other cuisine employs such a wide assortment of fragrant and colorful spices.

In order to wrap their heads around the unfamiliar flavors of this novel cuisine, British colonialists came up with the idea of assembling a spice mix they called "curry powder" as an easy way to capture the most common spices of India. You can think of curry powder as the SparkNotes of Indian cooking-they give you the gist of the experience without having to invest any significant time. But eating a meal made with curry powder is like drinking flat soda-you're in the right neighborhood but on the wrong side of the tracks.

You can buy pre-ground curry powder in any grocery. If you are new to Indian cooking, curry powder offers a convenient way to jump in and produce meals with deliver classic Indian flavors. You'll save a lot of time over buying a bunch of spices separately and grinding them all up together. That said, serious chefs would cringe at the idea of purchasing curry powder. Not only does pre-ground curry powder quickly lose flavor, but by using this stuff you'll forfeit your ability to adjust your dish's seasonings to your taste. Instead of using curry powder, Indian chefs use a number of classic Indian spices in the proportions they judge suitable for a given meal.

Most curry powders feature at least ten varieties of spices, with these being obligatory:

Cumin
Coriander
Turmeric
Cayenne Chili Pepper
Fennel
Mustard
Pepper

Of these spices, turmeric deserves a special mention. It's bright yellow, and has a bitter and not enjoyable flavor on its own. But it somehow meshes perfectly with other Indian spices. Most westerners buy it in powdered form, but if you're lucky, you'll be able to find fresh turmeric roots at your grocery. They look like miniature orange ginger roots. Just like ginger, you can skin and mince fresh turmeric and then mix it in with your other seasonings.

Other common curry spice ingredients are cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, chili powder, and minced or powdered ginger. Garlic and onions are also ubiquitous in Indian food, and go perfectly with the classic Indian spices we just reviewed.

Another popular pre-mixed Indian spice is called garam masala. Although garam means hot in Hindi, this does not denote the hot spiciness of chili peppers, but rather a bodily warming quality (under ayurvedic health theories, which we'll briefly cover later on). The only spicy-hot component of garam masala is a tiny amount of black pepper. Most other garam masala spice ingredients are sweet rather than hot, and include, cinnamon, cardamom, bay leaf, star anise, and nutmeg. As with curry powder, every chef will choose a slightly different assortment of spices when preparing garam masala from scratch.

For both curry powder and garam masala, the spices are toasted together in a dry skillet, and then ground up into powder. Ideally a new spice mix is ground freshly for each meal, so the seasonings don't lose any flavor.

*North and South Indian Food*
As we dig deeper into Indian cooking, it's useful to distinguish between the foods cooked in North India and South India. These regions feature completely different dishes, but they do share similar flavors since all rely on curry spices.

While South Indians rarely cook with paneer (cheese), neither North nor South Indian cooking is reliably dairy-free. The diversity of milk-based offerings complicates finding reliably vegan food at Indian restaurants. No cuisine is more likely to contain undetectable amounts of milk, cream, ghee. Sometimes the presence of dairy is obvious, such as in a yogurt garnish, but mostly the stuff blends undetectably into rice dishes, curries, flatbreads, you name it. When dining out, you must always stay vigilant to avoid squirts of ghee here and dollops of yogurt there.

Finally, I want to warn you about one incredibly confusing restaurant practice. Thousands and thousands of Indian restaurants, especially those located in India, feature the words "Pure Veg" on their storefront signs. While "Pure Veg" certainly sounds vegan-friendly, it simply means they don't serve meat. Many of these restaurants put dairy in practically everything.

*Indian Snacks & Appetizers (Chaat)*
We could endlessly debate over which of the world's cuisines offers the most magnificent meals. The French, the Italians, the Vietnamese, and many other cultures can all lay strong claims to this honor. But there's no doubt-none whatsoever-about who has the best snacks. It's Indian cuisine, hands down. Honestly, I'd rather eat a few Indian snack items than an Indian dinner, and I love Indian dinners!

The Hindi word for snack is chaat, and Indian "chaat houses" are everywhere-not just in India but in virtually every city with a good-sized Indian community. Worldwide, there are thousands of chaat houses devoted to nothing but snacks.

There's no clear dividing line between chaat and Indian appetizers. Chaat is often served out of a food cart, and is ideally suited to being eaten while walking. Whatever sort of chaat you get, it's generally accompanied by yogurt, tamarind sauce, chopped cilantro, and some sort of masala seasoning or chutney. Since the yogurt is served on the side, be sure to ask for no yogurt when ordering. If you're serving chaat at home, unsweetened vegan yogurt makes an excellent replacement for dairy yogurt.

*Puris and Bhature*
Centuries before the State Fair of Texas came into existence, Indians were eating deep fried bread. The most common form is puris, which are deep fried whole wheat dough, served with chutney.

A similar but exceedingly eye-catching dish is chole bhature, which looks like ordinary puri but is several times larger. My favorite chaat house aptly describes bhature as, "the big puffy thing." It's a deep fried flat bread that inflates like a balloon during frying. You tear off pieces and dip them into whatever spicy sauce accompanies your order.

Other than size, the main difference between puri and bhature is that the latter is usually made with white flour. Both puri and bhature dough commonly contain curds or yogurt, so vegans must always inquire before ordering.

*Samosas & Pakora*
Two other popular deep fried chaat items are samosas and pakoras. Samosas are triangular vegetable-stuffed pastries, usually served with a mild or spicy chutney, or dunked into a spicy chickpea curry. Pakoras are bite-sized pieces of vegetables dipped into a spicy chickpea flour batter and deep fried. While samosas sometimes contain meat, a vegetarian samosa is reliably vegan. And pakoras are always vegan.

*Aloo Tiki*
Although not as well-known as samosas or pakora, aloo tiki is by far my favorite chaat item. They're fried potato dumplings that are wonderfully spiced and topped with a savory sauce. They're commonly garnished with yogurt, which vegans should ask to omit.

*Vadas*
You'll know vadas when you see them, since they're the size and shape of donuts. They're made from a spicy lentil-based dough that's deep-fried, and accompanied by a chutney. Even though vadas are an indulgent deep-fried snack, the fact that they're primarily made of beans makes them a rich source of protein and other nutrients. They're also absurdly filling.

****

There are dozens of other different chaat items, so this brief coverage can't begin to do justice to all the possibilities. But I do hope what I've written here inspires you to seek out your nearest chaat house.

Admittedly, on your first visit you may feel overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar offerings. I suggest you hang out at the counter for a while before ordering, so you can see what other customers are getting. When you spy something coming out of the kitchen that looks especially appealing, inquire about its name and its vegan status.

*Classic Indian Meals*
Now that we've covered Indian snacks, let's continue on to checking out the most common vegan-friendly Indian meals.

*Curries*
The most well-known sorts of Indian food are the curried stews of Northern India. These stews are made from beans or vegetables, and are usually served over rice, or combined with crushed idlis.

One of the most popular these stews is called aloo gobi, a curry made from potatoes and cauliflower that's usually accompanied by cilantro and onions. Equally popular is chana masala-chickpeas in a spicy curried sauce. Your Hindi vocabulary lessons here are:

aloo = potato
gobi = cauliflower
chana = chickpeas
masala = spice
Saag Paneer
Perhaps the most nutrient-dense of all popular Indian entrees is Saag Paneer. Since Saag means spinach and paneer means cheese, this dish, when prepared traditionally, is never vegan. Not only does this meal contain cheese, a little cream is usually mixed into the spinach.

But when cooking at home you can swap out the cheese for firm tofu or your favorite hard vegan cheese. A bit of cashew cream or other unsweetened vegan milk will substitute nicely for cream. When spiced correctly, it's such a flavorful dish that you can do away with the dairy products entirely with no discernible loss.

Think of saag paneer as creamed spinach with Indian spices and a fair bit of oil. Since many Indian dishes aren't exactly abundant in vegetables, saag paneer is a great dish to pick up the slack. It's fantastic served over basmati rice.

*Dal*
By far the most popular Indian soup is called dal. Many Indians eat it daily. Dal's main ingredient is either cooked lentil beans or yellow split peas pureed into a thick and satisfying soup. Dal has loads of flavor since it contains plenty of curry spices and fresh ginger. Thinly-sliced onions and minced or slivered garlic are also commonly included.

Dal is usually served in a small bowl alongside a meal, sometimes eaten with a soup spoon and other times poured over rice. The lentils or split peas make dal among the most protein-rich dishes in Indian cooking.

*South Indian Dosas*
Dosas are crepes-often gigantic ones-made from a lentil batter that's fermented for a couple days at room temperature. The fermentation gives the dosas a tangy flavor. Regular dosas are made from rice and lentils, whereas the also-popular rava dosas are made from wheat and lentils.

Dosas are typically folded around a small amount of filling, most often spiced potatoes and onions. Many South Indian restaurants offer at least ten varieties of dosa, each with different fillings and spices. If you like heavily seasoned food, order a masala dosa.

*Idlis*
One of the most popular foods in India are idlis-oblong balls or disks made from steamed ground-up white rice and urad dal (white lentils with the black husk removed). They range from about the size a peach pit to as big as your palm.

Idlis have little flavor, and are intended to soak up and thereby counterbalance rich Indian soups and sauces. Indians often order idlis instead of basmati rice, and mash them into their curried stews-this is quite similar to mashed potatoes and gravy, albeit with different starches and proteins. Alternately, they'll tear off a portion of idli, and dip it into sambar, a delicious and extremely spicy reddish spicy soup. Indian restaurant menus often list idli sambar as a single item to be ordered together.

*Side Dishes (Flatbreads and Rice)*
When dining at Indian restaurants, your waiter will protest if you attempt to order a curried dish or a soup on its own. These dishes are invariably accompanied by either flatbread or rice.

*Flatbreads*
Flatbreads accompany a great many meals in India, and are often used in place of utensils. Typically, you tear off a small piece, and use it to grab a fork-sized portion of whatever curried stew you're eating. As an aside, this is why most Indians are in the habit of washing their hands right before eating-many restaurants in India even have a hand-washing sink in the main dining area.

The two most common varieties of flatbread are roti and chapati, the former rolled flat with a rolling pin and the latter patted flat by hand just like a homemade Mexican corn tortilla. Both these breads are commonly made from whole-grain flour, so they're quite nutritious. There's so much variation in thickness and cooking styles, that it's hard to know what you'll get when you order flatbread. Neither roti nor chapati dough commonly contains dairy products, but these breads are often garnished with some butter or ghee after cooking.

Another common flatbread is called naan, which is not only less healthful than roti or chapati, it's also rarely vegan. It's usually made of white flour, and the dough often contains milk. Naan is Iranian in origin, and similar to the lavash bread served in the Middle East. Even though it's not terribly healthy, naan is worth seeking out if you can find it vegan. Since it's cooked in a tandoor (a clay oven), the texture is sensational. Unfortunately, you should assume naan contains milk unless the waiter or ingredient label tells you otherwise.

When eating out, it's best to avoid naan and to request either roti or chapati served without butter or ghee.

*Rices*
Indian restaurants commonly serve small bowls of steamed plain white rice to accompany their meals. Fancy restaurants will use basmati rice. There are also two rice dishes, biryani and kitchari, that are served as an entree rather than as a side dish.

*Biryani*
This dish arrived in India via Muslims from the Middle East and elsewhere. Biryani is a bright yellow rice dish similar to Asian fried rice and Spanish paella, but with different seasonings. The Hindu populations emphasized the addition of vegetables, whereas other parts of India added fish and meat. The dominant spices of biryani are cinnamon, star anise, and mace-which together impart a very different flavor than what you'll get from any other Indian-style dish.

Biryani is often made from white basmati rice, and can be prepared in any number of ways. Owing to the fact that it's made largely from basmati rice, it's regarded as an expensive meal for special occasions. And since it's ideally suited to preparation in large batches, biryani is one of India's most popular wedding foods. While it may be tough to find vegan biryani when eating out, this is an easy dish to cook vegan at home, and its unique flavors make it a must-try Indian meal.
*
Kitchari*
Kitchari is a widely-consumed but not widely-beloved Indian meal. Yet again, a quick Hindi lesson comes in handy. The word kitchari simply means "mixture," and when applied to this dish it refers to a mixture of rice and split yellow peas. If that doesn't sound all that appetizing, you're correct. Kitchari is often served at ashrams, because most ashram food strives to be blandly wholesome. You go to an ashram primarily to loosen your attachments to sensory gratification, and nothing washes away your lust for enticing flavors like a string of boring meals. When it comes to monotonous food, kitchari is tough to top, but it's light on the stomach and easily digested.

Kitchari is also one of the key foods eaten in the ayurvedic tradition. Ayurveda is an ancient approach to health in India, and it is largely based on consuming foods and spices chosen to correct bodily imbalances. Since kitchari accommodates such a wide assortment of spices, this dish can be spiced in whatever way an ayurvedic practitioner believes will help restore balance and overcome particular maladies. When ill, many Indians eat mostly kitchari in hopes that this food will restore their health.

The best thing about kitchari is that, unlike most vegetarian Indian meals, the stuff is nearly always vegan by default.

*Indian Desserts*
While we've just witnessed the abundance of excellent meal and snack possibilities that Indian food offers, I have only bad news when it comes to desserts. One of my vegan Indian friends says dismissively: "There's nothing to eat."

Nearly every popular Indian dessert contains dairy products or honey. If you're lucky, you might be able to find vegan kaju burfi or jalebi, but even these dishes usually contain milk products.

So if you want a vegan Indian-style dessert, you're probably either going to have to make it yourself or dine at a vegan Indian restaurant. Luckily, you won't have any trouble finding suitable recipes. Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen features veganized versions of eighteen traditional Indian desserts. Sahara Rose Ketabi's Eat Feel Fresh likewise includes an extensive Indian dessert selection.

Ordering Vegan Indian Food from Restaurants
When dining at Indian restaurants, your main job as a vegan-in fact your only job-is to avoid hidden dairy products. Since the presence of meat in Indian food is always obvious, and Indian cooking never evolved to include eggs, you just need to make sure your vegetarian meal is dairy-free, and it will be vegan.

This is a stark contrast to cuisines like Mexican food, which feature a wide assortment of animal ingredients, often present in undetectable amounts. Mexican food forces vegans to contend with lard, chicken stock, and sour cream-all of which are often impossible to see or to taste.

That said, the milk products used in Indian food take multiple forms and are often especially hard to detect because they're used in small quantities in meals dominated by brightly-colored seasonings and spicy flavors. So everything depends on clearly labeled dishes, or, failing that, communication with wait-staff who know how their food is prepared.

As we've already seen, vegans must take special care when ordering flat bread since it may contain dairy products. To improve your chances of getting a meal, consider ordering papadams rather than flat bread, and ask that they not be brushed with butter prior to serving. Papadums (sometimes nicknamed "poppers") are super thin wafers of lentil flour and spices that, when cooked, become covered with blisters and have a satisfying crunch. Restaurants usually prepare papadums by either quickly frying them in oil or heating them over a flame.

Soups are another hazardous choice for vegans in most Indian restaurants. The most popular Indian soup is called dal, which is made primarily from lentils and spices. Unfortunately, this spice combination (called tadka) is often sauteed in ghee before being added to the soup. Since dal restaurants invariably prepare dal in big batches, it won't be possible to order yours vegan if its tadka contains ghee. Some restaurants may use vegetable oil to fry the tadka, either to please vegans or to save money on ingredients.

In addition to ghee, the other common words to watch out for on Indian menus are paneer (cheese) and dahi (yogurt).

At some Indian restaurants, it's all but impossible to ascertain the vegan status of a particular dish. Often, the waiter won't know and then you'll get hung up on some language issue until somebody (the cook, the waiter, or you) gives up in frustration. I've lost count of the number of times this has happened to me.

So where does all this leave us? There's never any guarantee, but here are some popular and reliably vegan Indian restaurant foods:

Chana masala
Kitchari
Dosas
Samosas and Pakoras (as appetizers)
Basmati rice
Idlis
Roti and Chapati (But avoid ghee chapatis, which contain milk, and ask that they be served without butter.) Obviously, your vegan options will be much more extensive at restaurants that strive to accommodate vegans. But it's comforting to know that even at the most mainstream Indian restaurants, the above choices are sufficient to guarantee you a satisfying and reliably-vegan meal.

Finally, keep in mind that many vegan restaurants have Indian options on the menu. In my experience, Indian food usually turns out pretty good at places that don't specialize in the cuisine, even if the flavors aren't perfectly authentic. This is in stark contrast to Middle Eastern food, which is generally wretched when served by restaurants that also prepare other cuisines.

*Buying Vegan Foods at Indian Grocery Stores*
Just about every city with a sizable Indian population has at least one Indian grocery. These stores are well worth seeking out, as they'll have some delicious vegan foods you can't find elsewhere. Better yet, the prices on some of the most popular vegan items are generally excellent.

If you get a chance to visit an Indian grocery, there are five items in particular-all imported from India-worth stocking up on:

Mango pickle (and other glass-jarred pickle condiments). Just a teaspoon or two served as a garnish alongside your favorite curry can elevate your meal to a new level. Many Indian groceries carry nearly a full aisle's worth of these condiments, so bring home a new variety every time you shop.
Papadams. These are the paper-thin lentil wafers I mentioned earlier. They're a quick, spicy, protein-rich snack. Each papadam costs only a few pennies, and they're great at staving off hunger if you're not ready for a meal. They also make a terrific accompaniment to Indian take out food, or whatever Indian meal you're cooking at home. While they're traditionally deep fried, they're also excellent held with tongs and heated over a flame. Or you can heat them in a microwave for about fifteen seconds apiece until they uniformly blister. Although microwaved papadams won't develop the delicious char that accompanies flame-cooking, they're still quite tasty and no snack is quicker to prepare.

Foil-packed entrees. All these products come in a foil pack that's put in a cardboard box. Tasty Bite is the most popular brand, and most of the other brands are surprisingly good. The best of these products are comparable to decent Indian take-out food. Although many of these offerings contain dairy, most brands offer a vegan chickpea curry, usually called "chana masala" or "pindi chana." If you don't have an Indian grocery in your community, you can also order these products from Amazon. For a cheap meal that could pass for home-cooked, these products are impossible to beat. I especially recommend Tasty Bite's Channa Masala.
Lotus seeds. You pop these just like popcorn, with some oil in a covered frying pan. Season with chili powder, turmeric, curry leaves, and salt.
Tamarind sauce. The perfect accompaniment to samosas and other chaat items. Tamarind paste or sauce should contain only a few ingredients-avoid brands with preservatives and colorings.
The above items are only the start of your options. Indian groceries also offer great deals on basmati rice and dried beans. And if you check the freezer case, you'll no doubt find some exciting frozen vegan convenience foods.

If I still haven't persuaded you to make a special trip to your nearest Indian grocery, perhaps this next tip will do the trick: most of these groceries sell fresh, locally-made vegan samosas and pakoras. They're typically delivered each morning and kept warm under heat lamps. Invariably, these items are unbelievably cheap, yet deliver flavors you just can't get from packaged food items. You can make a simple vegan meal at home, then serve it with some Indian grocery samosas and some mango pickle, and suddenly you have a borderline feast.

Also look for clamshell-packed prepared foods. These too are locally made, and included everything from dried spicy peas to desserts. Keep a special eye out for dhoklas-savory bright yellow cakes made from a batter of fermented chickpeas and rice. These improbably delicious cakes are India's counterpart to Mexican corn bread, although they're far more nutrient-rich owing to their use of chickpeas.

*Cooking Vegan Indian Food at Home*
The best way to get reliably vegan Indian food is to make it yourself. Since you're in control of your ingredients, this is a surefire way to guarantee that your Indian food will be absolutely, positively vegan. Usually I advise people to cook only from vegan cookbooks, but Indian food tends to be much more veganizable than other cuisines. It's usually just a matter of using vegetable oil instead of butter. You can also use unsweetened soy yogurt in place of dairy yogurt. The results never suffer from making these easy swaps.

Unless you're extraordinarily ambitious, I urge you to start with the simple stuff, like North Indian stews served over basmati rice, and perhaps some flatbreads or pakoras. Fresh chutneys are also easy to prepare if you can get your hands on some tropical fruits like mango or coconut.

South Indian foods usually require special expertise and equipment. In particular, foods like dosas and chole bhature are way out of reach for the casual non-Indian cook.

If you're planning to cook Indian food at home and you have an Indian grocery nearby, definitely head over there to lay in some supplies. Don't forget to pick up some samosas or pakoras as an appetizer, plus a jar of pickled mangos or limes to garnish your meal.

There are a few vegan Indian cookbooks in print. I highly recommend Vegan Indian Cooking and Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen. Both are impressively comprehensive books crammed with beautiful color photography. They feature extensive introductory text that will acquaint you with the most common spices, ingredients, and cooking methods of Indian cuisine.

*Let Vegan Indian Food into Your Life*
Indian food-especially Indian restaurant food-may not be the world's healthiest cuisine, but what it lacks in nutrition it more than makes up for in flavor. Some of the most delicious vegan dishes you'll ever try are from India.

No matter where you live, you can probably find vegan Indian food locally. Sure, dining at Indian restaurants can pose challenges. But as long as you steer clear of hidden dairy products, you'll find an unrivaled assortment of vegan possibilities. With just a little effort you can discover some incredible meals. In cases where navigating the menu seems unduly tricky, order the pakoras or a vegetable samosa as an appetizer, and then the chickpea curry (chana masala) with basmati rice for your entree. These items are nearly always vegan and almost every Indian restaurant includes them on the menu.

When you're cooking at home, and therefore in total control of the ingredients, your vegan options are unlimited. Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen is a superb cookbook that will teach you to make all the classic North and South Indian dishes. Some of the India's most delicious curry dishes are ideal for beginner cooks, and the cuisine also features more than its share of extravagant gourmet recipes. So if you're wanting to eat a diverse and delicious vegan diet, Indian food deserves to be among the first cuisines you explore.

https://www.vegan.com/indian-food/?...00lTS5R-nvskAVdF8aAgz42iiYNJcyq3_Xw8rZRMtSNdc


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Serena and Venus Williams included in top 11 world's best vegan athletes*









Both Serena and Venus Williams were featured in the world's 11 most successful vegan athletes, a top recently made by Guinness World Records. Veganism has seen increasing popularity among people while sports figures like the Williams sisters and Novak Djokovic surely had a role to play in this.

Surprisingly, Novak Djokovic was not included in the Guinness top. However, Serena and Venus, both following plant-based diets, have joined athletes like strongman Patrick Baboumian, Dana Glowacka - who holds the record for the world's longest plank (4 hours and 19 minutes), UFC fighter Nate Diaz, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton and many more great examples.

The main reason why the Williams sisters were selected in the top was the fact that they hold an overwhelming amount of world record and both decided to eat largely plant-based. Serena Williams holds the female records for: most Grand Slam singles titles won (23), the oldest person ranked world tennis number one (aged 35 years 124 days and most followers on Twitter for an athlete (currently 10.9 million).

Besides these, she holds the overall records for: the longest span of tennis Grand Slam singles finals (23) and the first singles and doubles tennis career Golden Grand Slam in 2012. On the other side, Venus holds the records for the most Grand Slam singles tournaments played (73) and splits the records with Serena for most Olympic tennis gold medals won by an individual (4).

"It definitely changed my whole life. It changed the pace that I live at. It changed everything&#8230; there's something about when you're eating healthy food, it makes you feel proud". , Venus said in a 2017 interview for Health magazine.

sauce https://www.tennisworldusa.org/tenn...ncluded-in-top-11-worlds-best-vegan-athletes/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting stuff. I don't always buy organic

*Organic Food: What it Means and Why it Matters*

If you want to eat more healthfully, consider eating more organic food. Food that's organically grown minimizes your exposure to potentially dangerous chemicals. Laboratory testing invariably reveals much lower pesticide levels on organic foods. There is strong evidence that common pesticides can impair cognitive function.

The organic farming movement has its roots in 1960s counterculture. The back-to-the-land sensibilities that emerged during that period cast a skeptical eye on large-scale farming practices. In particular, the emerging counterculture questioned the wisdom of relying on petroleum-based pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.

In addition to eschewing these chemicals, organic agriculture as currently defined within the United States forbids GMO crops, irradiation, and sewage sludge. An easy way to spot organic foods is to check its sticker. Organic foods start with the number 9 (conversely, a number beginning with 8 signifies GMO.)
*
Certification Standards for Organic Food*
The organization in charge of setting America's organic standards is the USDA. Unfortunately, this happens the very same agency that oversees the nation's factory farms and slaughterhouses. Given that the USDA thinks it's acceptable to put just one meat inspector on a slaughter line killing 175 chickens per minute, it's reasonable to question the agency's willingness to set meaningful organic standards.

The USDA's history in regard to organics is troubling. During one particularly dark moment in 1998, the USDA sought to permit organic farms to use treated sewage sludge as fertilizer-despite the fact that the stuff is often thoroughly contaminated with heavy metals and other nasty substances. Despite these past problems, food activists have managed to browbeat the USDA into enacting meaningful organic farming standards.

*Enforcement by Organically Grown Certification Bodies*
While the USDA sets organic standards, it does not oversee enforcement. Instead, it delegates that task to independent certification bodies. One of these certification organizations, the CCOF, offers this excellent summary of the reasons to choose organic. And here's an interview with CCOF's first employee that explains how organic standards have evolved since the 1970s.

Animal advocates recognize that "certified humane" or "cage-free" animal products often fall short in important respects. In the same way, it's likewise naive to an organic seal invariably means the food was grown without compromise. Whether it's "cage-free" or "organic," unscrupulous farmers can easily bend the rules and mislead consumers. And imported organic products arguably deserve an extra level of skepticism.

*Industrial Organic vs. Local Organic Food*
It's obviously beyond the means of individuals to evaluate the relative effectiveness of the various organic standards bodies. So what's a person to do?

Perhaps the best place to start is to favor organic farmers in your community. These farms are vastly different from the giant organic farms that ship nationwide. How can you tell which is which? A dead giveaway is that giant organic farms often use packaging that features slick yet homespun-looking logos. You can fairly call this food "industrial organic," since it's generally a far cry from the quality of locally-grown organic produce.

But even when it comes to industrial organics, it's wisest to avoid an all-or-nothing point of view. On the one hand, industrial organic farms typically use many of the same monoculture practices employed by conventional agriculture, and they frequently rely on underpaid migrant labor. On the other hand, industrial organic is still far better than conventional produce, since it's free of GMOs, sewage sludge fertilizer, and chemical pesticides.

Life offers no guarantees, but when it comes to food you can avoid the worst of the worst by choosing organic. And you can give yourself a shot at eating the very best food by choosing local organic.

*Uncertified Organics*
The bigger the organic farm, the more worthwhile it is for a farmer to devote resources to certification. Small local farmers often lack the time and money required to participate in certification programs. They already have their hands full actually farming. These producers often sell their food at farmers' markets, often labeling it "unsprayed" rather than "organic."

Under many scenarios, "local unsprayed" is much more sustainable than industrial organic, particularly if the latter is trucked in from far away. The downside, of course, is that without certification you're solely dependent on the farmer's word. But it's not as though every food that's certified organic lives up to its billing either. It wouldn't take a criminal mastermind to get away with mislabeling conventionally grown foods as organic, especially on a small scale.

Supporting agriculture in your community is incredibly important, even if it's not organic. Any sort of small-scale local agriculture is usually far less dependent on petrochemical fertilizers and herbicides than are monoculture farms. When you choose locally-grown food, you'll enjoy fresher produce picked at the peak of ripeness. So don't turn up your nose at your local farmer selling unsprayed produce-it's often the best value and most sustainable food you can find, and a stepping-stone to boosting the food security of your community.

*The Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen*
If you can't purchase organically grown food every time, you can minimize your exposure to pesticides by paying attention to the "dirty dozen," and the "clean fifteen." Every year, the Environmental Working Group tests pesticide levels in non-organic produce, and publishes which varieties are the most and least contaminated. Here are their lists for 2019:

The Dirty Dozen: strawberries, spinach, kale, nectarines, apples, grapes, peaches, cherries, pears, tomatoes, celery, potatoes, hot peppers.

The Clean Fifteen: avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, frozen peas, onions, papayas, eggplants, asparagus, kiwis, cabbage, cauliflower, cantaloupes, broccoli, mushrooms, honeydew melons.

sauce https://www.vegan.com/organic/?fbclid=IwAR0htyKc_u1zqsTbRk2bCqhtw17WZQ5COFg6imNEyXpapaI3NegXVeUqz8w


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Split pea soup, quinoa onion rings and avocado toast - plant based deliciousness

















Triple chocolate donut and chocolate bourbon tart= vegan


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

Whoa! That image is hard to forget. Yikes


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

That would be a no from me









sauce https://rare.us/rare-life/food-and-...VzZcMmvCvlPuXOJeRqOgAqUKXpcq1E9mhqbO1dellHcG4


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

'*We could smell the boat approaching': the grim truth about animal exports*









Hundreds of thousands of live animals are transported each year on ships from Australia and Europe to the Middle East. The route from Australia to Israel is particularly long - the journey is three weeks at sea, where cattle and sheep are often kept in cramped pens for the duration.

It's estimated this year Israel will import 114,040 animals (cattle and sheep) from Australia, and 409,123 sheep and 169,991 cattle from Europe. Though these figures are lower than the previous year, in general live imports have been on the rise. Israel is expected to import 700,000 live animals this year - up from 200,000 in 2012.

In July, I went to Israel to photograph the Australian ships coming into port in Haifa. One of the boats, the Bahijah, was carrying an estimated 22,000 animals.

I spent a week monitoring the ships at port, waiting for news of one of the live imports. When we heard the Bahijah was coming in, we managed to rent a yacht that morning and meet the ship at sea. I was able to photograph the ship and the animals from a distance.

The ship completely dwarfed us. I was struck by the smell. Even from further away we could smell the boat approaching. At almost every window you could see animals crowded together. The ones at the windows are lucky because they're getting fresh air.

The movement from the sea is really unsteady, and the animals are not used to that: in some cases they suffer injuries and broken bones. In April, a whistleblower employed on a live export ship worked with Animals Australia to reveal the situation on board a vessel. Footage from five shipments from Australia to the Middle East appeared to show sheep covered in faeces and severely decomposed bodies left in pens with living sheep. In one particular journey, more than 880 animals died during the course of the voyage.

The story doesn't end when the ships arrive at port.

From here, the animals are unloaded on to trucks. This can take up to 12 and even 16 hours because there are thousands of animals on board.

The cattle and sheep are then transported cross-country. I trailed trucks for hours to feedlots near Eilat, and to quarantine in a settlement in the West Bank. The feedlots were dusty and crowded. The animals in quarantine were lethargic.

Dead farm animals are routinely washing up on Tel Avivian public beaches. Due to the distressing conditions animals are in, many don't survive the journey at sea and it's believed their corpses are just thrown overboard. The washed-up animals often have the ears or heads missing, so their ear tags can't be traced to identify the ships.

The dead and dying in feedlots are also often disposed in the desert. I witnessed football field-sized parcels of land with mounds of manure and decomposing animal bodies that must have been there for decades. The images can't convey the stench, or the flies.

The future of the controversial live imports trade is uncertain. A bill has been proposed in the Israeli Knesset to phase out live imports of animals from Australia and Europe for slaughter because of the suffering it causes the animals. The bill would reduce the transportation of live animals while increasing tax-free imports of fresh meat, and encourage local production.

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/environ...uTMBeWua-9vvjsnbqPjXGl2RHuOGe2N63AppnQLhOS16U


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Santa switched to a plant based diet


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

They're not edible  I have replaced all my shoes containing leather with synthetic brands but this concept takes it to another level ie non plastic meaning made from renewable sources.

*Vegan Sneakers Set To Be Next Plant-Based Craze In 2020*

Eco-friendly meatless food products shook up the fast-food industry in 2019. Experts say next year's game-changing trend in sustainable consumer goods may be plant-based - or "vegan" - athletic shoes.

Last week, Reebok, owned by Adidas since 2005, unveiled the design for its first plant-based running shoe, the Floatride GROW, which is expected to hit store shelves in the fall of 2020.

The upper part of the shoe is made primarily from eucalyptus. Its soles are made from castor beans and natural rubber. The scheduled debut comes two years after Reebok started selling a "vegan" version of its famed Newport (NP) Classic shoes made with cotton and corn. The more sustainable version of the NP Classics is "lifestyle" footwear not designed for athletic performance.

In contrast, Reebok brand president Matt O'Toole says the Floatride GROW is sturdy enough to handle the wear and tear from intense and constant use by athletes.

"One of the challenges for the innovations team was [the Floatride GROW] had to be equal to or better to" the vegan NP Classics, O'Toole told CNN Business. "We actually have our own testing machines. The shoe holds up just as well as our other [athletic] shoes."

Reebok and Adidas are just two of the major athletic retailers vying to get in on the ground floor of what experts expect to eventually be a booming plant-based sneaker market, as discarded footwear fills up US landfills.

Americans throw away some 300 million pairs of shoes each year, according to the US Department of the Interior. Combined with discarded clothes, the EPA says those shoes accounted for roughly 8.9 million tons - about 17.6% - of the 50.7 million tons of trash that filled American landfills in 2017.

Most shoe waste is comprised of non-biodegradable plastic, leather and petroleum-based rubber, materials that take an average of 25 to 80 years to decompose naturally, multiple shoe companies told CNN Business.

In recent years, calls for climate change reform and for major corporations to engage in more sustainable business practices have created a niche market among young people who are interested in shoes that are more biodegradable.

In 2017, the global market for athletic footwear reached an estimated $64.3 billion, according to Grand View Research analysis, which concluded the market would increase by more than 5% by 2025.

A 2019 "future of footwear" study commissioned by the market research firm NPD found that Millennials and Generation Z, the primary consumers of athletic footwear, are "very concerned" about the environment.

"Our survey shows that consumers were concerned about where their shoes were made and whether or not they were made ethically," NPD senior sports industry advisor Matt Powell told CNN Business. "About 35% of respondents said they would be willing to pay more for a shoe sustainably made. While it isn't the entire market, that's certainly a category for growth."

Nike dipped its toe in the plant-based, athletic shoe waters a few months ago, with the limited release of a "100% organic" custom Nike Air Max 90. The industry leader in athletic footwear partnered with environmentally-conscious, UK streetwear brand Maharishi to create and raffle off pairs of its own "vegan" shoe in August for $150 apiece.

The shoes have been resold for as much as $1,446 per pair on second-hand retail sites.

Maharashi sales associate Miles Chick said the promotion's organizers were inundated with requests to enter the online raffle for Nike's vegan sneakers. "When word spread, it just started kind of ringing alarms in the vegan community," he said.

Nike says sustainability has been at the core of its business for decades but noted that recent research about climate change has compelled the company to change the way it makes and sells its shoes.

In 2015 and 2016, Greenpeace criticized Nike and a few other companies for failing to eliminate their use of perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), which protect products from corrosion, but also make them more harmful to the environment.

In August, Nike, Adidas and Puma joined 30 other apparel companies as signatories on the G7 Fashion Pact, which French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron unveiled at the annual G7 Summit. Nike has also committed to reducing its carbon footprint by 30% by 2030 through its partnership with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"We exist to serve athletes. &#8230; We know that if there is no planet there is no sport," a Nike spokesperson told CNN Business in an emailed statement. "Advancing a more sustainable future requires companies of all sizes to think holistically, innovate solutions and adopt the principles of circularity."

Powell, the sports industry advisor, says the jury is still out on how many Americans will purchase shoes made from more sustainable materials over the versions they know and love.

"I think there's a whole lot of other things that go into what makes a shoe successful," he said. "The style has to be right and the shoe has to perform. Reebok knows how to make shoes. I'm pretty convinced this shoe will do well."

https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/201...9ReQS_IjCf11YJxbubLajswkXIya0Gd2ja-RZUCFU8b9g


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Beans: a Cooking & Nutrition Guide for Vegans*









New vegans sometimes complain that they don't feel sufficiently satiated by their meals. But beans will stick to your ribs as thoroughly as meat-centered meals once did, leaving you satisfied for hours. They are flavorful, easy to prepare, and dirt cheap.

Not only that, beans come in a multitude of varieties. This means you can eat a great many beans in all sorts of dishes, and they won't ever become monotonous. Beans are also a terrific source of protein, and most varieties are virtually fat-free.

*Three Key Beans: Black, Pinto, and Garbanzos*
Black beans and pinto beans are two of the most popular ingredients in Mexican cooking. They make a fantastic burrito filling. Also serve them alongside rice, guacamole, and salsa on a Mexican-style supper plate.

Beans also make the world's best leftovers. In many Mexican households, leftover beans are refrigerated and then fried up the next day. To make Mexican style refrieds, just mash the beans and then mix in some water. Then heat it in a frying pan with some minced garlic that's just been sautéed in some vegetable oil. Stir in some chopped cilantro (if you're not a cilantro hater) just before serving and you'll really have something special.

While black beans and pintos dominate Mexican cooking, Garbanzo beans are wildly popular in India and the Middle East. Garbanzos-also called chick peas-might be the tastiest bean variety of all. They've got a distinctive flavor and an incredible texture. One reason garbanzos stand out among beans is that they contain significant amounts of fat, which delivers a richness of flavor that's absent from other beans.

Perhaps the most popular entrée in all of India is chana masala, a delicious curry comprised mostly of garbanzos which is served atop basmati rice or alongside samosas. Garbanzos are every bit as important in Middle Eastern cooking, as they are the main ingredient in that cuisine's two most common foods-hummus and falafel.

Black beans, pintos, and garbanzos are the perfect starting point for your exploration of beans, but don't stop there. Your local grocery or natural foods store sells dozens of other varieties

*Buying Beans: Canned, Aseptic, and Dried*
Beans can be purchased either canned or dried. Canned beans are super convenient, since they are pre-cleaned and fully cooked they need only be drained, heated, and spiced as desired. Additionally, many canned beans come fully prepared, and ready to heat and heat.

Prepared beans are also increasingly available in plastic aseptic packages. You can buy refried beans packaged this way, as well as a wide variety of Indian-style bean entries (such as chana masala), and soups such as dal. Because the packaging weighs practically nothing, these beans are often much cheaper than canned varieties when purchased online.

While less convenient than beans sold in cans or aseptic packages, dried beans carry three advantages:

they're less than half the price of canned
they've got superior taste and texture
they carry a smaller environmental footprint.
The best place to buy dried beans is the bulk section of a good natural food store. Most of these markets carry about a dozen different bean varieties. Dried beans sold in bulk are remarkably inexpensive. On top of that, they're often organically grown.

*Cooking Dried Beans*
Preparing dried beans is easy. Start by pouring them into a mixing bowl. Comb your fingers through the beans to make sure there aren't any molar-cracking pebbles lurking within (never skip this step; you'll find a pebbles far too often, and any pebble can crack a tooth!) Next, pour enough water into the bowl to submerge the beans. Since the beans soak up lots of water, be sure to use plenty of water so they'll stay entirely submerged.

Cover the bowl to keep dust out, and soak for at least four hours. Many people start soaking the beans before bedtime so they'll be ready to cook in the morning.

Note that soaking isn't strictly necessary but doing so will cut your cooking time significantly, while saving time and energy. But even soaked beans can more than two hours on the stove pot or in a slow-cooker. That's why many bean lovers own Instant Pots or pressure cookers. These appliances can usually reduce your cooking time to 30 minutes or less.

The cooking time for beans varies by its variety, cooking method, and whether the beans were pre-soaked. Garbanzos, white beans, and kidney beans take the longest cooking time-up to a few hours for beans simmering on a stove-top. The bigger the bean the longer the required cooking time.

*Proper Cooking is Vital*
You'll know your beans are properly cooked when you can easily use your tongue to smoosh one against the roof of your mouth. As Moosewood Cookbook author Molly Katzen memorably put it, "crunchy beans don't make it." That was true in the 1970s when Katzen wrote those words, but it's even more true today, as it has recently become known that many beans contain a toxic sugar-protein called lectin. Thorough cooking will destroy the lectin, so it's important to thoroughly cook varieties of beans that contain this substance.

This is especially true with red kidney beans, which are loaded with a variety of lectin so toxic that it's even hazardous to pronounce: "phytohaemagglutinin." Red kidney beans are sufficiently high in this substance that it's wisest to soak them for at least five hours prior to cooking, and to discard the soaking water. The same warning applies to cannellini beans and broad beans, but those varieties are far less popular than red kidney beans. Please don't let this warning frighten you away from eating these delicious bean varieties. Proper soaking and cooking makes beans as safe as any other food.

I recognize that all this soaking and simmering can sound daunting. So keep in mind that several varieties of tiny dried beans cook quickly with no need for soaking: split peas, lentils, and mungs. Split peas are obviously the main ingredient for split pea soup. You'll want to simmer them until they mostly break apart-mixing with the cooking water to form a thick and creamy base. You can alternately simmer yellow splits or mung beans and before serving add roasted cumin seeds, curry powder, and salt to make dal-the most popular Indian soup.

*Beans and Flatulence*
Beans are impossible to beat when it comes to being a food that's cheap, delicious, and healthful. About the only thing that stands in their way of world domination is their tendency to cause intestinal gas. Fortunately, there are various ways to mitigate or eliminate this problem. Beans cause flatulence because they contain a sugar that your body can't readily digest. When the sugar reaches your intestines, bacteria feed on it to form gas.

The good news here is cooking dissolves a substantial portion of this sugar into the cooking water. So once your beans finish cooking, pour the cooking water down the drain. Then use fresh water to finish preparing your recipe. By doing this, you'll make your beans much more digestible. The same thing goes for the water used for canned beans. Discard it and use fresh water and your meal will be far less gas-producing.

While thorough cooking will tend to improve digestibility, don't overdo it or your beans will become mushy. Blending or mashing your beans for dishes like hummus or Mexican-style refrieds is another way to substantially improve digestibility.

*More Ways to Make Bean Dishes More Digestible*
If these tips don't yield satisfactory results, don't give up until you've experimented with split peas and lentils. Many people who can't tolerate a black bean burrito will find a thin yellow split pea dal creates no digestive problems whatsoever.

There's also a product called Bean-Zyme that contains an enzyme that breaks down the sugars of beans. Depending on who you ask you'll hear it's miraculous, totally ineffective, or somewhere in between.

And finally, many people plagued by indigestion don't realize that a little knowledge and attention can resolve lifelong difficulties. Specifically, your body's digestive powers are at their peak at mid-day. So if you're going to eat beans and other hard-to-digest foods, the early afternoon best time to do it. Ideally only eat these foods on an empty stomach when you're truly hungry, and you'll gain quicker digestion and less flatulence.

Where people get into trouble is when they eat late at night and when they eat something tough to digest when their digestive system is already busy working on food already eaten. Obviously the longer hard-to-digest foods take to pass through your intestines the more gas will form, so being genuinely hungry before you eat beans will help ensure they don't hang out in your digestive tract for an undue amount of time.

*Beans are an Ideal Vegan Food*
Moving gracefully towards a plant-based diet depends on discovering delicious vegan foods to crowd out the meat, milk, and eggs you grew up eating. Bean-based meals can play a key role here, especially since they are among the most filling and protein-rich foods available. So give yourself every possible advantage when exploring the world of beans. Venture beyond pinto beans to explore the delicious, colorful, and tasty lesser-known varieties

If you want to increase your bean consumption, don't hesitate in an Instant Pot and a book on vegan bean cookery. Beans cost so little compared to other foods that you'll quickly earn back this investment. And by incorporating more beans into your meals, your diet will become more diverse, healthful, and satisfying than ever before.

Now what about recipes? Most thick general-interest vegan cookbooks will offer plenty of bean recipes. And since beans play a huge role in Mexican cooking, you may want to pick up a vegan Mexican cookbook to explore that cuisine. On top of that, there are two different all-vegan cookbooks devoted entirely to the topic that will give you dozens and dozens of great new recipe ideas: The Great Vegan Bean Book and Vegan Beans from Around the World.

Even though beans are one of the simplest foods in existence, there's a great deal to know about them. There's likewise a lot to learn about rice, which offers the ideal complement to beans where flavor and protein is concerned. Since these two foods pair up perfectly, there's really no way to get the most out of one without also learning about the other. So please check out our guide to rice, which will teach you how to provide your beans with a match made in heaven.

sauce https://www.vegan.com/beans/?fbclid=IwAR3XwvrobW7BOGVrx5esWm5aMLUJBqNJF8QvNG2yDNm2HHeokNuYhNKS2D8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Please do not try to survive on an all-meat diet*

If your love of ribeye knows no bounds, perhaps you'd be interested in the carnivore diet. The rules are simple-eat only meat-and the purported benefits seem boundless. More energy. Less body fat. You can even cure your Lyme disease, depression, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Or at least, so say the proponents of the carnivore diet, including Shawn Baker, a former orthopedic surgeon who has been one of the biggest public advocates for consuming only meat. Other high-profile members of the carnivore club (or "tribe" as they call themselves) include Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and his daughter Mikhaila. You can read about all the miraculous, really-too-good-to-be-true benefits of gorging yourself daily on pork chops on any number of pro-meat websites, but it's also spreading out to other areas of media. Instagram. Medium. Facebook. The internet is even more of a sausage fest than usual.

All of these posts claim a scientific basis for their suggestions, so we thought we should take a look at what the evidence really has to say. After all, Shawn Baker had his medical license revoked in 2017 in part for "incompetence to practice as a licensee", Mikhaila Peterson has absolutely no scientific or medical qualifications, and while her father may be a psychologist, he has no training in nutrition.

What makes their testimonies compelling isn't really their qualifications, though, it's their conviction. These are real people who are earnestly saying that switching to a carnivorous diet helped them live better lives. Mikhaila Peterson reportedly had arthritis-now she doesn't (or at least, she thinks she doesn't, and that's really what counts when it comes to pain management). Shawn Baker says he had tendinitis and now says he's cured. Both say they feel less sluggish. Both say their workouts have improved. It's tempting to believe them. They say things like "meat contains all the nutrients you need" and "carbs are bad for you" that sound an awful lot like they could be true.

But are they? Let's start with the question of nutritional content.

*There are some nutrients you just can't get from meat*
You need 13 vitamins in order to live, and though you can actually get most of them from eating a variety of meats, you're going to miss out on some crucial ones if you totally forego flora. Folate, along with vitamins C and E, pretty much only come from veggies, mostly green leafy ones and citrus. This is why sailors used to get scurvy-not enough vitamin C in their largely fish- and other-meat-based diets. Plus, if you don't get enough vitamin E your body can't use vitamin K as well, so even though you're getting enough from fish, liver, and beef you won't actually be able to make use of it.

And then there's the issue of fiber. Meat has no fiber, yet we know that fiber is crucial to a healthy diet. It promotes a diverse, robust microbiome in your intestines, and your microbiome seems to impact everything from your basic digestion to your immune system to your mood. You need fiber, and meat can't give it to you.

Many proponents of protein-dense diets like this point to cultures that have historically eaten mostly or entirely meat. If they can be healthy, why can't we? Take the Inuit, for instance, who almost exclusively eat very fatty meats (though they supplement with berries in the short-lived summer). They're healthy on a diet of blubber and liver. But as it turns out, the Inuit stay healthy because they eat a wide variety of meats, most of which fad-dieters are not consuming. They stave off scurvy by feasting on collagen-rich, vitamin-C-dense whale skin and other fresh, uncooked meats. And the flesh they consume often isn't mostly protein-it's about 50 percent fat, much of which is of the healthier, unsaturated variety. The meat you buy in a grocery store is largely saturated fat, since that's the kind that develops on animals who get little exercise and eat mostly corn.

You could, arguably, take supplements for all of the deficiencies that eating only farm-raised animals brings on. Many of the diet proponents, including all of the people mentioned earlier in this article, do not promote taking supplements because they believe that meat is nutritionally complete. But if you were being smart about it you could certainly improve the diet by adding vitamin pills and fiber powder. Neither of these is as good as getting those nutrients from real, whole foods, but it's better than nothing.

*Red meat is problematic for your colon and your heart*
Eating lots of red meat has long been linked to colorectal cancer, along with pancreatic and prostate cancers to a lesser degree. The World Health Organization report on red meats supported that link and backed it up with evidence that, when cooked at temperatures exceeding 300°F, flesh produces certain chemicals that are carcinogenic.

Animal meat also tends to push the balance of our good and bad cholesterol (called HDL and LDL, respectively) toward the bad end. You want more HDL and less LDL, along with low levels of triglycerides. Fatty red meats do the opposite: they raise your LDL and triglycerides while lowering your HDL.

Nutritionists like Teresa Fung, who also served on a panel of experts evaluating diets for U.S. News & World Report, are scared by the levels of animal fat even in diets that involve less than 100-percent meat intake, like keto. Blood cholesterol levels rise quickly, but she says "cardiovascular risks don't rise in a matter of months." Instead, they build more insidiously over a long period of time, which can be especially problematic if you're not starting from a good baseline. "High blood cholesterol for a few months isn't going to be an issue, especially if you have healthy arteries, but for someone who already has atherosclerosis you don't want to push it."

Again, you could try to combat this by eating less red meat and opting for healthier options, like lean poultry and fish, both of which have more nutrients than beef and seem to generally be better for you. Organ meats from all sorts of animals have plenty of vitamins, which can also help supplement your diet in small quantities. But if all you ever eat is meat, eating just fish and chicken could get pretty monotonous.

*If you're eating only meat, you're probably taking in fewer calories*
This is, most likely, why you lose weight on any diet. Give someone rules that alter their eating habits, especially really strict ones that make it hard to find random things to snack on throughout the day, and they'll probably end up consuming less overall. Protein is an especially satiating food, so the calories per meal will be much lower than any in which you consume carbs.

If you're looking to lose weight, cutting calories is obviously a good thing, but you need to do it in a sustainable way. Studies consistently show that most people lose 5-7 pounds per year on a new diet, regardless of the nutritional composition, and that most gain that weight back later. Nutritionists instead advise that you pick a way of eating that you can maintain for life. "Eating is a lifestyle," Fung says. "It's not the kind of thing where you get to where you want and then just stop."

*But don't eat only vegetables either*
Pretty much any extreme diet is going to be problematic. Fruit may be good for you, but if all you ever ate was fruit you'd end up with serious nutritional deficiencies. Even vegans, who generally still eat a diverse group of foods, have trouble getting certain nutrients like vitamin B12, which our bodies aren't very good at absorbing from plant sources.

It's not flashy, but panels of experts consistently recommend consuming a wide variety of foods, all in moderation. And yes, that can include meat. But you should sneak yourself a few veggies in there when you can.

sauce https://www.popsci.com/carnivore-al...3S04A1XrRoeF6WT19O5UqF5l64j9copiBKEfaNwDS1q2s


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Going Vegan in the New Year: Seven Tips for Success*

1) Learn About Nutrition

You don't have to know a lot, but you need to know something. The idea that simply eating a variety of whole plant foods will magically meet your needs for protein, calcium, iron and other nutrients is not true and it is dangerous advice. For quick overviews on the basics, see my Plant Plate, my Vegan 101 series on this website, these Tips for New Vegans, and this more comprehensive article on vegan nutrition.

2) Moderate Your Expectations.

You will not "detox," when you go vegan and your body is not "addicted" to dairy. You may crave these foods (more on that below) but that is different from having actual withdrawal symptoms.

Likewise, you may or may not experience weight loss or health benefits when you go vegan. If your blood pressure and cholesterol levels drop (and they very well might) those are nice bonuses. But if you somehow don't find yourself with more energy, clear skin, and the slender waist you were expecting, it doesn't mean a vegan diet "doesn't work." A vegan diet always works because it always reduces your contribution to animal exploitation and it lessens your impact on climate change.

3) Satisfy Your Cravings

Veggie meats and cheeses can be effective for adding back flavors and textures that you may miss when you go vegan. They vary a lot in quality, which means you may need to experiment to find ones that you enjoy. Here is a good list to get you started. Also explore foods that offer the flavor/essence known as umami. Animal foods are rich in umami, but you can find it in plant foods as well. Finally, don't limit the culinary possibilities of a vegan diet by getting caught up in fad versions of plant-based diets like those that drastically limit fats or cooked foods. These approaches have no particular advantages over other vegan eating styles, and they can make it more difficult to find foods you enjoy.

4) Start with What is Easiest

Probably the easiest choice you can make in your transition to a vegan diet is to replace cow's milk with some type of plant milk. Because plant milks are used in the exact same ways as cow's milk, you don't need to learn anything new. Pouring oat milk over your morning cereal is just as easy as pouring cow's milk over it. And given the variety of these milks on the market, it's easy enough to find ones you like.

5) Also Start with What is Most Impactful

The single most important dietary change you can make is to remove the meat and eggs of chickens and turkeys from your menus. These animals suffer greatly in food production and they suffer in huge numbers. Eliminating the products of the chicken and turkey industries is the most immediate and effective stance against that suffering that you can take.

6) Honor Your Intentions and Efforts

Veganism is a stance against the exploitation of animals. It's not a personal purity contest. Any effort to move your consumption habits away from animal exploitation is significant. If you lapse in your food choices now and then, it doesn't mean you are a "failed vegan." It means your habits sometimes lag behind your ideals and intentions, which is true for most of us in many areas of our lives. In particular, this may happen in social situations for new vegans. But as the world shifts toward embracing more vegan ideals and offering more vegan choices, it will get easier. Whatever you are doing to enable that shift is of value. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't strive toward making as many vegan choices as possible. It just means that you shouldn't berate yourself or give up on veganism when you falter.

7) Explore Vegan Choices Beyond Your Diet

If you are struggling with some aspect of your vegan diet, put it aside for now and explore some of the other ways you can address animal exploitation. Download an app that will help you find cruelty-free personal care products. Cancel your family trip to the zoo or circus or aquarium and head to an animal sanctuary instead. You truly have choices every single day to make a difference for animals. Don't get fixated on what is most difficult, but instead keep moving forward with all the things you can do.

sauce https://www.theveganrd.com/2018/12/...uDsSueyOsWoCWj69vy-KbeOmy53ltNON0DVxI791MplPA


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Enjoying a winter solstice vegan sweet treat


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy meatless Monday! I think Santa was also lifting weights


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

I agree as one can clearly see some definition in his tricep. 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*THESE ARE THE TOP 10 VEGAN FOOD TRENDS FOR 2020*

2019 was a big year for vegan food. We saw the rise of plant-based menu items in major restaurants including McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC. Consumer appetites for vegan food seem to show no sign of slowing, either. And 2020 is poised to bring a whole lot more plants to a whole lot more plates. And in delicious and innovative ways. Here are our top 10 food trend predictions for 2020.

*1. Biggest Meat Trend: Plant-Based Chicken* 
If 2019 was the year of the vegan burger, 2020 is poised to be the year of vegan chicken. Whichever way you like it - fried, wings, or nugs - the vegan chicken revolution is coming. Chains like KFC and A&W are already experimenting with vegan chicken but you can expect to see it everywhere else, too, soon enough.

*2. Biggest Dairy Trend: Oats (Again)*
Fact: anything meat or milk can do, oats can do just as good and even better. It was our top dairy trend for 2019 and it's back for 2020. But this year, it's more than just milk. While Oatly has already started the unstoppable infiltration into latte cups across the planet, oats are finding their way into a number of other items. Swedish brand Halsa is making a name for itself in the yogurt alternative market. And now with help from Stonyfield Yogurt founder Gary Hirshberg. And select Taco Bell locations are now serving meat made from Oats. That's right, oat meat. It cooks and tastes just like traditional beef but without the consequences. You can read more about oat meat here.









*3. Biggest Fast-Food Trend: More Meat + Cheese!*
While 2019 was certainly overflowing with vegan fast food options, 2020 is going to see even more inventive menu items and more restaurant chains jumping into the mix. Expect more burgers like Impossible or Beyond. Expect vegan chicken and sausages. But the biggest runaway fast-food hit in 2020 might just be vegan cheese. As chains saw significant success with vegan meat in 2019, consumers want fully vegan options like vegan cheeseburgers and vegan pizza. Chains like Domino's and Pizza Hut have already been adding vegan cheese in the EU and Australia with much success. Could American shops be next? (Definitely.)









*4. Biggest Trend To Watch: Vegan Egg*
Scrambled, fried, quiche, even vegan versions of hard-boiled eggs will be on more plates in 2020 than ever before. And this isn't just scrambled eggy-style tofu - brands like JUST and Follow Your Heart are revolutionizing the egg market with vegan alternatives that look, cook, and taste just like eggs. Tim Hortons has already been trialing vegan egg patties from JUST in select Canadian locations. And with chains like Dunkin' launching vegan breakfast sausage, a vegan egg patty sandwich in the U.S. might not be that far off.









*5. Biggest Vegan Buzz Category: Cheese*
What's more perfect than a wedge of stinky, creamy, pungent cheese? In 2020, the answer will be only this, I guarantee: vegan cheese, and lots of it. Get ready because the future will be meltable. While we're certainly going to see more quick cheese options on burgers and pizzas, it's just the tip of the giant wedge ahead. From small-batch producers making brie, cheddar, and gouda, to spreadable cream cheeses and crumbly feta and ricotta. Get those cheeseboards ready!









*6. Biggest Snack Trend: Dairy-Free Chocolate*
2019 saw Nestlé's dark chocolate Aero and Mars' vegan Galaxy bars hit shelves. But those won't be the only option for fans of dairy-free chocolate. Just like 2019 was brimming with dairy-free ice cream products, 2020 will see the same on the chocolate front and then some. Halloween can't get here soon enough!









*7. Biggest Dessert Trend: Vegan Bakeries*
Sure, there are lots of vegan baked goods available already. But there will be more. And good things carbs are back in fashion because fresh crusty bread and croissants, brioche, those addictive macarons, and everything in between, is coming. You won't have to go to specialty bakeries anymore. Vegan baked goods will be everywhere in 2020.









*8. Biggest Vegan Cuisine Trend: French Food*
It may seem hard to imagine vegan versions of French classics like foie gras or beef bourguignon. But anything can be made vegan these days and top chefs are already embracing the trend. You can now get vegan foie gras in restaurants like Brooklyn's Sans. French chef Jean-Georges has increased vegan options at his Los Angeles restaurant. Ladurée Bakery in Beverly Hills has gone fully vegan, too, thanks to plant-based chef Matthew Kenney. There are so many vegan restaurants in the City of Light that now you can eat a different one daily. Check out our top vegan Paris restaurant picks here.









*9. Biggest Innovation: Bean-Based Products*
Beans are nothing new to vegan cuisine. But they're going high-tech. Vegan burgers made with fava beans? Yogurt from peas? Eggs from mung beans? Cheese puffs from garbanzos? Lentil noodles? Yep. And much more. The popular Beyond Burger is already pea-based and the company is looking to other bean-based protein sources for future product development. And you'll see beans all across the supermarket aisles and fast-food menus as innovative food-tech startups reimagine meat and dairy through the humble bean. Haven't tried them yet? 2020 is your year.









*10. Biggest Veggie Trend: Green Is Back*
Vegetables have seen a lot of trends in recent years, mainly just being back on plates. But the trends got funky, like whole root-to-stem cooking. Purples were all the rage in for a while. Cauliflower is now in everything from bread and pasta to pizza crusts. But for the purist, 2020 is going to be a most excellent year because green is back. It's the new-old-new again. And greens are better than ever. From simple salad greens like baby kale and arugula to hardier collards and chicory. And keep an eye for greens like peas and broccoli, and of course, the might Brussel sprout, taking center plate as 2020 is going green. Are you?

sauce 
https://www.livekindly.co/top-vegan...bers_push_notification&utm_source=subscribers


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Hospital's Rooftop Garden Provides 7000 Pounds of Organic Veggies a Year for Patients*









High above the Boston Medical Center, there is an organic vegetable garden that feeds patients, staff and the poor.

Boston Medical Center (BMC) is a non-profit 567-bed academic medical center located in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest safety-net hospital and Level I trauma center in New England, and the principal teaching hospital of Boston University School of Medicine.

The Boston Medical Center Rooftop Farm is the first farm on a hospital in Boston, and it is located three stories up on the lower roof of BMC's power plant building, with a total roof area of 7,000 square feet, the rooftop farm has 2,658 square feet of growing space.

It is tended by over a hundred volunteers and began as the brainchild of Dave Maffeo, senior director of support services and Robert Biggio, senior vice president of facilities and support services, with the support of BMC's Office of Development.

In the attempt to find a rooftop and growing system that meets the needs of BMC, Dave worked with Lindsay Allen, who is currently Manager of the BMC Rooftop Farm, and John Stoddard of Higher Ground Farm.

The farm was designed and installed by Somerville-based Recover Green Roofs, and Higher Ground Farm is managing the growing.

It includes various herbs, beans, peppers, kale, collard greens, bok choy, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, eggplant, and squash. All these crops are grown in organic soil in recycled milk crates and are pollinated by two onsite beehives that provide honey as well.

A sign advertises BMC's daily farm offerings on a sign outside the cafeteria entrance.

The farm also provides habitat for bees in an otherwise uninhabitable urban setting.

Additionally, it insulates the building, decreasing cooling and heating costs, and absorbs rainwater that would otherwise contribute to sewage overflow in the city streets below.

Yet, its most important benefit is the nutritious food for those who need it most, between 5000 and 7000 pounds of it per year.

Maffeo says that the reason for this is that food is medicine.

Lindsay Allen, the farm's manager, manages a composting system to keep the soil fertilized and intersperses various crops to ward off pests and attract beneficial bugs. She says she sees the garden as an ecosystem as much as possible.

As a "safety net" hospital, BMC mostly serves low-income and elderly patients. It offers free food to low-income families, as well as gardening, cooking and nutrition classes.

Kate Sommerfeld, president of social determinants of health at ProMedica, explains that between 40% and 60% of individual health is determined by non-clinical factors, which include the foods consumed during the period.

Therefore, the healthcare industry should think about issues that impact and drive health such as food access and housing. She adds that it is imperative that the food provided at facilities of healthcare such as hospitals, must be of high nutritional value.

Maffeo adds that as most urban environments are food deserts, one faces difficulties to find locally grown food. Yet, he believes that is something they owe their patients and the community.

This hospital must be commended as a result of the implementation of the roof-top garden program, as it has certainly tackled important social issues like the lack of quality food to in-care patients, lack of employment to marginalized groups within society, poorly maintained sewage systems in urban areas and the effects of urbanization on the ecosystems of species like bees.

sauce https://www.healthyfoodhouse.com/ho...-OFeS66jx94I1Mk93OXE0BE2_LET-URYbAv9BHuvMlLII


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Meaning? What is a Vegan*









The word vegan was initially defined as a diet free of animal-based foods (such as meat, dairy products, eggs, and honey.) Nowadays, the word's meaning is commonly extended to refer to non-food products-such as clothing, cosmetics, and medicine-that are made without animal-derived substances. Vegans also typically object to exploitative uses of animals, from animal testing to rodeos to zoos and dolphin shows.

You can use the word vegan to identify a sandwich, a car seat, a shampoo, or a person. Given the word's flexibility, seeking an accurate and uncontested definition inevitably produces disagreement. You're always going to have bickering over who or what qualifies as vegan.

The core virtue of the vegan concept is that it enables, through the tiniest efforts, the prevention of vast amounts of animal suffering and environmental degradation. My intention here is to define vegan in a way that maximizes its power to encourage people to embrace plant-based lifestyles.
*
Unpacking the Meaning of Vegan*

To begin our consideration of this topic, let's start by looking at how the word vegan differs from vegetarian.

Vegetarian diets eschew meat and fish, but commonly allow eggs and dairy products. Veganism takes this idea to the next level, cutting out every item of animal origin. So vegans avoid any food made with animal flesh, dairy products, eggs, or honey.

Vegetarian diets are appealing for a number of reasons, but vegan diets make even more sense. A vegan diet extends the advantages that a vegetarian diet delivers, by offering:

additional curtailment of animal mistreatment and slaughter
reduction of certain health risks
decrease of environmental footprint
With those benefits in mind, let's now take a step back and look at the first time the word vegan appeared in print.

*The Original Definition of Vegan*

Donald Watson, a founding member of the Vegan Society, coined the term vegan in 1944 while living in the United Kingdom. Here's Watson from that year, in the first issue of The Vegan News, introducing the word and defining its meaning:



> We should all consider carefully what our Group, and our magazine, and ourselves, shall be called. 'Non-dairy' has become established as a generally understood colloquialism, but like 'non-lacto' it is too negative. Moreover it does not imply that we are opposed to the use of eggs as food. We need a name that suggests what we do eat, and if possible one that conveys the idea that even with all animal foods taboo, Nature still offers us a bewildering assortment from which to choose. 'Vegetarian' and 'Fruitarian' are already associated with societies that allow the 'fruits' (!) of cows and fowls, therefore it seems we must make a new and appropriate word. As this first issue of our periodical had to be named, I have used the title "The Vegan News". Should we adopt this, our diet will soon become known as a VEGAN diet, and we should aspire to the rank of VEGANS. Members' suggestions will be welcomed. The virtue of having a short title is best known to those of us who, as secretaries of vegetarian societies have to type or write the word vegetarian thousands of times a year!


Watson did an admirable job of formulating the vegan concept in clear and inspiring terms. You'll notice that he defined the word solely in terms of diet.

*Which foods are vegan?*

Of the various senses of the word vegan, the easiest one to address relates to food. Here, things may seem cut-and-dried. If a food contains no animal ingredients, it's vegan. There is an enormous variety of vegan foods, including:

Vegetables
Fruits and berries
Rice, wheat, and other grains
Beans, tofu, and tempeh
Soy milk and nut milks
Nuts and Seeds
Vegetable oils

In regard to applying the word vegan to food, I think it's sensible to err on the side of being strict. A chocolate bar that contains one percent milk powder is absolutely not vegan.

But now I must throw you a curve ball. Some chocolate bars made exclusively with vegan ingredients may nevertheless contain traces of milk, since they're produced on the same manufacturing line as milk chocolate bars. Ditto for other foods like vegan ice cream.

In such cases, I think it's sensible to call these foods vegan. Because these foods aren't formulated with non-vegan ingredients, they don't fund animal exploitation. To whatever extent you're eating a few molecules of milk because your vegan product shares a manufacturing line, an omnivore is consuming a few extra vegan molecules that came from your product.

Oftentimes these products bear a seal stating something like, "may contain traces of milk." These statements exist to warn consumers who have dangerous allergies. To assert these foods aren't vegan could create the impression that a vegan diet is absurdly strict, and repel people from embracing plant-based eating.

Let's now look at another case of where a food's vegan status isn't cut-and-dried.

*Is Palm Oil Vegan?*

Palm oil is frequently sourced from plantations that have cleared vast tracts of jungle. Clearing such land commonly entails the extermination of orangutans and other endangered species. Vegans commonly (and rightfully) refuse to purchase palm oil sourced in this manner. Some claim this oil is not vegan because of the exploitation involved, ignoring the fact that palm oil can be produced as ethically and sustainably as any other crop.

Killing endangered apes to clear land for agriculture is certainly outrageous. But the fact is that whenever land is used for any sort of monoculture, animals die-usually horrifically. And this issue goes deeper than most people realize. The farmer growing your delicious local organic lettuce may be poisoning gophers or shooting deer who dare to threaten his crop. The bread you eat, organic or not, undoubtedly came from grains harvested with combine threshers that eviscerate any number of snakes and rodents.

So if we are going to argue that palm oil is not vegan, pretty much every other plant-based food deserves lose its vegan status as well. The word vegan then breaks down and becomes useless.

*Palm Oil may be Totally Objectionable, but Totally Vegan*

As you can see, the vegan concept collapses when loaded with needless weight. The fact that vegan means, "nothing produced by or derived from animals" is sufficient to convey a hugely important point, and this is where our definition should therefore begin and end. Designating a food vegan does not and should not mean it's karma-free, or produced in morally acceptable ways.

While many vegans refuse to consume palm oil that lacks some sort of sustainability certification-and I'm in total agreement with this refusal, by the way-it's counterproductive to assert that palm oil is not vegan.

That said, it would be laughable to assert that, simply because it's vegan, uncertified palm oil is an acceptable food choice. Veganism cannot be the only standard by which we evaluate the ethical status of a given food. Other important issues require consideration. Let me now offer some additional examples.

*What About Coffee and Chocolate?*

Just as palm oil is invariably vegan-no matter how objectionable its production methods-the same goes for coffee and cacao beans. All these foods are vegan since they come entirely from plants.

Many coffee orchards and cacao plantations treat their workers abominably. Some cacao plantations even engage in slavery. But that doesn't render these foods non-vegan. A food can involve deplorable treatment of people, and crimes against the environment, and still be vegan.

Naturally, people who become vegan for ethical reasons usually recognize there are other important considerations involved beyond whether their food comes from plants. They therefore typically go out of their way to choose fair-trade coffee and chocolate. There are plenty of brands that are fair-trade certified, so finding one poses little inconvenience.

Vegan is just one component of ethical eating. It's absolutely possible to be a strict vegan but to source many of your foods from farms that engage in exploitative or environmentally reckless practices. This is true for many foods beyond palm oil, coffee, and chocolate. A few prime examples include tomatoes, cashews, and berries.

If you want to eat food that's produced in the least harmful ways, going vegan must surely enter into your thinking. And if you intend to eat as ethically as possible, it's crucial to go beyond the vegan concept when appropriate in order to make the most compassionate and sustainable choices.

*Vegan as an Identity*

Can you call yourself a vegan purely because you eat a vegan diet, but go no further in regard to other lifestyle choices? Different people have different opinions, but I can't see any reason to object.

That said, this question does bring up edge cases like a person who eats a vegan diet but wears fur. But I think we're all capable of using language to deal a situation like this. I'd call that person a vegan who has made a deeply problematic choice that directly funds extraordinary animal cruelty.

Being vegan, after all, does not mean you are a person exhibiting consistently admirable behavior. There are vegans who cheat on their spouses, are abusive to their friends, who dishonor debts, and so forth. Some of the most despicable people I've ever encountered are vegan. So the vegan concept should never be imagined as a comprehensive guarantee of human decency. It's just one more approach that can help you to be a better person, like telling the truth, being kind in your speech, and refusing to steal.

When it comes to deciding whether or not somebody is vegan, my answer is usually, "who cares?" I want to spend my limited time protecting animals-not getting into endless arguments over who gets to call themselves a vegan. If someone eats nothing but plants but wears a leather belt, I think you and I have more important things to do than to protest that he's not a real vegan.

*Flexible Definitions Save Animals*

If you're not careful, it's possible to make vegan diets sound excruciatingly restrictive to newcomers. We must therefore always strive to use the word vegan in ways that inspire change rather than inhibit it.

I'm therefore a big fan of the foot-in-the-door technique when discussing vegan topics. I often seek to convince people to make a small change in a vegan direction today, since I know that once they see how satisfying it is they'll be open to making bigger changes tomorrow. If we manage to present the vegan concept in appealing terms, we'll be much more able to stick our foot in the door before it closes.

I suspect the reason some people define veganism in strictest possible terms is that they think doing so will inspire more perfect lifestyle choices and thus prevent more animal suffering. But that sort of approach may be counterproductive. Most of the incidental uses of animal byproducts will automatically disappear as slaughterhouses shut down because we've stopped raising animals for food. For that to happen, we must talk about veganism in ways that motivate people to shift their diets towards plants.

*The Plumber's Snake*

While most people would regard me as a strict vegan based on my diet and lifestyle choices, I don't consider this word to be a big part of my identity. I rarely feel the urging to tell people I'm vegan, even during long conversations involving food politics. And I refuse to take the word too seriously, especially as a marker for who I am as a person. I see veganism much the same way I regard a plumber's snake. It's merely a tool to get a job done.

I use the word vegan in whatever sense I can to inspire change. Just like a plumber's snake does its job by bending this way and that in order to clear obstructions, I bend the word vegan in whichever way serves my purpose at the moment.

*Can You be "Mostly Vegan"?*

Here are some phrases I frequently use in order to nudge people toward plant-based lifestyles:

80 percent vegan
vegan at home
mostly vegan
vegan until 6:00

Phrases like these really piss off the vegan fundamentalists. They'll proclaim you can't be a little bit vegan any more than you can be a little bit pregnant. Sometimes they'll even feign an inability to understand what "mostly vegan" or "80 percent vegan" is supposed to mean.

But I presume a functioning level of intelligence on the part of my listener, and if you can't figure out that 80 percent vegan means eating vegan around 80 percent of the time, you've got much bigger problems than how I define the word vegan.

*A Delicate But Useful Comparison*
Time now for a quick detour bound to antagonize a few readers. But the comparison I'm about to offer makes a vital point that I don't know how else to convey.

If you want to spread Christianity, you don't need more guys walking around with giant crucifixes hanging from their necks. What spreads Christianity are people who humbly follow Christ's deepest teachings of forgiveness and charity. This is truly leading by example, and it's the sort of behavior that inspires others to upgrade their own conduct and character. If you want to make more Christians, the best way is to act more Christian-in the deepest sense of the word.

Some people seem to base their entire identity around being vegan. Their way of framing the ethics of eating is often strikingly similar to religious fundamentalists. They're invariably inflexible about definitions, since they want to keep the meaning of vegan as exclusionary as possible. Veganism becomes all about reinforcing their personal sense of identity.

No fundamentalist sect will ever take over the world. Invariably the requirements to become part of their sect are so restrictive that it will always rule out 99 percent of the population. If vegan diets are to become the norm, we need to use this word with the intention of inviting and including rather than excluding.

*When to Cut Short a Conversation*

There are certainly occasions that warrant using the word vegan in the strictest possible sense. But the people who insist on exclusively defining vegan to convey absolute moral purity have fallen into fundamentalist thinking. When you encounter these people, you'll probably discover there's no way to have a good faith give-and-take conversation.

In time, your spidey-sense kicks in whenever you find yourself talking to one of these people. In these cases, I've learned it's best to politely end the conversation and let them have the last word. They're going to get the last word anyway. And since they rarely make a sincere effort to listen, every moment of dialog is generally a waste of breath.

I'd rather devote my limited time to having conversations with the millions of omnivores who are open to thinking more carefully about their food choices.

*The Case for a Vegan Diet*

We will never converge on a meaning of vegan that pleases everybody. But now that we have a working definition it's time to move on to more important things. Specifically, it's time to move past what vegan means, to why people embrace this concept.

The best place to get up to speed on that is to read my essay titled, "Why Go Vegan?" You can finish it in under an hour, and it'll acquaint you with the main reasons that people choose a vegan lifestyle. If you find the arguments persuasive, you'll also want to check out my "How to Go Vegan" guide. It's much easier than you may realize to rid your life of animal products. In fact, as you progress down the vegan road, you're certain to enjoy eating more than ever before. That's primarily because vegan food is incredible.

*Stepping Toward a Vegan Lifestyle*

If you're moving toward a vegan diet, two books especially worth your time are But I Could Never Go Vegan! and my own, The Ultimate Vegan Guide.

Whether we're talking about food or clothing or cosmetics, cutting out animal products is generally easy. But sometimes, it's not obvious whether a particular item comes from animals. In these cases, you can check our animal ingredients list for the most common animal-derived foods, materials, and substances.

No matter how far down the vegan road you travel, it makes sense to start by emphasizing dietary choices. After all, the overwhelming majority of animal exploitation in this world arises from food production.

I expect that this essay has made it apparent why large numbers of people are deciding to go vegan. Avoiding animal products makes sense on so many levels.

Vegan is a uniquely powerful word. In fact, it's probably the most important term ever coined in the service of animal protection. Unfortunately, the word can be misused in ways that give it as much potential to repel as to attract. I've therefore sought to define vegan in a context that unlocks its full power, without ever coming off as rigid, preachy, or uptight. I hope you'll make use of the vegan concept in whichever ways best enable you to remove animal products from your life, and to inspire others to do the same.
https://www.vegan.com/what/?fbclid=IwAR2bn6WxtPB6tUSz8kbNV3UVZMuVtjuC0kZHGfFF0RMx1dpqvaNomMG8KjA

































Here's to another year powered by plants


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A good article to share with anyone looking to cut back on animal products in 2020. Includes the sentence: "Becoming vegan would be the most planet-friendly way to go, followed by going vegetarian."

I've been a strict vegan for 6 years (going on 7 years) prior to that I was vegetarian. My husband's diet while not 100% plant based would be described as flexitarian. He enjoys a bit of fish or chicken once or twice per week but the rest of his meals are plant based. This article is a good guide for those contemplating or setting some diet goals for 2020

*The Meat-Lover's Guide to Eating Less Meat*
_Reducing your meat and dairy intake can help mitigate climate change._









A vegetarian riff on Indian butter chicken, this fragrant stew of chickpeas is spiced with cinnamon, garam masala and fresh ginger, and is rich and creamy from the coconut milk.

For all of my adult life, I've reveled in rare rib-eye steaks and oozing Camembert. I won't let go of my drumstick until I've gnawed off every bit of cartilage and golden skin, and it's best to not even talk about bacon so crisp that it won't bend for that first porky bite.

Yet over the past few months, I've cut way down on my lamb chops and grilled cheese sandwiches. And if you're meat-and-dairy eater who aches over the environmental state of our planet, then you may be thinking of doing the same thing, too.

It started in the spring, when my Food colleague Julia Moskin teamed up with Brad Plumer from The New York Times Climate desk to report on how our current food system is contributing to climate change. The results were crystal clear and deeply depressing. Meat and dairy production alone account for 14.5 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions - as much each year as from all cars, trucks, airplanes and ships combined. It's a staggering statistic.

I'd always considered my food choices to be outside the problem. I get a local farm box of produce every week, and frequent the farmers' market for more vegetables, as well as grains and ethically raised meat. I limit seafood that's not sustainable, and when I do shop at a supermarket I mostly fill my cart with organic whole foods that are not highly processed (the occasional bag of Cheetos aside).

Evidence is piling up, though, that this isn't enough to make an impact. Only drastic changes will make a difference. The World Resource Institute, an environmental research group, recommends that wealthy nations cut their beef, lamb and dairy consumption by 40 percent to meet global emissions goals for 2050.

Becoming vegan would be the most planet-friendly way to go, followed by going vegetarian. In my case, those diets would be a professional liability, and to be perfectly honest, I don't know that I've got the willpower to stick to either one. I love meat and dairy too much to give them up entirely. But eating less of them - that I can do.

On the upside, eating less meat and dairy means there is more room on my plate for other delectable things: really good sourdough bread slathered with tahini and homemade marmalade, mushroom Bourguignon over a mound of noodles, and all those speckled heirloom beans I keep meaning to order online.








Meaty mushrooms simmered with pearl onions, wine and carrots make for a rich, wintry Bourguignon-style stew.Credit...

So how much meat and dairy should we actually be eating? And if we reduce our intake severely, do we then need to worry about getting enough protein?

According to Marion Nestle, an author and professor emeritus of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, if you are getting enough calories, then you are getting enough protein. (That is, unless you are an elite athlete.)

"People are very concerned about protein, but it's a nonissue," she said. "It's in grains, it's in vegetables, it's everywhere. It will find you."

With that anxiety abated, I turned to setting a concrete goal: a balance of plant-based versus meat-and-dairy meals to strive for every week, like my daily 10,000 steps (or should it be 15,000?), translated into broccoli and burgers.

After some mental calisthenics, I landed on trying to limit myself to two to three meals that include meat, seafood or dairy per week,and thrice-daily splashes of milk in my tea (nonnegotiable if I want to retain my sanity). I figure this is about a 40 percent reduction from the six to eight meaty, cheesy, anchovy- and yogurt-laden meals I had been eating weekly. (The rest were already meat- and dairy-free, and I don't typically eat breakfast.)

Another way to strategize is to try keeping the daily mix of what you eat to 80 percent plant matter and 20 percent meat, dairy and seafood. (Going vegan all day, then having a small amount of meat or cheese with dinner is one way that people make this work.)

For my meat allotment, I've focused more on chicken, pork and local seafood (especially mollusks), which are generally less taxing to the environment than beef and lamb, both of which are now relegated to special-occasion status.

Of course, none of this is in any way a novel approach. The concept of flexitarianism has been around since the early 2000s, and it's a central tenet in much of Michael Pollan's writing. But somehow the term seems timeworn, and not at all evocative of the pleasures of the table.

I like to loosely think of my approach as mindful meat-eating. Now, when I do simmer up a pot of beef short ribs (or smear cream cheese on my bagel, or go for sushi), I'm thoughtful and deliberate about it, which makes it taste even more delicious, seasoned with anticipation.

And while the days of absent-minded chicken Caesar salads and oblivious cheese-and-cracker munching are for the most part over, the likes of avocado toast, salted cashews and popcorn covered with coconut oil and nutritional yeast can fill the void.

What follows is my own personal guide to eating less meat, and dairy too, with tips, strategies and plenty of recipes.

1. Eat Beans and More Beans
We are a family of bean lovers, so adding more of them to our weekly menu makes for happiness all around. To keep us from getting bored, though, I've widened the net, seeking out less common varieties like brown-dappled Jacob's Cattle beans and purple-swirled Christmas lima beans, along with my usual roster of chickpeas, lentils and cannellini.

I've also changed the way I think about chili, one of my go-to bean-based meals. I used to add a small amount of ground meat to my chili pot as a matter of course, unless I was making a specifically vegetarian chili. Now, I usually skip the meat - save for the occasional spoonful of bacon grease or lard for richness - and I don't miss it.

Beans are also excellent stand-ins for meat in certain recipes, like using chickpeas in a riff on Indian butter chicken, and filling tacos with black beans instead of pork. And there's an entire universe of dals that I'm continuing to explore.

When I can plan ahead, I like cooking all of my beans myself for better flavor and texture, not to mention the bonus of leftover bean broth from cooking, which tastes especially amazing if you add lots of salt and garlic to the bean pot. I always keep some of that broth in the freezer to use in soups and stews. If you love beans and don't have a pressure cooker (either manual or electric), you should really consider getting one. It cuts the cooking time in half.

That said, canned beans are one of the greatest supermarket convenience foods, ever. My pantry is never without them.








Brown rice or millet would work just as well as quinoa as a base for these roasted brussels sprouts and soft, velvety eggplant.

2. Turn to High-Protein Grains (Pasta Counts!)
Yes, there's quinoa, the quick-cooking staple that fills many a grain bowl. But there's also kamut, teff, millet, wild rice, buckwheat, cornmeal and even pasta. Grains have a lot more protein than we often give them credit for, along with a host of other vital nutrients, especially when we eat them whole. (I'll always have a soft spot for white rice, though, whether it's steamed sticky rice, or basmati pilaf, or Carolina long-grain rice cooked into pudding.)

Grain bowls make diverse, ever-changing meals that I can throw together from whatever is in the fridge, anything from leftovers to condiments or both. These days I find myself putting together a grain bowl at least once a week, topped with roasted vegetables and some kind of savory sauce to bind everything together. These bowls never get boring.

But within this category, pasta is my first choice, and I adore it in every incarnation. And using toasted bread crumbs in place of Parmesan keeps the dairy quotient down, too.








A small amount of bacon adds a lot of smoky flavor to sweet maple-roasted vegetables and glazed tofu.

3. Elevate Your Tofu Game
Whether pillow-soft and fluffy or crisp-edged and browned, tofu is always welcome on my plate. This is not the case for the rest of my family, who give it the side-eye whenever I serve it. The trick in our house has been to pair tofu, which has a relatively neutral taste, with ingredients with pizazz - the more umami-intense, the better. Miso, soy sauce, mushrooms, hot sauce and fermented black beans do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Another strategy is to mix in a small amount of meat - ground chicken or pork, or a little bacon - to add a large amount of flavor. Cooking it all on a sheet pan makes for an easy weeknight meal.

4. Embrace Nuts and Seeds

I could sing the praises of toasted nuts, nut butter and tahini here, but you probably already know everything you need to about them. Whether toasted and chopped so they're satisfyingly crunchy, or puréed and seasoned to become alluringly creamy dressings or sauces, nuts and nut butters are a great way to round out a plate of roasted, steamed or raw vegetables.

What I really want to talk about is my newfound love of homemade vegan cheese (though I won't turn my nose up at store-bought nut-based queso dip, either). The best recipes I've tried are made from cashews, ground up with nutritional yeast and all manner of seasonings (smoked paprika, garlic powder, oregano), and then set with agar powder.

No, they don't taste anything like actual cheese. But when I rush home, ravenous and stressed after work, and there's some in the refrigerator that I can heap onto my Wheat Thins and nibble with my glass of wine, I don't miss Stilton nearly as much as I'd feared.








These "meatballs" use plant-based ground meat, and a combination of onions, garlic and tamari give them a satisfying chew and robust flavor.

5. Consider Plant-Based Meats
There's no denying how processed most vegan meats are, loaded with unidentifiable ingredients, but they do scratch the itch for burgers and meatballs. And plant-based sausages remind me of kishke, a traditional Jewish and Eastern European sausage made with beef and bread or grains, in a very good way. These products are often a starting point for people who want to cut down on their meat intake - and, with some brands, once that faux burger patty is stuffed into a bun and loaded with condiments, it may be hard to tell the difference.

Of the various kinds of vegan meats, seitan is my personal favorite. (A traditional meat substitute in Asia that's made from wheat gluten, it's the stuff of mock duck.) I truly enjoy seitan's chewy texture and lightly earthy flavor. As vegan meats go mainstream and the competition gets fiercer, seitan sausages, taco crumbles and bacon are getting tastier - far more so than their old, bland health-food store brethren. Unfortunately, as much as my 11-year-old likes the idea of a plant-based meat with a name that sounds like the Devil's, she doesn't actually like seitan. More for me.








Roasted Vegan Sausages with Cauliflower.

6. Make Every Bite of Real Meat Count
Now that I'm eating less meat, every single morsel of it needs to hold its own. Which means I'm less likely to bother with a chicken breast when a smaller amount of Italian turkey sausage, sautéed until crisp and strewn over my spinach salad, delivers a lot more oomph. Or how about some duck confit? Assertively flavored cured pork - bacon, salami, prosciutto - add salty brawn to roasted vegetables and grains, pastas and salads, and a little goes a long way.

Then there's good, concentrated broth, whether it's bone broth or otherwise. Using beef broth in mushroom Bourguignon contributes tons of savory character without adding any actual meat. And making bone broth from scratch with the leftovers of your blowout holiday prime rib helps, at least a tiny bit, with the severe problem of food waste in this country. But really, make it because it tastes good.

sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/...XTWgUA6a92q2PZtaJ7ipdHEaw5i6DtIxWjGekghNiRbks


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

R.I.P. 500+ million animals have died in the Australian bush fires









This makes me sad. Apparently firefighters are traumatized from hearing animals scream in agony. Just to think how much fear and pain those poor creatures have been in... Absolutely heartbreaking. Reminds me of the ptsd people get, who work at factory farms

sauce https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11...by-screaming-animals-after-bushfires/11721756

sauce https://scholar.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2157&context=honr_theses


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Aww that's horrible. Nature's brutal, especially when people throw it out of balance. I'd have a really hard time coping with that experience if I were a firefighter.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why cheese is as addictive as cocaine*






Have you been working on your night cheese this holiday season? There might be a scientific reason why it's so hard to bri(e)ng yourself to put the cheese down.

A study by the University of Michigan surveyed 500 participants and asked them about their food cravings. The researchers found that foods with cheese were what participants craved the most. Why is cheese so addicting? *Casein.*

Sauce https://nationalpost.com/life/why-cheese-is-as-addictive-as-cocaine?video_autoplay=true


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*It's Called 'Plant-Based,' Look It Up
There's a difference between disavowing all animal byproducts and simply trying to eat less meat.*

The terms "vegan" and "plant-based" are often used interchangeably, but there's a growing effort to define just what it means to follow a plant-based lifestyle.

According to Brian Wendel, the founder of the "plant-based living" website Forks Over Knives, going plant-based is often "for people who are very enthusiastic about the health angle" of eating mainly whole plant foods.

Reynolde Jordan, who runs a food blog called Plant-Based Vibe in Memphis, said it's also a way to distance oneself from the rigid ideology of veganism, which calls for abstaining from animal products of all kinds.

"When you classify yourself as vegan, you're now being watched," said Mr. Jordan, who posts vegan recipes for dishes such as Cajun seaweed gumbo and raw beet balls along with photos of the vegetarian meals he orders on trips. "In my DMs, I'd get all these messages from activists for protests. I'm just not that guy - I did this for the purpose of eating better."

Mr. Jordan is one of a growing number of health-conscious consumers embracing a plant-based lifestyle. Unlike many vegans who adhere to a philosophy of animal rights, those going plant-based tend to be inspired by research showing the health benefits of a diet made up of largely fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, grains and nuts. Free from specific ethical constraints, plant-based eaters often have no qualms buying or wearing items made with or tested on animals.

Awareness of the term is growing. And though just 6 percent of Americans eat vegetarian, according to Nielsen, almost 40 percent now make an effort to eat more plant-based foods.

*Plant-Based Eating Enters the Mainstream*
In 2015, Beyoncé wrote in an email to The New York Times: "First it's important that you know I am not a vegan." However she and Jay-Z co-own a food company with Marco Borges, their personal trainer, called 22 Days Nutrition, which promotes what is essentially a vegan diet.

But as Mr. Borges later explained to The Times, Beyoncé eats a "plant-based breakfast daily" and consumes no meat on Mondays. Jay-Z, meanwhile, eats "2 plant-based meals a day," he wrote in an email.

The number of food and drink products made in the United States that use "plant-based" in their labeling spiked 287 percent between 2012 and 2018, according to the consumer research firm Mintel.

Plant-based items such as jerky, ice cream and protein bars are becoming increasingly common on supermarket shelves. Fast-food chains including Dunkin' Donuts and Burger King have even started offering plant-based menu options such as the Impossible Whopper.

Some restaurants, such as Café Gratitude, a small chain in Southern California, have even rebranded themselves as entirely plant-based after originally characterizing their menus as vegan. In 2016, after a website dug up a year-old blog post by the restaurant's owners revealing they had begun raising and slaughtering animals on their family farm, many vegans boycotted and picketed the chain while its founders reportedly received death threats.

In the wake of the controversy, the restaurant made a "conscious choice" to rebrand as entirely plant-based, according to its head chef, Dreux Ellis.

But with the abundance of plant-based choices now available, customers are increasingly looking for options they know reflect vegan values, Mr. Ellis said. In response, Café Gratitude employees have again begun describing the restaurant as vegan, and there have been discussions about restoring the term in its branding.

"We feel like there's nothing to be lost by trying to regain that confidence in the vegan community," Mr. Ellis said. "It's us reclaiming what is rightfully ours."

*The implications of a plant-based diet*
Thomas Colin Campbell, the Cornell University biochemist who claims responsibility for coining the term plant-based, said he came up with the phrase to help present his research on diet to skeptical colleagues at the National Institutes of Health in 1980.

"I wanted to emphasize that my work and ideas were coming totally from science and not any sort of ethical or philosophical consideration," he said.

Mr. Campbell now advocates a "whole food plant-based diet," which he termed to draw a distinction between more nutritious whole plants and processed food products such as veggie burgers. He said he's noticed the term catch on since the release of the 2016 edition of his book "The China Study," which summarized his findings from a survey of 6,500 Chinese people on their eating and other lifestyle habits. The study's results suggested that following a plant-based diet may help reduce the risk of certain cancers and diseases.

But not everyone thinks eating only plants is always healthy. "Anytime you're restricting a whole food group or number of food groups, it's a red flag for a possible disordered eating mentality,"

said Vandana Sheth, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. "That's not always the case, but it's important to figure out how to get all the nutrients you need to prevent chronic conditions within your diet choice."

"The Game Changers," a documentary released on Netflix in 2019 about plant-based diets and athletic performance, has both broadened the appeal of plant-based diets and drawn criticism for some of its health claims.

According to Joseph Pace, a producer and writer on the film, the vegan and vegetarian movements carry connotations of New Agey-types or PETA activists, which don't always resonate with male viewers.

"Using 'plant-based' allows people to feel they're not joining a specific group for eating a specific way," he said.

Mr. Campbell sees the plant-based concept as a way to educate people on the environmental consequences of eating meat. A recent report from the World Resources Institute pointed to raising livestock as a significant source of carbon emissions and recommended reducing meat consumption as a way to combat climate change and stem deforestation.

"The environmental issue is a big one, and this plant-based phraseology works well when you think about it in a broader context," he said.

*The trouble with labels*
Yovana Mendoza Ayres, the vlogger formerly known as Rawvana, was a star of the expansive world of vegan YouTube - until she was caught eating fish in another YouTuber's video earlier this year.

The backlash was swift. "Fishgate," as the ensuing controversy was dubbed, triggered a deluge of outraged comments and videos chastising the 30-year-old influencer for misleading her followers.

Some disgruntled fans flooded her social media pages with taunting fish emojis and GIFs. Others made death threats, which Ms. Ayres said she continues to receive.

"Just like how the vegan community welcomed me, when this came out, I became their enemy," she said.

In an apology video titled "THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING," Ms. Ayres said she began eating meat after experiencing a variety of health problems including a gastrointestinal disorder and the loss of her period, which occurred after completing a 25-day water cleanse during which she consumed nothing but water. In an interview, she added that she had planned to tell her followers about giving up her raw vegan diet but "didn't want other people's opinions to affect my transition."

In the months since her public apology, a half-dozen popular influencers have roiled the vegan internet by renouncing veganism after claiming to have experienced health complications caused by their diet. Ms. Ayres, who now goes by her first name online, said that as she and other vloggers have left veganism behind, she's noticed more discussion about what it means to be vegan as opposed to eating a plant-based diet.

"A lot of us used the word 'vegan' because that was a way of communicating that we ate only plants," she said. "Maybe after seeing us, people are learning not to put labels on themselves or on their diet," she added.

sauce: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/...OIffDPs6-JntGiJkmd9lsgtmsFpX_82cIhIEJ5PJFl7Xw


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

Very interesting thank you. It’s funny how judgmental people get. It’s easier to just say plant based so hopefully people chill out. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^People are sensitive to language. I've used the terms vegan and plant-based interchangeably depending on the conversation. I identify myself as plant based and trying to change my habits and lifestyle to be true vegan

Vegan is driven by ethics. For example, I am vegan because I don’t want to contribute to animal cruelty. 
Plant based is a diet. Someone chooses to eat plant based because of the health benefits from not eating meat and dairy.

Some people are more curious about what gets consumed and I'm happy to have a discussion with them because, maybe they are contemplating eating more plant based and they want to know how to get started or how to maintain this diet etc.. Others scrutinize the ethics perspective for inconsistencies and are looking for a quarrel. As I continue to practice a plant-based diet (and a vegan perspective) , I have been trying to make a conscious effort not to purchase products made from animal bi products ie leather, down, honey etc.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Joaquin Phoenix praised the Golden Globes for serving a fully vegan menu for the first time*









Joaquin Phoenix used the Golden Globes stage to express his support for the award show's decision to serve a vegan meal.

While accepting an award for best actor for a motion picture, drama, the "Joker" actor said: "I'd like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) for recognizing and acknowledging the link between animal agriculture and climate change. It really sends a powerful message."

Phoenix, who is vegan, was referring to the plant-based menu served at the 77th Golden Globes, which included "golden beet soup, king oyster mushrooms cooked and presented to resemble scallops, with wild-mushroom risotto, roasted baby purple, and green Brussels sprouts, globe carrots, and pea tendrils," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Prior to the award show, the actor's sister Rain shared a photo of herself and Phoenix on Instagram, where she shared a statement from her brother.,

"The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced that this year's Golden Globe Awards would - for the very first time - serve an all plant-based dinner," the actor said.

"By acknowledging animal agriculture's role in the degradation of our planet and boldly taking measures to do its part to reduce harm, the HFPA has shown great leadership."

On social media, fans praised Phoenix for his dedication to the environment, and for taking the time to thank the HFPA.

"Joaquin Phoenix talking about climate change and going vegan on his Golden Globes speech was everything," one person wrote.

Another said: "Joaquin Phoenix making his Golden Globes speech about climate change and going vegan just absolutely made my night."

During his speech, Phoenix also referenced the Australian wildfires, telling the crowd: "It's really nice that so many people have come up and sent their well wishes to Australia, but we have to do more than that."

sauce https://www.businessinsider.com/joa...IpnOmOmn4li8AFVmeUJrKIobaFg_gIp0gBUoE2UIi_sX8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I feel the same way when someone puts meat (or cheese) on a pizza... and I'm not Italian :lol:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What is Veganuary? How to go vegan: Campaign asks people to try plant-based die*t

First, there was Dry January, a month-long break from alcohol after the excesses of the holidays. Now, here comes "Veganuary," a campaign to get people to try a plant-based diet in the new year.

The goal is to go vegan "for January and beyond," according to the British non-profit organization behind the effort. Launched in the UK in 2014, the challenge has spread to the U.S. and other countries, with more than 250,000 people taking the movement's pledge in 2019.

High-profile Veganuary supporters include actors Joaquin Phoenix and Mayim Bialik, the campaign said. Phoenix reportedly lobbied for the first all-vegan menu at the Golden Globes on Sunday. "It's a very bold move, making tonight plant-based," the "Joker" star said.

*What is a vegan diet?*
The eating regimen means omitting all animal products including meat, fish, poultry, dairy, eggs and even honey.

Instead, vegans load up on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds and soy like tofu, edamame and tempeh.

Studies have found a vegan diet could lead to weight loss, boost psychological well-being and potentially improve most people's health. Many vegans also follow the regimen because of concerns about animal welfare and the environment.

*What do experts think of Veganuary?*
Nutritionists were fans of people exploring a plant-based diet, but skeptical of just diving into the vegan lifestyle for a month without much preparation or modification.

The name is catchy, but Veganuary is not a realistic goal for most people, said NBC News Health and Nutrition Editor Madelyn Fernstrom.

"It's very rigid, and while it can be healthy, the interested-but-uneducated consumer is at risk for nutritional deficiencies," Fernstrom told TODAY.

"The risk of vitamin B12 deficiency is high, along with calcium and sometimes adequate protein intake. A strictly vegan diet takes a lot of preplanning and wide selection of plant based foods."

"A vegan diet can be very healthy, but it's not easy. Easing into it may give you better long-term benefits, because you might get frustrated if you just jump in full force," Kitchin said.

Still, Veganuary is worth a try if you want to test-drive this lifestyle, added Ashley Gearhardt, an associate psychology professor at the University of Michigan and director of its Food and Addiction Science & Treatment Lab.

A 30-day trial run can change people's behavior, Gearhardt noted, but she was concerned most would replace meat and cheese with "ultra-processed vegan junk food" filled with sugar, fat and salt, and think they were eating healthy.

"Spending all month eating vegan hot dogs, vegan ice cream and vegan french fries is not going to improve health," Gearhardt warned.

*How to try the vegan diet:*
All of the experts advised easing into it, rather than going all in all at once. If a totally plant-based diet feels too restrictive and you are deprived, you won't stick with it.

Popular modifications include:

Start with "meatless Mondays" and see how that feels, Kitchin recommended.
Consider a "Vegetarian January" that omits meat, but still includes eggs and dairy, Gearhardt said.
Try going vegan three days a week, and eat a mostly plant-based diet on the other days, including fish, eggs and dairy, Fernstrom noted. Or cut out red meat and focus on fish.
Eat vegan before 6 p.m., then eat a more diverse dinner, which Mark Bittman advised in his book "VB6."
The vegan diet may not be right for people with a history of eating disorders because the restrictions could trigger old symptoms.

*How to stay healthy and not feel deprived on a vegan diet:*
Some nutrient needs are harder to meet for vegans, so it's a good idea to talk with a registered dietitian, especially if you want to adopt this diet as a long-term lifestyle.

Look for healthy tips on websites like eatright.org, which is maintained by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Vitamin B12 is often deficient without animal proteins, for example, and it takes almost three cups of broccoli or seven cups of arugula to match the calcium in one cup of milk, Fernstrom said: "Sometimes supplements must be added, so pay attention to your needs."

Nutrient-rich plant sources of protein include tofu, beans, quinoa, almonds and pumpkin seeds. Avoid the mistake of choosing foods only because they are plant-based - rather, look for nutrient value like proteins, fiber, heart healthy fats, and vitamins and minerals, Fernstrom noted.

The good news is a vegan diet can be very filling because it can be very high in fiber, Kitchin said. Many favorites like peanut butter, hummus and air-popped popcorn are naturally vegan. Restaurants are also increasingly offering vegan options.

Gearhardt's research has found people who shift to a healthier diet can initially experience withdrawal-like symptoms, including irritability, cravings and headaches. They often go away within two weeks.

"It might take a little bit of time for your taste buds to adjust to not getting unnaturally high hits of sugar, fat and salt, but eventually you'll be surprised by how much pleasure you can get from these foods," Gearhardt said.

"It's easier to make these new changes a less effortful habit the longer you do it."

Sauce 
https://www.today.com/health/what-v...403B-4cg#anchor-WhatdoexpertsthinkofVeganuary


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How hungry are you for pasta?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It doesn't look like much, but it's a key step in the development of human diets.

*A Meal 170,000 Years Old*









Once upon a time, way way before the innovation of agriculture, a group of early humans sat down for a meal inside a cave which is located today on the border of South Africa and Swaziland. The main course was cooked over an open fire. Some of the meal, however, was charred and beyond eating. It was lost in the ashes, and it remained there in the same place for nearly 200,000 years. Scientists were able to find out what food this group of early humans cooked.

Previously it was known that starchy foods made for good eating in Middle Stone Age Africa, based on findings of plant matter at the Klasies River Cave to the southwest. The new paper, published in the journal Science, analyzed finds from Border Cave, as it's known, and was able to identify that a starchy foodstuff was eaten there as well-underground stems called rhizomes, from the genus Hypoxis, a plant group that includes what is known today as yellow star or African potato. This pushes back the date of the earliest cooked starches by some 50,000 years, to about 170,000 years ago.

Border Cave also holds a large collection of wooden digging sticks, leading researchers to hypothesize that they were used to harvest the meal. "It seems likely that wooden digging sticks were used to dig the rhizomes from the ground," says Lyn Wadley, an archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and lead author of the new paper. "The plants are gregarious so quite a few could be harvested from a single place."

sauce https://www.neatorama.com/2020/01/1...zoqhf0i2lMgglSBjUVvySB71MxBJbB2XjUvST7YldDwu0

more https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/earliest-starch-cooking-cave

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6473/87


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Yup. Follow the money

*Author of study saying red meat is fine failed to disclose industry funding, journal reveals*
Annals of Internal Medicine issues a correction about researcher's undisclosed conflict of interest linking chief researcher to the meat industry.

Guidelines published in the Annals of Internal Medicine last fall defied prevailing scientific opinion, saying there's no need to reduce red or processed meat consumption for good health. Based on five systematic reviews of the relationship between meat consumption and health, researchers from Dalhousie University and McMaster University in Canada, with the Ibero-American and Polish Cochrane centers, concluded that most people can continue to consume red meat and processed meat at their average consumption levels.

Upon publication, a number of leading voices in nutrition science and policy took issue with the study's methodology and claimed its authors, who have formed a group called NutriRECS, did not disclose ties with AgriLife Research, an arm of Texas A&M University that is partially funded by the beef industry.

At that time, Annals editor in chief Christine Laine told The Washington Post: "I'm not aware of any relationship between AgriLife and NutriRECS. Would we retract the paper? No. A lot of the drug trials have industry funding. Conflicts of interest is just one potential source of bias."

But on Dec. 31, the Annals issued a correction, saying that Bradley Johnston, the chief author of the work and until last year a professor of epidemiology at Dalhousie, failed to disclose a key conflict of interest. AgriLife Research provided Johnston and Dalhousie $76,863 for a new meta-analysis on saturated fat. This funding occurred within the 36-month reporting period required by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and before Johnston moved to a new job at Texas A&M.

Although the funding was for separate research, it raises questions about the researchers' agenda to make saturated fat look benign or even beneficial, something that would benefit AgriLife, according to clinical researcher Neal Barnard, who launched the campaign for a printed correction and who is president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit that promotes a plant-based diet.

Asked about the Annals correction, AgriLife spokeswoman Holly Shive said that Johnston revised his disclosure statement for the correction, adding items that exceeded the journal's disclosure requirements. She said that because AgriLife Research is a state agency affiliated with an academic institution, it did not need to be listed.

Dr. Johnston's updated statement exceeds the Annals's requirements and makes clear he did not receive funding from any agricultural or food industry interests for his research on red and processed meat as well as saturated and polyunsaturated fats," Shive said.

When the Annals study was published, Patrick Stover, the vice chancellor and dean of AgriLife and one of the authors on the Annals study, told The Post that AgriLife did $4.5 million in beef research in 2019, with half of it funded by federal sources like the Agriculture Department and the other half from beef industry groups. Stover hired Johnston in 2019, and Johnston has just started as an associate professor in the community health and epidemiology department at Texas A&M.

Laine said the editors received information about the grant after publication.

"The funding was for work in the field of nutrition and the start of funding period was within the 36-month reporting period required by Annals, so it is a relationship that should be reported on the journal's disclosure form," Laine said in an email. "When Dr. Johnston was asked about this grant, he agreed it should have been disclosed and agreed to make the change."

In December 2016, Johnston was the senior author on another study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that called into question international health guidelines advising people to eat less sugar. The study, insisting that warnings to cut sugar were based on weak evidence, was paid for by the International Life Sciences Institute, a food industry trade group with members such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

When the connection was revealed after publication, Johnston agreed it should have been disclosed, and the journal issued a correction.

Red and processed meat are increasingly seen as a major culprit in lifestyle diseases as well as greenhouse gas emissions. But people like to eat meat, with Americans consuming more than 220 pounds per person each year. Repeated flip-flops on the healthfulness of red meat may cause consumers to throw up their hands and disregard nutritional advice altogether, Barnard and other nutrition scientists worry.

"When you talk about conflicts of interest, appearance is everything," said Marion Nestle, an author and former nutrition professor at New York University who has written extensively about the issue. "From the outside, it certainly looks like AgriLife is in the pocket of the meat industry and hired someone who has made a career out of undermining the dietary guidelines."

Sauce https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...n20Vxxt8kwkj7AzU_WdyX12dbxPsTZLN9y83nKmBiM7Eo


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Animal Ingredients List: Non-Vegan Substances*

Animal ingredients appear in a variety of products including:

food
clothing
cosmetics
alcohol
clothing
medicine
Some animal products, like chicken broth or beef extract, are obvious and easy to spot. But others have innocuous-sounding names that you'd never suppose are associated with animals. That's where this list comes in.

Given that animal-derived substances are everywhere and often unlabeled, it's essentially impossible to avoid all exposure to them. But familiarizing yourself with the items on this list will help you to avoid the most common animal-derived substances.

*Animal Ingredients List*
The following ingredients are categorized by whether they appear in food, cosmetics, alcohol, or clothing. A complete discussion of the economic and ethical implications of these substances appears in chapter 24 of the Ultimate Vegan Guide.

*Animal Ingredients in Food Products:*
Carmine
Casein
Cholesterol
Confectioner's Glaze
Fish oil
Gelatin
Ghee
Glycerin
Isinglass
Lard
Lipase
Rennet
Retinol
Shellac
Tallow
Whey

*In Medicine and Supplements:*
Adrenaline
Allantoin
Bone Meal
Cortisone / Corticosteroid
Cystine
Estrogen
Gelatin
Linoleic Acids
Pepsin
Whey
In Cosmetics:
Allantoin
Albumin
Alpha-Hydroxy Acids
Beeswax
Bee Pollen
Biotin
Carmine
Cysteine
Elastin
Fish scales / Guanine
Glycerin
Keratin
Lanolin
Snails
Squalene
Tallow
Wax

*Animal-Derived Beer/Wine Fining Substances:*
Albumin
Egg Whites
Gelatin
Isinglass (fish bladder)
Animal Skin/Fiber/Feathers in Clothing:
Cashmere
Down
Feathers
Fur
Leather
Sea Shells
Silk
Skins
Suede
Wool

sauce https://www.vegan.com/animal-ingred...KZ_TIGbLsMVT-Z6r71tWvh60EG-H82Ij15qByD6xmDAms


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> Yup. Follow the money


Current market values:

Beyond Meat Inc. - $15 billion
Impossible Foods - $5 billion
Ingredion - $6 billion

That's just a few, and VC/PE money is pouring into these companies. I'd never argue that industry bias doesn't exist in nutrition science, but the idea that it doesn't exist on the "plant-based" side of things is laughably naive.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Plant-Based Cheese Is Finally Undergoing A Revolution*

2019 was a landmark year for the plant-based meat, eggs and dairy space. According to The Good Food Institute, SPINS retail sales data released this past July showed that grocery sales of plant-based foods that directly replace animal products grew 31% in the past two years to reach $4.5 billion. Plant-based milk was the most developed of all plant-based categories, accounting for 13% of all dollar sales of retail milk, followed by "other plant-based dairy." But within that category, one sector seems to be lagging behind: plant-based cheese. Although dollar sales of plant-based cheese grew 19% in the past year and 69% over the past two years, it still accounts for less than 1% of all dollar sales of retail cheese. Why such a disparity?

According to Miyoko Schinner, founder of Miyoko's Creamery, the answer lies in the fact that the plant-based cheese industry is essentially where plant-based milk was a decade ago. "Vegan cheese is a relatively new category when you compare it to alternatives to fluid milk, hence the difference in percentage of the overall market share," she tells me. "It's important to note that a big change in growth occurred when retailers began merchandising all the milks together in the same section as they began to understand how to manage the category. Basically they replaced low-performing dairy items with nut, soy and pea-based milks. That hasn't happened yet in vegan cheese."

Miyoko also notes that taste, texture and functionality-specifically the melt-of plant-based cheese is another big issue. "Vegan cheese options were created for people who had become vegans or vegetarianswho loved cheese and craved a replacement. While current offerings may have been reasonable substitutes that were 'good enough' for vegans, they do not taste and perform like cow dairy and have low if any appeal to omnivores," she says.

Justin Lambeth, CEO of Treeline Cheese, echoes this sentiment. "Most of the plant-based cheese products today are a huge taste trade-off vs. conventional cheese brands. I don't see the same dynamics in [m]ilk and [y]ogurt, where the product quality is much higher and more similar to conventional in taste and texture," Lambeth says.

As James Beard Award winner Rebecca Flint Marx writes in the Guardian, part of the problem is that cheese just isn't as easy to mimic as other dairy products: "_t is a product whose flavors and functions can differ wildly from one form to the next, and are shaped by constantly shifting variables such as fermentation, room temperature, enzyme ratio,microbial activity and the aging process. How to replicate that kind of nuance... is a question that has preoccupied many producers in this fast-growing market."

But according to Martin Kruger, chief operating officer of Follow Your Heart, a leading vegan food company, a change is already underway. "There has been so much innovation in the plant-based cheese category and the momentum is building. How fast it grows will really depend on the next level of innovation that closes the gap that still exists between plant-based cheese and conventional dairy cheeses they are replacing," Kruger says. "I wouldn't be surprised if plant-based cheese could be 5% in 5 years and 10% in 10."

Arivia, a Greek company that produces a wide range of vegan cheese alternatives under its brand, Violife, is aiming to take a big slice out of that projected market-as it has significant expansion plans for 2020 and beyond. "Our innovation pipeline is strong. We have new cheese varieties, formats (soft vs. hard cheese) and packaging to reach more consumers in more places where demand for plant-based cheese exists but has not yet been met," said Paul Pendergast, president of Arivia USA.

Perhaps one day plant-based cheese will win over skeptical consumers. That's Daiya Foods CEO Michael Watt's, take on it, anyway. "[T]his is just the beginning of a massive growth period for plant-based foods. When it comes to food choices and eating, there is a consumer shift or movement towards more sustainable, healthier products to satisfy their diet preferences, so this category is primed for continued growth... According to Nielsen, 39% of Americans are actively trying to incorporate more plant-based foods in their diets, while Ipsos reports that 54% of consumers are trying to consume fewer animal-based foods and more plant-based foods."

Rob Leibowitz, CEO of Kite Hill, a manufacturer of plant-based dairy products that was cofounded by Pat Brown of Impossible Foods, is also optimistic. "I do believe that over time, firms in the plant-based dairy alternative space will continue to improve product delivery and the gap between what is offered and what consumers expect will diminish. The work required to make plant-based dairy alternatives taste great is both art and science - and takes a very special team to master," he says.

Only time will tell if plant-based cheese will be too "gouda" to resist.

sauce https://www.forbes.com/sites/briank...C_NbV3smLzQEt6HvgJdBt2BNdfieAOP8#72938470448f_


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

RMCDan said:


> Current market values:
> 
> Beyond Meat Inc. - $15 billion
> Impossible Foods - $5 billion
> ...


I'm not too sure that stuff won't just be a fad. It seems they appeal more to meat eaters than vegetarians and with them being highly processed, I'm not sure what the point of them is. Maybe as a start for transitioning to a vegetarian diet? I'm not saying I'm against this, I'm just not sure if the appeal will last.


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

If it tastes like meat or something like meat and is cheaper the market is bottomless. I'm pretty blown away by what passes as food (flavor/texture/ingredients) in the fast food industry. There's an entire generation that doesn't know what whole food is and is so conditioned to fat, salt, sugar, plus chemical flavor enhancers, never will. 

Sent from my moto g(6) forge using Tapatalk


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

chazpat said:


> I'm not too sure that stuff won't just be a fad. It seems they appeal more to meat eaters than vegetarians and with them being highly processed, I'm not sure what the point of them is. Maybe as a start for transitioning to a vegetarian diet? I'm not saying I'm against this, I'm just not sure if the appeal will last.


It may very well be a passing fad, and it would be funny to see all that VC/PE money evaporate. I doubt it though. Most people seem to have little motivation to stop eating processed junk and will happily eat "healthy" processed junk. On the supply side, like other processed foods margins are high so the potential profits will continue to be very attractive to corporate vultures.

ETA: Regarding the post I was originally responding to, it's worth point out that the Executive Editor of Science-Based Medicine says the _Annals_ study is good science: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-red-meat-controversy/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*New to an Oil-Free Diet? Here's What You Need to Know*

Mainstream nutrition information offers conflicting views on the effects of dietary oils. With outlets like Harvard Health advising the use of oils high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) instead of saturated and numerous claims and studies citing olive oil's purported ability to lower heart disease risk, it may seem unusual or even extreme to recommend eliminating all oils as part of a healthy eating pattern.

But that's exactly what you do on a whole food, plant-based diet. Along with animal products and processed foods, extracted oils are left off the plant-based plate in favor of whole, nutritious fat sources.

*Does Oil Have Nutritional Value?*
When compared to the foods included in a whole food, plant-based diet, oil has a significantly higher caloric density per pound.

Vegetables: 100 calories
Fruit: 300 calories
Nuts: 2,500 to 3,000 calories
Oil: 4,000 calories

A typical two-tablespoon serving of oil contains between 120 and 130 calories, all of which come from fat. Aside from omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, few nutrients are present except for small amounts of vitamin E and vitamin K. Coconut oil is particularly high in saturated fat, about 90% of the total fat content, which is higher than the 40% saturated fat found in lard. Oil quality is also difficult to determine, as the fats in many plant oils may become damaged if exposed to heat during processing, packing, transportation, storage, or cooking.

*What Happens to Your Body When You Eat Oil?*
High-fat foods, including oils, elicit an intense reaction from your body and brain, which can contribute to their apparent addictive qualities. You may get an initial feeling of pleasure when eating oily foods, but what follows is far from good for your body. After a high-fat meal:

Endothelial function diminishes for several hours, leading to decreased blood flow
Digestion slows as enzymes, stomach acid, bile, and other juices work to break down the fats
Excess fats are converted into triglycerides and cholesterol in the liver and stored in the body as a future source of fuel
Consuming oil also has a negative effect on gut bacteria. Saturated fats appear to have the greatest impact on the number, richness, and diversity of bacteria in the gut microbiome which may be associated with reduced production of beneficial short-chain fatty acids and can lead to an increase in inflammation and free radical production. This may result in DNA damage and deplete your body's stores of antioxidants as your system tries to combat the onslaught.

*Thoughts on "Healthy" Oils*
What about information showing some oils have health benefits? Much of it appears to be comparative. Oils containing more anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids may be less damaging than those with a lot of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats, high saturated fat content, or trans fats, but some data shows all oils impair endothelial function to various degrees.

This is true even of cold-pressed oils. Purported health benefits of these oils may be due to the lack of heat or chemicals used in processing. The expeller pressing process creates heat from friction, and other oils are extracted using solvents, residues of which may appear in trace amounts in the final product. Because unsaturated fats become unstable at high temperatures, oils exposed to heat could have more free radicals and, thus, cause greater cellular damage when ingested.

*Getting Healthy Fats from Whole Food Sources*
You do need some fat in your diet to help absorb fat-soluble nutrients and maintain cellular health, but it's not nearly as much as most people are consuming. As of 2007, the average American over age 2 was taking in around 79 grams of fat per day, which equates to 35.6% of calories from fat on a 2,000-calorie diet. The whole food, plant-based lifestyle keeps fat intake between 10% and 15%; some recommendations suggest higher amounts may be safe when consuming mostly unsaturated fats. Total fat needs may differ depending on age, activity level, and health status.

Here are some tasty ways to get healthy plant-based fats without added oil:

Nuts, seeds, and their butters (look for brands with no added oil, sugar, or salt)
Avocados
Beans like chickpeas and pinto beans
Whole or fermented soy products

*Cooking Without Oil: Quick Tips*

It's easy to adapt your favorite recipes and cooking methods to an oil-free lifestyle. Try these simple tips to remove oil without losing flavor:

Roast vegetables at lower temperatures for a longer time
Mist vegetables with low-sodium vegetable broth or apple cider vinegar and your favorite seasonings prior to roasting[16]
Steam vegetables before seasoning as desired
Use silicone mats, pans, or molds for roasting and baking
Saute with small amounts of water, vegetable broth, or naturally flavored vinegar
Heat pans to higher temperatures for stir frying
Invest in an air fryer for "fries" and "chips"
Replace oil in baked goods with applesauce, nut butters, pumpkin puree, aquafaba, or plant-based yogurt
Experiment until you find your favorite methods, and you won't miss the greasy, heavy feeling of oil at all. Your heart, gut, and taste buds will thank you for it.

sauce https://nutritionstudies.org/new-to..._nkAzfyMt76hbYW1Yedbh0oXIBVmTYliPbNd8-kjk1ibI


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*UN Report Warns Investors to Prepare for Major Shift to Plant-Based Global Food System*

A United Nations backed independent organisation, Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), has recently released a report warning investors to prepare for a major shift towards a plantbased food system. The report by the PRI, titled the Inevitable Policy Response, overviews a number of policies that should be put in place imminently to mitigate climate change.

Mirroring a similar study as we reported last September, which declared that we are "on the cusp of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruption in history", this new analysis forecasts an abrupt and disruptive policy response to climate change which will cause re-pricing of many of the world's most valuable companies by 2025.

The analysis was commissioned by PRI and undertaken by Vivid Economics and Energy Transition advisors. It is based on company level impacts and demonstrates the significant risk of value loss across and within major sectors and sub-sectors as well as a significant upside for those prepared to take advantage of the transition.

hese analysts are warning investors to expect a global dietary shift toward a plant-based system amid our climate crisis. The report outlines that certain climate change mitigation policies, which include a drastic reduction in meat consumption among others, need to be implemented in the coming years.

The PRI states: "With production, processing and retail of food accounting for 15-30% of all greenhouse gas emissions in high-income countries, significant shifts in food consumption patterns will be required as a part of the low carbon transition."

sauce https://vegconomist.com/hot-off-the...-YRrk6S-bjP5ihyjjw0otmfOpr0mOhHnLooY0TAGHlH8U


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We tried vegan Pupusas!



































> A pupusa is a thick flatbread from El Salvador or Honduras made with cornmeal or rice flour, similar to the Venezuelan and Colombian arepa. It is usually stuffed with one or more ingredients. These may include cheese (such as quesillo or cheese with loroco buds), chicharrón, squash, or refried beans. It is typically accompanied by curtido (a spicy cabbage slaw), and tomato salsa, and is traditionally eaten by hand, without the use of utensils


Chef Rene used plant based cheese and bean paste to stuff the pupusa. Toronto has a Salvadoran community (Mostly in North York borough) Other large Salvadoran communities are Los Angeles and Washington DC

It was very tasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pupusa


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

And for dessert vegan donuts and americanos


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I don't understand your comment Flexderec but are you are referring to the vegan donuts? 

"Processed" to describe these treats is a loose term. (There's vegan junk food out there, it's not all "healthy") These were made in a vegan bakery so they are fresh and contain no preservatives (This bakery has an open kitchen and I know they bake from scratch in the morning). The ingredients are listed

My own story: It's my only treat/cheat for the week otherwise I eat clean and plant based whole foods daily. I haven't reverted back to vegetarian in 6 years. For dessert I eat fresh fruit 6 days per week. On caturday I treat myself to a little dairy free pastry. 

I post up pics of options for people contemplating a plant based diet. Some people may not know that you can have the same foods dairy-free. Some people are looking for alternatives to what they are eating and that's why I share what I have discovered. I think it's amazing that chefs can create these foods without dairy and so delish! Some vegan desserts are not tasty but I must say that vegan diets have come along way! I have been vegetarian since I was 19 and seen alot of change

Please don't be so quick to judge unless you have something to add or share


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## MarcusBrody (Apr 1, 2014)

I don't have much to add to this discussion, but I will check in as a vegetarian mountain biker. I've been vegetarian for 10 years or so now, which is actually longer than I've been mountain biking. 

I would have a hard time being a vegan mountain biker though, as a local market near me has amazing chocolate milk, which I love as a post-ride recovery drink.


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

This discussion inspires me almost daily. My wife and I are still meatless since November 2019. Not sure I could go all in Vegan but I do feel good about eliminating all meat. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

Duplicate


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## rth009 (May 20, 2010)

MarcusBrody said:


> I don't have much to add to this discussion, but I will check in as a vegetarian mountain biker. I've been vegetarian for 10 years or so now, which is actually longer than I've been mountain biking.
> 
> I would have a hard time being a vegan mountain biker though, as a local market near me has amazing chocolate milk, which I love as a post-ride recovery drink.


Same here, except I don't care for chocolate milk, only cheese and the occasional egg sandwich. Have been a vegetarian since 1996, but only a mountain biker since 2007.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Total vegan/plant based is not for everyone. But everyone can increase the plant base intake in their diet and benefit from the results.

There is a global movement to more plant base. 
*
Starbucks Taking Aim at Milk Is Latest Blow to Beaten-up Dairy*

The latest blow to the downtrodden dairy industry was delivered by none other than Starbucks Corp., with the coffee giant looking to condition customers to use milk alternatives in a bid to reduce its carbon footprint.

While Starbucks accounts for just 0.3% of U.S. milk production, the decision to formally declare an emphasis on non-dairy options may encourage other food-service outlets to follow suit. That could add momentum to the shift toward oat, nut, soy and other alternative beverages for health and environmental reasons. American cow-milk consumption has fallen about 2% each year since the 1970's, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It's a trend that has helped put plenty of American dairy farmers out of business and led to two big U.S. processors -- Dean Foods Co. and Borden Dairy Co. -- into bankruptcy. Dean is one of Starbucks' key suppliers, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Marketing group Dairy Management Inc. said that while it shares Starbucks' commitment to sustainability, the industry's environmental footprint is small and shrinking due to innovative farm practices and new technologies. "Both plants and animals play a critical role in the health of the people and the planet," the group said.

Per capita milk consumption has dropped about 2% per year since the 1970's

sauce https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...C4ISRLo2jDod3GMsmWtFAsLPRkgaJ9-zNeYj-ypixCw_0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Appetite for 'warm meat' drives risk of disease in Hong Kong and China*









Each evening, under cover of darkness, hundreds of live pigs from farms across China are trucked through the rusting gates of a cluster of mildew-stained quarantine and inspection buildings in the Qingshuihe logistics zone in Shenzhen.

Overnight they are checked for illness, primarily the African swine fever (ASF) that is expected to kill off a quarter of the world's pigs, and reloaded on to ventilated trucks with dual mainland China and Hong Kong licence plates.

Before sunrise the caravan makes its way five-and-a-half miles south to the border at Man Kam To, a small customs and immigration checkpoint, where the pigs go through further visual health checks before crossing into Hong Kong

They are bound for Sheung Shui slaughterhouse, the largest of three abattoirs in the territory. Once there they will be checked again before being dispatched in less than 24 hours under new rules meant to prevent the spread of ASF.

It's a lot of effort to get fresh meat from the 1,400 pigs that cross the border each day.

The appetite for freshly slaughtered 'warm meat'
Advertisement

For various reasons, the Chinese prefer freshly slaughtered pig, chicken and beef over chilled or frozen meat that has been slaughtered before being shipped.

That desire is at the heart of why diseases such as avian flu in poultry and ASF have been so difficult to eradicate, with huge movements of live animals from all over the country - from farm to slaughterhouse to market - on a daily basis making controlling the spread of disease incredibly difficult.

A recent coronavirus outbreak in China has been linked to a wet market in Wuhan, eastern China. Like other respiratory illnesses, the disease was initially transmitted from animal to human, but is now being passed human to human.

But despite awareness of the issues, the markets are a huge part of Chinese life. On a busy morning at a so-called "wet market" in the Shajing area, the oldest inhabited and very Cantonese part of Shenzhen, hundreds of shoppers arrive soon after daybreak. Slabs of pork hang from the stalls and various cuts are piled on the counters amid lights with a reddish glare and the occasional buzzing of flies.









Just a few minutes away at the nearby Walmart, where there are also options for fresh, chilled and frozen meat, the customer flow at this time of day is only a trickle compared to the wet market. It has your average western supermarket vibe - white daylight lighting, sterile and clean.

Staff at the meat counter in Walmart and at the stalls in the wet market both say the meat comes in from the same slaughterhouse around 2am. So why the huge difference in foot traffic?

Molly Maj, a corporate communications representative for Walmart, says "the average customer in China still prefers fresh meat" over other options.

One reason for the demand for wet markets is that widespread refrigeration only came to China in recent years. While most urban homes now have refrigerators, many in rural areas and low income urban renters still do not own one, or only a mini-fridge if they do.

The habit of buying perishable food for daily use is still prevalent in many consumers, particularly older shoppers who grew up without refrigerators. They say they can tell the quality of fresh meat by its smell, colour and how it feels to the touch.

"When I'm talking with my students I say: 'The term warm meat, fresh meat, sounds disgusting to me, I grew up [in Germany] with chilled meat, that's all I know," Dirk Pfeiffer, a professor of veterinary medicine at City University in Hong Kong and an expert on diseases related to animal husbandry, says.

So I ask them why and they come up with all sorts of vague things like the soup tastes better or that it is a trust issue, knowing it is a live animal at the other end and not some diseased animal," he says. "It's all very subjective."

An 'utter disaster' for disease
Wet markets are central to the perception that fresh meat is better, says Pfeiffer. They evoke nostalgia among shoppers, many of whom come from rural areas where all they knew were wet markets and no refrigeration.

Where a wet market feels familiar a supermarket can seem alien and out of place.

"I actually believe that it is an important thing for the older generation to go to the wet market and chat," says Pfeiffer. However, the way the animal trade operates in China is "an utter disaster", for animal disease and welfare, he adds.









A year ago, before rising concerns about the spread of ASF, nearly 4,000 pigs crossed daily with less scrutiny. Pigs were held in dismal conditions for as long as five days before being slaughtered on the Hong Kong side, greatly enhancing the possibility of disease transmission, says Pfeiffer.

The recent shortages due to the ASF outbreak have doubled and tripled prices for fresh pork at wet markets across Hong Kong. Farms in Hong Kong itself can usually supply about 300 pigs a day. Land use and environmental restrictions prevent any increase in production. The result is further worries about Hong Kong's reliance on mainland China beyond its water and energy dependence.

Many years ago, we had imports from all over Asia of live animals, but eventually the entire supply was monopolised by mainland China," said Helena Wong, a member of Hong Kong's legislative council panel on food safety and environmental hygiene. "They killed all their competitors and monopolised the supply of live pig and chicken."

More than 6,000 pigs at the Sheung Shui slaughterhouse were culled in May 2019 after ASF was found among animals brought in from China. Hong Kong's legislative council is now trying to figure out how much it owes traders and farmers in compensation.

Massive culls of poultry due to avian flu in imported mainland chickens in the last decade also led to large compensation bills and, eventually, to ending live chicken imports in early 2016.









"We as taxpayers have to give that money," said Wong. "So now we are in a big crisis because in the past few years we have experienced avian flu and now African swine fever."

A future beyond 'warm meat' for Hong Kong
Disease outbreaks have raised wider questions about the sustainability of Chinese consumers' appetite - both on the mainland and in Hong Kong - for what is often called "warm" meat.

For Deborah Cao, a professor at Griffith University in Australia and an expert on animal protection in China, a deeper issue driving the live animal trade is a cultural disconnect about animal welfare.

"The main problem is the indifference or perception of people who simply regard animals as food, tools, or as things that people can do anything they want to," she said.

"In particular, there is no perception of farm animals as having feelings, or being capable of feeling pain or suffering."

Hong Kong may find it difficult to switch to a different model. There is almost no chance of farm expansion to support larger scale production within Hong Kong and, although the government is looking at possibilities of live imports from other Asian countries, the ports do not have adequate facilities to cope with large numbers.

"To a large extent, if we insist on fresh food, we have to rely on China," said Wong. "If we can change and make certain concessions, Hong Kong has always been an open market for importing food items from many parts of the world. It is only for the provision of live animals that we are monopolised by the mainland farms."

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/environ...bdomHgyUMnD_jWFwh8IAnLtsPfZihj8J_kjcneckVQ4fY


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Largest KiwiFruit Producing Countries in the World 2019









NZ grows one quarter as many as China despite having a fraction as much land or people

Interesting article about Kiwi fruit

*This Kiwifruit Isn't From New Zealand at All. It's Chinese, and This Is How It Got Hijacked*

he kiwifruit may be New Zealand's defining agricultural product, generating a handsome $1.05 billion in exports for the country in 2015, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But how the South Pacific nation came to claim the exotic, fuzzy fruit with soft, green flesh and a unique taste is a story that combines considerable luck and a stroke of marketing genius.

The erstwhile Chinese gooseberry, as its archaic English name suggests, finds its root a hemisphere away in China. Its original name in Chinese, mihoutao - "macaque fruit" - refers to the monkeys' love for it, according to the 16th century Chinese medicine encyclopedia, the Compendium of Materia Medica.

The kiwifruit's status as a transplant might not come as a surprise for many readers. After all, the story of one of the world's greatest marketing and botanical hijacks has been vaguely circulating for decades, from a New York Times item about trade in New Zealand over 30 years ago to a TIME column about branding and psychology in 2010.

But the scant documentary evidence of how the fruit made it across the Pacific has given an apocryphal flavor to a tale that is, in fact, all too real.

"There is no formal history of the kiwifruit industry in print, so we have to patch together information about the past from multiple sources," Hugh Campbell, a sociology professor at New Zealand's University of Otago, tells TIME by email. He co-authored the entry on the kiwifuit in Te Ara, the official New Zealand online encyclopedia

Historical consensus - as presented on New Zealand's official history website - suggests that the first seeds arrived on New Zealand at the turn of the 20th century.

It all began in 1904, when Mary Isabel Fraser, the principal of an all-girls school, brought back some Chinese gooseberry seeds from China. They were then given to a farmer named Alexander Allison who, planted them in his farm near the riverine town of Whanganui. The trees went on to bear their first fruit in 1910.

New Zealand's appropriation of the Chinese gooseberry wasn't inevitable. Around the same time the first seeds were introduced to New Zealand, the species was in fact also experimented with as a commercial crop both in the U.K. and the U.S., wrote New Zealand plant physiologist Ross Ferguson, one of the world's top kiwifruit researchers, for Arnoldia, the magazine of Harvard's Arnold Arboretum.

But, as luck would have it, neither the British nor the American attempt at commercializing the fruit was as fruitful. For example, the first batch of seeds brought to Britain's Veitch Nursery all produced male plants, thwarting the growers' plans to produce edible fruit. The same fate befell the U.S. government's attempt. "It seems ironic that the sending of seed by a missionary to an amateur gardener should eventually lead to a new horticultural industry, when the efforts of the Veitch Nursery and the U.S. Department of Agriculture were so much less successful," Ferguson remarked in his 1983 essay.

The gooseberry's rebranding didn't happen until almost 50 years after Allison's trees bore fruit, according to New Zealand's official history, when agricultural exporter Turners & Growers started calling their U.S.-bound Chinese gooseberries "kiwifruits" on June 15, 1959.

The fruit's importer told Turners & Growers that the Chinese gooseberry needed a new name to be commercially viable stateside, to avoid negative connotations of "gooseberries," which weren't particularly popular. After passing over another proposed name, melonette, it was finally decided to name the furry, brown fruit after New Zealand's furry, brown, flightless national bird. It also helped that Kiwis had become the colloquial term for New Zealanders by the time.

Demand for the fruit started to take off, and by the 1970s, the name kiwifruit took root across the Chinese gooseberry trade, cementing its popular imagination as the quintessential New Zealand product. All this happened while China was busy tearing its own social fabric to pieces, during the decade of terror that was the Cultural Revolution.

I think it was a matter of luck and suitable climate" that the fruit thrived in New Zealand, Ferguson tells TIME. Now an honorary fellow at the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research, he helped classify the Actinidia deliciosa - the furry, green kiwifruit - as a separate species in the 1980s.

Large-scale cultivation of the kiwifruit can now be found in many countries, including the U.S., Italy and - ironically - China, which became the world's top kiwifruit producer by 2014, and where the fruit is commonly used to make jam. But much of the kiwifruit grown worldwide can be traced back to Alexander Allison's Whanganui farm - so much so that the Pacific nation had to try to halt the export of kiwi plants at one point, in order to reduce potential competition on the global market.

Today, even parts of the Chinese-speaking world call the fruit by a partial transliteration of its Oceanic moniker. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, at least, it's known as strange fruit - qi yi guo in Mandarin, or kei yi gwo in Cantonese. (Google searches of mihoutao still turns up considerable results, but mostly confined to web pages from the People's Republic.)

And how deliciously ironic that unscrupulous Chinese traders have tried to pass off domestically grown kiwifruits as imports.

https://time.com/4662293/kiwifruit-chinese-gooseberry-new-zealand-history-fruit/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Many think of milk as a way to maintain strong bones- so what do plant-based eaters need? Here's a great guide!

*6 Tips To Maintain Strong Bones And Prevent Osteoporosis*

According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 10 million Americans suffer from osteoporosis and another 44 million have been diagnosed with low bone density - or osteopenia - a precursor to osteoporosis. (1)

Not coincidentally, the dairy industry has an iron grip on most Americans - twisting science to instill a sense of urgency to drink more milk.

The truth is, humans do not need cows' milk to build strong bones. In fact, we're far better off without it. In the most comprehensive study on dairy and bone health, researchers found that women who drank three or more servings of cows' milk a day had a 60 percent greater risk of hip fracture than those who drank less than three servings. (5)

Dairy won't save you from brittle bones, but a healthy, active, dairy-free lifestyle certainly can. Follow these six tips below to build and maintain strong bones - because no one wants to stop playing just because they get older.

*1. Eat just enough calcium from plant-based sources*
The dairy industry has drilled Americans on the importance of strong bones for over a century. We grow up believing that milk builds strong bones, but some don't even realize that it's the calcium in milk that contributes to bone health.

Cow's milk itself will not prevent osteoporosis, and it is not the only form of accessible calcium. The dairy industry, however, fails to communicate this last point. Simple, easily accessible foods such as dark leafy greens (kale, bok choy, broccoli, collard greens, etc), nuts and seeds, soy milk, and a variety of beans all contain healthy amounts of bioavailable calcium.

In fact, many of these plant foods contain more bioavailable calcium than cows' milk, as the body can only absorb 33 percent of calcium from cows' milk, whereas it can absorb up to 64 percent of the calcium found in these plant-based sources. (4)

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, respected researcher and author of The China Study, has also pointed out: "Vegetables contain boron, a mineral that helps keep calcium in the bones. Milk contains virtually none."

Finally, don't overdo it. Exceeding the recommended daily amount of calcium will not provide extra bone strength. As suggested by the study mentioned above, excess calcium may have an adverse effect and lead to brittle bones.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell has also asserted a similar idea. Adults, both male and female, should aim for 1,000 milligrams per day according to the National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements. (2)

*2. Incorporate regular weight-bearing exercise*
To clarify, 'weight-bearing' does not necessitate actual weights. Any exercise that involves supporting your own weight qualifies as weight-bearing. For example, running, walking, tennis, rock climbing, dancing, yoga, and bodyweight exercises (lunges, squats, push-ups, etc) are all considered weight-bearing.

To maintain strong, healthy bones, practice some form of this exercise regularly. What's 'regularly'? While there is no specific amount of time, experts have come to a consensus that 30-60 minutes about five days a week will do the trick. (6)

*3. Cross-train*
If your sport is not considered weight-bearing (IE cycling, swimming, rowing, chair aerobics, etc), it is essential to cross-train to reap the benefits of weight-bearing exercise.

This doesn't have to be intense - particularly if you're putting in hard workouts in your primary sport - but you should have a cross-training plan set in place.

Take the dog out for a walk every day, take the stairs when you can, or finish a workout with some bodyweight lunges, squats, and push-ups. Find something you enjoy and make it routine, because there's no doubt you'll want to be cycling well into your senior years, and that won't be an option if you're prone to fractures.

*4. Grab Some Weights*
It's true that weight-bearing activity doesn't require actual weights, but you should pick up a dumbbell now and then if you want to maximize bone health.

Muscle-strengthening exercises not only contribute to strong bones, but they can also prevent the risk of a bone-shattering fall. With strong muscles, you can more easily pull yourself out of a fall or prevent your body from giving out on you altogether.

Incorporate moderate weight training two to three times a week, and not only will you improve your bone health, you'll likely improve in your sport as well.

*5. Soak in the vitamin D (or take a supplement)*
Vitamin D is essential to bone health because it helps the body absorb calcium more efficiently and supports strong muscles. Despite dairy industry claims, no food, including cow's milk, naturally contains vitamin D - if you see a nutrition label that contains vitamin D, it's fortified.

Dr. Milton Mills, MD, has said that drinking cow's milk for its calcium or vitamin D content is like smoking a cigarette for oxygen - it just doesn't make sense, and there are better options out there. The most natural way to obtain this nutrient is from the sun - when exposed to enough strong sunlight, our body can manufacture it's own vitamin D.

However, those who live in colder climates, or those who are not able to spend 10-30 minutes in the midday sun, need to look to other sources. Many plant milks are now fortified with vitamin D, as are orange juices. If you get a blood test and you find you're low, consider taking a supplement. Like calcium, when looking for a supplement, don't opt for a megadose. Meeting the recommended daily amount (400-800 IU for adults under 50) is all you need to ensure strong bones. (3)

*6. Don't forget about these essential nutrients*
Calcium and Vitamin D are most often promoted in regards to osteoporosis prevention and bone health, but they are not the only vitamins that support your skeletal system. Boron, vitamin K, and magnesium are also essential. (7)

All of these nutrients are widely available in plant-based foods. Find boron in prunes, dried apricots, raisins, and avocados; vitamin K in brussels sprouts, prunes, and dark leafy greens; and magnesium in nuts, brown rice, kidney beans, and lentils.

When you consume a varied diet full of plants - instead of relying on a single source of nutrition as the dairy industry advises- you are far more likely to meet your nutritional needs and feel your best.

Drinking cow's milk won't make you an Olympian, or Superman, or even help you grow up big and strong. It is simply not the superfood we were brought up to believe. However, incorporating the tips above can help you optimize your health and fitness - so you can continue doing what you love for decades to come.

sauce https://www.plantbasednews.org/life...YKiVtp-lzcgr9H7-5S22-Giu4mbxjjXoue8XrH_pqQJGo


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Coronavirus outbreak: Chinese live animal markets a 'recipe for disaster' 


Farm Animals Are the Next Big Antibiotic Resistance Threat

It's worth remembering animal agriculture endangers our health beyond diet related diseases.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ SARS (2003) was linked to live markets. Scientists suspected that the SARS virus might have crossed from animals to humans. It now seems likely that that the virus evolved from one or more animal viruses into a new strain.

Having tons of exotic species in a market that's visited by thousands of people a day in a highly populated area is just asking for trouble. The reason these types of outbreaks start in China and Africa is because their food supplies often still have direct contact with wild animals. America's (and Europe) food supply is hardly immune from this of course. We see e. coli and salmonella outbreaks, but those are ubiquitous bacteria. They cause problems because of poor hygiene practices. And Mad Cow Disease was its own ball of wax that could have only come about in an industrialized farming environment.

Mad cow (Prions) has actually gotten into the wild deer population in parts of North America.

More on Prions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/scie...ease-is-spreading-could-it-strike-people-too/

The markets sell wild animals for food consumption:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12302979



> According to the South China Morning Post, the market's advertising board had live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines and koalas.


Koalas! (from fire to the frying pan!) Wolf puppies!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Record-Breaking Athlete Shares Top Veganuary Success Tips*

I've been vegan for almost 50 years: and during that time, I've proven that a vegan diet is not only healthy but can also help me to excel at athletic performance.

I've won four Guinness World Records for ultramarathon running, and almost single-handedly looked after 500 animals at Tower Hill Stables sanctuary: despite only having one kneecap and being told as a teenager I would never walk again.

Here are my seven top tips for those taking part in Veganuary 2020, who are exploring veganism as a healthy lifestyle choice that benefits people, the planet and animals.

*Remember why you want to try veganism*
I think the most important thing is to always remember why you are signing up to Veganuary. What has triggered your interest in veganism and why you are taking this step forward in your life?

Perhaps write the reason down on a piece of paper, or somewhere prominent in your life space, so that in the unlikely event your commitment waivers, the message will always be close at hand. And with it, the answer to the questions you asked which made you commit to trying veganism in the first place.

*Experiment with new tastes*
On your journey through Veganuary you might find yourself craving certain animal-based products - like chocolate, cheese or sausage rolls - and there are many great alternatives to these foods out there.

But rather than always looking to re-create the taste you crave, I suggest you adapt that craving and try something completely different. After all, who wants to be the person who goes abroad and eats chips all day?

Think of Veganuary as an adventure into an unknown world, with untold benefits and exciting new experiences. There are thousands of vegan recipes available online (signing up at Veganuary.com is a good place to start) to help you explore new foods or meal ideas you hadn't thought of trying before going vegan.

*Keep track of your journey*
Keep a diary or a journal of what you eat and what works for you both in terms of taste and energy levels.

Your body and preferences will take time to adapt, so it is well worth charting your progress as the weeks go by so you have something to compare and refer to. This will also help you to recreate your favourite vegan dishes throughout January and beyond!

*Research the benefits of veganism*
Use the period of time to do research, watch the many documentaries out there which chart the positives of veganism from so many perspectives - health, the climate crisis, animal welfare and social justice.

Some starters include What the Health, Cowspiracy and Earthlings, which are available online or via popular streaming services. You may start the month of Veganuary for a variety of reasons, but you will finish it with a whole new and broader spectrum of information and perspective to consider.

*Seek out other vegans*
Become interactive with others making this same journey by joining the many social media groups and forums filled with people like yourself going through the same ups and downs, cravings and feelings.

The support of others is always a great motivator and inspiration, and not feeling alone can be very strengthening when feeling weak, or lacking direction or commitment.

*Plan ahead*
Don't get caught out with busy work schedules, social engagements or unexpected life events. Make sure you have a fridge and freezer well-stocked with vegan options so there is always something to hand, quick and easy, that you can prepare in an emergency or when out and about.

Travel at this time of year can be hectic so always carry some handy vegan snacks with you in case of a delayed train, road hold up or cancelled bus. Simple things like nuts, dried fruits and flapjack bars are easy to pack but not always readily available in an emergency.

Don't let lack of opportunity or hunger spoil your plans, always be ready and prepared. Flapjack bars powered me along the Sahara Desert for a whole week of running during the Marathon des Sables, so they will surely get you home after a delayed journey.

*Enjoy yourself*
Enjoy the whole process of taking part in Veganuary - don't look at what you 'can't' have, think of it as what you don't actually want any more.

You 'could' have the products you are cutting out, but you don't choose them to be part of your life. See it as a liberating experience with not just benefits to yourself personally, but the planet and those who reside on it as a whole.

If people try to discredit or question your choice to be part of this experience then use it as an opportunity to educate them as to why you are participating - you might even get them to join you!

sauce https://www.plantbasednews.org/opin...BooQS2npfrXSaWztXW-o4s67Twjdqx2vRhaz2qJFmHAT8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/...NCHhVj3iAsfRIF-x165X7AZk7vwAM0zzllyLgVYLyyON4

Worth reading-and doubling down on your commitment to read up on vegan nutrition and to ensure you're not falling into any pitfalls. Please also read:

https://www.vegan.com/nutrition/

https://www.vegan.com/vitamins/


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> https://www.bbc.com/future/article/...NCHhVj3iAsfRIF-x165X7AZk7vwAM0zzllyLgVYLyyON4
> 
> Worth reading-and doubling down on your commitment to read up on vegan nutrition and to ensure you're not falling into any pitfalls.


This article seems to suggest we should trade the unknown health effects of differing nutritional content for the unknown health effects of taking a cocktail of supplements long-term. That seems reckless to me until we have a lot more information.

It's known that diets high in animal products increase the risk of our biggest killers like heart disease and cancer, and that's worth more concern than the unknowns of a vegan diet which has been shown over and over again to be consistent with good health, long life, athletic performance, and yes, intelligence.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> https://www.bbc.com/future/article/...NCHhVj3iAsfRIF-x165X7AZk7vwAM0zzllyLgVYLyyON4
> 
> Worth reading-and doubling down on your commitment to read up on vegan nutrition and to ensure you're not falling into any pitfalls. Please also read:
> 
> ...


Still?!

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to cyclelicious again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> This article seems to suggest we should trade the unknown health effects of differing nutritional content for the unknown health effects of taking a cocktail of supplements long-term. That seems reckless to me until we have a lot more information.
> 
> It's known that diets high in animal products increase the risk of our biggest killers like heart disease and cancer, and that's worth more concern than the unknowns of a vegan diet which has been shown over and over again to be consistent with good health, long life, athletic performance, and yes, intelligence.


The vegan / plant based diet is healthy. Articles like this do nutrition journalism no favours as misleading the public is irresponsible and dangerous

https://www.plantbasednews.org/opinion/bbc-article-veganism-affects-intelligence-outdated-data


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Almonds are out. Dairy is a disaster. So what milk should we drink?*









or environmentally minded consumers, the news is hard to swallow: almond milk is not healthy for the planet and the popular milk substitute is especially hard on bees. Our recent investigation into the connection between California's industrialized almond industry and a record 50bn commercial bee deaths created quite a buzz. The widely read story prompted one primary response from readers: "What should we be drinking instead?"

This is a thorny question, and food sustainability experts are reluctant to single out any one plant milk as best because all have pros and cons.

But we're going to try.









One thing is clear. All milk alternatives are far better for the planet than dairy. A 2018 study by researchers at the University of Oxford showed that producing a glass of dairy milk results in almost three times more greenhouse gas emissions than any plant-based milk and it consumes nine times more land than any of the milk alternatives. (Land is required to pasture the cows and grow their feed, which the animals belch out in the form of methane.)

Plant milks can, nevertheless, have a dark side, as when any crop is produced in mass quantities. It's important to consider not just whether they are grown using organic methods. Other factors include how the farming of the crop affects people and native habitats in developing countries, the carbon footprint and water use. And while each product has its trade-offs, some plant milks are more sustainable than others.

Advertisement

Based on interviews with experts, here is a an environmental ranking of plant milks, from the disappointingly sour to the sustainably sweet.

Coconut: 'An absolute tragedy'









Coconut has a reputation as exotic and healthy, but for poor regions in the Philippines, Indonesia and India, where pickers are often paid less than a dollar a day, the palm groves are no paradise.

Sign up for Word of Mouth: the best of Guardian Food every week
Read more
Because coconut trees only grow in tropical climates, the pressure to meet global demand is causing exploitation of workers and destruction of rainforests. "Coconut is an absolute tragedy and it makes me really sad," Isaac Emery, a food sustainability consultant. "I love cooking with coconut milk but I don't feel good about buying coconut products. Farmers in Indonesia should be growing food to feed their families instead of meeting international demands."

According to an investigation by the New York Times, between 2007 to 2014 rainforests in Indonesia were clearcut at the rate of three acres every minute to make way for coconut palm trees. To avoid supporting unsustainable practices, choose coconut products that are certified Fair Trade.

Almond: bad for bees









While almond trees occupy smaller amounts of farmland compared with other crops grown for milk, this benefit is overshadowed by the negative impacts of almond farming in the US. Concentrated almost entirely in California's arid Central Valley, almonds are the largest specialty crop in the US and the orchards cover a region the size of Delaware.

Almonds require more water than any other dairy alternative, consuming 130 pints of water to produce a single glass of almond milk, according to the Oxford study. Satisfying continual demands for larger almond crops is also placing unsustainable pressures on US commercial beekeepers. Nearly 70% of commercial bees in the US are drafted every spring to pollinate almonds. Last year, a record number -over one-third of them- died by season's end as a result of these pressures and other environmental threats.

Rice: a water-guzzler









Although rice milk is ubiquitous as an inexpensive and widely available dairy alternative, it offers little in the way of nutrition or environmental benefits compared with other choices.

Rice is a water hog, according to the Oxford study, plus it produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any other plant milk. Bacteria breeding in rice paddies pump methane into the atmosphere and large amounts of fertilizer pollute waterways.

Hazelnut: on the up








For consumers who want the nutritiousness and tastiness of a nut milk but without the environmental impacts of almond farming, the hazelnut is a rising star. Like all nuts, hazelnuts grow on trees that pull carbon from the atmosphere and help reduce greenhouse emissions rather than increase them. Hazelnuts are environmentally superior to almonds in that they are pollinated by the wind rather than commercial honeybees and they grow in moist climates, such as the Pacific north-west, where water is less of an issue.

Hemp and flax: niche contenders









Another way to ensure sustainable choices is to choose milk alternatives made from what Emery describes as "niche crops" such as hemp and flax. They are grown in relatively small quantities in the northern hemisphere, which makes them more environmentally friendly compared with a monoculture operation. Both plants produce seeds that make for a milk rich in protein and healthy fats.

Soy: back in favor








According to the Oxford study, soy milk is the joint winner on the sustainability scale. Plus, soy is the only plant milk that comes close to offering a protein content comparable to dairy. It was the go-to alternative long before almond milk came into vogue - but then soy fell out of favor.

"Soy has a relatively high concentration of certain hormones that are similar to human hormones and people got freaked out about that," says Emery. "But the reality is you would have to consume an impossibly large amount of soy milk and tofu for that to ever be a problem." Recent studies have instead found that a moderate amount of soy is healthy, especially for women.

The primary environmental drawback to soy milk is that soybeans are grown in massive quantities around the world to feed livestock for meat and dairy production. Large swaths of rainforest in the Amazon have been burned to make way for soy farms. The work-around for this is to simply do a little research and read the carton to find soy milk that is made from organic soybeans grown in the US or Canada.

Oat: a humble hero









Meet the winner: the unassuming oat.

"I'm excited about the surge in oat milk popularity," says Liz Specht, associate director of science and technology for the Good Food Institute, a not-for-profit that promotes plant-based diets. "Oat milk performs very well on all sustainability metrics." Also: "I highly doubt there will be unintended environmental consequences that might emerge when the scale of oat milk use gets larger."

According to Bloomberg Business, retail sales of oat milk in the US have soared from $4.4m in 2017 to $29m in 2019, surpassing almond milk as the fastest-growing dairy alternative. But unlike almonds, there are already plenty of oats to go around. "Right now, 50 to 90% of global oat production goes into animal feed," says Specht, "so there's a huge existing acreage that we can safely steal share from without moving the needle at all on total production."

Oats are grown in cooler climates such as the northern US and Canada, and are therefore not associated with deforestation in developing countries. The only drawback with this trendy and guilt-free option is that most oats come from mass-produced, monoculture operations where they are sprayed with the Roundup pesticide right before harvest. A study by the Environmental Working Group found glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and a possible carcinogen, in all the foods it tested containing conventionally grown oats and even in one-third of products made with organic oats. However, the popular Oatly brand oat milk company maintains its oats are certified glyphosate free.

The bottom line: as long as it's not dairy









Both Emery and Specht emphasize that whether it's coconut, soy or oat, consumers should drink whatever plant milk is most appealing to them and not fret over sustainability shortcomings, which are chump change compared with the environmental harms from dairy.

"Drink what you want," says Emery. "If you're going with plant milk instead of animal milk, you've already addressed most of the environmental problems that your animal milk habit was causing."

Follow these recipes to whip up a glass of hazelnut fig milk and other DIY plant milk varieties.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...uBsReYc8UiO-k_ZSzAp6eQYkSk#Echobox=1580287229


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's not my favorite veg. I don't miss it when I don't have it ... and it tastes like crunchy water, however interesting article about celery! 

*Celery Was the Avocado Toast of the Victorian Era*









hough it's the crucial third component of a mirepoix, cooked celery is one of the most universally hated vegetables. Most notable for its role as the log in ants on a log-or the garnish in a Bloody Mary-raw celery is the baby's breath of crudités, the ligneous filler in the veggie tray, always stubbornly there, never really wanted.

But celery was once a great luxury-one of the most fashionable foods to grace the table. The wealthy served it as the centerpiece of every dinner, while the average middle-class family reserved it for the conclusion of holiday meals. No Victorian household was complete without a glass celery vase-a tall, tulip-shaped bowl atop a pedestal-to prominently display the vegetable. Love it or loathe it, celery was once as fashionable as today's dry-aged rib eye or avocado toast.

Native to the Mediterranean, celery cultivation began in the early 1800s in the cool, damp wetlands of East Anglia. It was fussy to grow and difficult to obtain-and this made it irresistible to the Victorian upper classes. Between the 1830s and the early 1900s, celery appeared as a standalone dish in countless cookbooks and housekeepers' guides. It was served both braised and au naturel; it was presented au velouté (in a light gravy) and à la Espagniole (in a rich demi-glace). "Plain celery" as well as "dressed celery" (mayonnaise was de rigueur) were listed among the salads on a 1865 menu at the upscale Parker House Hotel in Boston. (Still operating today as Omni Parker House, the celery course is, tragically, no longer a thing.)

A little later, celery au gratin, the classy predecessor to today's gooey celery-cheese casserole, was all the rage. At the same time, celery was considered a necessary accompaniment to canvasback duck, partridge, and other game birds. Celery was served in a first-class cabin dinner with roast squab, cress, and pâté de foie gras aboard the Titanic.









The height of popularity for celery vases was from the 1830s to the 1880s, but they were still being made (and ostensibly foisted onto hapless young brides) well into the 1910s. For awhile, the vases coexisted peacefully with their counterpart the celery dish, a long, narrow, boat-shaped bowl somewhat resembling an inverted butter dish-more effective for serving cooked celery that was too flaccid to stand upright in a vase.

The real reason for the vase's demise, however, seems to have been its ubiquity. Famed nineteenth-century chef and cookbook author Jessup Whitehead lamented in The Steward's Handbook and Guide to Party Catering (1889) that the celery vase had become, in the parlance of today, basic. "The fashions change as to the method of serving," he wrote. "The tall celery glasses set upon the table form the handiest and handsomest medium, but having become so exceedingly common they are discarded at present at fashionable tables, and the celery is laid upon very long and narrow dishes." The November 1891 issue of Ladies Home Journal echoed this sentiment. The magazine included concise directions on presenting celery in its "When and How to Serve Some Things" section (for planning Thanksgiving dinner), noting bluntly for the uninformed that "It is now served in long, flat glass dishes."

Regardless of the mode of its service, Jessup Whitehead was adamant that celery was still "an article of necessity now for every good dinner in the winter and spring." In England, celery had been long served raw as an accompaniment to a cheese course, as depicted in Charles Dickens's novel The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843). One winter evening, one of the novel's main characters is seen in a tavern enjoying "a most stupendous Wiltshire beer" with his celery and cheese. This evolved into the time-honored snack of celery sticks stuffed with cream cheese, first seen in cookbooks and ladies' magazines in the early 1900s as a salad or as a cheese course to finish off a formal dinner.

James Beard noted in his American Cookery that "It was the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century housewife and hostess who performed the marriage of the olive and celery," but the duo had already been observed on hors d'oeuvres menus and relish trays in fancy restaurants and hotel dining rooms beginning around the 1880s.

Along with olives, celery was offered as a palate cleanser following the fish course or as a refresher after the soup course (both uses explain why celery is served with Buffalo wings today). This is likely where hostesses got the idea in the first place, not the other way around. Proper hostesses like my grandmother Laverne would never have deigned to put out a relish tray without celery and olives (black and stuffed) alongside radishes, dill and sweet pickles, scallions, and her Russian dressing.

As the celery craze was reaching its zenith in the 1870s, Dutch farmers who knew how to handle wetlands began growing the vegetable in the black, marshy soils of Kalamazoo, Michigan, which became known by the catchy name the Celery City. The streets were littered with hucksters peddling celery from street corners and train stations. As American cultivation improved, celery became an everyman's item. By then, the British upper classes had moved on to French luxuries like truffles and oysters. Celery vases may have gone the way of the dodo, but one would be hard-pressed to find a premade veggie tray without a slot for celery. Like it or not, celery isn't going anywhere.

https://www.tastecooking.com/celery...iHl2COR2oF6TvCuC31gL3TCqdBNHsaQzqUpvkKkCCBh5s


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Not for spice lightweights. Digging in and digging the homemade soya milk base. That was the star ingredient of the dish.









Curried coconut with little chucks of dried fruit and nuts. Made with homemade soy milk. Delicious combination The TVX: The Vegan Extremist


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1309383
> 
> Not for spice lightweights. Digging in and digging the homemade soya milk base. That was the star ingredient of the dish.
> 
> ...


Oh that looks and sounds good! Now I'm hungry!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The food at The Vegan Extremist is top notch! The owner started his business with a vegan food truck. I am so glad he got this place. The food is fusion with Asian influence. Each curry dish is served with roti paratha, ... a flat bread (so yummy)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*5 Vegan Foods Linked to Cognitive Function*

Walnuts are known as brain-power food, but supporting the brain extends far beyond simply popping a handful of nuts &#8230; or a pill: variety and consistency is essential. "Supplements cannot replace a healthy dietary pattern," reminds Fran Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard T.H. in a recent Time article. "The overall dietary pattern is more important than a single nutrient." With this in mind (Yay, pun!), here are several superfood ways to get your brain boost on, everyday:

*Chia Seeds| *The reason why walnuts are so renowned as a brain food is thanks to their rich omega-3 fatty acid content, which is linked to helping enhance memory as well as protection against cognitive decline. While walnuts are good, chia seeds are even better. A much more condensed source of this important nutrient, with 8x the amount of EFA's found in salmon ounce per ounce, chia seeds make efficient work out of providing us with the fats we need, at a lower calorie cost to boot. Sprinkle chia on a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. and reap the rewards. Or to mix things up, you can also use another omega powerhouse, too: hemp seeds!

*Goji Berries |* Considering the number of antioxidants in these remarkable berries, regularly consuming goji's is, quite literally, a smart habit. Although only a preliminary study, research has indicated that the lycopene in goji berries might be a promising neuro-protective agent against Alzheimer's. Researchers are currently exploring goji berries as the base of future treatments, but you can enjoy them regularly by the handful, in smoothies, or tossed into your favorite breakfast bowl

*Blueberries *| High amounts of flavonoid antioxidants are responsible for blueberry's brain-enhancing fame, which studies have shown enhances memory as well as learning and general cognitive function. To mix things up further, you can also stock up on flavonols by eating cacao, acai, and maqui.

*Pumpkin Seeds *| These tasty green seeds are one of nature's best sources of zinc, a vitamin linked to enhancing memory and thinking skills. Enjoy pumpkin seeds by the handful, or try them mixed into seasonal soups or hearty salads, like my White Bean Pepita Salad.

*Cranberries* | One of cranberries many unique rewards is a high concentration of ursolic acid, a compound that has shown promise in protecting brain cells from injury and degeneration, and possibly even reversing damage. To get the maximum amount of ursolic acid from these red berries, use them fresh (ideal), or sun-dried without sugar (using fruit juice to sweeten).

sauce https://www.vegetariantimes.com/veg...9jP25lNjybf68bHqO_ym8asB6gCGcfvsxb8Xcz7d6FnFY


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Plant-Based Athlete Crowned 'Fittest Woman In The Netherlands'

Plant-based athlete Nienke van Overveld has been crowned the 'fittest woman in the Netherlands'.

Overveld, who regularly promotes an animal-product free diet on Instagram, is now set to compete at the 2020 Reebok CrossFit Games following her performance at the 2020 Open.

Since 2017, the athlete has jumped up more than 500 places and currently ranks as the 210th fittest woman in the world.

*Never dared to dream'*
Reflecting on her progress from the last couple of years, the star explained she first started CF in 2015, but failed to qualify for the CrossFit Lowlands Throwdown and described herself as being 'trash'.

However, by 2019 Overveld was on a team that had earned their way to the Cross Fit Games. Speaking about the moment, she said: "Tears of happiness, disbelieve and comradery, we (including me) did it. _ Never dared to dream of the Games, that was way out of my league...

*'Dedication'*
"The thing that has been consistent for the past four years is dedication, something I can't live without.," she added. "If I wouldn't have found CF, I would have spend 100percent of my energy into something else, whatever it may have been.

"And I hope you all find that one thing that wants you to wake up in the morning, and live the day with a smile."

https://www.plantbasednews.org/cult...gBWuruDDwRVX8VNAcHuQJ9SpY42wnHHI8QJRzTJy6D1YE_


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Caturday's lunch at The Vegan Extremist (Kensington Market in Toronto) The daily special was dosa's. The dosas were superb.The crepe held together. The ingredients perfect combination for flavor,spiciness and texture... chef Jeff knocks it out of the park with this vegan dish


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I hope this vegan an awesome actor he wins an Oscar for best actor tonight 

*How Joaquin Phoenix Vegan-ized Awards Season Behind the Scenes*









In the past month, Joaquin Phoenix has swept the best actor categories at the Golden Globes, the Critics' Choice Awards and the SAG Awards for his titular performance in Joker. Now he's the heavy favorite for the Oscar.

Phoenix - known to not enjoy awards-circuit glad-handing and posing for photos - has famously been averse to campaigning. This season, though, he has jumped in, and has paired his Oscar pursuit with animal rights and climate change activism. "For someone who's having a pinnacle moment in their career, he's giving back at the same time," says actress Jorja Fox, producer of the 2019 animal-rights documentary The Animal People, which Phoenix, a longtime vegan, executive produced.

Indeed, not many contenders have so closely wed promotional duties with radical activism. On Sept. 9, on his way to receive a Tribute Actor Award from the Toronto International Film Festival, the actor made an appearance at a vegan protest inside the city's subway system. On Nov. 1, fiancee Rooney Mara joined him at a L.A. event for Extinction Rebellion, a climate change group that advocates nonviolent civil disobedience. He got arrested at Jane Fonda's Fire Drill Fridays in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 10. ("I didn't invite him, he came on his own volition," she told the crowd.) And on Jan. 19, he left the SAG Awards to attend a "pig vigil" in Vernon, California, held by a group he's been involved with for several years, Los Angeles Animal Save. Still in his tux, Phoenix, 45, watched as hogs were driven into a processing plant for slaughter.

Behind the scenes, sources say Phoenix has spearheaded an effort to turn this season's awards shows vegan, beginning with the Golden Globes. After he lobbied the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to go all-vegan at the event, it made a last-minute switch. When Phoenix took the Globes podium on Jan. 5, he acknowledged the HFPA for its "very bold move making tonight plant-based. It really sends a powerful message." Soon after, in what seemed like a cascade effect, Critics' Choice and SAG followed suit.

THR has learned that the actor pushed for changes at those events, too. Phoenix, who declined to comment for this story, contacted Critics' Choice Association CEO Joey Berlin 10 days before the show. His email was accompanied by signatures from the likes of fellow nominees Leonardo DiCaprio, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kristen Bell. "We talked it over with the network and our sponsors and agreed that it would be a good thing to do," explains Berlin, who observes that there's a practical benefit to going meat-free: "You don't want to end up with a cold burger, but a cold plant-based burger is OK."

Phoenix's pitch, as Berlin characterizes it, was that meat agriculture is a leading cause of climate change and that the televised spectacles should use their platforms to address pressing societal issues. (According to the United Nations, livestock generates 14.5 percent of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions globally.) The carbon footprint reduced on site would pale in comparison to the symbolism beamed to viewers.

Phoenix sent similar missives to SAG and the Academy. The all-vegan offerings on awards show menus have won plenty of cheers, but also some jeers. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel's Alex Borstein complained on social media about the SAG Awards food, writing, "I am not a rabbit."

Since then, the Academy has jumped on board, offering a plant-based menu at its Jan. 27 Nominees Luncheon, then announcing that all food served in the Dolby Theatre lobbies Feb. 9 before the Oscars will be vegan. The Wolfgang Puck-catered Governors Ball, which previously offered a 50 percent plant-based or vegetarian menu, will upshift to 70 percent. Meanwhile, Phoenix's agency, WME, is going plant-based for its Oscars-weekend party. The star put in the request to the agency's executive leadership through his rep, Boomer Malkin.

"He knows what can be done," says Lisa Lange, senior vp communications at PETA, which the actor has been involved with since the 1990s. "He knows he's in a good position to push. He enlists friends. And it works. He can have influence in Hollywood, and it influences the rest of the world."

Adds Aylam Orian, president of Our Planet Theirs Too, an animal rights group the actor has supported: "Joaquin is very shy. He doesn't like to speak in public. He's pushing himself to do this."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-joaquin-phoenix-vegan-ized-awards-season-1275760


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Congratulations Joaquin Phoenix for winning an Oscar for best actor in the "Joker" movie! And for your eloquent speech for animal rights and for the love of all species

"When we use love and compassion as our guiding principals, we can create, develop, and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment."


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump day too


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

6 Edible Weeds that are More Nutritious than Store-Bought Veggies

1. Chickweed









Chickweed provides all the minerals most Americans are lacking - calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, selenium, silica, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc.

It's also high in vitamin A, vitamin B-1, vitamin B-2, niacin, and vitamin C.

It also contains 14.5 grams of protein per serving, about half a cup of dried leaves, according to the Plants For A Future database.

Chickweed has a delicate flavor, much like spinach. It tastes great in sandwiches and salads.

If you don't like the taste, you can still reap the benefits by hiding it in soups and stews.

Medicinally, chickweed can be used as a topical treatment for minor cuts, burns, eczema and rashes. It's also a mild diuretic and is said to relieve cystitis and irritable-bladder-symptoms.

2. Dandelion









Dandelions are loaded with vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, B9, C and K.

They're also high in the minerals calcium, iron, potassium, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, and copper.

Probably the most common of North American weeds, they're also among the most medicinal, used throughout history to treat everything from liver problems and kidney disease to heartburn and appendicitis.

More recently, a study found the plant kills cancer cells without harming surrounding healthy cells.

Every part of this common weed is edible, from the roots to the blossoms. Use the leaves in sandwiches and stir-fries. Add the sweet flower heads to salads to salads or smoothies. The roots can be made into a herbal-tea, or roasted and ground as a coffee substitute.

3. Chicory









Chicory contains at least a little of nearly every essential, yet hard-to-find, trace mineral, including 7% of our daily value of selenium and manganese and 5% of our daily value of iron.

Selenium helps regulate thyroid hormones and the immune system, while manganese supports the formation of healthy bones, tissues, and sex hormones.

It's also high in the macro minerals calcium, potassium and phosphorus and vitamins A,B and C

Chicory roots contain a prebiotic vital to the growth and activity of probiotics, called oligosaccharide-enriched inulin.

Oligosaccharides are present in only a few sources: breast milk, Jerusalem artichokes, onions, leeks, garlic, legumes, and bananas.

Add fresh chicory leaves to a salad for a mild-to-peppery flavor. The remove some of the bitterness, boil or sauté.

4. Curly Dock









Curly dock is one of the hardiest and most widespread weeds, so you should have no trouble finding a source.

The leaves are high in beta-carotene, Vitamins A, B, C and the trace mineral zinc, strengthening your immune system, and the seeds are rich in calcium and magnesium for bone health.

The stems of the curly-dock can be peeled and eaten either cooked or raw, and the mature seeds can be roasted to make an earthy, warm-drink.

5. Common Mallow









Mallow is high in vitamins A and C and calcium and iron.

Unlike its name suggests, the flavor of this plant is nothing like marshmallow. Tea made from common mallow root forms a gelatinous mixture, which is soothing for the digestive and genitourinary tracts.

6. Lambsquarters









Lambsquarters is high in Vitamin A and C, calcium, phosphorus and potassium. It's also a decent source of protein.

This rapidly growing summer weed produces black-seeds which are related to the protein-rich superfood quinoa.

You can enjoy the young shoots and leaves of the plant. Whether raw or sautéed, they make a great replacement for spinach and are just as nutritious.

sauce https://returntonow.net/2018/06/06/...O8sJ8DV9_QLulvMCZaynw-px2OqSyhFYIQY51iGCEMOq8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy "Plant Powered" Valentine's Day


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

oyster mushrooms sweet and savory coating
Chef Jeff is seen making the dosas in the top left corner









Dosas









plant based


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Will Cultured Meat Soon Be A Common Sight In Supermarkets Across The Globe?

Up until now, plant-based food companies like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and Quorn have almost singlehandedly worked to lessen the impacts of industrial animal agriculture.

Supermarket shelves and fast food restaurants across the US are serving up vegan burgers and meatballs and plant-based chicken nuggets are showing consumers there is an alternative to relying on animal-based protein.

But a quiet revolution is also taking place in labs, where scientists are working to cultivate meat and seafood grown from cells, with the potential to reduce demand for industrial animal agriculture even further.

Here's how the process works: Stem cells are taken from the muscle of an animal, usually with a small biopsy under anesthesia, then they're put with nutrients, salts, pH buffers, and growth factor and left to multiply. Finessing the technology and getting the cost to an affordable level is happening at a slower pace than the plant-based industry, but a number of start-ups are nevertheless aiming to get their products on the market soon.

Cell-based meat (also known as cultured, cultivated, slaughter-free, cell-cultured, and clean meat) could be a common sight in supermarkets across the west in the next three years, according to the Institute of the Future in Palo Alto. California-based Memphis Meats made headlines for its world-first cell-based meatballs four years ago, and is currently building a pilot plant to produce its cultured beef, chicken, and duck on a bigger scale - with plans to launch more plants around the world.

And it isn't the only cell-based meat start-up in the The Golden State. There's the recently formed San Francisco-based Artemys Foods, co-founded by biochemist Jess Krieger, who has spent the past six years working at Kent State University in Ohio growing cell-based meat in a lab, Berkeley-based Mission Barns, focused on creating animal fat, which it has mixed with other ingredients to make duck sausages, and San Diego-based BlueNalu, a startup developing seafood from fish cells through a process called "cellular aquaculture."

But innovation isn't limited to the US - it's happening across the world. The global cell-based meat market is predicted to be worth $15.5m by 2021 and $20m by 2027, according to analysis. One report estimates that 35% of all meat will be cultured by 2040.

While estimates vary, one study found that cell-based beef is projected to use 95 per cent fewer global greenhouse gas emissions, 98 per cent less land use and up to half as much energy. It also significantly reduces the amount of antibiotics needed, which are widely used in agriculture and contribute hugely to worsening antibiotic resistance. And since the animal cells are extracted humanely and grown in a facility rather than within the animals themselves, cell-based meat has the potential to all but eliminate animal suffering.

The industry has made huge progress since the first cell-based hamburger was unveiled in 2013 in London by Dutch stem cell researcher Mark Post, chief scientific officer at Dutch company Mosa Meat. While this was a huge achievement, it also showed the world how far the industry had to go before commercially viable cell-based meat could be a reality. It cost $325,000 to make, and wasn't totally animal-free, as most of the burger's muscle strands were grown with fetal bovine serum, which comes from blood drawn from bovine fetuses.

In the intervening years, Mosa Meat has made several breakthroughs, and aims to bring the price down to a commercial price. It now doesn't require fetal bovine serum, and has developed a process that allows industrial scale production.

Also in the Netherlands, start-up Meatable has recently raised €9m to help reduce costs and scale-up production of its beef and pork. It aims to have an industry-scale plant by 2025, and will have a small-scale bioreactor - the machine where cell-growth takes place - this year. Meatable's cofounder Krijn de Nood hopes to unveil its first prototype this summer.

Elsewhere in Europe, the UK's Higher Steaks is growing stem cells for the production of mince for pork sausages. Instead of using fetal bovine serum, the company uses protocols exclusively licensed to it by its collaborators, the University of Minnesota, that allow it to reprogram stem cells into muscle and fat tissues.

Instead of adult stem cells, it uses induced pluripotent stem cells, which means they have an infinite supply as the cells proliferate infinitely. With adult stem cells, researchers have to go to the animal every time they need a new batch.

And Spain's Cubiq Foods is producing cell-based fat, which is used to enhance the flavor of food and enrich it with essential fatty acids, such as omega-3.

But when it comes to cell-based meat, all eyes are on Israel, where a number of start-ups like Future Meat Technologies and SuperMeat are making huge progress. The country's interest in cell-based meat has also been attributed to its thriving vegan culture.

Future Meat Technologies, founded in 2018, has shortened the manufacturing process to two weeks, with a patent-pending method they say allows for higher production yields of cell-based beef. The start-up's technologies enable producers, farmers and retailers to manufacture biomass and process it locally. The company hopes to get cost down to $10 per pound by 2022.

As for SuperMeat, it is developing cell-based meat from chicken cells (it claimed during its launch in 2016 that it was the first company to work on clean chicken products for mass production). One of Europe's largest poultry producers, PHW-Gruppe formed a partnership with SuperMeat in 2018. "We believe 2020 will be the tipping point for the cultivated meat industry, once the proof of scale will be introduced to the world," says Shir Friedman, Co-Founder and Chief Communications Officer of the company. "SuperMeat is excited to take a lead part in this historical event."

Another Israeli start-up, Aleph Farms, created the world's first cell-based steak at the end of 2018. It was co-founded only one year prior together with The Kitchen Hub from the Strauss Group, and with Professor Shulamit Levenberg of the Technion Institute of Technology. And in fall of 2019, Aleph Farms successfully "3D printed" meat on the International Space Station. "Our experiment of bioprinting meat in space... consisted of printing a small-scale muscle tissue using 3D Bioprinting Solutions' bioprinting technology," says Yoav Reisler, External Relations Manager for the company. "The proof of concept sought to assess the potential of producing cultivated meat in a zero-gravity environment away from land and local water resources. Our approach for cultivating beef steaks is imperative to the experiment, as it relies on mirroring the natural process of tissue regeneration that happens in a cow's body but under controlled and animal-free conditions. Our overarching goal is to produce meat products that have a significantly reduced ecological impact and this was a milestone in towards achieving that." Earlier this month, Aleph Farms announced plans to open an educational complex next to its production facility to provide the general public a more in-depth view of how cell-based meat is grown.

Also in Israel, BioFood Systems aims to produce beef products using bovine embryonic stem cells. It also hopes to scale up technology that it can license globally to enable meat manufacturers to produce their own cell-based meat.

But other parts of the world aren't far behind Israel, including Asia. Singaporean Shiok Meats is working on bringing cell-based based crustaceans (shrimp, crab and lobster) to market, and says it's the first company of its kind in Singapore and South-East Asia. It hopes to have a commercially viable product in the next few years, and is currently researching and developing.

And in Japan, meat producer Toriyama and its export agent, Awano Food Group has partnered with JUST to grow, distribute and sell its cell-based wagyu beef worldwide.

n-between Asia and Europe, innovation is also happing in Turkey. Biftek is the first and still the only company developing cultured meat in the country. It uses a plant-based formulation, made up of 44 proteins, in place of fetal bovine serum. Founder Can Akcali said in a recent interview that the media in Turkey is showing a growing interest in its work, and cell-based meat more widely.

Since the first cell-based unveiling of a cell-based burger in 2013, scientists have been flocking to labs in a race to iron out numerous teething problems and be the first to make a commercially viable cell-based meat product. Meanwhile, private investment into the industry has soared. Last year, twelve companies raised $50 million in 14 deals - double the amount of 2018. US-based Memphis Meats raised $22 million, Spain's Cubiq Foods raised $14 million and Mosa Meat drew in $9 million.

Memphis Meats now plans to build a pilot production facility, thanks to additional investments in January this year from Cargill and Tyson Foods, as well as high-profile investors Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Kimbal Musk.

Ido Savir, SuperMeat's chief executive, said Mosa Meat introduced the concept of cell-based meat to the world, and that the main challenge start-ups are still facing is proof of scaling up production to a commercially viable size that's cost-efficient. Once these hurdles are overcome, it will be a much smoother process to get cell-based meat on shelves. At the moment, cell-based products are being prototyped in labs - but once scientists have finessed the process and the cost, they're produced at scale and can grow in facilities like any other food.

Many cell-based start-ups expect to get their products to market in the next few years. Whether or not they are actually able to meet that projection is an open question. "I worry most startups in the cultured meat space are overestimating their short-term timeline to get to market and underestimating their potential long-term impact on completely redesigning our food system from the cell-level up," says Max Elder, Research Director in the Food Futures Lab at Institute for the Future. "Regardless of the timeline, one thing is clear: we desperately need to undo the damage industrialized animal agriculture is wreaking on our communities, animals, and the planet." While it may indeed be unwise to count our cultured chickens before they hatch, especially in light of the urgent challenges we are facing, we can no doubt expect more innovation in the coming years. Perhaps one day - even if not in the near future - all the meat on our plates will indeed be slaughter-free.

sauce https://www.forbes.com/sites/briank...e0O8MhfYsT7NUQlWntkiYRwYtb7bUnnw#6177cdf27c66


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The mystery of why there are more women vegans*

"Manly man," the narrator observes, as a groom emerges from a house, carrying his bride. "Calm," he marvels, as a man in a packed train carriage smiles tolerantly at the lady who just stepped on his foot. And on it goes&#8230; a sequence of scenes depicting men carrying out impressively gallant feats, as an orchestral soundtrack rises to a crescendo. At the end of the advert, a man bites into a burger. The tagline reads: "100% manly man. 100% pure beef".

This McDonald's advert, broadcast in China in 2012, relies on the well-trodden stereotype that meat is masculine. And oddly, there is actually some truth to this. It turns out that - in almost every part of the globe, from Sweden to Australia - there are significantly fewer male vegans and vegetarians. In the US, one survey of 11,000 people found that just 24% of vegans are men.

Anecdotally, this seems to stand up. The tally of famous female vegans is a glittering line-up, reportedly including - deep breath - Natalie Portman, Miley Cyrus, Venus Williams, Ariana Grande, Ellie Goulding, Jessica Chastain, Alanis Morissette, Jane Goodall, Princess Beatrice and Beyonce.

Meanwhile, the cast of male celebrity vegans appears tiny in comparison, though it does feature Benedict Cumberbatch, Peter Dinklage, Zac Efron, and - notoriously - the singer Morrissey, who masterminded a Smiths album called Meat Is Murder and is said to have forbidden his band members from being photographed eating meat.

As it happens, psychologists have been aware of the mysterious abundance of female vegans for decades. They've come up with plenty of compelling explanations already - and they don't reflect well on men.

One possibility involves "precarious masculinity" - the idea that men are constantly worrying they will lose their manly status, and therefore feel the need to prove it at every opportunity. For example, when men are forced to do something "girly", like braiding a doll's hair, they tend to want to exhibit their machismo afterwards.









This could potentially be a major stumbling block for aspiring male vegans, who must run the gauntlet of the red-blooded carnivore stereotype. But where did this come from in the first place?

Steven Heine, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, suggests that it's largely down to historical factors. "Meat has always been associated with danger, because you used to have to hunt to get it, and status, because it was a prized food and we lived in patriarchal societies - so men arranged that it would go to themselves," he says.

It's also thought to have been perpetuated by marketing. Starting in the 19th Century, when it became more socially acceptable for parties of women to dine alone, restaurants and advertising executives scrambled to decide which foods were suitably feminine. Their verdict? Fussy desserts and dainty salads were for women, while steak was for men.

Fast-forward to today, and we're still passing these views on to the next generation.

Merely listing the vegetarian foods a person enjoys, below a detailed description of their personality and habits, can be enough to make them seem less masculine
Take "soy boys". The Urban Dictionary defines the slang term as applying to "males who completely and utterly lack all necessary masculine qualities," and claims it originates from the (scientifically dubious) link between the over-consumption of soya products and harm to the male physique and libido.

In his research, Heine has found that merely listing the vegetarian foods a person enjoys, below a detailed description of their personality and habits, can be enough to make them seem less masculine. Knowing that, "perhaps some men are concerned about what will happen if they order a salad at a restaurant," he says.

Margaret Thomas, a psychologist at Earlham College, Indiana, agrees. "I don't think people necessarily recognise the extent to which the food they choose to eat affects their identity," she says. Thomas has also found that vegans are seen as less masculine - but only if it's a choice. When her study participants were told that a person had been forced into the diet because of mysterious "digestive issues", they weren't judged so harshly.

Of course, the story of why there are more women vegans isn't all about men. Research has consistently shown that women are more compassionate in general, and particularly when it comes to animals. We're more likely to have a problem with animal use in general and experimentation in particular, more likely to keep pets, and less likely to abuse them.

Likewise, women make up 75% of the members of animal rights groups. In fact, feminists and animal activists have been working together for more than a century. Two prominent campaigners for women's suffrage, Alice Wright and Edith Good, lobbied the United Nations to give animals formal rights back in the 1940s - a proposition which is only just beginning to be considered today.

In 2018, the psychologist Carolyn Semmler set out to uncover if women are better at resolving the so-called "meat paradox" too. "There's a lot of literature about this," she says. "The idea that people claim to love animals - and yet they eat them."

Research has shown that women are more likely to use "avoidance" strategies to cope, such as avoiding connecting meat with animals
Together with colleagues from the University of Adelaide, Semmler recruited 460 people for the study, and split them into two groups. Both were asked to select a lamb dish that they would like to eat, and then provided with some information.

But while one half was merely asked to read about the nutritional content of their meal, the other was given a breakdown of exactly how lambs are reared and slaughtered, then shown a video of a precocious individual who had learnt to open a farm gate, all by him or herself. Each participant was surveyed at the beginning and the end of the study, to see how they felt and if their attitudes to meat had changed.

"We saw some really interesting things happen," says Semmler. First of all, most women felt worse after reading about the connection between animals and meat, while the men were more or less unaffected. Second, while the women were generally less attached to meat by the end of the study, the men were more carnivorous than ever.

"There was a group of male participants who had a really strong reaction to the study - saying that they were going to eat more meat, because they thought we wanted them to eat less." One explained: "&#8230;Based on the line of questioning in this survey, I am concerned that some lunatics might try to ban meat; I had better enjoy as much as possible while I am able." Though not all the men felt this way, a significant proportion did. The team didn't get the same response from a single woman.

One possible reason for this is the discrepancy in the ways men and women deal with the meat paradox. A 2013 study, led by Hank Rothgerber from Bellarmine University, Kentucky, found that women are more likely to use "avoidance" strategies to cope, such as avoiding connecting meat with animals.

This is surprisingly easy to implement in everyday life, since most supermarkets, restaurants and food brands tend to helpfully remove the more gruesome clues, such as eyeballs, feet and fur. If animals are depicted in their marketing, they're usually happy cartoons. Even the language we use helps to keep up the ruse, since we usually to refer to pork instead of pig, mutton instead of sheep, beef instead of cow, etc.

n contrast to the "dissociation" strategy favoured by women, Semmler's study found that men generally to tackle the troubling reality that they like animals and also eat them more directly, by denying that they can feel pain, suggesting that meat is essential if you want to be healthy, and invoking the hierarchy of the natural world, to justify the idea that humans can do what they like with other creatures.

With this in mind, it makes sense that the female participants would be more affected - since the information they were asked to read snatched their usual coping mechanism away from them. The men, meanwhile, simply pressed on with their usual justifications and dug themselves in.

But that might not be the only reason. Intriguingly, Semmler says her results fit nicely with what other research has shown about how men and women usually deal with any set of incompatible beliefs or behaviours. "While men tend to go on the attack, women tend to think 'I'm going to modify my behaviour because the problem is with me - I'm going to accept responsibility for this'," she says.

For example, when women are forced to confront the unhealthy reality of certain behaviours, such as smoking or sex without condoms - and then remember instances when they have engaged in these risks - in some cases, they change their attitudes and behaviour to a greater extent than men do.

Finally, there's "social dominance theory", which suggests that men might find meat more appealing when they're reminded it's made from animals, because it reinforces their sense of dominance and superiority - by viewing animals as unworthy of respect, they are asserting their power over them.

There is some evidence to support this idea. A survey of the attitudes of American college students, conducted in 2015, found a link between a preference for a more hierarchically stratified society and the use - and endorsement of the use of - animals.

The link between meat and dominance isn't just about animals - it also seems to extend to our own species. One early study, conducted in the 1980s by the anthropologist Peggy Sanday, involved comparing the power structures of a hundred hunter-gatherer cultures, some of which relied more on meat for food, and some of which relied more on gathered fruits and vegetables. She found that the meat-based societies tended to be more patriarchal, while the plant-based ones were generally more egalitarian.

This is thought to be because men are more likely to be hunters, so where meat is important they automatically have more power if they want it - which the study findings suggest they do. Meanwhile, where gathered foods dominate, women might use the status this affords them to carve out more equal societies.

Semmler thinks we need a lot more research before we can truly unravel the enigma of the women vegans. But it looks like it's down to a combination of the empathy gap between the sexes, our different strategies for overcoming the meat paradox, and the uniquely male fear that a salad could undermine their carefully manicured status.

One thing is clear: as the global popularity of veganism gathers pace - the number of US vegans increased by 600% between 2014 and 2017 - women are way ahead.

sauce https://www.bbc.com/future/article/...A2PUHoE5luLhm_1etSOz-X6x_jcQZ8HTOQuEPwvDP1xT8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Two studies highlight effects of diet and microbiome on heart and aging*

Two newly published studies are offering novel insights into the relationship between our diets, gut microbiome, and general health. One study is suggesting a Mediterranean diet can reconfigure gut bacteria to promote healthy aging, while a second study reveals plant-based diets can reduce gut microbe production of a metabolite linked to heart disease.

Our gut microbiome, much like the rest of our body, changes distinctly as we age. Prior research has found poor diets in older subjects are linked to less diverse gut microbiomes and more rapid signs of frailty and aging. In one new study an international team of researchers set out to investigate whether a Mediterranean diet, sustained for 12 months, altered an older microbiome and improved biomarkers associated with healthy aging.

Over 600 subjects were studied, aged between 65 and 79. Half of the cohort continued on their normal diet, while the other half followed a form of Mediterranean diet particularly designed for senior citizens, called the NU-AGE diet.

"We observed that increased adherence to the MedDiet modulates specific components of the gut microbiota that were associated with a reduction in risk of frailty, improved cognitive function and reduced inflammatory status," the researchers explain in the new study.

After 12 months on the Mediterranean diet the researchers identified increased gut bacterial diversity and improved metabolic markers associated with general healthy aging. Interestingly, the study does reference a prior trial investigating the effect of prebiotic supplementation on microbiome diversity in the same age group. That study found little change to overall microbiome diversity after six months of daily prebiotic supplementation. Although the prebiotics did enhance specific microbial populations, overall gut microbiome diversity was not improved and, despite the specific bacterial changes, the study did not detect improvements in inflammatory biomarkers.

These results, taken in tandem with the new results, suggest overall dietary interventions are more effective at maintaining general health and microbiome diversity, instead of focusing on particular pre or probiotic supplementation.

A second newly published study looking at diet, health, and the microbiome, homed in more specifically on a very specific gut metabolite strongly linked to heart disease. Prior study has revealed a significant association between high levels of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) and increased risk of heart disease.

TMAO is produced in the gut when certain bacteria digest animal products, primarily red meat. A small Australian study last year found individuals consuming the popular Paleo diet had significantly higher levels of TMAO in their bloodstream compared to a cohort eating more traditional diets.

The new research examined data from a large longitudinal study known as the Nurses' Health Study, which followed over 100,000 nurses for a decade. This data offers some of the first insights into the long-term relationship between TMAO blood levels and cardiovascular health.

Over 10 years a distinct link between increased TMAO levels and coronary heart disease (CHD) was detected. Women with the largest TMAO blood level increase across the 10-year period displayed a 63-percent higher risk of CHD.

"No previous prospective cohort study has addressed whether long-term changes in TMAO are associated with CHD, and whether dietary intakes can modify these associations," says senior author on the new TMAO study, Lu Qi. "Our findings show that decreasing TMAO levels may contribute to reducing the risk of CHD, and suggest that gut-microbiomes may be new areas to explore in heart disease prevention."

These two new studies don't imply the gut microbiome is the singular causal factor controlling general health and aging, but points more to a complex and bi-directional interplay between the bacteria living inside of us, the food we eat, and our overall health.

While it is still early days in the field of gut microbiome science, it's becoming increasingly clear there is not one single magical probiotic that will be the key to perfect health. Instead the secret may be what we already know, that a balanced diet and active lifestyle is the best path to positive general health.

The interplay of diet, microbiome and host health is a complex phenomenon influenced by several factors," the Mediterranean diet researchers conclude in their new study. "While the results of this study shed light on some of the rules of this three-way interplay, several factors such as age, body mass index, disease status and initial dietary patterns may play a key role in determining the extent of success of these interactions."

The Mediterranean diet study was published in the journal Gut, while the TMAO study was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

sauce https://newatlas.com/health-wellbei...by26T-1ImVgKyAPn6GWgxkiBcCmqNbpgwKsKf3PFEVjos


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How Vegans Can Get the Nutrients They Need*

One of the most challenging aspects of eating a vegan diet is ensuring that all your nutrition needs are met despite eliminating major food groups from your diet. Following a vegan diet means cutting out all animal-based foods like meat, poultry, eggs and dairy. It can feel restrictive and also be unhealthy without the proper knowledge and resources at hand. Studies have shown that vegans tend to have lower intakes of vitamin B12, iron, calcium, vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids and zinc compared to nonvegetarians; therefore, it's important for vegans to identify vegan-friendly sources of these nutrients.

*Vitamin B12*

Vitamin B12, found primarily in animal-derived foods, such as meat, fish and poultry, is essential for red blood cell production and neurological function. Low B12 levels often go undetected in vegans because high folate levels can mask deficiencies, so be sure to talk to your doctor about getting tested and possibly taking a supplement. A 2010 study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that 52 percent of vegans were vitamin B12 deficient.

Vegan foods to include for B12:
Fortified breads, cereals and energy bars
Fortified soy products (soy milk and faux meats)
Fortified plant-based milks (soy, rice, almond, hemp and coconut)
Nutritional yeast (a vegan-friendly seasoning with a cheesy flavor)

*Iron*

Iron is necessary for blood production, growth and development, metabolism and cellular functioning. Unfortunately for vegans and vegetarians, the type of iron found in plant-based foods (nonheme iron) isn't as easily absorbed as the iron found in meat (heme iron). Since the body can't use it as effeciently, vegans need more iron: the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vegans is 1.8 times higher than for meat eaters. However, there are lots of yummy plant-based sources of iron that vegans can eat. So be sure to include enough plant-based sources of iron, and eat these foods together with vitamin C-rich foods to help with iron absorption.

Vegan foods to include for more iron:
Dark leafy green vegetables (spinach, Swiss chard, collard greens and kale)
Whole grains (quinoa, barley, bulgur and brown rice)
Legumes, pulses, nuts and seeds (beans, peas and lentils)
Dried fruit (peaches, prunes, apricots and raisins)
Fortified cereals and rice
Spirulina (powder made from microalgae)
Vegan foods high in vitamin C to increase iron absorption:
Citrus fruits (oranges, grapefruit and lemons)
Tomatoes
Bell peppers
Berries

*Calcium and Vitamin D*

Bone health is a concern for vegans, since plant-based diets typically fall short of the recommended intakes for calcium and vitamin D. In fact, a 2010 study in the journal Public Health Nutrition showed that vegans had the lowest vitamin D levels, compared to vegetarians and nonvegetarians.

Vegan foods rich in calcium to include:
Dark leafy greens (spinach, collard greens, bok choy, turnip and mustard greens)
Fortified nondairy alternatives (soy, almond and coconut-based milk and yogurt)
Fortified soy products (tofu, milk and yogurt)
Fortified juices
Beans (navy and white)
Vegan foods high in vitamin D to include:
Fortified cereals and juices
Fortified soy (milk and yogurt)
Mushrooms (maitake and shiitake or UV-exposed white, cremini and portobello)
Omega-3s

Without seafood in the diet, vegans struggle to get enough of the heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA. Plus, vegans' requirements for essential fatty acids may be higher than those for nonvegetarians because of the inefficient conversion of plant-based ALA into EPA and DHA.

Vegan foods to Include:
Seeds (chia, ground flaxseed and hemp)
Walnuts
Sea vegetables and microalgae

*Zinc*

Zinc plays an important role in many cellular functions, including the immune system, wound healing, and growth and development. The high phytate content (found in grains, legumes and seeds) of vegan diets decreases zinc absorption, making it that much more important for vegans to include food sources of zinc in their diets. Try soaking and sprouting beans and grains to reduce their phytate content and maximize zinc absorption.

Vegan foods to Include:
Beans
Nuts
Seeds
Whole grains and fortified cereals
Soy (tofu, tempeh)









sauce How Vegans Can Get the Nutrients They Need | EatingWell


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*10 Health Benefits of Kale*

Of all the super healthy greens, kale is king.

It is definitely one of the healthiest and most nutritious plant foods in existence.

Kale is loaded with all sorts of beneficial compounds, some of which have powerful medicinal properties.

Here are 10 health benefits of kale that are supported by science.

*1. Kale Is Among The Most Nutrient-Dense Foods on The Planet*

Kale is a popular vegetable and a member of the cabbage family.

It is a cruciferous vegetable like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens and Brussels sprouts.

There are many different types of kale. The leaves can be green or purple, and have either a smooth or curly shape.

The most common type of kale is called curly kale or Scots kale, which has green and curly leaves and a hard, fibrous stem.

A single cup of raw kale (about 67 grams or 2.4 ounces) contains :

Vitamin A: 206% of the DV (from beta-carotene)
Vitamin K: 684% of the DV
Vitamin C: 134% of the DV
Vitamin B6: 9% of the DV
Manganese: 26% of the DV
Calcium: 9% of the DV
Copper: 10% of the DV
Potassium: 9% of the DV
Magnesium: 6% of the DV

It also contains 3% or more of the DV for vitamin B1 (thiamin), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B3 (niacin), iron and phosphorus
This is coming with a total of 33 calories, 6 grams of carbs (2 of which are fiber) and 3 grams of protein.

Kale contains very little fat, but a large portion of the fat in it is an omega-3 fatty acid called alpha linolenic-acid.

Given its incredibly low calorie content, kale is among the most nutrient-dense foods in existence. Eating more kale is a great way to dramatically increase the total nutrient content of your diet.

*SUMMARY
Kale is very high in nutrients and very low in calories, making it one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet.

2. Kale Is Loaded With Powerful Antioxidants Like Quercetin and Kaempferol*

Kale, like other leafy greens, is very high in antioxidants.

These include beta-carotene and vitamin C, as well as various flavonoids and polyphenols.

Antioxidants are substances that help counteract oxidative damage by free radicals in the body .

Oxidative damage is believed to be among the leading drivers of aging and many diseases, including cancer.

But many substances that happen to be antioxidants also have other important functions.

This includes the flavonoids quercetin and kaempferol, which are found in relatively large amounts in kale.

These substances have been studied thoroughly in test tubes and animals.

They have powerful heart-protective, blood pressure-lowering, anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-depressant and anti-cancer effects, to name a few.

*SUMMARY
Many powerful antioxidants are found in kale, including quercetin and kaempferol, which have numerous beneficial effects on health*.

*3. It Is an Excellent Source of Vitamin C*

Vitamin C is an important water-soluble antioxidant that serves many vital functions in the body's cells.

For example, it is necessary for the synthesis of collagen, the most abundant structural protein in the body.

Kale is much higher in vitamin C than most other vegetables, containing about 4.5 times much as spinach.

The truth is, kale is actually one of the world's best sources of vitamin C. A cup of raw kale contains even more vitamin C than a whole orange.

*SUMMARY
Kale is extremely high in vitamin C, an antioxidant that has many important roles in the body. 
A single cup of raw kale actually contains more vitamin C than an orange.

4. Kale Can Help Lower Cholesterol, Which May Reduce The Risk of Heart Disease*

Cholesterol has many important functions in the body.

For instance, it is used to make bile acids, which is are substances that help the body digest fats.

The liver turns cholesterol into bile acids, which are then released into the digestive system whenever you eat a fatty meal.

When all the fat has been absorbed and the bile acids have served their purpose, they are reabsorbed into the bloodstream and used again.

Substances called bile acid sequestrants can bind bile acids in the digestive system and prevent them from being reabsorbed. This reduces the total amount of cholesterol in the body.

Kale actually contains bile acid sequestrants, which can lower cholesterol levels. This might lead to a reduced risk of heart disease over time.

One study found that drinking kale juice every day for 12 weeks increased HDL (the "good") cholesterol by 27% and lowered LDL levels by 10%, while also improving antioxidant status.

According to one study, steaming kale dramatically increases the bile acid binding effect. Steamed kale is actually 43% as potent as cholestyramine, a cholesterol-lowering drug that functions in a similar way (13).

*SUMMARY
Kale contains substances that bind bile acids and lower cholesterol levels in the body. Steamed kale is particularly effective.

5. Kale Is One of The World's Best Sources of Vitamin K*

Vitamin K is an important nutrient.

It is absolutely critical for blood clotting, and does this by "activating" certain proteins and giving them the ability to bind calcium.

The well-known anticoagulant drug Warfarin actually works by blocking the function of this vitamin.

Kale is one of the world's best sources of vitamin K, with a single raw cup containing almost 7 times the recommended daily amount.

The form of vitamin K in kale is K1, which is different than vitamin K2. K2 is found in fermented soy foods and certain animal products. It helps prevent heart disease and osteoporosis.

*SUMMARY
Vitamin K is an important nutrient that is involved in blood clotting. A single cup of kale contains 7 times the RDA for vitamin K.*

*6. There Are Numerous Cancer-Fighting Substances in Kale
*
Cancer is a terrible disease characterized by the uncontrolled growth of cells.

Kale is actually loaded with compounds that are believed to have protective effects against cancer.

One of these is sulforaphane, a substance that has been shown to help fight the formation of cancer at the molecular level.

It also contains a indole-3-carbinol, another substance that is believed to help prevent cancer.

Studies have shown that cruciferous vegetables (including kale) may significantly lower the risk of several cancers, although the evidence in humans is mixed

*SUMMARY
Kale contains substances that have been shown to help fight cancer in test-tube and animal studies, but the human evidence is mixed.

7. Kale Is Very High in Beta-Carotene*

Kale is often claimed to be high in vitamin A, but this is not entirely accurate.

It is actually high in beta-carotene, an antioxidant that the body can turn into vitamin A .

For this reason, kale can be an effective way to increase your body's levels of this very important vitamin.

*SUMMARY
Kale is very high in beta-carotene, an antioxidant that the body can turn into vitamin A.

8. Kale Is a Good Source of Minerals That Most People Don't Get Enough Of*

Kale is high in minerals, some of which many people are deficient in.

It is a good plant-based source of calcium, a nutrient that is very important for bone health and plays a role in all sorts of cellular functions.

It is also a decent source of magnesium, an incredibly important mineral that most people don't get enough of. Eating plenty of magnesium may be protective against type 2 diabetes and heart disease .

Kale also contains quite a bit of potassium, a mineral that helps maintain electrical gradients in the body's cells. Adequate potassium intake has been linked to reduced blood pressure and a lower risk of heart disease .

One advantage that kale has over leafy greens like spinach is that it is low in oxalate, a substance found in some plants that can prevent minerals from being absorbed.

*SUMMARY
Many important minerals are found in kale, some of which are generally lacking in the modern diet. These include calcium, potassium and magnesium.

9. Kale Is High in Lutein and Zeaxanthin, Powerful Nutrients That Protect the Eyes*

One of the most common consequences of aging is that eyesight gets worse.

Fortunately, there are several nutrients in the diet that can help prevent this from happening.

Two of the main ones are lutein and zeaxanthin, carotenoid antioxidants that are found in large amounts in kale and some other foods.

Many studies have shown that people who eat enough lutein and zeaxanthin have a much lower risk of macular degeneration and cataracts, two very common eye disorders.

*SUMMARY
Kale is high in lutein and zeaxanthin, nutrients that have been linked to a drastically reduced risk of macular degeneration and cataracts.

10. Kale Should Be Able to Help You Lose Weight*

Kale has several properties that make it a weight loss friendly food.

It is very low in calories but still provides significant bulk that should help you feel full.

Because of the low calorie and high water content, kale has a low energy density. Eating plenty of foods with a low energy density has been shown to aid weight loss in numerous studies.

Kale also contains small amounts of protein and fiber. These are two of the most important nutrients when it comes to losing weight.

Although there is no study directly testing the effects of kale on weight loss, it makes sense that it could be a useful addition to a weight loss diet.

*SUMMARY
As a nutrient-dense, low-calorie food, kale makes an excellent addition to a weight loss diet.

The Bottom Line*

Fortunately, adding kale to your diet is relatively simple. You can simply add it to your salads or use it in recipes.

A popular snack is kale chips, where you drizzle some extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil on your kale, add some salt and then bake in it an oven until dry.

It tastes absolutely delicious and makes a great crunchy, super healthy snack.

A lot of people also add kale to their smoothies in order to boost the nutritional value.

At the end of the day, kale is definitely one of the healthiest and most nutritious foods on the planet.

If you want to dramatically boost the amount of nutrients you take in, consider loading up on kale.

sauce https://www.healthline.com/nutritio...GrCs1-WQi01A-tVBlL7XGmT8OwFZcKi21vw#section11


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Holy stickerblast meat is murdercycle!


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Veganism Isn't Good - It's just not bad

When I first went vegan, I was naive enough to imagine that I was performing an act of heroism whenever I ate a veggie burger. By eating a patty made of beans instead of flesh, I believed I was rescuing animals, stopping climate change, and tackling a vast array of humanitarian issues. I, like many vegans, saw going vegan as a good deed.

Surprisingly, non-vegans often participate in this same fantasy. When a vegan outs themselves - as we are wont to do - nearby omnivores will often praise them for their willpower, or brag to them that they only eat meat a few times a week. Reducitarians feel virtuous for their participation in Meatless Monday, and even normal omnivores feel a bit of pride when they choose the vegan option. In picking the vegan item off the menu, an educated omnivore is likely to feel the same faint glow that might come with giving money to a homeless person or volunteering at a soup kitchen.

This self-flattery is, unfortunately, unjustified. In truth, veganism is not a good thing to do - it is merely not a bad thing to do. Though it's tempting to conflate "good" and "not bad," the differences between these concepts have profound consequences for our behavior and our attitudes.

Vegans are correct that consuming animal products is bad - most of us, if only in some rarely visited corner of our brain, know this. We know that animal agriculture is the number one cause of habitat loss, and a leading cause of climate change. We know that animal agriculture causes a range of humanitarian issues, from indigenous land theft to zoonotic diseases (including the recent coronavirus outbreak). We know that livestock animals are confined, forcibly impregnated, branded, mutilated, castrated, and slaughtered, all without any anesthesia. When we needlessly purchase animal products, we know we're paying people to treat animals worse than we would treat our most despised enemies. We know none of the animals we eat wanted to die.

It does not follow, however, that being vegan is therefore good. Vegans don't help the environment, we just hurt it less than non-vegans - though we profoundly reduce our impact on climate change, we are still a net-negative on the earth. Vegans do not cure zoonotic diseases, we only make it significantly less likely that there will be one. Veganism doesn't actively help animals, it merely creates less incentives to hurt them. "Vegan" is just a noun for someone who does not actively support unnecessary animal cruelty. Vegans do not rescue animals any more than non-murderers rescue humans, and we haven't helped the environment any more than those who choose not to dump gasoline in the oceans.

If these distinctions sound semantic or unnecessary, you need only look at the results of not making them. Our current mentality towards veganism would be patently absurd in a comparable context: Imagine if we felt the same way about stealing. Imagine if we lived in a society that praised people for their willpower for abstaining from theft, wherein flexitarian thieves only stole if they forgot their wallet, and reducitarian robbers virtue-signaled about their participation in Theftless Thursday. What if people who retired from thievery viewed themselves as generous, and imagined themselves to be giving a great gift to all the people they didn't mug? Why shouldn't we treat theft this way?

If the analogy to human-on-human crime is too invidious for you, we can instead compare going vegan to another animal cruelty scenario: Imagine if I retired from dog-fighting, and upon announcing it, others praised me for my charity. What if active dog-fighters boasted to me that they were cutting down on their dog-fighting, too? How about if society praised those who tried to create humane, free-range dog-fighting operations? If this stretches your imagination, look around - we live in a world that is just as strange.

If you aren't vegan, you are needlessly supporting animal abuse that makes dog-fighting look like fetch - if you are vegan, you've just retired from the same practice. It's vitally important that we start to see the act of going vegan less like donating to charity, and more like quitting dog-fighting.

This shift in our mentality would change our relationship to veganism in a few useful ways. First, it would make veganism a moral mandate, rather than a virtue. We've created a climate where it is too easy to be easy on ourselves. We shouldn't feel pride when we choose the vegan option; we should feel guilt when we don't. Counter-intuitively, in downplaying the moral valence of veganism, we make boycotting animal products more important, as it becomes the neutral position.

Second, this view would make activism seem essential for existing vegans. Too often, I hear vegans say they don't want to get active because they feel they are "doing enough already" merely by being vegan. This is as illogical as me refusing to give money to a homeless man because I'm "doing enough already" by not robbing him. We need to acknowledge that by going vegan, we are technically doing nothing. If we want our impact to be net-positive, we have to do things like volunteer with farm sanctuaries, engage in compassionate conversations, share vegan content with our non-vegan friends, rescue animals, and take part in vegan outreach.

Third, this mentality shift would promote humility among vegans. If you view your veganism as a heroic act of sacrifice, you'll be liable to confuse yourself with Gandhi while pouring almond milk in your coffee. In truth, being proud of your veganism is like being proud that you didn't kick a dog today. This humility is desirable not just to keep you grounded, but to make yourself a better advocate for veganism.

Finally, this frame shift would keep us tied to the facts of the situation. If you believe there is value in having an accurate worldview, then you will want vegans not to conceive of themselves as good actors, but as neutral ones. I recognize that the language of double-negatives is a clumsy one, and we will inevitably describe veganism as "good" in ordinary contexts. But when calibrating our emotions surrounding our own lifestyle choices, we must do so against an accurate standard.

Some of you will see this as a depressing message. After all, the do-gooder in the mirror makes for a pleasant reflection, and a stricter view of one's own moral behavior isn't exactly liberating. For those of you looking for the bright side in this essay, remember the efficacy of your inaction: In choosing to go vegan, you showed mercy on up to 16,000 animals, who, thanks only to you, will not be born into a life of misery. You reduced your contribution to environmental degradation and mitigated your impact on a whole host of humanitarian issues. If everyone adopted a vegan lifestyle, it would dismantle animal agriculture just as surely as a legal ban. There's an elegance here: By doing nothing, we can accomplish something magnificent. By failing to be bad, we can change the world for good.

https://medium.com/tenderlymag/veganism-isnt-good-2a59441d6dcc?source=---------2------------------


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ good article


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Another reason to ditch dairy

*One cup of milk per day associated with up to 50 per cent increase in breast cancer risk: study*

New evidence suggests that women who drink as little as one cup of dairy milk per day could increase their risk of developing breast cancer by up to 50 per cent.

Researchers say the observational study gives fairly strong evidence that dairy milk or factors closely related to the consumption of dairy milk is linked to the development of breast cancer in women.

"Consuming as little as one-quarter to one-third of a cup of dairy milk per day was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer of 30 per cent," study author Dr. Gary Fraser said in a press release.

"By drinking up to one cup per day, the associated risk went up to 50 per cent, and for those drinking two to three cups per day, the risk increased further to 70 per cent to 80 per cent."

More alarmingly, Fraser points out that these figures correspond with the current U.S. dietary guidelines, which recommend three cups of milk per day for adults.

"Evidence from this study suggests that people should view that recommendation with caution," Fraser said.

Researchers followed the dairy consumption of nearly 53,000 women across North America for eight years as part of the study which compared dairy and soy product consumption. Participants' family history of breast cancer, physical activity, alcohol consumption, medication use, and reproductive and gynecological history were also taken into consideration.

By the end of the study, 1,057 new breast cancer cases had been diagnosed.

Although no clear associations were found between soy products and breast cancer, those who had higher intakes of dairy milk were at greater risk of developing breast cancer when compared to those who drank little to no milk.

"The data predicted a marked reduction in risk associated with substituting soymilk for dairy milk. This raises the possibility that dairy-alternate milks may be an optimal choice," said Fraser.

Researchers noted that the consumption of full fat versus reduced or nonfat milks had little impact on the results.

The study notes that the association between breast cancer and dairy milk could be related to the sex hormone content of the milk, noting that often 75 per cent of the dairy herd is pregnant.

Researchers also note that intake of dairy and other animal proteins has previously been associated with higher blood levels of the growth factor-1 (IGF-1) hormone, which is thought to promote certain cancers.

Fraser said that although dairy milk does have "some positive nutritional qualities," additional research is required to understand the link between dairy consumption and certain cancers.

In January, Canada's Food Guide was updated for the first time in more than a decade and noticeably de-emphasized dairy consumption, suggesting instead that water should be Canadians' "beverage of choice."

Lower-fat milk and plant-based beverages are listed as other options, though less preferred.

sauce https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/one-c...ncrease-in-breast-cancer-risk-study-1.4826979


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Well it's a start

CHINA PERMANENTLY BANS CONSUMPTION OF WILD ANIMALS

This week, Chinese legislative body The National People's Congress Standing Committee approved a permanent nationwide ban on the consumption and illegal trade of wild animals-an industry that is estimated to be worth $74 billion. According to CNN, the Chinese state media said the ban aims to "safeguard public health and ecological security," with the mission to "completely ban the eating of wild animals" and "[to] crack down on illegal trade of wildlife."

The ban comes after China temporarily suspended the sale and consumption of wild animals on January 26 in an effort to stop the spread of the most recent strain of coronavirus, which is thought to have originated in Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in the city of Wuhan and transmitted to humans by either civets, pigs, or pangolins-who were already protected under China's Wildlife Protection Law that prohibits the consumption of endangered species. "There has been a growing concern among people over the consumption of wild animals and the hidden dangers it brings to public health security since the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak," China's Legislative Affairs Commission spokesman Zhang Tiewei told Reuters. The exact species protected under the new permanent ban are not yet clear but it does not include aquatic animals, poultry, and "livestock"-even though pigs have not been ruled out as the species responsible for transmitting the latest coronavirus to humans. Under the ban, wild animals used for scientific and medical research will now have to go through a stricter government approval process. To date, more than 80,400 people worldwide have been sickened by the coronavirus and more than 2,700 people have died as a result.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2020/2/china-pe...ICYOIuDQBj_36Ev4MynyqmyRWV4bQqfhsbrB1xU7c6tWk


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*4 Ways to Sneak More Greens into Your Diet*

1. Add greens to your favorite foods. 
Leafy greens and other non-starchy green veggies such as broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cabbage can easily be added to almost any meal without sacrificing flavor. Try adding kale, collards, broccoli, and spinach to your favorite noodle- and grain-based dishes. The greens add nutrition, texture, flavor, and a beautiful burst of color to otherwise monotone meals. Greens can also be added to smoothies, burritos, tacos, and casseroles.

2. Snack on green veggies all day long. 
Believe it or not, greens make delicious and satisfying snack foods. Kale chips (homemade or store bought), roasted broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and raw collard leaves dipped in hummus can be incredibly satisfying. Crowd out your current snack foods with green veggies, and you'll notice you have more energy throughout the day.

3. Stock up on frozen greens. 
Frozen vegetables are flash frozen at their peak freshness and retain a great deal of their nutrition, often more than fresh veggies that are shipped long distances. Frozen veggies are also a lot easier to prepare than fresh because you don't have to go through the trouble of cleaning and chopping them. And, you can keep them on hand at all times without worrying about them going limp before getting put to good use. Sure, the texture of frozen veggies doesn't quite compare to fresh, but they're the next best thing.

4. Drink your greens. 
Juicing green vegetables removes the fiber and leaves you with vitamins and enzymes that are easily absorbed into your bloodstream. Purchase a good juicer to make your own juice concoctions, or pick up a green juice at your local juice bar. Make sure the juice is raw, as pasteurization kills beneficial nutrients. Smoothies are different from juice because they are blended and retain all of their fiber. They're more filling than juices, and a particularly great choice for breakfast.

https://www.vegetariantimes.com/rec...pOOPhs4f0KBlsrxQcSFSie62QzRU61oNTOTHQo26j10CI


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Coke and Pepsi Are Getting Sued for Lying About Recycling*

Coke, Pepsi and several other big plastic polluters are getting sued for lying about their products' recyclability and clogging up the oceans with millions of tons of waste.

A California-based environmental group, the Earth Island Institute, filed the lawsuit in San Mateo County on Thursday against the companies, arguing that they've knowingly polluted the oceans while misleading the public. The lawsuit notes that 8 million to 20 million tons of plastic end up in the world's oceans every year - and that much of it can be traced back to these few companies.

"At this rate, plastic is set to outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050," the complaint reads.

The lawsuit calls on these companies to pay to clean up the mess they've allegedly made - and to stop labeling their plastic bottles as recyclable. Convincing the public that the solution to plastics pollution is recycling is fundamentally misleading, the complaint argues, because so little plastic actually gets recycled.

Recent studies suggest of the plastic produced since the 1950s, 91% of it hasn't been recycled. Instead, the scrap winds up in landfills, burned in incinerators, or in the oceans.

But in 2018, China, which used to buy up most of the U.S.' plastic scrap, passed a ban on most types of plastic imports. Smaller countries have tried to pick up the pace on plastics recycling but haven't been able to sustain it. It's likely that less than 5% of plastic produced today is getting recycled, according to an estimate from the Plastic Pollution Coalition. The group projects that the rate will drop further if other countries follow China's lead and ban plastic scrap imports.

"This is the first lawsuit directly to take on these plastic peddlers who for years have spread the fake narrative that their products can be recycled when they know in many cases this is simply not true," Josh Floum, president of Earth Island's board of directors, said in a statement.

Earth Island is taking a page from the lawsuits brought against tobacco companies, claiming that these plastic-producing companies are doing something similar to what cigarette manufacturers did: contributing knowingly to a public harm and lying to the public about it.

"These companies push a product and then create misinformation campaigns so the public isn't fully aware of the harms of the products when making purchasing decisions," Sumona Majumdar, general counsel for Earth Island, said in a statement.

The lawsuit is aimed at the 10 companies whose packaging was found most often in beach cleanups organized by another environmental group, Break Free from Plastic. Nestlé, Clorox, Crystal Geyser, Mars, and Colgate-Palmolive are among the other companies getting sued.

Some of the companies sued have said they're already fighting plastics pollution.

"America's beverage companies are already taking action to address the issue by reducing our use of new plastic, investing to increase the collection of our bottles so they can be remade into new bottles as intended, and collaborating with legislators and third-party experts to achieve meaningful policy resolutions," a spokesperson for the American Beverage Association, which represents Coke, Pepsi, and others in the non-alcoholic beverage industry, said in a statement sent to the Guardian and Bloomberg Environment.

sauce https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...zG7-nYNqbmw2UVYx1oQgfp5ATgyjEaNtwiR_ljzwrUth8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*New Study Links Low Fruit And Veg Intake To Anxiety Disorders*

Adults who consume low levels of fruit and vegetables have a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, according to new research from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.

Researchers also discovered that higher body fat could play a role in increasing the risk. Other factors associated with anxiety disorders among mid-age and older Canadians include gender, marital status, income, immigrant status, and several health issues.

*Anxiety*
The study team behind the research, which was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, analyzed data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging which included 26,991 men and women between the ages of 45 and 85.

Study lead Karen Davison, health science faculty member, nutrition informatics lab director at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, (KPU) and North American Primary Care Research Group Fellow, said in a press release that an estimated 10 percent of the global population will suffer from anxiety disorders which are a leading cause of disability.

She added: "Our findings suggest that comprehensive approaches that target health behaviors, including diet, as well as social factors, such as economic status, may help to minimize the burden of anxiety disorders among middle-aged and older adults, including immigrants."

*Fruit and vegetables*
Speaking about the link between fruit and vegetable intake and anxiety, Davidson said: "For those who consumed less than three sources of fruits and vegetables daily, there was at least at 24 percent higher odds of anxiety disorder diagnosis.

"Increased body fat may be linked to greater inflammation. Emerging research suggests that some anxiety disorders can be linked to inflammation."

Co-author Jose Mora-Almanza, a Mitacs Globalink Intern who worked with the study at KPU, added: "This may also partly explain the findings associated with body composition measures. As levels of total body fat increased beyond 36 percent, the likelihood of anxiety disorder was increased by more than 70 percent."

*Gender*
Gender was also found to be a factor: one in nine women had an anxiety disorder compared to one in 15 men.

Co-author Karen Kobayashi, Professor in the Department of Sociology and a Research Affiliate at the Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health at the University of Victoria, said: "Our findings are in keeping with previous research which has also indicated that women are more vulnerable to anxiety disorders than men."

*Income*
When it comes to income, researchers discovered that approximately one in five respondents with household incomes under $20,000 per year had anxiety disorders, more than double the prevalence of their richer peers.

"We were not surprised to find that those in poverty had such a high prevalence of anxiety disorders; struggling to afford basics such as food and housing causes relentless stress and is inherently anxiety-inducing," said co-author Hongmei Tong, Assistant Professor of Social Work at MacEwan University in Edmonton.

*Chronic health conditions*
Another factor which increases the risk of anxiety disorders, according to the researchers, is if an individual has chronic conditions, with those who suffer from chronic pain having double the prevalence of anxiety disorders in comparison to those who were free of pain.

Co-author Shen (Lamson) Lin, a doctoral student at University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW), said: "Chronic pain and multiple health conditions make life very unpredictable and can be anxiety-producing. One never knows whether health problems will interfere with work or family responsibilities and many activities become more challenging and time consuming."

*Study limitations*
The study team notes than a limitation of the study is that 'the assessment of anxiety disorders was based upon self-reporting of a medical diagnosis'.

"The authors also conducted multivariate analyses taking into account the use of a family physician in the past year to address the possibility of under-reporting of anxiety disorders among those who rarely visited health professionals. This adjustment was not found to substantially change the associations discussed above," says the release.

sauce https://www.plantbasednews.org/life...3WOlQol6IjHvwSwKwlyK2ofXVIY63ZanZU5BwkTSzXvvo


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Substitute water with vodka for a nice wobble


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This pic was back when sars happened


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Five Reasons Why Sport Is Going Vegan*









Veganism is on the rise worldwide and pop culture, retail- and sports- have taken notice.

Scientific evidence shows that diets high in unrefined plant foods are associated with beneficial health outcomes, including general health, immune function, cardiovascular health and lifespan. It would appear logical that plant based diets have the ability to enhance performance in a variety of areas, including sports.

Many critics have dismissed this shift in sports culture to a fad with no concrete scientific evidence to back it. And whether the merits can be substantiated or not, one thing is for sure- plant based is a growing trend in the sports world with an increasing number of athletes advocating for its game changing qualities.

Here are five reasons why sports are going vegan.

*Many plant-based products have more protein than meat*

Traditionally athletes believed that the only way to meet their daily protein requirement was via meat consumption, but with increased awareness around nutrition, this has changed.

Many plant-based foods are actually richer in protein than meat. One ounce of meat protein contains 7 grams of protein, which is comparable to many plant based sources

A 2019 German study, reported in the journal Nutrients found that athletes following a plant based diet with B-12 supplementation actually had marginally higher nutrient adequacy than athletes who were meat eaters.

With 15g of protein per serving, black beans for example, have more protein than a chicken drumstick and one cup of lentils has 18g of protein- more than a hamburger. The need for other nutrients, such as calcium, iron, and vitamin B-12, can be met via plant based sources such as edemame which provides 27.6 per cent of the daily requirement of calcium, one cup of fortified orange juice which meets one half of the daily calcium requirement, spinach which carries more than twice the amount of iron than meat and dark chocolate which carries more than six times the amount of iron as meat. As for B-12, fortified foods and supplements can be used to ensure good health.

*Sports drinks and performance enhancers are going plant based*

According to research from Lumina Intelligence, 21 per cent of online bestselling protein powders in the USA are plant-based (March 2019).

A sharp increase in the availability of plant-based, performance enhancing products has made it easier and more enticing for athletes to embrace a plant-based lifestyle.

The sector is booming and is intensely competitive. Lumina reveals that there is an "innovation race, as brands chase the elusive 'perfect plant protein' with pea protein currently taking the number one spot.

Vegan sports nutrition is also coming in the form of pre-prepared meals and nutritional programs. In 2016 Tom Brady teamed up with Purple Carrot, a vegan meal delivery service to create a meatless, dairy-free TB12 performance meal plan.

*Plant based gives endurance athletes an edge when it comes to heart health*

In a 2019 review entitled, 'Plant-Based Diets for Cardiovascular Safety and Performance in Endurance Sports,' it was reported that the elevated cardiovascular risks faced by endurance athletes, such as atherosclerosis (plaque building up inside arteries) and myocardial damage (decreased blood flow to the heart) can be reduced by a plant based dairy free diet.

Researchers at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine have also suggested that a vegan diet can enhance athletic performance due to enhanced cardiovascular health, reduced blood pressure and cholesterol and weight loss.

*Plant based diets are more conducive to recovery*

Armenian-German "strongest man in the world" and former body builder, Patrik Baboumian credited his body building success to a vegan lifestyle. "My recovery time was so much faster so I could train more," he said.

Evidence from Harvard Medical School shows that plants' antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties help to shorten recovery times, reduce delayed onset muscle soreness, lessen joint pain, and enable quicker healing from injuries. Plant based diets also improve blood viscosity, which helps to efficiently deliver oxygen around the body, promoting healing. All of these factors can also contribute to career longevity.

*Pro athletes are endorsing the plant-based link to performance
*
The plant based shift in sports culture is evident in the Netflix documentary, "The Game Changers" produced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, that uses first hand testimonials from elite athletes to depict how a vegan diet improves athletic performance.

Venus Williams opted to transition to a raw, vegan diet when she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder called Sjögren's syndrome that caused her to suffer from joint and muscle pain. In an interview with Health magazine, Williams revealed that her new diet was life changing, allowing her to return to tennis. "I feel like I'm doing the right thing for me," she said.

Pro athletes are increasingly adopting vegan or vegetarian diets, while advocating for their overall health benefits, improved performance and enhanced recovery. Footballer, Tom Brady eats a predominantly plant based diet, the Williams sisters are vegan, elite rock climber, Steph Davis is vegan&#8230; Lionel Messi, Novak Djokovic, Colin Kaepernick, Lewis Hamilton&#8230; The list goes on.

According to Barny du Plessis, the world's first vegan bodybuilder and Mr Universe 2014, "These days I train half as much, do half as much but get better results. Why? Only one answer, going vegan, GMO free, and organic. My body is running perfectly."

sauce https://www.forbes.com/sites/daphne...NaYmOCRR4fpEnJI7hh7iFrwR-vsM3SnY#513ed5d77664


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

T.P. shortage? Vegans save the day again


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We stopped at the local grocery store after the gym to pick up a few things. Stuff was picked over including the obvious like t.p., water, pasta and canned goods... but we did find a loaf of bread the size of a toddler

















Everyone panicked except the vegans









There was plenty vegan stuff left !


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## IPunchCholla (Dec 8, 2013)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1318275


Not vegan but close. Must be big potatoes.









Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Here's a really good article from the National Review. It's encouraging to see this kind of argument from the conservative side - animal welfare concerns are too often associated with the left but this shouldn't be a partisan issue.

Senator Booker Is Right about Factory Farming
By Spencer Case

Contrary to common belief, Senator Cory Booker's best idea wasn't dropping out of the 2020 presidential race. That was his second-best idea. His best idea was introducing the Farm System Reform Bill of 2019 to the U.S. Senate.

This legislation would curtail concentrated animal-feeding operations (CAFOs), so-called factory farms, in the U.S. Let's hope it becomes law. Factory farms are an abomination, cruel to animals and a bad deal for humans, too. The sooner we abolish them, the better. Until then, we should take steps to reduce them.

Let's first consider the costs to humans. Factory farms are hazardous work environments, and they produce enormous amounts of untreated animal waste that we have to deal with. But of the many anthropocentric considerations against factory farms, the most compelling is that they elevate the risk of pandemic diseases.

Many pandemics are the result of zoonotic pathogens, diseases transmitted from animals to humans. The COVID-19 coronavirus, which has lately been dominating headlines and rattling markets, is believed to be zoonotic. The H1N1 "swine flu" virus likely originated in American factory farms. H1N1 is believed to have killed more than 12,000 Americans from 2009 to 2010 and hospitalized over 274,000 in the same period.

We'll see what kind of damage COVID-19 inflicts, but both COVID-19 and H1N1 are tame compared with what we might see. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-20 killed between 50 and 100 million people at a time when the global population was less than 2 billion. It's believed to have originated on a pig farm before the creation of factory farms.

Modern factory farms are even better breeding grounds for diseases. Animals are packed tightly together, and the stressful conditions weaken their immune systems. It's common for farmers to feed them antibiotics at low levels to prevent outbreaks and spur growth. Over time this erodes the effectiveness of those antibiotics, including those useful for treating infections in humans, as pathogens adapt. This is what is meant by "antibiotic resistance."

Since each use of an antibiotic potentially increases resistance, health experts advise doctors to prescribe antibiotics sparingly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is clearly very worried about this issue, offers guidelines for "antibiotic stewardship" in hospitals, nursing homes, and other institutions. According to the CDC, "each year in the U.S., at least 2.8 million people are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria or fungi, and more than 35,000 people die as a result."

A 2011 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed that 80 percent of antibiotics in the U.S. in 2009 were used for animals. Most were antibiotics that could be effective in treating humans. A 2017 GAO report noted that "there is strong evidence that some resistance in bacteria is caused by antibiotic use in food animals (cattle, poultry, and swine)." This is dubious "antibiotic stewardship" indeed.

Granted, we could regulate the use of antibiotics in CAFOs more stringently, as Denmark has done, without abolishing factory farming. But Denmark hasn't eliminated antibiotic use in CAFOs, so even supposedly progressive Danish CAFOs jeopardize our shields against germs. Other risk factors, such as confining many animals close together, are intrinsic to factory farming. So as long as factory farms exist, they will endanger human welfare.

Let's turn now to cruelty. Animal advocacy is often associated with causes such as feminism and anti-capitalism - misleadingly, in my view. Certainly left-wing activists concerned about animals could do more to win converts from across the political spectrum. If activists concerned about animals did more to win converts from across the political spectrum, they'd find that conservatives can get on board with the argument that factory farms are cruel. Conservatives in turn should be careful not to reject sound arguments just because they come from the mouths of liberals.

It's common sense, and not at odds with capitalism, to think that some profitable pursuits are immoral and shouldn't be legal. Few conservatives, or Americans of any political stripe, would legalize dog fighting even if they knew that doing so would create jobs. When I hear defenses of factory farms based on their alleged economic importance, I can only think that the moral considerations haven't really sunk in (and neither, in all likelihood, have all the economic considerations).

If you think there should be laws against animal cruelty, then you agree that how we treat animals matters morally and should matter legally. This doesn't mean that animals have the same moral worth as humans do, just that they're categorically different from inanimate objects. Dogs, cats, elephants, dolphins, and gorillas all have moral significance of some kind, and so, I think, do chickens, pigs, cows, and other farm animals.

It doesn't really matter why you think animals are morally significant. Maybe you think that God gave humans stewardship over the earth, which includes a responsibility not to abuse His creation. Maybe you accept some secular philosophy, such as some form of consequentialism, that directs us to minimize all suffering, human or animal. Maybe you have no grand theory; it just strikes you as obviously wrong to torture a dog. That's fine.

Moral significance isn't in the eye of the beholder. Pro-life conservatives recognize this when they insist that the moral status of a fetus can't depend on whether the mother wants to keep her child. Likewise, whether an animal deserves moral consideration can't depend on whether it looks cute to you, or to humans generally. Do you think that dogs have moral standing, but that chickens, pigs, and cows don't? Then identify the difference in their capacities that justifies drawing that line.

Cards on the table: I think there are no good grounds for denying that the sentient creatures in factory farms have moral standing. Our current practices can't be justified. If you haven't seen any of the videos documenting the cruelty of factory farms, I encourage you to do so. The possibility of having a moral insight is worth a few minutes of uncomfortable viewing. ("Meet Your Meat" and "Face Your Food," both short and available on YouTube, are suitable.) In his Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism - which is excellent and available for free online - philosophy professor Michael Huemer summarizes some of these routine cruelties:

Chickens and pigs are commonly confined in tiny cages where they can't move for their entire lives. Cows are branded with hot irons, to produce third-degree burns on their skin. People cut off pigs' tails without anesthetic. They cut off the ends of chickens' beaks, again without anesthetic. These tails and beaks are sensitive tissue, so it probably feels something like having a finger chopped off.

Globally, humans consume about 74 billion land animals per year, nearly all of which are raised and killed in factory farms after living miserable lives. That's a staggering figure, about ten for every human being on the planet (though they are concentrated in rich countries - the average American consumes the equivalent of 31 animals per year). None of these animals would exist without factory farming, but they'd be better off not existing. We shouldn't cause this much death and suffering unless we have some extremely compelling reason for doing so.

The one obvious benefit that factory farms provide Americans is cheap meat, mostly for domestic consumption. According to one pro-beef-industry website, the U.S. exported about 3 billion pounds of beef in 2019 and was projected to produce over 27 billion pounds. The U.S. also produces about 20 billion pounds of pork and 50 billion pounds of chicken, exporting only a fraction of each. Nearly all of this meat comes from factory farms.

So ending or curtailing factory farming in the U.S. would entail reducing domestic meat consumption (dairy too). If you love meat, then you might think that would be terrible. But it would probably be a dietary improvement if we substituted vegetables, beans, lentils, and other foods for some of these animal products. We don't have any imperative to maintain current rates of meat and dairy consumption that competes with the imperatives to reduce animal cruelty and minimize the risk of pandemics.

Booker's bill puts a moratorium on the creation of new factory farms and the expansion of existing ones and makes "large" CAFOs, as specified by the Environmental Protection Agency, illegal by 2040. At that point, legally operating CAFOs would need to have, e.g., fewer than 1,000 cattle or cattle-calf pairs, 2,500 swine (weighing over 55 pounds), 82,000 laying hens, and 125,000 chickens other than laying hens.

It also sets aside $100 billion over ten years to help owners of factory farms repay debts, and for transition to "alternative agriculture activities, such as raising pasture-based livestock, growing specialty crops, or organic commodity production."
Comments

I don't rejoice in those expenses, or in the fact that smaller, but still large, CAFOs would still be allowed to operate. Passage of this bill would nevertheless move us away from the dreadful status quo and, hopefully, toward the eventual abolition of factory farming. It would reduce the risk of deadly diseases, including pandemics that could kill millions or more. By reducing animal cruelty on an unprecedented scale, it would also represent a moral advance that future generations could be proud of.

I think that if you reflect on this issue with an open mind, you'll agree that ending factory farms is a good idea - even if Cory Booker thinks that it is.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/04/06/senator-booker-is-right-about-factory-farming/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Good article Squeaky!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Publishes Stance on Vegan and Vegetarian Diets*

Vegetarian and vegan diets are healthful, may prevent and treat chronic diseases, and are better for the environment, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the world's largest organization of nutrition professionals. Researchers updated the 2009 position paper on vegetarian diets and concluded that not only are vegetarian and vegan diets appropriate for all stages of the life cycle (pregnancy, infancy, childhood, etc.), but they also help reduce the risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, obesity, and some types of cancer. The updated position paper presents a section on environmental issues which concludes plant-based diets are more sustainable and less damaging to the environment.

References
Melina V, Craig W, Levin S. Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: vegetarian diets. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2016;116:1970-1980.

https://www.pcrm.org/news/health-nu..._usC0E5JHzxtOg2I8Sv4LMElgNOzG42hyo1Ds-gS86mgs


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Need some inspiration to jump-start your foray into a new lifestyle? This easy WFPB meal plan has some tasty recipes. Each daily menu sets you up with breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack and a "salad of the day." Enjoy!









*3-Day Whole Food, Plant-Based Meal Plan*

An increasing number of people are transitioning to a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) lifestyle as a way to improve their health and reduce the risk of chronic disease, but making the switch means rethinking the way meals are planned and prepared. A plant-based diet meal plan includes a wide variety of:

Vegetables and fruits
Whole grains
Beans and legumes
Nuts and seeds
What isn't on the list? Meat (including poultry), fish, eggs, dairy products, oil and processed foods. Working toward eliminating these foods from your diet has a range of well-documented health benefits, some of which you can start seeing within just a few weeks!

Vegan or Whole Food, Plant-Based?
Although plant-based diets can be described as vegan because animal foods are absent, avoiding processed foods and oils takes the concept one step further. Known as a whole food, plant-based diet, this way of eating aims to include as many health-promoting foods as possible. For a more detailed breakdown of how and why to go the extra step and try a whole food, plant-based diet plan, see our comprehensive diet guide.

Getting Started With Plant-Based Meals
Need some inspiration to jump-start your foray into a new lifestyle? This easy WFPB meal plan has some tasty recipes to whet your appetite. Each daily menu sets you up with breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack and a "salad of the day." There are tons of familiar flavors and some new surprises, so get ready to dive right in!

Day 1
Your first plant-based menu combines classic favorites with fresh, unique ideas. You'll start off the day with a delicious twist on toast featuring sweet potatoes and blueberries, then move on to a creamy tomato soup that's sure to invoke memories of childhood. And who can resist hearty lentil burgers for dinner? Make a big batch to store in the freezer for even easier meal planning.

Day 2
Bet you didn't expect to be eating carrot cake and "tuna" salad on your second day of going plant-based! With a few adjustments, these delicious classics fit right into a whole food vegan meal plan. Today's menu is made for a busy schedule, including "grab-and-go" salads in a jar to simplify your lunch plans. In the evening, you'll enjoy a big bowl of "sushi" - just like the takeout you used to order, but much better for your body (and your wallet)!

Day 3
Comfort food, anyone? Day 3 kicks off with a warm, smoky mix of tofu and vegetables and cruises right on into lunch with a bountiful bowl that will put you in mind of your favorite burrito joint. When dinner rolls around, surprise your family by tossing millet-based "meatballs" with whole-grain noodles and a quick homemade sauce.

check the link for more

sauce https://nutritionstudies.org/3-day-...JjmMMkEsp9GYKIe5HSapNbPkPvdd70WVAQHfmeSExvZK0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Throwback Thursday: This may be the reason for cognitive decline in some people. Stay healthy

*A Daily Diet Soda Habit May Be Linked to Dementia*

People who drink soda and sugary juices on a regular basis have smaller brains and accelerated signs of brain aging, according to a recent study. But artificially sweetened beverages may not be any better for your mind: In a second study, people who drank diet soda every day were there times as likely to have a stroke or develop dementia than those who didn't.

In other words, there's not much of an upside to drinking sugary sodas-and swapping them for artificial sweeteners doesn't seem to help. The new research can't prove a cause-and-effect relationship between drinking habits and health effects, but it does strongly suggest a connection, says Matthew Pase, PhD, a neurology fellow at Boston University School of Medicine and contributing author on both new papers.

The first study, published last month in Alzheimer's & Dementia, analyzed food questionnaires, MRI scans, and cognitive exams of about 4,000 people ages 30 and up.In this group, researchers found that people who consumed more than three sodas per week-or more than two sugary drinks of any type (soda, fruit juice, and other soft drinks) per day-were more likely to have memory problems, a smaller brain volume, and a smaller hippocampus (an area of the brain used in learning and memory). Drinking at least one diet soda a day was associated with smaller brain volume, as well.

In the second study, published yesterday in the journal Stroke, the researchers followed two different groups of adults for 10 years. Out of nearly 3,000 adults over age 45, 97 suffered a stroke during that time. And out of nearly 1,500 adults over 60, 81 developed Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia.

The researchers found no correlation between sugary beverage intake and either health condition. "This was a little surprising, because previous studies have found associations between high intake of sugary beverages and higher risk of stroke," says Pase. Sugar has long been associated with obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, he adds, but fewer studies have been done on its long-term effects on the brain.

They did find a link, however, between health outcomes and artificially sweetened beverages: People who'd reported drinking at least one diet soda per day were three times as likely to have had a stroke, and 2.9 times as likely to have developed dementia. (The studies did not differentiate between types of artificial sweeteners.)

Previous studies have linked diet sodas to an increased risk of weight gain and stroke, and scientists have hypothesized that artificial sweeteners may affect the body in several different ways-from transforming gut bacteria to tricking the brain into craving more calories. This is the first time diet sodas have been linked to dementia-although it's not that surprising, says Pase, since stroke is a risk factor.

The analysis adjusted for factors such as age, smoking status, diet quality, and education. But it wasn't able to control completely for conditions like diabetes, which may have developed over the course of the study.

Because diabetics drink more diet soda than the general population, the authors say that the disease may partially explain the increase in dementia rates-but not completely. When diabetics were excluded from the calculations, the association still remained.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, Americans consumed nearly 11 million metric tons of sugar in 2016, much of it in the form of sweetened beverages. Pase says the studies focused specifically on beverages because it would be difficult to measure total sugar intake from all different food sources.

If you have been a soda drinker, that doesn't mean you should panic. "This is by no means a certain fate," says Pase. He points out that only 3% and 5% of people in the study had a stroke and developed dementia, respectively, so the overall numbers are still small.

In an editorial accompanying the Stroke study, neurologists from the University of Miami and the University of Munster in Germany write that current research is inconclusive about whether diet beverages actually contribute to an increased risk of stroke, dementia, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome

But a growing number of studies suggest that they may not be a safe alternative to sugary drinks, they add, and more research is highly encouraged. "Even small causal effects would have tremendous effects on public health," they write, given the popularity of both regular and diet sodas. They conclude that both sugar- and artificially sweetened soft drinks "may be hard on the brain."

Pase agrees that, until more is known, it's smart to limit both types of soft drinks. "We know that sodas have no real nutritional value, so it's not that strange to say we should be cautious about consuming them in excess," he says. "I think water is the best choice."

sauce https://www.health.com/condition/alzheimers/diet-soda-linked-to-dementia-stroke


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Facts:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*8 Easy Ways To Support Your Immune System*

Foods won't make you virus proof, but it's important to nourish your body with foods that support your immune system

During these trying times, we want to do everything we can to shield ourselves from an illness.

One of the most powerful things you can do is nourish your body with foods that support your immune system. It won't make you virus-proof but the stronger your immunity is, the better your chance of either avoiding the infection or fighting it with only mild symptoms.

Here are some of the most potent foods, supplements, and ideas to make a part of your daily diet. They are inexpensive, widely available foods and can be enjoyed by everyone.

*1. Gorgeous Garlic*
Love it or hate it, garlic has superpowers when it comes your immune system. Research shows it stimulates and activates your white blood cells - immune system soldiers -supercharging their powers. (Arreola, 2015).

It also contains sulphur phytochemicals which offer a number of health benefits. They act as antioxidants, are anti-inflammatory and help to fight both infection and inflammation in the body.If you're wondering whether garlic supplements are as powerful as fresh garlic, the answer might disappoint you.

Processed garlic extracts don't seem to have as powerful an effect as fresh garlic. Two cloves a day should be enough to give you a boost.

*2. Fruit and Vegetables*
Bursting with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and healthy carbs, fruit and vegetables are truly irreplaceable. They give your body what it needs to stay strong. Fresh, raw (and well-washed) fruit is best or you can blend it into a smoothie.

Vegetables are the most powerful either raw or lightly cooked (steamed or stir-fried) so they retain their goodness. Frozen fruit and veg are also very nutritious and often cheaper than fresh.

Aim for at least eight servings a day and include some green leafy vegetables, citrus fruit and berries - those have the most antioxidants. Avoid preserved fruit and pasteurised fruit juices - they have lost most of their nutritional value and won't give your body what it needs.

*3. Ginger and turmeric*

Both from the same family, ginger and turmeric contain several potent biochemicals which are very strong antioxidants. They also have antimicrobial properties, helping to fight infection (Grzanna et al., 2005; Kunnumakkara et al., 2017).

Ginger is best fresh - slice it and make ginger and lemon tea or grate it and add in just about any meal, even your morning cereal can be spiced up with it.

Turmeric is widely available as a powder and is perfect for cooking or making 'golden milk' - a delicious drink made from plant milk, turmeric, natural sweetener and extra spices (you can add cinnamon or black pepper). They key is to use enough turmeric for it to have the desired effect - about one teaspoon.

*4. Vitamin D*

Often overlooked, vitamin D plays an important role in our immune system and can help protect us from infection. It's the 'sunshine vitamin' that our skin makes when exposed to sunlight but in winter we simply don't get enough.

It's recommended that we take a supplement from October to April. Make sure your supplement is suitable for vegans. When it comes to dosage, 10 micrograms (400 IU) per day is enough and you shouldn't go above 25 micrograms (1,000 IU).

*5. Zinc it up*

Zinc is a mineral we all need but don't always get enough. It is crucial for a healthy immune system so make sure these foods make an appearance on your daily menu - pumpkin seeds, lentils, tofu, tempeh, wholemeal pasta or wheat germ.

*6. Perfect package*

When discussing the immune system, we mustn't forget protein. Vital to strong immunity, it's important to include protein-rich meals in our routine. And it just so happens that the best protein sources - pulses, nuts and seeds - are also excellent for many other important vitamins and minerals.

So meals like chickpea curry, lentil dhal, tomato and lentil soup, bean chilli, tofu stir-fry or falafel wrap are perfect options. Add to them a snack of nuts and seeds, or fruit slices with nut butter and you're set.

*7. Foods to limit*

When you kickstart your immune system with all the foods above, it's also a good idea not to undermine it with other foods you eat.

Limit sugar, sweets, processed snacks high in fat, white flour products and sweetened cereal products. Those weaken your immune system because they are pro-inflammatory, making your body work harder just to process it all.

*8. Look after yourself*

What we eat is crucial to our well-being but so is our mental health. Stress can seriously weaken your immune system so make sure you are kind to yourself. By that, we don't mean eating a gallon of vegan ice-cream, but perhaps calling a friend, watching a film or taking a relaxing bath - small things that can have a big impact.

Last but not least, make sure you get enough sleep. When you're tired and your body

cannot rest properly overnight, your immune system suffers. Aim for seven or eight hours each night and you can't go wrong.

*References
*
Arreola R, Quintero-Fabián S, López-Roa RI, et al. 2015. Immunomodulation and anti-inflammatory effects of garlic compounds. Journal of Immunology Research. 2015:401630.

Grzanna R, Lindmark L, Frondoza CG. 2005. Ginger - an herbal medicinal product with broad anti-inflammatory actions. Journal of Medicinal Food. 8 (2) 125-132.

Kunnumakkara AB, Bordoloi D, Padmavathi G, et al. 2017. Curcumin, the golden nutraceutical: multitargeting for multiple chronic diseases. British Journal of Pharmacology. 174 (11) 1325-1348.

https://www.plantbasednews.org/life...sfLDfQO1isoegOmIrKNo6pMFLKbxM9r7NWrMSCy9hXb-g


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Always beware of information you are seeing online! Check the source! Many meat-based companies release false information in an effort to keep their industry thriving. With more people switching to plant based diets, this is becoming more and more common!

*Claims Tofu 'Could' Be Worse For Environment Than Meat Branded 'Meaningless'
*
This week's vegan-bashing article award goes to the Independent who has published an astonishing piece claiming that tofu 'could' be worse for the environment than meat - according to farmers!

Their arguments are getting increasingly ridiculous as the number of people ditching meat continues to rise.

The story came from a talk given by Dr. Graham McAuliffe of the Rothamsted Institute, who spoke at the National Farmers Union this week explaining that his unpublished research on tofu suggests that it could have a more drastic impact on the planet than beef, pork, and chicken.

His findings, he said, should be interpreted with caution given they were currently just a proof of concept. So, basically meaningless then.

*Plant foods have a lower impact*
"Without a doubt, peas and groundnuts always have a lower environmental impact than any livestock products," said McAuliffe, "But if you look at tofu, which is processed so there is more energy going into its production, when you correct for the fact that the protein in it is not as digestible compared to the meat-based products, you can see that it could actually have a higher global warming potential than any of the monogastric animals."

Monogastric animals only have one stomach (the clue is in the name) like us, horses, rabbits, rats, dogs, and pigs. Cows are ruminants, they have complex, four-chambered stomachs. So why is beef included in the list of meats that tofu may be worse than? Olivia Petter, who wrote this article, should have looked up 'monogastric'.

Whilst she was at it, she should have read Joseph Poore's study, which she quoted in her article, saying that cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce an individual's carbon footprint (from food) by up to 73 percent. Poore's study, which attracted much praise from fellow scientists, shows how catastrophic the environmental impact of meat and dairy foods are compared to plant foods - including tofu - see Poore's graph here or the BBC's simple diagram here.

*Own goal!*
Calling tofu a 'processed food' and implying it takes a lot of energy to produce is a bit of a stretch - it's hardly as if to get a burger a cow just hops in between your buns!

Tofu is a traditional food made by coagulating soya milk and pressing the curds into a block - a very similar process is used to make cheese in fact; so does the NFU say cheese is a processed food to be avoided for the sake of the environment? That's what you call an own goal.

Tofu is a low-fat great source of protein and should not be considered an ultra-processed food. If you look at the ingredients of Cauldron Foods tofu for example - who've been making tofu in the UK for 40 years - it contains water, soya beans and calcium sulfate (a coagulant which improves the calcium content of tofu).

This is not a highly processed food in the same league as bacon, sausages or hot dogs, and it is also not linked - as they all are - to environmental damage and cancer.
*
Eat more tofu*
Targeting tofu as an environmental villain is ludicrous given that so much of the devastating deforestation in the Amazon is being done to grow soya for animal feed so that people can eat meat.

Much of the soyfoods consumed in the UK are made with organic beans sourced from Europe and the US. If you care about the environment, you should ditch meat and eat more tofu!

https://www.plantbasednews.org/opin...sHBIunn3RcOy_UDFcObbEZceHcGZpXjdu53pgNfqieBTU


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*DOCTOR ANTHONY FAUCI CALLS FOR GLOBAL SHUTDOWN OF WET ANIMAL MARKETS*

Today, Anthony Fauci, MD-the leading COVID-19 pandemic expert in the United States-called for a global shutdown of wet animal markets. "I think we should shut down those things right away," Fauci said on Fox & Friends. "It boggles my mind how when we have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human-animal interface, that we don't just shut it down. I don't know what else has to happen to get us to appreciate that&#8230;because what we're going through right now, is a direct result of that." COVID-19 is thought to have originated in a wet animal market-where wild animals, such as bats and pangolins, and traditional "livestock" are sold and slaughtered side-by-side-late last year in Wuhan, China. Fauci urged that the international community unite to force the closures of such markets worldwide.

Fauci's views are echoed by many others, including Republican senator Lindsey Graham and conservative journalist Tucker Carlson. However, limiting the shut down to wet animal markets alone may not be enough to stop the spread of future zoonotic diseases as many, such as swine flu (pigs) and H5N1 (poultry), have originated from slaughterhouses where "traditional" animals are killed for food.

In March, national investment firm Karner Blue Capital (KBC) urged governments worldwide to take action across industries where animals are exploited, including in animal agriculture. "Shutting down or regulating China's wet markets will wipe out a dangerous set of human-animal interactions, but it's just one step toward sound public health policies and interactions," KBC President Vicki Benjamin said. "We need to completely rethink our relationship with animals and begin taking steps to transition toward regenerative agriculture, biodiversity protection, and a plant-based economy."

sauce https://vegnews.com/2020/4/doctor-a...B-IEIWf9ztc94fiql4QrbK_uiYu5fyimsJALZH0UTRQZU


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ironic given that meat sales probably created this catastrophe in the first place.

*Meat plants are shutting down as workers get sick*

New York (CNN Business)Across the country, major meat processors are starting to shut down plants as employees are getting infected by coronavirus.

Tyson (TSN), one of the world's largest meat processors, suspended operations at its Columbus Junction, Iowa, pork plant this week after more than two dozen workers contracted Covid-19 there. Tyson said it would divert livestock that was headed to Columbus Junction to other pork plants in the region to minimize the impact on its production.

JBS USA, another major meat processor, has stopped operations at its beef plant in Souderton, Pennsylvania with plans to reopen April 16, after two weeks. The company decided to close the facility after several members of the plant's management team stopped going to work because they were experiencing flu-like symptoms, a company representative explained, adding that all other JBS USA's plants are still open. Cargill has also paused operations at its protein plant in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where 900 people typically work.

"This will allow us to minimize the impact of COVID-19  and continue [to] follow health department guidelines," said Jon Nash, North America lead for Cargill Protein, in a statement to CNN Business.

Consumers are unlikely to see any shortages because of production disturbances. But the closures are devastating for some meat producers, which have remained open during the pandemic. Food suppliers are essential businesses.

The United States has a large enough meat inventory to prevent shortages for consumers, explained Christine McCracken, senior analyst of animal protein for Rabobank. Processors that were previously servicing restaurants or cafes have started to sell to retailers. And some restaurants are selling groceries, including meat, directly to customers.

"Retail is full," said McCracken. "I don't anticipate any real shortages for the consumer."

The closures mark "a very small fraction of the overall slaughter," in the United States, she added. "At this point there's really no reason to think that there'd be any major disruptions."

But there is potential for the closures to accelerate, which could put a strain on the system and further harm producers.

If workers sicken each other, plants could remain closed for longer or operate at reduced speeds. Already, fewer employees are working because they may have to stay home to care for children or sick relatives, among other reasons.

"The smart money would say that it will be an issue at more plants, we just hope they don't all overlap at the same time," she said. "If it expands to more plants it becomes a serious issue."

Producers would "suddenly have nowhere to go," she said. If local outbreaks mean closures of a number of regional plants, producers used to selling their products locally could run out of options. For those producers, "it is a crisis."
National Cattlemen's Beef Association President Marty Smith outlined the situation faced by cattle ranchers in a letter to President Trump on Wednesday.

"The onset of COVID-19 has resulted in the steep decline of both the cattle futures market and cash trade -- resulting in significant financial challenges for our members," he wrote, warning that "the market woes for cattle producers will only grow if packing plants shut down or slow down for an extended period."

Sauce https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/busi...fGxj_NKIKGEa0u7KlImbi28mwAxuLzzUgICZpkmmH1H40


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*China's Wet Markets, America's Factory Farming*

Although no government is better than China's at making troublesome people disappear, a strange leniency has been accorded vendors at the country's live-animal meat markets, who by most accounts gave us the pandemic and yet, reports the Daily Mail, have lately been allowed to set up shop again. China's coronavirus lockdown is over, authorities have encouraged celebrations of "victory," and citizens may once again go about their food shopping amid the cries and mayhem of animal slaughter. Ahh, back to normal life!

In these parts, we're told, you're not really celebrating unless there's bat, pangolin, cat, or dog meat on the table - the latter, notes the Daily Mail, "a traditional 'warming' winter dish." Reporter George Knowles, writing late last month, provides one of the milder accounts of scenes that will quickly exhaust anyone's supply of culturally sensitive euphemisms, describing one of the markets - also known as "wet markets," where both live and dead animals are on offer - in China's southwestern city of Guilin: "Terrified dogs and cats crammed into rusty cages. Bats and scorpions offered for sale as traditional medicine. Rabbits and ducks slaughtered and skinned side by side on a stone floor covered with blood, filth, and animal remains."

If you're up for a few further details, we have travel writer Paula Froelich, in a recent New York Post column, recalling how in the Asian live-animal markets she has visited the doomed creatures "stare back at you." When their turn comes, she writes,



> the animals that have not yet been dispatched by the butcher's knife make desperate bids to escape by climbing on top of each other and flopping or jumping out of their containers (to no avail). At least in the wet areas [where marine creatures are sold], the animals don't make a sound. The screams from mammals and fowl are unbearable and heartbreaking.


The People's Republic has supposedly banned the exotic-meat trade, and one major city, Shenzhen, has proscribed dog and cat meat as well. In reality, observes a second Daily Mail correspondent, anonymously reporting from the city of Dongguan, "the markets have gone back to operating in exactly the same way as they did before coronavirus." Nothing has changed, except in one feature: "The only difference is that security guards try to stop anyone taking pictures, which would never have happened before."

Lest we hope too much for some post-pandemic stirring of conscience, consider the Chinese government's idea of a palliative for those suffering from the coronavirus. As the crisis spread, apparently some fast-thinking experts in "traditional medicine" at China's National Health Commission turned to an ancient remedy known as Tan Re Qing, adding it to their official list of recommended treatments. The potion consists chiefly of bile extracted from bears. The more fortunate of these bears are shot in the wild for use of their gallbladders. The others, across China and Southeast Asia, are captured and "farmed" by the thousands, in a process that involves their interminable, year-after-year confinement in fit-to-size cages, interrupted only by the agonies of having the bile drained. Do an image search on "bear bile farming" sometime when you're ready to be reminded of what hellish animal torments only human stupidity, arrogance, and selfishness could devise.

If one abomination could yield an antidote for the consequences of another, Tan Re Qing would surely be just the thing to treat a virus loosed in the pathogenic filth and blood-spilling of Wuhan's live market. There's actually a synthetic alternative to the bile acids, but Tradition can be everything in these matters, and devotees insist that the substance must come from a bear, even as real medical science rates the whole concoction at somewhere between needless and worthless. President Xi Jinping has promoted such traditional medicines as a "treasure of Chinese civilization." In this case, the keys to the treasure open small, squalid cages in dark rooms, where the suffering of innocent creatures goes completely disregarded. And perhaps right there, in the willfulness and hardness of heart of all such practices, is the source of the trouble that started in China.

Already, in the Western media, chronologies of the pandemic have taken to passing over details of the live-animal markets, which have caused viral outbreaks before and would all warrant proper judgment in any case. News coverage picks up the story with the Chinese government's cover-up of early coronavirus cases and its silencing of the heroic Wuhan doctors and nurses who tried to warn us. To brush past the live markets in fear of seeming "xenophobic," "racist," or unduly judgmental of other people and other ways is, however, to lose sight of perhaps the most crucial fact of all. We don't know the endpoint of this catastrophe, but we are pretty certain that its precise point of origin was what Dr. Anthony Fauci politely calls "that unusual human-animal interface" of the live markets, which he says should all be shut down immediately - presumably including the markets quietly tolerated in our own country. In other words, the plague began with savage cruelty to animals.

Discussion of the live-animal markets is another of those points where moral common sense encounters the slavishly politically correct, though it's not as if we're dealing here with Asia's most sensitive types anyway. No Western critic need worry about hurting the feelings or reputations of people who maximize the pain and stress of dogs in the belief that this freshens the flavor of the meat, and who then kill them at the market as the other dogs watch. Customers of such people aren't likely to feel the sting of our disapproval either.

About the many customers and suppliers in Asia, and especially in China, of exotic fare, endless ancient remedies, and carvings and trinkets made of ivory, the best that can be said is that these men and women are no more representative of their nations than are the riffraff running the meat markets. Their demands and appetites have caused a merciless pillaging of wildlife across the earth - everything that moves a "living resource," no creature rare or stealthy enough to escape their gluttony or vanity. Of late even donkeys, such peaceable and unoffending creatures, have been rounded up by the millions in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America for shipment and slaughter, all to satisfy demand for yet another of China's traditional-medicine manias.

Easy to blame for all of this is the government of China. Authorities took forever, for example, to enforce prohibitions on ivory carving, despite an unquestioned competence in carrying out swift crackdowns. And in general, at every level, the government tends to tolerate a culture of cruelty, or else to actively promote it at the prodding of lucrative industries, both legal and illicit. But the problem runs deeper than that, even as many younger Chinese, to their enormous credit, have tried to organize against the ivory trade, the wet markets, and other depravities in their midst.

In the treatment of animals and in safeguarding human health, there are elementary standards to which all must answer. The challenge to clear thinking, as Melissa Chen writes in Spectator USA



> is to avoid falling into the trap of cultural relativism. It's perfectly appropriate to criticize China's rampant consumption of exotic animals, lack of hygiene standards and otherwise risky behavior that puts people at risk for zoonotic infections. Until these entrenched behaviors based on cultural or magical beliefs are divorced from Chinese culture, wet wildlife markets will linger as time-bombs ready to set off the next pandemic.


Acknowledging that Western societies have every moral reason to condemn the barbarism and recklessness of the live-animal markets only invites, however, a tougher question: Do we have the moral standing? And if any of us are guilty of blind cultural prejudice or of a smug sense of superiority toward Chinese practices, a moment's serious thought will quickly set us straight.

When the Daily Mail describes how Chinese guards at the live-animal market now "try to stop anyone from taking pictures," who does that remind us of? How about our own livestock companies, whose entire mode of operation these days is systematic concealment by efforts to criminalize the taking of pictures in or around their factory farms and slaughterhouses? The foulest live-animal-market slayer in China, Vietnam, Laos, or elsewhere would be entitled to ask what our big corporations are afraid the public might see in photographic evidence, or what's really the difference between his trade and theirs except walls, machinery, and public-relations departments

If you watch online videos of the wet markets, likewise, it's striking how the meat shoppers just go on browsing, haggling, chatting, and even laughing, some with their children along. Were it not for the horrors and whimpers in the background, the scene could be a pleasant morning at anyone's local farmer's market. As the camera follows them from counter to counter, you keep thinking What's wrong with these people? - except that it's not so easy, rationally, to find comparisons that work in our favor.

No, we in the Western world don't get involved while grim-faced primitives execute and skin animals for meat. We have companies with people of similar temperament to handle everything for us. And there's none of that "staring back" that the Post's Paula Froelich describes, because, in general, we keep the sadness and desperation of those creatures as deeply suppressed from conscious thought as possible. An etiquette of denial pushes the subject away, leaving it all for others to bear. Addressing a shareholders' meeting of Tyson Foods in 2006, one worker from a slaughterhouse in Sioux City, Iowa, unburdened himself: "The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll. Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them - beat them to death with a pipe. I can't care."

Following the only consistent rule in both live-animal markets and industrial livestock agriculture - that the most basic animal needs are always to be subordinated to the most trivial human desires - this process yields the meats that people crave so much, old favorites like bacon, veal, steak, and lamb that customers must have, no matter how these are obtained. When the pleasures of food become an inordinate desire, forcing demands without need or limit and regardless of the moral consequences, there's a word for that, and the fault is always easier to see in foreigners with more free-roaming tastes in flesh. But listen carefully to how these foods or other accustomed fare are spoken of in our culture, and the mindset of certain Asians - those ravenous, inflexible folks who will let nothing hinder their next serving of pangolin scales or winter dish of dog - no longer seems a world away.

We in the West don't eat pangolins, turtles, civets, peacocks, monkeys, horses, foxes, and wolf cubs - that's all a plus. But for the animals we do eat, we have sprawling, toxic, industrial "mass-confinement" farms that look like concentration camps. National "herds" and "flocks" that all would expire in their misery but for a massive use of antibiotics, among other techniques, to maintain their existence amid squalor and disease - an infectious "time bomb" closer to home as bacterial and viral pathogens gain in resistance. And a whole array of other standard practices like the "intensive confinement" of pigs, in gestation cages that look borrowed from Asia's bear-bile farms; the bulldozing of lame "downer cows"; and "maceration" of unwanted chicks, billions routinely tossed into grinders. All of which leave us very badly compromised as any model in the decent treatment of animals.

Such influence as we have, in fact, is usually nothing to be proud of. It made for a perfect partnership when, for instance, one of the most disreputable of all our factory-farming companies, Smithfield Foods, was acquired in 2013 by a Chinese firm, in keeping with some state-run, five-year plan of the People's Republic to refine agricultural techniques and drive up meat production. Now, thanks to American innovation, Smithfield-style, the Chinese can be just as rotten to farm animals as we are - and just as sickly from buying into the worst elements of the Western diet.

In China and Southeast Asia, they have still not received our divine revelation in the West that human beings shall not eat or inflict extreme abuse on dogs but that all atrocities to pigs are as nothing. They're moving in our culinary direction, however, and more than half the world's factory-farmed pigs are now in China and neighboring countries. In the swine-fever contagion spreading across that region right now - addressed as usual by mass cullings: gassing tens of millions of pigs or burying them alive - our industrial animal-agriculture system is leaving its mark, while providing yet further evidence that factory farms are all pandemic risks themselves.

How many diseases, cullings, burial pits, and bans on photographing these places even at their wretched best will we need before realizing that the entire system is profoundly in error, at times even wicked, and that nothing good can ever come of it? Perhaps the live-animal markets of China, with all the danger and ruin they have spread, will help us to see those awful scenes as what they are, just variants of unnatural, unnecessary, and unworthy practices that every society and culture would be better off without.

Plagues, as we're all discovering, have a way of prompting us to take stock of our lives and to remember what really matters. If, while we're at, we begin to feel in this time of confinement and fear a little more regard for the lives of animals, a little more compassion, that would be at least one good sign for a post-pandemic world.

sauce https://www.nationalreview.com/2020...tory-farming-both-violate-moral-common-sense/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Hundreds of U.S. Meat Workers Have Now Tested Positive for Virus*

There's been a spike in coronavirus cases at meat plants in the U.S., with hundreds of reported infections in just the last week. That's adding to questions over the fragility of the food-supply chain and raising concerns over worker safety.

As many as 50 people at a JBS SA beef facility in Colorado's Weld County tested positive, adding to more than 160 cases at a Cargill Inc. meat-packaging plant in Pennsylvania, union officials said on Friday. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem on Friday reported 190 cases at a Smithfield Foods Inc. pork facility, the Associated Press said. The Cargill and Smithfield plants are being shuttered, while JBS said it will continue operations.

Workers are also starting to die. Two more deaths were reported by union officials on Friday, one at the Greeley, Colorado meat plant and one in Pennsylvania. Both those facilities are owned by JBS SA, the world's top meat producer, which didn't confirm the deaths.

"As our communities and our country collectively face the coronavirus challenge, JBS USA has had team members impacted by COVID-19," the American unit of the Brazilian meatpacker said in an emailed statement. "We are offering support to those team members and their families. Out of respect for the families, we are not releasing further information."

While it's unclear whether the deaths and other cases have anything to do with the workplaces, the news exposes the vulnerability of global supply chains that are needed to keep grocery stores stocked after panic buying left shelves empty. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both addressed the sudden jump in cases at meat plants when speaking to reporters on Friday.

Pence said as many as 300 people have been "impacted" by the coronavirus at the Colorado meat plant. It's unclear what that figure was referring to, whether it was people who have been quarantined, or possible cases.

Trump also referred to the outbreak at Colorado meat plants on Friday. Neither Pence nor Trump specified exactly which plant they were talking about. Greeley is about 65 miles northeast of Denver.

"We're looking at this graph where everything's looking beautiful and is coming down and then you've got this one spike. I said, 'What happened to Denver?,'" Trump said. "And many people, very quickly."

Plants across the U.S. are starting to reduce output or idle as cases spread from the main cities to rural America. Laborers have, in some cases, staged walk-outs to protest working conditions. In meat plants, stations on processing lines can be close together, creating challenges for social distancing. Workers share break and locker rooms.

The deaths reported Friday bring the total reported for JBS employees to three. On Tuesday, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents thousands of poultry workers, said two of its members working at a Tyson Foods Inc. plant in Camilla, Georgia, died from the virus.

Smithfield said it will close its South Dakota plant for three days. The company will suspend operations in a large section of the plant on April 11 and completely shutter on April 12 and April 13. The facility has 3,700 employees

*Deep Cleaning*
During the suspension, "essential personnel will repeat the rigorous deep cleaning and sanitization that have been ongoing at the facility and install additional physical barriers to further enhance social distancing," Smithfield said in a statement. "Employees will be paid for any previously scheduled hours during the temporary closure."

The Cargill plant is located in an area where there are large manufacturing plants and a large influx of people coming in from New York City. Those were among factors that contributed to a high number of cases in that region of Pennsylvania, it's not a Cargill-only issue, said Wendell Young IV, president of Local 1776 of the United Food & Commercial Workers. The Minneapolis-based company declined to comment on the number of cases at the facility that employs 900 people.

"We've taken extra steps to focus on safety," said Jon Nash, head of Cargill's North American protein business. The company is implementing temperature testing, providing and encouraging employees to wear face coverings, doing enhanced cleaning and sanitizing, among other measures, he said, while also citing temporary wage increases, bonuses and waiving co-pays for Covid-19 testing.

"Our facility will re-open as soon as is it is safe to do so."

JBS said there were 36 employees who work at the Greeley plant with the virus, fewer than the 50 positive cases reported by the local union. JBS also confirmed "increased absenteeism" at the beef production facility.

The company said it was working in partnership with the U.S. federal government, Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Senator Cory Gardner to secure Covid-19 tests for all team members at the Greeley plant, which it's aiming to complete through Monday. JBS will also "further enhance previously announced deep cleaning efforts at the facility," it said in a statement, while adding it planned to continue operations.

The Greeley plant employs more than 3,000 workers, according to the JBS website.

Meanwhile, the local union sent a letter to Governor Polis along with company and county officials demanding that the Greeley plant be shut down for at least a week for "extensive and repeated deep cleanings." The union asked that employees be paid regular wages during the shutdown, and that upon re-opening workers receive an additional $3 per hour as "hazard pay" on top of usual hourly rates.

"You cannot make sacrifices like this with people's lives," Kim Cordova, president of Local 7 of the United Food & Commercial Workers Union, said by telephone. "People can live without beef."

sauce https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...LiTVv7oYvzy9dkh2Pe_OLNZHiKu02WbXv7S1Y_KePoPew


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

^That National Review article on wet markets and factory farms was really good. It's hard to read about that stuff, but looking the other way is what got us to this point.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Throwback Thursday article from 2012... Unsetting the balance of nature could unleash a pandemic...relevant today  
*
The Ecology of Disease*

THERE'S a term biologists and economists use these days - ecosystem services - which refers to the many ways nature supports the human endeavor. Forests filter the water we drink, for example, and birds and bees pollinate crops, both of which have substantial economic as well as biological value.

If we fail to understand and take care of the natural world, it can cause a breakdown of these systems and come back to haunt us in ways we know little about. A critical example is a developing model of infectious disease that shows that most epidemics - AIDS, Ebola, West Nile, SARS, Lyme disease and hundreds more that have occurred over the last several decades - don't just happen. They are a result of things people do to nature.

Disease, it turns out, is largely an environmental issue. Sixty percent of emerging infectious diseases that affect humans are zoonotic - they originate in animals. And more than two-thirds of those originate in wildlife.

Teams of veterinarians and conservation biologists are in the midst of a global effort with medical doctors and epidemiologists to understand the "ecology of disease." It is part of a project called Predict, which is financed by the United States Agency for International Development. Experts are trying to figure out, based on how people alter the landscape - with a new farm or road, for example - where the next diseases are likely to spill over into humans and how to spot them when they do emerge, before they can spread. They are gathering blood, saliva and other samples from high-risk wildlife species to create a library of viruses so that if one does infect humans, it can be more quickly identified. And they are studying ways of managing forests, wildlife and livestock to prevent diseases from leaving the woods and becoming the next pandemic.

It isn't only a public health issue, but an economic one. The World Bank has estimated that a severe influenza pandemic, for example, could cost the world economy $3 trillion.

The problem is exacerbated by how livestock are kept in poor countries, which can magnify diseases borne by wild animals. A study released earlier this month by the International Livestock Research Institute found that more than two million people a year are killed by diseases that spread to humans from wild and domestic animals.

The Nipah virus in South Asia, and the closely related Hendra virus in Australia, both in the genus of henipah viruses, are the most urgent examples of how disrupting an ecosystem can cause disease. The viruses originated with flying foxes, Pteropus vampyrus, also known as fruit bats. They are messy eaters, no small matter in this scenario. They often hang upside down, looking like Dracula wrapped tightly in their membranous wings, and eat fruit by masticating the pulp and then spitting out the juices and seeds.

The bats have evolved with henipah over millions of years, and because of this co-evolution, they experience little more from it than the fruit bat equivalent of a cold. But once the virus breaks out of the bats and into species that haven't evolved with it, a horror show can occur, as one did in 1999 in rural Malaysia. It is likely that a bat dropped a piece of chewed fruit into a piggery in a forest. The pigs became infected with the virus, and amplified it, and it jumped to humans. It was startling in its lethality. Out of 276 people infected in Malaysia, 106 died, and many others suffered permanent and crippling neurological disorders. There is no cure or vaccine. Since then there have been 12 smaller outbreaks in South Asia.

In Australia, where four people and dozens of horses have died of Hendra, the scenario was different: suburbanization lured infected bats that were once forest-dwellers into backyards and pastures. If a henipah virus evolves to be transmitted readily through casual contact, the concern is that it could leave the jungle and spread throughout Asia or the world. "Nipah is spilling over, and we are observing these small clusters of cases - and it's a matter of time that the right strain will come along and efficiently spread among people," says Jonathan Epstein, a veterinarian with EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based organization that studies the ecological causes of disease.

That's why experts say it's critical to understand underlying causes. "Any emerging disease in the last 30 or 40 years has come about as a result of encroachment into wild lands and changes in demography," says Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist and the president of EcoHealth.

Emerging infectious diseases are either new types of pathogens or old ones that have mutated to become novel, as the flu does every year. AIDS, for example, crossed into humans from chimpanzees in the 1920s when bush-meat hunters in Africa killed and butchered them.

Diseases have always come out of the woods and wildlife and found their way into human populations - the plague and malaria are two examples. But emerging diseases have quadrupled in the last half-century, experts say, largely because of increasing human encroachment into habitat, especially in disease "hot spots" around the globe, mostly in tropical regions. And with modern air travel and a robust market in wildlife trafficking, the potential for a serious outbreak in large population centers is enormous.

The key to forecasting and preventing the next pandemic, experts say, is understanding what they call the "protective effects" of nature intact. In the Amazon, for example, one study showed an increase in deforestation by some 4 percent increased the incidence of malaria by nearly 50 percent, because mosquitoes, which transmit the disease, thrive in the right mix of sunlight and water in recently deforested areas. Developing the forest in the wrong way can be like opening Pandora's box. These are the kinds of connections the new teams are unraveling.

Public health experts have begun to factor ecology into their models. Australia, for example, has just announced a multimillion-dollar effort to understand the ecology of the Hendra virus and bats.

IT'S not just the invasion of intact tropical landscapes that can cause disease. The West Nile virus came to the United States from Africa but spread here because one of its favored hosts is the American robin, which thrives in a world of lawns and agricultural fields. And mosquitoes, which spread the disease, find robins especially appealing. "The virus has had an important impact on human health in the United States because it took advantage of species that do well around people," says Marm Kilpatrick, a biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The pivotal role of the robin in West Nile has earned it the title "super spreader."

And Lyme disease, the East Coast scourge, is very much a product of human changes to the environment: the reduction and fragmentation of large contiguous forests. Development chased off predators - wolves, foxes, owls and hawks. That has resulted in a fivefold increase in white-footed mice, which are great "reservoirs" for the Lyme bacteria, probably because they have poor immune systems. And they are terrible groomers. When possums or gray squirrels groom, they remove 90 percent of the larval ticks that spread the disease, while mice kill just half. "So mice are producing huge numbers of infected nymphs," says the Lyme disease researcher Richard Ostfeld.

"When we do things in an ecosystem that erode biodiversity - we chop forests into bits or replace habitat with agricultural fields - we tend to get rid of species that serve a protective role," Dr. Ostfeld told me. "There are a few species that are reservoirs and a lot of species that are not. The ones we encourage are the ones that play reservoir roles."

Dr. Ostfeld has seen two emerging diseases - babesiosis and anaplasmosis - that affect humans in the ticks he studies, and he has raised the alarm about the possibility of their spread.

The best way to prevent the next outbreak in humans, specialists say, is with what they call the One Health Initiative - a worldwide program, involving more than 600 scientists and other professionals, that advances the idea that human, animal and ecological health are inextricably linked and need to be studied and managed holistically.

"It's not about keeping pristine forest pristine and free of people," says Simon Anthony, a molecular virologist at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "It's learning how to do things sustainably. If you can get a handle on what it is that drives the emergence of a disease, then you can learn to modify environments sustainably."

The scope of the problem is huge and complex. Just an estimated 1 percent of wildlife viruses are known. Another major factor is the immunology of wildlife, a science in its infancy. Raina K. Plowright, a biologist at Pennsylvania State University who studies the ecology of disease, found that outbreaks of the Hendra virus in flying foxes in rural areas were rare but were much higher in urban and suburban animals. She hypothesizes that urbanized bats are sedentary and miss the frequent exposure to the virus they used to get in the wild, which kept the infection at low levels. That means more bats - whether from poor nutrition, loss of habitat or other factors - become infected and shed more of the virus into backyards.

THE fate of the next pandemic may be riding on the work of Predict. EcoHealth and its partners - the University of California at Davis, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Smithsonian Institution and Global Viral Forecasting - are looking at wildlife-borne viruses across the tropics, building a virus library. Most of the work focuses on primates, rats and bats, which are most likely to carry diseases that affect people.

Most critically, Predict researchers are watching the interface where deadly viruses are known to exist and where people are breaking open the forest, as they are along the new highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific across the Andes in Brazil and Peru. "By mapping encroachment into the forest you can predict where the next disease could emerge," Dr. Daszak, EcoHealth's president, says. "So we're going to the edge of villages, we're going to places where mines have just opened up, areas where new roads are being built. We are going to talk to people who live within these zones and saying, 'what you are doing is potentially a risk.' "

It might mean talking to people about how they butcher and eat bush meat or to those who are building a feed lot in bat habitat. In Bangladesh, where Nipah broke out several times, the disease was traced to bats that were raiding containers that collected date palm sap, which people drank. The disease source was eliminated by placing bamboo screens (which cost 8 cents each) over the collectors.

EcoHealth also scans luggage and packages at airports, looking for imported wildlife likely to be carrying deadly viruses. And they have a program called PetWatch to warn consumers about exotic pets that are pulled out of the forest in disease hot spots and shipped to market.

All in all, the knowledge gained in the last couple of years about emerging diseases should allow us to sleep a little easier, says Dr. Epstein, the EcoHealth veterinarian. "For the first time," he said, "there is a coordinated effort in 20 countries to develop an early warning system for emerging zoonotic outbreaks."

sauce https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/...sLqs4JAjXC_z1bfn2w8Gcq1OeAmg34X61QvfTBgsXDIl0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ramps!


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Nice! I used to work at a farmers market and ramps and morels were a favorite spring combo. I know where to find morels nearby but I don't have a hook up for ramps anymore.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

And yet I'm not addicted to them


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

8 Ways You Can Help Humans And Animals During The Coronavirus Crisis

It's easy to feel useless during the coronavirus (COVID 19) crisis, especially if you're one of the countries currently on lockdown to help flatten the curve.

However, in an effort to keep positive, here are eight simple ways you can help both humans and animals during the pandemic.

1. Donating to food banks

In the midst of people irresponsibly bulk buying and supermarkets consequently struggling to keep up with demand, food banks can easily be forgotten about.

But arguably, they're needed now more than ever, as many vulnerable people are struggling to access basic essentials including food and hygiene products.

Find your local food bank and donate non-perishable, in-date food (tins are a great example) as well as hygiene products.

Recently, Worthing resident Pia Offord founded The Worthing Vegan Food Bank Network, which is completely volunteer-led, in an effort to help those most affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

2. Supporting local businesses

Many local businesses are still operating on a delivery-only basis, including Neat Burger - a chain backed by Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton - which has recently expanded its deliveries to eight new areas.

If your fave vegan eatery is completely shut. You can still support them by buying gift cards online to use post-quarantine and use social media to help them attract new custom. Some companies also have an online-store filled with goodies you can get delivered!

3. Sign petitions

The power of social-media prevails through times like this, and signing petitions is one of the easiest ways to make a difference while staying at home. Below are a few examples of petitions you can sign:

PETA is urging the World Health Organization (WHO) to end all live animal markets after the Covid 19 pandemic is believed to have originated in a 'wet' market in Wuhan, China*.

While nonprofit Pause The System has created a petition to close down factory farms -highlighting the link between animal agriculture and zoonotic diseases.

4. Self isolate and bake vegan cookies

If self-isolating has left you with too much time on your hands - why not have some fun and bake vegan cookies. Baking is a great way to also get the kids involved, and teaches them a valuable skill

You can also check out these five vegan recipes that are bound to keep you occupied (and satisfied) for a little while.

5. Use Social Media

If anyone knows the power of social media when it comes to activism, it's public speaker John Oberg. Check out our recent podcast where Oberg discusses how he got into activism, the key challenges vegans face in furthering the movement and using social media for the better.

6. Rescue/ Adopt an animal

Rescuing or adopting an animal isn't something you should do on a whim, or because self-isolation has left you feeling a little bored. But if you were contemplating rescuing a new companion, now is the best time to do so - as many rescue centers are struggling to keep up with the number of unwanted or abandoned animals.

If you're unable to permanently rescue an animal, you can still help shelters out by donating items such as pet food, toys, blankets, and leads.

7. Buy vegan food

It's simple, but it's effective. Even if you're not vegan, but you still can't get your hands on milk in the supermarket - why not check out some of the many plant-based alternatives? There's soy, oat, rice, coconut, banana, pea - the list is endless!

You never know, you might end up loving it and make the switch permanently.

8. Volunteer

In England, the government called for half a million volunteers to take on tasks such as shopping for the vulnerable and collecting medication. if you're able to do, volunteering is a great way to help protect those most vulnerable.

sauce https://www.plantbasednews.org/cult...6_uZgFpCBM8yo4jqGYVLDA6a-KYjpa923QLjTVLVZGskE


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ No way am I clicking that link  no no nope


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

12 Vegetables You Can Grow From Scraps

When you are on a budget, re-growing your food scraps is one of the best ways to save money! In fact, there are many vegetables you can grow from scraps, whether it be from cut off ends, or from the seeds they bear. This will not only help keep your wallet fuller, but it is an incredibly sustainable way of living!

12 Vegetables You Can Regrow From Scraps

There are many different vegetables you can regrow from kitchen scraps. All you need is some water and a shallow pan to get started. In some instances, you don't even need water, and can directly plant your sprouts into the soil.

1) Garlic









You may have a couple cloves of garlic laying around - why not grow them? The key to successfully growing garlic to plant them in full sun, and to remember to chop off the tall stalk that sprouts from the bulb. Once you cut this piece off, the garlic bulb will instead put all of its energy into growing large bulbs for tasty consumption.

2. Potato or Sweet Potato









Cut about one-inch of a chunk from a potato that includes 1-2 eyes. Give the piece a day or two to dry out and skin over. Then, plant with the eye facing up.

3. Pumpkin









During Halloween, you may take your pumpkin seeds and throw them in the oven to make some roasted pumpkin seeds (or you may just eat them raw - which is totally fine, and they taste amazing!), or you may throw them out. Why not plant some pumpkins from the seeds? Pumpkin is rich in nutrients like beta-carotene which protect your eyes from nasty free radicals which leads to poor eyesight. Find out how to grow pumpkins here.

4. Avocado









Avocado trees are actually quite easy to grow, and they are beautiful plants to keep inside or outside the home (they have a better chance of fruiting outside, where they can be pollinated by bees). To find out how to grow an avocado tree from the seed, click here.

5. Scallions









Cut off the last inch of each onion, so that you still have the bulb and roots (lower white part). Put these ends in mud, making sure to leave a portion of each stem sticking out above the soil. Water regularly, and your onions will start growing. You can take cuttings from the green portion of the plant, and it will still continue to regrow more greens. You can do this about 3 times before you will need to plant more bulbs.
Alternatively, if you have some onions that are already sprouting greens, you can place their root-end in a mason jar of water, and fresh greens will sprout on top.

6. Carrots









Those carrot tops you usually toss into the garbage can actually be used to produce more carrots! You cannot physically regrow the carrot from the carrot top, but you can regrow the plant. Cut about one inch from the top of a carrot. Stick a toothpick into either side of the carrot stump and balance it on top of a small glass. Fill the glass up with water so that the water barely touches the bottom edge of the stump. Set this glass in light, but not in a window that has full sun. Continue to add water as it evaporates, and soon you will have sprouting roots from the carrot edge. You can now plant your carrot in mud!

7. Apples









Apples can be grown from the seeds inside, as with any fruit. To grow an apple tree, take the seeds from the fruit and lay them out to dry until there is no more moisture on the outside of the shell. Next, lay the seeds on some damp paper towel and place them in the fridge. Make sure the paper towel remains damp, so checking ever so often is a must. Once the seeds have been in the fridge for about one month, the seeds should have sprouted. Take your sprouted seedlings and place them in a small cup of potting soil, making sure that the soil remains moist but not wet with watering. When the plant starts to grow, make sure you transplant as needed, until you can finally grow your tree outside.

8. Ginger









Soak your ginger root overnight and then cut it into pieces. Make sure that there are a couple of growth buds on each piece (the little bumps on the end of each "finger"), and plant the ginger with these growth buds pointing up or to the side (do not have them facing down). Then, water regularly, but not so much that the soil becomes soggy. Harvesting your ginger is easy since all you need to do is dig up pieces of the root, and cut off what you need, leaving what you don't. It will continue to grow.

9. Romaine









Growing romaine is the same as celery. Cut off about an inch from the bottom of the romaine stalk, let it sit in water to wait for roots and slightly longer growing leaves from the top, and then re-plant in the mud! Any time you want to harvest leaf lettuce from your garden, just pick the outer leaves but leave the inner leaves untouched. This will ensure that your lettuce continues to produce new leaves all season long.

10. Celery









Cut off the bottom inch of a bunch of celery, and place this piece in a bowl, with the cut side facing up. Add a little bit of water, just enough so that the bottom of the celery is submerged in water. Move this bowl into a sunny place in your home, and water for the leaves and roots to form. Then you can plant the celery in soil, covering everything cut the leaves, and within a couple of weeks, the stalks will start to grow back.

11. Pineapple









A lot of people have seen or heard that you can re-grow pineapples, and I am currently in the process of doing so (I will let you know how it goes!). To re-grow pineapple How to Grow a Pineapple Top Indoors

12. Bok Choy









Same method as celery and romaine: see above.

sauce https://livelovefruit.com/vegetable...ZOGA3SC3aAaLHbDHZU4tV0XNjYDhr80Tq2rpG_vBXxOFs


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

This is inevitable when we use living beings as a means of production.

*Piglets aborted, chickens gassed as pandemic slams meat sector*

CHICAGO (Reuters) - With the pandemic hobbling the meat-packing industry, Iowa farmer Al Van Beek had nowhere to ship his full-grown pigs to make room for the 7,500 piglets he expected from his breeding operation. The crisis forced a decision that still troubles him: He ordered his employees to give injections to the pregnant sows, one by one, that would cause them to abort their baby pigs.

Van Beek and other farmers say they have no choice but to cull livestock as they run short on space to house their animals or money to feed them, or both. The world's biggest meat companies - including Smithfield Foods Inc, Cargill Inc, JBS USA and Tyson Foods Inc - have halted operations at about 20 slaughterhouses and processing plants in North America since April as workers fall ill, stoking global fears of a meat shortage.

Van Beek's piglets are victims of a sprawling food-industry crisis that began with the mass closure of restaurants - upending that sector's supply chain, overwhelming storage and forcing farmers and processors to destroy everything from milk to salad greens to animals. Processors geared up to serve the food-service industry can't immediately switch to supplying grocery stores.

Millions of pigs, chickens and cattle will be euthanized because of slaughterhouse closures, limiting supplies at grocers, said John Tyson, chairman of top U.S. meat supplier Tyson Foods.

Pork has been hit especially hard, with daily production cut by about a third. Unlike cattle, which can be housed outside on pasture, U.S. hogs are fattened up for slaughter inside temperature-controlled buildings. If they are housed too long, they can get too big and injure themselves. The barns need to be emptied out by sending adult hogs to slaughter before the arrival of new piglets from sows that were impregnated just before the pandemic.

"We have nowhere to go with the pigs," said Van Beek, who lamented the waste of so much meat. "What are we going to do?"

In Minnesota, farmers Kerry and Barb Mergen felt their hearts pound when a crew from Daybreak Foods Inc arrived with carts and tanks of carbon dioxide to euthanize their 61,000 egg-laying hens earlier this month.

Daybreak Foods, based in Lake Mills, Wisconsin, supplies liquid eggs to restaurants and food-service companies. The company, which owns the birds, pays contract farmers like the Mergens to feed and care for them. Drivers normally load the eggs onto trucks and haul them to a plant in Big Lake, Minnesota, which uses them to make liquid eggs for restaurants and ready-to-serve dishes for food-service companies. But the plant's operator, Cargill Inc, said it idled the facility because the pandemic reduced demand.

Daybreak Foods, which has about 14.5 million hens with contractor-run or company-owned farms in the Midwest, is trying to switch gears and ship eggs to grocery stores, said Chief Executive Officer William Rehm. But egg cartons are in shortage nationwide and the company now must grade each egg for size, he said.

Rehm declined to say how much of the company's flock has been euthanized.

"We're trying to balance our supply with our customers' needs, and still keep everyone safe - including all of our people and all our hens," Rehm said.

DUMPING HOGS IN A LANDFILL

In Iowa, farmer Dean Meyer said he is part of a group of about nine producers who are euthanizing the smallest 5% of their newly born pigs, or about 125 piglets a week. They will continue euthanizing animals until disruptions ease, and could increase the number of pigs killed each week, he said. The small bodies are composted and will become fertilizer. Meyer's group is also killing mother hogs, or sows, to reduce their numbers, he said.

"Packers are backed up every day, more and more," said Meyer.

As the United States faces a possible food shortage, and supermarkets and food banks are struggling to meet demand, the forced slaughters are becoming more widespread across the country, according to agricultural economists, farm trade groups and federal lawmakers who are hearing from farmer constituents.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, along with both U.S. senators from a state that provides a third of the nation's pork, sent a letter to the Trump administration pleading for financial help and assistance with culling animals and properly disposing of their carcasses.
Hog farmer Mike Patterson's animals, who have been put on a diet so they take longer to fatten up due to the supply chain disruptions caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreaks, at his property in Kenyon, Minnesota, U.S. April 23, 2020. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi

"There are 700,000 pigs across the nation that cannot be processed each week and must be humanely euthanized," said the April 27 letter.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said late Friday it is establishing a National Incident Coordination Center to help farmers find markets for their livestock, or euthanize and dispose of animals if necessary.

Some producers who breed livestock and sell baby pigs to farmers are now giving them away for free, farmers said, translating to a loss about $38 on each piglet, according to commodity firm Kerns & Associates.

Farmers in neighboring Canada are also killing animals they can't sell or afford to feed. The value of Canadian isoweans - baby pigs - has fallen to zero because of U.S. processing plant disruptions, said Rick Bergmann, a Manitoba hog farmer and chair of the Canadian Pork Council. In Quebec alone, a backlog of 92,000 pigs waits for slaughter, said Quebec hog producer Rene Roy, an executive with the pork council.

A hog farm on Prince Edward Island in Canada euthanized 270-pound hogs that were ready for slaughter because there was no place to process them, Bergmann said. The animals were dumped in a landfill.

DEATH THREATS

The latest economic disaster to befall the farm sector comes after years of extreme weather, sagging commodity prices and the Trump administration's trade war with China and other key export markets. But it's more than lost income. The pandemic barreling through farm towns has mired rural communities in despair, a potent mix of shame and grief.

Farmers take pride in the fact that their crops and animals are meant to feed people, especially in a crisis that has idled millions of workers and forced many to rely on food banks. Now, they're destroying crops and killing animals for no purpose.

Farmers flinch when talking about killing off animals early or plowing crops into the ground, for fear of public wrath. Two Wisconsin dairy farmers, forced to dump milk by their buyers, told Reuters they recently received anonymous death threats.

"They say, 'How dare you throw away food when so many people are hungry?'," said one farmer, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They don't know how farming works. This makes me sick, too."

Even as livestock and crop prices plummet, prices for meat and eggs at grocery stores are up. The average retail price of eggs was up nearly 40% for the week ended April 18, compared to a year earlier, according to Nielsen data. Average retail fresh chicken prices were up 5.4%, while beef was up 5.8% and pork up 6.6%.

On Van Beek's farm in Rock Valley, Iowa, one hog broke a leg because it grew too heavy while waiting to be slaughtered. He has delivered pigs to facilities that are still operating, but they are too full to take all of his animals.

Van Beek paid $2,000 to truck pigs about seven hours to a Smithfield plant in Illinois, more than quadruple the usual cost to haul them to a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, slaughterhouse that the company has closed indefinitely. He said Smithfield is supposed to pay the extra transportation costs under his contract. But the company is refusing to do so, claiming "force majeure" - that an extraordinary and unforeseeable event prevents it from fulfilling its agreement.

Smithfield, the world's largest pork processor, declined to comment on whether it has refused to make contracted payments. It said the company is working with suppliers "to navigate these challenging and unprecedented times."

Hog farmers nationwide will lose an estimated $5 billion, or $37 per head, for the rest of the year due to pandemic disruptions, according to the industry group National Pork Producers Council.

A recently announced $19 billion U.S. government coronavirus aid package for farmers will not pay for livestock that are culled, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's largest farmer trade group. The USDA said in a statement the payment program is still being developed and the agency has received more requests for assistance than it has money to handle.

Minnesota farmer Mike Patterson started feeding his pigs more soybean hulls - which fill animals' stomachs but offer negligible nutritional value - to keep them from getting too large for their barns. He's considering euthanizing them because he cannot find enough buyers after Smithfield indefinitely shut its massive Sioux Falls plant.

"They have to be housed humanely," Patterson said. "If there's not enough room, we have to have less hogs somehow. One way or another, we've got to have less hogs."


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ And to add to your post Squeaky...factory farms are just as despicable as wet markets

*AS SLAUGHTERHOUSES CLOSE, FARMERS START DESTROYING MILLIONS OF ANIMALS*









Farmers across the United States have begun killing pigs and chickens as slaughterhouses close amid the coronavirus pandemic. In Iowa, farmer Al Van Beek ordered workers chemically induce abortions in pregnant mother pigs to eliminate 7,500 piglets as the farm no longer has room to house the animals, according to Rueters. Other farmers in Iowa are killing piglets and composting their bodies at a rate of approximately 125 per week as available meatpackers are at capacity. The practice is becoming widespread amongst animal farmers, including in Canada.

Since March, COVID-19 has been rapidly spreading amongst workers in the meat industry, who often work shoulder-to-shoulder without sufficient protective equipment-and return to work, even if sick, due to insufficient sick leave policies-to keep up with ever-increasing slaughter speeds. This month, meat industry giants halted operations at approximately 20 slaughterhouses nationwide after workers tested positive for COVID-19, including Smithfield, Cargill, National Beef, JBS, and Tyson. Business Insider analysts report that approximately 1,185 employees across Tyson's workforce have tested positive and at least eight have died from COVID-19. The closures are behind the widespread disruption to meat industry operations as farmers who raise animals have nowhere to send them to be killed for food. "As pork, beef, and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain," Tyson Chairman John Tyson said. "As a result, there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed."

Some researchers believe that the forthcoming shortage of animal meat exposes the volatility of meat industry operations and could result in an opportunity for plant-based meat products, which are expected to be available in stores with no disruption. "African swine fever (ASF) had already decimated Asian swine herds before COVID-19 came along to put further strain on Asia's meat supply, and the rest of the world's meat industries are in serious danger of being unable to maintain status quo production," Sara Olson, Director of Research at data insight firm Lux Research, said. "Agricultural challenges in commodity crop production and processing will be slower to percolate into the food chain, meaning plant-based burgers and chicken alternatives have a window of opportunity right now to present themselves as more reliable alternatives-or potentially the only choice-next to empty meat cases in grocery stores. Only products in retail today will benefit immediately, but longer-term, expect more people to shift to 'flexitarian' approaches to protein consumption."

Market research firm MarketsandMarkets concurs with Olson's sentiment and predicts that the forthcoming meat shortage will lead to the growth of the plant-based meat industry from $3.6 billion in 2020 to $4.2 billion by 2021, driven by consumers' fears of future animal-borne illnesses.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2020/4/as-slaug...xxy5pTY9bNvfAcsAoG1DhMmCZ4Ypp7MP0b8UuZ8EcaEJs


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*It's not just a fad - there's real value to eating local during this pandemic*









Many of us are stressed out over food, side-stepping down grocery store aisles to maintain proper physical distancing and making plans for long wait-times.

And what is this experience doing to us?

Recently, in a chain grocer line, I watched a gentleman berate store workers for enforcing the new rules. Under mounting pressure, we're in a win-lose competition for that last bag of frozen peas, stocking up on groceries - whether we need them or not. If the worst is still to come, what will this crisis yet reveal of our better natures?

But there is another way. There's a good chance a local farmer nearby has fresh produce, ready for immediate sale. This simple act will connect us to the local community of food producers and strengthen our community.









The horseradish root I purchased last week caused no end of tears as I peeled and processed it in my kitchen.

But learning something new and having a locally-grown, homemade jar of heat and flavour in the refrigerator will warm my heart for days. And talking with the farmer who grew the gnarled root was something I won't get at the grocery store, as she enlightened me about the nature of horseradish and the nutritional properties of the duck and goose eggs she was selling.

These producers are all around us. On a recent walk in my Vancouver Island neighbourhood, I stumbled upon a small farm and left with 10 perfectly ripe kiwis for $3. Canadian kiwis! I had no idea. Soon I'll make jam, something I've never done. As badly as I may fail, it will taste sweeter knowing the fruit came from "farmer Pat," as he's known around here.

As people choose to reconnect with the lost art of bread baking and others get back to the land - even if just in their backyard - some local producers have seen a surge in orders, notably for flour, garden seeds and manure. Sadly, other producers are seeing barely a trickle of customers, in striking contrast to the grocery stores.

That's a shame, because while local food is sometimes more expensive, that's not always the case and you get so much more value in the quality.

Over the past weeks, I've made a point of shopping at smaller, local producers, and what I learned surprised me. The soft, sweet kale I discovered locally was $3 for a large bunch and picked the day I bought it, while the grocery store kale cost the same and had been shipped from California weeks ago. Research confirms that nutrition is highest when food is freshest.

While I'm not suggesting that every one of us dirty our fingernails in the soil, I am advocating that we at least try rejoining our local economy, using food to build community bonds that reach far beyond economics.

Robust local food systems offer immunity from food shortages, such as those caused by recent hoarding behaviour or what will surely occur if borders are further tightened by our neighbours to the south. And buying food from a local farmer adds a human connection to the purchase, increasing feelings of well-being and connectedness to nature, the farmers and each other.









Human connections are something we all need in this crisis.

This participation transforms us from passive consumers of our food, to active participants in agriculture and in the nourishment of our bodies. In a period when more rules and restrictions are being imposed, we can still exercise the freedom to know the source of our food and what we choose to eat.

To those for whom going from farm to farm is difficult, such as those who live in cities, you should be able to source local food in independent shops until the farmers markets reopen.

Instead of regarding eating as something to be done with the greatest efficiency - which usually means processed or prepared food - let's acknowledge and appreciate the caring hands which grew those potatoes or parsnips. The joys of finding, supporting and getting to know local farmers are many, and have been lost by many as well.

But they can be found again.

At a time when joy can seem in short supply, let's spend some of these unending days rediscovering the pleasures of connecting with food. If we don't patronize our local producers now, they won't be here tomorrow, and we'll be left to the mercy of a faceless, nameless "supply chain" for food.

And let's make it the "new normal" long after this is over, learning not only how to prepare what we eat, but where it came from and the community of people that grow it ... for us.

sauce https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brit...ahzoD9KMQ0k6mtwottc_lD-ldLisd0b5Dzn7Vh3Z4igx0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is Sugary Fruit Healthy?*

We all know that fruit contains valuable nutrients (e.g. vitamin C), but most of the calories in fruit come from carbohydrates-specifically sugar. While most fruit contains a mixture of different sugars, a major sugar in fruit is fructose. You may have heard of fructose in soda and other processed foods(e.g. high fructose corn syrup), which can be detrimental to human health. So for those interested in health, should we eat fruit, be cautious, or avoid it?

*The simple answer is eat fruit!*

Although fructose is naturally found in fruits, it can also be created artificially to be used as a sweetener in processed foods like soda, candy etc. The sugar in processed foods is harmful, while eating sugar in the form of whole fruits is beneficial. For example, research has reported that artificially made fructose is associated with liver and blood pressure problems while fruit is not and may even be beneficial.

The reasons for this are complicated, but fruits can be thought of as one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. Most are naturally low in overall calories while containing many micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, and a variety of phytochemicals such as beta carotene, polyphenols, and other antioxidants. This is the exact opposite of fructose containing processed foods!

*Can fruit cause type 2 diabetes?*

There has been concern about the sugar content of fruit with regards to those with diabetes or at high risk for developing diabetes, and many healthcare professionals recommend limiting fruit consumption for those individuals. However, increased fruit consumption has been associated with lower diabetes risk.[2][3] Further, a 2011 study specifically among diabetics compared medical nutrition therapy with a restriction of the amount of fruit eaten to a group who had to eat at least two pieces of fruit daily. The group limiting fruit consumption had no benefit compared to those eating lots of fruit! Considering the many benefits of fruit consumption, the authors wrote that "the intake of fruit should not be restricted in patients with type 2 diabetes."[4] A more recent study even reported that higher fresh fruit consumption was associated lower risk of diabetic complications and death among those who already had diabetes.[3] Those with blood sugar issues should follow individualised advice from their healthcare professional, but consuming fruit with other foods-for example, chopped banana on oatmeal-can help keep blood sugar more stable in those experiencing difficulty.

*Can fruit cause weight problems?*

Some are afraid that because fruits contain sugar that they contribute to weight problems. One study from researchers at Harvard reported that 0.22 portions of fruit daily (e.g. one fifth of an apple) was associated with a reduced risk of obesity by up to 14%.[5] A separate study from five European countries reported that a 100g increase in whole fruit intake per day was associated with a small loss of weight.[6] In a 2011 study, researchers asked one group of volunteers to decrease consumption of all sugars, including fruits while another group were asked to decrease added sugars only. The group who ate less fruit and sugar lost weight (6.5lbs) but the group consuming fruit but less added sugar lost even more weight (9lbs).[7] In fact, a major review article published in 2016 in the journal Nutrients summarised existing scientific evidence which consistently reports that fruit is associated with less obesity and even with weight loss.[8]

There are several proposed mechanisms by which fruit seems to help control weight, including high nutrient content but perhaps more importantly modulating the gut microbiome and providing prolonged satiety (feeling fuller for longer) leading to decreased overall calorie intake.[8] A fascinating 2009 trial from Pennsylvania State University compared the effect of apple, apple sauce, apple juice or apple juice with added fiber on energy energy intake. The whole apple led to increased fullness and decreased energy intake, even compared to apple juice + fiber.[9] This trial agrees with Professor Campbell's stance of wholism versus reductionism. In other words the benefits of a piece of fruit can not be replicated by isolating individual components e.g. vitamins, minerals, fiber.

*What are the benefits?*

There is also consistent evidence that eating fruit is associated with lower risk of multiple cancers and cardiovascular diseases, including stroke.[10] Increasing fruit consumption has even been associated with decreased risk of dying from Alzheimer's disease[11] and COPD.[12]

As long ago as 1985, it was suggested that fruit and vegetables may protect against early death.[13] Multiple subsequent studies also observed decreased risk of early death with higher fruit consumption. Indeed a 2017 review of 95 studies published in the International Journal of Epidemiology noted that increased fruit consumption was associated with less cardiovascular disease, including stroke, less cancer and less premature death.[10] Some studies reported that those eating the most fruit compared to the least fruit had a 40-50% decreased risk of premature death.[14][15] Another study reported that compared to those who didn't eat fruit, consuming a single portion of fruit each day was associated with a 19 month longer life.[16] Imagine what five portions of fruit daily might do!

Low fruit consumption is considered to be the fourth leading contributor to the global disease burden[17] and it has even been estimated that 7.8 million premature deaths worldwide may be caused to a low fruit and vegetable intake.[10]

*What type of fruit?*

It should come as no surprise that fresh fruits are consistently regarded as the best type of fruit. Frozen fruit is a close second and can make a cheaper, convenient source, especially when certain fruit is not in season. Dried fruits generally contain similar nutrients as fresh or frozen but are more concentrated. However, the sugar content will also be more concentrated.

Juice made from fruit, even freshly squeezed fruit, will have most of the fiber and lots of nutrients stripped away. There is consistent evidence that fruit juice consumption increases the risk of weight gain, particularly in children.[8] Fruit juice consumption has been associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.[2] One interesting study compared whole apple, clear apple juice, and cloudy apple juice. The whole apple would be the highest in fiber while the clear juice would contain virtually no fiber. The people who ate whole apples had a drop in total and LDL cholesterol, while the people who consumed the clear apple juice actually had an increase in cholesterol. Those who consumed cloudy apple juice had a drop in cholesterol but not as much as the whole apple group. This suggests that fiber is very important for the health benefits of fruit.[18] Additionally, caution is required with canned or tinned fruit, which often contains added sugar or syrup. One study even reported that tinned fruit was associated with increased risk of death.[19] Therefore, try to stick to fresh or frozen fruit. Occasional dried fruit is fine for most too. Increase your consumption of fresh fruit by snacking on various fruits, preparing fruit based desserts, and blending fruits to make tasty smoothies!

So there you have it: eating more fruit helps decrease risk of obesity, disease, and death. Perhaps an apple a day does keep the doctor away&#8230; if accompanied by other whole plant foods!

Sauce https://nutritionstudies.org/sugary...F0CtRA2-we9UbEFWkyvFWXJTWgaT9Llh_WP0MG0bmjfKg


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Among the many things we'll reconsider after COVID-19: Do we really need lab animals?*









The basic model for testing vaccines is much the same as for any drug: conduct animal trials first, then, if deemed safe and possibly effective, human trials next. This long-standing method is widely accepted as scientifically efficient and ethically necessary. But in the race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, one American biotech company, Moderna, reportedly did without that apparently crucial preliminary step. On March 16, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, the first-ever injection of a possible COVID-19 vaccine was administered to a human volunteer, in a phase one trial funded by the National Institute of Health. In a time of such urgency, the strict prerequisite of animal testing can simply cease to exist.

Meanwhile, mass euthanasia may be the fate of lab animals currently involved in research not involving coronavirus or otherwise seen as non-essential, according to animal rights group PETA. This comes as the result of shuttered universities and scarce animal care staff. On March 18, one graduate researcher at the University of Toronto, reportedly tweeted (and since deleted): "Today, due to lab closures and #COVID-19, I have to cull around 100+ rats." PETA subsequently sent a letter to U of T president Meric Gertler, demanding to know why the school conducts non-essential research upon animals in the first place.

The Canadian Animal Care Counsel, a non-governmental organization that oversees the treatment of animals in publicly funded research, confirmed via e-mail: "Because of the COVID-19 crisis some research institutions may have to make the difficult ethical decision to euthanize animals."

And on April 2, The Globe and Mail reported that the export of test monkeys from China had been halted in an effort to prevent possible future outbreaks.

The various roles that lab animals have played throughout the COVID-19 pandemic highlight a growing need to re-evaluate current scientific research models and requirements.

If a possible vaccine can be rushed into human trials, if lab animals can be so easily and suddenly discarded, and the importation of animals for experimentation can increase the risk of virus spread, then the exclusive focus on first using animal models should be reconsidered.

Dr. Charu Chandrasekera, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Alternatives to Animal Methods (CCAAM) at the University of Windsor, says this is especially true since more than 90 per cent of drugs tested and found to be safe and effective in animal models fail in human clinical trials.

"We are all counting down the days until we return to 'normal.' But should we?" asks Dr. Chandrasekera.

A long-time biomedical researcher, Dr. Chandrasekera acknowledges that animals have made "tremendous contributions to our understanding of fundamental biological processes, health and disease, and in medical advancement." But she says there are tremendous differences between humans and other animals, and now is the time to take those differences seriously.

As such, the current system of scientific research and testing has become outdated and stuck in a culture ingrained in animal research. "The fundamental problem is that animals are the first choice, when they should be the last resort," she says. "No single animal model can ever recapitulate the human disease condition, so you end up creating these animal models that mimic certain aspects of human disease, but they are not accurate representations of the disease. This is why we have had such big failures."

Dr. Chandrasekera says science is missing out on a lot, "because we are not focusing on the human model first," which is the basis of her work at CCAAM: developing human biology-based research models, utilizing human stem cells and bio-printing to create what are called "organ on a chip" and "disease in a dish," to see how diseases and treatments act in human bodies, rather than in the bodies of genetically modified mice.

It is work that requires much more government commitment, meaning funding and legislative mandates. Nearly four million animals were used in tax-payer funded research, teaching and testing in Canada in 2018.

Upon emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Chandrasekera says she does not want to go back to the old normal, "where mouse biology is the gold standard." Rather, she believes "there is more than enough brilliance, ingenuity and resourcefulness within the scientific community to create a new model, where **** sapiens serve as the quintessential animal model, and our biology is the gold standard."

So as we sit in pandemic-induced isolation, reflecting on all that has changed and imagining all that will be, let us also take time to reconsider old ways that don't work and new ways that could make us better.

The mandatory use of animal models in scientific research has been illuminated during this time as an old system. It is worth rethinking for the sake of science, human health, and the animals.

link https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp...kRDxDJOBX_kSkVk8PT_-QnI5gBbWE5a2ok0-OvaWi4kdQ


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Inside the slaughterhouse*
North America's largest single coronavirus outbreak started at this Alberta meat-packing plant. Take a look within.









Hiep Bui spent 23 years at the Cargill meat-packing plant in southern Alberta - picking out bones from ground beef in a refrigerated room.

The 67-year-old was one of around 2,000 workers at the plant, located near the town of High River, south of Calgary.

The plant is the site of the largest COVID-19 outbreak linked to a single facility in North America, according to outbreak data from Canadian and U.S. health authorities. A total of 1,560 cases have been linked to the plant, provincial health officials say, with 949 employees testing positive and two deaths - Bui was the first.

The second was Armando Sallegue, who died of COVID-19 on Tuesday. Sallegue's son, Arwyn, worked at the plant and was confirmed to have the virus the same day his father began to show symptoms.

The deaths, and the coronavirus outbreak, put into sharp relief the heavy toll meat-packing work can take on members of a workforce that often have few other opportunities.

"The union asked for help, the workers asked for help. The workplace was declared safe ... and a worker has died," said Alex Shevalier, president of the Calgary and District Labour Council, during an online vigil for workers who have lost their lives on the job.

"What we do now is what matters. We cannot bring that sister back but we have to fight for the living. We need a public inquiry and we need a criminal investigation and we need them now."

On Monday, the same day the Cargill plant reopened after a two-week closure, Bui's memorial service was livestreamed on social media.

Bui's husband of more than 25 years, Nga Nguyen - who also works at Cargill and contracted COVID-19 - was asked whether Cargill had called him to express its condolences.

Nguyen shrugged and shook his head. Communicating in Vietnamese through an interpreter, he said, no, the company hadn't called.

"He's feeling numb," his interpreter said. "He doesn't know if he's angry. Just numb."

Cargill, a company worth billions, has been accused by employees and the union of caring more about its bottom line than worker wellbeing.

"Honestly speaking, they don't care about their employees," one worker said. "They're saying they can replace people at any time. They don't care."

John Keating, president of Cargill Meat Solutions, a subsidiary of Cargill, said the company puts people first. He said his heart hurts to lose an employee, and he was surprised to hear the company has yet to reach out to Bui's husband.

He said the company was "hit overnight" by the outbreak and there are lessons to be learned.

"If we need to feel the need to apologize, absolutely, we will apologize. We're a very humble organization, we feel bad about what happened but at the same time we're very confident in how we run our businesses, how we run our processes."

On Tuesday, the day after CBC News spoke to Keating, the company said it had reached out to Nguyen to offer condolences.

After employees first began to test positive for the coronavirus, some told CBC News they continued to work in close quarters with colleagues despite physical distancing measures put in place by the company and said Cargill pressured them to return to work even after they contracted COVID-19.

The number of cases at Cargill is staggering even when compared with the U.S., which has the highest total number of active COVID-19 cases and deaths in the world. As of May 1, there were 4,913 COVID-19 cases in total among all meat-packing plants in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

CBC News interviewed 14 current employees of Cargill for this story. Their identities have been kept confidential because they fear negative impacts on their employment should they be identified.

The workers at the plant are primarily immigrants to Canada or temporary foreign workers and many speak limited to no English. Some say their job security is key to them remaining in the country.

Employees have said they've sustained injuries at the plant, from blackened fingers to knee damage that has made it difficult to walk.

Cargill said ergonomic experts were in place at the facility to guide the work.

"We have a ramp-up plan in place to ensure our team builds strength and protects their long-term health. We are focused on keeping our employees safe and healthy now and for the future," company spokesperson Daniel Sullivan said in an email.

*The 'kill floor'*
The first thing employees say you notice when you enter the Cargill facility in High River is the smell - something familiar, like that of an animal, but with a distinctive note of blood hanging in the air.

There are two main areas of Cargill's facility. On the harvest floor, colloquially dubbed the "kill floor," workers bleed cattle, skin them and hang them from hooks in a warm environment.

The majority of the area on the kill floor is more spaced out, allowing for two metres of space between employees in most areas. But the work can still be challenging, employees say.

Cattle are led into what's known as the knocking area, where they are hit in the head with a bolt gun meant to stun them. Then, using a knife, a worker will cut the throat of the animal to bleed it.

This work can be dangerous for employees, as the behaviour of a nervous animal is difficult to predict.

Then there's the fabrication line, where workers say they're packed in elbow to elbow. Here, they work cutting meat for eight hours a day, often using knives to trim carcasses and remove fat.

Workers say part of the challenge of working on the fabrication line is the speed with which it moves - rates of speed which they say have led to injuries.

"My fingernail is all black. Not only me, all the employees," said one worker on the fabrication line, "because there's no blood circulation, because of too much grip. You need to hurry and then your hand is numb.

"Some of my [fellow] employees, not only one, two, three fingers, all black."

Another employee who works in maintenance at the facility said those on the line feel constant pressure to keep their speed up. Delays, such as mechanical issues, can exacerbate those stressors.

"Some machines are just worn out [and will fail]. Then, it's constant screaming, cursing ... and I mean, people are getting frustrated with that," he said.

"But some of these people are new in Canada, they're from the Philippines. So basically, they get scared, they think they're going to be sent back home or they'll lose their permanent residence. So they basically just shut up and do what they're being told."

These workers, completing repetitive tasks over and over all day, are particularly at risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders like carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis and muscle strain, said Jessica Leibler, an environmental health professor from Boston University.

*'I cannot walk'*
One worker said a fellow employee cut off three of his fingers while slicing meat on a weekend shift and began to bleed.

"He was bleeding for 40 minutes because they don't want us to call 911," he said. "They wanted us to call the on-call nurse because she will evaluate the guy, whether he needs to go to hospital."

Sullivan, the Cargill spokesperson, said employees with concerns should report it through the "many reporting channels" open to them.

"To our knowledge, this [incident] is false. Our policy is to contact medical professionals or our nursing staff when an injury occurs," Sullivan said in an email.

Injuries have also occurred in other areas. One worker in the packaging area of the facility said she damaged her knee repeatedly lifting heavy boxes.

"Now, I cannot even stand too long, I cannot walk," she said.

The cramped facilities mean breaks are just as crowded as regular shifts, employees said.

Without fail, one worker said, coffee breaks and lunchtime see the cafeteria - referred to as the "feedlot" - fill to capacity with employees.

When employees are done eating, they'll move into the locker-room, chatting and lounging while they wait to be let back onto the main floor.

"In the locker-room, it's super-crowded," one employee said. "Very filthy."








*A 'clear danger'*
Concerns for workers' well-being extend beyond their physical health.

Leibler said although meat-processing workers experience some of the highest rates of occupational injury for all types of injuries, there have been very few studies of workers' mental health.

She has studied workers at a U.S. meat-packing plant and found they experienced higher levels of serious psychological distress than those in the general population.

"They open themselves up, working in these environments, to laceration injury, to repetitive injury, to musculoskeletal injury in addition to the mental health stress," she said.

"There is clear danger in working in these environments, but many of the people who work in them appreciate the income. Many of them are immigrants, many of them are supporting families. And so it's a cost-benefit analysis for them, I think, even on a daily basis."

The bloody and often depressing nature of the work often means many employees burn out quickly, one employee working on the kill floor said.

"It's hard to do this every day. Especially when the cow, when they knock it, it makes a voice. Like it's screaming or something like that," he said. "If people are emotional, it's hard for them to keep that job."

Other studies have found workers in meat-packing plants face intense psychological pressure and sometimes a disconnect in empathy because of their work environments.

Leibler also said her research may underestimate the mental health impacts among workers - as more mentally or physically robust workers are likely to remain in the job and those who have experienced a major injury (mental or physical) might be less likely to participate in research.

"I think fundamentally the industrial slaughterhouse model is not sustainable," she said.

"The system is optimized for maximal output but with much less concern for the experience of the workers throughout the process."

Leibler said the more immediate challenge faced by meat-packing corporations is to show they value workers by allowing them to stay home with pay while sick or if they are possibly infectious.

United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, the union that represents workers at the plant, had requested a stop-work order and filed an unfair labour practice complaint against the plant and the provincial government in hope of preventing the reopening. It has also called for a criminal investigation.

The plant asked all employees who are eligible to return to work in the harvest department to report for their shifts.

Days before the reopening, the union surveyed more than 600 workers in four languages; 85 per cent said they were afraid to return to work.

Ricardo Morales, director of community development and integration services with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, has been leading a team to support workers at the plant.

They've been translating health and safety information into Oromo, Tagalog, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese for workers.

"I think Cargill probably could have done a better job communicating with employees as to what support they could receive from the company," he said.

Immigrants in Canada have more concerns about their health and financial security during the COVID-19 pandemic than the Canadian population as a whole, according to the results of a recent survey from Statistics Canada, and Morales said he's seen evidence of that on the ground with Cargill workers.

"You are just not dealing with an ordinary situation. You need to look at ways, culturally, how are people responding and how are people coping under these circumstances."

Morales said while the community has banded together, Cargill workers still face intense stressors over their immigration status and food security - with some quarantining workers unsure where their next meal will come from.

Revenue in the billions
Cargill Ltd. is a Canadian subsidiary of the U.S.-based Cargill, which reported revenue of $113.5 billion US and net earnings of $2.56 billion last year.

The company is the largest private company in the U.S. in terms of revenue, and the Cargills, a family of reclusive billionaires, still own more than 90 per cent of the corporation.

Cargill's High River plant opened in 1989 with an initial slaughter capacity of 1,200 head of cattle per day, eventually growing to become the largest beef processing facility in Canada, processing 4,500 head a day.

Before opening, news reports at the time show some critics worried the company was buying its way into a market already suffering from overcapacity and would lead to the closures of other plants.

The plant - which was not unionized at the time and paid its employees less per hour than other Alberta plants - did, in fact, lower production costs and plants around the province began to close.

Today, the Cargill plant, which has since been unionized, provides around 40 per cent of all beef processing in Canada.

Wages at the Cargill plant start at $17.95 per hour, according to the collective agreement.

Cargill has said that as an essential part of Canada's food supply chain, it is committed to continuing production.

'That's only flu &#8230; you're fit to work'
To stay open at this time, the company said it has implemented measures to keep employees safe.

It has installed protective barriers on the production floor to allow for more spacing between employees and introduced face shields where that wasn't possible.

Cargill also said it hoped to reduce carpooling by workers through utilizing buses with protective barriers between the seats. Many of the employees live in large households and share transportation.

But some employees feel other actions by the company increased their risk, like offering bonuses during the COVID-19 outbreak. Workers worried that by missing work, they would miss out on the bonus.

Some say the company continued to try to lure them back to work from self-isolation as the plant prepared to reopen on May 4.

"They called my husband, the [Cargill] nurse called, but he still has symptoms," one worker said of her husband, who is also an employee. "They said, 'That's only flu, that's only cough. You're fit to work.'"

In an email, Cargill spokesperson Daniel Sullivan said the company had been "very clear" in communications to employees that they should not come to work sick or if they have had contact with someone with COVID-19 in the past 14 days.

"Employees who must remain off work due to COVID-19 impacts have access to up to 80 hours of paid leave and short-term disability benefits are available to eligible employees," the company said.

After the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, CBC News reported that no preventative or in-person inspection of the Cargill plant was done.

A live video inspection by Alberta Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), conducted after dozens at the plant were already sick with COVID-19, concluded the work site was safe to remain open. The inspection didn't include the harvest or kill floor because slaughter activities weren't taking place that day.

OHS is now investigating and provincial health officials were in attendance for the reopening.

*Other slaughterhouse outbreaks*
While Cargill is the site of the largest outbreak, it's far from alone - meat-packing facilities across North America are hotspots for coronavirus.

Alberta's second-largest outbreak, where at least 487 workers have tested positive as of Tuesday, is at the JBS Canada beef plant in the southeastern city of Brooks. That plant remains open.

Meat-processing plants in Quebec, Ontario and B.C., and two dozen across the U.S. have had to temporarily suspend operations because of smaller outbreaks. In the U.S., 20 meat-processing workers have died because of COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

There have been similar allegations of unsafe practices, like those workers have made at the Cargill plant, reported at multiple facilities.









The outbreak at Cargill has spread into the greater community. Cases among staff at a High River retirement facility and on a nearby First Nation have been traced back to the plant.

Leibler, the environmental health professor, said the outbreaks have hopefully shone some light on the undervalued role of meat-processing workers and the profit-maximizing environment in which food is produced.

"I think in a lot of developed countries, the process as to how we produce the meat that we buy in our supermarket is very much like a black box. People don't think about it," she said.

"Hopefully it's beneficial for all of us to learn a little bit more about this workforce in this terrible context."

Another worker on the kill floor said his job at Cargill has its pluses, like working with and developing relationships with people from all over the world.

But after the company's response to the COVID-19 outbreak, he said he feels betrayed.

"They ignored it even after employees spoke out," he said. "They don't care about the [workers]. They care about the profit."

link https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/cargill-covid19-outbreak


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

These outbreaks and the infection rate at meat processing plants is very curious. Here in the states there are 190 USDA inspectors that have tested positive as well. One's got to wonder if the working conditions and close proximity is the sole driver here? Surely there are other sectors of factory work, heaps of them, that work under similar conditions without the same overwhelming infection rate. What's going on?

Sent from my moto g(6) forge using Tapatalk


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Sad on so many accounts. You have to wonder what horrible lives these people left to find these conditions as a better life, and now the companies are taking even more advantage of them.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

The Tyson plant across from my work in Portland, Maine is now up to 51 cases. They reopened today after being closed since last Friday.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This will contaminate the ground water... nothing to see here 
*
Wood chippers employed to help compost thousands of excess hogs near Worthington plant*

ROUND LAKE, Minn. - A parcel of land in Nobles County has been transformed into a major composting operation for euthanized hogs coming from the crippled JBS pork processing plant in nearby Worthington, as well as hogs from area farmers.

Mike Crusan, communications director with the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, said delivery of hog carcasses to the southwest Minnesota site began over the weekend. The parcel of land can accommodate the delivery of up to 2,000 head per day, though it hasn't reached peak capacity at this point.

JBS announced last week it could euthanize 3,000 head of market-weight hogs per day because they couldn't be processed before they grew too large for slaughter and packaging. The JBS plant in Worthington shut down temporarily because of an outbreak of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, among workers at the plant. On Wednesday, it resumed operations but at reduced levels.

Crusan said the site northwest of Round Lake would not have been chosen if there were any potential environmental risks.

An incident management team that includes staff from the Board of Animal Health is overseeing the composting operation to ensure the compost pile is constructed correctly. Proper construction should eliminate the attraction of flies or scavengers, and should not emit an odor, Crusan said.

"It should just be, to the naked eye, a pile of wood chips out there," he said. "The wood chips over the top of the pile, beneath the pile and all around it are going to be keeping all of those odors and all of those things contained as the microbes inside the pile do their work."

The Minnesota Pork Producers Association is working with the team to establish three other composting sites in the state.

"They are trying to find other areas where there are congregations of large swine operations so they can better serve those people with a centralized site," Crusan said, adding that farmers will have the option to deliver hog carcasses to those sites or compost on their own property.

The hog carcasses delivered to the Nobles County site will be run through the chipper simultaneously with the wood material - a new concept in the hog industry.

"This whole approach &#8230; began being evaluated in composting just within the last year because of African swine fever," Crusan said. "The pork industry nationwide was studying ways of effectively composting mass carcasses if we were to get that in the United States."

Chipping the hog carcasses with the carbon material was studied in the Carolinas, Crusan said.

"This is one of the ways we know that we can effectively compost and probably speed up the composting process," he said.

Crusan said they don't yet know how many days it will take for the hogs to be fully composted, though it will be considerably shorter than the 60 days it takes for a fully intact carcass to be composted.

Once the composting process is complete, the material can either be spread over the land or incorporated, adding nutrient-rich material to the soil.

A third-party contractor was hired to operate the chipping equipment and build the compost pile in Nobles County. The composting service is being offered to farmers at no cost to them, other than trucking the carcasses to the site.

sauce https://www.twincities.com/2020/05/...Z6p7SeGuCGuSd2f-xc-YrmALzlty5XVhrsWUyImJoFGX4


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Meat is not essential. Why are we killing for it?*

President Trump's recent use of the Defense Production Act to order slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants to stay open is misunderstood if viewed only as the next tragic misstep in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. It marks the nadir of the increasingly broken meat industry. For years, we have knowingly destroyed our planet for the sake of a protein preference. Now, we are sending humans to their deaths.

Trump's "order" was, in fact, the result of meat industry executives requesting his relief from legal liability for worker deaths. The number of slaughterhouse workers who have already died this year is on par with the number of U.S. servicemembers who have died annually fighting in Afghanistan over the last five years. Military personnel risking their lives to fight terrorism is one thing. How did the president arrive at the absurdity of requiring civilians to risk their lives for the sake of a particular food?

The answer lies in how we have let agribusiness effectively normalize worker exploitation, and the mercenary skill we sometimes employ to deny or forget our support for that industry's actions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meatpacking has long been the nation's most dangerous occupation. It is not just the nature of the job; there is systemic disregard for the safety and dignity of the people working in the meat industry. An in-depth report by Oxfam documents that, for years, workers in U.S. poultry slaughter plants - including those operated by Tyson Foods, Sanderson Farms, Perdue and Pilgrim's Pride - commonly wear adult diapers or simply urinate on themselves because bathroom breaks are routinely denied by supervisors under threats of retribution.

The industry has continued such cruel practices with relative impunity, because workers are too dependent on their jobs to effectively resist unscrupulous managers, and the public has continued to underwrite the abuse. But manslaughter is a new level of depravity. The magical thinking that imagines calling meat "essential" in a time when schools, bypass surgeries and funerals are not, amounts to a sort of state-sponsored witchcraft.

In the past months, we have relied upon the bravery of essential workers. Most of us, including myself, have also bent language to our preferences. It is not "brave" for a delivery person to continue to work when he has no way to feed his family otherwise. Calling it brave is both condescending, and a method of masking our own guilt about people forced into those situations.

Perhaps what we're really talking about when we use the word "essential" isn't the necessity of the service, but the presumed disposability of the person performing it. In my hometown, black New Yorkers have died from covid-19 at twice the rate of white New Yorkers. Across the country, people of color comprise a grossly disproportionate share of "essential" service workers such as bus drivers, postal workers, food deliverers and, of course, slaughterhouse workers. These jobs rarely offer paid sick leave and never allow for remote working.

We often hear that people of color are putting themselves at greater personal risk during this pandemic, but the truth is they are being put at greater risk. White people generate 97 percent of all income from the operation of farms. Yet Latinx farmers alone comprise more than 80 percent of farm laborers. The fact that the overwhelming majority of people who will suffer from Trump's slaughter order are black and brown, and that the overwhelming majority of the executives who pleaded with him to do it are white, cannot be ignored.

As if to offer a balm to our conscience, Tyson Foods published full-page newspaper ads making the strange case that a reduction in meat supply amounts to the entire food-supply system "breaking." The food-supply system is indeed badly broken, but the coronavirus did not create the problem.

Companies such as Tyson Foods did it by inventing a business model that requires environmental destruction, worker exploitation, animal cruelty and conditions that create "novel" viruses. (Of the 16 strains of novel influenza viruses that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified as being of highest concern, all but two converted to human viruses in commercial poultry farms.) Letting the monstrous factory farm system fail would allow safer, most just and sustainable models of agriculture to gain a foothold. Yes, meat supplies would be lower, but food supplies would not be. We would have more than enough protein.

Meat is not essential and slaughterhouse workers in diapers are not brave. They are being oppressed and, in a free society, each of us who continues to underwrite that abuse bears some of the responsibility. Nor is this problem limited to the time of covid-19. This pandemic is like a lightning strike that has, for a brief moment, illuminated for all of us the values that guide factory farm corporations. Are these also to be the values that determine what we feed ourselves and our families? If not, what can one person hope to do?

It would be arrogant to think our personal buying decisions alone are sufficient to end decades of normalized exploitation, but it is more arrogant to think our decisions mean nothing. We can begin by ceasing to pretend that public-health measures are "breaking" the food supply chain, and by holding the corporations that have hijacked it responsible. Your next meal is the moment to withdraw your support from the most cruel and destructive industry in America.

sauce https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...HyhKYaaEArI1ZovAJ-ZYcU2zAhvBOyXh4auJiv0PJ9V70


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*4 WAYS TO FINALLY END EMOTIONAL EATING WITH A VEGAN DIET*

n these uncertain times, most people are experiencing increasing levels of stress about what the future holds. And with that stress can come eating behaviors that don't benefit our overall wellbeing. Though following a vegan diet is a step in the right direction when it comes to optimizing our health, there are still some of us who struggle with emotional eating. The behavior is typically triggered by emotions such as stress, sadness, or boredom, and the need to fill a void. It might feel satisfying to eat when these feelings occur, but it is only a temporary sense of relief, and doing it on a regular basis can lead to unneeded weight gain, digestive issues, or other health-related difficulties. By applying these four tips, the good news is that these issues can be managed with a little time and practice.

*1. Eat more fiber from whole foods.*
Eating more fiber is one of the best ways to combat emotional eating on a vegan diet. Fiber is important for digestion, but it is also a key component for our emotional wellbeing. New studies from UCLA prove that our gut and its microbiome are related to neurological health and balance. When fiber intake is sufficient, it triggers an "I am satisfied" switch in our brain, called propionate. Propionate is a short-chain fatty acid caused by your gut bacteria breaking down fiber that alerts the body when it reaches the necessary amount of food intake. Most vegans will obtain plenty of fiber if they're eating enough whole-food plants. As a result, those who have an issue with emotional eating will likely feel more satisfied and in control of their habits eating whole, plant-based foods than those who do not.

*2. Learn to eat in balance.*
A lack of nutrition can trigger cravings for sweet, comforting, or salty foods that some people struggle with. To overcome emotional eating, consciously following a balanced vegan diet is an important piece of the puzzle. The human body is a complex organism that thrives when it's fueled with the proper diet, which allows it to receive all the necessary nutrients from different components of our meals, making us less tempted to grab a snack or binge while watching Netflix. It also helps regulate our digestive system. Our stomach is referred to as the second brain because serotonin is created in our stomach and in our brain-so a happy belly will help stabilize the mood. There are many resources online that give examples of what a balanced meal looks like, but a basic rule of thumb is to eat at least two servings of vegetables or greens, and fill one-quarter of your plate with whole grains and another one-quarter with protein (a meal that can cover all these categories is a classic Buddha Bowl).
*
3. Learn what it feels like to be truly hungry.*
The feelings of true or physical hunger can be characterized by how hunger comes up during the day. If hunger is brought on slowly and many different kinds of foods sound appetizing, this will most likely be true hunger. When a craving comes up suddenly and it is aimed toward one particular type of food, such as sweets, this can be categorized as emotionally driven hunger. Another way to tell the two apart is by identifying what feelings are coming up after eating. If these feelings are of being satisfied and content at the end of the meal, this is likely from physical hunger. If it's emotionally driven, the food does not give the same satisfaction. Eating for emotional satisfaction can also cause feelings of guilt and shame after eating food that was not needed. Keeping a journal close by to record these sensations is a great first step in identifying the source of your hunger. If emotional cravings come up, drinking a glass of water can also keep you from acting on your emotions. Instead, sit with the sensation for a minute-doing so can help ease the trigger and it might pass quicker than you think. 
*
4. Be kind to yourself.*
Being kind to yourself might sound cliché but it can help tremendously when dealing with negative eating habits. Some people might experience guilt or remorse that comes along with the type of foods they are consuming during stressful moments. Creating new and better eating habits might take a little more time than expected and that is okay. Celebrating small victories help keep the marathon going instead of seeing the change as a short-distance sprint. Creating kindness can be as simple as enjoying a vegan dessert or vegan pizza on occasion. Remember that food is not the enemy. If emotional eating does happen, a better way to handle the situation is to be kind to yourself instead and beating yourself up. You'll overcome it, in time.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Fred Willard Always Gave Animals the Last Laugh*









Fred Willard had audiences in stitches with his portrayal of a clueless dog show commentator in the mockumentary Best in Show. But the real-life Fred not only was knowledgeable about animals but also was one of their biggest advocates.

A PETA supporter, Fred's comedic genius put just the right silly spin on serious subjects, including the underestimated intelligence of animals as well as the importance of spaying and neutering and adopting animals from shelters.

In a brilliantly scathing New York Daily News piece about the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show's addition of cats, Fred observed, "Not only is throwing cats into a venue packed with dogs pretty nuts, so is the whole premise of the Westminster Kennel Club: promoting the breeding and purchasing of animals, especially when we are in the midst of a homeless-animal crisis so massive, it makes Lady Gaga's halftime show look like a school production of 'Mary Poppins.'"

A big proponent of adopting homeless animals, Fred loved to point out the absurdity of buying dogs and cats from breeders while millions of loving animals wait in shelters for someone to give them a home. In a public service announcement (PSA) for PETA, he asks viewers if they'd pay $5 for a blade of grass, $10 for a glass of tap water, or $50 for a handful of soil, before remarking, "Pretty silly, huh? &#8230; With all those lives at stake, I hope you'll always adopt, and never buy."

Fred and his late wife, Mary, followed that advice: They were "adopted" by a stray cat who used to hang around their house. Later, Fred made a hilarious cameo alongside his one-eyed feline companion in PETA's "Howlin' for You" video to encourage others to open their hearts and homes to animals in need.

To help prevent more animals from ending up homeless, Fred starred in a video promoting PETA's Animal Birth Control campaign. In the spot, he searched for the perfect name for the campaign, musing, "What's neutered, *****cat? I'll call Tom Jones. Maybe he'll sing the theme song!" Fred also starred in an aww-inspiring video in which he learned to speak dog. And he frequently stuck up for the animals often overlooked by humans, including in his clever "fishbowl therapy" PSA that showed what life was like for a sensitive betta fish who had been confined alone to a cramped bowl just so that he could be someone's decoration.

PETA was fortunate to have Fred as a stalwart supporter. He had a packed house laughing until its sides hurt as the host of our Stand-Up for Animals benefit show at the famous Comedy Store in Los Angeles, and he cohosted our 25th Anniversary Gala. At our 35th Anniversary Gala, he was honored with PETA's Humanitarian Award for his dedication to animal rights.

Thank you, Fred, for making a huge difference for animals.

sauce https://www.peta.org/blog/rest-in-p...:Facebook::rest-in-peace-fred-willard::::link


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Millions of US farm animals to be culled by suffocation, drowning and shooting*



> Closure of meat plants due to coronavirus means 'depopulation' of hens and pigs with methods experts say are inhumane, despite unprecedented demand at food banks











More than 10 million hens are estimated to have been culled due to Covid-19 related slaughterhouse shutdowns. The majority will have been smothered by a water-based foam, similar to fire-fighting foam, a method that animal welfare groups are calling "inhumane".

The pork industry has warned that more than 10 million pigs could be culled by September for the same reason. The techniques used to cull pigs include gassing, shooting, anaesthetic overdose, or "blunt force trauma".

In "constrained circumstances", according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), techniques [pdf] might also include a combination of shutting down pig barn ventilator systems with the addition of CO2 so the animals suffocate.

The 'depopulation' comes despite food banks across the US reporting unprecedented demand and widespread hunger during the pandemic, with six-mile-long queues for aid forming at some newly set up distribution centres.

The American meat supply chain has been hit hard by the closure of slaughterhouses, due to Covid-19 infection rates among workers. 30 to 40 plants have closed, which means that in the highly consolidated US system beef and pork slaughtering capacity has been cut by 25% and 40% respectively, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

The closures have meant that animals cannot be killed for food and many must instead be culled, or "depopulated" at home.









*More pigs to be 'depopulated'*
As it is comparatively easier to keep cattle on farms, cow culls do not appear to be an issue as yet, and the chicken cull may have peaked, said Adam Speck, an agribusiness analyst with IHS Markit.

"[Cattle] could stay on ranches another six months if necessary. The peak of the chicken cull has passed for now. North of about 10 million chickens were depopulated, either at the chick or egg stage," Speck said.

At the hen stage, Leah Garcés, president of US welfare organisation Mercy for Animals, said it is hard to be sure of the numbers. But, "what we know with certainty is that 2 million meat chickens [and] 61,000 laying hens", have been killed on farms.

Compared with poultry, said Garcés, stopping or slowing the production cycle of pigs is harder, mainly because pig growing periods are about six months compared to six weeks for hens. "Pregnancies had already been set in motion when the slaughterhouse closures occurred," she said, and pigs were already in the system.

The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) has estimated that: "up to 10,069,000 market hogs will need to be euthanised between the weeks ending on 25 April and 19 September 2020, resulting in a severe emotional and financial toll on hog farmers".









For pig culls, AVMA "preferred methods" include injectable anaesthetic overdose, gassing, shooting with guns or bolts, electrocution and manual blunt force trauma. AVMA methods "permitted in constrained circumstances" include ventilator shutdown (VSD), potentially combined with carbon dioxide gassing, and sodium nitrite which would be ingested by pigs.

Speaking more graphically, Garcés said manual blunt force trauma can mean slamming piglets against the ground while VSD would "essentially cook the pigs alive".

Asked to estimate numbers of pigs that have already been culled, Speck said producers are very reluctant to depopulate. "About two million might have been culled so far due to the Covid-19 pandemic, over the last six or so weeks."









Speck added that with slaughterhouses likely to return to 85% capacity by the end of May, the NPPC's depopulation estimate of 10 million pigs could be significantly reduced.

Speck said breeders are thinning herds and slowing growth to reduce pig supply. "They are sending breeding sows to slaughter, aborting pregnant sows on a small scale and [keeping market-bound pigs] on maintenance style rations with less protein. Coming into the summer months the pigs will also gain weight more slowly as the weather heats up."

*Methods are 'inhumane'*
Asked about growth slowdown, Garcés said it posed other welfare risks. "One method to slow down growth is to turn the heat up inside of the warehouses beyond the pigs 'comfort zone' because pigs eat less when they are too hot," she said.

The combination of feed restrictions and higher barn temperatures, she said, mean pigs are "hungry and hot, increasing their overall discomfort, which is already high in a factory farm setting".

In what appears to be an attempt by the industry to reduce any negative depopulation impact, a blog managed by the National Pork Board called Real Pig Farming offers social media sharing tips for farmers. The blog suggests farmers: "Think twice before engaging with posts that show what may be happening on farms right now."

It said: "Most people do not understand the complexity of raising pigs and getting pork from the farm to their table. That means, "[a] good rule of thumb is to speak to a level a third grader [eight to 10 years old] would understand to ensure that things are not taken out of context."

NPPC spokesperson Jim Monroe said that as of the week ending on 15 May, less than 25% of overall slaughter capacity was idled and the situation was improving. Monroe, added that the "tragic need to euthanise animals is to prevent animal suffering."

For poultry, culling options are no easier. Filling sheds with carbon dioxide gas is one method, said Kim Sturla, director of welfare organisation Animal Place. Another cull method, she said, is to smother hens with water-based foam, similar to firefighting foam. Water-based foaming is categorised as the "preferred" method by the AVMA.

Previously asked about water-based foaming and other cull methods such VSD, an AVMA spokesperson said depopulation decisions were difficult and "and contingent upon several factors, such as the species and number of animals involved, available means of animal restraint, safety of personnel, and other considerations such as availability of equipment, agents and personnel".

European campaigners said firefighting foam causes prolonged suffering. Although risks of similar livestock culls appear low in Europe so far, welfare group, Compassion in World Farming advised using foam that contains nitrogen gas because death is faster.

A 2019 European Food Safety Authority journal report said it did not find water-based or firefighting foam acceptable because "death due to drowning in fluids or suffocation by occlusion of the airways" is not seen as "a humane method for killing animals, including poultry".

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/environ...kLz7SgGIGFJq-3BCs3rbAGF3rxvwT-OKFojkBCLz-nCJs


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to eat less meat and more plants*

Whether you enjoy meat on a regular basis or savor a steak once in a while, one thing is true: Many people love meat.

The average American consumes about 222 pounds of red meat and poultry per year, according to a recent estimate by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, while a February 2020 report projected that global meat and poultry consumption is expected to reach 313 million metric tons in 2023.
But with meat shortages becoming a new reality, we may have no choice but to consume less meat these days. That means now is as good a time as any to try plant-based meals and snacks, which can provide health benefits at a time when we may feel increasingly vulnerable to illness.

"Eating more plants and going meatless is a good way to preserve your health," said Dr. Robert Graham, who is board certified in both internal and integrative medicine.
"Eighty percent of chronic diseases we face are preventable and reversible by eating a more plant-based diet. This [pandemic] is a call to action to switch to more plant-based meals and to cook more. They are the two silver linings," said Graham, who is also a chef and co-founder of FRESH Med, an integrative health and wellness center in New York City.
We know getting started can be difficult, especially if burgers, meatballs and sausage with eggs have been your go-tos. So here are some simple ways to start eating less meat.

I'm not talking about becoming a vegetarian overnight or even adopting a strict vegan lifestyle. These are simply easy ways to cut back on your meat consumption as meat prices increase, and they're easy ways to improve your health, too.

*10 ways to eat more plants and less meat*

Designate one day each week for meatless eating. "Even going meatless one day a week can make a difference," said Sharon Palmer, a registered dietitian and author of "Plant-Powered for Life."
The nonprofit group Meatless Monday promotes the notion of cutting out meat every Monday for your personal health and the health of the environment, and it offers helpful tips and recipes for vegetarian cooking.

The group also offers a Meatless Monday family cookbook with comfort food recipes and plant-based versions of meals that are typically meat-heavy, like a "meaty" mushroom stew over garlic mashed potatoes

Plantify your favorite dishes. You can make your favorite entrees or meals plant-based with a few simple swaps, according to Palmer.

"If you have a mean lasagna recipe, skip the meat and add layers of greens, broccoli and peppers and perhaps some pine nuts and cashew cheese instead of the meat and cheese. If you love Taco Tuesday, make your tacos veggie by skipping the meat and serving black beans or a vegetarian mushroom tofu filling," Palmer said.

Go global. Many international cuisines incorporate plant-based proteins, including chickpeas, beans and lentils.

For example, a Mediterranean meal might include chickpeas; a Mexican meal might have black beans or pintos; an Asian meal might include edamame; and an Italian meal might use white beans or lentils to make a Bolognese-inspired pasta sauce, said registered dietitian nutritionist Dawn Jackson Blatner, author of The Flexitarian Diet.

And if you love Indian food, Palmer recommended chickpea masala in place of chicken masala.
For inspiration, check out recipes from cookbooks focused on international cuisines such as Mediterranean, Indian, Mexican, Thai and Japanese.

Search your pantry. Stocking your pantry with a variety of beans, whole grains, seasonal veggies, fruits, spices, herbs, healthy oils, nuts and seeds is the secret to eating more plant-based meals, according to Palmer. But even without conscious effort, your pantry is likely already stocked with plant-based ingredients that can be easily assembled into meals.

Canned corn, kidney beans and quinoa are among the most neglected pantry items, according to Meatless Monday's social media followers. To "rescue" quinoa, chef Adam Kenworthy recommended cooking it in a big batch by itself; then adding cucumber, thinly sliced celery, avocado, cilantro, basil or shiso; and salt and olive oil.

You can also combine quinoa, beans and corn along with other spices to make a vegetarian chili. And if a recipe calls for frozen corn, you can just swap it with canned, drained corn. It's delicious in soups, stews, casseroles and salads, according to Palmer.
Experiment with new recipes. Some fun meatless recipes include jackfruit sandwiches in place of pulled pork; black bean meatless balls or eggplant and shiitake "meatballs."

You can also try making a vegan-friendly Philly cheesesteak using seitan, a high-protein meat substitute made from wheat gluten.

For more innovative ideas, try carrot "bacon" wrapped dates, or as barbecue season approaches, you can give carrot "hotdogs" a try!

Try tofu. In addition to serving as a substitute for taco meat, tofu can be used as an ingredient in many other dishes. For example, you can make "chicken fried" tofu instead of chicken fried steak, tofu wings in place of buffalo wings and tofu parmigiana. For a seasonal dish, you might try a springtime asparagus quiche made with a creamy tofu filling.

Freezing tofu and then thawing it will limit moisture and give more meat-like texture when cooking, according to Graham. Additionally, when you freeze tofu before marinating it, it will soak up the flavor of the marinade better, Graham added. Note: The extra firm tofu is your best option to replace meat.

Use herbs and spices to mimic meat flavor. "Umami is the flavor that people miss from plant-based sources," Graham said. He recommended using ingredients such as miso and tomatoes, as well as mushrooms and lentils to help deliver a meat-like taste to foods.

"One of my favorite things to cook is a lentil, mushroom, tomato Bolognese (see recipe for Vegan Bolognese below). I love it because it's stealth health - people think they are eating meat," Graham said.

Consider faux meat burgers. A Beyond Burger or Impossible Burger may be worth a try if you are looking to mimic the flavor, aroma and even the bleeding color of meat, though it's wise to consider how these burgers fit into your daily nutrient goals.

If you're not interested in faux meat, try making your own grain burger. My tasty DIY meat-free burger recipe includes beets for a red color, as well as mushrooms, brown rice, lentils and walnuts.

Keep in mind, you don't necessarily have to replace meat entirely in a recipe.

"Using less meat is what I encourage," Graham said. "Even if you add a little bit of chopped mushroom to a ground beef patty mixture, that can help to reduce the meat you consume." Graham likes a burger made with half beef and half roasted mushrooms.
Find fun frozen meatless meals. Frozen foods provide a convenient way to prepare meals when you're constantly eating from home. Amy's Kitchen offers a range of meatless options including a vegan supreme pizza with meatless pepperoni and veggie sausage, a mac and cheese meatless pepperoni bowl as well as a new Greek-inspired red rice and veggies entree. Amy's Kitchen also offers a variety of vegetarian burgers, including a black bean veggie burger.

Dr. Praeger's, another plant-focused frozen food brand, offers a California veggie burger as well as a meat-alternative Perfect Burger. However, the company also offers meat-alternative recipes on its website that incorporate its frozen foods, such as pan-fried veggie burger dumplings, a California veggie burger bowl, Thai chicken rice bowl and breakfast quesadillas with veggie sausage.

Download a meatless app. Lastly, if you decide to venture out and you're looking for meat-free meals from a local eatery, apps such as HappyCow or Vegman can come in handy, especially when you are in an unfamiliar area.

sauce https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/19/heal...5zeH3IJEBrrKrQRo84cGEAroefpXWbLhl6QKApOion7Tk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Purple fruits and vegetables are rich in anthocyanins, which are natural plant pigments that provide foods with their unique colour. Studies have shown that anthocyanins may benefit brain health, help to lower inflammation and fight cancer and heart disease.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Celebritities don't have an influence on my personal interests (like diet, or activities such as mtb, running or crossfit etc) or life choices but it is interesting to know what factors inspired them to go vegan or plant based or vegetarian.

*35 Vegan Celebrities Enjoying the Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet*

It seems like every other day a new vegan celebrity emerges touting the benefits of a plant-based diet.

And it's no wonder why.

Science has proven beyond doubt that a healthy vegan diet is the best way to improve mental health, build a strong body, reduce the chance of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers, and to extend your life.

Plus, you reduce the suffering of animals and help improve the health of our planet.

Who doesn't want a piece of that!?

Well, here's 35 vegan celebrities that most certainly do.

*1. Miley Cyrus*
Animal lover and wild child, Miley Cyrus, is extremely vocal about her commitment to animal rights and cruelty free living. A proud owner of a passel of pets, Cyrus went vegan after the death of her beloved dog, Floyd, and now owns a pet pig.

*2. Joaquin Phoenix*
Many vegans can credit their conversion to Phoenix- he played an instrumental narrative role in the gripping documentary, Earthlings, which exposes the horrors of the industrial meat and dairy industry and challenges watchers to rethink their stance on eating animals. Though occasionally erratic in interviews, Phoenix's commitment to a vegan lifestyle is unwavering.

*3. Evanna Lynch*
Known for her portrayal of the mysterious Luna Lovegood from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, Lynch is a vegan advocate who frequently speaks against the violence of the animal agriculture industry. Lynch noted that she's been a vegetarian since she was 11, but that her transition to veganism didn't happen until 2015.

*4. Bill Clinton*
Former United States president, Bill Clinton, has stated that he wouldn't be alive if he hadn't switched to a vegan diet. Clinton has lauded the lifestyle for its many benefits: namely, energy and continued health, especially in the wake of his quadruple coronary bypass surgery in 2004.

*5. Woody Harrelson*
A long-time vegan, Harrelson first eschewed animal products nearly 30 years ago. Since then, he's been an advocate for animal rights and healthy living. Reports state that Harrelson has even adopted a raw vegan diet during different periods of his life, proving that a vegan diet is entirely sustainable.

*8. Pamela Anderson*
While Pamela Anderson's racy PETA ads have made quite the splash like those in her early career, the actress is a longtime supporter of the organization for animal rights. Anderson has been vegan herself for quite some time and she remains a vocal advocate for cruelty free food and fashion.

*9. Ellen DeGeneres*
High profile vegan celebrity Ellen DeGeneres has used her talk show platform to explain her reasoning behind her decision to become vegan: compassion. She and wife, Portia de Rossi, have been vegan since 2008 and are very vocal about the health benefits of a plant based lifestyle.

*6. Mayim Bialik*
Actress and PhD scientist, Mayim Bialik, has been a longtime vegetarian and began eschewing all animal products after the birth of her two young children. After reading the book Eating Animals, Bialik was convinced that a plant-based diet was the right path for both her and her young family.

*7. Casey Affleck*
Make no mistake, this typically soft spoken actor has staunch views on the animal agriculture industry, calling meat 'poison.' He has vocally refused to contribute to the 'violent and inhumane' animal agriculture industry, and has even teamed up with PETA to get his message across.

*10. Moby*
For musician Moby, the reasoning behind his veganism is simple: a love for animals. Moby has been vegan for over 30 years now, crediting a deep bond with a cat named Tucker as the catalyst that turned him fully plant based. Since then, the musician has been vocal about his support for animal rights and the benefits of a vegan diet.

*11. Morrissey*
Best known for the line 'meat is murder,' Morrissey didn't actually turn vegan until 2015 when he began to realize that the entire animal industry was problematic. A longtime vegetarian, Morrissey's decision to turn completely plant based has led to collaborations with PETA and an increase in animal advocacy on behalf of the musician.

*12. Stevie Wonder*
Though Stevie Wonder admitted to James Corden that he missed chicken, he also attests that he loves eating a vegan diet. Wonder has also praised the plant-based lifestyle for providing him with options he wasn't even aware of.

*13. Peter Dinklage*
Dinklage's character on Game of Thrones might be a tad violent, but this is a far cry from reality as this British actor has been vegetarian since childhood. In recent years, Dinklage has turned completely vegan and has even partnered with PETA to create a 'Face Your Food' campaign that introduces viewers to the reality of factory farming.

*14. James Cameron*
This academy award winning director found veganism in 2011 and has never looked back. After listing the benefits (health, better skin, a slimmer waistline, a higher sex drive and a longer life), Cameron admits that his entire family has gone plant-based and reaped massive benefits.

*15. Alicia Silverstone*
Long-term vegetarian, Alicia Silverstone, has been an animal activist and vegan since she was 20 years old, making her one of Hollywood's most well known and outspoken advocates of a plant-based diet. Silverstone's revelations about the animal agriculture industry and her tips for a healthier lifestyle are outlined in her book, The Kind Life.

*16. Brad Pitt*
Pitt's disdain for red meat led to a vegetarian- and then vegan- way of life. The actor, though not extremely outspoken about his lifestyle choices, remains committed to a plant-based diet for health and environmental reasons. Even still, he is a massive vegan celebrity. Nice one, Brad.

*17. Jessica Chastain*
As the daughter of a vegan chef, it makes perfect sense that Chastain herself would be vegan, but she didn't make the transition from vegetarianism until nearly 2007. At that time, Chastain gifted her mother a food truck (Seed on the Go) that serves up plant-based fare in Northern California.

*18. Sinead O'Connor*
Acclaimed Irish singer/songwriter Sinead O'Connor eschews all animal products in favor of a plant-based diet, and has her health and vitality to thank for it! Incidentally, the late Prince, who wrote her hit song Nothing Compares To U, was also supposedly a vegan.

*19. Penn Jillette*
After losing 100 pounds in a little over 80 days- a feat that almost seems like magic, Jillette revealed that he had adopted a vegan diet. Since then, Jillette has been vocal about how drastically a plant-based diet has improved his health and fitness.

*20. Russell Simmons*
Hip-hop mogul Simmons faced the music years ago and changed his unhealthy ways, becoming deeply committed to both his yoga practice and his belief in animal rights. Since then, Simmons has practiced the yogic principle of 'ahimsa' (non-harming) and seeks to spread his message through a new book on veganism- The Happy Vegan.

*21. Jennifer Lopez*
Though she admits to missing butter, JLo praises a plant-based diet for helping her feel (and look) her best. After initially trying out a 22 day meal plan, JLo decided to stick with the meat and dairy free diet after she lost 10 pounds. The singer and actress is now totally committed to living a cruelty free lifestyle, with even her book entitled True Love.

*22. Ellie Goulding*
Goulding credits her newfound body confidence and abundance of energy to her transition to a vegan diet, noting that it's improved her skin, toned her body and improved her overall health. The best part? Goulding has noted that her eyes are brighter and and that she is definitely happier.

*23. Liam Hemsworth*
Who ever said that vegans don't have muscle? Named PETA's sexiest male celebrity in 2016, Hemsworth credits friend and costar, Woody Harrelson, for the information that changed his lifestyle. Citing incidences of animal cruelty and the unhealthy nature of animal products, Hemsworth says he's happy with his plant-based lifestyle and will maintain it.

*24. Al Gore*
United States Presidential candidate, Al Gore, is a well known environmentalist whose advocacy has extended to his plate. After realizing that diet is a major contributor to global warming, Gore decided to eschew animal products in 2013. More a famous vegan than a celebrity vegan, I suppose.

*26. Novak Djokovic*
Serbian tennis phenom, Novak Djokovic, is plant-powered! This athlete knows how well plants can prep you for professional success. He's such a believer in a vegan diet that he's even opened his own restaurant, Eqvita, which is entirely cruelty-free.

*27. Brendan Brazier*
If triathlete Brendan Brazier can get enough protein on a vegan diet, so can you. Brazier, who has performed successfully in a number of competitions, cites environmental and health concerns as the motivating factors behind his transition. The picture of health, Brazier proves that you can be vegan and strong.

*28. Olivia Wilde*
Actress Olivia Wilde credits her youthful looks and overall well-being to an exclusively vegan diet. Though Wilde is a long-time vegetarian (she decided to stop eating meat at age 12), her journey to veganism was not always easy and has frequently noted that support is necessary for those considering a transition.

*25. Kristen Bell*
Though Bell- a long-time vegetarian- fluctuated between vegetarianism and veganism during her two pregnancies, her commitment to healthy living and animal rights has never wavered. A lover of animals, Bell's commitment to animal advocacy was ignited nearly 20 years ago.

*33. Angela Davis*
There's no way activist Angela Davis was going to forget about the animals. Davis- a long-time vegan- challenges her supporters to explore connections between race, gender, liberation and veganism. Her decision to eschew animal products came from a conscious desire to reject speciesism.

*29. Jared Leto*
After Leto realized that the side effects of his acting career (lack of sleep and fast food) was taking a toll on his body, he turned to veganism with the hope that his health would improve. It did, drastically, and Leto now enjoys extreme outdoor adventures, when he's not acting.

*30. James Cromwell*
When James Cromwell accepted a role in the movie, Babe, he wasn't expecting to become an animal activist, but that's exactly what happened. Citing the film as the factor behind his decision to go vegan, Cromwell is also quite active as an advocate of animal rights.

*31. Mac Danzig*
If anyone knows the importance of strength, it's former MMA fighter, Mac Danzig, who is also, coincidentally, a vegan. Danzig has proved time and time again that his diet is no detriment to his skill and strength, and he remains a pioneer for plant-based athletes

*32. Natalie Portman*
Though Natalie Portman transitioned back to vegetarianism during her pregnancies, her passion for veganism is well known. Portman has been an outspoken proponent of animal rights and the adoption of a plant-based diet ever since she read Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, Eating Animals.

*34. Bryan Adams*
For Bryan Adams, it's quite simple: "if you love animals, don't eat them." Adams' love for his dogs inspired this philosophy and the rock star went vegetarian almost 20 years ago. Though his transition to veganism took some time, Adams is a staunch proponent of a cruelty-free lifestyle and a vegan diet.

*35. Steve-O*
Though Steve-O (the outspoken, fun loving and wild star of Jackass) doesn't seem like the type to care about health and wellness, the past few years have brought quite a change for this star. After giving up drugs in 2008, Steve-O began a commitment to his health that led him to adopt a vegan diet and a compassionate lifestyle.

sauce https://www.theplantway.com/vegan-c...8uUXvCN85BYQyPWMomT5jROEBG4cq9TGcixLXojFButlA


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Protein Sources: How to Meet Your Requirements*









*Protein for Vegans: Basic Information*
From the 1970s and 1980s, conventional wisdom said that vegetarians and vegans run severe risks of protein deficiency. Much of this concern arose from the first bestselling vegetarian advocacy book, Diet for a Small Planet (published in 1971), which offered protein recommendations that, in hindsight, were needlessly stringent.

Today, the pendulum may have swung too far in the opposite direction. Some vegans believe that their protein intake isn't worth much consideration. In fact, you can even find vegans who outright dismiss the topic as unworthy of attention.

But belittling the importance of protein is as unwise as believing that vegans are courting deadly protein deficiencies. The truth is that while it's easy for vegans to get plenty of protein, it's also easy to come up short. Unfortunately, it's fair to assume that many vegans fall far short of achieving an optimal protein intake. It's needlessly risky to believe that, as a vegan, you're exempt from having to pay attention to protein.

Perhaps the main source of confusion about this topic relates to a dire medical condition called kwashiorkor. This disease only appears in areas of famine, or among people with severe eating disorders. Relatively tiny amounts of protein are all it takes to avoid kwashiorkor, so for obvious reasons this deficiency disease is unheard of in the vegan community.

*Symptoms of Moderate Protein Deficiency*
Some vegans make the mistake of thinking that avoiding kwashiorkor means that protein levels are acceptable. This is a dangerously misguided belief-avoiding kwashiorkor doesn't mean your protein intake is even close to ideal.

What's more, there's no clear-cut way to know for sure if you're getting all the protein your body needs. Even blood tests can't reliably tell you if your intake is sub-optimum. Instead, a variety of symptoms that indicate mild to moderate protein deficiency. These symptoms include:

chronic fatigue
high blood sugar or triglyceride levels
inability to maintain sufficient muscle mass
depression
While there are countless terrible things about meat, milk, and eggs, it's undeniable that all these foods are rich in protein. So if you stop eating animal products and don't replace them with vegan foods that are protein-rich, there's a possibility that your intake will decline from adequate to insufficient. Fortunately, just a little effort can ensure your protein needs are nicely met on a vegan diet.

*Vegan Protein Intake Recommendations*
VeganHealth.org recommends a daily intake of 1 to 1.1 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. In practice this means a 68 kilogram (150 pound) adult needs to take in about 70 grams of protein per day. What's more, much of this protein ought to be rich in the amino acid lysine. Beans are rich in lysine, whereas rice, wheat, and nuts are significantly lower in this amino acid.

If you crunch the numbers and see how this advice translates to everyday eating you'll discover that you may need to make a concerted effort to cover your needs.

*The Best Vegan Protein Sources*
One way to step up your intake is to get into the habit of incorporating rich protein sources into the majority of your meals, including foods like:

Soy milk
Tofu
Seitan (Wheat Gluten)
Beans, including lentils and split peas
Nuts & peanuts
Green peas
Orgain and other vegan protein powders
Quinoa
Buckwheat
Clif Bars and Probars
One food that is surprisingly low in protein is commercially-made almond milk. The stuff generally contains loads of sugar but very little protein. Soy milk is therefore typically a better choice for people wanting to boost their protein intake. In fact, it's common for soy milk to have about six times more protein than almond milk!

*Tips for Increasing Your Protein Consumption*
If you don't like the taste of beans or you have trouble digesting them, it can be a challenge to get sufficient protein on a vegan diet. Our beans page offers advice about how to prepare beans in ways that maximize digestibility. You may find that tofu, tempeh, and soy-milk easier to digest than other bean-based foods. Alternately, nuts, seeds, and quinoa are all rich in protein, and easily digested.

Protein powders can be a godsend to anyone who can't tolerate beans or nuts. They can give you a big dose of protein, in a form that's more digestible than meals made with beans. Most brands of protein powder deliver about 20 grams of lysine-rich protein per scoop. Orgain makes an inexpensive all-organic vegan protein powder, and it sells for about half the price of some comparable organic brands. Buy a shaker cup and you won't have to dirty a blender each time you prepare a serving.

*Protein-Rich Recipes*
Adding just a few protein-rich meals to your cooking repertoire may be all it takes to boost your intake to adequate levels. There are two different cookbooks devoted entirely to protein-rich vegan meals.

*The High-Protein Vegan Cookbook, by Ginny Kay McMeans*
The Great Vegan Protein Book, by Steen & Noyes
It's reasonable to speculate that many people who fail to thrive on a vegan diet aren't eating sufficient protein. Since meat is loaded with protein, a vegan who becomes protein deficient would doubtless feel better within days of putting meat back into the diet. The best way to ensure that you don't develop a deficiency is to keep an eye on getting sufficient amounts each day. A little attention and vigilance is all it takes to avoid problems down the road.

https://www.vegan.com/protein/


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan seafood: The next plant-based meat trend?*









Seafood is difficult to veganise well, but some companies are betting on new technologies and customers to overcome the challenges.

Seaweed-wrapped deep-fried tofu, served in newspaper. Marinated aubergine slices pressed over rice. Chunks of legume protein coated in oil and herbs. These products are intended to mimic various fish dishes - fish and chips, unagi, canned tuna - and they're all available now.

Faux seafood isn't entirely new, but products are limited and many of those that have been available so far have been underwhelming and undermarketed. These range from bland tofish and chips served in pubs to rubbery faux shrimp sold in Chinese grocers' freezer sections, part of the long tradition of imitation meats in Chinese Buddhist cuisine.

These products are ripe for the kind of innovation that has driven and expanded the plant-based meat industry. Yet faux seafood manufacturers seeking to make niche products mainstream face some unique challenges, from cultivating great taste and texture through to scaling costs for ambitious new offerings.

*Small market, challenging product*

At the moment, faux seafood is a tiny sector in the food supply chain. In the US, the country with the most vegan seafood start-ups, plant-based seafood made up only 1% ($9.5m) of the dollar amount of all retail sales of plant-based meat in 2019. (And plant-based meat, in turn, made up 1% of total meat sales.) Total research and development on alternative seafood has only amounted to $10m-$20m so far.

One issue is the technical challenge of replicating flaky, fragile seafood. That means shelf-stable mock tuna has been easier to produce than fillets, and the great majority of plant-based seafood retail sales are of frozen products. The few companies in this space also tend to focus on perfecting a single faux seafood product rather than working on multiple products simultaneously.

Another thorny issue is nutrition. "People typically turn to conventional seafood for health benefits. And so being able to come really close to those benefits is extremely important on the plant-based seafood side," says Jen Lamy, the sustainable seafood manager for the Good Food Institute (GFI).

Yet that's been difficult to achieve. Good Catch's fish-free tuna may come closest, with a legume blend providing protein and algal oil providing a source of omega-3 fatty acids. Perceived health benefit is the main driver of flexitarianism in the UK, and flexitarianism is in turn the main driver of mainstream take-up of faux meat. So nutrition is key if alternative seafood companies want to expand their consumer base for currently niche products.

*Rising demand, rising opportunity*

Overall, it's taken consumers a while to begin clamouring for plant-based seafood. Nutrition aside, it's also because animal welfare concerns about lobsters and farmed fish may not motivate vegetarians and vegans the way pigs and cows do. This is partly cultural and historical: fish aren't considered meat under Catholicism, for instance, and so their consumption is acceptable on Fridays during Lent.

Yet the UK opened its first pop-up vegan fish and chip shop in 2018, with the vegan menu subsequently being rolled out to all locations of London chippy chain Sutton & Sons. Vegan items now contribute about 20% of their total revenue, reports Sutton & Sons spokesperson Nicholas O'Connor. And the vegan menu continues to expand, from 'prawn' cocktail to 'calamari' strips and the recently added 'lobster' roll.

In general, alternative seafood poses an enormous opportunity for investors. There's huge potential for replicating the many types of seafood that end up on dinner plates. As well, shellfish allergy is the most common food allergy in many countries, creating space for shellfish simulacra (after all, lactose-sensitive people were important to the expansion of dairy-free milk).

Some observers believe that the transition from conventional seafood to plant-based versions will happen more rapidly than the shift from dairy milk to dairy-free, because of the high demand for seafood and the dwindling wild supply (and as many large fish species can't be easily farmed). And even if ethical eaters are less concerned about the welfare of marine animals, awareness of the human rights abuses in global fishing chains and the potential depletion of certain marine species may be compelling.

*Scaling the start-ups*

The last 18 months have seen a number of important product launches and fundraising rounds; for instance, the company BlueNalu completed a $20m fundraising round in February 2020. A single company or investor could have an outsize impact on the overall market.

So could a government. Singapore, which has been working to move away from its dependence on imported food, has become a leader in alternative seafood. The Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation began collaborating in August 2019 with the Singaporean branch of Sophie's Kitchen, a US plant-based seafood company, on fermenting microalgae to produce a protein substitute.

And Singapore's Shiok Meats, which is working on cell-based crustacean products, could well become the first cell-based seafood company to enter the market. Sandhya Sriram, the CEO of Shiok Meats, explains that the company has received grants, tax rebates and regulatory assistance from the Singaporean government thus far, and is hoping to obtain additional funding and manufacturing support in the future.

Cell-based meat, sometimes called lab-grown meat or clean meat, has identical cellular structure to animal meat but doesn't require slaughter. Instead cells from initial "donor animals" are grown in a bioreactor. The cell lines can continue to be used over and over, creating great potential to reduce animal suffering - although for the moment the process is energy-intensive and divisive.

Sriram acknowledges that not all vegetarians and vegans will be on board with this kind of seafood of the future. "At the end of the day, cell-based meats are still very much meats to the biological and cellular level - so if you do not eat meat, for example, for religious reasons, cell-based meats may not suit you. But for me as a vegetarian, for ethical reasons, I can consume cell-based meats without any guilt."

It will take some time to get there, in any case. A single dumpling made with Shiok shrimp would cost about S$150 ($107, or £85). Sriram says that the company is still at the "R&D scale" but has plans to grow operations and reduce costs. In general, cell-based and plant-based meats are still more expensive than the conventional versions; as with Shiok, this is primarily an issue of a smaller scale.

*'Early days'*

Of course, Covid-19 has altered everything. The traditional meat supply has been disrupted by the spread of infection in crowded processing plants and fishing boats. (Mock meat products are easier to produce in socially distanced conditions.)

One result is that seafood consumption is down in some countries. Overall, demand for plant-based meats has risen since the start of lockdown. Some 23% of surveyed US consumers say they've been eating more plant-based meals due to Covid-19 (about twice as many as those eating more meat). The figure is highest among 18-24-year-olds. During the lockdown in the US, both animal-based and plant-based meats have experienced surges in sales growth, but the percentage gains have been much higher for the alternative meats. "Plant-based meat has grown a lot relative to this period last year," says Lamy.

But it's hard to predict the long-term effects of the pandemic on innovative seafood companies, which are prone to excessive exuberance about how soon they can reach the market or how quickly they can spread. For one thing, consumers are likely to be very price sensitive, so the higher prices of seafood alternatives may be more of a stumbling block than usual.

Yet there's more capital and technology flowing into this area than ever before, and Lamy is particularly enthusiastic about partnerships between established seafood companies like Bumble Bee (famous for canned tuna) and Good Catch (getting more famous for faux tuna). "There's room for so many more entrants in this market," she emphasises. "It's still early days."

sauce https://www.bbc.com/worklife/articl...4-bhKA7T-VtxxgWykRF14_e_GAekV4ox3hFYDMviquzG8


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*82-YEAR-OLD VEGAN TO RUN 100K FOR ANIMALS IN THE UK*









Starting on June 21, 82-year-old vegan Paul Youd is set to run 100 kilometers (62 miles) over the course of 10 days to raise funds for the 200 residents of Dean Farm Trust animal sanctuary in Chepstow, England. Youd began running as a hobby in March to learn a new skill during the COVID-19 lockdown. He worked up to a three-kilometer-a-day distance around a small track that he marked out in his garden. Feeling good about his new abilities, Youd decided to take on the 100K running challenge in an effort to raise £10 ($13) for every kilometer he ran.

"I wanted to challenge myself and do something to help the rescued animals at Dean Farm Trust," Youd said. "They do such amazing work to rescue animals in need and they are really struggling at the moment, with many of their funding sources affected by the coronavirus. Running was something I could learn from the safety of my home."

sauce https://vegnews.com/2020/6/82-year-...1JWKNrLeb7KkoGnmj_wHPKKXfKad9DylVZ-8vU2ADJXsY


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Coronavirus outbreaks climb at U.S. meatpacking plants despite protections, Trump order*

Coronavirus outbreaks at U.S. meatpacking plants continue to soar as the beleaguered industry ramps up production, scales back plant closures and tries to return to normal in the weeks after President Donald Trump declared it an essential operation.

Trump's April 28th executive order followed the industry's dire warnings of meat shortages and invoked the Defense Production Act to compel slaughterhouses and processing plants to remain open.

The order had a chilling effect on the steady drumbeat of closures that had come to symbolize the crisis throughout April and early May. Nearly three dozen coronavirus-affected plants temporarily shuttered in the month leading up to Trump's executive order. In the five weeks since then, just 13 have closed, according to tracking from the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.

Meat production, which had briefly tanked, quickly rebounded after the order to near pre-coronavirus levels and quelled consumer fears of pork, beef and poultry shortages.

But the number of coronavirus cases tied to meatpacking plants has more than doubled since then, topping 20,400 infections across 216 plants in 33 states, according to tracking from the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.

*At least 74 people have died. *

That's despite widespread implementation of protective measures like temperature checks, plastic barriers and social distancing meant to curb the virus' spread inside the plants. Some of the recent outbreaks happened at facilities that had taken such steps.

Tyson Foods, for example, announced in mid-April it was providing face masks to all employees and installing barriers between workers. Since then, 24 of its plants have reported outbreaks, including two in Iowa that sickened more than 800 workers total. The company had just five plants with outbreaks prior to the announcement of safety measures.

Likewise, Smithfield Foods said it was installing barriers, adding more hand sanitizing stations and "enhancing cleaning and disinfection" at its facilities after an outbreak at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant in early April. Since then, 11 of its plants have reported outbreaks, including one in southern California in late May. It had just one plant outbreak prior to the announcement of safety measures.

Other plants have implemented no protective measures or have failed to enforce them.

One federal meat inspector in the Midwest told USA TODAY that workers in several plants she visits on the job were not wearing masks and practiced only limited social distancing. Some, she said, had also recently tested positive for COVID-19.

"I'm thinking, 'Wow,' I don't think I'm safe here," said the inspector, who agreed to an interview on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media.

Even after informing a supervisor at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service about the lax conditions inside the plants, she said, she was told that as long as she had a mask, she had to work. Otherwise, she said, she was told she could use vacation time or take unpaid leave.

"I shouldn't be forced to not take pay or use my vacation, or take the chance of losing my life," she said.

Across the United States, some of the highest spikes in coronavirus cases recently occurred in counties with one or more meatpacking plants - Buena Vista County, Iowa; Beadle County, South Dakota; Yell County, Arkansas; and Titus County, Texas, for example. All saw their case counts more than double in the past two weeks, a USA TODAY data analysis found.

*'Callous disregard' for health*

Experts say Trump's executive order prioritized meat production over the lives of plant workers, many of whom are rural, immigrant and undocumented and who face already dangerous conditions for low wages.

"I think it's a callous disregard for the health, safety and even lives of the people who work for you," said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown professor and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National & Global Health Law. "Employers and government, including the president, hold a duty to every American to keep them safe, and there's a breach of that duty."

The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the effect of the executive order or the continued rise in COVID-19 cases across slaughterhouses and processing facilities.

Meatpacking industry officials said they're working with local and federal health officials to protect workers against the coronavirus and that the plants are safer today than they were at the time of the executive order.

"We strongly believe the safety measures we've put in place are helping to protect our team members and minimize the spread of the virus in the communities where we operate," said Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson.

Without the safety measures in place, the case counts might have been even higher, said KatieRose McCullough, director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the North American Meat Institute, an industry lobbying group.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, many times an adversary to major meatpacking companies, also vouched for the industry's efforts.

Mark Lauritsen, the union's director of food processing, meatpacking and manufacturing, said conditions at plants where the UFCW represents workers have almost "universally improved." That's particularly true, he said, in facilities that closed amid outbreaks to fully rework their processes before re-opening.

"It really gave us the opportunity to push these employers to take that down time to reengineer and increase the safety protocols," Lauritsen said. "An expansion of (personal protective equipment), enhanced sanitation, all of the other things we were pushing. Those things have all taken place."

"But I want to be clear," Lauristen said. "There's still a lot of work to be done."

Some worker protections, though, have started to roll back.

The USDA rescinded its policy that all at-risk inspectors can stay home, said Paula Schelling, acting president of the American Federation of Government Employee's Council 45, citing the workplace improvements that are supposed to take place under the CDC guidance.

Employees are now being provided masks, face shields and hand sanitizer, a USDA plan obtained by USA TODAY shows.

And Tyson recently reinstated a policy that effectively penalizes workers for taking sick leave, although the company said workers sick with COVID-19 or displaying symptoms were being asked to stay home and provided with short-term disability pay.

When asked why the plants continued to have outbreaks, Tyson's Mickelson declined to directly answer but instead said that no one "can say with certainty why COVID-19 affects different communities across the country at different times and in different ways."

*Order stopped a likely shutdown*

Experts argued Trump's order doesn't prevent state and local public health officials from shutting down plants, though it might have discouraged them.

That was certainly the case in St. Joseph, Missouri, where Trump's order was a "very important" part of the city's decision to leave a coronavirus-affected meatpacking plant open, the city's Director of Health Debra Bradley told USA TODAY.

In late April, Bradley and other city leaders debated whether they could close the local Triumph Foods pork processing plant amid numerous complaints that employees were forced to work while sick and a small but steady rise in coronavirus cases.

"Shut it down," St. Joseph Mayor Bill McMurray told city attorney Bryan Carter and others in an April 22 email obtained by USA TODAY. With nine cases at Triumph at the time, he pushed for the state to be notified.

"Given the other meatpacking plant problems around the country, I was just very concerned that we were going to grow to a huge number of cases," McMurray said in an interview.

But Carter said regulations granting local health officials the authority to close "places of public or private assembly" did not apply in a statewide pandemic, according to the emails. Only the state Department of Health and Senior Services could do so.

The next day, Bradley emailed local officials that the state Department of Health and Senior Services drafted a policy allowing local health authorities to close a business in a pandemic.

She added that DHSS Director Randall Williams "asked what Triumph's threshold was for closing and I told him that I don't think they intend to close."

Williams advised waiting on the results of some 2,800 tests the state sent to St. Joseph before deciding. And given the changes Triumph had made - including temperature checks and putting up barriers in the cafeteria - Bradley advised giving the plant time to act.

Trump's order on April 28 seemed to have stopped any such discussion, according to Bradley's emails. That day, Carter sent her a link to a CNN article about Trump's executive order. The article's headline: "Trump orders meat processing plants to stay open."

"You may have seen this already, but it looks like closing Triumph may not be an option," Carter wrote.

Two days later, DHSS announced that 126 Triumph employees had tested positive for coronavirus, including at least 92 who had no symptoms.

To date, 490 Triumph employees have contracted the virus. One of them, a 40-year-old man, has died. He had tested positive on April 22 - the day local officials began debating whether they could close the plant.

Triumph Foods has remained opened despite a Change.org petition with more than 7,000 signatures calling for its closure. It has not reported any new cases since May 15. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"It wasn't until we did the mass testing that we realized how widespread it was within the facility," Bradley told USA TODAY. "At that point, my staff was essentially saying that because it was so widespread that it wouldn't really necessarily make a difference whether it was closed or not. And because it is identified as a critical infrastructure facility, we just went ahead and left it open."

The executive order did not include a specific mandate for plants to remain open. It did, however, suggest some states needlessly closed plants in conflict with recent guidelines jointly issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those guidelines take priority over any state or local order to close, according to a statement released the same day by OSHA's lead agency, the U.S. Department of Labor.

Public health agencies face potential litigation if they try to close the plants, experts said. But many agreed that state and local health officials retain the authority to close them.

"What I think we can conclude is that the executive order is meant to add weight to the CDC and OSHA guidance, but it is just that - guidance," said Jill Krueger, Northern Region director for The Network for Public Health Law.

Working with plants is generally preferable to shutting them down because it lets public health officials put controls in place that they can't in workers' homes and communities, said Nathaniel Smith, director of the Arkansas Department of Health and president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

"We didn't close any down at the time because when it was kind of in vogue to close down we weren't really having any cases or not having very many cases," Smith said. "Now we're having lots of cases, but we're still not closing down. ... If we can make the work site safer, that's a major control point."

*Weakened guidelines*

At stake is worker safety. But the joint guidance issued by OSHA and the CDC and cited in Trump's executive order say plants must make only "good faith" efforts to keep workers safe.

"Modify the alignment of workstations, including along processing lines, if feasible, so that workers are at least six feet apart in all directions ... when possible," the guidelines stipulate.

A month later, it's unclear what, if any, impact the guidelines have had.

"They can say, 'Well we tried but it costs too much money,' then they're off the hook," Lauristen said. The guidelines "are as worthless as the copy paper they're printed on."

It's also unclear who's enforcing the joint guidance.

It's not federal food inspectors, said Schelling of the American Federation of Government Employee's Council 45, the union representing USDA inspectors.

Despite the government's official position that the joint guidelines should be in place at every plant, Schelling said regional supervisors and frontline employees have no power to ensure compliance.

"We have no regulation in place that we can hang our hat on that says, 'Plant, you need to put these controls in place,'" Schelling said. "You can have the conversation, but there's nothing enforceable that can be taken against the plant."

Officials from OSHA have previously said they can enforce the guidelines under a legal provision that employers have a general duty to provide safe working conditions. But it's unclear how rigorously the USDA follows up with plants to ensure changes have been made.

While Schelling agreed major companies like Smithfield and Tyson have largely improved their work spaces, smaller plants that employ a few dozen workers and have more limited resources have not.

"There's no social distancing," she said. "There's no PPE that the company employees are being mandated to wear."

The USDA issued letters to governors and major meatpacking companies on May 5 to set clear expectations for the implementation of the executive order, an agency spokesperson said in an email to USA TODAY.

"Since then," the spokesperson said, "the USDA has worked with the CDC and OSHA, state and local leaders and public health officials, and meat processing facilities to affirm they will operate in accordance with the CDC/OSHA guidance to keep these critical facilities open while maintaining worker safety."

But the industry's continued inability to prevent the spread of the virus points to an ineffectiveness of those guidelines, said Adam Pulver, an attorney at the watchdog group Public Citizen.

"It's certainly not like we're out of the woods and the problems have stopped - we're still seeing daily reports of outbreaks in plants," Pulver said. "The recommended precautions are not anywhere sufficient to really prevent transmission. The only real way to prevent transmission would require really significantly slowing down and reconfiguring the way these plants operate, spacing out workers in a way that they're just not willing to do."

sauce https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...wQ51zjI70tCzwO1BeKZa28Mc0bGwpoHsJbebrM3zNf0Mw


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

One has to wonder if it's in the animals themselves.

Sent from my moto g(6) forge using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^It's hard to say. Or it could be the inability to provide physical distance during work


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Tofu sales skyrocket amid covid-19 pandemic

Sales of tofu in the United States increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic according to data by market research firm Neilsen. During the four-week period ending on March 28, sales of tofu increased by 66.7 percent when compared to the same time period last year. As animal meat shortages set in due to slaughterhouse closures and subsequent supply chain disruptions, tofu sales were still up by 32.8 percent in May.

Several tofu producers confirmed to Bloomberg that sales spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, including Oakland, CA-based Hodo Foods; Japan-based House Foods, and South Korea-based Pulmuone (maker of Nasoya, Wildwood, and Azumaya brands)-which recently increased production to six days per week at three plants of its US plants to keep up with demand. Supermarkets have also seen tofu sales surge, including Kroger (which reported a 9 percent increase from mid-March to late May) and Wegmans (which nearly doubled its tofu sales during that period when compared to 2019).

Data released last month by trade group Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) and market research company SPINS further illustrates changing consumer buying habits amid COVID-19 pandemic. During the peak pandemic food-buying period in mid-March, sales of plant-based foods overall increased by 90 percent when compared to sales during the same time last year. In the four weeks that followed, plant-based food sales spiked by 27 percent, outpacing total retail food sales by 35 percent.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2020/6/tofu-sal...RtDhUqx-mIuoNh5vFs_2nEaBnrIE15PNWpazcshmik5IE


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It makes me so profoundly sad the way we treat animals.  Animals are banding together. Humans better beware.

*Humans don't like to see animals suffer. But we've never stopped the suffering.*









On Sept. 8, 1827, a group of American hotel entrepreneurs arranged for the Animal Boat, a leaky wooden craft carrying two bears, a bison, a fox, a raccoon, an eagle, a "vicious" dog, a cat and four geese, to go over Niagara Falls in a bizarre life-vs.-the-elements show. The animals, save for the hopeless eagle left chained to the deck, were released from their shackles at the last minute, presumably to give them a fighting chance. Except for the bears, who were spotted swimming safely to the Canadian bank of the Niagara River, none emerged alive as their boat was dashed to splinters.

The repulsive stunt, almost inconceivable to modern values, was a giant hit in its day, drawing enormous crowds that filled empty off-season restaurants and hotel beds. The overall positive public response of 1827 highlights a key conclusion in Boston University historian Andrew Robichaud's Animal City: The Domestication of America, one echoed in other recent explorations of the place of animals in the evolution of modern cities. By the 1870s, North Americans would have been just as appalled by the Animal Boat as their 21st-century descendants. Between the first third and the last quarter of the 19th century, a revolution in human-animal affairs unfolded in the continent's cities.

It was sweeping in its practical results, banishing from urban centres-and the public gaze-domestic animals and the trades that turn them into consumer products, and more subtle in its effects on social and individual attitudes. Contemporary North Americans remain the heirs of that revolution, and not just in our urban landscapes, which still bear the marks of areas set aside for animal industry-consider Toronto's Stockyards neighbourhood or San Francisco's Butcher Town. The great change-"post-domesticity," as scholars call it-also sank deep into our cultural DNA. It's still at the base of our concepts of how we should use and relate to animals, even as discoveries in animal science, rising trends in veganism and vegetarianism, and our almost literal adoption of pets into our families all herald a new development in contemporary thought.

In 1842, Charles Dickens wrote home to London about the sights of New York City's Broadway: smart shops, brilliantly dressed ladies and "two portly sows"-soon joined by "six gentlemen hogs"-strolling without notice among them. The British novelist went on to fill two pages with New York pig observations, but the porcine garbage cleaners were not the only animals to be found in Manhattan or other cities. Since the dawn of domestication, urban dwellers had reproduced country living as best they could, in order to feed themselves.

In what York University environmental historian Sean Kheraj calls the pre-industrial "pedestrian city," food sources needed to be close at hand. Kheraj, who takes his students on walks through the original heart of Toronto to show them "the different places in which animals were central to the political and economic life&#8230;in the early 19th century," begins at the St. Lawrence Market. "It's been market square in Toronto since before the city was incorporated," he says, "for decades the only place you could buy fresh produce and meat in a city where there were no automobiles or street railways. All of Toronto was within one-kilometre walking distance of the market-live any further away and you're a farmer." Toronto's first city hall was an outgrowth of the market, Kheraj points out, "because the market was the place where people had to gather &#8230; [and] go for food."

But an increasingly prosperous Victorian-era middle class began to object to the sights, sounds and smells of the animal world. They winced at the cruelties inflicted before their eyes, and their children's, on herds driven to slaughterhouses through the streets, at dogs pulling carts and at free-range pigs. They had new ideas about cemeteries and what was allowable in them; with Boston leading the way in 1830, grazing in graveyards-a traditional feedlot for the urban poor-was banned across the continent. Boston Common and other green spaces were also soon cleared of domestic animals, in accord with the emerging ethos of parks as places of refined leisure.

Meanwhile, working-class citizens, who lived in crowded conditions and increasingly earned their living outside the home, found it hard to care for large animals. Private ownership of pigs and cows plummeted, while urban chicken populations continued to rise into the 20th century. Powerful economic and social factors combined to drive the domestic animal industry to the urban fringes. "It was hard for 19th-century people to really imagine a world completely devoid of animal suffering," says Robichaud. They viewed their real-world, aesthetic and moral problems with the human-animal relationship "in practical terms, which was to say, they asked how can we minimize suffering." Getting it out of their faces was the effective answer.

The change happened in fits and starts, with unexpected twists. City households parted with their cows even as milk consumption began to climb. That meant people bought it from street sellers who obtained milk from the small urban dairies that sprang up before transportation from the countryside was feasible. Those dairies, in turn, made common cause with distilleries. The latter needed a way to dispose of their "swill," the mash of fibrous slush left over after whiskey was distilled, and the former needed cheap fodder. The thin, blue-tinged milk produced by swill dairies was regularly adulterated with anything from chalk to plaster of Paris to thicken and whiten it. American reformers like Sylvester Graham-who later had a cracker named after him-railed against the swillers. But it was only the development of efficient rail links to rural dairies that finally shut them down.

When railways completed the exodus of large food animals from the city, they simultaneously sparked an explosion in horse numbers. "People tend to assume that power sources are completely successional," says Robichaud, meaning the idea that mechanical power replaced muscle power in all fields of activity at the same time. "But there's a lag from steam to electricity and oil." Railways were bringing in vast food supplies-200,000 litres of milk daily to New York-but "once you get it into the depot, how do you bring it to the different stores across the city? Horses." By the start of the 20th century there were tens of thousands of horses in big cities, 100,000 in New York alone; almost all were gone by 1920, made obsolete by automobiles and electric trolleys.

The intricacies of the horse trade and the animals' effect on the urban environment is dramatically illustrated by the Great Epizootic of 1872. In September that year, horses in Toronto began coming down with a debilitating, although not fatal, variety of equine influenza. Within a year, as trains moved horses about for breeding or work purposes, the disease had spread from Canada as far as Central America. Horse-drawn public transport was severely disrupted, and city dwellers often had to pull their own carts-even the Apache Wars waged by the U.S. Cavalry saw several clashes take place on foot. "It was like the way the SARS outbreak was spread by air travel," says Kheraj, "a kind of precursor, even before the Spanish influenza of 1918, that showed how modern transport can connect populations of species across thousands of kilometres."

The urban ecology was also upended by the banishment of pigs: their competitors for city garbage, primarily rats and dogs-but in Toronto, which still bears the name Hogtown, raccoons, too-expanded their populations. Dogs were a special case: they were prize possessions for the wealthy, but there were also many strays in cities and consequent rabies outbreaks. In Toronto and Montreal, Kheraj says, "the police had campaigns of dog poisoning, and Winnipeg town records show the mayor complaining about being chased by dogs on his way to council meetings." But it is an extraordinary legal case in New York that best captures the uncertainties about dogs and, by extension, all animals.

Humane organizations appeared in both Canada and the U.S. in the wake of the American Civil War; the 1866 establishment of New York's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was followed three years later by the Montreal SPCA. Some of the SPCA's earliest actions were taken against animal pens and slaughterhouses, but as those trades moved to the outskirts, often beyond SPCA jurisdiction-and, as Robichaud notes, beyond the gaze of concerned citizens-their attention turned to creatures still found on city streets. The San Francisco SPCA's sole salaried employee packed a pistol and spent much of his time shooting suffering horses.

In 1874, a Manhattan lawyer angered by the sight in a shop window of a visibly distressed dog walking a treadmill that operated a cider press, laid a complaint with the SPCA. The society tried to settle the issue with its tried-and-true solution. Couldn't the dog and press be moved to the basement, out of sight? No, they couldn't, replied the owner-the dog was in the window "as a kind of advertising." In court, an eminent sportsman who later fought with the SPCA over the cruelties inherent in fox hunting testified that this sort of labour was unworthy of man's best friend. The case turned on what we would now call agency: could the dog stop labouring if he wished? No, he couldn't, it was decided, and the owner was found guilty of cruelty.

The agency issue rose to even greater prominence when the owner replaced the dog with a child, a boy of about eight, who looked to onlookers as exhausted as the dog. The SPCA was outraged by the act and even more outraged to learn neither it nor the city had any jurisdiction over "freely" contracted child labour. The first societies formed to combat the abuse and exploitation of children, in fact, postdate SPCAs by a decade. But the former were inspired by the latter: New York SPCA veteran Elbridge Gerry helped co-found the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, he said, because a child deserves "at least the rights of the cur in the street."

The cider press case, in all its eye-popping aspects, neatly captures the complexities of 19th-century thought on the rights of living beings. Yes, there was a genuine loathing of gratuitous cruelty to animals, but for city elites, the problem was primarily solved by shoving what was, and still is, seen as necessary exploitation into the shadows. In that regard, it's worth noting that the most potent weapon wielded by contemporary animal activists has always been imagery, from the bloodstained ice of the seal hunt to video smuggled out of abattoirs. In our evolving post-domestic relationship with animals, this much is certain: we can't stand to see them suffer.

Sauce https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada...-suffer-but-weve-never-stopped-the-suffering/


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

^really interesting article

It's really uncomfortable but I believe in the power of "show the carnage". Whether it's factory farms/slaughterhouses, police brutality, mass shootings, war casualties etc. Visual information gets an unfiltered connection to your brain - and an emotional response. I found a DVD of PETA's Meet Your Meat in college and never saw animal products the same way again. 

That's the same reason I believe in the power of activist art. It can slip ideas past the mind's defenses in ways intellectual arguments can't.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

HIDDEN is an unflinching book of photography about our conflict with non-human animals around the globe, as depicted through the lenses of thirty award-winning photojournalists. HIDDEN focuses on the invisible animals in our lives: those with whom we have a close relationship and yet fail to see. They are the animals we eat and wear. The animals we use for research, work, and for entertainment, as well as the animals we sacrifice in the name of tradition and religion. HIDDEN is a historical document, a memorial, and an indictment of what is and should never again be.

The stories within its pages are revelatory and brutal. They are proof of the emergency confronting animals globally, from industrial farming to climate change, and provide valuable insight into the relevance of animal suffering to human health.

https://weanimalsmedia.org/2020/05/04/announcing-hidden-animals-in-the-anthropocene/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> ^really interesting article
> 
> It's really uncomfortable but I believe in the power of "show the carnage". Whether it's factory farms/slaughterhouses, police brutality, mass shootings, war casualties etc. Visual information gets an unfiltered connection to your brain - and an emotional response. I found a DVD of PETA's Meet Your Meat in college and never saw animal products the same way again.
> 
> That's the same reason I believe in the power of activist art. It can slip ideas past the mind's defenses in ways intellectual arguments can't.


We share a similar experience that impacted our emotions and lives. As teenager I was impacted by images of the seal hunt and witnessing that act of cruelty on the news. The thought and sight of killing baby seals with a club (often in the presence of the mother) was what turned me against killing any animal for food or sport etc.

I did this acrylic water colour in 1980 around the time I did some volunteer work for Greenpeace


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why you should go animal-free: 18 arguments for eating meat debunked*

Whether you are concerned about your health, the environment or animal welfare, scientific evidence is piling up that meat-free diets are best. Millions of people in wealthy nations are already cutting back on animal products.

Of course livestock farmers and meat lovers are unsurprisingly fighting back and it can get confusing. Are avocados really worse than beef? What about bee-massacring almond production?

The coronavirus pandemic has added another ingredient to that mix. The rampant destruction of the natural world is seen as the root cause of diseases leaping into humans and is largely driven by farming expansion. The world's top biodiversity scientists say even more deadly pandemics will follow unless the ecological devastation is rapidly halted.

Food is also a vital part of our culture, while the affordability of food is an issue of social justice. So there isn't a single perfect diet. But the evidence is clear: whichever healthy and sustainable diet you choose, it is going to have much less red meat and dairy than today's standard western diets, and quite possibly none. That's for two basic reasons.

First, the over-consumption of meat is causing an epidemic of disease, with about $285bn spent every year around the world treating illness caused by eating red meat alone. Second, eating plants is simply a far more efficient use of the planet's stretched resources than feeding the plants to animals and then eating them. The global livestock herd and the grain it consumes takes up 83% of global farmland, but produces just 18% of food calories.

So what about all those arguments in favour of meat-eating and against vegan diets? Let's start with the big beef about red meat.

*Meaty matters

1) Claim:
Grass-fed beef is low carbon*
This is true only when compared to intensively-reared beef linked to forest destruction. The UK's National Farmers Union says UK beef has only half the emissions compared to the world average. But a lot of research shows grass-fed beef uses more land and produces more - or at best similar - emissions because grain is easier for cows to digest and intensively reared cows live shorter lives. Both factors mean less methane. Either way, the emissions from even the best beef are still many times that from beans and pulses.

There's more. If all the world's pasture lands were returned to natural vegetation, it would remove greenhouse gases equivalent to about 8 bn tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere, according to Joseph Poore at Oxford University. That's about 15% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. Only a small fraction of that pasture land would be needed to grow food crops to replace the lost beef. So overall, if tackling the climate crisis is your thing, then beef is not.

2) *Claim:
Cattle are actually neutral for climate, because methane is relatively short-lived greenhouse gas*

Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas and ruminants produce a lot of it. But it only remains in the atmosphere for a relatively short time: half is broken down in nine years. This leads some to argue that maintaining the global cattle herd at current levels - about 1 billion animals - is not heating the planet. The burping cows are just replacing the methane that breaks down as time goes by.

But this is simply "creative accounting", according to Pete Smith at the University of Aberdeen and Andrew Balmford at the University of Cambridge. We shouldn't argue that cattle farmers can continue to pollute just because they have done so in the past, they say: "We need to do more than just stand still." In fact, the short-lived nature of methane actually makes reducing livestock numbers a "particularly attractive target", given that we desperately need to cut greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

In any case, just focusing on methane doesn't make the rampant deforestation by cattle ranchers in South America go away. Even if you ignore methane completely, says Poore, animal products still produce more CO2 than plants. Even one proponent of the methane claim says: "I agree that intensive livestock farming is unsustainable."

*3) Claim:
In many places the only thing you can grow is grass for cattle and sheep*

NFU president, Minette Batters, says: "Sixty-five percent of British land is only suitable for grazing livestock and we have the right climate to produce high-quality red meat and dairy."

"But if everybody were to make the argument that 'our pastures are the best and should be used for grazing', then there would be no way to limit global warming," says Marco Springmann at the University of Oxford. His work shows that a transition to a predominantly plant-based flexitarian diet would free up both pasture and cropland.

The pasture could instead be used to grow trees and lock up carbon, provide land for rewilding and the restoration of nature, and growing bio-energy crops to displace fossil fuels. The crops no longer being fed to animals could instead become food for people, increasing a nation's self-sufficiency in grains.

4*) Claim:
Grazing cattle help store carbon from the atmosphere in the soil*

This is true. The problem is that even in the very best cases, this carbon storage offsets only 20%-60% of the total emissions from grazing cattle. "In other words, grazing livestock - even in a best-case scenario - are net contributors to the climate problem, as are all livestock," says Tara Garnett, also at the University of Oxford.

Furthermore, research shows this carbon storage reaches its limit in a few decades, while the problem of methane emissions continue. The stored carbon is also vulnerable - a change in land use or even a drought can see it released again. Proponents of "holistic grazing" to trap carbon are also criticised for unrealistic extrapolation of local results to global levels.

*5) Claim:
There is much more wildlife in pasture than in monoculture cropland*

That is probably true but misses the real point. A huge driver of the global wildlife crisis is the past and continuing destruction of natural habitat to create pasture for livestock. Herbivores do have an important role in ecosystems, but the high density of farmed herds means pasture is worse for wildlife than natural land. Eating less meat means less destruction of wild places and cutting meat significantly would also free up pasture and cropland that could be returned to nature. Furthermore, a third of all cropland is used to grow animal feed.

*6) Claim:
We need animals to convert feed into protein humans can eat*

There is no lack of protein, despite the claims. In rich nations, people commonly eat 30-50% more protein than they need. All protein needs can easily be met from plant-based sources, such as beans, lentils, nuts and whole grains.

But animals can play a role in some parts of Africa and Asia where, in India for example, waste from grain production can feed cattle that produce milk. In the rest of the world, where much of cropland that could be used to feed people is actually used to feed animals, a cut in meat eating is still needed for agriculture to be sustainable.

*7) 'What about &#8230;?'
Claim:
What about soya milk and tofu that is destroying the Amazon?*

It's not. Well over 96% of soy from the Amazon region is fed to cows, pigs and chickens eaten around the world, according to data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, says Poore. Furthermore, 97% of Brazilian soy is genetically modified, which is banned for human consumption in many countries and is rarely used to make tofu and soya milk in any case.

Soya milk also has much smaller emissions and land and water use than cow's milk. If you are worried about the Amazon, not eating meat remains your best bet.

*8) Claim:
Almond milk production is massacring bees and turning land into desert*

Some almond production may well cause environmental problems. But that is because rising demand has driven rapid intensification in specific places, like California, which could be addressed with proper regulation. It is nothing to do with what almonds need to grow. Traditional almond production in Southern Europe uses no irrigation at all. It is also perhaps worth noting that the bees that die in California are not wild, but raised by farmers like six-legged livestock.

Like soya milk, almond milk still has lower carbon emissions and land and water use than cow's milk. But if you are still worried, there are plenty of alternatives, with oat milk usually coming out with the lowest environmental footprint.

*9) Claim:
Avocados are causing droughts in places*

Again, the problem here is the rapid growth of production in specific regions that lack prudent controls on water use, like Peru and Chile. Avocados generate three times less emissions than chicken, four times less than pork, and 20 times less than beef.

If you are still worried about avocados, you can of course choose not to eat them. But it's not a reason to eat meat instead, which has a much bigger water and deforestation footprint.

The market is likely to solve the problem, as the high demand from consumers for avocados and almonds incentivises farmers elsewhere to grow the crops, thereby alleviating the pressure on current production hotspots.

*10) Claim:
Quinoa boom is harming poor farmers in Peru and Bolivia*

Quinoa is an amazing food and has seen a boom. But the idea that this took food from the mouths of poor farmers is wrong. "The claim that rising quinoa prices were hurting those who had traditionally produced and consumed it is patently false," said researchers who studied the issue.

Quinoa was never a staple food, representing just a few percent of the food budget for these people. The quinoa boom has had no effect on their nutrition. The boom also significantly boosted the farmers' income.

There is an issue with falling soil quality, as the land is worked harder. But quinoa is now planted in China, India and Nepal, as well as in the US and Canada, easing the burden. The researchers are more worried now about the loss of income for South American farmers as the quinoa supply rises and the price falls.

*11) Claim:
What about palm oil destroying rainforests and orangutans?*

Palm oil plantations have indeed led to terrible deforestation. But that is an issue for everybody, not only vegans: it's in about half of all products on supermarket shelves, both food and toiletries. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature argues that choosing sustainably produced palm oil is actually positive, because other oil crops take up more land.

But Poore says: "We are abandoning millions of acres a year of oilseed land around the world, including rapeseed and sunflower fields in the former Soviet regions, and traditional olive plantations." Making better use of this land would be preferable to using palm oil, he says.

*12) Healthy questions
Claim:
Vegans don't get enough B12, making them stupid*

A vegan diet is generally very healthy, but doctors have warned about the potential lack of B12, an important vitamin for brain function that is found in meat, eggs and cows' milk. This is easily remedied by taking a supplement.

However, a closer look reveals some surprises. B12 is made by bacteria in soil and the guts of animals, and free-range livestock ingest the B12 as they graze and peck the ground. But most livestock are not free-range, and pesticides and antibiotics widely used on farms kill the B12-producing bugs. The result is that most B12 supplements - 90% according to one source - are fed to livestock, not people.

So there's a choice here between taking a B12 supplement yourself, or eating an animal that has been given the supplement. Algae are a plant-based source of B12, although the degree of bio-availability is not settled yet. It is also worth noting that a significant number of non-vegans are B12 deficient, especially older people. Among vegans the figure is only about 10%.

*13) Claim:
Plant-based alternatives to meat are really unhealthy*

The rapid rise of the plant-based burger has prompted some to criticise them as ultra-processed junk food. A plant-based burger could be unhealthier if the salt levels are very high, says Springmann, but it is most likely to still be healthier than a meat burger when all nutritional factors are considered, particularly fibre. Furthermore, replacing a beef burger with a plant-based alternative is certain to be less damaging to the environment.

There is certainly a strong argument to be made that overall we eat far too much processed food, but that applies just as much to meat eaters as to vegetarians and vegans. And given that most people are unlikely to give up their burgers and sausages any time, the plant-based options are a useful alternative.

*14) 'Catching out' vegans
Claim:
Fruit and vegetables aren't vegan because they rely on animal manure as fertiliser*

Most vegans would say it's just silly to say fruit and veg are animal products and plenty are produced without animal dung. In any case there is no reason for horticulture to rely on manure at all. Synthetic fertiliser is easily made from the nitrogen in the air and there is plenty of organic fertiliser available if we chose to use it more widely in the form of human faeces. Over application of fertiliser does cause water pollution problems in many parts of the world. But that applies to both synthetic fertiliser and manure and results from bad management.

*15) Claim:
Vegan diets kill millions of insects*

Piers Morgan is among those railing against "hypocrite" vegans because commercially kept bees die while pollinating almonds and avocados and combine harvesters "create mass murder of bugs" and small mammals while bringing in the grain harvest. But almost everyone eats these foods, not just vegans.

It is true that insects are in a terrible decline across the planet. But the biggest drivers of this are the destruction of wild habitat, largely for meat production, and widespread pesticide use. If it is insects that you are really worried about, then eating a plant-based organic diet is the option to choose.

*16) Claim:
Telling people to eat less meat and dairy is denying vital nutrition to the world's poorest*

A "planetary health diet" published by scientists to meet both global health and environmental needs was criticised by journalist Joanna Blythman: "When ideologues living in affluent countries pressurise poor countries to eschew animal foods and go plant-based, they are displaying crass insensitivity, and a colonial White Saviour mindset."

In fact, says Springmann, who was part of the team behind the planetary health diet, it would improve nutritional intake in all regions, including poorer regions where starchy foods currently dominate diets. The big cuts in meat and dairy are needed in rich nations. In other parts of the world, many healthy, traditional diets are already low in animal products.

*17) On the road
Claim:
Transport emissions mean that eating plants from all over the world is much worse than local meat and dairy*

"'Eating local' is a recommendation you hear often [but] is one of the most misguided pieces of advice," says Hannah Ritchie, at the University of Oxford. "Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation make up a very small amount of the emissions from food and what you eat is far more important than where your food traveled from."

Beef and lamb have many times the carbon footprint of most other foods, she says. So whether the meat is produced locally or shipped from the other side of the world, plants will still have much lower carbon footprints. Transport emissions for beef are about 0.5% of the total and for lamb it's 2%.

The reason for this is that almost all food transported long distances is carried by ships, which can accommodate huge loads and are therefore fairly efficient. For example, the shipping emissions for avocados crossing the Atlantic are about 8% of their total footprint. Air freight does of course result in high emissions, but very little food is transported this way; it accounts for just 0.16% of food miles.

*18) Claim:
All the farmers who raise livestock would be unemployed if the world went meat-fr*ee

Livestock farming is massively subsidised with taxpayers money around the world - unlike vegetables and fruit. That money could be used to support more sustainable foods such as beans and nuts instead, and to pay for other valuable services, such as capturing carbon in woodlands and wetlands, restoring wildlife, cleaning water and reducing flood risks. Shouldn't your taxes be used to provide public goods rather than harms?

So, food is complicated. But however much we might wish to continue farming and eating as we do today, the evidence is crystal clear that consuming less meat and more plants is very good for both our health and the planet. The fact that some plant crops have problems is not a reason to eat meat instead.

In the end, you will choose what you eat. If you want to eat healthily and sustainably, you don't have to stop eating meat and dairy altogether. The planetary health diet allows for a beef burger, some fish and an egg each week, and a glass of milk or some cheese each day.

Food writer Michael Pollan foreshadowed the planetary health diet in 2008 with a simple seven-word rule: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." But if you want to have the maximum impact on fighting the climate and wildlife crisis, then it is going to be all plants.

SAUCE https://www.theguardian.com/environ...2AmRK0aA2MRUg0V-UenLNTjqf0oMP6lo9n1wSJ0DBJR7I


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> I did this acrylic water colour in 1980 around the time I did some volunteer work for Greenpeace
> 
> View attachment 1342679


Oh cool, thanks for sharing that! Sad but beautiful.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Pandemics result from destruction of nature, say UN and WHO*

Pandemics such as coronavirus are the result of humanity's destruction of nature, according to leaders at the UN, WHO and WWF International, and the world has been ignoring this stark reality for decades.

The illegal and unsustainable wildlife trade as well as the devastation of forests and other wild places were still the driving forces behind the increasing number of diseases leaping from wildlife to humans, the leaders told the Guardian.

They are calling for a green and healthy recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular by reforming destructive farming and unsustainable diets.

A WWF report, also published on Wednesday, warns: "The risk of a new [wildlife-to-human] disease emerging in the future is higher than ever, with the potential to wreak havoc on health, economies and global security."

WWF's head in the UK said post-Brexit trade deals that fail to protect nature would leave Britain "complicit in increasing the risk of the next pandemic".

High-level figures have issued a series of warnings since March, with the world's leading biodiversity experts saying even more deadly disease outbreaks are likely in future unless the rampant destruction of the natural world is rapidly halted.

Earlier in June, the UN environment chief and a leading economist said Covid-19 was an "SOS signal for the human enterprise" and that current economic thinking did not recognise that human wealth depends on nature's health.

"We have seen many diseases emerge over the years, such as Zika, Aids, Sars and Ebola and they all originated from animal populations under conditions of severe environmental pressures," said Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, head of the UN convention on biological diversity, Maria Neira, the World Health Organization director for environment and health, and Marco Lambertini, head of WWF International, in the Guardian article.

With coronavirus, "these outbreaks are manifestations of our dangerously unbalanced relationship with nature", they said. "They all illustrate that our own destructive behaviour towards nature is endangering our own health - a stark reality we've been collectively ignoring for decades.

"Worryingly, while Covid-19 has given us yet another reason to protect and preserve nature, we have seen the reverse take place. From the Greater Mekong, to the Amazon and Madagascar, alarming reports have emerged of increased poaching, illegal logging and forest fires, while many countries are engaging in hasty environmental rollbacks and cuts in funding for conservation. This all comes at a time when we need it most.

"We must embrace a just, healthy and green recovery and kickstart a wider transformation towards a model that values nature as the foundation for a healthy society. Not doing so, and instead attempting to save money by neglecting environmental protection, health systems, and social safety nets, has already proven to be a false economy. The bill will be paid many times over."

The WWF report concludes the key drivers for diseases that move from wild animals to humans are the destruction of nature, the intensification of agriculture and livestock production, as well as the trading and consumption of high-risk wildlife.

The report urges all governments to introduce and enforce laws to eliminate the destruction of nature from supply chains of goods and on the public to make their diets more sustainable.

Beef, palm oil and soy are among the commodities frequently linked to deforestation and scientists have said avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way for people to reduce their environmental impact on the planet.

Tanya Steele, the head of WWF UK, said the post-Brexit trade deals must protect nature: "We cannot be complicit in increasing the risk of the next pandemic. We need strong legislation and trade deals that stop us importing food that is the result of rampant deforestation or whose production ignores poor welfare and environmental standards in producer countries. The government has a golden opportunity to make transformative, world-leading change happen."

The WWF report said 60-70% of the new diseases that have emerged in humans since 1990 came from wildlife. Over the same period, 178m hectares of forest have been cleared, equivalent to more than seven times the area of the UK.

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...h1pCxFwkwz_jrNVaXuLnMmbRtovpIoCP0IU_WTcn92qhs


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## bobokat (Jun 21, 2020)

cyclelicious said:


> *Vegan Indian Food: A Guide to Cooking & Dining Out*
> 
> Finding reliably vegan Indian food is tricky, which is a surprising situation for the world's most vegetarian-friendly cuisine. But no worries-in this guide we'll dive deep into Indian cooking to uncover some of the most delicious vegan foods you'll ever taste.
> 
> ...


Thank you for the article, I largely agree with you. I have a friend who moved to us from India, where Hinduism is closely connected with their cuisine and food. It is essentially a part of religion. Their food and seasonings are amazing, some of which my friend uses for treatment. I learned some principles from him and using. It is very exciting to learn a new and unusual culture.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Great speaker. Informative presentation re vegan/plant based nutrition and athletes


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Some supplements are beneficial. Although vitamins and minerals are found in the foods we eat, a little extra helps. Magnesium and curcumin supplements can ease join pain. I take a little magnesium at night, and I find that it helps relax my body too. I also take a B12, D (for bones) and iron (I've had a past issue with low hgb and taking iron has kept my blood counts normal)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Re Pamela Popper's presentation:

While I don't disagree with her eat less more often (ELMO) advice, the 5-6 meals she recommends typically doesn't fit many lifestyles. It's important to note that she means well rounded small meals, not snacks. Most people will find it difficult to adhere to this 

There is some advantage in fasting (not for long periods but once in a while), but there is also advantage in eating. Who knows. For weight loss, I think fasting is probably better. For performance, probably ELMO is better.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

The Yulin dog meat festival is underway in China.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why meat processing plants have become Covid-19 hotbeds*

In the picturesque market town of Llangefni on the Welsh island of Anglesey, almost all the shops are closed and the town is empty amid the ongoing lockdown.

The local Aldi and Lidl stores are being avoided by locals due to their proximity to the 2 Sisters poultry processing plant that was forced to close down after an outbreak of coronavirus. Two hundred workers have since tested positive for Covid-19.

The concern felt by those who know workers at the plant is common. Some told CNN that nobody stayed home when they felt sick in the early days of the outbreak, as they would only receive statutory sick pay worth around 20% of their salary. 2 Sisters denied that their sick pay policy had anything to do with the outbreak.

This outbreak took place in just one of many factories that have seen serious outbreaks of Covid-19 across the world in recent months. In Cleckheaton, northern England, 165 workers tested positive for Covid-19 at the Kober meat factory. And in Germany, authorities were forced to quarantine 360,000 people this week after an outbreak in a meat plant in Guetersloh in the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia. In the United States, dozens of food processing facilities had to suspend operations over the disease earlier this year.

There have been so many outbreaks in meat packing factories around the world that scientists are now examining whether the environment inside the plants could be part of the problem.
"We can all speculate, but I think there are three things that pop up: these people work very, very closely together, it's cold in there and it's humid," said Dr. Thomas Kamradt, an immunologist and professor at the University Hospital at Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany.

*Cold and wet environment*
A number of scientists have suggested that the cold, humid environment inside the plants could help the virus spread. "These animal cadavers have to be sprayed with water all the time, so you have aerosols, and it's cold ... it is something that definitely deserves very thorough investigation," Kamradt said.
Without fresh air and direct sunlight, the novel coronavirus can linger for hours, or even days, scientists have said. Studies have shown the virus can survive for up to three days on plastic and stainless steel surfaces, materials that are common in food processing plants. In aerosol form, it can remain viable and infectious for hours.
Rowland Kao, a professor of veterinary epidemiology and data science at the University of Edinburgh, also pointed out that experiments have show that low temperatures result in higher rates of transmission of influenza and improve the survival of other coronaviruses such as MERS. "While this is not proven for Covid-19, similar mechanisms may apply," he told the Science Media Center.

*Essential workers packed in close quarters*
Most experts say that social distancing and mask wearing are by far the most effective ways to avoid spreading the virus. But keeping a distance is not always possible in a factory setting.
James Wood, a professor at Cambridge Infectious Diseases, a research center at the University of Cambridge, said the epidemics inside food processing plants are likely caused by a combination of factors "that can make them lethal."

"People have to stand close to each other and shout to make themselves heard ... you have people working long shifts close to each other, all those things magnify the risk of infection," he said.
Shouting, singing and speaking loudly is thought to release more virus-laden droplets into the air. Crucially, people can spread the virus unknowingly, without feeling sick.

Factory floors packed with workers standing shoulder to shoulder aren't unique to the food processing industry. What is unique though, is that unlike car assembly lines and plane factories, these plants remained opened for business, even when social distancing wasn't possible. They play an essential role in the food supply and shutting many of them at the same time would lead to food shortages and force farmers to euthanize their animals. In the US, President Donald Trump even issued an executive order forcing meat plants to open.

*Vulnerable communities*
The outbreaks in meat plants have impacted vulnerable communities, including migrants. Jobs in the food processing plants are notoriously hard and among the lowest paid, which often makes it difficult for employers to find local staff.
"They're not very popular places to work, so often you end up with migrants or foreign workers living in large communities around the plants and so you've got transmission potential that goes on outside the plant as well as in the plant itself," Wood said.

A large proportion of workers in the industry are often foreign-born and come from a number of countries. More than two-thirds of the 75,000 workers employed in meat processing in the UK are migrant workers from elsewhere in Europe, according to the British Meat Processing Association. In the US, immigrants make nearly 30% of all meat-packing plants workers. In Germany, it's around a third.

Paddy McNaught, the regional officer for the labor union Unite in Wales, said workers in the industry often don't receive sick pay, another factor that could lead to outbreaks. "So when you're in a situation like this, when you're on low pay, you have very little spare income, you're more likely to take a risk and go to work when you have a temperature, rather than take the time off and isolate for 14 days," he said. The industry must ensure workers have enough protection to be able to take time off without suffering financially, he added.

sauce https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/27/heal...DgB5IpOLr6U63NeQ1uiz8RZQm18BGkHCnfMhBBSAQsO84


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A questionable cucumber


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Ed Winters aka Earthling Ed is a really great communicator on animal rights and I've been listening to his podcast on my commutes lately. This one is an interview with photojournalist Jo-anne McArthur, the woman behind We Animals Media and the upcoming book HIDDEN I posted about above.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We have so many reasons to eliminate meat. "A single live animal market in China- where an infectious coronavirus appears to have passed to humans, sickened millions, killed hundreds of thousands, and wrecked economic havoc not seen since the Great Depression." Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Interesting theory... still related to animal

*Exclusive: Covid-19 may not have originated in China, Oxford University expert believes*



> Senior CEBM tutor Dr Tom Jefferson believes many viruses lie dormant throughout the globe and emerge when conditions are favourable


Coronavirus may have lain dormant across the world and emerged when the environmental conditions were right for it to thrive rather than starting in China, an Oxford University expert believes.

Dr Tom Jefferson, senior associate tutor at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM), at Oxford and a visiting professor at Newcastle University, argues there is growing evidence that the virus was elsewhere before it emerged in Asia.

Last week, Spanish virologists announced that they had found traces of the disease in samples of waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before coronavirus was seen in China.

Italian scientists have also found evidence of coronavirus in sewage samples in Milan and Turin in mid-December, many weeks before the first case was detected, while experts have found evidence of traces in Brazil in November.

Dr Jefferson believes many viruses lie dormant throughout the globe and emerge when conditions are favourable, which also means they can vanish as quickly as they arrive.

"Where did Sars 1 go? It's just disappeared," he said. "So we have to think about these things. We need to start researching the ecology of the virus, understanding how it originates and mutates.

"I think the virus was already here - here meaning everywhere. We may be seeing a dormant virus that has been activated by environmental conditions.

"There was a case in the Falkland Islands in early February. Now where did that come from? There was a cruise ship that went from South Georgia to Buenos Aires, and the passengers were screened and then on day eight, when they started sailing towards the Weddell Sea, they got the first case. Was it in prepared food that was defrosted and activated?

"Strange things like this happened with Spanish Flu. In 1918, around 30 per cent of the population of Western Samoa died of Spanish Flu, and they hadn't had any communication with the outside world.

"The explanation for this could only be that these agents don't come or go anywhere. They are always here and something ignites them, maybe human density or environmental conditions, and this is what we should be looking for."

Dr Jefferson believes the virus may be transmitted through the sewage system or shared toilet facilities, not just through droplets expelled by talking, coughing and sneezing.

Writing in The Telegraph, Dr Jefferson and Professor Carl Henegehan, director of the CEBM, call for an in-depth investigation similar to that carried out by John Snow in 1854 to show that cholera was spreading in London from an infected well in Soho.

Exploring why so many outbreaks happen at food factories and meat-packing plants could uncover major new transmission routes, they believe. It may be shared toilet facilities, coupled with cool conditions, that allow the virus to thrive.

"We're doing a living review, extracting environmental conditions, the ecology of these viruses which has been grossly understudied," said Dr Jefferson.

"There is quite a lot of evidence that huge amounts of the virus were in sewage all over the place, and an increasing amount of evidence there is faecal transmission. There is a high concentration where sewage is four degrees, which is the ideal temperature for it to be stabled and presumably activated. And meat-packing plants are often at four degrees.

*"These meat-packing clusters and isolated outbreaks don't fit with respiratory theory, they fit with people who haven't washed their hands properly. *

"These outbreaks need to be investigated properly with people on the ground one by one. You need to do what John Snow did. You question people and you start constructing hypotheses that fit the facts, not the other way around."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...LtRLtyLX5aX61RApDBvs9wpJ3g5s_nP6e7nU5jTGmT65M


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Identical Twins Discuss Their Experiment Comparing Vegan And Omni Diets

A pair of identical twins who trialed vegan and meat-based diets - revealing some interesting results - discussed their experiment in a recent episode of PCRM's podcast.

Ross and Hugo Turner - aka 'the adventure guinea pigs' - made headlines earlier this Summer after trialing the diets over 12 weeks between January and March this year. Ross Turner followed the meaty diet, with Hugo going plant-based throughout.

*Experiment*
The twins consumed a very similar number of calories, both eating meals prepared by food delivery service Mindful Chef, and both did five or six sessions of endurance training each week, where they lifted the same weights, for the same number of reps.

Researchers from King's College monitored the twins, tracking metrics like muscle mass and weight, as well as cholesterol throughout the experiment.

According to Men's Health, following the experiment, Ross' cholesterol stayed the same at 6.5 (which he described as 'quite high') and Hugo's (vegan diet) went down to 4.9. When it comes to body composition, Hugo lost 1kg of fat and gained 1.2kg of muscle mass, while Ross gained 2.8kg of fat and 4kg of muscle mass.






*Podcast*
The Turners appeared on the Physician's Committee's podcast The Exam Room to share more about the experiment, discussing it with host Chuck Carroll, revealing that they tossed a coin to decide who would try what diet.

According to Ross Turner, he was disappointed not to be the twin testing out a plant-based diet. He explained: "I was a little gutted that I didn't get the vegan [diet] because you watch all these documentaries on Netflix, in particular, The Game Changers...and so I really wanted to feel the effects of what truly going vegan is - I've never done a truly vegan diet."

Hugo Turner said his immediate thought was that he would drop a lot of weight, as he believed 'vegans can't get all the calories as they need because they are not eating meat and dairy'. He added that he thought his energy levels would be low and his motivation to work out would be low too - however this was not the case.

*Energy*
The twins went straight from what they described as indulgent diets over the Christmas diet period, with lots of drinking, into their new plans. Hugo described this abrupt transition as 'very difficult' for the first two weeks.

"But after those two weeks went past and suddenly your body realizes what's happening and it's adjusting, then I suddenly had a load more energy and a hell of a lot more energy all throughout the days.

"So on my usual diet, I would feel tired in the afternoon - maybe that's my snacking style - but I definitely feel tired and you get a lot more peaks and troughs. But on the vegan diet, my energy levels leveled off and, I'd have a lot more energy going to the gym. I felt a lot more motivated for that...it was really impressive the amount of energy you can get just from plants."

sauce https://www.plantbasednews.org/life...CvAha6LRnroGs2OhGCE 1ALvagg2ElKFVt8vFUJ4aoJ0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

We did a evening urban ride (it was grossly hot and humid ). We stopped by a new local business that sold microgreens, local products like jams, pickles and frozen treats. We wore masks inside. We tried the raspberry sorbet. We ate it curbside. It was delightful!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

LEGENDARY PLANT-BASED BOXER MIKE TYSON, 54, RETURNS TO THE RING









Boxer Mike Tyson, 54, is returning to the boxing ring for the first time in 15 years. The plant-based athlete will compete in an eight-round exhibition match against 51-year-old former boxing champion Roy Jones Jr. on September 12 at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, CA. The event, which will also feature live musical performances, will air on pay-per-view and social media channel Triller.

At age 20, Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion in history in 1986 and went on to have a lucrative, albeit controversial, boxing career until 2005 when he retired after losing to Irish boxer Kevin McBride. In 2010, Tyson-who had a habit of eating steak prior to fights-adopted a plant-based diet in an effort to alleviate health issues associated with drug use.

"Well my life is different today because I have stability in my life. I'm not on drugs. I'm not out on the streets or in clubs and everything I do now is structured around the development of my life and my family," Tyson told Oprah in 2013. "I lost weight. I dropped over 100 pounds and I just felt like changing my life, doing something different, and I became a vegan."

Last year, Tyson reaffirmed his commitment to veganism to GQ Sports. "I don't eat anything that has a mother and father. If you were created through a mother and father, through any kind of intercourse, I won't eat you," Tyson said. "So that means I only eat vegetables and stuff."

This week, Tyson launched Legends Only League, a new venture that helps older legendary athletes return to the sports at which they excelled.

https://vegnews.com/2020/7/legendar...2J-E4b6kSJZkjikOaHORkzlj8WP6DMc9wz62nkeK3u_tU


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Mushrooms and bone health.

This will be of interest to mushroom lovers and those seeking bone health. Chris and I love eating, photographing and picking wild mushrooms! And we love the outdoors ?

I understand if you're confused as to why these two are linked. So bear with me.

A key factor in bone function, including the risk of bone stress injuries, is vitamin D. It's integral to bone health and bone remodelling. Approx 10% of Canadian's are vitamin D deficient (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-624-x/2013001/article/11727-eng.htm) and the main sources of intervention that are advised are usually sun exposure and supplements. It can also be a conundrum to be both sun smart and get enough vitamin D.

This is where mushrooms come in. A brand new systematic review by Blumfield et al., which was shared with me and a few others has found that eating just 5 UV exposed mushrooms can give you your daily required dose of vitamin D.
In order to boost the vitamin D levels in the mushrooms, you need to have them sitting in direct sunlight for 15-60 minutes. If refrigerated, they stay vitamin D boosted for up to 8 days. So once a week, tan your mushrooms for an hour and your bones will thank you for it. UV exposed mushrooms have been shown to be as effective in increasing Vit D levels as taking supplements.

There are many other health benefits of mushrooms highlighted in the study. I've just decided to focus on this one.
Reference: (https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien...NkQFWU3GNmj2s03Lv_T2JHUQeshsqOx_fK9lag5WRWwKE) Examining the health effects and bioactive components in Agarius bisporus mushrooms: a scoping review.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

What a great concept.










"Most animal photography has a cloying cuteness or a reflected sense of what humans want animals to be, so the fact that Leshko's photographs reframe the interaction, in essence giving the animals the opportunity to tell their own stories for once, makes her pictures stand out. By respectfully showing us the beauty and dignity to be found in aging animals of all kinds, she has offered us humans both a measure of guilt at how we have treated them and an encouragement to forward-looking advocacy on their behalf. Her compassionate, gentle, well-crafted portraits remind us that we can do better for these animals, if we only take a moment to see them as sentient, feeling individuals."

https://www.isaleshko.com/allowed-to-grow-old-book


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ This is beautiful!









^ This is sad
Sauce: https://www.aussiefarms.org.au/kb/48-age-animals-slaughtered


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan food company provokes with M*** F*** advertising campaign









A vegan food company is sparing no blushes with what it calls a "light-hearted" advertising campaign to encourage more Britons to avoid eating meat.

Meatless Farm says it is targeting people who have cut down on bangers and burgers during lockdown with its provocative slogan M*** F***, launched on Monday with a national campaign.

The words will appear on TV and radio adverts, electric cars, social media and supermarket packaging.

The Leeds-based brand, which claims that its meat-free or fake burgers, mince and sausages (made from pea protein) taste and look like the real thing - is seeking to build on huge growth in the UK, and as shoppers' interest in plant-based alternatives has risen during lockdown.;;

It says sales have nearly tripled - up by 179% year on year according to the market research company Nielsen - driven by health, environment and welfare reasons, and as more than a third of Britons say they have eaten more plant-based food while confined to their homes. Now it wants to emphasise the versatility of meat alternatives.

According to Nielsen, Meatless Farm is the fastest growing UK brand in a sector that is seeing annual growth of about 10%. Global demand for plant-based protein - dominated by the US giants Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat - is predicted to be £4.1bn this year, from £2.9bn in 2015.

Michael Hunter, Meatless Farm's chief growth officer, said: "Throughout lockdown we've seen a surge in sales, with more and more Brits trying or considering making the swap to plant-based, even if it is just once a week.

"We felt the nation needed a bit of a lift as it's been a tough time for everyone, so more than ever we wanted to create something light-hearted and fun that consumers would remember when they are looking for
alternatives to meat."

The £1.5m campaign is the biggest advertising yet by the company, which was launched in 2016. Its products are on sale through Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Asda - and online via Ocado - as well as through restaurants and pubs via partnerships with Brakes, Itsu, Woods Foodservice and Wadworth.

The M*** F*** campaign is a step change for the brand, which has built a following on social media and is now aiming to grow its market share by targeting former meat eaters who made the swap during lockdown. It will be supported by print advertising, branded electric cars driving through London, billboards, bus signs and a radio ad. A TV ad will appear on Channel 4 throughout August and September.

As well as provoking with its suggestion of offensive language, the move is bound to ruffle the feathers of livestock farmers, whose businesses have been hard hit by Covid-19. The closure of restaurants and pubs in March disrupted the supply chain, leaving many with surplus cuts of steak and roasting joints that they struggled to sell.

Helen Browning, chief executive of the Soil Association, said: "It's easy to target all meat with the same brush, but it's important to recognise that there is a big difference between meat produced to ethical standards and the cheap and nasty stuff that comes from very intensive livestock systems. We urge that people should eat less meat, but eat high-welfare, sustainably produced meat when they do."

Stuart Roberts, deputy president of the National Farmers' Union, commented: "In Britain, our farmers are already leading the way in climate-friendly food production and we have the ambition to be even better, working towards net zero agriculture by 2040. We would never dream of telling anyone what they can and cannot eat. But if you want to eat quality, nutritious red meat as part of a healthy, balanced diet and be confident that it's been sustainably produced, buying British is a great place to start."

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it would investigate complaints about "decency" after the campaign's launch In August 2004, the clothing chain French Connection dropped the infamous FCUK logo from its advertising after years of complaints and censures from watchdogs.

Last year, millions of pounds were wiped off the value of the exercise bike firm Peloton after a backlash against a Christmas advert derided as "sexist and dystopian". In March, the ASA banned a series of "scaremongering" ads for face masks that it said played on fears about the coronavirus.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...yQEgNlE0ajE8dTp_qkbg1AegSFIRuWcFj6LcSfYeTCR1I


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Everything at the grocery store is getting more expensive

New York (CNN Business)Grocery prices have skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic. That has Americans spending more at the supermarket than they have in years.

Prices are spiking - and not just because people are buying more groceries as they spend more time at home.
The pandemic has had a strong impact on grocery prices this year, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The BEA tracks personal consumption expenditures to help measure inflation.

From February to June, meat and poultry prices rose nearly 11%, with beef and veal prices seeing the highest rise, spiking 20%. For pork the increase was about 8.5%. People are paying more for other staples, too: During the same time period, egg prices shot up 10%, and shoppers shelled out 4% more for cereals and fresh vegetables.

The pandemic has caused a surge in demand for groceries as millions of Americans stay home and avoid eating out. While there's no significant shortage of food, disruptions in the supply chain have created scarcities and driven up prices.









The meat supply chain has been hit particularly hard. Major meat processors closed their doors when workers fell ill and have slowed operations to accommodate new safety practices, tightening the country's supply. Things aren't back to normal yet.

During a recent call with analysts discussing third-quarter financial results, Tyson (TSN) CEO Noel White said that some of the company's facilities "continue to operate at decreased production levels."

The higher expenditures come at a time when many Americans are struggling financially.

On Thursday, the Department of Labor will release data that is expected to show that another 1.4 million workers filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, which is similar to the prior week's statistics. Meanwhile, unemployed Americans are losing a financial lifeline, as the government's weekly $600 boost to regular jobless benefits ran out on July 31.

Food insecurity in particular is a growing problem. Nearly 30 million out of 249 million respondents told the US Census Bureau they did not have enough to eat at some point in the week before July 21 - the highest number of people reporting insufficient food since the Census started tracking that data in early May.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/busi...Se-YrxVd36dG7HB4Rq79-RLOmruj3vdNOghBcb1aaxwAg


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Sweet Potatoes*

Sweet Potatoes are an incredibly nutritious food that are packed with antioxidants like beta carotene, vitamins C, E & D, and minerals such as manganese and iron. They are also high in potassium which helps to lower blood pressure by removing excess sodium and regulating fluid balance in the body. Sweet potatoes are an excellent anti-stress food and are known to help relax muscles, steady nerves, and balance cognitive function.

They are also one of the best anti-cancer foods and can particularly help to prevent breast, colon, lung, skin, and oral cancers. Sweet potatoes are known for being easy to digest and are very good for ulcers, inflamed colons, digestive disorders, and constipation. Sweet potatoes contain compounds called phytochelatins that can bind to heavy metals such as lead, mercury, copper, & cadmium and safely remove them through the body.

Mothers have even given children who have accidentally swallowed a metallic object such as a coin, plenty of sweet potato so that it will stick to the object and allow it to pass through easier. The health benefits of sweet potatoes are the most bioavailable when eaten raw, steamed, or baked.

Try making a simple fat-free sweet potato soup by steaming sweet potatoes until soft and then placing in a blender or food processor and blend until creamy smooth. Spices such as cloves, cinnamon, ginger, chili pepper, or curry can be added for a flavor and nutritional boost.

Baked sweet potatoes can be stored in the refrigerator and later sliced over a fresh green salad for a hearty lunch or dinner. Sweet potatoes are also delicious mashed with a drizzle of olive oil, coconut butter, or avocado. Sweet potatoes are a comforting, satisfying, and very healing food, consider finding more ways to include them into your diet.

https://www.medicalmedium.com/blog/...0ISFhmKcCNRaHHODY9bp8TsCqgMM_fnyD_UrQ_25eovDE


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

More Than a Pest: 8 Edible Weeds and Their Nutritional Uses

Weeds have a pretty bad rep; we spray and pull them out of the earth when perhaps we should have been eating and using them for medicine all along.

It's hard to see past these invasive pests but it's all about shifting our perspective, says Ellery Hawkes co-owner of Simon Steeps. "Get curious about the dandelion and understand that it's medicine and the perfect survival food."

Ellery and her partner Simon imbue wild herbs and weeds in their organic tea blends, which creates a bridge between store-bought and venturing into your backyard to pluck something wild. Their goal is to get people examining labels, questioning what's inside and realizing that it's the weeds we've been picking out that are making us feel this good within.

This beginner's mindset is what got me thinking about the flora in my own backyard, and I couldn't believe how many edible-and often times medicinal-weeds have been rooted right beneath my feet.

Let's get curious together and dive into what may be hiding in your lawn, just waiting to be discovered.

Before getting started









Within the limits of curiosity, it's important be accurate when it comes to harvesting weeds. Many wild plants have dangerous doppelgängers, so it's best to keep an identifying app or trusty book (like The Wild Wisdom of Weeds) on hand. Or better yet, venture out with a well-versed mentor.

Another thing to consider? If you're foraging in a park or wild area, make sure the area hasn't been sprayed with toxic, weed-ridding pesticides.

*Dandelions*
Most of us have heard of this weed being edible, but did you know that every part of it is? The leaves and flowers are great in soups and salads, whereas the roots can be used in herbal teas or coffees. Dandelion has a history of treating liver problems, kidney disease and is great for heartburn, appendicitis, as a diuretic and appetite stimulant.

*Yarrow*
Alternately known as Soldier's Wound Wort, yarrow can be used as an ointment for wounds. If you chew on it, it can relieve a toothache. When steeped as a tea, yarrow can reduce the effects of a cold. Be careful with this one as it's tricky twin is the poison hemlock.

*Wild onion & garlic*
You'll recognize this one for its familiar fragrant smell. Just like its store-bought counterpart, wild onion and garlic share the same antibacterial, antibiotic, antiseptic and antifungal properties, and have been known to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, as well. They can be found in clumps throughout lawns, standing taller than other weeds or grass.

*Purslane*
This pesky weed grows in all of your empty garden spots, but it turns out it has beautiful benefits of its own. You can find omega-3, fatty acids, magnesium, calcium and potassium packed in this small-but-mighty weed.

*Plantain*
Once known as "white man's foot" by the Indigenous community, this weed grows almost everywhere. Not only does it make a nice spinach substitute and contain as much Vitamin A as a large carrot, it can be used to treat sore throats, cold symptoms, treat fevers and stimulate cellular growth. Plantain can also heal bug bites, poison ivy or the burn from stinging nettle. All you have to do is chew on it for 10 seconds until the juices are released and rub it directly on the sting or bite.

*Stinging nettle*
Do not pick this one with bare hands! Wear gloves and cover your arms while picking stinging nettle (for obvious reasons) and be sure to cook or dry the plant to neutralize the sting. Once that's done, it is one of the most nutritious wild edibles, containing Vitamins A, B2, C, D, K, antioxidants, amino acids, chlorophyll, calcium, potassium, iodine, and if you can believe it-more!

*Red clover*
Red clover has a long history as a useful medicinal weed and is popular for its anti-inflammatory properties. It's a great source of food for bees and insects, and in humans it can regulate hormonal imbalances, anxiety, muscle spasms and coughs.

*
Violets*
Not only are they beautiful and mild tasting-making them easy to eat raw or cooked- but violets can treat insomnia, nervousness, urinary problems, digestion issues, and congestion. These pretty purples do have laxative qualities though, so go easy.

*
More resources*
Aside from health benefits, there are so many levels to harvesting and using weeds for medicinal purposes. Weeds empower you to nourish and heal yourself, they ground you to the land and connect you with the energy of these resilient plants.

So, the next time you're thinking about pulling and tossing that weed, stop to think about which benefits you're throwing away.

For more foraging references, visit wildedible.com.

sauce https://www.environment911.org/More...Mc5XvOGE2wVjv0LAMIU3eXxoZUPviIKHwCG01K7TluqSA


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Plant-based diet: Food Fact Sheet*

People choose a plant-based diet for a variety of reasons including concern about the treatment of animals, health reasons, environmental concerns or because of taste and social pressure. Plant-based diets are becoming more popular and if they are wellplanned, can support healthy living at every age and life-stage.

*Types of plant-based diets include:*

*Lacto-ovo vegetarians* - eat dairy foods and eggs but not meat, poultry or seafood.

*Ovo-vegetarians *- include eggs but avoid all other animal foods, including dairy.

*Lacto-vegetarians* - eat dairy foods but exclude eggs, meat, poultry and seafood.

*Vegans* - don't eat any animal products at all, including honey, dairy and eggs. Many shop bought ready-made products may contain animal ingredients so the labels of all manufactured products do need to be read carefully.

*Variations of plant-based diets include:*
Pescetarians - eat fish and/or shellfish.
Semi-vegetarians (or flexitarians) - occasionally eat meat or poultry.

*Eating for optimum health*
Diets centred on a wide variety of plant foods offer affordable, tasty and nutritious options. Plant-based diets which are rich in beans, nuts, seeds, fruit and vegetables, wholegrains such as oats, rice, and cerealbased foods such as breads, and pasta can provide all the nutrients needed for good health. This includes essential fats, protein, vitamins, minerals and plenty of fibre too.

Well balanced plant-based diets, that are also low in saturated fat, can help you manage your weight and may reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers. However, as with any diet, plant-based nutrition needs to be planned.

Most nutrients are abundantly available in plant-based diets, but if you are avoiding all or minimising your consumption of animal-derived foods there are a few nutrients that you need to pay attention to.

*Calcium*
Calcium is essential for bone health, along with weightbearing exercise and a healthy diet. An adult requires approximately 700mg per day. Dairy foods are rich in calcium but if you are not eating these make sure you obtain calcium from other sources like fortified plantbased dairy alternatives, dried fruit e.g. figs, nuts such as almonds, leafy green vegetables, red kidney beans, sesame seeds, tahini and tofu to lower your risk of bone fractures.

*Omega 3 fatty acids*
These fats have been shown to be important for health and are commonly found in oily fish. However if you are not eating fish, plant sources of omega 3 include walnuts, flax (linseed), hemp seeds, chia seeds and soya beans. Oils such as hemp, rapeseed and flaxseed oil provide essential omega 3 fats and are preferable to corn/sunflower oils.

*Vitamin D*
Vitamin D is needed to keep bones, teeth and muscles healthy and is made in our bodies when our skin is exposed to appropriate sunlight. In the UK this is usually between April and September. During the winter months, we need to get vitamin D from our diet because the sun isn't strong enough for the body to make it. Plant-based sources of vitamin D include sun-exposed mushrooms and fortified foods such as vegetable spreads, breakfast cereals and plantbased dairy alternatives.

Since it's difficult to get enough vitamin D from food alone, everyone should consider taking a daily supplement of 10mcg/ day during the autumn and winter months. Some vitamin D supplements are not suitable for vegans. Vitamin D2 and lichen-derived vitamin D3 are suitable. Find out more about this in our Vitamin D Food Fact Sheet.

*Iodine*
The major sources of iodine in our diet are dairy products and fish. The iodine content of plant foods depends on the iodine content of the soil which is variable. Foods grown closer to the ocean tend to be higher in iodine. Where soils are iodine deficient, iodised salt and seaweed provide iodine which is needed in moderation.

As the iodine content of seaweed is variable, and sometimes too high, guidance is not to consume sea vegetables more than once a week. An excess of iodine is also unhealthy so if you are taking a supplement, discuss this with your dietitian. Find out more in our Iodine Food Fact Sheet

*Vitamin B12*
We need vitamin B12 for many reasons. Too little can result in fatigue, anaemia and nerve damage and increase homocysteine levels leading to cardiovascular disease. Most people get vitamin B12 by eating animal products. If you are eliminating all animal derived foods, the only reliable sources of vitamin B12 are fortified foods and supplements. Suitable B12-fortified foods include some breakfast cereals, yeast extracts, soya yoghurts and non-dairy milks.

To make sure you get enough vitamin B12, either eat fortified foods at least twice a day, aiming for 3mcg of vitamin B12 a day, or take a supplement, 10mcg daily or at least 2000mcg weekly. If you are worried whether you are obtaining sufficient vitamin B12, a dietitian can calculate your intake from food/supplements or a doctor can check your blood homocysteine levels.
*
Iron*
Plant sources of iron include dried fruits, wholegrains, nuts, green leafy vegetables, seeds and pulses. The form of iron in plant foods is absorbed far less efficiently compared to iron from animal derived sources such as meat and eggs. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C to help the iron to be absorbed e.g. citrus fruits, strawberries, green leafy vegetables and peppers.
*
Zinc*
Phytates found in plant foods such as wholegrains and beans reduce zinc absorption, so it's important to eat good sources of zinc-containing foods. Eat fermented soya such as tempeh and miso; beans (soak dried beans then rinse before cooking to increase zinc absorption); wholegrains; nuts; seeds and some fortified breakfast cereals.

*Selenium*
Plant sources of this mineral include grains, seeds and nuts. Just two brazil nuts daily will provide you with your daily requirement of selenium

*Protein*
Plant-based sources of protein include lentils, beans, chickpeas, seeds, nuts and nut butters (e.g. peanut butter), and tofu. Eggs, and dairy are also good sources if you are eating these. Meat substitutes like vegetarian burgers, soya sausages, and other meat alternatives can be useful for those adapting to a plant-based diet and can provide a source of protein. However as with any processed foods, these can often be high in salt and fat so should be used in moderation. These products may contain animal ingredients such as eggs, milk derivatives and honey so careful label reading is necessary if you wish to follow a vegan diet.
*
Sustainable eating*
In the UK, it is estimated that well-planned completely plant-based, or vegan, diets need just one third of the fertile land, fresh water and energy of the typical British 'meat-and-dairy' based diet. With meat and dairy being the leading contributor to greenhouse (GHG) emissions, reducing animal based foods and choosing a wide range of plant foods can be beneficial to the planet and our health.

*Summary*
Well-planned plant-based diets can support healthy living at every age and life-stage. Include a wide variety of healthy whole foods to ensure your diet is balanced and sustainable.

sauce https://www.bda.uk.com/resource/pla...AZNfiRGOAxApKAxo0umXzvzB4WrCsG76gtiVuyPZQcG0Q


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Fresh northern Ontario wild blueberries purchased from the pickers. Awesome good :thumbsup:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

And it's vegan


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*'We can't blame animals': how human pathogens are making their way into vulnerable wildlife*

For 13 years now, scientist Michelle Power has been grabbing samples of human waste and animal poop from Antarctica to Australia to try and answer a vital question.

Has the bacteria in humans that has grown resistant to antibiotics - an issue considered to be one of the world's greatest health challenges - made its way into wildlife?

The answer, it seems, is a resounding yes.

"I don't think there's been an animal where we haven't found it," says Power, an associate professor at Macquarie University in Sydney.

The sorts of animals Power has chosen to look at most live close to humans or are urbanised - like possums - or animals that spend time with humans either in wildlife care facilities or in conservation breeding programs.

So far, Power says she has found evidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in about a dozen animals, including bats, penguins, sea lions and wallabies.

"You have organisms moving from us, to animals, and then potentially back to us again," she says. "At the moment it's hard to track what's coming back and forth, but we know humans have driven this emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria."

Power's work on the issue started in 2007 when she looked at faeces samples of endangered brush-tailed rock wallabies being raised in captivity in New South Wales as part of conservation efforts.

About half the wallabies had antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their faeces. Those animals were released back into the wild.

In late 2009, Power fulfilled a romantic 20-year-old dream of travelling to Antarctica to do scientific research. The rather less romantic goal was to sample the human sewage from a research station there, and to "sneak up behind penguins and seals" and take their poo.









But again, her findings revealed that bacteria from humans was making its way into the Antarctic wilderness, including antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Between 2017 and 2019, Power's scientific colleagues together with wildlife carers have collected 448 poo samples from the little penguins of Philip Island and St Kilda, and from the penguins in zoos (one method to collect samples from wild penguins is to leave a piece of card near the entry to a nesting box because, Power says, they "like to poo out the door").

Almost half the little penguins in captivity have antibiotic-resistant bacteria, compared with 3% of the wild population.









Power has also been part of an ongoing citizen science project encouraging others to do the faeces collecting - this time, asking for the secretions of possums.

After analysing abut 1,800 samples so far, Power says the Scoop a Poop project has shown about 29% of Australia's brush-tailed possums are carrying antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

In 2019, Power was part of a study that found antibiotic resistance in grey-headed flying foxes - a species listed as vulnerable.

In research yet to be published, Power says she has found evidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in wild populations of Tasmanian devils.

So how did our bacteria get into the animals?

Power says about three-quarters of the antibiotics that humans take are actually excreted, ending up in wastewater systems. Places where antibiotics are manufactured are also potential avenues for escape of antibiotics.

And then there are the times when animals are taken into care, or raised in captivity and exposed to humans, and then released into the wild.

"We are seeing a variation in the prevalence [of antibiotic-resistant bacteria] across different wildlife species but why that is the case, we are not sure," Power says.









Possums are a species that are highly urbanised, sometimes feed on the ground, and live and eat close to humans - close enough that many find homes in the roof space of Australian houses. But they tend to be solitary.

Flying foxes on the other hand hang around in trees in tightly packed camps that can run into the thousands. About 5% of wild grey-headed flying foxes had antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their excretions, compared with 40% of those in care facilities.

Power says: "Maybe the possums are getting closer to our organisms, but also they're solitary species. Flying foxes on the other hand live up in trees but live in higher densities."

According to the World Health Organisation, the emergence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics is one of the world's greatest health challenges facing humans, making treatment of dangerous diseases ever more challenging.

But the impact of this bacteria on wildlife, Power says, "is the big unknown" and she says there's no direct evidence yet that it's doing harm.









She says: "The gene transfer of endemic bacteria could alter microbial communities and know more and more each day about the significance of friendly microbes to healthy immunity."

Dr Wayne Boardman is a wildlife veterinarian at the University of Adelaide and the former head vet at London Zoo who has been collaborating with Power on research.

One big concern Boardman holds is that the antibiotic resistance could make it harder for vets to care for sick animals.

But also, he says, the bacteria and the genes associated with them that are being passed from humans to animals could then evolve and come back into the human population.

"It's in the bacteria's interest to try and protect themselves," he says. "Whilst the risks are relatively small, they could be compounded over the years because we have more of these antimicrobial resistant genes occurring and then we get further and further into the mire.

"It's a human induced issue. We can't blame the animals. It's only humans using antibiotics."

Prof Clare McArthur, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Sydney, says Power has answered the first important question - are human bacteria being passed into our wildlife?

"The next questions is, does it matter," she says. "I think of this from a gut perspective. We know that the gut biome is important and we know from humans that if you tweak it then things can go pear shaped in terms of our health.

"In the back of my mind is the question - if they're picking up antibiotic-resistant bacteria, is that altering their gut biome? We don't have an answer for that yet."

As for Power, she's worried that wildlife picking up human pathogens could be another pressure on species already vulnerable.

"These bacteria are pathogens and they can cause diseases in us. I'm worried about wildlife health and what some of these resistant bacteria might mean for wildlife species, many of which are already vulnerable."

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/environ...qhMXz9WwZpGEAOqI7lBkgTUG_tRR6dG5QPAbkF_J9TSQ0


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## 00212655456167nnn (Aug 16, 2020)

صورة محمد العرش المشرف المجموعات الواتساب









تم الإرسال من SM-A107F باستخدام Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What is the best way to cook vegetables to maximize their nutritional value?*

*THE QUESTION*
*I WANT TO IMPROVE MY DIET. HOW SHOULD I COOK VEGETABLES TO KEEP THEIR VITAMINS?*

It's almost salad season, and this year I have vowed to improve my diet by eating far more vegetables in a variety of salads. But I'd like a variety of raw and roasted or otherwise cooked vegetables for a mix of textures and flavours. Are raw vegetables always healthier? Do all cooking methods destroy vitamins? What is the best way to cook vegetables to maximize their nutritional value?

*THE ANSWER
STEAM, DON'T BOIL: TO GET THE MAXIMUM NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS, YOU NEED TO COOK VEGETABLES CORRECTLY*

"Eat more vegetables" is long-standing advice for a healthy diet - and for good reason. A diet high in vegetables has been tied to a lower risk of high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, cataracts, macular degeneration, cognitive decline and digestive-tract cancers. Thanks to their protective mix of vitamins, minerals, fibre and phytochemicals, vegetables are thought to help dampen inflammation, fend off harmful free radicals and boost immunity.

To reap their maximum nutritional benefits, though, you need to cook them right.

While all cooking methods alter the nutrient composition of vegetables (and fruits), some destroy particular nutrients while others actually enhance nutrient content.

*VULNERABLE VITAMINS*

Vitamin C and many of the B vitamins are the most unstable nutrients when it comes to cooking. Because they're water-soluble, they leach out of vegetables into the cooking water. If you boil your vegetables or microwave using too much water, you'll end up with less thiamine, folate, vitamin B6, vitamin B12 and a lot less vitamin C.

According to a review by researchers at the University of California, Davis, as much as 55 per cent of the vitamin C in vegetables is lost during home cooking (compared with raw). Vitamin C is also easily degraded by heat.

Polyphenols - phytochemicals plentiful in kale, spinach and broccoli - are also susceptible to degradation during cooking.

Fat-soluble nutrients such as vitamins A, E and K are more stable and fare better during cooking. So do carotenoids (e.g., beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lycopene, lutein), antioxidants found in leafy greens, carrots, winter squash, sweet potato and, in the case of lycopene, tomatoes.

*DOES MICROWAVING VEGETABLES DESTROY NUTRIENTS?*

Water is the enemy when it comes to nutrient losses during cooking. That's why steaming is one of the best methods to preserve easily damaged nutrients, such as vitamin C and many B vitamins. Since vegetables don't come in contact with cooking water during steaming, more vitamins are retained.

Dry cooking methods such as grilling, roasting and stir-frying also retain a greater amount of nutrients than boiling. If you prefer to boil your vegetables, save the nutrient-rich cooking water to add to soups and sauces.

Contrary to popular belief, microwaving does not kill nutrients in vegetables. In fact, it may outrank steaming when it comes to retaining antioxidants.

A 2009 report in the Journal of Food Science found that compared with boiling, pressure cooking and baking, microwave cooking helped maintain the highest levels of antioxidants in beans, beets, artichoke, asparagus, garlic, onion and spinach. Microwave cooking increased antioxidant activity in eggplant, corn, peppers and Swiss chard. On the other hand, boiling and pressure cooking led to the greatest antioxidant losses.

Cornell researchers found that spinach retained nearly all of its folate when microwaved but lost most of the B vitamin when boiled on the stove.

Microwave ovens use less heat than many other cooking methods and involve shorter cooking times. If you use a minimal amount of water and don't overcook your vegetables, microwave cooking is a nutritional win. (A 2003 study concluded that microwaving destroyed most of the antioxidants in broccoli - but the researchers had added far too much water.)

*ARE RAW VEGETABLES HEALTHIER THAN COOKED?*

Many people think raw vegetables are more nutritious than cooked, but that's not the case. Cooking vegetables breaks down the plants' cell walls, releasing more of the nutrients bound to those cell walls. Cooked vegetables supply more antioxidants, including beta-carotene, lutein and lycopene, than they do when raw.

Cooked vegetables also deliver more minerals. Spinach, beet greens and Swiss chard are high in calcium, but a compound called oxalic acid binds with calcium. Heating releases bound calcium, making more of the mineral available for the body to absorb. Cooking vegetables also increases the amount of magnesium and iron that are available to the body.

Even so, in some cases vegetables may be better for you raw than cooked. Cruciferous vegetables - cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy, Brussels sprouts - contain an enzyme called myrosinase, which, when you chop or chew these vegetables, converts glucosinolates (phytochemicals) to anti-cancer compounds called isothiocyanates.

The problem: Myrosinase is easily destroyed by heat. Cooking cruciferous vegetables reduces the conversion of glucosinolates to their active isothiocyanates, which may reduce their cancer-fighting potential.

According to research published in 2009, steaming led to the lowest loss of glucosinolates in broccoli while stir-frying and boiling (both higher-heat cooking methods) caused the greatest loss.
*
ARE FROZEN VEGETABLES LESS NUTRITIOUS?*

Cooking isn't the only way vegetables can lose nutrients. Before fresh vegetables reach your steamer basket or microwave, some of their nutritional value can be degraded during the time they're transported to a distribution centre, displayed in the grocery store and stored in your crisper. When possible, buy produce from farmers' markets to reduce the time from harvest to table.

*When vegetables are out of season, consider frozen.*

Frozen vegetables closely match the nutrient content of their freshly picked counterparts because they're flash-frozen at peak ripeness, a time when they're most nutrient-packed. (Vegetables that are shipped to the produce section of grocery stores are usually picked before they are ripe, giving them less time to develop their full nutritional potential.)

The bottom line: No one cooking method will preserve 100 per cent of the nutrients and protective phytochemicals in vegetables. So don't limit yourself to one cooking method or eating only salad.

Eat your vegetables roasted, grilled, steamed, boiled in a soup, microwaved and raw. Enjoy them fresh (locally grown when possible) and frozen. The more variety you have, the more likely you are to eat them. And that's the whole point.

sauce https://www.theglobeandmail.com/lif...TpE-SaijgyKtHiPlziNWkP1FKgLUFScxVLLDJMZJmbqc0


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Judy, you really deserve a trophy or something for all of the quality information that you regularly post here. Always good stuff! Thanks for all of your great efforts!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thank you C2L  I'll only post the good stuff :thumbsup:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*A Gang Of Runaway Cows Just Took Over An Ontario Neighbourhood*









Officers had a pretty unusual start to the day on Wednesday when a herd of runaway cows in Ontario decided to go on an adventure.

OPP East Region said that the cattle took off from their home and made their way into the village of Russell, where they made a pit stop on someone's lawn.

The cops remained in the area until their owner came and got them. Those troublemakers definitely got grounded!

Cows have caused trouble in Ontario before. Last year, a herd of them got loose and somehow found their way onto Highway 401.

Last fall, York Regional Police had a field day tweeting puns about runaway farm animals on roadways.

Leave it to cows to cause udder chaos in Ontario.

https://www.narcity.com/news/ca/on/...gy-4sYE1PGtIthoK-VRDIItdX-mLrVTLSx5bn6UsXFCkE


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's been almost 7 years since I went from vegetarian to vegan. I've experienced the benefits of the change. I seen the benefits of plant based foods as fuel and noticed since I've taken up running over the past 4 years I've progressed from 1km runs to finishing my first marathon this year. This is another article that talks about plants for fuel for endurance athletes and a good source of info for those contemplating plant based, those who train hard but need an alternate fuel source , or looking for a change in their body, or mental aspect or are even semi vegan ie flexitarian  and the list goes on

*Ultimate Guide for Plant Based Endurance Athletes*

A plant based diet is to be responsible in what you eat--this means choosing your food carefully, and not just opting for junk food. It's very important to do your research and find out which are the key food products that you need to eat regularly if you want to do this correctly and in a healthy way.

More and more people-regardless of if they're athletes or not-are choosing to eat a plant based diet. The reasons range widely, and vary from person to person-but the main reasons that people choose a plant-based diet are: the animal suffering and the animal product industry as a whole; the effect that production of animal products has on climate change; for the personal health benefits; or just to try something new.

Before going deep into the nuances of a plant-based diet, it's important to mention that not eating anything from animal sources (i.e. being a vegan or vegetarian) doesn't necessarily mean you're following a plant-based diet. That's because nowadays, there are a lot of products out there that label themselves as vegan but are full of chemicals or artificial things that are really not the core of a plant based diet. The idea is to find products that come from a natural source and that are ideally grown with a sustainable approach.

For the same reasons mentioned above, it's important to realize that the main focus of starting (or maintaining) a plant based diet is to be responsible in what you eat-this means choosing your food carefully, and not just opting for junk food. It's very important to do your research and find out which are the key food products that you need to eat regularly if you want to do this correctly and in a healthy way.

Before we go into the common misconceptions-and concerns-about going full-on into a plant based diet, let's talk about its benefits and if it makes sense for you as an endurance athlete.

*A plant based diet can help us with:*

Lowering our overall body fat percentage and lowering concentrations of lipids in your blood flood.
Help oxygenate our tissues.
Increase our chances of having full glycogen stores in our bodies (in other words, we have more "fuel in the tank.")
Overall decrease our general inflammation.
Create more antioxidants in our bodies

Let's break each of these benefits down and go a little more in-depth with each one.

*Fat*

A plant based diet can help us lower our body fat percentage, which is not only good for our cardiovascular system, but also, it can be a direct benefit for our performance as endurance athletes.

This reduction in body fat comes from the overall lower percentage of fat and high fiber content in all of the vegetables and fruits you eat in a plant based diet. And the good thing is that you don't need to eat less food overall to achieve this-so there is no actual calorie restriction to see the benefits of this.

You need to be aware that you may not see this change in body fat by looking at your scale every week. It's key to remember that more important than your weight itself is the composition and balance of your body in terms of muscle, fat, and everything else.

Finally, a lower body fat percentage has been shown in studies to increase your aerobic capacity, which as you already know, is one of the most important things for us as endurance athletes.

When talking about lowering the amount of lipids in our blood, it's worth mentioning that as plants in general have a very low percentage of fat and no cholesterol, a plant-based diet makes our blood more fluid. In turn, this helps promote good blood flow which is also a key aspect for us as endurance athletes because it promotes faster recovery after our hard workouts or long races.

*Carbs*

I bet if you've been doing sports for a while-especially endurance sports-you already know the importance of carbs in our diet, right?

We know that the popular keto diet was the new big thing for many endurance athletes-but not even Ultra Runners who eat a keto diet can skip carbs completely if they want to perform and run for a long period of time. So that pretty much sums up the importance of carbs in our diet, especially for endurance athletes. Of course being more fat adapted overall can help you reduce the amount of carbs you will need to perform as you want, but there's no denying that carbs are a key element in any athlete's diet.

In that regard, a plant based diet is by nature big on carbs (and we're talking about the "good" carbs, not the empty calories that you can find in sugar/artificial stuff) so if you do it properly, you can always be confident that you will have your "glycogen reserves" full. As you probably already know, these glycogen reserves are what power you through a normal training-or of course, races or longer challenges when having our reserves at full is a must if you don't want to hit "the wall" or bonk in the middle.

*Antioxidants*

Nowadays, there's a lot of talk about antioxidants and why they are important to have in your regular diet. So, what are antioxidants?

Well first, it's important to understand that every time that we move, our organism creates a series of chemical reactions that not only generate the components that we need to keep moving, but also generate some metabolic waste that we need to get rid of if we want to continue moving. And one kind of this metabolic waste are the so-called "free radicals" that are generated within our body every time we use our muscles.

When our body is not able to get rid of this metabolic waste on time, we generate an oxidant stress in our body&#8230;which eventually ends up producing fatigue that may directly affect our performance as ultrarunners. Another negative consequence of this oxidant stress is that it can affect our ability to recover after hard workouts or long efforts.

So those are basically things that we really don't want to happen as endurance athletes, right?

Well, the good thing is that one of the easiest ways of fighting this oxidant stress in our bodies is to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, and guess which diet has tons of that? Yep, that's right. A plant based diet (done properly) has all the food that we need to increase our levels of Vitamin C, beta carotene, anthocyanins, licopens and more which help us fight these "free radicals" on a daily basis.

So now that you know that, even if you're not into going full Plant Based mode, it's always a good idea to incorporate more fruits and vegetables (of all the colors possible-"eat the rainbow" is a good way to think about it!) into your daily diet..especially if you're an endurance athlete.

*Inflammation*

It's already well-known that doing any kind of sport with consistency can help you maintain better health in multiple-ways: fighting things like obesity, diabetes and other metabolic syndromes&#8230;.but if you've been running for a while, you probably also know that running is HARD on our bodies.

Inflammation of multiple kinds is a very common thing for trail and ultrarunners. Whether you have been doing this for a long time or if you're new to the sport, chances are you've already experienced some sort of injury or overall sensation of body inflammation, especially after hard workouts or longer sustained efforts on the trail. (If you think "nope," what about: running some long downhills, and then feeling your quads burning for a couple of days afterwards. Ring a bell for you?)

A plant based diet can be one of the best overall strategies to try to reduce inflammation which result from running and hard training. How? Well, because of the antioxidant properties we find in many of the foods that you eat naturally on this diet-and also because, if done correctly, you should be eating very little "bad fat" which is inflammatory.

There have been some studies that have shown that some very specific foods can help us deal with post-run inflammation and overall soreness, so take note: eating cherries, pomegranate seeds, blueberries, blackberries and even watermelon are great in fighting running inflammation!

*Myths and overall things to watch out for when switching fully to a plant-based diet*

Ok, so now that you know all the goodness behind a plant based diet, it's time to address the "protein" elephant in the room and the overall things that you need to be careful of if you want to do this the right way.

You probably know the big concern surrounding this diet, right? Protein, protein, protein&#8230;yep.

Who here hasn't heard:

"You're not going to be able to have enough protein without animal sources"

"It's important to eat a lot of protein if you do sport"

"Animal protein is not the same quality as plant protein"

&#8230;and so on.

Well, let's talk about it.

*Protein*.

So the rule of thumb for sporty people or athletes is to consume between 1-2 grams of protein for every kilo of weight. (This means, if you weigh 70 kilos your daily protein intake should be anywhere between 70 to 140 grams per day).

And doing that on a plant based diet is super achievable. Really. There's no secret behind it. It's that simple&#8230;on a plant based diet you can achieve those number easily if you eat the proper foods.

There have been studies comparing omnivore, vegetarian and vegan diets to see if they can all achieve their required protein intakes for the day&#8230;and guess what? All three of them are able to easily meet their requirements. So just to set the record straight and bust the myth: yes, you can achieve your daily intake levels of protein if you're on a plant based diet. Period.

If you're really worried about the amount of protein you feel you need on a daily basis, the recommendation is to incorporate more legumes and overall cereals into your diet. If you do this every day of the week-not just once or twice a week, but every day-it should be easy to bump up your protein levels.

So you're probably wondering: which foods are we talking about here? Well, every legume like lentils, chickpeas and beans (red beans should be higher up on your list if you are worried about protein.) You can also try adding in some tofu or tempeh too if you feel like mixing it up.

After all that, if you're still worried about meeting your protein intake needs, you can also incorporate one protein shake for after those big, hard days of training. The usual shakes and protein powders for those on a plant based diet are made from: peas, rice or soy&#8230;and as long as you check the ingredients of the product (remember, try to avoid artificial preservatives and sweeteners if you want to do the plant based diet right) you should be all set.

Well, that's it for protein-related stuff.

Now, lastly, here are some final things that you may want to read before you decide to try out a plant based diet.

*Micronutrients*

Even though all the foods that you eat on a plant-based diet are full of rich nutrients and good stuff for your body, it's also important to acknowledge that if you're into endurance sport, it is always VERY important to go and do a blood test and check with your doctor to track your overall levels and to see if you may need some supplements or not.

Imbalances may not even be the result of your diet, but can often pop up as a result of lots of hard training, too.

With that being said, as a plant-based diet athlete myself, I've put together here a list for you with a few potential issues and micro-nutrients which may be worth watching or tracking if you want to be on top of your health and your overall nutrition. (Which I definitely recommend doing.)

*B12:*

B12 (or cobalamin) is the main thing you may be missing out if you are consuming 100% plant based food (even though those with omnivore diets have also been found to have low levels of B12.) So, it's good to know your overall levels and then you can tell if you need to supplement to reach the recommended levels. The good thing is that now there are a lot of plant based products that come with added B12, which makes it a bit easier to keep balanced.

*Vitamin D:*

Vitamin D (which has been getting a lot of news and attention after worldwide Covid lockdowns, and with people not being exposed to the great outdoors) is another of the key micronutrients that you should be looking at closely when following a plant-based diet. While you can obtain this from plant-sourced food (and sun exposure is something that as a trail runner you probably get plenty of), it is still not enough if your body is not able to absorb this vitamin correctly. Mushrooms are something that you want to keep in your regular diet if you are low in Vitamin D. Nowadays, there are also a lot of fortified foods on the market with added Vitamin D. Finally, you can also supplement this with the usual 'drops' which are now very popular, too.

*Finally we have Iron.

*Even though you can obtain plenty of Iron on a plant-based diet, it is always worth checking your levels to see where you are and if it's something you need to supplement. Endurance athletes have been associated with low levels of Iron because of the heavy load of our training, so it's good to check your Iron levels regardless of whether you eat animal products or not. In general, try to incorporate lots of dark, leafy greens into your diet&#8230;and try to have this with some Vitamin C in it to help the body absorb it better. A great example of this: a nice salad with some lemon juice and pepper.

*Final Thoughts*

Eventually, if you try this for a while, you'll realize that being plant-based is not a diet at all-just like trail running, it becomes a lifestyle that goes way beyond what you put in your mouth every day. In the end, you'll probably keep at it because you'll feel the ways it improves your being&#8230;both physically and mentally.

Don't think that because you're not eating animal products on your diet all your meals will taste the same. That's simply not true. Nowadays there are millions of easy recipes you can find online to give yourself a nice, tasty meal with only plant based foods.

Whether you practice endurance sport or not, adding more plant-based foods into your diet will definitely be good for you. The idea of incorporating more fruits, vegetables and legumes in your life won't harm you. No matter if you keep consuming animal products or not, the benefits of eating more plant-based foods are clear and loud.

sauce 
https://vert.run/ultimate-guide-for...uNYzU3FVHyS07Yktb6PjhbeK1vEVGPL2zOGO1fAzQYFcs


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

Thank you for this thread you continue to inspire me!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thank you trmn8er!

We welcome people no matter what their goals are. If they are in it for the weight loss, great! Fiber and antioxidants are good for everyone.

I started for health and stayed for the animals.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^I’m sure you ate vegetarian food all the time in the past and you were fine. Vegetarian food doesn’t just mean loads of veggies. I’ve also never heard of someone’s body going into sick mode after eating anything without meat. I’m guessing you have a reaction to a specific ingredient, the meal had something bad in it, or it’s an emotional reaction to your perception of vegetarian food. Eating vegetarian means you are still eating dairy ie eggs, cheese, milk etc.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Study Finds Dairy (Not Soy) Skyrockets Breast Cancer Risk*

If you could reduce your relative risk of breast cancer by 80 percent, wouldn't you do it? A new study claims that women who drink cows' milk could increase their risk of developing breast cancer by up to 80 percent compared to women who drink soy milk. Unbiased by either soy or dairy industry funding, this research was commissioned by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health and the World Cancer Research Fund. Here is what you need to know.

*The Study Basics*
The study was based on 52,795 adult women participants over the course of seven years. Participants were intentionally taken from the Adventist Health Study-2, as many Adventists follow a vegetarian diet and tend to consume significant amounts of soy in comparison to the Standard American Diet. All participants filled out a detailed food questionnaire upon enrollment and a small cohort was selected to provide further 24-hour food recalls and urine samples over the course of the study to ensure accuracy. At the conclusion of the study, 1,057 participants had developed breast cancer.

*How Much Milk Increases Your Risk*
Through further analysis, the researchers found a dramatic increase in risk with as little as a ¼-⅓ cup margin. Women who reported drinking just eight ounces a day increased their risk of breast cancer by 50 percent, and those who consumed two to three glasses of cows' milk escalated their risk by up to 80 percent (in comparison to the women who did not drink any cows' milk). To clarify, drinking one cup of cows' milk per day does not guarantee a woman is 50 percent more likely to get breast cancer. It does, however, suggest that her individual risk increases by 50 percent. So, if a person has an inherent 12 percent risk (the average), she can increase that risk by half simply by sipping one cows' milk latte or dairy-based smoothie a day. In contrast, participants who completely avoided cows' milk but consumed soy milk did not show an increased risk of cancer.

*The Takeaways*
While this study does not prove cows' milk causes cancer, it opens up the field of study and provides a strong indicator of the harmful effects of dairy in comparison to benign foods. Researchers also suggested that the greatest benefits of soy milk in relation to breast cancer may not be in soy itself, but in the exclusion of dairy.

This is not the first study to demonstrate a positive association between dairy and increased breast cancer risk. In a survey of breast cancer cases across 40 countries and five continents, cows' milk ranked second (only under meat) on a list of foods most correlated with breast cancer. Cows' milk has also been associated with other hormone-dependent cancers including ovarian and prostate. Researchers believe the natural hormones found in all cows' milk-including estrogen and IGF-1-may be the cause for this increased risk of specific cancers. This most recent study by the National Cancer Institute adds a significant contribution to the growing body of evidence that links cows' milk to cancer. While not absolute, the correlation is strong enough to make anyone rethink their dairy consumption. It's simply not worth the unnecessary risk.

No one is invincible, but we all have the power to make very simple life changes to prolong our health. We make these small choices every day when we choose to wear sunscreen, drink water over soda, and wash our hands. We know we still might fall ill, but nonetheless we continue these preventative daily habits. Ditching dairy is a simple yet seminal choice everyone can make to drastically reduce their individual risk for breast cancer. In fact, it could be the most significant choice you make for your health-because we all deserve the best odds when it comes to living cancer-free.

sauce https://nutritionstudies.org/study-...adSFj-fSfNDx6vNAXEWfdNGo7Cei5_2mN2bqLakps9Oac


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

mWttrs2 said:


> Last year I became a vegetarian. At first it was difficult, Ornanism began to react differently to food. At one time I became very ill, did not want to eat anything. I also started to get very sick. On the internet I read that it is all from a lack of nutrients contained in meat and fish. So I bought vitamins (I do not remember their names but I bought them on bla.com) which I took for 2 months. They really helped me. I continue to lead a vegetarian lifestyle. If you also have such problems, I recommend taking vitamins


This does not sound like a problem caused by a vegetarian diet, but an issue with not eating properly balanced meals. As long as you make sure you get a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals from your meals throughout the week, then you won't need to rely on supplements. Supplements are not bad overall, but they should not be the foundation of proper nutrition. For example, I am currently taking a B Complex vitamin off and on because Covid has altered my normal shopping habits.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is so sad
*
Trump's Post Office Chaos Leads to Deaths of Thousands of Chicks Shipped to Maine Farmers*

Trump administration cuts to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) have had tragic consequences for Maine farmers and their chicks.

Since 1918, the USPS has been the only organization that will ship live chicks and other small animals. Maine farmers have long relied on this service to order chicks from hatcheries in other parts of the country, but, this summer, at least 4,800 of those chicks have arrived dead, the Portland Press Herald reported.

"We could hear a few, very faint peeps," Maine resident Rhiannon Hampson told The New York Times of her experience picking up chicks from the post office. "Out of 500, there were maybe 25 alive. They were staggering. It was terrible."

In another incident, Pauline Henderson of Pine Tree Poultry in New Sharon, Maine said all 800 chicks she ordered from a hatchery in Pennsylvania arrived dead.

"We've never had a problem like this before," Henderson told the Portland Press Herald. "Usually they arrive every three weeks like clockwork. And out of 100 birds you may have one or two that die in shipping."

The post office has been hit by a one-two punch this year, The New York Times explained. First, the coronavirus pandemic both dramatically increased package orders and sickened the staffers who would handle them. Then, newly-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy instituted a series of cuts and service changes beginning in June that have slowed and disrupted deliveries, The Associated Press explained. In Maine, two mail-sorting machines at its distribution hub were dismantled.

Democratic Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree called out the changes in a letter to DeJoy and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.

"It's one more of the consequences of this disorganization, this sort of chaos they've created at the post office and nobody thought through when they were thinking of slowing down the mail," Pingree told the Portland Press Herald. "And can you imagine, you have young kids and they are getting all excited about having a backyard flock and you go to the post office and that's what you find?"

DeJoy's changes included the dismantling of sorting equipment, reducing trips by mail carriers and the eradication of overtime.

DeJoy said Tuesday he would suspend the changes until after the November election following an outcry from Democrats, state attorneys general and civil rights groups, The New York Times reported. The groups were concerned that the changes could disrupt mail-in voting, which is likely to be high because of the pandemic.

However, it is not clear if DeJoy will also reverse measures already put in place, such as the destruction of mail sorting machines.

DeJoy was a major donor to President Donald Trump before being put in charge of the post office this spring. Trump has also spoken out against the USPS and blocked $25 billion in emergency aid for the agency, admitting he wanted to curb mail-in voting, according to The Associated Press.

However, some rural Americans have noted that, by attacking the post office, the administration is actually harming its base. Rural areas disproportionately rely on the USPS in order to send and receive mail.

"This is an attack on a tried-and-true service that rural America depends on," Ohio farmer and former Trump supporter Chris Gibbs told The New York Times. "It pulls one more piece of stability, predictability and reliability from rural America. People don't like that."

sauce https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-post...ne-2647052058.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4


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## SpinFactor (Jul 30, 2020)

That is sad. 


It is also sad that the government allows "non profits" to exist that manipulate senior citizens using scare tactics into donating millions of dollars into fraudulent organizations all through our glorious US postal service.


If they cut out half of the junk that is sent perhaps live animals would make it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*WHY DAVID ATTENBOROUGH WANTS YOU TO GO PLANT-BASED FOR THE PLANET*









Sir David Attenborough has said that humans should swap meat for a mostly plant-based diet in order to save the natural world.

In his upcoming Netflix documentary, A Life On Our Planet, the 94-year-old natural historian, writer, and presenter reflects on his life's work and the ongoing changes to the global environment.

"The true tragedy of our time is still unfolding - the loss of biodiversity. The living world is our unique marvel. The natural world is fading," said Attenborough.

"We must change our diet. The planet can't support billions of meat-eaters," he continued. "If we had a mostly plant-based diet we could increase the yield of the land. We have an urgent need for free land&#8230; Nature is our biggest ally."

Attenborough is best known for his time with the BBC Natural History Unit and his presentation of the Life collection, in particular.

He has been particularly vocal about environmental concerns in the last decade and frequently speaks out against climate change. Attenborough has also highlighted the impact of meat consumption on several occasions and first spoke about avoiding it in his own diet in 2017.

Speaking to the BBC last year, Attenborough said that he couldn't remember the last piece of red meat he ate. He added that while adopting a plant-based diet may be tricky, it is important for the health of the planet.

*Meat And Climate Change*
Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change.

Red meat, in particular, has a significant carbon footprint. It also uses huge quantities of water, land, and other resources. Beef production is a key driver of Amazon deforestation, and intensive animal agriculture, in general, has a significant impact on the land itself.

Pollution, disease, and the overarching impact of monoculture farming all contribute to the meat industry's aggregate environmental damage. But, Attenborough says in A Life On Our Planet, much of this damage is not irreparable.

"The world is not as wild as it was. We have completely destroyed it," said Attenborough. "If we act now, we can put it right."

"We must restore biodiversity&#8230; We must rewild the world. And rewilding the world is easier than you think. A century from now our planet could be a wild place again," he added.

https://www.livekindly.co/vegan-superstar-lizzo-lands-dream-come-true-deal-with-amazon/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

^lol

My new helmet is black and boring so I decided to sticker it up a bit.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I love your helmet sticker! A huge 'hell yeah' getting the message out there about saving the planet .


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Well, you know what they say: There are OLD mushroom hunters and there are BOLD mushroom hunters. But there are no Old, Bold mushroom hunters.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why people in rich countries are eating more vegan food*

IT IS lunchtime and a queue is forming for the burgers at Krowarzywa, voted the city's best in an online poll: students, families, businessmen in suits. This is Warsaw, where (you might think) lunch is usually a slab of meat with a side order of sausage. But at Krowarzywa-which means "cow alive" and contains the word warzywa, meaning vegetables-no animals were harmed in the making of the food. The burgers are made of millet, tofu or chickpeas. The bestselling "vegan pastrami" is made of seitan, a wheat-based meat substitute.

Warsaw has almost 50 vegan restaurants. That does not mean it has all that many vegans. Kassia, a 20-something professional in the queue, says she has no ethical objection to eating meat. She comes to Krowarzywa because she likes the food. Kornel Kisala, the head chef, thinks that most of Krowarzywa's clientele eat meat, but it does not worry him. "Animals don't care whether you eat a vegan burger because it is fashionable or because it is tasty." Altogether, 60% of Poles say they plan to cut back on meat this year. Eating vegetarian and vegan meals now and then is one of the ways some choose to do so.

Interest in vegan food has been booming across the rich world. Celebrity claims of veganism are everywhere: Bill Clinton and Al Gore, Serena and Venus Williams, Lewis Hamilton, Mike Tyson, Beyoncé, take your pick. In America sales of "plant-based" foods-a term for foods that contain no meat, eggs or dairy that reliably says "vegan" to vegans but doesn't say "weird" to the less committed-rose 20% in the year to June 2018, according to Nielsen, a market-research group. That was ten times the growth in food as a whole that year and two and a half times faster than vegan foods grew in the year before.

McDonald's is offering McVegan burgers in Scandinavia. The American restaurants in the TGI Fridays chain sell soyabean burgers that ooze blood made of beetroot juice. Tyson Foods, one of the world's largest meat producers, recently bought 5% of Beyond Meat, the company which makes them. Waitrose, a posh British grocery chain, introduced a range of vegan food in 2017, expanded the selection by 60% in mid-2018 and says sales of vegan and vegetarian foods in July 2018 were 70% above the level in July 2017.

Some people see great things in this. Two years ago Eric Schmidt, a Silicon Valley figure who used to be chairman of Google, called plant-based meat substitutes the world's most important future technology; he foresaw them improving people's health, reducing environmental degradation and making food more affordable for the poor in developing countries. The founder of the first vegan society said in 1944 that "in time [people] will view with abhorrence the idea that men once fed on the products of animals' bodies." Many since have shared his hope. Perhaps their time is come at last.

If so, it is a slow coming. Meat consumption worldwide has been growing consistently by almost 3% a year since 1960, mostly because people in poor countries buy more meat as they get richer, and the trend has yet to slow. In the early 1970s the average Chinese person ate 14kg (31lb) of meat a year. Now they eat 55kg, which is 150g, or five ounces, a day. But though most growth in consumption has been in the developing world, rich countries are eating more meat, too; their consumption is just not growing as fast as it used to. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), meat consumption in the richest nations has risen 0.7% a year since 1991.

Polling data is used to claim that the number of vegans in rich countries is both quite high-around 10% in some European countries-and growing. But there is reason to doubt at least the first of these. Some of the best data come from Britain, home of the world's first vegan society. A poll carried out by that society in 2016 found that 1.05% of people in Britain never ate meat or animal products. This is considerably higher than the result the society got in 2007, which suggests real growth in numbers. But it is a far cry from the 5.3% of the population reported as vegan in a more recent poll. In general, polls seem to find many more people claiming to be vegan than they do people abstaining from all meat, fish and animal products.

In America, Nielsen found in 2017 that 3% of the population called themselves vegans and 6% vegetarians (people who eschew meat, but eat eggs and/or dairy products). This proportion seems more or less stable; the country's largest polling organisations, Gallup and Harris, both found 3% of the population calling themselves vegan over the period 2012-18. But more detailed research by Faunalytics, a company which has been running large surveys of eating habits for 20 years, puts the numbers at just 0.5% for vegans and 3.4% for vegetarians. Fully a quarter of 25- to 34-year-olds in America claim to be either vegan or vegetarian, whereas studies by Faunalytics find the median age of American vegans to be 42, four years older than the national median. It seems that a fair amount of aspirational self-deception, terminological inexactitude or simple hypocrisy is at play.

The idea that veganism is most widely espoused, if not necessarily adhered to, by the young seems to be true in many countries. In Germany, according to Mintel, a research firm, 15% of 16- to 24-year-olds say that they are vegetarian, compared with 7% of the population at large. In many countries declared vegans lean towards the political left. In America polling by Pew has found that 15% of liberals espouse a meat-free diet, as opposed to 4% of Republicans. American vegans and vegetarians are also poorer than average, and twice as likely to be single. Three-quarters of them are women. This all fits veganism's association with valuing health, simplicity and low environmental impact-an implicit rejection of the values and coronary arteries of older red-meat-eating men.

Veganism is not a way of life that it is easy to keep up. According to Faunalytics, for every active American vegetarian or vegan there are more than five people who say they have abandoned such a diet. The growth in the number of restaurants catering to veganism and the availability of plant-based products on shelves may reduce this churn and allow more to stick with the programme. As it is, a moving target makes it unsurprising that accurate figures on veganism are hard to come by.

Overall, though, it seems safe to say that the number of people sometimes or regularly choosing to eat vegan food is growing much faster than the growth in people deeply committed to a meat-, egg- and dairy-free life. Patrice Bula, a vice-president at Nestlé, says he thinks that only a quarter of the people buying his company's vegan meals are committed vegetarians or vegans. People in this larger group are often called "flexitarians", who shift back and forth between omnivorous and vegetable diets. Almost two Americans in five say they fit this category, says Nielsen. The true vegan efflorescence lies in casual, part-time veganism.

Flexible friends of the Earth
In rich countries, people become flexitarians as a response to three concerns: their own health; the health of the environment; and the welfare of animals. On all three, they have a point; on at least the first two, though, a lot of the benefits can be captured without strict veganism.

The direct evidence that vegan and vegetarian diets are in themselves good for people is mixed. Between 2002 and 2007, 73,000 Seventh Day Adventists, a religious group in America, participated in a study of eating habits. The 27,000 vegans and vegetarians among them had significantly lower mortality rates. A smaller survey of British vegetarians from 2016, though, found no such link.

Aspects of veganism do go with the grain of some health advice. Large studies have shown that people who eat a lot of red meat have higher overall mortality rates (the same does not apply to eating poultry). Eating a lot of processed meat is linked to colorectal cancer. The evidence on this seems clear enough for various authorities to recommend limits to the total ingestion of red meat-the World Cancer Research Fund suggests less than 500g a week-and minimising the intake of processed meats such as bacon and salami.

And the damage to health done by meat is not all captured in the sort of studies that reliably cast doubt on diets heavy in red meat. Lots of factors, both dietary and non-dietary, influence health problems such as obesity, high blood pressure or diabetes, and it is hard to understand exactly what is responsible for what. Comparing diets on a statistical basis, though, allows some striking inferences. In 2016 a study by Marco Springmann and colleagues at the University of Oxford found that, globally, a transition to well-balanced vegan diets might result in 8.1m fewer deaths a year. Universal vegetarianism would avoid 7.3m deaths.

If the associations on which this computer modelling is based are robust, those are impressive figures. But much of the benefit they claim to demonstrate could still be realised if omnivores ate better-balanced diets with less meat. If the world adopted what the study called a healthy global diet, with less sugar than most in the West consume, plenty of fruit and veg and just 43g of red meat a day, the number of deaths avoided would still be 5.1m.

Red meat is typically a quarter to a third protein by weight, so just 43g is nowhere near enough to supply the 50-60g of protein a day that people require (the exact amount depends on a person's weight, amount of exercise and several other factors). The global healthy diet thus has people relying on quite a lot of plant protein, too. Rich-world diets, though, tend to get all their daily protein requirement from animals, and then some. Americans eat 90g of protein a day, Europeans 85g, and most of it comes from animal products.

Because meat is energy rich, eating more than your protein needs dictate means taking on a lot of calories, which may well be stored as fat. Vegans both eat less protein and get it from less energy-rich and potentially fattening products. In 2017 a French study found that both vegans (62g of protein a day) and vegetarians (67g) were healthier than the meat eaters wolfing down 81g. They were also eating more varied diets, and, perhaps crucially, fewer calories overall; it may have been those choices, rather than veganism per se, that made the difference.

On the environment, too, vegans and vegetarians have a point. Growing their food requires less land than raising meat does. Animals do not turn all the energy in the crops they eat into calories in their muscles. They need some of that energy to stay alive-and while that overhead is good for the animals, from a food-production standpoint it looks like a waste. This waste means you need more land per calorie of food if you are producing beef than if you are producing broccoli. Admittedly, a lot of grazing is on land that would not necessarily be suitable for arable farming. But the FAO's finding that raising livestock takes about 80% of all agricultural land and produces just 18% of the world's calories is still telling.

Alon Shepon of the Weizmann Institute and colleagues have looked at this in terms of opportunity costs. Choosing to make a gram of protein by feeding an egg-laying hen, rather than getting the equivalent of a gram of egg protein from plants, has an opportunity cost of 40%. Getting the gram of protein from beef represents an opportunity cost of 96% (see chart 1). They argue that if America stopped paying these opportunity costs and got the protein from plants in the first place, it would be equivalent to increasing the food supply by a third-or eliminating all of the losses due to food waste.









Being so land hungry means cattle farming changes the climate; clearing land for pasture creates greenhouse gases. On top of that, the bugs in ruminant digestive systems produce methane, a fairly powerful greenhouse gas. Once it gets out of the cows-by belching, mainly, not, as is commonly thought, farting-this warms the world. The FAO calculates that cattle generate up to two-thirds of the greenhouse gases from livestock, and are the world's fifth largest source of methane. If cows were a country, the United Herds of Earth would be the planet's third largest greenhouse-gas emitter.

Mr Springmann and his colleagues calculated that in 2050 greenhouse emissions from agriculture in a vegan world would be 70% lower than in a world where people ate as they do today; in the "healthy global diet" world they would be 29% lower. The savings are not all owing to cows; but a large part of them are (see chart 2). Raising cattle produces seven times more in terms of emissions per tonne of protein than raising pork or poultry does, 12 times more than soya and 30 times more than wheat. Giving up beef captures many of the benefits of going vegan. Other animals make a lot less difference. Getting your protein from insects-very efficient converters-might be almost indistinguishable from veganism in environmental terms.









Except, that is, to the insects. One of the main things that motivates many vegans and vegetarians is a belief that killing and eating animals is wrong. The vegans also abstain from milk and eggs because there, too, they see a lot of exploitation, death and suffering (the question of honey remains a point of contention). In dairy herds calves are typically taken from their mothers within 24 hours, compared with the nine months to a year they would suckle if left to themselves. Male calves are killed or reared for meat. In industrial egg-production day-old male chicks are killed and simply discarded. Even if one keeps strictly to meat, though, the death toll involved is immense. Over 50bn farm animals are killed for meat every year.

The best known proponent of the case that this matters is Peter Singer, a philosopher at Princeton University. Mr Singer argues that treating the interests of humans as superior to those of other animals is a prejudice, analogous to treating men as superior to women or whites as superior to blacks. It depends on an arbitrary distinction between two groups, one of which has the power to make the distinction stick.

What matters, he says, is not what species an individual belongs to but its capacity for suffering. If an animal suffers as much as a person, then things that it would be impermissible to do to a person-killing and eating him, immobilising him in a cage-are unacceptable if done to the animal, too. "In suffering," Mr Singer writes, "the animals are our equals."

This moral point would seem to depend in part on an empirical point; to what extent and in what manner do animals suffer? Animals' brains contain regions clearly analogous to those correlated with consciousness, perception and emotion in humans. What that reveals about their suffering as compared with a human's is a subtle question. But they definitely feel pain, and some can both express preferences and, it would appear, hold beliefs about the preferences of others. That would seem to have some moral salience.

But would it be better for animals that suffer not to exist at all? A vegan world would have no need of cows, happy or sad. The genus Bos currently numbers some 1.5bn. Should those lives be valued less than the lives of the wildlife which might repopulate their overgrown pastures when they are gone? When it comes to wild animals, people tend to abhor population collapse; are things that different when it comes to domestic animals?

Mr Singer's project of seeking legal rights for animals is certainly going to be a tough row to hoe, if not an impossible one. Neither courts nor legislatures seem very interested. Reducing the cruelty that animals suffer, though, is more plausible, both through legislation-battery cages for hens have been banned in the EU since 2013-and through consumer pressure, such as a preference for free-range products, cruelty-free certification, transparent sourcing and the like. This second route, though, is not available to vegans.

Though biology is not destiny, humans, like their relatives the chimpanzees, evolved as omnivores; the evidence is in the teeth and the guts. If people's diet is otherwise restricted, for example to staple starches, meat does them good. As the increasing consumption of meat worldwide shows, a lot of people in most cultures really do like eating it; the vast majority will do so, at least a bit, when they get the chance. The great exception is India, where, mostly for religious reasons, about 30% of the population has a vegetarian lifestyle.

None of that makes veganism, full- or part-time, and the spread of plant-based foods irrelevant. A mixture of ethical concerns, innovative cuisine like Mr Kisala's and more convenient vegan shopping at supermarkets could yet see the rich world reach "peak meat" and head down the other side. If so, and in particular if reduced consumption of red meat is part of the process, there will probably be substantial gains in health and happiness. And if the world improves standards in the meat-rearing operations that remain, some of that may even be shared with animals.

https://www.economist.com/briefing/...3V3Qii7xEMU6qT1Bu4RHIaYcq3-WmQOVhk1T2_yG1aZcM


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I say bueno and adios!

*Could Lockdown Be The Death Of Bullfighting In Spain?
*

Times they certainly are a-changing. The coronavirus pandemic has caused many of us to take stock of our lives, how we're living them, and what we really want for ourselves. The pandemic has created a massive reshuffling of money and of responsibilities. It has invited us to consider what is really necessary, what "essential" means. Whether we're talking about essential workers or daily activities like shopping or entertainment, each day we're being offered the question: "Is it necessary?"

For many people and families, traditions are taking a backseat this year. Birthday parties aren't happening, annual get-togethers are being canceled, and big plans are being postponed as we collectively ask ourselves if it's necessary.

*Bullfighting Is Taking A Break*
Typically, for most people springtime involves lots of gatherings and celebrations, and in Spain, it is no different. Many consider bullfighting to be a cultural tradition worth preserving, but there is a growing movement of people who disagree. Not only is bullfighting not necessary right now, it's just not necessary at all.

Crowds of people gather each spring in Madrid for the San Isidro festival. Though attendance is down in recent years, this festival is where bullfights take place daily. This year all is quiet in the Las Ventas bullring, thanks to the coronavirus lockdowns. San Isidro is canceled this year, as is Sevilla's April Fair, and Pamplona's San Fermin is canceled for July as well. (1)

What does this mean for the bullfighting industry? Well, it doesn't look favorable.

*Bye For Good?*
The cancellations are a huge blow to an industry whose popularity has been flagging for years. Though bullfighting is something of an emblematic aspect of Spanish culture, it's undeniably cruel. Animal advocacy groups have been increasingly vocal about it in recent years, and the headlines have been getting attention. Called "corridas" in Spain, bullfights involve a slow and cruel death for the bull, all in the name of sport. Many in this day and age don't view that as particularly necessary.

But for bull breeders, it's very necessary. It's their livelihood. With events canceled for the foreseeable future, the bulls are sold at a steep loss to butchers for their meat. They fetch only about 500 euros ($541), though they cost around $5,000 euros to raise.

"The worst-case scenario for us would be not to have bullfights in the whole year. That would be dramatic," bull breeder Victorino Martin told Reuters. "Just imagine. We already haven't had any income because of the winter stoppage, imagine one more year like this" he said.

*Time For Bullfighting To Pivot*
This pandemic has brought a lot of upheaval to a lot of lives. The ever-increasing body count is one aspect of it, and the havoc it has wreaked on the economy is another. Millions upon millions of people have found themselves suddenly without a means to support themselves, and those who can't fall back on a savings account or unemployment, are doing what they can to make ends meet. They are taking on jobs they have never done before, or they're making their side gig work for them. Some people are going back to school, and some are reinventing themselves and starting something totally new. In these changing times, people are adapting. We're cutting the fat, taking a long look at what is really necessary, and putting our energy toward those things that yield a positive benefit. Perhaps it's time for the bullfighting industry to pivot too; find something more modern and socially acceptable to do with its energy.

https://www.healthy-holistic-living...GdgJWUiRdCqP-wpq4uU2hMnujRzFk-9w-Co6J15DnkSNE


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I love chickpeas! Usually add to salad or make hummus...I'll have to try them roasted.

Here in the US Midwest bull riding is somewhat popular. There are occasional animal rights protests at them, probably not the most receptive crowd but it's just so needlessly cruel.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Processed Meat*
_There Is No Safe Amount of Processed Meat_

The World Health Organization has determined that processed meat is a major contributor to colorectal cancer, classifying it as "carcinogenic to humans." Just one hot dog or a few strips of bacon consumed daily increases cancer risk by 18 percent. The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the American Institute for Cancer Research (AIRC) have also found that "the evidence on processed meat and cancer is clear-cut."

"Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavor or improve preservation. Most processed meats contain pork or beef, but processed meats may also contain other red meats, poultry, offal, or meat by-products such as blood. Examples of processed meat include hot dogs (frankfurters), ham, sausages, corned beef, and biltong or beef jerky as well as canned meat and meat-based preparations and sauces."

- World Health Organization

Colorectal cancer isn't the only cancer risk that comes from consuming processed meat. Eating 50 grams of processed meat daily also increases the risk of prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, and overall cancer mortality. And a study of more than 200,000 women found that eating about 20 grams of processed meat each day-less than half the size of a regular hot dog-increased breast cancer risk by 21 percent.

Those who consume the most processed meat also have an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease, according to a National Institutes of Health study of more than half a million people. A study published in JAMA found that processed meat consumption was tied to 57,766 deaths from cardiometabolic diseases in 2012.

Sauce https://www.pcrm.org/good-nutrition...AJMGu7liI66eMlwxcDcjEh57QDha3GFcqzgR2x3zN7RnU


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

(It works out to $3373.50 per death, if anyone was wondering)

*4 meat workers at a Smithfield plant died from COVID-19 - the feds fined the company $13,494*

The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday proposed that Smithfield Foods pay a $13,494 fine for failing to protect its employees at a meat processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where nearly 1,300 workers contracted COVID-19 and four died.

The penalty, the maximum allowed by law, comes after the agency's Occupational Safety and Health Administration probed the pork processing plant, which closed for several weeks in April and May due to an outbreak of the coronavirus among employees. OSHA cited Smithfield for not doing enough ahead of the first known infections at the plant March 23, such as spacing out workers or providing face coverings and physical barriers.

The agency's guidance details steps employers can take to protect workers during the pandemic, which has killed more than 191,000 Americans. Those include social distancing, physical barriers, face shields and face coverings, along with safety warnings communicated in a language that a company's workers understand.

"Employers must quickly implement appropriate measures to protect their workers' safety and health," OSHA Sioux Falls Area Director Sheila Stanley stated in a news release. "Employers must meet their obligations and take the necessary actions to prevent the spread of coronavirus at their worksite."

*Smithfield challenging fine*
Smithfield dismissed OSHA's findings as without merit and said it would contest them.

"We took extraordinary measures on our own initiative to keep our employees as healthy and safe as possible so that we could fulfill our obligation to the American people to maintain the food supply," Keira Lombardo, Smithfield's executive vice president of corporate affairs and compliance, stated in an email. "We incurred incremental expenses related to COVID-19 totaling $350 million during the second quarter alone. Ironically, OSHA then used what we had done as a model for its April 26 guidance."

According to Smithfield, the Sioux Falls community experienced an early spike in COVID-19 cases, which affected its plant. The company's response included urging OSHA to visit its operations in March and April - appeals that were ignored, Lombardo said.

"OSHA conducted its investigation and issued its citation in accordance with well-established procedures and legal standards. The risks and precautions needed were well-known at the time and Smithfield did not address them in a timely manner," the agency replied in an email to CBS MoneyWatch.

Union: No "real consequences" for deaths
Both OSHA and Smithfield were condemned by the United Food and Commercial Workers, which represents 1.3 million meatpacking and other essential workers, including those at the Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls.

"Smithfield is a multi-billion-dollar corporation that failed to protect its workers, with multiple deaths and more than a thousand infections on their watch. This response by OSHA confirms that the company will not face any real consequences," Marc Perrone, the union's international president, said in an email.

Employees at the plant labored elbow-to-elbow in producing almost 5% of the nation's pork. The UFCW has said it tried to negotiate for more coronavirus protections leading up to the spring outbreak.

Large outbreaks at meatpacking plants across the nation followed. The United Food and Commercial Workers, the largest union representing meatpacking employees, has counted 122 meatpacking worker deaths.

Ahead of OSHA's disclosure that four Smithfield workers had died of COVID-19, local media had only reported two Smithfield worker deaths from the virus.

OSHA began investigating Smithfield's Sioux Falls plant on April 20, after a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention toured the facility to advise on how meatpacking facilities should operate during the pandemic.

OSHA subpoenaed South Dakota health officials in June, requiring them to turn over any test results, correspondence with Smithfield or photos of the plant. The following month, Smithfield asked the U.S. District Court of South Dakota to quash the subpoena. The company's legal move was later dismissed by the court after Smithfield and OSHA reached agreement on the issues involved.

A study released last month by the CDC found that 929 employees - a quarter of the plant's workers - had been infected, along with 210 close contacts. The prior tally reported by the state had been 853 employees.

Meatpacking companies have been aggressively defending themselves, touting their role in feeding the country and warning of meat shortages should processing plants have to close. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April proclaiming meatpacking plants as critical infrastructure, and they've largely stayed open since.

U.S. slaughterhouses have more than recovered from the economic slowdown, with commercial red meat and pork production this year surpassing 2019, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

BJ Motley, the president of the union for Smithfield workers in Sioux Falls, told the Associated Press that Smithfield has implemented most of the measures recommended by the CDC, but workers still gather in close quarters in the plant.

But with a rising demand for meat and a shortage of employees after the outbreak, Motley said, "They are pressing their workers a lot harder now."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/4-smithfield-workers-died-sioux-falls-osha-fined-13494/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

*'A savagely broken food system': Cory Booker wants radical reform ... now*

From a viral pandemic to the movement for racial justice to the worsening climate crisis, Senator Cory Booker says the massive challenges facing the US right now are all tied to a "savagely broken food system".

And last week, his most recent challenge to that system gained new momentum, when a coalition of 300 farm, food, and environmental advocacy organizations sent a letter to Congress urging legislators to pass a bill that would eventually eliminate the country's largest concentrated animal feeding operations (Cafos).

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, Booker, a New Jersey senator who ran for the democratic presidential nomination earlier this year, says: "Nobody seems to be calling out how multinational, vertically integrated industrial agricultural companies are threatening American wellbeing, and I just think that the more people learn about these practices, the more shocked they are.

"I don't think most Americans realize that the way we raise animals is such a betrayal of the heritage of our grandparents. I don't think they realize that &#8230; these big companies like Smithfield and Cargill and others have our American farmers now living like sharecroppers in constant debt, forced to follow their rules. I've watched the suffering in North Carolina of minority communities who live around Cafos and can no longer breathe their air &#8230; and I've seen workers in the meatpacking plants and how dangerous those plants are.

"Everybody is losing in this system - except for the massive corporations that have taken over the American food system."

Booker was elected to the Senate in 2013, after serving as mayor of Newark, New Jersey, from 2006 to 2013. During his time in the Senate he has focused his efforts on progressive issues like criminal justice reform, reducing economic inequality and increasing access to healthcare.

More recently, the food system and the way it shapes inequalities in the US has emerged as one of his defining interests. As mayor of Newark, where more than 50% of the city's residents are people of color, Booker observed a high rate of poverty and food insecurity. "I learned early in my time as mayor, when I was focused on things like criminal justice reform and economic justice, that all of these issues and injustices were intersectional, and you have to deal with them with a holistic view," he says.

"Kids who walk into bodegas can buy a Twinkie product cheaper than they can buy an apple because 90% of our agriculture subsidies go to four major monocrops," he says. Workers exposed to dangers in meatpacking plants and to poor working conditions and pesticide exposures on farms are also disproportionately people of color, concerns recently amplified by the Black Lives Matter movement.

"What's motivating me is that I think we need to really sound the alarm in America," he says. "There are so many crises [that relate] to public health, from global warming to economic justice to humane treatment of animals. What should not be surprising is that a senator is taking this on. What should be more surprising is that we as a country have not seen this broken food system, especially after a Covid crisis, which has so exposed the fragility of the American food system. The real question is why isn't Congress as a whole moving to address this massive threat to public health?"

The issue of the US food system has picked up steam amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which shed light on the potential of Cafos to spread disease and contribute to antibiotic resistance, as well as the fragility of the US's heavily consolidated food chain. There have been large coronavirus outbreaks at plants: hundreds of workers have died, thousands have been ill, and farmers have been forced to euthanize and dispose of millions of animals.

Booker, unlike most politicians, is willing to call out the behaviour of powerful meatpacking companies and introduce legislation to directly disrupt and regulate their businesses. In June, Booker and Senator Elizabeth Warren launched an investigation into meatpacking companies' actions during the pandemic, looking at the coronavirus outbreaks and the companies' claims that keeping plants running was necessary to feed the country, at the same time as a record amount of meat was being exported to China and other countries. In July, Booker introduced a bill that would prevent the US Department of Agriculture from allowing plants to speed up their lines, but it has so far not moved forward.

Booker has also introduced bills to prevent further consolidation in agribusiness, incentivize climate-friendly farming practices via the Climate Stewardship Act, and increase support for small farms selling into local markets, with specific attention to historically underserved producers like black farmers.

But the Farm System Reform Act, which would place a moratorium on new or expanding large Cafos, is his most radical piece of legislation, aimed at phasing out large Cafos altogether by 2040, and pledging support and legislative protection for farmers transitioning away from the system. It has now been introduced in the House, and has also gained support from Warren and Bernie Sanders.

"The Farm System Reform Act is the bold approach we need to bring dangerous factory farming under control now, and begin the necessary transformation to a safe and equitable future for food consumers and workers alike," Food and Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a press release announcing the letter sent to Congress.

So far most of the enthusiasm is coming from progressive politicians: presidential nominee Joe Biden's plans on climate and rural America do not mention Cafos at all.

But, in Booker's mind, it's not a matter of if the largest factory farms will someday be a thing of the past, it's when. "We are on the right side of history," he says, comparing the fight for a better food system to other successful social justice movements like marriage equality and criminal justice reform.

"This one is going to take awareness, because I just don't think when most Americans sit down and have their dinner they realize that the food that they're eating &#8230; is part of a system that's hurting their environment, their health, the wellbeing of workers, and the wellbeing of animals. I just have a deep, abiding faith in the goodness and the decency of Americans, and that's why I know when it comes to an issue of justice, that's the way we'll move as a society. The big question I have is how quickly can we get there?"

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...d-system-cory-booker-wants-radical-reform-now


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Awesome Throwback Thursday Story!

*The Man Who Made Us Feel for the Animals*











> Henry Bergh pioneered an ambulance in which to transport sick horses - an innovation soon adapted for the transport of sick New Yorkers.Credit...


In March 2019, drivers near Yankee Stadium were startled to find themselves sharing the expressway with a reddish-brown calf. Police officers trussed and tranquilized the terrified animal in front of rolling cameras, and the scene went viral on social media. The calf had escaped from a nearby slaughterhouse. Its bid for freedom reminded city dwellers that tens of thousands of animals die in New York each year.

It was once utterly impossible to ignore this fact. In 19th-century New York, cattle were driven through the streets to the stockyard on 40th Street, stray dogs were drowned by the hundreds in wire cages in the East River and trolley horses fell dead in their tracks. P. T. Barnum's menagerie on Broadway burned to the ground three times, killing hyenas, big cats and hundreds of other animals. The trapped creatures screamed in a "horrible chorus" of "mortal agony," The Times reported.

One man did more than any other to change the way New Yorkers - and Americans overall - treated their animals. In his vivid and often wrenching new book, "A Traitor to His Species," the historian Ernest Freeberg tells the story of Henry Bergh, a wealthy New Yorker who braved ridicule, assault and death threats for over two decades as he sounded the alarm about animal suffering. Among Bergh's many achievements, the most consequential was the founding in 1866 of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"A Traitor to His Species" is not a conventional biography, intriguing as its central figure is. The book is above all a compassionate, highly readable account of the 19th-century plight of animals, especially urban animals - and of those who tried to come to their rescue.

Bergh began his crusade late in life. In his 50s, he was posted as a diplomat by the Lincoln administration to Russia, where he was horrified by the cruelty he saw carriage drivers inflicting on their horses. One day he chided a violent driver, who ceased his abuse. Heartened by this episode, Bergh began to cast about for a way to draw attention to the suffering of animals in an age when many people thought that they couldn't feel emotion or even pain. Back in New York, Bergh assembled a group of fellow elites and secured a charter from the State of New York to create the A.S.P.C.A. Remarkably, Bergh and his A.S.P.C.A. agents were empowered to make arrests when they witnessed animal cruelty.

Bergh flexed his new muscles immediately, marching onto a docked schooner and arresting the captain. His hold was stacked with starving and thirsty green turtles. They were immobilized on their backs, their flippers bleeding from the ropes threaded through them. Turtle flesh was highly prized on dinner tables, in taverns and at "turtle clubs" devoted to this delicacy.

The ensuing court case drew national attention, just as Bergh had hoped. "Notoriety is wanted," he insisted - and he got it. He was ridiculed for trying to protect lowly turtles, but he had made his point. Every creature, Bergh believed, deserved humane treatment. In the end, the schooner captain was declared innocent. Yet Bergh had made himself and his cause instantly famous. Americans who had never thought about the question before were suddenly debating whether animals had rights.

Bergh's crusading compassion aligned him with the great reform movements of his age. All around him, men and women were creating institutions meant to improve child welfare, education, hospitals, prisons and the plight of the formerly enslaved. Bergh found allies as well as inspiration in these efforts. If people had learned to stop thinking of human beings as property, couldn't they be taught to stop thinking of animals as property, too? Bergh pointedly called animals "our speechless slaves." No less a figure than Frederick Douglass put the same argument to an audience in 1873. Farmers should be kind to their horses, he said, because even though they can't speak, they have senses and can feel affection: "A horse is in many respects like a man."

But how to change minds and behavior? Animal advocates disagreed on the best strategy. Some of Bergh's milder allies sought to encourage respect for animals not through the strong arm of the law but through sentimental education. Adults organized essay contests for schoolchildren on the subject of "Kindness to Animals." A prominent Bostonian named George Angell arranged for the American publication of Anna Sewell's "Black Beauty," introducing readers to the novel idea that a horse could both suffer and rejoice. Louisa May Alcott contributed to the genre as well, writing a short story in which an abused horse told her own sad tale - mentioning Bergh along the way.

Bergh's own approach was fiercer; he had less faith in human nature. He thought the fear of arrest was a stronger deterrent than moral suasion. He strode like an avenging angel through the streets of Manhattan, on the hunt for suffering animals and harsh masters. Freeberg's writing is at its liveliest when he is following Bergh on these daily rounds. One mesmerizing scene has Bergh climbing with a policeman to the roof of a bloody dogfighting den run by a Five Points gang leader. The policeman lowers himself through the skylight, catching the perpetrators in the act.

Bergh's passion for animals thickened his own hide. Whenever he encountered a mistreated trolley horse, he swooped onto the tracks in front of the horsecar, halting traffic for blocks as he rescued the animal. He pioneered an ambulance in which to transport sick horses - an innovation soon adapted, Freeberg writes, for the transport of sick New Yorkers. Bergh made enemies of the horsecar drivers and their powerful bosses. He hectored one of the latter, the formidable Cornelius Vanderbilt, about his bloody profits, made from "the cruel sufferings of a dumb, speechless servant."

Bergh attacked another famous American, P. T. Barnum, for abusing wild animals to entertain humans. Barnum relished the fight with Bergh; it brought him more publicity and bigger audiences. (It was only in 2017 that the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus closed down, after a long campaign by animal rights activists.)

No possible site of animal cruelty escaped Bergh's attention - the Erie Canal with its straining, bleeding mules; vivisection laboratories where dogs were pinned down and sliced open in front of medical students; city slaughterhouses where cattle were clubbed to death after enduring horrific privation on railroad cars left to bake in the sun while the animals gasped for air and water. When "iced meat" emerged as a partial alternative to the transport of live animals, Bergh embraced the innovation - both because of the relief it would bring livestock and because it removed the morally corrupting sight of abused animals from the view of all but those who worked in the industry. Today, when a desperate creature manages to break loose and run through New York City, it reminds us of the hidden cost of our tastes.

As Freeberg shows, Bergh rankled many Americans with his insistence that individual liberties must sometimes bow to the common good. But even some of Bergh's targets came to respect him deeply for his convictions. When Bergh was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in 1888, P. T. Barnum was in attendance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/...iLG_LNUz-IZj0NSXy7QGtKJuBhcWOH5uVt7GhCByZ0mT0


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

^and ^^

Reading these, I guess we are slowly making some progress. I'm reading a fiction book that, despite all that is currently going on, has also made me think the same as it mentions some of the cruel things our society has done in the past that are now rejected by most. But lately it seems like we're on the verge of going backwards.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

haha yep


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Benefits of Being Vegan for a Week (or a Month!)*

*Once You're Over the Hump it's Smooth Sailing*
If you're thinking of trying out the vegan thing, you'll be relieved to learn that sticking to the diet becomes easier with every passing week. In fact, by the time you make it to the three week mark, you will likely find that the lifestyle has become second nature and is nearly effortless to continue. So the point of this guide is to give you all the hand-holding you need to get through your first few weeks. After three weeks you of course still won't know half the tips and tricks a vegan of ten years will know, but you'll nevertheless be well past the tricky part and nicely equipped to stay vegan if that's what you want to do.

So let's start first with the most important piece of advice I can possibly offer: going vegan is not about cutting meat, milk, and eggs out of your diet-it's about crowding them out. When you cut out animal-based foods the resultant experience entails sacrifice and deprivation. But when you crowd them out there's no feeling of sacrifice at all, because you're abandoning old foods in favor of new ones that taste better and are more satisfying. And every time you discover a new vegan food that you adore, the animal-based foods you grew up eating get pushed further to the margins.

When it comes to successfully transitioning to a vegan diet the name of the game is trying as many new foods as possible. You of course won't love-or even like-everything you try. But every time you find something you enjoy it'll displace some of the non-vegan foods you're currently accustomed to eating. Trying as many new foods as possible means learning about all the vegan options that exist, both at groceries and at restaurants. And if you can get a few simple cooking skills under your belt while you're at it, your meal options will expand beyond belief.

*Shopping for Vegan Food*
Going vegan will probably inspire you to do your grocery shopping in more places, since the best vegan food products are rarely found in typical supermarkets. That said, every supermarket will sell basic vegan staples like beans, rice, pasta, tomato sauce, and soymilk. Unfortunately, supermarkets typically sell the healthier organic versions of these products at full list price, making them significantly more expensive than most natural food stores. Supermarkets usually have good produce sections, although you can usually find better and fresher produce elsewhere. All that said, supermarkets are certainly more accommodating to vegans than they once were. Many supermarkets today have an array of vegan meats and cheeses, a natural foods aisle, or even an entire section of the store devoted to healthier foods.

A good natural food store generally beats a supermarket in every important respect. Just keep in mind that some purportedly "natural food stores" are really just vitamin shops, with exorbitant prices on the paltry selection of foods they sell. You can typically identify these stores in an instant because they'll lack a produce section, and will have more aisles devoted to pills than to food.

But the best natural food stores are vegan heaven. They'll carry all sorts of terrific vegan goodies that offer familiar flavors and absolute convenience: ice cream, mayo, frozen pizza, pot pies. Maybe the best thing about natural food stores is their bulk sections, where you can find everything from nuts to dried beans to granola to coffee-you'll discover that you can save a fortune buying these items in bulk. The produce section will generally offer higher quality fruits and vegetables than what a supermarket sells-often with a serious effort to source locally and organic. Most natural foods stores have a large deli featuring plenty of vegan items. These delis are great for new vegans because they'll let you discover a wealth of new foods. Any item you like tends to be something that can be quickly made at home, at minimal cost.

Don't forget farmers' markets. There's no way to get fresher produce. On top of that, nearly 100 percent of your food dollar spent at a farmers' market supports agriculture in your community. There's probably at least one farmers' market near you. The USDA maintains an extensive directory of these markets, and there's another excellent directory maintained by LocalHarvest.org.

One variant of farmers' markets involves subscribing to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box. Under this system, you'll pay a fixed fee every week for a box containing a share of what your farmer grows. The farmer gets guaranteed income for the growing season and you get a steady supply of fruits and vegetables straight from the farm.

And finally, Amazon.com is a ridiculously convenient way to cheaply buy a variety of terrific vegan food items, many of which are unavailable locally. Check our vegan grocery page for a frequently-updated collection of our favorites.

*Vegan Cooking Made Easy*
One of the best ways to ease your transition to a vegan diet is to develop your cooking chops. It takes only an hour or two to acquire basic cooking skills that benefit you for the rest of your life. Tahini dressing is so easy to prepare, for instance, that there's really no way to mess it up. Roasted vegetables are scarcely any harder, and you won't believe how good they taste. And even a stir-fry is an incredibly simple affair.

One great thing about roasted vegetables and stir-fries is that you can continually experiment with new combinations, so even if you eat these foods every day you'll never get sick of them. And with stir fries, you can change up the grains you serve them over, as well as the sauces you use as accompaniments. Peanut sauce is just as easy to make as tahini dressing, and it'll change your life. Both are superb over stir-fried vegetables.

Add in some sandwiches and you'll really start seeing how easy it all is. Just like stir-fries, sandwiches are incredibly versatile-you can constantly change up the bread, the filling, and the spreads-giving you an unlimited variety of combinations. And if you get tired of bread, just swap in a whole grain tortilla and turn your sandwich into a wrap. Need more sandwich ideas? Check out the book, Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day!
Soups are right up there with sandwiches in terms of ease of preparation and possible varieties. There are all sorts of stocks you could use, from miso to vegetable to coconut milk. And you can likewise use a different assortment of veggies, spices, and herbs every time. Buy yourself a slow-cooker you'll gain the ability to start all these soups in minutes, then go away for a few hours with no need to babysit your creation. When you return you'll have something heavenly. There are a number of vegan soup cookbooks in print.

And finally, don't forget what might be the easiest meal ever: fruit smoothies. All you need is a blender, frozen fruit, and vegan milk (soy, coconut, rice, or almond) and you're all set. It takes less than two minutes to make a smoothie and less than one minute to clean up. And once again, you can continually vary the ingredients so you can have a smoothie every day without ever getting tired of it. Maybe almond milk and frozen raspberries today, coconut milk and frozen blueberries tomorrow, and soymilk and frozen peaches the day after. Also remember that smoothies are a great base for your daily dose of Omega 3s. Just dump a tablespoon of ground flax into your smoothie prior to blending and you'll be getting essential alpha-linolenic acids.

I call stir-fries, roasted vegetables, soups, smoothies, and sandwiches "core foods" because they can all be prepared in minutes, in an unlimited number of ways. You can master the preparation of all these foods without purchasing a single cookbook. That said, if you want to take your cooking skills to the next level, there are hundreds of terrific vegan cookbooks in print. Start with one that's intended for simple daily cooking, since these are the sorts of recipes you'll probably make most often. A few great ones are, Quick-Fix Vegan, Everyday Happy Herbivore, and Nom Yourself. If you want to get a little fancier, two highly-regarded cookbooks are Healthy Happy Vegan Kitchen, and The Oh She Glows Cookbook.

Naturally, these cookbook recommendations only scratch the surface of what's out there. We maintain a page at Vegan.com featuring all the best and latest vegan cookbooks.

*Eating Out*
Once upon a time, vegetarian restaurants were few and far between, and most of these restaurants smothered practically everything they served with cheese and eggs. Today most mid-sized towns have at least a few vegan-friendly restaurants. And there are hundreds of all-vegan restaurants around the world. The rapidly-expanding Veggie Grill and Native Foods Café chains each have more than twenty restaurants in the United States, and Loving Hut has more than thirty.

If there are no vegan restaurants near you, chances are you can still find a great vegan meal at a local restaurant. The easiest way to find vegan-friendly food in your area is to hit Yelp.com and type vegan into the searchbox. That'll bring up reviews mentioning the vegan offerings of every restaurant near you.

By far the most vegan-friendly of all cuisines is Middle Eastern, but you're also likely to find great vegan options at Italian, Ethiopian, Mexican and Indian restaurants. All of these cuisines may include hidden animal ingredients, so be sure to check out the preceding links to learn of the pitfalls and possibilities.

*Vegan Nutrition*
No matter where you buy most your groceries, keep in mind that most people-vegans and meat-eaters alike-don't eat nearly enough fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Go out of your way to emphasize dark green leafy vegetables, which calorie-for-calorie are perhaps the most nutrient-rich foods you can possibly eat.

If you don't tend to include enough fruits and vegetables in your diet, here's a life-changing grocery shopping habit to cultivate: before you approach the cash register, look into your cart and check to ensure that it contains a substantial amount of produce. If you've fallen short steer your cart back to the produce section and buy some more! After all, it's impossible to eat enough fruits and vegetables if you don't buy them in the first place.

Some vegans operate under the wrongheaded assumption that, merely by being vegan, they're exempt from having to think about nutrition. While there's a grain of truth here, in that vegetables are generally packed with nutrients, it's still quite possible to develop a deficiency on a vegan diet. In fact, even if you fill your diet with healthy foods, you can still fall short on key nutrients. It's extraordinarily important, for instance, that vegans either take a B-12 supplement several times a week, or eat a substantial amount of B-12 fortified foods. And there are numerous other ways to trip up. Nutrients like calcium, zinc, iron, and iodine are all worth paying attention to. Our vitamins page has links to supplements that are of special interest to vegans.

The best book to read on the topic of vegan nutrition is Vegan for Life, by Jack Norris RD and Ginny Messina RD, MPH. Jack also maintains an outstanding website on vegan nutrition, and Ginny blogs regularly on the topic.

*Books and Movies*
One of the keys to steamrolling through your first few weeks as a vegan is to give yourself regular reminders of why you've decided to make this change. The more passion you feel for your new lifestyle the easier it will be. Books and movies can go a long way toward cranking up your level of enthusiasm.

For many new vegans nothing is a greater motivator than learning about factory farming. In any case, everyone ought to be well-informed about the systematic cruelties practiced by animal agribusiness. Two great books on the subject are Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and Bleating Hearts by Mark Hawthorne. Eating Animals is a beautifully written and relatively non-traumatizing read given its focus on meat production and factory farms. Bleating Hearts is a more thorough investigation of animal cruelty, not just on factory farms, but in every domain where humans raise or confine animals for profit (laboratories, circuses, zoos, puppy mills, and so forth.)

Alternately, if you're especially interested the health benefits of becoming vegan, some inspiring books include:

No Meat Athlete, by Matt Frazier
Finding Ultra, by Rich Roll
Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness, by Robert Cheeke
Eat and Run, by Scott Jurek
Books like these are not only incredibly encouraging for people in the midst of moving to a plant-strong diet, they can provide valuable information when it comes to making the switch in as healthful manner as possible.

I hope this article is offering you some vital information, but you'll get a lot more out of reading a book-length introduction to vegan living. This article was distilled from my book, The Ultimate Vegan Guide. Probably the most comprehensive book on the topic is Kristy Turner's But I Could Never Go Vegan!. In addition to loads of great advice, Turner's book features 125 recipes, and there is gorgeous full-color photography throughout. Two other popular introductions to veganism are Main Street Vegan and How to Be Vegan. Any of these books will give you a level of familiarity with being vegan that would take years to achieve on your own.

If there's one component of vegan living that really benefits from book-length guides, it's vegan advocacy. There are all sorts of techniques and possibilities for protecting animals that aren't at all obvious. Two of the best introductory titles include Striking at the Roots, and The Animal Activist's Handbook. After you've read one of these books and you're ready for a more advanced text, the book to read is Nick Cooney's Change of Heart.

Movies are likewise an essential part of learning about food politics and vegan-oriented issues. The right films can acquaint you with factory farming to a degree that no book can convey. For this sort of thing the three films to watch are "Earthlings," "The Ghosts In Our Machine," and "The Cove." These films are admittedly deeply troubling to watch, but witnessing them is almost guaranteed to increase your level of commitment to your diet and to becoming a more effective advocate.

If you're more in the mood for a gentler introduction to the benefits of plant-based living you'll enjoy films like "Vegucated," "May I Be Frank," and "Fast Food Nation."

*Moving Beyond Diet*
As you settle into following a vegan diet, you may decide to expand your commitment beyond food to include all your shopping choices. That mostly means paying extra attention when you shop for cosmetics and clothing.

Many cosmetics contain animal ingredients, and most brands are also tested on animals. Check out our guide to animal ingredients, so you can know the most common components of cosmetics that are sourced from animals. It's easy to find cosmetics that carry labels indicating that they were produced without animal testing. These brands are often found in natural food stores. You can also check our cosmetics guide and bath and beauty page for vegan, cruelty-free brands available for purchase from Amazon.com.

Leather, wool, silk and down are fairly easy to avoid. Just follow the preceding links to learn about the cruelties associated with these products, and how they can be replaced with vegan alternatives. Beyond shoes and clothing, leather is also frequently used to make furniture and car seats, but there's no shortage of cars and couches that shun leather in favor of cloth upholstery.

*Final Thoughts*
Remember that the whole point of moving towards a vegan diet is not to be the world's most perfect vegan for a week or a month-it's to making a lasting and satisfying lifelong change. So if you slip up and consume animal products, whether accidentally or deliberately, don't beat yourself up over it-and certainly don't use the transgression as an excuse to ditch your vegan lifestyle entirely. There might be a lesson you can take away, perhaps that a given food contains animal products, or perhaps that there's a terrific vegan alternative you can eat next time instead of the item you just consumed. So don't focus on being perfect-just keep making steady progress.

Remember that most vegans eat a vastly more diverse and interesting diet than do omnivores. Long-term vegans often cringe when reminiscing over the teeny variety of the foods they ate before switching their diets.

Let's now recap the main advice from this article, since if you adhere to these points you'll not only have a very easy few weeks on a vegan diet, you'll also be ideally positioned to embrace it as a permanent lifestyle.

*Try new foods at every opportunity.*
Get ahold of Vegan for Life and read up on nutrition.
Develop your cooking skills, and learn how to make stir-fries, soups, sandwiches, smoothies, and salads.
Pick up a couple simple everyday cookbooks like Quick-Fix Vegan and Short-Cut Vegan.
Take your B-12!
Don't be a perfectionist. Everybody slips once in a while, especially in the beginning, and a momentary lapse is no reason to call everything off.
Watch a few movies.
That's it. You can do this, and it'll be easier and more fulfilling than you've ever imagined!









https://www.vegan.com/guides/vegan-...52m--7YnRCshNIipAbL2aX7IuiYdc87Jfr3KWXpHHRxnU


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

CALIFORNIA ELK ARE DYING OF THIRST AS CATTLE RANCHERS BLOCK ACCESS TO WATER









Approximately 50 local activists in California recently held a demonstration that included dramatic artwork at Point Reyes National Seashore in an effort to free trapped Tule elk dying from drought conditions. The demonstration occurred because 445 elk-the world's largest remaining herd of the rare native animals-are currently trapped and dying behind an eight-foot fence that separates the elk from leased dairy and meat farms. The area where the elk live is suffering drought conditions and the elk are unable to roam free to obtain water elsewhere. According to animal protection organization In Defense of Animals (IDA), which was involved in the demonstration along with other groups, the National Park Service (NPS)-which erected and maintains the fence to appease cattle ranchers with grazing leases in the park-refuses to implement a contingency plan to provide water to the elk. In 2013 and 2014, similar conditions left more than 250 elk dead. So far this season, six elk have been found dead. Local animal activists recently stepped in to supply emergency water to the Tule elk by installing two troughs holding a total of 150 gallons of water.

"The growing number of dead Tule elk has many local people extremely concerned," IDA Director of Communications Fleur Dawes said. "As locals hear what's happening to the elk at the Seashore, more and more people want to take part and stop a repeat of the mass deaths and address the ranching problem."

IDA, ForELK, TreeSpirit Project, Rancho Compasión (a farmed animal sanctuary owned by vegan cheese pioneer Miyoko Schinner), and numerous organizations and individuals are calling on the NPS to remove the fencing trapping the elk.

Concerned citizens are urged to find out how to help the Tule elk at www.idausa.org/elk.

sauce https://vegnews.com/2020/9/californ..._Z1TXziodNNuuDDCsXQH0MCDHKpG899cpKsbJTcMUoN-s


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

Cyclelicious, you are on fire!

So I've been a vegetarian for thirty five years, in that time I converted my wife and mother to vegtarians, have raised two children as vegetarians; both my kids have remained vegetarians as adults and they are partnered with a vegetarian and a vegan.

I try to be vegan as much as possible, cheese is my weak spot, I also eat eggs on occasions; we raise chickens as pets and they crank out the eggs.

Previously I struggled with finding a milk substitute that didn't tast off and that wasn't bad for the environment; say no to almond milk! I am using Ripple Pea Milk, it's made from yellow peas, and on sweetened version tastes very similar to non fat milk. Unfortunately, it does not heat up well, so I use it more as a creamer.

I became a vegetarian in college after I started studying environmental sciences and realized that many foods we eat are "grown twice". This just seemed so non sensical and wasteful that I concluded I was done eating meat. 

Now that I'm older, I realize there is another layer to this because even non animal products can be resource and or energy intensive, making them no less impactful than meat production. 

When picking foods, consider the nutritional value that the food provides against the time, energy, and resources needed to bring it to market. Almonds would be an example of a resource intensive plant (high water user), as would bananas (non native), whereas Hemp is a low resource plant and legumes increase nitrogen fixing in the soil which benefits other plants.

All those pics of food makes me sooooo hungry!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^Way to go NurseBen!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Protein Sources: How to Meet Your Requirements*

*Protein for Vegans: Basic Information*
During the 1970s and 1980s, conventional wisdom said that vegetarians and vegans run severe risks of protein deficiency. Much of this concern arose from the first bestselling vegetarian advocacy book, Diet for a Small Planet (published in 1971), which offered protein recommendations that, in hindsight, were needlessly stringent.

Today, the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Some vegans believe that their protein intake isn't worthy of any consideration. In fact, you can even find vegans who mock the topic when it's brought up.

But belittling the importance of protein is as misguided as believing that vegans are courting deadly protein deficiencies. The truth is that while it's easy for vegans to get plenty of protein, it's also easy to come up short. Unfortunately, it's fair to assume that many vegans fall far short of achieving an optimal protein intake. It's therefore needlessly risky to believe that, as a vegan, you're exempt from having to pay attention to protein.

*Severe vs. Moderate Protein Deficiency*
When it comes to protein, perhaps the main source of confusion relates to a dire medical condition called kwashiorkor. This disease only appears in areas of famine, or among people with severe eating disorders. Relatively tiny amounts of protein are all it takes to avoid kwashiorkor, so for obvious reasons this deficiency disease is unheard of in the vegan community.

Some vegans make the mistake of thinking that avoiding kwashiorkor means that protein levels are acceptable. This is a dangerously misguided belief-avoiding kwashiorkor doesn't indicate that your protein intake is even close to ideal.

What's more, there's no clear-cut way to know for sure whether you're getting all the protein your body needs. Even blood tests can't reliably tell you if your intake is sub-optimum. Instead, a variety of symptoms may indicate mild to moderate protein deficiency:

chronic fatigue
high blood sugar or triglyceride levels
inability to maintain sufficient muscle mass
depression
While there are countless terrible things about meat, milk, and eggs, it's undeniable that all these foods are rich in protein. So if you stop eating animal products and don't replace them with vegan foods that are protein-rich, there's a possibility that your intake will decline from adequate to insufficient. Fortunately, just a little effort can ensure your protein needs are nicely met on a vegan diet.

*Vegan Protein Intake Recommendations*
VeganHealth.org recommends a daily intake of 1 to 1.1 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. In practice this means a 68 kilogram (150 pound) adult needs to take in about 70 grams of protein per day. What's more, much of this protein ought to be rich in the amino acid lysine. Beans are rich in lysine, whereas rice, wheat, and nuts are significantly lower in this amino acid.

If you crunch the numbers and see how this advice translates to everyday eating you'll discover that you may need to make a concerted effort to cover your needs.

*The Best Vegan Protein Sources*
One way to step up your intake is to get into the habit of incorporating rich protein sources into the majority of your meals, including foods like:

Unsweetened soy milk
Tofu
Seitan (Wheat Gluten)
Beans, including lentils and split peas
Nuts & peanuts
Green peas
Orgain and other vegan protein powders
Quinoa
Buckwheat
Clif Bars and Probars
One food that has surprisingly little protein is commercially-made almond milk. The stuff generally contains loads of sugar but very little protein. Soy milk is therefore typically a better choice for people wanting to boost their protein intake. In fact, it's common for soy milk to have about six times more protein than almond milk!

*Tips for Increasing Your Protein Consumption*
If you don't like the taste of beans or you have trouble digesting them, you could have a tough time getting sufficient protein on a vegan diet. Our beans page offers advice about how to prepare beans in ways that maximize digestibility. You may find that tofu, tempeh, and soy-milk easier to digest than other bean-based foods. Alternately, nuts, seeds, and quinoa are all rich in protein, and easily digested.

Protein powders can be a godsend to anyone who can't tolerate beans or nuts. They can give you a big dose of protein, in a form that's more digestible than meals made with beans. Most brands of protein powder deliver about 20 grams of lysine-rich protein per scoop. Orgain makes an inexpensive all-organic vegan protein powder, and it sells for about half the price of several competing brands. Buy a shaker cup and you won't have to dirty a blender each time you prepare a serving.

*Protein-Rich Recipes*
Adding just a few protein-rich meals to your cooking repertoire may be all it takes to boost your intake to adequate levels. There are two different cookbooks devoted entirely to protein-rich vegan meals.

The High-Protein Vegan Cookbook, by Ginny Kay McMeans
The Great Vegan Protein Book, by Steen & Noyes
It's reasonable to speculate that many people who fail to thrive on a vegan diet aren't eating sufficient protein. Since meat is loaded with protein, a vegan who has become protein deficient would doubtless feel better within days of putting meat back into the diet. The best way to ensure that you don't develop a deficiency is to keep an eye on getting sufficient amounts each day. A little attention and vigilance is all it takes to avoid problems down the road.

sauce https://www.vegan.com/protein/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Yeah! Fall is here!!!!!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Nurse Ben said:


> Previously I struggled with finding a milk substitute that didn't taste off and that wasn't bad for the environment; *say no to almond milk! *I am using Ripple Pea Milk, it's made from yellow peas, and on sweetened version tastes very similar to non fat milk. Unfortunately, it does not heat up well, so I use it more as a creamer.


Interesting article about almond milk. I've tried Oat milk and it's ok



> *Almond milk is responsible for the death of billions of bees*
> 
> THE 2010s have been the decade that marked the rise of almond milk as an alternative to cow's milk - but it turns out this low-calorie, vegan substitute isn't as inherently good as it's made out to be. According to an investigative report from The Guardian, the increasing demands of the California almond industry are placing an incredible amount of pressure on the beehives used to pollinate their orchards, resulting in the deaths of billions of honeybees.
> 
> ...


https://matadornetwork.com/read/alm...S4UDwh0Fiua54cRE8PBYxSBmkEQUqEGrLbbHa16i4M06Y


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Yeah, that was an interesting article. I was unaware of the high losses of bees that support almond pollination and the implicating cause. Thanks!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

cheeky pears


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

My wife makes a yummy dish with seitan, I wasn't sure what it was and neither was she until our daughter looked it up. She doesn't make it out-of-her-way to be a vegetarian dish (she's not a vegetarian), it's a traditional Chinese dish. It also has soy beans and tofu skin. How's that for protein?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I love the taste and texture of seitan. I just wonder why it isn't more widely available? To me, it has no negatives:

- It tastes great

- It's super versatile

- It's super cheap to make (I've never made it but every time I've eaten it was divine!)

- It's super high in protein

- Low in kcal

For some reason I've never seen it in grocery stores... maybe because it spoils quickly?


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I'm sure my wife buys it at the Asian supermarket. Judy, do you ever use tofu skin?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Yes I've had tofu skin! Thank you for reminding me about this...my taste buds miss it  Love it. 

I could only get it at Asian grocery stores. (T &T is a fantastic grocery store chain here in Ontario specializing in Asian foods. I used to shop there before it gained popularity) It's been a while since I ventured out  I will keep an eye out!


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I usually do soy milk, sometimes cashew. I usually avoid almonds due to the intensive bee use but I'm not as strict about that as I am direct animal products. I mostly use milks on oatmeal so oat milk would be kinda redundant. 

I've never heard of tofu skin before, I'll be sure to try it if I find it.


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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

That's probably cuz it's gluten, which messes with people's guts. I love me some Seitan, but only a little at a time or I feel baaad!



cyclelicious said:


> I love the taste and texture of seitan. I just wonder why it isn't more widely available? To me, it has no negatives:
> 
> - It tastes great
> 
> ...


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Nurse Ben said:


> That's probably cuz it's gluten, which messes with people's guts.


Are you saying that tofu has gluten?

EDIT: Ok, never mind...you're referring to the seitan.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*WHAT HAPPENS IF BEES GO EXTINCT?*









Although they're little, wild bees are an important keystone species, and many other species depend on them for survival. Consumers can also thank bees for much of the food that they eat. Put simply, we cannot live without bees.

The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that pollinators like bees and butterflies help pollinate approximately 75 percent of the world's flowering plants. They pollinate roughly 35 percent of the world's food crops-including fruits and vegetables. They also support the production of 87 of the world's leading food crops.

There are more than 20,000 different bee species around the world. The majority of these are wild. But a 2016 assessment by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) found a growing number of pollinator species around the world are on the brink of extinction.

*Bees Species Are Dwindling*
Europe's bumblebee populations decreased by 17 percent between 2000 and 2014. In 2016, the U.S. listed bees as endangered for the first time ever. Seven species of Hawaiin bees received federal protection under the Endangered Species Act as a result. And in 2017, officials listed a species of bumblebee as endangered. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revealed the rusty patched bumblebee was perilously close to going extinct.

Even honey bees are on the decline. A 2018 study found that 40 percent of American beekeepers' honey bee colonies disappear between April 2017 and April 2018. This was partly due to colony collapse disorder. This phenomenon occurs when honey bees abandon their hives and die off at high rates. Experts have not yet determined the exact causes of CCD. But some point to pesticide use, mites, malnutrition, and chemicals in the environment. Poor bee management techniques could also be to blame.

In a statement, former FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said: "Bees are under great threat from the combined effects of climate change, intensive agriculture, pesticides use, biodiversity loss and pollution."

A recent study, published in The Royal Society journal, found the supply of some key crops-such as blueberries, cherries, and apples-is on the decline in the U.S. as a result.

Researchers from Rutgers University say wild bees and managed honeybees are lacking in some agriculturally intensive regions. They say this poses grave concerns for global food security. According to the study, in the U.S. alone, the production of pollinator-dependent crops accounts for more than $50 billion of the country's total food supply.

*Wild Bees And Food Security*
Pollination is vital to the health of the global food system. And a single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers in one day. So, what would a world without bees look like?

If this were to occur, experts say ripple effects would be felt throughout entire ecosystems. Many plants that depend on bees for pollination would die off, severely impacting natural food chains. The loss of bees would effectively change the entire food system.

"The absence of bees and other pollinators would wipe out coffee, apples, almonds, tomatoes, and cocoa to name just a few of the crops that rely on pollination," Graziano da Silva said.

Rutgers' study supports Graziano da Silva's analysis. The university's research studied seven major vegetables, fruit, and nut crops. These included almonds, apples, blueberries, pumpkin, watermelon, sweet cherries, and tart cherries from 131 farms across the U.S. All of the studied crops relied on managed honeybees and wild bees for pollination.

Researchers found that five out of seven of these crops "showed evidence of pollinator limitation," meaning pollinators were scarce.

"Our findings show that pollinator declines could translate directly into decreased yields," the study's authors wrote. "Wild species contribute substantially to pollination of most study crops in major crop-producing regions," they added.









*"Serious Implications For The Animals"*
Johanne Brunet is a research ecologist and professor at USDA-Agricultural Research Service and UW-Madison. She says the disappearance of pollinators wouldn't lead to a complete loss of plants.

"Various plants are wind-pollinated and other plants rely entirely on self-pollination for seed production," she wrote in an op-ed.

"However, it would shift the composition of plant communities," she said. "[It would pose] serious implications for the animals that feed on them or use them for shelter."

She said these changes would still have serious ramifications. "Humans depend on plants and plants depend on pollinators. A balance must be maintained in order to sustain life on earth and protect human survival and health," she said.
*
Saving Dwindling Bee Populations*
Graziano da Silva says countries need to change the ways in which they cultivate food. "Countries need to shift to more pollinator-friendly and sustainable food policies and systems," he explained.

Europe has already taken action in protecting bees. Earlier this year, the European Commission committed to reducing the use of chemical pesticides by 50 percent by 2030.

The European Food Safety Authority reported bee populations had declined over the past 10 to 15 years. This was especially seen in western European countries like France and Belgium. The European Parliament warned this could impact 76 percent of all of Europe's food production.

The EU's new plan is part of the European Green Deal. It includes a commitment to reversing the decline of bee species and other pollinators. The deal also features a plan to plant three billion trees by 2030.

In 2018, the EU banned the outdoor use of the three main neonicotinoid insecticides-clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam. The U.S. passed a similar ban on pesticides in 2019. The Environmental Protection Agency prohibited the use of 12 products containing neonicotinoids. Farmers used the pesticides to protect crops from pests and diseases. But experts linked the chemicals to an impairment of movement and memory in bees, as well as death.

The average person can help bees, too. In lieu of using deadly pesticides, gardeners can opt for bee-friendly, natural alternatives. A number of plants-such as chrysanthemums, lavender, and lemongrass-help repel pesky pests without causing harm to bees.

Trees, flowers, and shrubs provide bees' only source of food: pollen and nectar. Cultivating a wide variety of flowers and herbs can help to attract bees and provide them supple nourishment.









sauce https://www.livekindly.co/no-bees-no-food-its-that-simple/


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

I just happened to watch the animated “Bee Movie” last night w my grandson. Perfect timing! While nobody wants to get stung, it’s pretty clear how important bees are. Thanks for posting. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Rare truffles unearthed in Kingston Peninsula area*









A potentially valuable gourmet delicacy has been unearthed in the Kingston Peninsula area of New Brunswick.

The New Brunswick Museum says it has received a donation of truffles for its collection of fungi.

"It's a very exciting find," said botany and mycology curator Alfredo Justo.

The truffles were discovered by Peggy Cooper, said the museum.

Cooper said she was gardening when she found them on Sept. 24.

"They were so unlike anything I've seen," she said.

She did a bit of research and checked with a forager friend and found "they looked like real truffles."

She posted about them in a couple of Facebook groups, including Mushroom Hunting New Brunswick, where Justo came across them

They were marbled brown on the inside, said Cooper, and tasted nutty and spicy when she nibbled one.

Cooper dropped off a sample to the museum, which Justo confirmed was truffle.

Not all edible
Not all truffles are edible, but Justo said these ones are in the same group as famous European truffles, prized by chefs and foodies for their rich flavour.

An 80-gram truffle can sell for over $100. A 2-kg white truffle reportedly sold for over $60,000 at auction in New York in 2014.

"We don't know the quality and I have zero experience in preparing them," said Cooper, adding she mentioned her find to a couple of restaurants, but hadn't heard back from anyone.

"It would have been nice to have a local chef try them out to test the taste."

She plans to try her hand at a couple of truffle dishes and share what she has left.

Justo's interest is more scientific than gastronomic.

Cooper's truffles will be studied, he said, adding that he hoped a more precise identification could be made.

A sample has been sent to Florida for DNA testing.

"As with many groups of fungi they're really understudied," said Justo.

Have to really search for them
The museum has a couple of old collections that might be truffles, he said, but this is the first fresh collection that has been confirmed.

"It's a big deal," said Justo.

"It's one more reminder that there's' still so much to know and to explore about mycological diversity in New Brunswick."

For a long time, said Justo, it was assumed there weren't any truffles in Canada or eastern North America.

"They might be really widespread," said Justo, "but you have to be really looking for them."

Doesn't expect a repeat
Truffles grow underground. They are the fruiting structure of a fungus associated with tree roots.

So to find them, you either have to be specifically searching, usually with the help of a dog, and methodically digging, or, you might get lucky, after a big rainstorm, for example.

In this case, said Justo, it was "kind of accidental."

Many truffle finds happen he said if topsoil gets moved and tree roots are exposed.

Cooper said she will look for more next year, but isn't hopeful she'll find any.

Cooper said she has heard of other truffle finds in the province, though.

A man from Norton used to sell them, she said.

"These are just the first to be added to the collection and fully examined."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-...ovS5bid7YR7mpcwEITtXupWifRVG503clffe-dVOb_6gY


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*20 Grapefruit Facts*









Did you know the Grapefruit is a hybrid fruit? It was created by crossing a pomelo and an orange. Much of the history around the grapefruit mentions the fruit was created accidentally in the 1700's in the West Indies. In the early days the fruit was called the "forbidden fruit" and was mostly grown as a novelty fruit when it came to Florida in the 1800s. Today the United States is the leading producer of the fruit, with Florida as the top producing state. Check out more grapefruit facts!


The name for the Grapefruit was created by a Jamaican farmer when he noticed the fruit grew in clusters similar to grapes.
The first tree grew in the Florida in 1823 and was mostly grown as a novelty for tourist for many years.
The Ruby Red grapefruit was accidentally discovered in Texas by citrus growers in 1929, making it the first variety to receive a United States patent.
The U.S. is the leading grapefruit grower.
60% of grapefruits come from Florida. California and Texas are the next highest producing states for the citrus fruit.
Grapefruits are the official state fruit of Texas.
88% of the fruit produced in California is sold as fresh produce.
Because of the climate, soil, and diverse land resources, California can grow the fruit year-round. Most other states can only grow grapefruits seasonally.
Florida's season peaks in September and October.
The peak season in Texas is between October and May/June. However, South Texas can grow the fruit year-round.
Grapefruits can be white, pink, or red.
The taste can also vary from sweet to sour depending on the variety. White and pink varieties tend to be tart, while reds are sweeter.
Grapefruit trees take between 6 months and 13 months to produce fruit.
The trees thrive in subtropical environments.
A tree can grow between 30 to 50 feet; however, growers may prune trees to keep them 15 to 25 for easier harvesting.
Grapefruit trees produce four-petaled, white flowers.
The temperature can affect how long it takes for the fruit mature.
The trees never go dormant, but the root systems become inactive if temperatures drop below 50oF
Up to 25 grapefruits can grow in a cluster.
The citrus fruit is hand-picked when fully ripe.

But wait there's more...

There are 42 calories in 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of grapefruit.

Grapefruit has many nutritious elements. It is an excellent source of vitamin A (in the form of carotenoids) and vitamin C. Grapefruit is also a good source of pantothenic acid, copper, dietary fiber, potassium, biotin and vitamin B1. It also contains phytochemicals including liminoids and lycopene.

The health benefits of grapefruit include weight loss, help to maintain a healthy heart, decreased risk of cancer, boosts up the immune system, helps in controlling diabetes, helps lower cholesterol, promote regularity for a healthy digestive tract, healthy skin, improvements in memory and cognition as well as the prevention of neurodegenerative conditions and lower a woman's risk of stroke.

In Haiti, grapefruit is used to make jam.

In Costa Rica, grapefruit are often cooked to remove their sourness, rendering them as sweets; they are also stuffed with dulce de leche, resulting in a dessert called toronja rellena (stuffed grapefruit).

Grapefruit juice is used in several cocktails, such as the sea breeze (which consists of grapefruit juice, vodka, and cranberry juice); the salty dog, and the grapefruit mimosa.

Grapefruit peel oil is used in aromatherapy and it is historically known for its aromatic scent.

The fruit became popular only from the late nineteenth century; before that it was grown only as an ornamental plant.

Grapefruit and grapefruit juice can have a number of interactions with drugs, often increasing the effective potency of compounds. The effect of grapefruit and grapefruit juice with regard to drug absorption was originally discovered in 1989. However, the effect became well-publicized after being responsible for a number of deaths due to overdosing on medication.

An early pioneer in the American citrus industry was Kimball Atwood, a wealthy entrepreneur who founded the Atwood Grapefruit Company in the late nineteenth century. The Atwood Grove became the largest grapefruit grove in the world, with a yearly output of 80,000 boxes of fruit. It was there that pink grapefruit was first discovered in 1906.

Today, China is the top producer of grapefruit; it is followed by the United States and Mexico.

The world's largest grapefruit was grown by Cloy Dias Dutra (Brazil), weighed 3.210 kg (7 lb 1 oz) and had a circumference of 70 cm (2 ft 3 in) Niteroi, on 9 November 2006.

The Texas Red Grapefruit was designated as the official fruit of Texas in 1993; Texans have grown grapefruit in the Rio Grande Valley for about 100 years.

Grapefruit has 92% water more than almost any other fruit.

According to a study by the Smell and Taste Institute of Chicago, men perceive women to be up to six years younger than they actually are when they catch a whiff of grapefruit scent.

https://aghires.com/20-grapefruit-facts/

Interesting facts about grapefruit | Just Fun Facts


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

pitymitty said:


> Do you take any supplements or vitamins? I would like to try some, and I need recommendations


I take B12, iron (I have had low hemoglobin even prior to going vegan), vitamin D (to reduce bone loss with age). My most recent blood work is all results at normal levels.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I sound like this when I eat a honey crisp apples 

Open link to hear the sound of contentment 

*Buzzing black bears: Cubs express 'sound of contentment' as they devour apples*

TORONTO -- A group of black bear cubs at a conservation centre in New Hampshire were treated to a massive pile of apples and expressed their enjoyment for the treat by making an audible buzzing sound.

Writer, producer and wildlife preservationist John Fusco shared a video of the cubs at the Kilham Bear Center in Lyme, N.H. on his Twitter account in September after dropping off the apples.

In the video, the bears are seen chomping away at the fruit while emitting what sounds like a humming noise in unison.









"Have you ever heard bear cubs make their 'sound of contentment'?" Fusco tweeted along with the video.

Researchers say the noise is rare, but black bear cubs can make a humming or purring sound when they are nursing or enjoying a favourite food. Adult bears can also make this sound when enjoying food, although at a much lower register.

The Kilham Bear Center, which works to rehabilitate orphaned or injured black bear cubs and release them back into the wild, told the L.A. Times they've seen an increase donations thanks to the attention from Fusco's video.

The video has been viewed over 376,000 times as of Tuesday morning.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/bu...-P17qXaPTotvLGXnboCY0Ku5NTznuTEplaaxM256Y0d0k


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> *20 Grapefruit Facts*
> 
> View attachment 1369237
> 
> ...


Something fruity going on here&#8230;

I never knew grapefruits were hybrids.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Today's laugh...I love hummus... I don't think I've every worried about the expiration date 

*Old hummus containers at the back of fridge form union*

Earlier today, following years of unrest and maltreatment, the old hummus containers at the back of Emily Cooper's fridge officially announced the formation of a union, Very Old Hummus United.

"Very Old Hummus United, or VOHU, is a containers organization advocating for equal treatment of old ass hummus that's been neglected at the back of Emily's fridge for a surprising and disgusting length of time." Said VOHU rep Sabra Classic.

The mission of the union is to ensure that present and future hummus containers are not immediately pushed to the back of the fridge by Cooper and left for months, or in extreme cases years. Often times with the plastic seal left on. VOHU aims to have all of its member containers treated with respect, meaning eaten within its expiry date and then given a proper burial in the recycling bin. Most of the containers are suffering in their old age and VOHU claims it is the dips equivalent to a human rights violation.

"For too long, the tyrannical proprietor of the fridge, Cooper, has forwarded a bourgeois myth that we can no longer accept!" stated an enraged Fontaine Sante Traditional Hummus from the picket line, which is drawn just behind a sour cream container from 2012.

Despite the valiant claims made by VOHU, when an old south-west salsa jar attempted to join the union he was promptly denied, he claims, due to racial prejudice. Tensions continued to escalate as one hummus container, that had recently moved to the front of the fridge, was found upside down with "scab" written in hummus residue on its back. VOHU reps declined to comment on both reports.

"The demands of VOHU are outrageous. You can't expect me to buy a container of hummus and then eat it within a two-week period. It's just not realistic," stated Cooper following a long afternoon of negotiations with the newly formed union.

VOHU is working closely with the Baby Carrot Solidarity Coalition and Suspicious Unidentifiable Dairy Products United to create a cleaner, better fridge for all of its many gross occupants.

At press time, Cooper was seen crossing the picket line, jamming yet another red pepper hummus alongside the hundreds already there.

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2019/11/old-hummus-containers-at-the-back-of-fridge-form-union/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1372489


We're doomed.

Sent from my moto g(6) forge using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^yup


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Buy local. Eat fresh


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## jamesr83 (Jul 8, 2019)

Anyone found a vegan protein drink blend that doesn't make one all gaaassy?

Seriously I find the pea and rice blends make me fart. This used to happen with Whey protein as well. 

Does this happen with Hemp? 

I've moved from eating a lot of meat to just cutting down. I don't personally want to eliminated it altogether but I do feel better for eating smaller amounts of quality meat, and lots of veges.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I've tried a couple of vegan protein drinks when I first started doing crossfit, (and went vegan 6 years ago) because I was told by instructors (all meat eaters) that I needed the extra protein to get stronger  I found one made with pea protein that tasted ok (better than some others) but it made me gassy and I felt bloated. I continued to lift and do the daily cf WODs without any issues. I remained stronger and fit for my age category.

Sorry I can't help you with this one I gave up on the protein drinks and now I just focus on whole foods. If I come across any articles or info , I will share it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

November 1


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

If you can live a happy healthy life without hurting others, why wouldn't you?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## mack_turtle (Jan 6, 2009)

jamesr83 said:


> Anyone found a vegan protein drink blend that doesn't make one all gaaassy?


I use whatever flavor of Orgain is on sale at Costco. the main protein ingredient is from peas. I don't think it makes me gassy. I think part of gas is getting used to a new and different way of eating. if getting all your protein directly from plant sources is new to you, it could take a little time to adapt. I think tofu gave me gas for a little while until I started eating it regularly. the bacteria culture in my gut changed over time and it's not an issue any more.

greens give me gas though. spinach and brussels sprouts: don't stand down wind from me!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

mmmm I love steam


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*There's no such thing as humane meat or eggs. Stop kidding yourself*



> Many people think they consume humane meat, but only a tiny fraction actually do. The majority of consumers are totally wrong about what they eat











A few years ago I wanted to visit the best egg farm I could find. I had been inside an egg factory farm. I had seen a dozen sheds, each with a dozen rows of wire cages stacked two high and 150ft deep. Those cages were so small the birds inside couldn't even spread their wings. They were half-starved, diseased, and undeniably miserable.

Factory farming was clearly wrong, so I wanted to instead find a farm that represented an ethical and humane way to raise animals for food.

Fortunately some small farms, such as those who set up stands at farmers' markets, are willing to let people visit their facilities. So in March 2016, I drove from my home in San Francisco up California's northern coast, through towering redwoods and past crashing waves, to one of the best egg farms in the state.

The award-winning farm was nestled in a landscape of bucolic green grass and rolling hills. It looked like it came straight out of an advertisement. I saw a charmingly rundown-yet-functional mobile chicken coop standing in a football-field-sized pasture peppered with free-roaming chickens. I thought to myself, why couldn't all farms be like this? I had seen what happened behind the locked doors of factory farms, but here I seemed to be witnessing a better way. I would soon learn just how wrong I was.

Americans care about farmed animal welfare. In fact, last week California passed a ballot measure for cage-free eggs with 61% of the vote, a rare level of agreement in these divided times. In 2016, a similar initiative in Massachusetts succeeded with 78%.

Consumers go out of their way to buy cage-free or pasture-based eggs or buy meat at the local farmers' market. My colleagues and I ran a survey in 2017 that showed that 75% of US adults believe they usually eat meat, dairy, and eggs "from animals that are treated humanely." In fact, when vegans ask their friends to stop eating animals, one of the most common responses they hear is, "Don't worry. I only eat humane meat."

Are consumers right? It's impossible for all of them to be. Data on the number of animals per farm in the US suggests that over 99% of US farmed animals live on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, commonly known as "factory farms". Globally, that figure is probably over 90%.

So 75% of Americans think they consume humane meat, but a tiny fraction actually do. The majority of consumers seem tragically wrong about what they eat.

Take cage-free eggs, for example. Just because the birds aren't in cages doesn't mean they're healthy or happy. Cage-free birds have around the same total space per bird; they just live in a large shed with thousands of other birds.

In this stressful environment, birds frequently peck each other so much that they lose feathers, bleed, and even die from what is effectively cannibalism caused by the birds' high-density confinement. The air quality on cage-free farms tends to be worse as chickens walking around kick up dust and feces, which threatens food safety.

Raising chickens on pasture avoids some of these issues, but it invites new problems. Pasture-based flocks suffer due to predation and disease from wild animals.

By some measures grass-fed cow farming is potentially worse than grain-fed cow farming. Grass-fed cow farming leads to two to four times more production of methane, a major greenhouse gas, than grain-fed cow farming. It also takes more land, water, and fossil fuels to produce grass-fed beef. Buying "grass-fed" or "pasture-raised" can be seen as a salve for the environmental conscience, but the damage can actually be greater.

Maybe there are some rotational, labor-intensive methods that do reduce environmental impact. However, eco-conscious animal farming does little to mitigate health concerns aside from the overuse of antibiotics. And the animal suffering, especially on chicken farms, is still staggering.

You may be thinking that even if the vast majority of farms still have serious issues, surely at least a few farms have happy animals.

This response is valid, to an extent. Where I grew up in rural Texas, I lived around pasture-raised cattle who seemed perfectly content to chew their cud. I helped raise a handful chickens and goats myself. Yes, their slaughter might be a terrible experience, but it seems plausible that one day of even suffering might not outweigh a few years of happy cud-chewing life










> Pigs are seen in a factory farm in northern Missouri. The pigs are never let out from their confined spaces until they are taken to slaughter.


When people call upon the idea of ethical animal farming - even if that constitutes little or none of their actual consumption - it has dangerous effects as a "psychological refuge" they indirectly use to justify their consumption of factory farmed products.

Most Americans have been exposed to the realities of animal farming from hundreds of undercover investigations over the years and dozens of scientific reports on the industry's environmental and public health impacts.

But their minds resolve this conflict between their values and their behavior by insisting that they eat a humane kind of meat that doesn't cause animal suffering or environmental damage. Their other options are to stop eating animal products or to accept that what they're doing is harmful, and neither of these options are particularly appealing. This is why we see 75% of US adults thinking they eat humane meat, despite fewer than 1% of farmed animals actually living on non-factory farms.

*Ethical farming - nice try*

At the California egg farm I visited, the devil was in the details. Despite the pastoral scenery, I found that the birds were in worse health than those of any other farm I'd been to. I saw many cases of Marek's, a highly contagious disease that had led to partial blindness in many of them; swollen abdomens, some with over a pound of fluid buildup in their less-than-five-pound body;and lice.

Like the hens in factory farms, many of them suffered and died from cancer, stuck eggs, reproductive tract infections, and other ailments that result from artificial breeding for hyperactive reproductive systems that make them lay unnatural numbers of eggs.

When I visited the farm, I sincerely wanted to believe that these animals had good lives, but the evidence just wasn't there to support it. It wasn't as bad as the factory farms I visited, but it still wasn't the kind of life I'd want to live myself.

Of course, the current scarcity of humane animal farms doesn't preclude their theoretically possibility. But consider the cost: the eggs at the farm I visited cost over $6 per dozen. Hardly anyone is willing to pay that much for food, and that farm still had serious ethical problems.

I was disappointed by the visit to this farm and other farm visits, as well as evidence from hundreds of other visits to "humane" farms by animal protection advocates and investigators. Mercy For Animals, the international non-profit animal protection organisation, says it randomly selects farms to investigate, and other groups have specifically sought out farms with leading humane certifications in order to show that even the animals on those farms still suffer tremendously.

*Time to abolish factory farming*

We would need extensive regulations and enforcement to maintain high animal welfare throughout the industry. This would include the expenses of regular independent inspections and livestreamed security footage at all facilities.

Consumers or taxpayers would also need to pay for direct costs such as more space per animal, an army of veterinarians and medical supplies for sick animals, and a reversion of the artificial breeding that has made animals grow meat and produce milk and eggs at ultra-fast rates. That level of welfare doesn't exist at the very best farms today, so even the steep price tag of the eggs from the pasture farm I visited is still too low to guarantee that the animals have good lives.

So even if humane animal farming is possible in theory, and maybe even real in a handful of isolated cases, it can't feasibly feed around 10 billion people by 2050.

The fact is that when we use animals as raw materials or labor in the food system this inevitably leads to mass cruelty because cheap prices and profits will always come before their welfare.

This means we need to take a position against animal farming. Then I think we'll be on track to end all animal farming.

sauce https://www.theguardian.com/food/20...9dEUhwQcQS-IpRLdV1yrCYVufg6EEPlCe4Zor8VmwOaWU


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

^Everything about a farm animal's life is determined by a cost/benefit analysis where their interests are always secondary to profitability. Those smaller, "nicer" farms that happen to find a niche may subtract a tiny amount from the suffering on factory farms, but in exchange help whitewash the perception of animal agriculture and ultimately perpetuate factory farming.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan for the boners!

*Living life on the veg! Vegans have TWICE as much sex as meat-eaters and are more adventurous in the bedroom, survey reveals*


__
Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
Show Content









Vegans have twice as much sex as meat-eaters and are more willing to experiment in the bedroom, according to a new survey.

Dating website IllicitEncounters.com found over half of the vegans asked claimed they have sex four times a week, while only half of meat-eaters reported having sex twice in the same time period.

The research found two thirds of vegans were prepared to experiment in the bedroom, while over half of the meat-eaters surveyed admitted they were less adventurous between the sheets, reports the Mirror.









Famous vegan celebrities include include Pamela Anderson, Ellie Goulding, Sir Paul McCartney, Joaquin Phoenix and Thandie Newton.

The survey also suggested that vegans have a better time in the bedroom with 84 per cent saying they're satisfied with their sex life compared with a measly 59 per cent of those with a meat-based diet.

Meanwhile 35 per cent of those on a meat-based diet describe themselves as 'givers', compared to 58 per cent of vegans.

Spokeswoman Jessica Leoni said: 'Vegans are masters of seduction it would appear. Our statistics don't lie and vegans eat foods known for their aphrodisiac qualities such as ginseng and aniseed.'

Last year a medical experiment suggested that men who have a vegan diet may be better lovers, and that just one meat-free meal could improve their performance in the bedroom.









Netflix documentary The Game Changer includes an experiment led by US urologist Dr Aaron Spitz, which measured the virility of three male athletes after different meals.

The men were given burritos containing grass-fed beef, organic chicken or organic pork on one night, then a plant-based replacement burrito containing soy and pea protein the following night.

The programme stopped short of seeing how well men performed with their partners, but instead looked at their activity as they slept.

After a meat-free meal, the men's night-time sexual arousal lasted three to four times longer through the night

sauce https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/...aters-adventurous-bedroom-survey-reveals.html


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This video has a little bit of everything! Vegan diet, ultra marathons/long distance running plus cold weather training... and keeping weight in check!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

LEWIS HAMILTON URGES 30 MILLION FANS TO GO VEGAN ON HEELS OF HISTORIC FORMULA ONE WIN



> "The horrifying things that are happening to animals in order for you to keep eating meat is inhuman. Please don't turn a blind eye, please don't ignore it. Go plant-based."


I can't agree more 









The vegan athlete now holds as many world championship titles as legendary race car driver Michael Schumacher.

On Sunday, vegan race car driver Lewis Hamilton secured his seventh Formula One World Drivers' Championship title after winning the Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul, tying the record previously held by legendary German driver Michael Schumacher. Currently considered the sport's most successful driver, Hamilton completed the race in treacherous rainy terrain to secure his 94th win. Last month, Hamilton secured his 92nd win at the Portuguese Grand Prix, surpassing the win record previously held by Schumacher.

As the only Black Formula One driver, Hamilton has continually used his fame to fight for racial justice both on and off the track. After his celebrated win over the weekend-which garnered praise from athletes around the world, including plant-based tennis champion Novak Djokovic who sent a message of "plant power" to Hamilton via social media-the 35-year-old athlete took to Instagram to share his thoughts about the victory. "Seven World Championships means the world to me, I can't even describe how much, but there's still another race we've yet to win," Hamilton said. "This year I've been driven not just by my desire to win on the track, but by a desire to help push our sport, and our world, to become more diverse and inclusive. I promise you I am not going to stop fighting for change. We have a long way to go but I will continue to push for equality within our sport, and within the greater world we live in. Equaling Michael Schumacher's record puts a spotlight on me that I know won't be here forever &#8230; Let's make it so that opportunity is not something that is dependent on background or skin color."

Hamilton went vegan in 2017 and has since used his platform to promote a variety of issues that involve the environment and animal welfare, including relentlessly urging his followers to go vegan, ditch leather, and boycott animal exploitation for entertainment. Yesterday, with eyes still on him after the historic win, Hamilton shared an Instagram story with his nearly 30 million followers which contained a video of pigs headed to slaughter who were visibly panicked and panting. "The horrifying things that are happening to animals in order for you to keep eating meat is inhuman. If we can let go of our desires and think of the impact we're having, maybe with some compassion, together we can help stop this by starving the industry that's supplying [meat]," Hamilton captioned the video. "It is those of us that eat animal products that are complicit with this happening. Please don't turn a blind eye, please don't ignore it. Go plant-based."

https://vegnews.com/2020/11/lewis-h...9ZX3rBnseUis4TtP-VLWlRTmEGejPV6ZAk4hyxv2kulDo


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

It's nice to see some recognition from the US legal system that animals deserve better living conditions. And a reminder that the communities surrounding factory farms - almost always poor and often predominantly minority - are victims of factory farming as well.

'Suffocating closeness': US judge condemns 'appalling conditions' on industrial farms

Pork giant Smithfield has settled with North Carolina residents who sued over stench, flies and truck traffic from Kinlaw Farms

A US judge has issued a blistering condemnation of industrial farming practices. The judgment comes as one US meat giant finally settles after a six-year legal battle with plaintiffs who sued the company over the stench, flies, buzzards and truck traffic coming from its industrial swine farms in North Carolina.

J Harvie Wilkinson III, one of the judges in a case that pitted locals against the Smithfield subsidiary formerly known as Murphy-Brown, decried the "outrageous conditions" at Kinlaw Farms, the operation at the center of the lawsuit - "conditions that there is no reason to suppose were unique to that facility".

"How did it come to this?" wrote Wilkinson, who was nominated to the fourth US circuit court of appeals by then president Ronald Reagan and has served since 1984. "What was missing from Kinlaw Farms - and from Murphy-Brown - was the recognition that treating animals better will benefit humans. What was neglected is that animal welfare and human welfare, far from advancing at cross-purposes, are actually integrally connected. The decades-long transition to concentrated animal feeding operations [CAFOs] lays bare this connection, and the consequences of its breach, with startling clarity."

Wilkinson described a system in which pigs were forced to live in enclosures they had outgrown, reducing them "to almost suffocating closeness &#8230; The dangers endemic to such appalling conditions always manifested first in animal suffering. Ineluctably, however, the ripples of dysfunction would reach farm workers and, at last, members of the surrounding community."

His comments concurred with the court's main opinion.

More than 500 North Carolinians, most of them black, filed more than two dozen lawsuits in 2014. Some lived near farms that had contracts with Smithfield. Others lived near farms owned by the company outright. They described being trapped inside their own homes, sickened by the smell of hog waste stored in open pits, and unable to hang laundry, cook outdoors, or entertain visitors.

The announcement of the company's decision to settle came immediately after the fourth circuit in Richmond, Virginia, rejected a call from the world's largest pork producer for a retrial of one of the cases. Juries in 2018 and 2019 had awarded hog farm neighbors almost $550m. The US district court in Raleigh, North Carolina, knocked the awards down to about $98m because of a state law capping punitive damages.

Smithfield's chief administrative officer, Keira Lombardo, said in a statement: "In the midst of a global pandemic, where food shortages have been commonplace, it is now the time to keep our full attention on the important work of producing good food in a responsible and sustainable way - rather than returning to the court for what would be ongoing and distracting litigation." Details of the settlement were not disclosed.

Smithfield lost the first five cases that went to trial. It appealed the three largest verdicts, calling the litigation an "almost existential threat" to North Carolina farmers. It claimed the district court had made numerous errors, such as allowing the neighbors' odor expert to testify while excluding some testimony from Smithfield's expert.

In the new ruling, a three-judge panel rejected most of the pork producer's arguments. The company "persisted in its chosen farming practices despite its knowledge of the harms to its neighbors, exhibiting wanton or wilful disregard of the neighbors' rights to enjoyment of their property," Judge Stephanie Thacker, an Obama nominee, wrote for the court.

The appellate judges did agree with Smithfield on one point: that the plaintiff's lawyer improperly used the parent company's financial data to convince jurors that punitive damages had to be large enough for the pork giant to feel. The appellate ruling said jurors should not have heard those details. "We fail to see what value the parent company financial evidence would have that could possibly outweigh the substantial risk of prejudice it carries in that delicate context," wrote Thacker.

Elsie Herring, a plaintiff in another of the cases, said she was pleased that the court had sided with the neighbors on most issues. "Our lives have been destroyed by the industry," she said. The North Carolina law firm Wallace & Graham, which represented the plaintiffs, did not respond to questions about the settlement. It said in a statement that the appellate court "fully got the truth" of its clients' struggles.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...emns-appalling-conditions-on-industrial-farms


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ good article


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Corn: How Industrial Agriculture Ruined a Sacred Seed*









Today, corn is a divisive subject. It holds great nostalgia for me and many other Americans. Sweet, crunchy, off-the-cob at a summer barbecue, or baked into warm and comforting cornbread, corn is ubiquitous with American culture. On the flip side, corn has become a mascot for the frightening future of genetically modified (GM) crops. Some in the scientific community blame corn for fueling the junk food industry and contributing to our obesity epidemic by making calorie-dense, nutrient-deficient foods more accessible and affordable. GM corn also poses serious risks to the people who grow it and their environments. But is corn really the culprit in this dystopian drama? Or is it the industry of this seed that is the cause of environmental degradation and increasing health implications? What has been lost in this story is the indigenous history and rich traditions of this sacred plant.

*Indigenous History of Corn*

While we may think of the plump, yellow kernels as a starchy vegetable, corn is actually the seed of a grass. It was first cultivated by Native Americans over 7,000 years ago in what is now Mexico. As they migrated north and south, they took these seeds with them, knowing that if they had seeds, they could survive. From the rocky terrain of the Andes mountains, to the plains of North America, corn was adaptive enough to thrive. For these Indigenous peoples, corn not only sustained life, but was life itself; according to myth, during the creation of life, the Corn Mother gave the people corn seeds and instructions on how to grow them. Packed with vitamins, minerals, and fiber, this whole grain was also important nutritionally. It was and remains a staple in many societies' diets and economies; a Native American woman reflects on its importance, saying, "Corn is so important because it allows us to live at peace. It's our form of food security."

Indigenous farming practices also focus on nutritional and environmental health by embracing diversity. A "three sisters" garden consists of corn, beans, and squash. Nutritionally, corn provides carbohydrates and fiber, beans provide protein, and squash many other vitamins and minerals. Corn stalks allow beans to climb up and grow, beans enrich the soil with nitrogen, and large squash leaves shade the soil and prevent weed growth.

What has been lost in this story [of corn] is the indigenous history of this sacred plant. If we could only relearn them, the rich history and traditions of corn could save the world.

Indigenous farmers take pride in preserving their corn. Louie Hena, a member of the Tesuque and Zuni Pueblos in New Mexico, says, "as keeper of the corn, the corn has come up with us through our migrations, sustaining us. Our first mothers were the blue corn and white corn women." Today, corn remains a key component in rituals, community gatherings, and spiritual stories. However, industrial agriculture has threatened the indigenous culture, food security, and environmental health that corn provides.

*Industry's Abuse of Corn*

In the sort of agriculture that has dominated America for the past several decades, the bottom line is always profit and crop yield is imperative. High-yield GM corn varieties are patented by seed corporations. To maximize profits, corn is grown in monoculture farms rather than together with beans and squash (or anything else, for that matter). Without the soil nutrients and weed protection beans and squash provide, artificial fertilizers and herbicides must be applied. These chemicals contaminate nearby water ecosystems and expose farm workers to dangerous levels. Pesticide exposure has been shown to affect reproductive health and has been linked to tens of thousands of cancer cases.

But ultimately, the consequences stretch far beyond the US. The export of GM corn and industrial farming practices have threatened the food sovereignty of communities around the world. When the US ships tons of cheap, plump corn to countries in Latin America, native growers can't compete. Enthralled by the profits, countries like Perúhave been seizing Indigenous peoples' lands in order to plant GM seeds. As a result, native seeds and agricultural practices are becoming extinct.

*Seed Saving and Community Sharing*

What chance do Indigenous peoples stand when their history and seeds are being wiped off this planet? Many of them are growing, saving, and sharing their seeds. Native Seeds is preserving the seeds of over a thousand indigenous seed varieties. Your own communities may have seed banks. Where I live, Jennifer Levine operates the Durham Seed Library in North Carolina. She emphasizes the importance of growing seeds native to the state and the sense of community that is fostered when patrons return later to share the seeds they have saved. You can find a seed library in your community and honor these native seeds.

We must take a step back and understand how the abuse of corn has violated the integrity of Indigenous communities and stifled the power of traditional agriculture. So, next time you bite into a cob of corn in the summer, or bake up some cornbread over the holidays, recognize and honor the indigenous history behind this powerful seed.









sauce https://nutritionstudies.org/corn-h...5fdzir-BMcuQJsRqvf8oe64ZS-enrcR7-MG3GH8h-Gp8w


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What Meat and Eggs Do to Our Microbiome*

As I've explored before, whether young or old, male or female, smoker or non-smoker, with high blood pressure or low blood pressure, high cholesterol or low, having high levels of a toxic compound called TMAO-trimethylamine oxide-in the bloodstream is associated with a significantly higher risk of having a heart attack, stroke, or dying over a three-year period. Where does TMAO come from? As I investigate in my video How to Develop a Healthy Gut Ecosystem, the choline in foods like eggs can be turned by gut bacteria into TMAO, which is then absorbed back into our system. And, the more eggs we eat, the higher the levels climb, as you can see at 0:41 in my video.

Given the similarity in structure between carnitine and choline, Cleveland Clinic researchers wondered if carnitine found in red meat, energy drinks, and supplements might also lead to TMAO production and put it to the test. As you can see at 1:00 in my video, if you feed omnivores, those who regularly eat meat, a steak, their TMAO levels shoot up. Those who eat strictly plant-based may start out with almost no TMAO in their system, presumably because they're not eating any meat, eggs, or dairy. But, even if vegans eat a sirloin, still almost no TMAO is made. Why? Presumably, they don't have steak-eating bacteria in their guts. Indeed, it was found that no TMAO is produced if you don't have TMAO-producing bacteria in your gut. If you don't regularly eat meat, then you're not fostering the growth of the meat-eating microbes that produce TMAO.

This suggests that once we develop a plant-based gut ecosystem, our bacteria will not produce TMAO, even if we eat meat every once and awhile. However, we still don't know how rapidly gut bacteria shift after a shift in our diet-but it does not appear to be all or nothing. If men eating the standard American diet are given two sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits before and after just five days of eating lots of similarly high-fat meals, their TMAO production boosts even higher, as you can see at 2:09 in my video. So, it's not just whether we have the bad bugs or not. Apparently, we can breed more of them the more we feed them.

Meat-free diets, on the other hand, can also have been "demonstrated to have a profound influence on human metabolism."Just by analyzing a urine sample, we can tell what kind of diet people eat, based on measurements like how low TMAO levels are in the urine of those eating egg-free vegetarian diets, as you can see at 2:26 in my video. At 2:43 in my video, you'll see that we can even take the same people rotate them through three different diets, and determine who is on a high-meat diet, low-meat diet, or no-meat diet, based in part on the different compounds churned out by the different gut flora or different flora activity after just about two weeks on the different diets. It's possible that some of the beneficial effects of whole plant foods may be mediated by the effects they have on our gut bacteria. At the same time, the standard American diet may increase the relative abundance of undesirables that produce toxic compounds including TMAO (as you can see at 3:07 in my video).

Strictly plant-based diets have gained acceptance as a dietary strategy for preventing and managing disease. Perhaps, in part, this is because of their rather unique gut flora, with less of the disease-causing bacteria and more of the protective species. So, all along, we thought the reason those eating plant-based had lower heart disease rates was because they were eating less saturated fat and cholesterol, but maybe their lower TMAO levels may also be contributing to their benefits, thanks to their reduced ingestion of carnitine and choline.

I talked about the egg industry response to the choline revelation in Egg Industry Response to Choline and TMAO. How has the carnitine supplement industry reacted? In response to the research implicating carnitine in TMAO production, the former vice president of AdvoCare-a multilevel marketing company that sells carnitine supplements like AdvoCare Slam while getting slammed with lawsuits finding them guilty of being "engaged in false, misleading or deceptive acts or practices" and forced to pay more than a million dollars-questioned whether there was a secret vegan conspiracy at the Cleveland Clinic. Restricting our intake of meat or carnitine supplements to prevent our gut bacteria from making TMAO, he argued, is like trying to prevent car accidents by restricting the sale of fuel.

Okay&#8230;but there are benefits to transportation. We're talking about TMAO, which may be fueling our epidemic of heart disease, the number-one killer of men and women in this country. As far as I'm concerned, the more we can cut the fuel for that, the better.

Sauce https://nutritionfacts.org/2020/05/...IV29b1QYa1zo-niJrqsb5xPc0t5XYebm5MJBt32SimoMI

open the link to watch Dr Greger's video


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

^lol I know the feeling! But deep down I don't believe it. It'll take a lot more time and effort than it should, but veganism will win in the end. Factory farming is too deplorable and the environmental destruction is too unsustainable to continue much longer. There's a growing awareness of this, even if actual change is lagging behind that realization. But I'm optimistic we're approaching a tipping point in the next few decades - far too late, but better than never.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

_"During my teenage years, given my athleticism, my insatiable appetite for spinach, and my last name, friends were quick to latch onto the stuff of pop-culture legend and nickname me Popeye. But it turns out that besides perpetrating the crime of the too-obvious-for-its-own-good pun, they were also perpetuating one of history's strangest and most egregious scientific errors."_
https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/07/02/spinach-popeye-error-half-life-of-facts/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ good food for thought 

Someone once pointed out: If you swap the spinach for beer, then any episode of Popeye becomes a bitter story of a raging alcoholic, right down to the speech impediment and tendency to fight people who he believes are trying to steal "his girl"


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Replacing Red Meat With Plant-Based Proteins Reduces Risk for Heart Disease*

Replacing red meat with high-quality plant foods such as beans, nuts, or soy may be associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease, according to a study published in the BMJ. Researchers analyzed food frequency questionnaires from participants in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study and compared red and processed meat consumption and sources of plant-based proteins with heart disease events and mortality. Total red and processed meat intake was associated with an increased risk for heart disease, while one serving per day of plant-based protein options such as legumes, whole grains, and soy products was associated with a lower risk for heart disease. Possible mechanisms for the risk include increased intake of saturated fat and heme iron and increased LDL and total cholesterol levels associated with meat intake, as well as proinflammatory compounds found in meat. The authors also attribute the lower risk to the replacement of saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat from plant protein sources.

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/...ng-at-red-meat-plant-foods-and-heart-disease/


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why Do People Hate Vegans So Much?*









I have been vegan for over a year now. Before that, I was your typical meat eater. I was probably even a little militant about it. Sure in my head, we needed to eat meat, and it was our right to do so. Like so many others, I believed meat was an integral part of our diet, and without it, we would wither away and die. But then I started to have doubts, and so I learnt more and educated myself.

It has mostly been an incredible journey, or rather journey is the wrong word. Adventure, perhaps. That is how it feels to me - like an adventure.

I have always been a foodie. When I was a child, I loved to cook and create my own things for people to eat. I even went on to train in the food and hospitality industry, and I am a qualified baker. I love to cook, I love to bake, and I love to create anything with food. It is one of those indulgent pleasures I have always allowed myself.

At home, it is not surprising; I am the primary cook. There is nothing like making a meal for the family from scratch and then watching everyone sit down to enjoy it.

I had been reading a lot about food and was searching for a new recipe for porridge. I came across a couple on YouTube, called That Vegan Couple and after watching their recipe, I watched other videos of theirs and got interested in veganism.

*Announcing I was Vegan, was Like Announcing I had Some Disease*

Aside from those who needed to know, such as my wife, I didn't tell anyone I had gone vegan. It was none of their business really. I cook for myself; I buy the food for the week and so aside from those living with me, it didn't matter. It only mattered when one of the grandsons had a birthday, and we were invited round for a party, which involved a buffet.

I considered not saying anything. Maybe it would be easier that way, but then I thought, they're going to think I'm rude not eating what they have laid out, and also, perhaps it would be mean of me to allow them to prepare me food I wasn't going to eat. So I let the stepdaughter know, not to worry about food for me, as I had switched to a vegan lifestyle and didn't want to put her out. I really wasn't bothered if she catered for me - it as about seeing the little boy and enjoying his birthday.
But she did cook some food for us. By this time, my wife had gone vegan too, as had my eldest son and his family. The stepdaughter bought us vegan burgers and made sure there were plenty of vegan snacks. It was very nice of her. We thanked her for her efforts, and I was pleasantly surprised my new way of life had been accepted.

*At Least I Thought So*

I began to hear whisperings in the family about our sudden change to veganism. Not too many nice comments. I was in a restaurant once with the family, and we ordered our food, and I ordered a vegan dish. One of the family members, very loudly said, oh for god sake. I was taken back by this. One, it was me eating it, so I wasn't sure what the problem was. Two, why does my plate of curried vegetables offend someone? They still stuck into their dish of cooked meat and vegetables, and I never said a word about it.

When Christmas came around, I was very excited to try new vegan Christmas recipes. This is me because I love cooking so much. I get excited when I can try new things. I had a whole menu planned out so that Christmas dinner stayed as close to traditional as possible. Only, we were informed certain family members weren't coming to Christmas dinner because of dietary differences. I honestly floored me.

*I Find Vegan Hatred Everywhere*

The real eye-opener with going vegan is the way you suddenly end up on everyone's hate list. It is as if not eating a dead animal is something terrible for you to do. I once asked someone why they hate vegans and vegetarians, and they said it is because they always rub it in your face and get at meat-eaters for eating meat.

I am finding the opposite to be true. I get sent pictures of raw meat and asked questions like wouldn't I like to eat this lovely juicy steak. I get told I am missing out, and that I am weird for not eating meat. I get shunned by people, and I have had someone come to my house for dinner, only to have eaten at their own home before they arrived, because they didn't want to eat any of that horrible vegan food.

It has gone so far that one family member hasn't been to our house in months because of our veganism. I'm not sure why. I am just the same person as I was over a year ago. What I eat or don't eat doesn't change that.

*How Do You Know if Someone is Vegan? They'll Tell You*

We've all heard that one, right? I find it isn't actually true. Most vegans will tell you when they have to. You want to invite me to your barbeque in the summer; then I need to tell you I'm vegan. Wouldn't it be odd of me not to say, and then you've bought me burgers and things that I won't eat?

My friends will try and tell me why meat is good. This is almost every single time I see them. Like they have this itch against my veganism. The funny thing is, it isn't never me who mentions the food. It's the meat-eating friend like they have to prove me wrong.

*So Why Do People Hate Vegans?*

In a survey, it was found that vegans are one of the most hated and disliked group of people, even topping people's negative comments towards homosexuals, immigrants and atheists. It has been shown that vegans and vegetarians receive discrimination on par with many other minority groups. And the only group to be viewed more negatively than vegans, are drug addicts.

*The Hatred Comes from an Us and Them Mentality*

Everyone has their identity tied up with a group. It doesn't matter who you are; there will be some group you identify with, be it your football team, the political party you vote for and even your hobbies.

A positive social identity plays a large part in who we are and gives us a sense of belonging to a group of people.

This means, if you are vegan, you reinforce your identity as a member of the vegan community, and this puts you in a different light to others. Switching from being a meat-eater to a vegan means that you go from the omnivore community to the vegan community.

*Fear of Judgment*

This seems to be the biggest crux of it all, mainly when a person adopts a vegan lifestyle for the benefit of the animals. Whether they realise it or not, many meat-eaters will feel judge by the vegans. With the vegans seeing themselves as better than them because they aim not to harm animals.

In this day and age, everyone feels judged by others, especially when we're all on social media and instead of taking one picture of yourself, you have to take fifty to make sure you look just right. This is because we live by the newsfeed, we see our friends highlights all the time, and they compare ourselves to our friends. This has led to the younger generation, especially, being overly concerned with being judged by their peers.

This is what happens with meat-eaters. They will know a person is vegan, and assume the vegan is judging them, and maybe they are. But we're so tied up in all this; we don't stop to think, what does it really matter if that vegan is frowning at me for eating a burger? Instead, what meat-eaters do, is waft that burger in the face of their vegan friend.

*Could it be Guilt?*

It is often thought that maybe the hatred towards vegans is more down to one's own guilt rather than anything towards to vegan themselves. Psychoanalyst Carl Jung reportedly said that what annoys people in others, is a reflection of themselves. Many people know that being vegan is a good thing to do. So many animals suffer each day, and so many of them are murdered unnecessarily. With so many people against animal abuse, it would be understandable that when faced with their own contribution to animal suffering (by buying meat), they are faced with their own moral dilemma and conscience.

*One Man Lost His Job Because of His Hatred*

William Sitwell lost his job this year when he replied to someone suggesting some plant-based recipes for the magazine. He was the food magazine editor for a leading supermarket in the UK. He said &#8230;

*So why do people hate vegans?*

I have no idea. There are better things to hate out there than someone who wants to do no harm to animals. Maybe we'll never know the reason. I just know, going vegan is the best thing I ever did, and I will never eat meat or any other animal product again.

sauce https://medium.com/simply-live/why-do-people-hate-vegans-so-much-a60baca9de3b


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Core de Force


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

hordie said:


> I decided to go vegan because I have too many health issues... It's only been a month, but I already feel much better


That's great! The science is pretty clear that the best diets are plant based. There's a lot of good information from articles and comments in this sub forum. Keep up the good work. Let us know how it's going.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

hordie said:


> I decided to go vegan because I have too many health issues... It's only been a month, but I already feel much better


What did your previous diet consist of? What health issues are you trying to resolve?

If you stick with it, please follow Michael Greger's recommended supplement regimen.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## ojito (Jun 20, 2010)

cyclelicious said:


> *How Do You Know if Someone is Vegan? They'll Tell You*
> 
> My friends (**edit: *also forum posters*) will try and tell me why meat is good. This is almost every single time I see them. Like they have this itch against my veganism. The funny thing is, it isn't never me who mentions the food. It's the meat-eating friend like they have to prove me wrong.
> ^^^^^^^^^ YESSSS
> ...


Everything in this. The way I see it, it is part of the machismo culture, which to me comes from feeling insecure. re: Small Penis Syndrome. Obviously it's not only men, but it's the same culture. Personally, I find it hilarious when someone shows how threatened they feel by others' lifestyle choices by bringing up 'studies' by the beef or dairy industry showing how plant-based diets are bad.

In Qatar, our host invited us to dinner at his house along with a whole slew of his relatives. There was a ton of great food, including a couple carcasses that everyone was digging into with their hands, Middle Eastern-style. Host noticed I wasn't partaking in that and urged me on, but as politely as I could I said how amazing everything was but that I was vegetarian and hoped he wouldn't be offended. And, as meat-centric and macho as that culture is, he said "Oh that's great, my sister some of my friends are vegetarian! I couldn't do it, but I think it is good for people who can." He even asked me about it later, like out of genuine curiosity, and we talked for quite a while. I think he respected my choices and standing by my beliefs, and I definitely respected his non-judgement and open-mindedness.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I don't like the idea of pathologizing ethical veganism but I still found this interesting and relatable:

*Do You Suffer From Vystopia?*
*The Discovery of Systemised Cruelty*

Like many who have made the journey before me, the discovery of systemised torture and cruelty within our modern society left me horrified.

My journey into veganism arose out of my eyes being suddenly opened to the large scale abuse of animals in our industrial system. It was almost impossible to take in, and probably one of the most painful things I have ever experienced.

The realisation that approximately 150 billion animals per year are killed for a mere 7.5 billion humans was appalling. These animals are merely cogs in the machinery of business who consider them no more than units of production and profit.

The reality I faced was indeed a dystopia, namely; "an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one" (Wikipedia). However, as far as the industrial abuse of animals, this wasn't an imagined place or state. It was reality, and yet the majority of people were colluding with this dystopia through their everyday consumer choices.

The more I searched, the more despairing I became. Within this was the other reality that encouraging people not to collude with the exploitation of animals was often met with ridicule, resistance, criticism or indifference.

Cries of "It's my choice to eat what I want!" made my heart sink, realising that those who said this were in a trance-like state at the enormity of what they were a part of. I couldn't escape the frequent reminders of this speciesism as I saw others eat animals or their secretions, wear animals, sit on furniture made of animal skins, use cosmetics and household products that contained animal products or were tested on them.

This collective collusion with the abuse was so startling that I felt there was no escape. It wasn't as if the collusion with the pursuit of profit at any cost could be avoided by visiting or purchasing elsewhere. Even if I chose to purchase and act differently, others around me were continuing to support this dystopia. It was right in-front of my eyes and they were seemingly unaware of the depth of the deception.

*The Existential Angst of a Vegan*

Others who have made this discovery might relate to this level of existential angst. My background as an existential psychotherapist and psychologist had already given me a deep understanding of life choices, and their effect on the human psyche.

However, unlike that very personal journey we are all on of discovering our meaning, I came to realise that the vegan can't escape this angst through distraction or meaning-making. I believe this is because they can't escape the everyday reminder of the dystopia and the non-vegan's unwitting collusion with animal cruelty.

Non-vegans are unwittingly colluding with the cruelty, until the vegan advises them of it. The vegan who then talks to someone about these issues, who subsequently doesn't become vegan, believes that that person either agrees with the cruelty, disbelieves what goes on or is indifferent to it. Either way, the vegan knows that the non-vegan now has the knowledge but chooses to continue with the collusion. Therefore, they say that their friends or family don't understand them. They might believe the non-vegan is demonstrating that:

 Cruelty and animal exploitation is acceptable.
 They do not wish or are unable to empathise with the vegan's trauma or
 They do not believe that animal cruelty is as far-reaching as the vegan reports.
*Vystopia*

The existential angst for the vegan is something I call vystopia, the "existential crisis experienced by vegans which arises out of an awareness of the trance-like collusion with a dystopian world. It's the awareness of the greed, ubiquitous animal exploitation and speciesism in a modern dystopia".

If you have following symptoms, you too are likely to be suffering from vystopia:

Anger
Intense grief at the enormity of the ubiquitous animal abuse
Frustration at being unable to wake people up from the trance
Feelings of alienation from non-vegans
Loneliness within groups you previously felt part of
Despair and hopelessness that things will never change
Powerlessness to effect change on a global level
*Is there a cure for vystopia?*

The cure for vystopia is a vegan world that extends beyond the non-exploitation of animals to encompass the non-exploitation of humans.
Exploitation of humans will always exist whilst we are part of a machinery that maintains us in a state of trance where we don't even question the abuse. This may sound like an unachievable Utopia. However, all positive steps in human history arise out of people coming together and holding a vision which is very different from their current reality.
It takes leaders to share this vision and 'walk the talk" of their conviction so others say, "We can indeed do better than this and we will!" Vegans are the new leaders in creation of this brave new world and each of us must rise to the challenge and be on the right side of history. Together we can create a world in which we all wish to belong and in which all sentient creatures are respected and honoured.






Do You Suffer From Vystopia? – Vegan Psychologist – Clare Mann







www.veganpsychologist.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ good article

I get a sick feeling when I see livestock trailers during my commute. I know where those cows and pigs (sometimes chickens and horses) are heading. As I'm passing, I can see their faces and as traffic slows I see their eyes following me. Rather than disconnected, I become hyper connected and get flooded with emotion

Most people are disconnected from their food sources and the meat, dairy, and egg industries like it that way. Showing the truth of how animals are raised and slaughtered is bad for business. Instead, they slap images of happy animals and rolling green pastures on their cartons and wrappers to give the illusion of freedom and contentment. McDonalds has a new commercial about "grass fed cows", rolling hills and how wonderful their lives are. They don't show the slaughterhouses and how those cows end up on a bun

Those images of happy farm animals are not a reality for the billions of animals killed for food each year. The cows (pigs, chickens and horses) in transport passed by drivers on the highway likely did not come from rolling hills and definitely weren’t heading to a life of freedom on a sanctuary. They are heading to slaughterhouses, and you and I witnessed one of their final moments alive.

That's why I get filled with grief

When we hear stories on the news about these transport trucks overturning on the highway, everyone’s hearts ache for the innocent lives affected. People stop thinking about why the animals were being transported and instead focus on how sad it is that animals were injured or killed on the road. People get upset when animals are killed right in front of them, but when it happens behind closed doors at the hands of the meat, dairy, and egg industries, it suddenly becomes an out-of-sight, out-of-mind situation.

At a young age I questioned why I ate meat... a the connection was made and I stopped at 18. Understanding that you have been unknowingly supporting unimaginable cruelty is a heavy realization at any age.

This is just one reason I am plant based and share the message


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## kubikeman (Jun 4, 2010)

I just want to say that I experienced some of this hatred and odd lines of questioning when I was vegetarian. I am no longer, and all the weird comments and arguments have stopped. That's not why I went back to eating some meat, but that's also not the point of my comment. It was strange how people I knew, people I was friends with for so long, would suddenly become a Dr. of nutrition, and start arguments.

I was told that I would die without meat, that I could cheat "just this one time." I was constantly asked how I got my protein. And when I would name some sources, such as wheat berries, bulgur, tofu, etc... I was left with squinty faces wondering how I could eat such awful food. My dad even commented a few times, "...you can make that for dinner, I'll eat it, I like that weird vegan stuff." And all I kept screaming back at them was, "it's not weird, it's just food!"

Sadly, I don't see it changing. I know that's a pessimistic outlook. I'm glad I tried it and I learned a lot. I feel like it's helped me understand so many of the questions I would probably still have if I never attempted my own adventure.


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## mack_turtle (Jan 6, 2009)

I think it's gotten better over the years. more people are exposed to the idea and have opened up to different food choices. I know many, many people who have made a point to at least limit their meat consumption if not quit altogether in recent years. I've watched my FiL go from literally telling me that I am part of a "satanic cult" to eating General Tso's tofu and injera bread (not at the same time) with us and no longer being weirded out by "vegan food" because now it's just FOOD.

I rarely get weird questions anymore. I regularly eat out at restaurants that are not vegan-specific and when I ask if a dish can be modified to be vegan-friendly, 99% of the time, the waiter already knows the answer, or comes back from the kitchen after a few minutes with an answer. perhaps I am in a bubble living in a metropolitan city.

when I started on this journey, it was almost impossible to even buy tofu at most groceries stores, there were very, very few vegetarian-specific restaurants (most of them were run by Hari Krishna groups, although those are darn good!), there was only one option for non-dairy ice cream (horror!) and you'd never find the word "vegan" on food packaging. many professional athletes and influential people have gone vegan. going vegan made you an absolute freak 20 years ago and not it's simply mainstream. a lot has changed!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It has gotten better in a lot of ways. When I was vegetarian in the 80's and 90's (those were the dark ages) there wasn't a whole lot of choice, understanding or acceptance. Now I see so much variety on the store shelves, vegan choices on menus, produces that are cruelty and animal free... civilization has come a long way in a short time. I use to get questioned about the food I ate but I didn't mind sharing my experience and letting people know that I'm vegan (prior to that vegetarian) because is the right thing to do to increase public acceptance of veganism. Knowledge is power


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## mack_turtle (Jan 6, 2009)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> I don't like the idea of pathologizing ethical veganism but I still found this interesting and relatable:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


When I go down this road, I think of an Avett Brothers song called Head Full of Doubt that says:

_There's a darkness upon me that's flooded in light.
In the fine print they tell me what's wrong and what's right.
And it comes in black and it comes in white,
And I'm frightened by those who don't see it._

I am not certain that I am interpreting it the way the writer intended, but that's what it means to me.


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## Klurejr (Oct 13, 2006)

I don't get it when people hate on vegans or vegetarians. I do enjoy some of the humor along the lines of how do you know someone is Vegan - they will tell you, etc, etc. But like most humor that is just a amplification of a stereotype.

I know a few people on a personally level who are vegan, 2 of them is not by choice, they just have bad reactions to animal and animal byproducts. Going to a vegan diet was the only way to have a healthy gut.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Now he goes by "Daddy Christmas"


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Mmm! Can't wait to try the spinach milk


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## natas1321 (Nov 4, 2017)

cyclelicious said:


> Mmm! Can't wait to try the spinach milk
> 
> View attachment 1907321


I would try this.

Sent from my moto g(7) supra using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Klurejr (Oct 13, 2006)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1908304


I gotta show that to someone when they talk about chemicals in our food... lol


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Covid shot










And Vegan (You can do it )


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I had some roasted brussels sprouts for dinner last night ... they are like natures cannon balls... kapow!


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1909220
> 
> 
> I had some roasted brussels sprouts for dinner last night ... they are like natures cannon balls... kapow!


Yeah buy they are yummy!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1909220
> 
> 
> I had some roasted brussels sprouts for dinner last night ... they are like natures cannon balls... kapow!


That picture is from Sosios Produce in Pike Place Market...I worked there for several years in my 20s. Fun job and exposed me to lots of cool specialty produce.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I always preferred plant milk anyway...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The hidden biases that drive anti-vegan hatred

People love to moan that vegans are annoying: research has shown that only drug addicts inspire the same degree of loathing. Now psychologists are starting to understand why - and it's becoming clear that the reasons aren't entirely rational. *

In July 2019, a bare-chested, pony-tailed man turned up at a vegan market in London, and began snacking on a raw squirrel. In video footage of the bizarre incident, the pro-meat protester can be seen clutching the animal's limp, furry body - sans head - while a stunned crowd waits for him to be arrested. His mouth is encrusted with blood. At one point, a passing onlooker asks "Why are you doing this?"

This, it turns out, is a deceptively tricky question to answer.

As the popularity of vegan life continues to gather pace, a tide of vitriol has risen. To eat meat, or not to eat meat: the question has become a battleground, with passionate carnivores and vegan activists deploying some deliciously headline-grabbing tactics. There have been pig robberies. There have been defiant public carvings of deer legs. There have been nude protesters smothered with fake blood. There have been provocative sandwiches.

Though it's natural for people to disagree, the passionate rage - and even mild irritation - that veganism stirs up seems to defy rational sense. Research has shown that only drug addicts face the same degree of stigma - and the least popular vegans of all are those who cite animal cruelty as their reason. Given that most of us would probably like to see less suffering in the world, why is there such resentment towards those who do something about it?

If you dare to ask, veganophobes have plenty of reasonable (and not-so-reasonable) sounding explanations at the ready. First up there's the hypocrisy argument - the idea that vegans have blood on their hands, too - in the form of plant massacres, the environmental cost of avocadoes, and all the field mice killed while harvesting crops.

But even when vegans are consistent, this also seems to fuel their bad publicity. In the UK, a campaigner recently caused a stir when he revealed that he won't use public transport, in case it runs down any unfortunate insects.

Other popular arguments include the perception of vegans as over-smug - as the joke goes, "How do you recognise a vegan at a dinner party? Don't worry! They'll tell you!" - and over-zealous; a rapper recently cancelled a gig after the singer Morrissey insisted on an all-out meat ban at the venue. On forums, vegans face bizarre accusations like "only psychopaths like vegans enjoy tofu bacon".

But are these really the reasons that people hate vegans? Not everyone is convinced. Some psychologists take another view - that far from being driven by factors within our conscious awareness, the widespread resentment we have for vegans is down to deep-seated psychological biases.
Hank Rothgerber, a social psychologist at Bellarmine University, Kentucky, thinks it all comes down to answering the question: how do we continue to eat meat?

"So basically we live in an era today, at least in the Western world, where there's more and more evidence, more and more arguments, and more and more books about how eating meat is bad," says Rothgerber. "But still, our behaviour hasn't changed significantly." He points out that 2018 looks set to be - it takes a while for the annual statistics to be released - the year with the highest per capita meat consumption in the history of the United States.

"So what I'm looking at is, how do people rationalise that, and still feel like they're a good person?" To continue to eat meat, Rothgerber suggests, requires some serious mental gymnastics. Luckily, our brains are extremely good at protecting us from realities we don't want to face - and there are a number of psychological tricks at our disposal.

If you bring your cod and chips home to eat in front of your beloved goldfish, or tuck into a rabbit stew mere moments after cooing over various #rabbitsofinstagram, you're likely to encounter "cognitive dissonance", which occurs when a person holds two incompatible views, and acts on one of them. In this case, your affection for animals might just start to clash with the idea that it's OK to eat them.
Some psychologists call this the "meat paradox", though it's also been couched in stronger terms - as "moral schizophrenia".

The tension that results can make us feel stressed, irritated, and unhappy. But instead of resolving it by changing our beliefs or behaviour, it's quite normal to blame these feelings on something else entirely - all without realising we're doing it. For example, when stockbrokers make a loss on certain investments, they tend to blame their managers. This allows them to continue believing that they make excellent decisions, while facing the fact that they've achieved the exact opposite of what they're paid to do, and actually lost money.

In the case of eating meat, Rothgerber suggests we have a number of strategies - around 15 - which allow us to avoid facing up to the meat paradox. These include pretending that meat has no link to animals, imagining that we eat less of it than we really do, wilful ignorance about how it's produced - helped by the cartoons of happy farm animals that we're exposed to from childhood - and only eating meat from animals which are "humanely" farmed.

Unfortunately, most of these are derailed by the presence of vegans.

According to Rothgerber, people tend not to think of meat eating as an ideology. The dominance of meat eating around the world helps the omnivores among us to avoid the idea that it's a choice - it's just what everyone else is doing. But when a vegan turns up at a dinner party, suddenly we're bumped out of the comfortable "mainstream diet" category and into the unsettling "meat-eating" category. By their mere existence, vegans force people to confront their cognitive dissonance. And this makes people angry.

One popular way to resolve cognitive dissonance is by reasoning our way out of it.

Decades of psychological research have shown that, when making a decision, people tend to allow themselves to reach their preferred conclusion, as long as they can invent a rational-sounding justification. For example, one study found that when participants wanted to believe that they would be academically successful, they were more likely to recall their past successes than their failures, to creatively tack together an explanation that seemed to support this.

In the case of meat, this "motivated reasoning" might lead people to find explanations for why eating animals is the correct decision. And one of these is that vegans are bad.

In a study led by Julia Minson, a psychologist from the University of Pennsylvania, participants were surveyed about their attitudes towards vegans and then asked to think of three words that they associated with them. Just under half the participants had something negative to say, and intriguingly, 45% included a word which referred to their social characteristics. For example, vegans were allied with the words "weird", "arrogant", "preachy", "militant", "uptight", "stupid", and - mysteriously - "sadistic".

The reputation of vegans probably isn't helped by the fact that non-meat eaters really do think they're better than everyone else; vegetarians tend to rate the virtuosity of other vegetarians more highly than that of non-vegetarians. But it's also true that most of us agree with them - and this is a major source of animosity.
In line with this, the more righteous the study participants expected the vegetarians to be, the harsher the words they chose to describe them.

"There's a lot of research on how we don't like members of groups who are potentially morally inferior, or which society sees as wrong," says Benoit Monin, a psychologist from Stanford University who was also involved in the study. "But it's intriguing to me that we also reject members of groups who have made laudable choices on purpose."

There's mounting evidence that we're particularly threatened by people who have similar morals to us, if they're prepared to go further than we are in order to stick to them. In the end, our fear of being judged far outstrips any respect we might have for their superior integrity.

For a second study, the team asked some participants to think about how vegetarians would judge their morality, before rating the degree to which they're likely to possess a series of personality traits. Others were asked to do the same thing, but the other way around. They found that those who had thought about being judged by vegetarians first, tended to associate vegetarians more strongly with negative words.
In fact, Monin says this fear of reproach is so potent, vegetarians are likely to be more threatened by vegans than non-vegetarians are. "They agree that there is something wrong about raising animals for food, and now they're faced with someone who's putting their money where their mouth is, more than they do."

They're right to be afraid; research shows that vegans think vegetarians are hypocritical. According to Rothgerber, "do-gooder derogation" might be a way of shifting attention away from our own dubious decisions, to help to soothe the uncomfortable feelings that cognitive dissonance creates.
The finding also explains why ethical vegans and vegetarians are more irritating to omnivores than those who choose the lifestyle for health reasons.

"It's really hard to say "I don't think it's cool to be complicit in a system of animal slaughter. But, you know, you should do what you want... I'm not judging you"," says Monin. Instead, arguments which sidestep morality entirely are much less aggravating. For example, suggesting that you're a vegan because of some idiosyncrasy, such as that you grew up on a farm, lets carnivores off the hook. It's not your fault if you didn't, and this experience would be impossible to replicate as an adult.

Ironically, the same psychological biases also mean that pro-veganism adverts which focus on animal suffering could have the opposite of the intended effect; while some people might react by eating less meat, those who choose not to change their behaviour are likely to deal with the discomfort they feel by trying harder than ever to justify their actions - leading them straight through the door of the next chicken shop.

So the next time a squirrel-eating activist hits the headlines, just think: deep, deep down, they might actually be an animal-lover, going to elaborate lengths to cover it up.









The hidden biases that drive anti-vegan hatred


People love to moan about vegans: research shows only drug addicts inspire the same loathing. Now psychologists may understand why – and the reasoning isn't entirely rational.




www.bbc.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Hair trends for 2021


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

done


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

The creator of that infographic should be embarrassed.

Nutritional yeast does not naturally contain B12. Most have some B12 added to them (Marmite included), but some contain no B12 at all, and the added amounts vary widely. If you're going to rely on nutritional yeast for B12 you need to read labels and serving sizes carefully.

Chia, flax and walnuts contain ALA O3, not the DHA and EPA you actually need. Your body's capacity to convert ALA to DHA/EPA is extremely limited, especially if you're a vegan whose diet is low in saturated fat (Can adults adequately convert alpha-linolenic acid (18:3n-3) to eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5n-3) and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6n-3)? - PubMed ; Conversion of alpha-linolenic acid to longer-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in human adults - PubMed). Even Michael Greger says vegans should take a DHA/EPA supplement daily.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thanks for your update and contribution  Yes the chart is extremely simplistic. But it is a start for anyone contemplating a well balanced plant based diet. Your points are well taken and I like Dr Greger too.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> But it is a start for anyone contemplating a well balanced plant based diet.


It's potentially dangerous misinformation, especially for anyone vegan-curious who is not well-versed in the supplemention required on a vegan diet.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Info post removed

You can get enough with about 5g of omega 3 but not many people consume that amount (roughly 3 tablespoons of ground flax). 

A supplement would work


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

Greger has multiple videos explaining why he recommends DHA/EPA supplementation. The only significant whole-food sources are fish, shellfish and grass-fed red meat which are obviously not part of a vegan diet.

The importance of B12 goes way beyond immune function--it is a critical nutrient for numerous aspects of metabolism and especially neurological and cardiovascular health. Insufficient B12 intake can cause irreversible neurological damage, up to and including death (an unsupplemented vegan diet will literally kill you, I am not exaggerating). If you're taking a B12 supplement regularly (2,000 mcg 1x/wk, per Greger), you're fine. If you're eating non-fortified nutritional yeast, or eating a fortified brand but not carefully tracking your intake to make sure you're getting enough, you could suffer very serious consequences. B12 deficiency is common among vegans:





__





The prevalence of cobalamin deficiency among vegetarians assessed by serum vitamin B12: a review of literature - European Journal of Clinical Nutrition


Individuals following vegetarian diets are at risk for developing vitamin B12 deficiency owing to suboptimal intake. As vitamin B12 is essential for the synthesis of nucleic acids, erythrocytes and in the maintenance of myelin, deficiency may result in a variety of symptoms. Some of these...




www.nature.com












Vitamin B12 among Vegetarians: Status, Assessment and Supplementation


Cobalamin is an essential molecule for humans. It acts as a cofactor in one-carbon transfers through methylation and molecular rearrangement. These functions take place in fatty acid, amino acid and nucleic acid metabolic pathways. The deficiency of vitamin ...




www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov








__





Individual Cases of B12 Deficiency in Vegans


The latest blog post from VeganHealth.org




veganhealth.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

That's for sharing Dan! I do take a vitamin B12 supplement and have for many years and would recommend it for any vegetarian or vegan.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Pretty much all vegans know B12 is a must but its good to keep reminding, especially for new vegans. It's also worth remembering livestock get their B12 through supplements (animals can't produce it) so the B12 found in animal products is effectively second-hand supplementation.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> Pretty much all vegans know B12 is a must but its good to keep reminding, especially for new vegans.


It is not uncommon to see people posting (not here) that B12 supplementation is unnecessary and you can get all the B12 you need by drinking raw water and eating unwashed vegetables with dirt on them. It's scary to see.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Completely agree. You don't have to be a nutrition expert to be vegan, but you should listen to the vegans who are nutrition experts. B12 is not optional. 

I take algal DHA as well. Some reputable sources say ALA conversion can be sufficient but there's enough debate on that for me to err on the side of caution. Plus I don't want to grind flax and chia everyday. I've also read omega 6 competes for an enzyme involved in ALA conversion so a diet high in omega 6 (I eat lots of peanut butter!) can interfere with that. 

You can make nutrition as complicated as you want but I think B12/DHA and a wide variety of mostly whole foods is the main take away.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The most regular guy in the world... love this story


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is a good summary of where focus needs to be to save humans and the planet!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Ian Limburg (Oct 27, 2020)




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## Ian Limburg (Oct 27, 2020)

cyclelicious said:


> The most regular guy in the world... love this story


Interestingly enough I am currently trying to get hired at a Human Bean. Very cool place


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Every time


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Factory Farms Should Be 'Discontinued' To Protect Humans, Says Scientists In New Paper*

A new paper examines the current COVID-19 outbreak - and says we should stop factory farming for the 'sake of animals, humans, and the environment'.

The paper, titled _What the COVID-19 Pandemic is Telling Humanity__, _is published in the journal Kargar.

It was penned by David O. Wiebers, MD, Emeritus Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic, and Valery Feigin, MD, of New Zealand's National Institute for Stroke and Applied Neurosciences.

*A global health emergency'*
Laying out the current situation, the authors say the world is 'enveloped in a global health emergency that is exacting enormous medical and economic tolls upon humanity'.

They describe how the SARS-CoV-2 that has caused the current COVID-19 pandemic is 'thought to have originated in bats and, via an intermediary such as the pangolin, to have found its way from a 'wet market' where live wildlife species were being sold for human consumption in Wuhan, China, to one or more humans at that location'.

The medical community has found itself on the frontline of the crisis, both in treating patients, and racing to find a vaccine for the virus, they say. Meanwhile, politicians are attempting to 'mitigate the overwhelming societal and economic devastations that are unfolding'.

*'Imperative to reflect'*
The paper considers how it is 'imperative for us as a society and species to focus and reflect deeply upon what this and other related human health crises are telling us about our role in these increasingly frequent events' - as well as how we can try to stave off such situations in the future.

The authors note that according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) '&#8230;three in every four new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals'.

"The alarming increase in frequency of these lethal zoonotic diseases relates in large part to our human-dominated ecosystem with increasingly unnatural human-animal close contact, grossly aberrant crowding of animals for human purposes, destruction of animal habitats, and vast numbers of highly mobile humans to swiftly carry these diseases throughout the world," says the paper.










*Factory farming*
The authors are decisive in what action they believe should be taken to help prevent further pandemics. They write: "Intensive confinement of animals in factory farm operations should be discontinued worldwide for the sake of animals, humans, and the environment, and we should rapidly evolve to eating other forms of protein that are safer for humans, including plant-based meat alternatives and cultured meat (produced by culturing animal cells)."

They add that investing in plant-based agriculture and growing crops for human consumption rather than livestock would be more efficient in feeding more people while using less land and water. This, they say, would allow 'for the preservation of vital ecosystems for innumerable species'.

They conclude: "Ultimately, the survival, not only of other life forms on this planet, but also of our own, will depend upon humanity's ability to recognize the oneness of all that exists and the importance and deeper significance of compassion for all life."

*Doctors on factory farming*
This paper follows numerous doctors speaking out about the public health risks of factory farming. Dr. Gemma Newman - also known as the Plant Powered Doctor - is a senior partner at a UK medical practice. She described factory farms as a 'ticking timebomb' while speaking about the dangers of industrial meat production while supporting the No Meat May campaign.

"Some politicians and commentators blame China for Covid-19, but they do not mention that all of the recent major disease outbreaks have been caused by tampering with animals and their habitats, or that our chicken salad and pepperoni pizza could be the next big health risk," Dr. Newman said in a statement sent to _Plant Based News_.

"The inconvenient truth is that factory farms put a strain on animal health, which means we treat them with antibiotics and small doses end up in your meal. suggests an extra 10 million people may die by 2050 as a result of antibiotic resistance, and we can add viral pandemics to these figures too. This current crisis shows us that we are not prepared for the future we are creating.

"Our industrial-scale factory farms are like a ticking time bomb - yet I can guarantee that lentils will not spark a viral pandemic anytime soon. Many of us are sitting at home wondering what we can do to help this situation. Taking some time to reflect on what we eat, limiting the meat we put in our supermarket trolley, and shifting to a more plant-based diet will help us move towards a safer future. Signing up to the campaign is a lovely way to feel supported in reducing meat consumption moving forwards."

sauce Factory Farms Should Be 'Discontinued' To Protect Humans, Says Scientists In New Paper


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*FRANCE JUST GOT ITS FIRST MICHELIN STAR FOR A VEGAN RESTAURANT*
French eatery ONA is the first vegan restaurant in France to win a coveted Michelin star. ONA-which is an acronym for "Origine Non Animale" ("animal-free origin")-is the first vegan establishment to appear in the Michelin Guide to France since it was created in the year 1900. Michelin stars are a rating system used by the Michelin Guide to grade restaurants on their quality.

*A gourmet menu*
ONA was founded by Claire Vallée in 2016 in the city of Ares in the southwest area of the country. Vallée was able to open her restaurant thanks to crowdfunding and a loan from an ethically minded bank. ONA offers a gourmet menu of several dishes, some of which involve flavors of pine, boletus mushrooms and sake, or celery, tonka, and amber ale. "More than a restaurant, it's a way of life. Self-taught chef Claire Vallée, proposes 100-percent vegan, organic gastronomy-hence the name, which stands for 'non-animal origin' in French," the Michelin Guide to France says. "The beautifully dressed plates feature a splendid array of fruit and vegetables. Greatly deserving of the attention it is garnering."

*A green star*
In addition to the classic Michelin star award, ONA also won a green star, which Michelin introduced last year to honor establishments with a strong focus on ethical and sustainable practices.

sauce France Just Got Its First Michelin Star for a Vegan Restaurant


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

Low fat/No fat was created to market processed food, not health (or environmental health). I suspect a substantial undercurrent of the vegan and vegetarian drive comes from the same goal, not from an altruistic drive to save the planet (or piggies). There's profit in it for all the wrong reasons.


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## aaronedmonton (Nov 28, 2020)

Ridnparadise said:


> Low fat/No fat was created to market processed food, not health (or environmental health). I suspect a substantial undercurrent of the vegan and vegetarian drive comes from the same goal, not from an altruistic drive to save the planet (or piggies). There's profit in it for all the wrong reasons.


There is always an angle that can be exploited for money.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I welcome anyone helping make veganism more mainstream. If having vegan junk food helps reduce animal suffering that's fine by me. With veganism growing as a market trend its no surprise some want to jump on the bandwagon for the wrong reasons. If the end result is less animal suffering and an expedited end to systematic animal abuse I couldn't care less about profit motives and people eating garbage.


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

Survival of the species is not described as pleasure or convenience by any species other than man. Birds kill more insects than we kill animals. Should they cease? If animals were otherwise immortal, the argument may be different, but we are all just meaningless and infinitely insignificant points on an infinite calendar. Just saying.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The treatment of animals in factory farms is barbaric and cruel. Bringing attention to this cruelty will change practices. eg
Recently, the German government plans to ban the practice of killing male chicks after they hatch, which results in the death of around 45 million birds per year in the country.









Germany to ban practice of killing newly hatched male chicks


BERLIN (AP) — The German government plans to ban the practice of killing male chicks after they hatch, which results in the death of around 45 million birds per year in the country. The Cabinet on Wednesday approved legislation that will prohibit the practice from Jan.




apnews.com





I'm thrilled to see actions being taken at a government level to begin to address the serious and pervasive issues of animal cruelty. This is a significant victory as it acknowledges that bringing an animal into the world only to kill it is innately and unjustifiably cruel.

What a fantastic scientific advancement, and it will indeed prevent a great deal of suffering. However, it's also unbearably sad that so much time, energy and money will be spent on a problem that could be solved by simply not breeding them to eat at all.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Ridnparadise said:


> Survival of the species is not described as pleasure or convenience by any species other than man. Birds kill more insects than we kill animals. Should they cease? If animals were otherwise immortal, the argument may be different, but we are all just meaningless and infinitely insignificant points on an infinite calendar. Just saying.


The survival of our species does not in anyway depend on exploiting and killing animals. We're past that phase of our history and it's time for our morals to catch up. What's left when a necessary evil is no longer necessary?

On the contrary our current pandemic is the result of eating animals, future pandemics are most likely to come from factory farming and we're already losing antibiotic efficacy due to overuse in livestock. Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity. A pandemic or ecological collapse has a pretty small chance of wiping out humanity IMO but veganism has no chance and is in fact a powerful tool to address serious issues we face.

Vegans don't have a problem with animals doing what they need to survive, including killing for food. But as humans we have the capacity for moral reasoning and the ability to choose what we eat.

If you want to zoom out to the "lol nothing matters" scale sure, we're all insignificant and our lives are meaningless. But you could use that same thinking to justify anything - it's a wholesale rejection of ethical behavior. If that's what it takes to defend your position you might want to rethink where you stand.

The treatment of animals on factory farms is an ongoing atrocity and I encourage you to watch undercover footage or read about the conditions they are kept in. It's really hard but we can't make the right decisions if we won't face the truth.

If you were in control I know you'd want them to be treated as humanely as possible. But as consumers we don't have that control. We have a binary choice - fund animal abuse, or boycott it.


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## Ridnparadise (Dec 14, 2007)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> The survival of our species does not in anyway depend on exploiting and killing animals. We're past that phase of our history and it's time for our morals to catch up. What's left when a necessary evil is no longer necessary?
> 
> On the contrary our current pandemic is the result of eating animals, future pandemics are most likely to come from factory farming and we're already losing antibiotic efficacy due to overuse in livestock. Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity. A pandemic or ecological collapse has a pretty small chance of wiping out humanity IMO but veganism has no chance and is in fact a powerful tool to address serious issues we face.
> 
> ...


I don't remember supporting inhumane animal farming. I don't. Sustainable farming, rotating poultry and various critters over the same land as it is refertilised and kept healthy, along with the animals on it is not immoral. Thankfully, it is gradually clawing back, albeit at local community levels.

While I have zero issue with eating vegetables and they make up the majority of my diet, I do have an issue with highly processed food and broad-acre cropping. Land-clearing, destruction of local ecosystems, excessive use of fertiliser, fungicides and weedicides, raising salinity levels and gross profiteering from the production of low quality plant-based foods is not something we should be blind to either.

There's nothing lol in this argument, the health of the species' or the planet.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Ridnparadise said:


> I don't remember supporting inhumane animal farming. I don't. Sustainable farming, rotating poultry and various critters over the same land as it is refertilised and kept healthy, along with the animals on it is not immoral. Thankfully, it is gradually clawing back, albeit at local community levels.


I try not to point fingers or lay blame. I wasn't born vegan and it took a long time for my thoughts and actions to change. And that never would have happened if I didn't hold _myself_ accountable - when I bought animal products I wasn't just paying for a packaged product, but for everything those animals endured. And paying extra for fancier packaging with words like "humane" and "sustainable" wasn't enough to satisfy my conscience.

I also used to think that if we could return to some pastoral ideal of small scale family farming that would be justifiable. But after being vegan for a while my feelings changed. Even the nicest methods of animal farming commodify living beings, and bring life into the world with the sole purpose of stealing that life away so it's corpse can be sold for profit. I see nothing moral in that. And when the ideology that says this is okay is applied to industrial scale manufacturing and corporate competition the only possible outcome is atrocity.

We can't realistically revert to traditional farming anymore than we can reverse globalization. The only way to end factory farming is to extinguish the ideology that says animal's lives and animal's suffering matters less than profit and flavor and tradition.


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## drich (Oct 9, 2015)

For those who are interested, I highly recommend reading The Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina. The author does an exemplary job of looking how fish get from the boats to our table. He highlights not only the impact on the environment and the extraordinary number of sea animals that are thrown out because they are caught in nets (e.g., millions of sharks), but also the incredible amount of human trafficking and forced slave labor that occurs on fishing boats. I'll admit to having been completely ignorant about many of these issues prior to reading the book.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> We can't realistically revert to traditional farming anymore than we can reverse globalization. The only way to end factory farming is to extinguish the ideology that says animal's lives and animal's suffering matters less than profit and flavor and tradition.


Realistically, the only way we're going to end growing animals for food is with lab-grown meat. It's closer than you think: The perfect steak? Researchers create lab-grown meat with better taste and made-to-order marbling - Study Finds



drich said:


> but also the incredible amount of human trafficking and forced slave labor that occurs on fishing boats.


Pick any agricultural product and there's immense human and environmental suffering involved in its production. You can read an entire book about the horrors involved in tomato cultivation: Tomatoland, Third Edition: From Harvest of Shame to Harvest of Hope: Estabrook, Barry: 0050837416383: Amazon.com: Books

Post-WW2, and especially during the Nixon and Reagan years, our government decided that corporate profits and low consumer prices were commercial agriculture's only priorities. That system is now so entrenched that it's difficult to even imagine how we'll be able to extricate ourselves from it.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

RMCDan said:


> Realistically, the only way we're going to end growing animals for food is with lab-grown meat. It's closer than you think: The perfect steak? Researchers create lab-grown meat with better taste and made-to-order marbling - Study Finds


Yeah lab meat is extremely promising from an animal welfare standpoint. I still think the shift in ideology will be necessary to truly eliminate killing animals for profit/flavor. I predict the lab meat market will grow in parallel with a boutique-y "natural" meat market, where genuine animal corpses will be seen as even more of a luxury and status symbol. While that would represent a big step forward it isn't an acceptable stopping point IMO. Lab meat may help accelerate that ideological shift and I fully support it as an alternative to factory farming but it's hardly a cause for complacency. The needless suffering and violence in our food system is a moral emergency and should be treated as such.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> I predict the lab meat market will grow in parallel with a boutique-y "natural" meat market, where genuine animal corpses will be seen as even more of a luxury and status symbol.


I think lab meat will reach a tipping point in the relatively near future where simple economics will quickly lead to mass adoption. Large agribusinesses aren't going to keep raising actual animals when the producing the same quantity of meat in a lab costs half as much. 10 years, 20 years tops, before the meat case at Safeway is all lab-grown. Use of real animals as a niche boutique item will probably continue for a long time, but the total market share will be less than current flip phone vs. smartphone sales. Hunting will also probably continue for a long time, and I don't really have a problem with that.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Daily dilemma


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

Lol

Sent from my moto g(6) forge using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Wonderful news and the real proof that Veganism is much more then diet alone!

*Will Your Next Car Have a Vegan Interior? Probably, Thanks to PETA*
While they're certainly exciting, there's no longer anything _shocking_ about headlines like "The Tesla Model 3 Has Gone Completely 'Vegan'" and "This Car From Polestar Has a Vegan Interior." That's because-thanks to PETA and consumers who also know that there's no excuse for a gentle cow to be killed or a sheep to be shorn bloody-vegan car interiors have become an automobile industry standard, not an exception.

*How Did PETA Fast-Track Vegan Car Interiors?*
Years ago, we put vegan car interiors on the map-and with a little tenacity and a lot of help from outspoken supporters like you, leather- and wool-free steering wheels and seats are now being offered by major brands, including Tesla, Ford, and Honda. We put in the legwork-reaching out to and meeting with automobile companies and pushing them to replace cruelly obtained materials like leather and wool with innovative vegan materials for their interiors; sharing cutting-edge vegan material suppliers with them; and providing them with information on the ever-growing demand for vegan car interiors through market research and consumer trends.

*Which Brands Have Listened?*
Our efforts and your persistence have paid off: At least 15 automobile manufacturers-including Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota-now offer entirely vegan interiors.

In 2016, a PETA video exposé revealed that workers branded cows on the face without pain relief, electroshocked them, beat them, and then slit their throats and skinned them to produce the leather interiors offered by Volkswagen, Toyota, and other major car brands worldwide. We urged these brands to embrace cost-effective, eco-friendly, humane vegan leather seats and steering wheels. Now, five years later, Toyota touts its SofTex (a vegan leather material) and Volkswagen-following talks with PETA Germany-offers leather- and wool-free interior options for its Atlas S, Jetta S, and Tiguan S models and is set to release an electric SUV featuring vegan apple leather later this year.

Honda's vegan interior is standard on its CR-V and HR-V models. BMW has plans to launch a luxury electric SUV called iNEXT later this year, with an interior featuring vegan material that looks and feels like leather. (The brand's new 5 Series is already available with SensaTec leatherette seats.) Fiat created the new 500 3+1 with SEAQUAL, another vegan material. And Fisker, Inc. (an American electric vehicle maker), is planning to release a battery-powered compact SUV called the Fisker Ocean next year, which will have a vegan interior made of recycled materials such as old tires, plastic bottles, recovered plastic from the ocean, and old fishing nets.

Hummer's new electric truck offers vegan interiors including faux leather "to promote sustainability and avoid the use of animal hides." Many Mercedes-Benz seats are now covered with Dinamica, a suede-like fabric made from recycled plastic bottles and clothing fibers-several models including the A-Class, B-Class, and CLA now come standard with such vegan interiors, and the new S-Class' seats, steering wheel, and trim can be specially ordered vegan. In addition, the luxury vehicle company is working on a futuristic concept car that'll come standard with vegan leather

Volvo's Polestar 2 also features modern, eco-friendly materials, which means it doesn't use leather or wool. Instead, it has WeaveTech vegan upholstery, which was inspired by the "sporty look and feel" of wetsuits.

Lucid Motors, Rivian, Skoda, and Thor Industries (an RV company) are doing great things with vegan materials, too, a move that will not only offer cows and sheep some of the consideration and respect that they've always deserved but also reduce these companies' carbon footprints. Turning animals' skin into leather requires up to 130 different chemicals-including cyanide, which can pollute the groundwater near tanneries. Leather made of animal skin is at least _three times worse_ for the environment than vegan leather. Wool production is also exacerbating the environmental crisis: Raising sheep contributes to climate change, soil erosion, and water pollution. And PETA and our affiliates' investigations into more than 100 farms across Australia, Europe, North America, and South America have documented that workers systematically beat and mutilate sheep for their wool. When they're considered no longer useful to the industry, sheep exploited for wool are inevitably killed and sometimes even skinned alive.

As so many automotive manufacturers are committing to using sustainable, animal-free materials now and by next year, it makes us wonder: What's got General Motors (GM) dragging its tires? While we turn up the heat on GM and continue to urge all car companies to make every single model sold 100% leather-free and vegan, you can help. By choosing eco-friendly vegan materials whenever possible, you can show companies that your support lies with animals and the environment.









PETA Puts Vegan Car Interiors in the Fast Lane | PETA


Will your next car be leather- and wool-free? Probably. Thanks to PETA and consumer demand, vegan car interiors are now the norm.




www.peta.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

From speaking up against SeaWorld cruelty to urging her fans to spay and neuter their dogs and cats, there isn't an animal rights issue that Cloris Leachman wasn't passionate about.

The world lost a truly kindhearted person. May she rest in peace









A vegetarian since the 1950s, Cloris Leachman reveled in touting the many benefits of eating plant-based foods, including in one memorable shoot for a PETA ad, months after she had become the oldest contestant ever on _Dancing With the Stars_.

Cloris spent most of her life entertaining people, getting her start in show business in the noir thriller _Kiss Me Deadly_ in 1955 and earning an Oscar and more Emmys than any other actor during her 66-year career in film and TV, which included roles in _The Mary Tyler Moore_ _Show_, _Young Frankenstein_, and _The Last Picture Show_, just to name a few highlights. Although she loved the entertainment industry, she knew animals didn't.

Cloris seized opportunities to inform others about the plight of involuntary and often traumatized animal "actors" forced to perform in circuses and marine parks. When she was grand marshal of the Rose Parade, she wrote to the president of the Tournament of Roses Association to urge him to yank SeaWorld's float from the 2014 Parade.

Many people agreed with her, judging by the nosedive SeaWorld has taken in attendance and revenues since the release of the documentary _Blackfish_. Cloris also took on Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, when she recorded a PETA video criticizing the circus for abusing ailing and arthritic elephants. "They are forced to perform ridiculous circus tricks like standing on their head or hind legs, which puts even more pressure on their aching joints," she said. "Cruelty is one tradition we can do without." Just a few years later, the announcement came: the circus was retiring its elephants because of "a mood shift among our consumers." Now long after, it folded up its tents for good.

Cloris also helped kill an "ag-gag" bill in her home state of Iowa that would have made it illegal for whistleblowers and other observers to gather the evidence needed to prosecute animal abusers on factory farms. "Citizens' right to document cruelty to animals-wherever it occurs-is crucial in helping local, state and federal officials enforce anti-cruelty laws," she wrote in an opinion piece for _HuffPost_. And we love that she posed with a turkey named Frank, who stole her heart, for a Thanksgiving ad urging everyone to let turkeys live.

Cloris' trademark sense of humor remained sharp all her life, and she wasn't averse to having a little fun while trying to save animals, as she did in this public service announcement promoting spaying and neutering.

Her achievements for animals over many decades are too numerous to list, as her PETA Lifetime Achievement Award makes clear.

She will be missed









Cloris Leachman Leaves a Legacy of Compassion | PETA


Animals have lost one of their most dedicated advocates with the passing of Cloris Leachman. PETA fondly remembers her decades of activism.




www.peta.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I just bought some plant based Brussel sprouts


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Local, community-centred food production

*Igloo-shaped greenhouses are growing nutritious, affordable food in Canada's North*
Toronto-based non-profit Green Iglu is tackling food insecurity in Canada's northern communities, where the harsh climate and lack of arable land make traditional farming impossible. Approximately 72 per cent of children in Northern Canada lack reliable access to affordable, nutritious food.









Green Iglu evolved from an Enactus Social Impact Project that was initiated by two Ryerson University students, Stefany Nieto and Ben Canning.

"We knew that we wanted to tackle a real Canadian issue, so we did a lot of research, and we were startled when we learned about food insecurity," says Nieto.

Several years ago, Green Iglu started an initiative in Naujaat, a Nunavut community located on the Arctic Circle. Set within this picturesque wonderland are igloo-shaped domes with hydroponic towers inside that grow produce. A unique irrigation system allows the plants to grow vertically as opposed to traditional horizontal growing.

"It increases our yield per square foot by about three to four times," says Canning.

A vast majority of the community can now grow their own produce inside the greenhouses all year long and purchase fresh food at a fraction of what it would cost imported. The project is designed with input from locals who are also trained and employed by the organization to sustain and distribute the harvested produce.



https://www.cbc.ca/television/higharctichaulers/igloo-shaped-greenhouses-are-growing-nutritious-affordable-food-in-canada-s-north-1.5365796?fbclid=IwAR0B6_h2REMvts7UKsoXCtGMiRKC5YCXsLUe_Udv932P3TQOR2o1y55Af-k


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Plant-based diets crucial to saving global wildlife, says report*









The global food system is the biggest driver of destruction of the natural world, and a shift to predominantly plant-based diets is crucial in halting the damage, according to a report.

Agriculture is the main threat to 86% of the 28,000 species known to be at risk of extinction, the report by the Chatham House thinktank said. Without change, the loss of biodiversity will continue to accelerate and threaten the world's ability to sustain humanity, it said.

The root cause is a vicious circle of cheap food, the report said, where low costs drive bigger demand for food and more waste, with more competition then driving costs even lower through more clearing of natural land and use of polluting fertilisers and pesticides.

The report, supported by the UN environment programme (Unep), focused on three solutions. First is a shift to plant-based diets because cattle, sheep and other livestock have the biggest impact on the environment.

More than 80% of global farmland is used to raise animals, which provide only 18% of calories eaten. Reversing the rising trend of meat consumption removes the pressure to clear new land and further damage wildlife. It also frees up existing land for the second solution, restoring native ecosystems to increase biodiversity.

The availability of land also underpins the third solution, the report said, which is farming in a less intensive and damaging way but accepting lower yields. Organic yields are on average about 75% of those of conventional intensive farming, it said.

Fixing the global food system would also tackle the climate crisis, the report said. The food system causes about 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions, with more than half coming from animals. Changes to food production could also tackle the ill health suffered by 3 billion people, who either have too little to eat or are overweight or obese, and which costs trillions of dollars a year in healthcare.

"Politicians are still saying 'my job is to make food cheaper for you', no matter how toxic it is from a planetary or human health perspective," said Prof Tim Benton, at Chatham House. "We must stop arguing that we have to subsidise the food system in the name of the poor and instead deal with the poor by bringing them out of poverty."

Benton said the impact of the food system on climate and health was becoming widely accepted but that biodiversity was too often seen as a "nice to have".

Susan Gardner, director of Unep's ecosystems division, said the current food system was a "double-edged sword" providing cheap food but failing to take into account the hidden costs to our health and to the natural world. "Reforming the way we produce and consume food is an urgent priority," she said.

Jane Goodall, the renowned conservationist, said the intensive farming of billions of animals seriously damaged the environment and inhumane crowded conditions risked new pandemic diseases crossing into people: "It should be phased out as soon as possible."

On Tuesday, a landmark review by Prof Sir Partha Dasgupta concluded the world was being put at extreme risk by the failure of economics to take account of the rapid depletion of biodiversity.

The Chatham House report said the world had lost half its natural ecosystems and that the average population size of wild animals had fallen by 68% since 1970. In contrast, farmed animals, mainly cows and pigs, now account for 60% of all mammals by weight, with humans making up 36% and animals just 4%.

In reforming the global food system, "the convergence of global food consumption around predominantly plant-based diets is the most crucial element", the report said. For example, it said, a switch from beef to beans by the US population would free up fields equivalent to 42% of US cropland for other uses such as rewilding or more nature-friendly farming.

In another example, the report said if the permanent pasture around the world that was once forest was returned to its native state, it would store 72bn tonnes of carbon - roughly equivalent to seven years of global emissions from fossil fuels. Benton said the report was not advocating that all people should become vegan, but should follow healthy diets that are as a result much lower in meat.

The year ahead offers a potentially unique opportunity to redesign the global food system, the Benton said, with major UN summits on biodiversity and climate, as well as the world's first UN Food Systems Summit and an international Nutrition for Growth summit. The large sums being spent by governments as nations recover from the Covid-19 pandemic also provide opportunities for "policymaking that affords equal priority to public and planetary health", the report said.

Philip Lymbery, at Compassion in World Farming, said: "The future of farming must be nature-friendly and regenerative, and our diets must become more plant-based, healthy and sustainable. Without ending factory farming, we are in danger of having no future at all."









Plant-based diets crucial to saving global wildlife, says report


Vicious circle of cheap but damaging food is biggest destroyer of nature, says UN-backed report




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Could eating animals cause future pandemics? Some scientists are warning that the demand for cheaply produced meat could lead to more zoonotic diseases.
"The World Health Organisation says that globally, about a billion cases of illness and millions of deaths occur every year from zoonoses - diseases that spread from animals to humans - and that 75 per cent of emerging zoonotic infectious diseases originate in wild animals."

*Meat-eating creates risk of future pandemic that 'would make Covid seem a dress rehearsal', scientists warn*

*'If we could see eating meat as a treat, not a right, we could reduce the speed at which another virus evolves,' says professor*

Demand for regular supplies of affordable meat will create future pandemics that will make Covid-19 pandemic look like a "dress rehearsal", scientists are warning. 
Producing meat is creating the perfect breeding ground for diseases of the same kind to emerge, according to the South African academics.

The risk is created by humans' interactions with animals and a lack of learning from the past, they say.

The coronavirus pandemic, many of the early cases of which were linked to a live-animal-slaughter market in China, has killed around 2.2 million people worldwide in a year.

Experts from both the UN and the European Food Safety Authority have previously identified industrial animal farming as the cause of most new infectious diseases in humans in the past decade, and have likewise warned it risks starting new pandemics.
Zoonotic diseases - those that jump from animals to humans - have become four times as frequent in the past 50 years.
Animals kept in close confinement, either in street markets or intensive farming, are susceptible to disease because the stress of the conditions and even the sight of others being slaughtered weakens their immune systems, experts say.

A report last May, called _Is the next Pandemic on our Plate?_, outlined how factory farming allowed pathogens to emerge and spread, and was supported by routine use of antibiotics, leading to the drugs becoming less effective.
The World Health Organisation says that globally, about a billion cases of illness and millions of deaths occur every year from zoonoses - diseases that spread from animals to humans - and that 75 per cent of emerging zoonotic infectious diseases originate in wild animals.

Prof Aliza le Roux, assistant dean of natural and agricultural sciences and associate professor of zoology at the University of the Free State (UFS), said: "Our demand for meat is driving cheaper and less controlled agricultural practices, cramming more animals into smaller spaces, feeding them less and less natural fodder. 
"Remember mad cow disease? Have you seen chicken batteries? We should not blame 'exotic' eating practices, but look at our own.

"If we could see eating meat as a 'treat' and not a daily 'right', we can reduce pressure on the environment and reduce the speed at which another zoonotic virus can evolve."

Prof Robert Bragg, of the department of microbial, biochemical and food biotechnology, said: "There will be more pandemics, and there is a feeling among some scientists that this could just be a dress rehearsal for the real big pandemic. 
"Many virologists, including me, have been predicting an influenza pandemic for many years. Mankind has been warned about coming pandemics for many years, but people seem to want to listen only when they are in the midst of one."
The bird flu virus, H5N1, has a mortality rate of 60-65 per cent, he said. If it develops human-to-human transmission, "we could be in for a really serious pandemic", he warned.
Ebola was traced to people eating bats, and HIV was believed to have emerged from people eating chimpanzee meat, he said. 
And the 1918 Spanish flu, which killed 50 million people, started in pigs. "All of these have to do with the mistreatment of animals by man," said Prof Bragg.
"Mankind should also have learnt from the 1918 pandemic, but man is notoriously slow at learning lessons from the past."
He also predicted that within a week or two, cases and deaths in the US would "skyrocket" following the demonstrations at the Capitol in Washington before Donald Trump left office.









Meat-eating creates risk of new pandemic that ‘would make Covid look like a dress rehearsal’


‘If we could see eating meat as a treat, not a right, we could reduce the speed at which another virus evolves,’ says professor




www.independent.co.uk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*CORY BOOKER BECOMES FIRST VEGAN SENATOR ON THE SENATE AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE*










his week, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) was appointed to the Senate Agriculture Committee-becoming the first vegan Senator to serve on the committee. Booker has been vegan since 2014 and is a longtime advocate for reforming agricultural systems, particularly factory farming, to create a more equitable food system for people and animals. Newly elected Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) was also appointed to the Senate Agriculture Committee-marking the first time in the committee's history that two Black Americans have served as members simultaneously.

"Our food system is deeply broken. Family farmers are struggling and their farms are disappearing, while big agriculture conglomerates get bigger and enjoy greater profits," Booker said. "Meanwhile, healthy, fresh food is hard to find and even harder to afford in rural and urban communities alike. In the richest country on the planet, over 35 million Americans from every walk of life are food insecure."

*Booker on factory farms*
In 2019, the former presidential candidate proposed the Farm System Reform Act (FSRA), a new bill that aims to transition animal agriculture away from factory farming. FSRA bans the opening of new large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and limits the growth of existing CAFOs in the meat and dairy sector. The bill also aims to phase out the largest CAFOs-as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency-by 2040 and hold large meatpackers accountable for the pollution they create. With his bill, Booker hopes to protect small-scale animal farmers who are often contractually bound to, and exploited by, large corporations. After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, FSRA has gained support from other Congress members, including Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and House Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA)-who filed companion legislation to FSRA in the House.

After slaughterhouses became COVID-19 hotspots last year, Booker also introduced the Safe Line Speeds During COVID-19 Act, which aimed to protect workers, animals, and consumers from the dangers posed by higher line speeds in poultry, pig, and cattle slaughterhouses. "The fact of the matter is that our current food system is interconnected with so many issues of justice in America: racial justice, health justice, environmental justice, economic justice," Booker said in a keynote speech at the National Food Policy Conference in July. "And our food system is fundamentally broken. It fails to reflect our collective values. And it is not a dramatization to say that the way we produce and consume food in this country is quite literally a matter of life and death."

*Booker on racial justice*
Throughout his political career, Booker has spoken out about the inequities that Black Americans face, including in the agriculture sector. In November, Booker-along with Warren and Senator Krisitin Gillibrand (D-NY)-introduced The Justice for Black Farmers Act (JBFA), which seeks to end racist practices that have resulted in a great loss of land holdings and generational wealth for Black farmers. As a Senate Agriculture Committee member, Booker plans to advance a revised version of JBFA through Congress.









Cory Booker Becomes First Vegan Senator on the Senate Agriculture Committee


New Jersey Senator Cory Booker—who is working to dismantle factory farming—will be the first vegan to serve on the Agriculture Committee.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

More on Cory Booker

*Cory Booker on Being Vegan and Animal Rights








*
Since the 2020 race to the White House first began several months ago, we've seen a swarm of politicians, former athletes, and businessmen alike throw their hats in the ring for a shot at holding the highest office in the land. In the Republican corner, things are pretty light; only two conservatives, William Weld and Mark Sanford, have the guts to directly challenge the current incumbent Donald Trump. However, to the left are 17 (down a few hopefuls since the race started) different candidates from a colorful medley of professional, cultural, and political backgrounds clamoring for the Democratic nomination.

With so many people crowding the election, it can feel difficult to distinguish the candidates from one another. There are so many important issues being discussed within the political space right now-healthcare for all, immigration, and the economy have been the focus of many of the recent Democratic debates-and many of the candidates have similar, if not identical stances on the issues that matter the most. However, few candidates have spoken up with thorough plans to address the often-ignored topic of animal rights. Cory Booker has been among the most vocal of his peers. During the third Democratic debate earlier this month, moderator Jorge Ramos pointedly asked if Booker believed that Americans should follow his plant-based diet, to which the former mayor cheerfully responded, "No." But don't take that to mean that he doesn't think that eating less meat is a good idea; the 50-year-old's veganism is _closely_ tied to his personal politics.

Booker's passion for animal advocacy began in 1992; after reading Gandhi's autobiography _The Story of My Experiments with Truth _as a college student attending Oxford University, he decided to try cutting meat out of his diet just to see how his body would be affected by the change. Pleased with the results, Booker stuck with his vegetarian diet until he started doing more research about the ways in which the environment and its inhabitants were impacted by animal consumption. "My veganism started then," he told _VegNews_ earlier this year. "It was almost like my conditioning had changed." His very last time eating a non-vegan meal was on November 4, 2014-Election Day.

Now fully vegan, the former Newark mayor's bid for president stands out from that of his opponents in that his proposed policies as POTUS will include measures to create a more sustainable environment for both humans _and_ animals. Those measures will focus on pushing back against the corporate big wigs behind the factory farming system and forcing smaller family farms out of business. Booker's policies will also make illegal the "ag-gag laws" that allow these corporations to hide the animal abuse that goes on at the farms from the American people.

"Legislatively, I want to continue to be a part of a movement of folk who are fighting against corporate interests that are undermining the public good and the public welfare," said Booker in his interview with _VegNews_. "I believe that Americans do care about the cruelty to animals...so, I think there's a lot of legislation we could be doing to stop sort of corporate power from reigning over the power of individuals to have freedom of choice, to see more compassion, to see a focus on public health."

The only other current candidate on the Democratic side to come up with a fully fleshed out plan to address animal welfare in the United States is Julián Castro, the former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Obama. Castro's proposal, appropriately named the PAW (Protecting Animals and Wildlife) Plan, promises to reinforce the Endangered Species Act by appointing an Interior Secretary with a background in conservation science, creating a $2 billion National Wildlife Recovery Fund to combat extinction, and doubling the Multinational Species Conservation Fund. And like Booker, Castro also wants to regulate the animal farming industry so that animal cruelty on corporate farms no longer goes unseen and unpunished.

Whether you identify with veganism or personally enjoy a medium-rare steak every now and again, animal welfare is a pressing environmental issue that can't be ignored by anyone who wants to be President of the Unites States. In the future, you can bet that more of the candidates, at least on the Democratic end, will take began to roll out their own policies regarding animal rights.









Cory Booker Wants to Clear the Path for Animal Rights


As president, he hopes to pass key legislature to protect animals.




www.marieclaire.com


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> Cory Booker Becomes First Vegan Senator on the Senate Agriculture Committee
> 
> 
> New Jersey Senator Cory Booker—who is working to dismantle factory farming—will be the first vegan to serve on the Agriculture Committee.
> ...


I'm looking forward to seeing what he can accomplish. He'll obviously have severe political restraints so he won't be going hardcore animal liberationist in there. In terms of legislative outcomes he can probably only nibble around the edges of a vast problem, but if he uses his position to draw attention and moral consideration to farm animals' plights it could be the start of real progress.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Today's lesson:


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I hadn't heard of this guy before. Respect!

*Lewis Gompertz - Jewish 'vegan' and co-founder of the RSPCA in 1824*

Lewis Gompertz (1783/4-1861) appears on the scene in 1824, at the age of 40, as the author of a significant book promoting an early prototype of what we now call animal rights and veganism; and in the same year he was a co-founder of the world's first _Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals_ (SPCA, later RSPCA).










His 1824 book _'Moral Inquiries: on the situation of man and of brutes' w_as quite unlike anything before it, and there was very little of a similar nature after it until Henry Salt's '_Animal Rights_' of 1892.

His first principle was a fundamental objection to killing or harming any animal, or any living being, for any purpose whatsoever including food, clothing, labour, research or entertainment.

Oddly however, he considered human health to benefit from eating meat, and if an animal died of natural or accidental causes, he had no objection (at least in principle) to eating it, and using its skin for clothing. We see something of that in modern 'roadkill' debates. But Gompertz argued that any benefits could still never justify deliberate killing. He also acknowledged his own imperfections, particularly in clothing, due to social pressures and the lack of suitable alternatives. And we have to keep in mind that many modern vegan foods (e.g. soy and margarine) were completely unknown in London in 1824.

Gompertz also devoted a complete chapter to the use of eggs and dairy products. He stated that cows' milk was for calves, and it was wrong to take a calf away from its mother. However, if a calf died naturally or accidentally then he saw no objection to humans using the surplus milk (in 1824 most people still lived on the land, not in cities).

He had a particular concern for horses, easily the most abused animal in London at that time as they were the primary means of transport, hauling all manner of wheeled vehicles. He very directly equated their use to human slavery, and argued for their freedom. He considered whether some land in England should be set aside for their natural use, or whether they could be transported back to 'Arabia' where he imagined they could live in the wild. But he was realistic enough to know that this 'abolitionist' approach was not going to happen, and devoted much of his life to improving the welfare conditions of the animals.










The rest of Gompertz' time was spent as an inventor, producing a wide variety of devices, many of them aimed at improving animal welfare. One was an attempt to improve a very basic bicycle which was just beginning to appear - it had no pedals or brakes, just pushed along by feet on the ground. Gompertz added the gear mechanism on the front wheel in the picture. For him this was an attempt at an alternative to using horses.

All of this was many years before Darwin, but Gompertz argued that there was no significant difference between "humans and other animals". He didn't use the word 'rights' but he clearly wanted animals to be given a similar legal status to humans - apart from the oddity of skinning and eating them after they died... (would he still accept that today, with all the alternatives now available?)

His book also considered human issues, as summed up by the _Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (1917)_: "Gompertz lauded the reforming influence of education, decried the evils of capitalism and of female subjugation, praised Owenite [socialist] co-operation, and speculated boldly upon a future state shared by man and other animals."

The legal rights of animals became an issue in 1822, when the British Parliament passed a law against the abuse of 'cattle' (which included any large quadruped, particularly horses). But the police and magistrates largely ignored it, much as they do today with the anti-foxhunting law.

Two years later, 1824, the same year that Gompertz' book appeared, a meeting was convened on June 16 at Old Slaughter's Coffee House in London (named from the owner). The 12 men present became the founding members of the world's first _Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals _(SPCA), with the initial object of recruiting their own inspectors to enforce the new law. One of the 12 was Lewis Gompertz but, as far as we know, he was the only one who objected to slaughtering and eating some of the animals they were trying to protect.

The others included two members of parliament, and two Church of England ministers. After two years of the new society struggling, Lewis Gompertz took over as the Secretary and developed it successfully for the next six years.

However, there were tensions with the Christian meat-eaters and Gompertz was accused of 'Pythagoreanism', effectively being a member of heretical religious sect, which he denied. The rest of the committee decided that the society must be run on 'Christian principles' (ie meat-eating) - apparently pretending not to notice that Gompertz was Jewish&#8230; he left and founded a new group, The _Animals' Friend Society,_ which for a few years outstripped the SPCA in recruitment and effectiveness.

In 1835 the SPCA attracted royal patronage from Princess Victoria, and when she became Queen two years later, they became the RSPCA. They have ever since continued to enjoy the patronage of one of the most animal abusing families in the UK.

Gompertz ran his alternative animal welfare society and journal until 1846. In the 1850s his books were re-published by William Horsell, first Secretary of the Vegetarian Society (1847-50) and subsequently leader of the (vegan) London Vegetarian Association.

He died, aged seventy-seven, from bronchitis on 2 December 1861 at his home in Kennington, London.





__





Lewis Gompertz - Jewish 'vegan' and co-founder of the RSPCA in 1824 - IVU - International Vegetarian Union


The IVU is a growing global network of independent organizations which are promoting vegetarianism worldwide.




ivu.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Mediterranean diet linked to thinking skills*
_People who eat a Mediterranean-style diet-particularly one rich in green leafy vegetables and low in meat-are more likely to stay mentally sharp in later life, a study shows. _

*







*

Closely adhering to a Mediterranean diet was associated with higher scores on a range of memory and thinking tests among adults in their late 70s, the research found.

The study found no link, however, between the Mediterranean-style diet and better brain health.

Markers of healthy brain ageing - such as greater grey or white matter volume, or fewer white matter lesions-did not differ between those regularly eating a Mediterranean diet and those who did not.

*Brain ageing*
These latest findings suggest that this primarily plant-based diet may have benefits for cognitive functioning as we get older, researchers say.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh tested the thinking skills of more than 500 people aged 79 and without dementia.

The participants completed tests of problem solving, thinking speed, memory, and word knowledge, as well as a questionnaire about their eating habits during the previous year.

*MRI scanning*
More than 350 of the group also underwent a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scan to gain insights into their brain structure.

The team used statistical models to look for associations between a person's diet and their thinking skills and brain health in later life.

The findings show that, in general, people who most closely adhered to a Mediterranean diet had the highest cognitive function scores, even when accounting for childhood IQ, smoking, physical activity and health factors. The differences were small but statistically significant.

The individual components of the diet that appeared to be most strongly associated with better thinking skills were green leafy vegetables and a lower red meat intake.

Researchers say the latest findings add to the evidence that a healthier lifestyle, of which diet is one aspect, is associated with better thinking skills in later life.



> Eating more green leafy vegetables and cutting down on red meat might be two key food elements that contribute to the benefits of the Mediterranean-style diet. In our sample, the positive relationship between a Mediterranean diet and thinking skills is not accounted for by having a healthier brain structure, as one might expect. Though it's possible there may be other structural or functional brain correlates with this measure of diet, or associations in specific regions of the brain, rather than the whole brain, as measured here.
> 
> Dr Janie CorleySchool of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
> 
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Gung Hay Fat Choy! And for those with new year's resolutions to lose weight: Gung Hay LOW Fat (Bok) Choy !

Before the Covid pandemic and lockdown Chris and I would traditionally have dumplings (and not just for new year!) at either Dumpling House or Mother's Dumplings (both on Spadina)

Dumpling House making dumplings:









Either pan fried (vegan)









or steamed (vegan)










Hope by next year we can enjoy dining again!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Wow. Interesting artist! He's vegan, he runs and rescues goats! What not to like?

*The Real Life Diet of Rob Zombie, Who Thinks Eating Vegan Is Metal








*

Rob Zombie's go-to example to communicate his disgust for the food industry is Dannon Yogurt. The dairy behemoth, which manufactures products linked to increased risk of breast cancer, has run campaigns with the National Breast Cancer Foundation. "It's like Marlboro sponsoring the Lung Society or something," he says emphatically.

The theatrical heavy metal mainstay-turned-slasher auteur thinks about these hypocrisies a lot. He thinks about food corporations and all the ways they're screwing over regular consumers like you and me and him. It's no big revelation. None of us are walking around with the impression we're eating happy chickens who lived a good life or super-fresh, chemical-free berries picked by well-paid laborers. But we don't really like to dwell on it. "Most people are, like, 'I don't wanna think about it,'" Zombie says. "But I can't live my life not wanting to think about something. You gotta stop and think about things. Because you're alive."

So he thinks, and he also does: A vegetarian since the age of 18, he went full vegan nine years ago, after a random breakfast of eggs just repulsed him too much to bear. He and his wife work with PETA to fight animal abuse, and have rescued six goats that they now care for on their farm in Connecticut. It all sounds pretty mellow, but if you frame it the way Rob Zombie does, it becomes kind of metal: All this, as he sees it, is in service of resisting what America's corporate overlords would have you believe: That you need dairy, that you need meat, that you need _them_ to live a normal life.

Zombie, who's releasing his seventh album next month, joined GQ to talk about how he cut out all that bad stuff, staying in shape for tours, and why he's never been interested in destroying his body.

_*GQ:*_ *You've been a vegetarian and then a vegan for nearly a decade now. What led you to cutting out meat?*
_Rob Zombie:_ The vegetarian thing started when I was in high school. I never really liked eating meat. Whenever I was served pork chops or something it would just taste awful to me. We're all brainwashed from the moment we're born that all the cows are happy and the pigs are happy and everybody's so happy and it's all "Old McDonald Had a Farm." And then I saw a movie that was the first time I really saw how brutal and disgusting factory farming was. That's when I was, like, "I'm done."

Over the years I would eat cheese or put some creamer in my coffee or something. It was about nine years ago that I was eating eggs for breakfast. And I was just, like, "This is disgusting and I'm done." And that was it. I've been 100% vegan since that moment.

*Until the last few years the food industry hasn't been super accommodating to non-meat or dairy eaters. Did you find it difficult to find food you liked?*
It was challenging. Vegetarian is easier, because you can still have scrambled eggs or pizza. Once I went vegan, it was, like...now there's nothing to eat. Every day it gets easier, and every day the food gets better. Veggie burgers used to be like tasteless hockey pucks, and now they're so delicious.

*Where do you stand on fake meats like the Beyond Burger-do you like that stuff or are you more into exploring what can be done in new ways with vegetables?*
It's transitional. When you first change you're, like, _Oh, I'll have the fake ham and the fake baloney or the fake hot dogs_, because this is what you've been trained your whole life to think of as food. But as time goes on, my wife and I were, like, _Eh, we're sick of all the fake sandwiches._ Your tastes change and what you consider healthy changes. But it is a process, and if someone tries to go hardcore instantly they might fail. It's like if you've never worked out before and you go, "I'm gonna work out three hours every day!" Why don't we just start with two? See if you can survive that. Ease into it, friend.

*What do you like to eat?*

My wife is an excellent cook, which makes my life easy. Every day we eat the exact same breakfast. I've always been like that, I could eat the same meal every day and never get bored of it. We have oatmeal, toast, and fruit. And I have coffee.

Lunch always varies. There's a lot of decent frozen vegan stuff if we're in a hurry, like frozen burritos or pad thai or different pasta dishes. Sheri's very good at making these super-elaborate salads. Salad used to be awful iceberg lettuce and a tasteful tomato. That's why so many people don't care about vegetables, we grew up eating vegetables that had no taste. When you get good vegetables that are prepared right, they're super delicious.

We have a pretty big garden, and when you get stuff directly from your garden, you're, like, _woah._ I didn't realize the taste could vary _that_ much. We also have a lot of peach trees.

*Do you drink at all?*
All I ever drink is coffee and water. And we love juicing, so we have particular green drinks we'll make.

*In an old interview you mention veganism was really big with a lot of punk rock musicians, like Geezer and Bill Ward of Black Sabbath. Why do you think that is?*
So much of punk rock was about fighting the establishment, fighting the norms, fighting the path that's been laid out for you by corporate America telling you how you're supposed to think and how you're supposed to be. Veganism is exactly the opposite of that. It is anti-establishment. It's becoming more of an established thing-every day some new chain like McDonald's or Burger King starts working a sandwich into their repertoire, because they can see the meat industry has an unsustainable future.

Once you make these decisions, you can't help but learn more about it. And every day you uncover what an evil industry everything is. Dairy is the leading cause of breast cancer, yet Dannon is a big sponsor of the pink ribbon walks. It's like Marlboro sponsoring the lung society or something. And you just realize, oh, this is one giant brainwashed lie we're fed from the moment we're born. You have to uncover each layer of the sham. Most people are, like, "I don't wanna think about it!" I know you don't wanna think about it. It's horrible. But I can't live my life not wanting to think about something. You gotta stop and think about things. Because you're alive.

*Do you think it's concerning or promising that veganism is getting folded into bigger establishments?*
I think it's good. I wouldn't eat at McDonald's or Burger King no matter what they were selling, but if I lived in the middle of nowhere and the only veggie burger were at McDonald's that's different.

*You also work with PETA to rescue abandoned goats on your farm. How did that start?*
The goat rescue really started with my wife, Sheri [Moon]. There were three goats that needed a place to go that were fairly close to our farm on the East Coast, and we got them. We've been working with PETA for a while so they'll contact us: "Oh, we've found this goat, it's in a horrible place, can you take this one?" and we'll take it. That's how it's been going down.

Sometimes they're just like giant dogs that are a little more dangerous 'cause they have horns. You wanna pick them up and hug them, but you don't wanna get impaled either. At this point we only have six. We like to get one or two at a time so they can acclimate. It's like when you get a new cat and the other cats are, like, "Well, what's this cat all about?" You wanna have the harmony amongst them. Usually they're coming from someplace awful. They're skittish or nervous or afraid.

We have this one goat, the tiniest one, it's this tiny black goat, and it has one missing hoof because some guy had it chained up in the backyard with pitbulls and it got stuck in a fence, which ripped its hoof off. So that goat's not afraid of anything. It's, like, "I've seen worse than this."

*Does your schedule need time to help care for the goats?*

Not really. I'm awake before they are. I usually get up when it's dark, between 4:30 and 5:30, to write and do work early in the morning. Most of the time when I get up my dog looks at me, like, _Seriously, man? So early._

I don't let the goats out of the barn 'til the sun comes up-they wouldn't want to get up anyway and you have to be careful about predators. But I have an earlier schedule than the animals.

*Do you exercise?*
I used to like to run a lot. I have one knee that's kinda messed up, so now I'll do the elliptical. I'll do that for an hour every day. Then I lift weights and stuff until I get bored, maybe half an hour or so. I used to do yoga, but I got sick of that.

That's all to maintain yourself so when a tour comes up you're not destroyed. And then on the road, a show is a 90-minute sweat fest in itself.

*Heavy metal as a career is not exactly* *gentle on the body**. Has your lifestyle over the years changed in response to the tragedies some metal idols have faced?*
I never really thought about it. I never understood the idea of destroying yourself for the public's amusement. It's always been, like, "I want all my rockstars fucked up and crazy!" Hey, good for you, but destroying myself is not exactly my idea of a good time for your entertainment. I wanna be in as good a shape as possible so the show can be as good as possible. What goes on backstage is irrelevant. There's a tipping point. You can kind of trash yourself for a while...and then all of a sudden you see everyone hit the wall.

*Did you have that moment of hitting a wall or have you never opted into the backstage rockstar cliche?*
I never cared about that. My thought on it was, didn't we already do this? Does every generation have to rediscover heroin as their cool rock 'n' roll drug? Didn't we figure this out with Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix? I'm very happy to learn from other people's mistakes.









The Real Life Diet of Rob Zombie, Who Thinks Eating Vegan Is Metal


For the heavy metal musician and horror director, cutting out meat and dairy wasn’t just critical for his health—it was about fighting the establishment.




www.gq.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

An interesting perspective.

*I Stopped Saying "Meat" and Here's Why*

When asked in the past if I ate meat, I used to say "No." When pressed whether this included chicken and fish, I said "Yes." Now when the question comes up, I say, "I don't eat animals."

In 1974 I stopped eating animals after reading Leo Tolstoy's essay describing his visit to a Moscow slaughterhouse. Before that, I was, I regret, an avid meateater. I did not make the connection, before Tolstoy's essay, between "meat" and animals. That essay, "The First Step," changed everything. I instantly became one of those people who, in the words of former chicken slaughterhouse worker Virgil Butler and his partner Laura Alexander, "could no longer look at a piece of meat anymore without seeing the sad face of the suffering animal who had lived in it when the animal was still alive."

Picturing the face of an animal in a piece of meat after Tolstoy's revelation, I felt sick of meat, and now I am sick of the word "meat." Why?

*"Meat" versus "Flesh"*
Philosopher John Sanbonmatsu writes in "Why 'Fake' Meat Isn't": "Only in recent decades have we come to associate the word 'meat' exclusively with the flesh of animals. The word derives from the Old English mete, for food, nourishment or sustenance."

But do we in fact associate the word "meat" with the flesh of animals in modern industrial society? I think we do not. The word "meat" in contemporary experience is separate from the animals the "meat" comes from, whatever its association with animals and their flesh at a time when raising and slaughtering animals was an integral part of everyday life on farms and in cities and towns.

Unlike "meat," the word "flesh" conjures more readily the fact of a once living creature. While the meat from an animal is indeed dead flesh, it evokes less an animal's body and more just food, whatever the food's origin. "Flesh" is more complex and inclusive by comparison. By standard definition, it is "the soft substance consisting of muscle and fat that is found between the skin and bones of an animal or a human."

Consider further that in the Bible, "flesh" is not just a synonym for meat; rather, it encompasses _living_ creatures, seemingly of all species, as in Isaiah 40.5: _"And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."_

*Forgetting "Meat" is Dead*
So detached from the animals from whom "meat" is obtained are most people in modern society that I believe few even think about meat as something that is dead. What starts as the conscious employment of euphemism by exploiters and market manipulators morphs through conventional usage into a nearly or completely unconscious linguistic and perceptual event, similar to how the animals are transubstantiated literally into edible products called "meat," divorced from living creatures and the violence that meat represents.

An article in the February 1, 2020 issue of TIME magazine, "How China Could Change the World by Taking Meat Off the Menu," says that "Until recently, the primary motivation for people to shun meat was concern for animal welfare. Not anymore." This article provides an encouraging look at the growing appeal of plant-based foods in industrialized countries. But, I wonder, when were the majority of people motivated to shun meat out of concern for animal welfare? Animal rights activist Cynthia Cruser wrote to me that the article "mentioned animal welfare only once, and referred to it as some irrelevant passé subject which has been replaced by really important matters."

*Animal Welfare, Animals' Rights, Animal-Free*
Indeed, the term "animal welfare" is itself a euphemism, akin to a dead metaphor, "which has lost the original imagery of its meaning by extensive, repetitive, and popular usage." But the euphemism "animal welfare" is not only dead: it's a lie that reduces the animals and their human-caused misery to an abstraction that amounts to nothing more at best than abusing animals less abusively, less traumatically, less horribly.

Those who speak approvingly of "animal welfare" compound the problem by defining it illogically as treating the animals "more humanely." But you cannot treat animals who by definition are being treated inhumanely, "more humanely." Animal welfare is an institutionalized term referring to animal _use_ that, as such, precludes the animals so used from truly _faring well_.

Even the term "animal rights" can obstruct the animals from view. For this reason, Veda Stram, managing editor of the *All-Creatures.Org* newsletter and website, has proposed a shift from speaking of "animal rights" to saying _"animals' rights"_ in order to keep the animals in sight.

Of course, we can't always avoid the term "meat" in our advocacy, but we could say flesh a little more often than we do, and we could put the animals into discussions of food more frequently. That said, it's wonderful seeing the words "vegan" and "plant-based" appearing more and more often on food, household, and personal care products. Time was when these terms never appeared in a supermarket.

In addition to "vegan," "plant-based," and "plant-powered," I like to call vegan products animal-free. This puts the animals into focus and links them to the concept of liberation - their liberation and ours. "Free" conveys a welcome release from all sorts of captivity: Animal-free, egg-free, dairy-free, meat-free sound inviting, compared with "eggless," "meatless," and the like, which evoke blandness and deprivation.

*Knowing Where Your Food Comes From*
Thinking about putting the faces of animals back into the "meat" as an escape from euphemism and the dissociation of meat from animals, I'm aware that this project is also that of people who, in the opposite direction, enjoy slaughtering their own animals. Such people describe their pleasure in turning a living creature into something dead. They refuse "not knowing where your food comes from" and tout their liberation from such ignorance.

Similarly, the belief that "if slaughterhouses had glass walls, we'd all be vegetarian" is contradicted by people who prefer to select their own animals to be killed in front of them or behind a blood-spattered curtain in a live or "wet" animal market. They are not deterred by the sight or smell of suffering or the cries of the animals being slaughtered. Asked about it, they state a preference for this experience over buying meat in a supermarket.

*One Day, All Flesh May Be Free*
There is no shortcut to getting the majority of people to care enough about the animals who suffer and die for food to stop eating them on that account alone, whether the animals are visible or invisible. It's exasperating, but we cannot succumb to frustration. Rather than give up, we must realize that the journey toward animal liberation has only just begun, and that we must stay the course in pursuit of the day when all flesh will, with our persistence, we hope, see this glorious day together. _- Karen Davis_

sauce I Stopped Saying "Meat" and Here's Why


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Love him or hate him, The "Joker" wins his 18th Grand Slam... on the heals of Federer (who has won 20) Incredible stuff for this plant powered athlete, and the quest to overtake Federer and Nadal is well within sight. Tennis fans must be living the dream getting to witness three living legends all at once.

*Plant-Based Tennis Pro Novak Djokovic Wins Record-Extending 9th Australian Open








*

Plant-based tennis pro Novak Djokovic has won a record-extending ninth men's title.

The star was victorious in the recent Australian Open - where he defeated Daniil Medvedev (7-5 6-2 6-2).

Reports say Djokovic's 18th Grand Slam win puts him just two places behind Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the men's record books.

*Novak Djokovic's plant-based diet*
According to _Essentially Sport_, Djokovic said: "I'm very pleased to be plant-based and play on this level now for four-and-a-half years. There has been a lot of criticism also. You know, people around me didn't really think that I could do that.
"It's a lifestyle. More than just a diet because you have ethical reasons as well. Being conscious of what is happening in the animal world and you know the slaughtering of animals and farming and everything.

"There is obviously a huge impact as well on climate change that people maybe don't talk about as much. It's more than a performance for me, it's a lifestyle. Something that I'm really proud of and hopefully that community grows.

Djokovic added: "Hopefully I can inspire other athletes that it is possible to be plant-based and to recover well, to have strength, [and] to have muscles."


> Hopefully I can inspire other athletes that it's possible to be plant-based and to recover well, to have strength, and to have muscles."
> 
> Novak Djokovic, Tennis Ace


*Is Novak Djokovic vegan?*
Djokovic has publicly spoken about the benefits of a plant-based diet several times. However, he has stated that he doesn't refer to himself as 'vegan'.

"I don't like the labels, to be honest. I do eat plant-based (food), for quite a few years already," he said. "But because of the misinterpretations of labels and misuse of labels, I just don't like that kind of name."









Plant-Based Tennis Pro Novak Djokovic Wins Record-Extending 9th Australian Open


The star defeated Daniil Medvedev in the latest Australian Open - earning him his 18th Grand Slam win...




plantbasednews.org


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I'll have to drive down and check this out sometime, it's about a 30 minute drive:



Atlanta creates the nation's largest free food forest with hopes of addressing food insecurity


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

Most modern primates eat mushrooms, so early hominids likely weren't just making blind guesses. According to Paul Stamets the most common mushroom on the African Savannah is _Psilocybe cubensis_ growing out of the dung piles of herbivores. Make of that what you will....


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*12 Incredible Benefits of Getting More Greens in Your Diet








*

*1. Support Optimal Brain Function*
Want to support memory and reasoning as you enter your golden years? Eat your greens! A recent study published in Neurology found that those who ate the most leafy greens each day had slower rates of cognitive decline compared to those who ate the least.1 In fact, the greens-eaters had the memory equivalent of someone 11 years younger! This was even true after adjusting for other factors including lifestyle, education, and overall health.

*2. Fight Belly Bloat*
If you struggle with bloating, whether caused by diet, hormones, gut infections, or other digestive issues, there's a secret ingredient in leafy greens that could help. Potassium, a mineral and electrolyte found in abundance in greens, is essential to keep an optimal fluid balance in your body. A diet high in sodium (often due to an overreliance on processed foods) can trigger or worsen bloating, and must be kept in check by adequate potassium intake-roughly 4,700 mg/day according to the USDA's 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines.2 A single cup of cooked spinach contains a whopping 840 mg of potassium to get you well on your way to meeting your daily requirements.3

*3. Make Your Skin Glow*
Beta-carotene, the plant pigment that we normally associate with carrots and other yellow-orange veggies, is also hiding in leafy greens. Think of leaves changing color in the fall. As they lose chlorophyll (the pigment that makes them green), you can see the red, orange, and yellow pigments those leaves contain underneath. It's these vibrant colors that are also responsible for the amazing health benefits of leafy greens.

Beta-carotene can give your skin a youthful glow and even works from the inside-out as a natural sunscreen, protecting your skin from harmful UV rays!4 Kale is one of the top sources of beta-carotene, and research shows that cooking, juicing, or dehydrating greens helps your body better absorb this carotenoid.5

*4. Relieve Stress*
For a natural way to relieve your stress, start every day with a big green smoothie! Leafy greens are an excellent source of folate, which helps your body produce mood-regulating neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin.6

Plus, the magnesium found in green leafy vegetables can help support optimal vascular health.7

*5. Support Bone Health*
All those "Got Milk?" ads might have you believe that drinking milk is the only way to build strong bones. However, research has shown that milk consumption has no protective effect on fracture risk and may even increase the risk of hip fractures among women.8 That's yet another great reason to ditch dairy for good! Instead, you can get plenty of calcium for supporting optimal bone health from dark, leafy greens. Green veggies such as broccoli and kale also contain tons of all-important vitamin K.9

*6. Support Healthy Aging*
Are you looking to age healthfully? Who isn't? Greens have the power to delay the shortening of telomeres, the protective caps on our DNA that shorten with age.10 Once its telomeres are completely gone, the cell dies. Broccoli sprouts, in particular, seem to have a superb ability to preserve telomere length.

*7. Improve Inflammatory Response*
Though this may be a no-brainer, I want to re-emphasize how important it is to support a healthy inflammatory response in order to protect yourself from a battery of chronic illnesses. Leafy greens contain antioxidants and polyphenols, the disease-fighting compounds found in plant foods.11

*8. Help Balance Sugars*
Eating a serving of leafy greens with every meal can support appropriate blood glucose levels. Even just including a little over one extra serving of greens daily can make a big difference!12

Not to mention, if you have a thyroid condition, dramatic swings in blood sugar encourage your body to convert more T4 to Reverse T3, the inactive form of thyroid hormone.

*9. Support Optimal Gut Health*
Do you struggle with leaky gut, food sensitivities, or autoimmunity? If so, getting more greens into your diet could help. A recently discovered gene known as T-bet that gets switched on by cruciferous veggies such as broccoli or brussels sprouts instructs precursor cells in your intestinal lining to produce innate lymphoid cells (ILCs). ILCs protect your body against gut infections and inflammation, control food allergies and intolerances, support a healthy immune response, and seal the leaks in your gut.13 They also protect your body from bad bacteria, while the fiber in greens feeds your good bacteria, making leafy greens an all-around great choice for anyone dealing with gastrointestinal distress of any kind.

*10. Tame the Toxins*
Taming the toxins is an essential component of The Myers Way®, and one of the easiest ways to do this is by getting more greens in your diet. Greens are expert detoxifiers, thanks to chlorophyll-the pigment that makes greens&#8230;green! Chlorophyll-rich foods such as spirulina, chlorella, parsley, and alfalfa bind to heavy metals and toxins in your blood and carry them out of your body. Chlorophyll also helps cleanse your liver to support your body's natural ability to detox, and supports immune function to keep toxins from collecting in your body in the first place!14

*11. Boost Digestive Enzymes*
As I always say, you aren't what you eat, you're what you digest and absorb. Digestive enzymes are critical for breaking down and absorbing the nutrients from our food, so if you are deficient in these enzymes you are likely to experience all sorts of gastrointestinal issues including bloating, constipation, reflux, and nutrient deficiencies. Leaky gut it one of the biggest culprits of enzyme deficiency, as well as inflammation from food sensitivities, chronic stress, genetics, and aging. Raw, leafy greens are one of the best foods you can eat to support your body's natural ability to produce digestive enzymes.

*12. Support Your Immune System*
One of the most promising benefits of greens may be their ability to support your immune system. Greens such as moringa leaf can support a healthy response to oxidative damage.1516 Studies specifically tout the benefits of cruciferous vegetables including broccoli, arugula, and kale.17

*The Best Way to Get More Greens Into Your Diet*
While it's ideal to get these incredible benefits from real, whole foods, not all of these foods are commonly available, in season, or grown in optimal soil, and it can be difficult to get enough of them from diet alone. That's why an organic greens powder is a great option to have on hand for when you're just too busy to prep a big salad or smoothie, or when you're looking to stay healthy while on-the-go or traveling.

sauce 12 Incredible Benefits of Getting More Greens in Your Diet | Amy Myers MD


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

Ignoring the fact that it's "Sponsored Content" and just an ad for her powdered greens supplement, Amy Myers is an interesting source to cite in this thread. Among other things she:

Advocates eating meat:








6 Best Foods for an Autoimmune or AIP Diet | Amy Myers MD ®


Nutrient deficiencies are one of the main underlying causes of chronic illness. In this article, I'll cover the 6 best foods in the AIP diet.




www.amymyersmd.com












Chicken, Beef, or Fish: Which Protein Should You Choose? | Amy Myers MD


To reach the daily recommended intake of protein, you may need to supplement your diet with options such as hydrolyzed fish or beef protein powder...




www.amymyersmd.com












Why Doctors Recommend Meat For Thyroid Dysfunction & Autoimmune Disease | Amy Myers MD


Find out why meat is essential for those of us fighting or preventing thyroid dysfunction or autoimmune disease!




www.amymyersmd.com





Calls meat substitutes "a problem, not a solution" and explicitly recommends not following a vegetarian or vegan diet:








Why Fake Meat Is a Problem, Not a Solution | Amy Myers MD


New alternatives to animal protein are making a big splash, these include vegan meat substitutes, AKA fake meat. Yet, there could be a problem...




www.amymyersmd.com




_"As a doctor, I don't recommend a vegan or vegetarian diet including vegetarian meat substitutes for optimal health. Avoiding meat can make it difficult to get enough essential nutrients including iron, vitamin B, and even protein. Beans, grains, and dairy can lead to leaky gut and increased inflammation throughout your body."_

Sells animal-based protein and collagen supplements:




__





Collagen Protein | Unflavored Collagen Powder | Amy Myers MD


Collagen Protein Powder by Dr. Amy Myers helps maintain a healthy intestinal barrier and supports healthy bones and joints! It is sourced from grass-fed, pasture-raised beef and is 100% non-GMO and kosher. Collagen supports healthy weight management by optimizing lean muscle mass.




store.amymyersmd.com








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Chicken Bone Broth Collagen Protein | Amy Myers MD


Amy Myers MD® Chicken Bone Broth Collagen is a delicious, chicken-soup-flavored collagen bone broth sourced from USDA certified organic chickens.




store.amymyersmd.com








__





Paleo Protein - Vanilla Bean | Amy Myers MD


The Myers Way® Vanilla Bean Paleo Protein is made with purer ingredients, and is richer, creamier, healthier, and hands down more decadent and delicious than any other protein available today. It’s gluten, dairy, and sugar-free, and sourced from non-GMO, hormone- and antibiotic-free, grass-fed beef.




store.amymyersmd.com








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Gelatin Collagen Protein Powder | Amy Myers MD


The amino acids in my Gelatin Collagen Protein Powder are crucial to optimize the health of your muscles, bones, joints, hair, skin, and nails. My grass-fed, pasture-raised Gelatin is an ideal thickening agent for baked goods and adds texture and protein to your favorite recipes. It’s also...




store.amymyersmd.com








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Beef Bone Broth Collagen Protein Powder | Amy Myers MD


Amy Myers MD® Bone Broth Collagen is a delicious, beef-soup-flavored collagen bone broth sourced from grass-fed cows.




store.amymyersmd.com





Explicitly recommends against eating grains, legumes, nightshade vegetables, nuts and seeds :








The Problem with Grains and Legumes | Amy Myers MD ®


To understand the effects that they can have on your body, you need to know the biological function of grains, pseudo-grains, and legumes.




www.amymyersmd.com


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*3 Ways Pandemics Make Us Examine Our Relationship With Food and the Environment*
The global pandemic has brought worldwide attention to aspects of day-to-day life most had previously never questioned. From our work commute to the foods we eat to who and what we consider "essential," never has there been such a challenge to the status quo.

*Examining Our Consumption of Animals*
One particular area of attention is the human-animal relationship. There is wide scientific consensus that COVID-19 transferred from animals to humans. The leading theory is that the virus originated from a "wet market" in China. Wet markets are places where animals of all types-from seafood to exotic animals-are brought in live and then are slaughtered on-site for customers to take home and eat. Until they are slaughtered, the animals are kept in cramped, stressed conditions, enabling viruses to spread from one animal to another and then, as was the case with COVID-19, transfer to humans.

Humans have a long history of consuming animals. Although scientists believe our human ancestors once subsisted on a diet rich in fruits, leaves, and seeds, over 2 million years ago, the climate got hotter and drier, forcing our ancestors to find new sources of energy. As a result, they started consuming animals. Fast forward to today, and meat is a major part of the standard American diet. Meat is even tied to many traditions, cultures, and religions. But do we really _need_ to eat animals in this day and age? The answer is no. With the proliferation of plant-based proteins, animal-product substitutes, and most importantly nutritional education, we know that a whole food, plant-based diet is attainable and can provide a healthier life.

Animal consumption at scale is also putting both animal and human populations at risk. Animal agriculture has been shown to precipitate pandemics. Take H1N1, for example, commonly known as swine flu, which was believed to have originated from a factory farm in North Carolina, infecting nearly 61 million people between 2009 and 2010. Or the avian influenza that spread across China in 2013; researchers have confirmed that this H7N9 bird flu virus was transmitted from chickens to humans at a wet poultry market. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that "&#8230;3 out of every 4 new or emerging infectious diseases in people come from animals."

There is science-based evidence that shows the negative health effects of consuming animal products, not to mention the environmental stressors of intensive animal agriculture. Across the board, from health to environment to ethics, there is a confluence of events enabling us to reconsider animal consumption.

*Examining the Sustainability of Our Food Systems*
Some may remember a time when animals grazed on family farms and people bought meat at the local butcher. Our modern food supply reality is a far cry from the bucolic image of the past. Today, nearly 99% of US farmed animals are living on factory farms. What's more, six companies-Tyson, Hormel, National Beef, Cargill, JBS, and Smithfield-control two-thirds of US meat and poultry sales. The monopolistic meat industry has made it impossible for family-run farmers to compete. These too-big-to-fail giants also require thousands of workers to be packed into tight spaces on demanding meat-processing assembly lines with a near single point of failure.

In May 2020, a trend line emerged that showed the coronavirus' rampant spread through these meatpacking plants. The CDC estimates that thousands of workers across 19 states fell ill and that 20 workers died. Investigations show clusters of COVID-19 cases linked to meatpacking plants. What's more, live animals can't simply be put on pause. When meatpacking plants shuttered or slowed operations, animals were killed and discarded. The trickle-down effect meant grocery store shelves were void of pork, beef, and other animal products. This illustrates a dangerous, unsustainable model.

*Examining the Culture of Work, Transport, and Travel*
We have also witnessed the pandemic bringing daily life to a halt. Many are no longer driving to work. There are reduced numbers of boats and ships in waterways. The pandemic has also greatly reduced air travel. The outcome of these reductions has had a startling impact on the environment. From Italy's industrial north to China's Hubei province and elsewhere, pollution plunged. Some in India, a country with notoriously bad air pollution, have reported being able to see the Himalayas from their homes for the first time ever. Studies suggest that some countries saw as much as a 30% reduction in air pollution. There has also been a reduction in waste on beaches as well as a decrease in noise pollution
Companies are realizing that they can in fact operate with distributed teams, and many are now allowing workers to be fully remote.

Some are predicting that the behavior of travel will change, as many people are opting to travel by car rather than air or to stay closer to home.

What we have gotten a taste of over these last months is reductionism. We've had the opportunity to witness on a global scale that pandemics, climate disasters, and our food system are all related and are inflicting an insufferable footprint on Earth. We can appreciate the intense exploitation of resources now more than ever, compelling us not only to examine but to change our relationship with the natural world.









3 Ways Pandemics Make Us Examine Our Relationship With Food and the Environment


The pandemic has forced us to look at our consumption of animals, the sustainability of our food systems, and the culture of our transport, work, and travel. And amid the bad news, there is good.




nutritionstudies.org














42 ingredient salad from Hibiscus. (February 24, 2018)
Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate - T. Colin Campbell Center


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is a good article and I do believe that processed food is designed to be addictive. In 2009 Dr. David Kessler, wrote the book The End of Overeating. The end of overeating In it he described how scientists for the processed food industry calculate the amounts of fat, salt and sugar that trigger brain responses and addictive overeating of their products.

*Unhealthy Foods Aren't Just Bad For You, They May Also Be Addictive*

Five years ago, a group of nutrition scientists studied what Americans eat and reached a striking conclusion: More than half of all the calories that the average American consumes comes from ultra-processed foods, which they defined as "industrial formulations" that combine large amounts of sugar, salt, oils, fats and other additives.

Highly processed foods continue to dominate the American diet, despite being linked to obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and other health problems. They are cheap and convenient, and engineered to taste good. They are aggressively marketed by the food industry. But a growing number of scientists say another reason these foods are so heavily consumed is that for many people they are not just tempting but addictive, a notion that has sparked controversy among researchers.

Recently, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition explored the science behind food addiction and whether ultra-processed foods might be contributing to overeating and obesity. It featured a debate between two of the leading experts on the subject, Ashley Gearhardt, associate professor in the psychology department at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Johannes Hebebrand, head of the department of child and adolescent psychiatry, psychosomatics and psychotherapy at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

Dr. Gearhardt, a clinical psychologist, helped develop the Yale Food Addiction Scale, a survey that is used to determine whether a person shows signs of addictive behavior toward food. In one study involving more than 500 people, she and her colleagues found that certain foods were especially likely to elicit "addictive-like" eating behaviors, such as intense cravings, a loss of control, and an inability to cut back despite experiencing harmful consequences and a strong desire to stop eating them.

At the top of the list were pizza, chocolate, potato chips, cookies, ice cream, French fries and cheeseburgers. Dr. Gearhardt has found in her research that these highly processed foods share much in common with addictive substances. Like cigarettes and cocaine, their ingredients are derived from naturally occurring plants and foods that are stripped of components that slow their absorption, such as fiber, water and protein. Then their most pleasurable ingredients are refined and processed into products that are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream, enhancing their ability to light up regions of the brain that regulate reward, emotion and motivation.

Salt, thickeners, artificial flavors and other additives in highly processed foods strengthen their pull by enhancing properties like texture and mouth-feel, similar to the way that cigarettes contain an array of additives designed to increase their addictive potential, said Dr. Gearhardt. Menthol helps to mask the bitter flavor of nicotine, for example, while another ingredient used in some cigarettes, cocoa, dilates the airways and increases nicotine's absorption.

A common denominator among the most irresistible ultra-processed foods is that they contain large amounts of fat and refined carbohydrates, a potent combination that is rarely seen in naturally occurring foods that humans evolved to eat, such as fruits, vegetables, meat, nuts, honey, beans and seeds, said Dr. Gearhardt. Many foods found in nature are rich in either fat or carbs, but typically they are not high in both.

"People don't experience an addictive behavioral response to naturally occurring foods that are good for our health, like strawberries," said Dr. Gearhardt, director of the Food and Addiction Science and Treatment lab at the University of Michigan. "It's this subset of highly processed foods that are engineered in a way that's so similar to how we create other addictive substances. These are the foods that can trigger a loss of control and compulsive, problematic behaviors that parallel what we see with alcohol and cigarettes."

In one study, Dr. Gearhardt found that when people cut back on highly processed foods, they experienced symptoms that were comparable to the withdrawal seen in drug abusers, such as irritability, fatigue, feelings of sadness and cravings. Other researchers have found in brain imaging studies that people who frequently consume junk foods can develop a tolerance to them over time, leading them to require larger and larger amounts to get the same enjoyment.

In her clinical practice, Dr. Gearhardt has encountered patients - some obese and some not - who struggle in vain to control their intake of highly processed foods. Some attempt to eat them in moderation, only to find that they lose control and eat to the point of feeling ill and distraught. Many of her patients find that they cannot quit these foods despite struggling with uncontrolled diabetes, excessive weight gain and other health problems.

"The striking thing is that my clients are almost always acutely aware of the negative consequences of their highly processed food consumption, and they have typically tried dozens of strategies like crash diets and cleanses to try and get their relationship with these foods under control," she said. "While these attempts might work for a short time, they almost always end up relapsing."

But Dr. Hebebrand disputes the notion that any food is addictive. While potato chips and pizza can seem irresistible to some, he argues that they do not cause an altered state of mind, a hallmark of addictive substances. Smoking a cigarette, drinking a glass of wine or taking a hit of heroin, for instance, causes an immediate sensation in the brain that foods do not, he says.

"You can take any addictive drug, and it's always the same story that almost everyone will have an altered state of mind after ingesting it," said Dr. Hebebrand. "That indicates that the substance is having an effect on your central nervous system. But we are all ingesting highly processed foods, and none of us is experiencing this altered state of mind because there's no direct hit of a substance in the brain."

In substance use disorders, people become dependent on a specific chemical that acts on the brain, like the nicotine in cigarettes or the ethanol in wine and liquor. They initially seek out this chemical to get a high, and then become dependent on it to alleviate depressed and negative emotions. But in highly processed foods, there is no one compound that can be singled out as addictive, Dr. Hebebrand said. In fact, evidence suggests that obese people who overeat tend to consume a wide range of foods with different textures, flavors and compositions. Dr. Hebebrand argued that overeating is drivenin part by the food industry marketing more than 20,000 new products every year, giving people access to a seemingly endless variety of foods and beverages.

"It's the diversity of foods that is so appealing and causing the problem, not a single substance in these foods," he added.

Those who argue against food addiction also point out that most people consume highly processed foods on a daily basis without showing any signs of addiction. But Dr. Gearhardt notes that addictive substances do not hook everyone who consumes them. According to research, about two-thirds of people who smoke cigarettes go on to become addicted, while a third do not. Only about 21 percent of people who use cocaine in their lifetimes become addicted, while just 23 percent of people who drink alcohol develop a dependence on it. Studies suggests that a wide range of factors determine whether people become addicted, including their genetics, family histories, exposure to trauma, and environmental and socioeconomic backgrounds.

"Most people try addictive substances and they don't become addicted," Dr. Gearhardt said. "So if these foods are addictive, we wouldn't expect that 100 percent of society is going to be addicted to them."

For people who struggle with limiting their intake of highly processed foods, Dr. Gearhardt recommends keeping a journal of what you eat so you can identify the foods that have the most pull - the ones that cause intense cravings and that you can't stop eating once you start. Keep those foods out of your home, while stocking your fridge and pantry with healthier alternatives that you enjoy, she said.

Keep track of the triggers that lead to cravings and binges. They could be emotions like stress, boredom and loneliness. Or it could be the Dunkin' Donuts that you drive by three times a week. Make a plan to manage those triggers by a taking a different route home, for example, or by using nonfood activities to alleviate stress and boredom. And avoid skipping meals, because hunger can set off cravings that lead to regrettable decisions, she said.

"Making sure you are regularly fueling your body with nutritious, minimally processed foods that you enjoy can be important for helping you navigate a very challenging food environment," said Dr. Gearhardt.









Unhealthy Foods Aren’t Just Bad For You, They May Also Be Addictive (Published 2021)


Food researchers debate whether highly processed foods like potato chips and ice cream are addictive, triggering our brains to overeat.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*We have to wake up: factory farms are breeding grounds for pandemics*

It can feel wrong, or simply impossible, to focus on anything other than getting through this most challenging moment. It is reasonable to argue that since lessons will not reduce our immediate suffering, we should learn them once we're through this. But the vulnerability that makes the present so painful is exactly why some discussions cannot wait. The suffering we stand to reduce or increase by the threads of action that we begin to unwind now could be magnitudes of what we're currently experiencing.

Imagine that while your country practised social distancing, your neighbouring country responded to Covid-19 by packing citizens into gymnasiums by the tens of thousands. Imagine if, in addition, they instituted genetic and pharmaceutical interventions that helped their citizens maintain productivity under such adverse conditions, even though this had the unfortunate side effect of devastating their immune systems. And to complete this dystopian vision, imagine if your neighbours simultaneously reduced their number of doctors tenfold. Such actions would radically increase death rates not only within their country, but yours. Pathogens do not respect national boundaries. They are not Spanish or Chinese.

Pathogens do not respect species boundaries, either. Influenza and coronaviruses move fluidly between human and animal populations, just as they move fluidly between nations. When it comes to pandemics, there is not animal health and human health - not any more than there is Korean health and French health. Social distancing works only when everyone practises it, and "everyone" includes animals.

The meat that we eat today overwhelmingly comes from genetically uniform, immunocompromised, and regularly drugged animals lodged by the tens of thousands into buildings or stacked cages - no matter how the meat is labelled. We know this, and most of us would strongly prefer it be otherwise. But we would prefer a lot of things in the world that aren't so and, for most of us, the future of animal farming is low on our list of priorities, especially now. It is understandable to be most concerned with oneself. The problem is, we aren't doing a good job of being selfish.

We don't yet know the full history of the emergence of Covid-19, the particular strain of coronavirus that now threatens us. But with recent pandemic virus threats from influenza viruses such as H1N1 (swine flu) or H5N1 (bird flu) there is no ambiguity: those viruses evolved on chicken and pig factory farms. Genetic analyses have shown that crucial components of H1N1 emerged from a virus circulating in North American pigs. But it is commercial poultry operations that appear to be the Silicon Valley of viral development.

It is on chicken factory farms that we have most frequently found viruses that have mutated from a form found only in animals into a form that harms humans (what scientists call "antigenic shift"). It is these "novel" viruses that our immune systems are unfamiliar with and that can prove most deadly.

Of 16 strains of novel influenza viruses currently identified by the CDC as "of special concern," including H5N1, 11 come from viruses of the H5 or H7 type. In 2018 a group of scientists analysed the 39 antigenic shifts, also called "conversion events," that we know played a key role in the emergence of these particularly dangerous strains. Their results prove that "all but two of these events were reported in commercial poultry production systems".

Imagine if our military leaders told us that almost every terrorist in recent memory had spent time in the same training camp, but no politician would call for an investigation of the training camp. Imagine if we knew that those terrorists were developing weapons more destructive than any that has been used, or tested, in human history. This is our situation when it comes to pandemics and farming.

The United States CDC is the abbreviation for an agency whose name is actually the Centers for Disease Control _and Prevention. _We drop _prevention_ from the acronym, which is innocent enough. But we also tend to drop serious discussion of prevention in favour of tactics for responding once pandemics hit. This is understandable - especially in the midst of a pandemic - but recklessly dangerous. We are preoccupied with the production of face masks, but we appear unconcerned with the farms that are producing pandemics. The world is burning and we are reaching for more fire extinguishers while gasoline soaks through the tinder at our feet.

To reduce risk of pandemics for ourselves, our gaze needs to turn to the health of animals. In the case of wild animal populations, such as the bats that scientists have theorised as a probable origination point for Covid-19, the best solution seems to be to limit and regulate human interaction. Much has rightly been written on this and, slowly and unevenly, policies seem to be moving in the right direction. As it became established that a number of people contracted the virus after visiting a wet market in Wuhan, where the virus likely passed through humans from bats via an intermediate host, China shut down 19,000 wildlife-farming operations and banned meat from wild animals at wet markets.

In the case of farmed animals, though, the lack of public understanding has allowed unscrupulous corporations to move policy in exactly the wrong direction. Across the globe, corporations have succeeded in creating policies that use public resources to promote industrial farming. One study suggests that the public is providing $1m per minute in global farm subsidies, overwhelmingly used to prop up and expand the current broken model. The same $1m a minute that promotes factory farming also increases pandemic risk.

In the US, the death rate for Covid-19 has been less than 2%, but had this been, say, H5N1 the death rate would be far higher - the CDC reports a 60% death rate. After a spike of H5N1 deaths in 2017, the virus's spread subsided for reasons that remain unclear. Should we be relieved? Nancy Cox, who led CDC's influenza operations for more than two decades, has emphasised: "We don't know how the story's going to end." H5N1's failure to reach pandemic proportions simply means we have a terrorist kicking around who is just one small viral mutation away from obtaining the equivalent of a nuclear arsenal.

The implications of a 1-2% death rate are all around us: half of the world is living under stay-at-home orders, children don't go to school, hospitals are running out of life-saving equipment, we are facing a generational financial depression, and the funeral services that have traditionally allowed us at least to mourn together are being (rightfully) banned. Can we extrapolate the implications of a 60% death rate in our imaginations? That would be a 30-fold increase over our current situation. What if the next pandemic didn't spare children? The death rate for children infected with H5N1 approaches 50%. How does it feel if you imagine one person you love a coin toss away from a horrible death? Try imagining if half of everyone you know who had the flu last year was now dying. If you have children, how many of them had the flu last year? Force yourself to imagine these things then ask yourself: how much would it be worth sacrificing now to avoid that happening?





This leads to the most pertinent question: What can we do? The link between factory farming and increasing pandemic risk is well established scientifically, but the political will to curtail that risk has, in the past, been absent. Now is the time to build that will. It really does matter if we talk about this, share our concerns with our friends, explain these issues to our children, wonder together about how we should eat differently, call on our political leaders, and support advocacy organisations fighting factory farming. Leaders are listening. Changing the most powerful industrial complex in the world - the factory farm - could not possibly be easy, but in this moment with these stakes it is, maybe for the first time in our lifetimes, possible.

The fact that we know our food system is partly to blame can empower us. We know how to strike at the single greatest risk factor for pandemics. We know how to make ourselves and our families safer. The very uncertainty that unsettles us also reminds us that everything can change for the better, too. Thankfully Covid-19 seems to attack our children extremely rarely, and if we respond with sufficient wisdom, this time that is so marked by death will perhaps also be remembered by them as a turning point, a time of reckoning, quiet heroism and, as the months pass, renewal.









We have to wake up: factory farms are breeding grounds for pandemics | Jonathan Safran Foer and Aaron S Gross


After Covid-19, to ignore the links between animal and human health would be to invite unimaginable disaster, say Jonathan Safran Foer and Aaron S Gross




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The treatment, slaughter and consumption of horses is no different than the treatment, slaughter and consumption of pigs, cows, chickens etc. But this whole transportation thing needs to end...shame on the Canadian govt (my government) for allowing this and for allowing horse slaughter at their own back door.

*A glimpse inside Canada's 'sinister' horse meat industry*

Canada - and in particular Alberta - is one of the world's biggest suppliers of horses for meat. More than 25,000 are slaughtered annually. The meat is frozen and exported, mainly to Japan, France and the U.S.

But what is most controversial is how the industry feeds the desire for fresh raw horse meat in Asia. Thousands of live horses are loaded onto airplanes annually and flown thousands of kilometres away, where they are fattened up for slaughter.

The Canadian Horse Defence Coalition describes that voyage as cruel and inhumane: "They are&#8230;stuffed...into small wooden crates, three to four horses per crate. Often, there isn't enough headroom. There's no room to lay down. They can't stretch out. Sometimes horses have fallen...during takeoff and landing," executive director Sinikka Crosland tells W5.

The horses are flown almost weekly out of airports in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg. Their destination is 9,000 kilometres away in Kumamoto Prefecture, western Japan. Horse meat is a delicacy in Japan. The raw horse meat is called "basashi" and customers will pay as much as 8,000 yen or about $100 dollars a serving, in line with what Canadians pay for high-grade steak.

Activists have filed numerous access-to-information requests with government regulators to track how many horses are injured or killed during that lengthy journey. In 2014, a horse described as "agitated" kicked the fuselage of the plane and forced an emergency landing. The horse died. In 2018, a horse described as stressed and breathing heavily was "down in a crate." It was euthanized when it couldn't get back up. In 2020, five horses had falls and one was dead on arrival in Japan.

There is a growing global movement to end the transport of all live animals, not just horses. The British Parliament has announced plans to end the export of live animals for slaughter, describing the practice as inhumane.

Canadian veterinarian Judith Samson-French explains why travel is especially difficult for horses: "Horses are not trained or conditioned for transportation. Horses are flight animals and we're treating them like cattle. It doesn't work. So from the humane point of view... and the biology of the horse, it does not make it conducive for transportation. Animals should be slaughtered where they're raised. They should not be slaughtered an ocean away and put through the misery of transport."

International standards set by the World Organization for Animal Health stipulate that large horses be segregated during transport and that the top of their head not touch the top of the crate. They do not have a mandate for compliance or enforcement. And while Canada is a member of the organization, this country does not follow those standards. Instead, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) maintains it is humane for horses to be crated in groups during the flights if they are "compatible" and that their heads can touch the top of the crate if they are "agitated."

Canadian singer and television host Jann Arden is using her voice to advocate on behalf of the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition in a campaign called #horseshit. From her recording studio in Calgary, Arden says watching the horses being loaded up at the Calgary airport has forever changed her.

"To watch horses go to their death. It's horrible. I wish I had never seen it. It'll be with me for the rest of my life, but because I'm able to bear witness, I can help them. This country was built on the back of a horse. We owe them a debt of gratitude. Are we horse people or are we this sinister part of agriculture?"

A petition to end the live export of horses has been launched in the House of Commons by Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, the MP for Beaches-East York in Toronto.









A glimpse inside Canada's 'sinister' horse meat industry


W5 investigates Canada's controversial practice of flying live horses around the world to be slaughtered for fresh, raw, horsemeat. The campaign to stop the live horse export has ramped up with the celebrity endorsement of Canadian singer Jann Arden, who calls it the 'sinister side of agriculture.'



www.ctvnews.ca


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Protein Sources: How to Meet Your Requirements*

*Protein for Vegans: Basic Information*
During the 1970s and 1980s, conventional wisdom said that vegetarians and vegans run severe risks of protein deficiency. Much of this concern arose from the first bestselling vegetarian advocacy book, _Diet for a Small Planet_ (published in 1971), which offered protein recommendations that, in hindsight, were needlessly stringent.

Today, the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Some vegans believe that their protein intake isn't worthy of _any_ consideration. In fact, you can even find vegans who mock the topic when it's brought up.

But belittling the importance of protein is as misguided as believing that vegans are courting deadly protein deficiencies. The truth is that while it's easy for vegans to get plenty of protein, it's also easy to come up short. Unfortunately, it's fair to assume that many vegans fall _far_ short of achieving an optimal protein intake. It's therefore needlessly risky to believe that, as a vegan, you're exempt from having to pay attention to protein.

*Severe vs. Moderate Protein Deficiency*
When it comes to protein, perhaps the main source of confusion relates to a dire medical condition called kwashiorkor. This disease only appears in areas of famine, or among people with severe eating disorders. Relatively tiny amounts of protein are all it takes to avoid kwashiorkor, so for obvious reasons this deficiency disease is unheard of in the vegan community.

Some vegans make the mistake of thinking that avoiding kwashiorkor means that protein levels are acceptable. This is a dangerously misguided belief-avoiding kwashiorkor doesn't indicate that your protein intake is even close to ideal.

What's more, there's no clear-cut way to know for sure whether you're getting all the protein your body needs. Even blood tests can't reliably tell you if your intake is sub-optimum. Instead, a variety of symptoms may indicate mild to moderate protein deficiency:


chronic fatigue
high blood sugar or triglyceride levels
inability to maintain sufficient muscle mass
depression
While there are countless terrible things about meat, milk, and eggs, it's undeniable that all these foods are rich in protein. So if you stop eating animal products and don't replace them with vegan foods that are protein-rich, there's a possibility that your intake will decline from adequate to insufficient. Fortunately, just a little effort can ensure your protein needs are nicely met on a vegan diet.

*Vegan Protein Intake Recommendations*
VeganHealth.org recommends a daily intake of 1 to 1.1 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. In practice this means a 68 kilogram (150 pound) adult needs to take in about 70 grams of protein per day. What's more, much of this protein ought to be rich in the amino acid lysine. Beans are rich in lysine, whereas rice, wheat, and nuts are significantly lower in this amino acid.

If you crunch the numbers and see how this advice translates to everyday eating you'll discover that you may need to make a concerted effort to cover your needs.

*The Best Vegan Protein Sources*
One way to step up your intake is to get into the habit of incorporating rich protein sources into the majority of your meals, including foods like:


Unsweetened soy milk
Tofu
Seitan (wheat gluten)
Beans, including lentils and split peas
Hemp seeds
Nuts & peanuts
Green peas
Orgain and other vegan protein powders
Quinoa
Buckwheat
Clif Bars and Probars
One food that has surprisingly little protein is commercially-made almond milk. The stuff generally contains loads of sugar but very little protein. Soy milk is therefore typically a better choice for people wanting to boost their protein intake. In fact, it's common for soy milk to have about six times more protein than almond milk!

*Tips for Increasing Your Protein Consumption*
If you don't like the taste of beans or you have trouble digesting them, you could have a tough time getting sufficient protein on a vegan diet. Our beans page offers advice about how to prepare beans in ways that maximize digestibility. You may find that tofu, tempeh, and soy-milk easier to digest than other bean-based foods. Alternately, nuts, seeds, and quinoa are all rich in protein, and easily digested.

Protein powders can be a godsend to anyone who can't tolerate beans or nuts. They can give you a big dose of protein, in a form that's more digestible than meals made with beans. Most brands of protein powder deliver about 20 grams of lysine-rich protein per scoop. Orgain makes an inexpensive all-organic vegan protein powder, and it sells for about half the price of several competing brands. Buy a shaker cup and you won't have to dirty a blender each time you prepare a serving.

*Protein-Rich Recipes*
Adding just a few protein-rich meals to your cooking repertoire may be all it takes to boost your intake to adequate levels. There are two different cookbooks devoted entirely to protein-rich vegan meals.


_The High-Protein Vegan Cookbook_, by Ginny Kay McMeans
_The Great Vegan Protein Book_, by Steen & Noyes
It's reasonable to speculate that many people who fail to thrive on a vegan diet aren't eating sufficient protein. Since meat is loaded with protein, a vegan who has become protein deficient would doubtless feel better within days of putting meat back into the diet. The best way to ensure that you don't develop a deficiency is to keep an eye on getting sufficient amounts each day. A little attention and vigilance is all it takes to avoid problems down the road.









Vegan Protein Sources and Recommendations


It's easy to get plenty of protein on a vegan diet. Just read our recommendations and our list of protein-rich vegan foods.




vegan.com


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

I absolutely love beans. But, I've tried all the bean cooking tricks to no avail. My wife has made it quite clear that if I want to sleep in the same bed with her beans are off the table (pun intended).


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

RMCDan said:


> I absolutely love beans. But, I've tried all the bean cooking tricks to no avail. My wife has made it quite clear that if I want to sleep in the same bed with her beans are off the table (pun intended).


I eat some form of beans daily(I love beans) but my dynamite is coffee


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is promising

*Plant-based diets reduce risk of heart disease, dementia, study finds*
Getting protein from plant-based sources like beans and nuts instead of animal proteins like red meat and dairy is linked to fewer deaths related to dementia and heart disease, according to a new study.

The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA), studied more than 100,000 post-menopausal women for nearly 20 years.

The women in the study who ate more protein from plant-based sourceshad an associated lower risk of deaths related to heart disease and dementia and a lower risk of all-cause mortality, or death from all causes, in comparison to women who ate more red meat, dairy and eggs.

Why a plant-based diet could impact health factors like dementia and heart disease is the subject of two working theories in medical and nutritional science literature, according to Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News chief medical correspondent and a board-certified OB-GYN.

"One of them has to do with inflammatory metabolites, so these are by-products of animal protein that can then affect the heart and the brain and our blood vessels," said Ashton, who also has a master's degree in human nutrition. "Another [theory] has to do with the gut microbiome, that good bacteria, and obviously what we eat is related to that."

Ashton said on "Good Morning America" Thursday that she has followed a plant-based diet for the past three weeks and has seen her bad cholesterol level, or LDL, and her body fat decrease.

"My weight stayed the same and I lost one point off that dangerous internal visceral fat, so even someone doing this just one or two days a week could potentially have some health benefits," she said. "My advice is dip your toe in the water."

"It doesn't have to be all or none," she said. "You could start with just one day of plant-based eating then maybe that will lead to two but, listen, if I can do it, anyone can do it."

*What is a plant-based diet?*

A plant-based diet is a way of eating that consists mostly or entirely of foods derived from plants, including vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and fruits.

homas Colin Campbell, a Cornell University biochemist, claims responsibility for giving the plant-based way of eating its name. He said he coined the term in 1980 to "help present his research on diet to skeptical colleagues at the National Institutes of Health," according to The New York Times.

"I wanted to emphasize that my work and ideas were coming totally from science and not any sort of ethical or philosophical consideration," he told the newspaper.

*Is a plant-based diet different from a vegan diet?*

Yes, a plant-based diet consists of eating few to no animal foods, while a vegan diet eliminates all animal foods and products -- everything from meat and leather products to eggs and cheese, according to Fatima Cody Stanford, M.D., an obesity medicine physician scientist at Harvard Medical School.

Plant-based diets are also different from vegetarian diets, which eliminate all meat, fish and poultry, according to Stanford.

While religious, cultural, or ethical reasons often motivate veganism and vegetarianism, plant-based diets are often done for health and environmental reasons.

Plant-based diets also often place an emphasis on whole foods.

"There is a way to be healthy in any of those," Stanford told "GMA" last year. "What I say to my patients is to find the best right thing for them because everyone's body is different and everyone's body responds differently."

*Why is there so much interest in plant-based diets?*

Plant-based diets have been steadily gaining acclaim for the last several years, often landing atop the annual best diet rankings from U.S. News & World Report.

The 2011 documentary "Forks Over Knives" also really put plant-based diets into the mainstream. The documentary was made by Brian Wendel, who attended a conference on nutrition in 2001, began to follow a plant-based diet and then brought the idea to the masses with the documentary and a best-selling book.

"The information has been there for a long time, at least from a health perspective, and we've just helped bring it to a mass audience," Wendel told "GMA" last year. "I became convinced of the health argument back in 2001 and just did it overnight. Up until that point, I had been eating animal products every day."

More recently, another documentary, "The Game Changers," has pushed plant-based diets into the spotlight. The 2019 documentary, produced by James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger, shows the journey of a former MMA fighter who gives up meat.

Celebrities like Kim Kardashian West have also been public about embracing a plant-based diet, increasing interest in the way of eating.

Another factor is the argument that eating plant-based is better for the environment, according to Deirdre K. Tobias, assistant professor in the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health.

"We see how much land it takes to supply and grow a single hamburger, for example," she said. "I think that awareness has been really eye-opening for a lot of people who may have disregarded the dietary advice for health reasons."

*What are good things to eat on a plant-based diet?*

Wendel, of "Forks Over Knives," places an emphasis on eating whole, minimally processed foods within a plant-based diet.

"For me the best guide is does the food still look somewhat like it does when you take it out of the ground? When you cook a potato, it still looks like a potato," he said. "The more a food is like that the more you can lean on that in your diet and lifestyle, for health benefits."

Of course fresh vegetables and fruits are a big part of a plant-based diet, as well as nuts, whole grains and legumes. Seafood and meat products can also, on occasion, be part of a plant-based diet.

Wendel emphasizes eating more than just vegetables on a plant-based diet to ensure you are taking in enough calories.

"Make starchy foods -- beans, rice, sweet potatoes, quinoa, chickpeas -- the center of the plate because that has the energy to sustain you," he said. "And then surround it with vegetables."









Plant-based diets reduce risk of heart disease, dementia, study finds


Dr. Jennifer Ashton shares what to know about plant-based eating.




abcnews.go.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Christmas carnage! French eat snails, frogs, foie gras, cheese and horses though. Not exactly a utopia.


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Another popular French dish... Tartare


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

hordie said:


> It is a really cool thread here, thank you!


Indeed! Thanks Judy!


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## bodega_cat (Mar 14, 2021)

I used to be under the misconception that I'd lose out on nutrients with a vegan diet; at the time, I didnt put too much thought into my diet, and I ate beef 2-3 times a week, probably. At a routine dr checkup, I got bloodwork done, and it came back pretty bad: I was badly anemic, my cholesterol was pretty high, and I had various other deficiencies I don't remember. I took iron supplements for a bit and my anemia would improve, but when I stopped taking the supplements for a few months at a time, I'd be back to anemia, and you're usually not supposed to take the iron supplements for a sustained period of time (more than a few months).

Eventually I went about 95% vegan for ethical reasons (occasionally eat fish), thinking that these issues would get worse, so I was absolutely shocked when at my next checkup after about six months of 95% veganism, my bloodwork came back better than it's ever been. My cholesterol was well under control, my iron levels are at the very top of the normal range, and I don't have any deficiencies. The best part was how much better I felt -- I thought it was normal to be dozing off during class because I was up late either for schoolwork or for my part-time job, and I'd consistently fall asleep during movies. After a few months of my new diet, I couldn't believe how much more energy I had; I wasn't falling asleep during the day, I had a lot more energy (and faster times!) while running, I felt sharper mentally, I got through my work faster, and I was _happier_.

I looked into it a bit and meat is pretty overrated as a source of protein and iron: just as an example, one serving of kidney beans (1 cup) has 43g of protein and 83% of your daily value of iron. Meanwhile, one serving of beef has 22g of protein and 12% of your daily value of iron. The beans also have a ton of other vitamins/ minerals that beef doesn't have, and they have a fraction of the cholesterol. Canned kidney beans are also cheaper than beef is, and are really convenient, but I've also saved a ton of money by bulk buying dry beans, and if I soak a cup of them in water before I go to bed the night before, then I've got beans for a fraction of the price that a can would be.

Beans are just an example -- my proteins are mainly edamame, beans of all varieties, chickpeas, quinoa, nuts, sometimes tofu, and a surprising number of vegetables have protein in them too. I've gotten very carried away with this response while procrastinating doing actual work, but this is just to say that if you're worried about losing out on protein/ iron from going vegan, I had the exact opposite result!


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

bodega_cat said:


> one serving of kidney beans (1 cup) has 43g of protein and 83% of your daily value of iron.


One cup of raw kidney beans has 43 g of protein. That's about 3 cups of cooked beans.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ and consequently the satisfying effect of a high fiber diet


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

*VP KAMALA HARRIS IS NOW VEGAN BEFORE 6PM, MAKES OFFICIAL STOP AT VEGAN TACO SHOP*
*Following a recommendation from vegan Senator Cory Booker, Vice President Kamala Harris-who is trying to eat only plant-based meals before 6pm-visits plant-based eatery Tacotarian to sample its vegan tacos.*
_by_ ANNA STAROSTINETSKAYA

MARCH 16, 2021

This week, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Las Vegas vegan restaurant Tacotarian to sample its vegan tacos. Harris came to the restaurant following a recommendation from her friend and colleague Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) who is a fan of Tacotarian and has been vegan since 2014. The Vice President ordered two mushroom asada tacos, two super tacos, two carne asada tacos, and grabbed some housemade hot sauces to complete the meal. A first in a series of stops across the country, Harris was in Las Vegas to promote the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

Tacotarian Co-Founder Kristen Corral revealed that Harris was gracious and spent time chatting with the staff and customers. "We can't believe it. We were just here like any day and someone came up and said they were with the White House and that the Vice President was on her way here to pick up some food to go. It all happened so fast," Corral told VegNews. "But we were just so honored to have the Vice President of the United States standing in our restaurant ordering our food. We're still in shock."

Tacotarian-which is on a mission to "turn Vegas vegan one taco at a time"-opened its first location in Las Vegas in 2019 and its second location in 2020. The shop is known for its innovative approach to Mexican cuisine. For World Vegan Month (November) in 2019, Tacotarian created "the largest taco in the universe" which featured a hard-shell taco that measured seven inches long by seven inches wide, and came stuffed with French fries, beans, a vegan protein of choice, pico de gallo, guacamole, vegan cheddar cheese, and crema.

*Is Kamala Harris vegan?*
During her visit to Tacotarian, Harris told Corral that she was reducing the amount of animal products in her diet. "When she came in we were able to chat for a quick few minutes and we asked her about dabbling in veganism and she said she was doing vegan before 6pm and she heard about our restaurant from her good friend Senator Cory Booker," Corral said.

During her presidential run, Harris revealed her stance on encouraging Americans to reduce their consumption of meat. At a CNN town hall in 2019, Harris responded to a question about whether she would support a change in the dietary guidelines to reduce the consumption of red meat. "I love cheeseburgers from time to time, I just do. But [we must also consider] what we do in terms of creating incentives that we will eat in a healthy way, that we will encourage moderation, and that we will be educated about the effect of our eating habits on our environment," Harris said. "We have to do a much better job with that and the government has to do a much better job with that."

In December 2020, JIVINITI Women's Coalition-a diverse group of organizations composed mostly of women of color-challenged Harris to go vegan for the month of January. While Harris did not formally respond to the challenge, her visit to Tacotarian might be a sign that the Vice President received the message to make a dietary shift.









VP Kamala Harris Is Now Vegan Before 6pm, Makes Official Stop at Vegan Taco Shop


Following a recommendation from vegan Senator Cory Booker, Vice President Kamala Harris—who is trying to eat only plant-based meals before 6pm—visits plant-based eatery Tacotarian to sample its vegan tacos.




vegnews.com


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> ^ and consequently the satisfying effect of a high fiber diet


Beans are about 1:1 protein:fiber, so one cup of raw beans could easily be several days worth of fiber intake for someone on a SAD-type diet, which is just sad. But, when referencing servings of foods like beans or grains whose raw:cooked volume is very different, it's not typical to reference the raw volume. I don't think bodega_cat was trying to be intentionally misleading, but someone could easily read that post and think 1 cup of cooked beans contains 43 g of protein, which is factually incorrect.

Even calling 1 cup of cooked beans a "serving" is playing things a little fast and loose with definitions; the American Heart Association considers a "serving" of cooked beans to be 1/4 cup: What is a Serving?

FTR, I think a 1/4 cup of cooked beans being a "serving" is ridiculous, but I don't work there. In general it's better to refer to volumes or weights rather than "servings."


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Fiber, fiber, fiber  and plant based is paramount

*A Changing Gut Microbiome May Predict How Well You Age*
People whose gut bacteria transformed over the decades tended to be healthier and live longer.

The secret to successful aging may lie in part in your gut, according to a new report. The study found that it may be possible to predict your likelihood of living a long and healthy life by analyzing the trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi that inhabit your intestinal tract.

The new research, published in the journal Nature Metabolism, found that as people get older, the composition of this complex community of microbes, collectively known as the gut microbiome, tends to change. And the greater the change, the better, it appears.

In healthy people, the kinds of microbes that dominate the gut in early adulthood make up a smaller and smaller proportion of the microbiome over the ensuing decades, while the percentage of other, less prevalent species rises. But in people who are less healthy, the study found, the opposite occurs: The composition of their microbiomes remains relatively static and they tend to die earlier.

The new findings suggest that a gut microbiome that continually transforms as you get older is a sign of healthy aging, said a co-author of the study, Sean Gibbons, a microbiome specialist and assistant professor at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, a nonprofit biomedical research organization.

"A lot of aging research is obsessed with returning people to a younger state or turning back the clock," he said. "But here the conclusion is very different. Maybe a microbiome that's healthy for a 20-year-old is not at all healthy for an 80-year-old. It seems that it's good to have a changing microbiome when you're old. It means that the bugs that are in your system are adjusting appropriately to an aging body."

The researchers could not be certain whether changes in the gut microbiome helped to drive healthy aging or vice versa. But they did see signs that what happens in people's guts may directly improve their health. They found, for example, that people whose microbiomes shifted toward a unique profile as they aged also had higher levels of health-promoting compounds in their blood, including compounds produced by gut microbes that fight chronic disease.

Scientists have suspected for some time that the microbiome plays a role in aging. Studies have found, for example, that people 65 and older who are relatively lean and physically active have a higher abundance of certain microbes in their guts compared to seniors who are less fit and healthy. People who develop early signs of frailty also have less microbial diversity in their guts. By studying the microbiomes of people of all ages, scientists have found patterns that extend across the entire life span. The microbiome undergoes rapid changes as it develops in the first three years of life. Then it remains relatively stable for decades, before gradually undergoing changes in its makeup as people reach midlife, which accelerates into old age in those who are healthy but slows or remains static in people who are less healthy.

Although no two microbiomes are identical, people on average share about 30 percent of their gut bacterial species. A few species that are particularly common and abundant make up a "core" set of gut microbes in all of us, along with smaller amounts of a wide variety of other species that are found in different combinations in every person.
To get a better understanding of what happens in the gut as people age, Dr. Gibbons and his colleagues, including Dr. Tomasz Wilmanski, the lead author of the new study, looked at data on over 9,000 adults who had their microbiomes sequenced. They ranged in age from 18 to 101.

About 900 of these people were seniors who underwent regular checkups at medical clinics to assess their health. Dr. Gibbons and his colleagues found that in midlife, starting at around age 40, people started to show distinct changes in their microbiomes. The strains that were most dominant in their guts tended to decline, while other, less common strains became more prevalent, causing their microbiomes to diverge and look more and more different from others in the population.

"What we found is that over the different decades of life, individuals drift apart - their microbiomes become more and more unique from one another," said Dr. Gibbons.

People who had the most changes in their microbial compositions tended to have better health and longer life spans. They had higher vitamin D levels and lower levels of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, a type of fat in the blood. They needed fewer medications, and they had better physical health, with faster walking speeds and greater mobility.
The researchers found that these "unique" individuals also had higher levels of several metabolites in their blood that are produced by gut microbes, including indoles, which have been shown to reduce inflammation and maintain the integrity of the barrier that lines and protects the gut. In some studies, scientists have found that giving indoles to mice and other animals helps them stay youthful, allowing them to be more physically active, mobile and resistant to sickness, injuries and other stresses in old age. Another one of the metabolites identified in the new study was phenylacetylglutamine. It is not clear exactly what this compound does. But some experts believe it promotes longevity because research has shown that centenarians in northern Italy tend to have very high levels of it.

Dr. Wilmanski found that people whose gut microbiomes did not undergo much change as they got older were in poorer health. They had higher cholesterol and triglycerides and lower levels of vitamin D. They were less active and could not walk as fast. They used more medications, and they were nearly twice as likely to die during the study period.

The researchers speculated that some gut bugs that might be innocuous or perhaps even beneficial in early adulthood could turn harmful in old age. The study found, for example, that in healthy people who saw the most dramatic shifts in their microbiome compositions there was a steep decline in the prevalence of bacteria called Bacteroides, which are more common in developed countries where people eat a lot of processed foods full of fat, sugar and salt, and less prevalent in developing countries where people tend to eat a higher-fiber diet. When fiber is not available, Dr. Gibbons said, Bacteroides like to "munch on mucus," including the protective mucus layer that lines the gut.

"Maybe that's good when you're 20 or 30 and producing a lot of mucus in your gut," he said. "But as we get older, our mucus layer thins, and maybe we may need to suppress these bugs."

If those microbes chew through the barrier that keeps them safely in the gut, it is possible they could trigger an immune system response.

"When that happens, the immune system goes nuts," Dr. Gibbons said. "Having that mucus layer is like having a barrier that maintains a détente that allows us to live happily with our gut microbes, and if that goes away it starts a war" and could set off chronic inflammation. Increasingly, chronic inflammation is thought to underlie a wide range of age-related ailments, from heart disease and diabetes to cancer and arthritis.

One way to prevent these microbes from destroying the lining of the gut is to give them something else to snack on, such as fiber from nutritious whole foods like beans, nuts and seeds and fruits and vegetables.

Other studies have shown that diet can have a substantial impact on the composition of the microbiome. While the new research did not look closely at the impact of different foods on changes in the microbiome as we age, Dr. Gibbons said he hopes to examine that in a future study.

"It may be possible to preserve the aging mucus layer in the gut by increasing the amount of fiber in the diet," Dr. Gibbons said. "Or we might identify other ways to reduce Bacteroides abundance or increase indole production through diet. These are not-too-distant future interventions that we hope to test."

In the meantime, he said, his advice for people is to try to stay physically active, which can have a beneficial effect on the gut microbiome, and eat more fiber and fish and fewer highly processed foods.
"I have started eating a lot more fiber since I began studying the microbiome," he said. "Whole foods like fresh fruits and veggies have all the complex carbohydrates that our microbes like to eat. So, when you're feeding yourself, think about your microbes too."









A Changing Gut Microbiome May Predict How Well You Age (Published 2021)


People whose gut bacteria transformed over the decades tended to be healthier and live longer.




www.nytimes.com





Stay healthy.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I prefer boneless as well


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

You've been upgraded to PREMIUM Boneless.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's mind blowing how nature has all the answers.
Fungi and bacteria might one day help save us from ourselves.


Made of fungi, mycelium hits market as green substitute for leather, plastic

This past week, British fashion designer Stella McCartney unveiled a black "leather" bustier top and pants made not from cow hide, but mycelium - which is grown from fungi.

Up until now, if you wanted leather that wasn't made from animals, you've probably had to settle for plastic "pleather," which comes with a different set of environmental problems.

But a number of big brands, including Stella McCartney, Adidas, Lululemon and Hermes, in partnership with biotechnology startups Bolt Threads and MycoWorks, say later this year you'll be able to buy more products with leather made from another bio-based material that's grown by recycling waste.

Mycelium is already on the market in the form of styrofoam-like packaging, "un-leather" handbags, flooring and sound-proofing acoustic panels. It's also been experimentally used to build larger structures such as benches, coffins, composting toilets and even buildings.

But manufacturers are now aiming to scale up the products and applications made from mycelium, which they tout as a more sustainable substitute for petroleum-derived plastics such as styrofoam and vinyl, leather made with harsh chemicals from water-guzzling, methane-belching cows and even other bio-based materials such as cardboard and wood.

In the future, they say it could even be used to make advanced materials such as transparent "paper" or construct buildings that can be triggered to automatically biodegrade at the end of their useful life.

*What is mycelium?*
Mycelium is made of fungi. While you may think of them as plants, they technically aren't and are more closely related to animals. (Fungi and animals are in different "kingdoms" but the same "supra-kingdom," while plants are in a different supra-kingdom.)

You might associate fungi with mushrooms, but mycelium is a different part of the fungus - its fast-growing network of roots, rather than the compact fruits we know as mushrooms.

*What makes mycelium more sustainable than the materials it replaces?*
Those who use mycelium tout its low environmental footprint as its biggest advantage.

Dan Widmaier, CEO of California-based Bolt Threads, said that among the brands that work with his company, 70 per cent of their environmental impact comes from the materials they use.

"Broadly speaking, those materials have to change if there's going to be eight billion of us and counting on the planet," Widmaier said.

Bolt Threads says its mycelium-based leather, Mylo, emits fewer greenhouse gases and uses less water and resources than animal leather.

Alexander Bismarck, a professor of materials chemistry, and Mitchell Jones, a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Vienna, have studied the sustainability of fungi-derived leather substitutes.

They note that in nature, fungi help soils capture and store carbon through their symbiotic relationships with plants, making their growth "effectively carbon neutral." When grown to make mycelium-based materials, they can upcycle waste such as food and agricultural residues without the heating that's usually required for manufacturing processes.

That's in contrast to raising cattle, which is known to consume and pollute water, use lots of land and generate greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change at a higher rate than most other domestic animals. With leather, lots of potentially harmful chemicals and energy are also used to tan the hides.

Bismarck said compared to such animal-based materials - as well as plastics - mycelium-based products provide "a significant reduction in CO2 or greenhouse gas."

Mycelium has even been suggested as a replacement for other bio-based materials, such as cardboard, wood or bioplastics. Jones said even many of those have negative environmental impacts, such as the need to cut down trees or limited biodegradability. "The fungi doesn't really have that downside."

*What can you buy now that's made of mycelium?*
Over the past decade or so, biotechnology companies have launched a small number of mycelium-based products such as:


*Packaging,* designed to replace styrofoam, from New York-based Ecovative Design. It's now produced by manufacturing partners in the U.S., U.K., Europe and New Zealand. Dell Technologies and IKEA are among those who have committed to using it.
*Coffins* made by Dutch startup Loop that are not only biodegradable but also help biodegrade the bodies laid to rest inside.
*Flooring and acoustic tiles, *which are sold by Italian interior design products firm Mogu. 
*Leather. *MYCL, based in Bandung, Indonesia, partnered with local apparel brand BRODO, to launch sneakers, sandals, wallets, luggage tags and watch straps made of its mycelium-based leather Mylea last year

Two U.S. competitors aim to make mycelium-based leather more widely available this year.


Bolt Threads (which licensed its initial technology from Ecovative) was supposed to deliver its first product made of Mylo, the Driver bag, to Kickstarter backers late last year, but delivery was delayed after the batch produced by its manufacturing partner didn't meet quality standards. The company also announced in October that it would partner with Adidas, Kering, Lululemon and Stella McCartney to launch Mylo products in 2021. (The items unveiled by Stella McCartney this week aren't yet available for sale.)
San Francisco-based MycoWorks announced earlier this month that it had partnered with luxury brand Hermes to make a version of the Victoria bag that will be the first product using a mycelium-based leather called Sylvania.
*How is mycelium produced and turned into new materials and products?*
Step one is obviously to grow it. That can be done either in a nutritious liquid or on a bed of solid materials. Either can include waste products ranging from blackstrap molasses to sawdust from furniture production.

What's suitable depends on the fungal species, which can be found in different habitats in the wild, said Joe Dahmen, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture, who has been working with mycelium-based materials for several years.

For example, oyster mushrooms, which he works with, grow on hardwood trees but not conifers. Some of the materials used commercially include cotton fibres or hemp hurds, the inner cores of the stems.

The fungi also need water and nutrients, and they're generally kept in humidity- and temperature-controlled environments to prevent them from producing mushrooms - a completely different material that can also generate potentially irritating spores. Fruiting typically happens when the fungi think it's autumn, Dahmen said.

Fungi are fast-growing - it takes just a week to grow mycelium for Mushroom Packaging and two weeks for Mylo, their manufacturers say. They're often grown with high levels of CO2 to encourage them to grow outward in search of oxygen.

Once ready, the mycelium is usually dehydrated and processed with machines and chemicals to improve the density, strength, elasticity and texture.

All that means mycelium-based materials generally aren't pure mycelium, but a "composite," Bismarck noted. They contain the material it was grown on along with anything added during processing.

Widmaier said that's part of the "secret sauce" for Mylo. "We start with the mycelium, and then we do everything from making sure it doesn't rot to making sure it's finished appropriately and it's got the right colour."

*Is the fungus still alive and can it keep growing within products?*
For most commercial products (except for coffins), the mycelium is heat treated long before it reaches the customer in order to kill it, maintain the product's intended form and eliminate the risk that it could form mushrooms and allergens such as spores

That said, some designers, such as Dahmen and his wife, Amber Frid-Jimenez, Canada Research Chair in Design and Technology at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, have experimented with living fungi.

"As architects and designers, we were really interested in the idea of a material that might aggregate and continue to grow once it was in the shape or form of whatever it was we were designing to," said Dahmen, who has a design studio with Frid-Jimenez called AFJD.

They once built a wall at the Museum of Vancouver that consisted of individual mycelium bricks that were left alive and eventually fused together.

"So you could imagine a kind of building technology that can kind of evolve and continue to grow, you know - sort of magical, in a way," he said.

In 2016, they created benches made from mycelium that included a space in the middle for mushrooms to fruit. They remained in use on campus for several months.

Generally, in normal indoor or outdoor conditions, they dry out and become inert. "But that doesn't mean they can't reawaken later," he said.

That means it might be possible to engineer a building made with inert, mycelium-based materials that can be triggered to decompose or self-demolish at the end of the building's useful life. "In the right conditions, they might reawaken and start digesting the materials and finish the building."

*What else could mycelium be used for in the future?*
Both Dahmen and Bismarck say it has a lot of potential as a building material - to replace foam insulation, for example.

Its insulating abilities have prompted Dahmen to use mycelium to create a biodegradable composting toilet for refugee camps that traps heat to speed up decomposition by heat-loving bacteria. After use, it can simply be buried. Dahmen is even playing around with integrating seeds into it so "basically you're kind of converting the excrement into a flower bed at the end."

Bismarck and Jones have been experimenting with ways to make more advanced materials from mycelium. For example, they have found that by growing it in a mineral-rich environment, they can create mineralized, fire-resistant insulation panels.
While most current mycelium products are composites that include agricultural or wood fibres, the researchers are also trying to create "nanomaterials" with pure fungi selected for their extra-fine fibres.

Those can be processed in a blender with some chemicals into interesting materials such as transparent, paper-like sheets. The mycelium paper can be made 10 times stronger than regular paper or designed to filter viruses or heavy metals from water.

One of the applications they're testing right now is mycelium-based wound dressings, which can help reduce bleeding, keep bacteria out and accelerate healing.

"It's simply incredible what a fungus can do," Bismarck said, adding that there are an estimated 5.1 million types of fungi out there, many with untapped potential. "It's still a vast space of biology that can do something for you."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/mycelium-fungi-green-materials-1.5954664?cmp=rssFungi and bacteria might one day help save us from ourselves.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> *Early vegans*
> 
> The Vegan Society may have been established 75 years ago but veganism has been around much longer. Evidence of people choosing to avoid animal products can be traced back over 2,000 years. As early as 500 BCE, Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras promoted benevolence among all species and followed what could be described as a vegetarian diet. Around the same time, Siddhārtha Gautama (better known as the Buddha) was discussing vegetarian diets with his followers.
> 
> ...











History


Learn about the history of veganism and the society.




www.vegansociety.com


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## EKram (Oct 30, 2020)

Autophagy, infammation reduction, avoiding high glycemic intake.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Just in case, you are travelling to my neck of the woods...and you want a top notch vegan or vegetarian meal...

*What makes Toronto a top vegan destination?*

Toronto has been named as one of the best cities in the world for vegans. While there are countless vegan spots throughout the city, the success of vegan eats in Toronto could be beyond flavour and offerings, and more about community and diversity.

According to National Geographic, Toronto is one of the best destinations in the world for vegans because of its wide range of vegan eateries, breweries and ethical shops. But, what makes great vegan food depends on who you ask. Some may say it's a burger's likeness to 'real meat', while others may argue that flavour is what sets the best apart. To delve into what really makes Toronto's vegan food scene so great, we asked some of the city's vegan foodies and chefs what they think.

"I haven't been everywhere, but I've been to a lot of cities and I think it's true. We have a strong community of vegetarians and vegans and a huge variety of restaurants and cuisines within it," says Lauren Toyota, a vegan creator, author and influencer.

As Toronto's community of vegans and vegetarians grows, so too does the demand for top-quality food options. But, is there something specific about Toronto that makes it such a hotspot? According to Toyota, it comes down to a variety of reasons.

"It could be the fact that we're a multicultural city that has welcomed immigration," she says. "I also think the Toronto Vegetarian Association has been around for such a long time really fostering and cultivating a community for it, perhaps for longer than some other large cities around the world."

With the influx of people coming in and out of Toronto, it's no surprise that one of the fastest-growing diets in North America would be present here.

"Toronto is also the largest city in Canada and a big tourist destination so I think that naturally plays into our overall development and the vegan scene benefits from that," says Toyota.

Lauren Soo, who co-owns and operates Fat Choi with her husband and their family, says the plant-based restaurant is a 'passion project.'

Soo and her husband, Johnny Kountouri, opened Fat Choi after switching to a plant-based lifestyle and becoming inspired to create modern, flavourful and plant-based, South Asian-style cuisine. The family own Fat Choi alongside Soos, a non plant-based restaurant specializing in modern interpretations of Malaysian street food.

Both Soo and Toyota emphasised the role of multiculturalism in creating top quality vegan cuisine.

"There are so many different cultures that have so many naturally great vegetarian and plant based options--Mexican, Indian--it's all really easy to substitute the proteins, the animal products, because there are so many flavourful ingredients and spices that are already used," said Soo. "I do think we are very lucky here with the options that we have,"

Toronto-based vegan blogger Chiharu explained that this city is 'not a difficult place to live' for vegans. Though there are fewer options as you head into the suburbs she says she's hopeful that will change soon. Chiharu also mentioned an 'amazing' plant-based Japanese bakery and coffee shop called Tsuchi Cafe that recently opened, again underpinning cultural diversity as the main factor in what earned Toronto its spot in the top 8 of National Geographic's list.

Ultimately, when every type of cuisine is available and has vegan options to offer, they introduce original food concepts into the market, creating a buzz for vegans, and non-vegans, who want to try it out. Although most restaurants in Toronto offer vegan and vegetarian dishes on their menus, purely vegan food spots here have become an option in and of themselves. People choose to eat it, even if they're not vegan, in favour of a truly delicious and almost certainly healthy meal.









What makes Toronto a top vegan destination? | TasteToronto


Toronto has been named as one of the best cities in the world for vegans.




www.tastetoronto.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Dunkin' Donuts Belgium just released 41 vegan donut flavors!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Organic free range... I'll stay plantbased


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

HowrdJns89 said:


> It's hard for me to find delicious vegan recipes and therefore I am in constant search, I want to eat less Masa, but I can not find delicious recipes


There are lot's of recipes and a substitute for non-planted based ingredients. Check through the other thread. I'll share more links


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How protecting the planet can prevent pandemics*










With COVID-19 vaccines becoming more available, we can breathe a small sigh of relief - through our masks! But we can't get complacent. This pandemic isn't over. And if we're not careful, others could be on the horizon.

A coalition of health and conservation organizations is trying to prevent that. It points to evidence that "increasing rates of deforestation and land-use change due to population growth and urbanization - coupled with growing globalization and excess production driven by consumerism" are increasing our vulnerability to "zoonotic" diseases, which spread from other animals to people. 
They also note that "large-scale commercial trade in live wild animals, often traveling long distances to crowded food markets, increases the risk of transmission of pathogens to people from those animals."

This information isn't new. Most "novel pathogens" to which we haven't developed immunity are zoonotic, including Ebola, zika, West Nile virus, SARS, HIV and others. We've long known about the possibility of something like COVID-19. We should have been better prepared for it or able to prevent it.

We must learn from the current crisis to prevent worse emergencies and prepare for new diseases. The next virus could be deadlier than COVID-19 (as some variants already are). As the coalition points out, outbreaks are increasing and spreading faster in our interconnected world.

"Because of our broken relationship with nature, these events are already happening more frequently: more than 335 emerging infectious disease outbreaks were reported worldwide from 1940 to 2004 - over 50 per decade," the coalition reports.

In identifying parts of the world where outbreaks are likely to start, the coalition is mapping out solutions, which "will require dialogue and coordinated action between sectors - particularly health and environment, but also agriculture, trade, food and nutrition and others."

Its proposed "three-pronged strategy" would include a scientific task force and high-level panel on prevention at the source, a global action fund for pandemic prevention, and global and local public awareness campaigns. 
The task force - to be convened by coalition members the Harvard Global Health Institute and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, with scientists worldwide - will "examine what we know and what we must learn to prevent the next global pandemic." It will inform a panel that includes "high-level representatives from governments" to "develop and recommend policies to prevent spillover, and, critically, advocate for adoption of these policies globally and in high-risk countries."

The coalition also proposes a global action fund to help co-ordinate knowledge, dialogue and action and "support a pipeline of existing prevention solutions to scale up, while also financing the development of new solutions (cutting-edge behavior change approaches, diagnostic platforms, incentives programs, technologies, and data solutions)." 
Finally, it proposes global and local public awareness campaigns to prioritize prevention and health-system preparedness.

To prevent pandemics, we must recognize our interconnectedness with nature and protect natural systems that make the planet habitable for humans. Doing so will also help with the climate emergency.

As Amy Vittor from the University of Florida's division of infectious diseases and global medicine told the Guardian, "Forests - and tropical forests in particular - harbour complex networks of microbes and their wildlife hosts.

Degrading these landscapes carries the potential of unleashing these microbes upon our domesticated animals and ourselves. Therefore, maintaining the integrity of forests serves to not only protect biodiversity and mitigate climate change, but also to contain these complex and potentially dangerous pathogen networks."

Reducing wildlife trade and reforming livestock practices are also crucial. All require recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide, and incorporating knowledge they've gained from living in place for millennia. 
These measures are necessary regardless of cost, but a recent study found they're also sound investments. Global spending on COVID-19 has already exceeded US$20 trillion, but spending just $27 billion a year over 10 years could substantially reduce the risks of a similar pandemic.

As with the coalition's recommendations, the study outlines the benefits of early disease detection and control, monitoring wildlife trade and ending China's wild meat trade, reducing disease spillover from livestock and protecting tropical forests in critical regions.

Our major crises - pandemics, climate disruption and biodiversity loss - all have roots in our lack of recognition of our place in nature. We can and must do better.









How protecting the planet can prevent pandemics - NOW Magazine


A coalition of health organizations will propose and finance new measures, such as cutting-edge behaviour change approaches, writes David Suzuki




nowtoronto.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

_He may look like a 1960s hippie, but William Pester pioneered his return-to-nature lifestyle in California all the way back in the 1910s. This vegetarian nudist lived in a hut made from palm trees, foraged for fruit and nuts, and spent most of his days alone in the desert. Meet the man who many believe was America's first hippie_

*How William Pester Pioneered The Hippie Lifestyle In California In The 1910s*

William Pester was like any other immigrant building a new life in America in the early 20th century - except that he was a nudist hermit who lived in a handmade hut in the middle of the desert.

He claimed that he came to California to "study himself with untrammeled nature as his classroom."

William Pester wasn't the only European to bring radical ideas of anti-modernization to the deserts of Southern California, and he certainly wasn't the last. However, many credit his rise to fame in the 1910s as a major inspiration behind the 1960s hippie movement. Meet the man who many believe was America's first hippie.










Before William Pester became the famous "Hermit of Palm Canyon," he was born Friedrich Wilhelm Pester in a coal-mining town near Leipzig, Germany, in 1885. At 19, he left to escape the country's mandatory military service.
Pester made his way aimlessly across Europe working as a laborer. Along the way, he picked up the philosophy of Lebensreform, which was a growing naturalist movement in early 20th-century Germany.

Lebensreform prioritized a shift back to natural living, which encompassed vegetarianism, natural healing, keeping material possessions to a minimum, and nudism. Many Lebensreform followers traded in their Judeo-Christian beliefs for a new nature-based spirituality.
Before Pester was born, rapid industrialization swept Germany during the late 19th century, shifting the country from an agricultural model to an urban one. Lebensreform was the antithesis of the country's unprecedented industrialization and an extreme counter to the principles of capitalism.
As historian Michael Green noted, "The iron cage weighed heaviest, and the fight against it was fiercest, in Germany."

William Pester, like many others in the Lebensreform movement, yearned to be free of the endless grind demanded by modern society. Pester eventually crossed the Atlantic and landed in the United States, where he made his way to the rugged landscape of California.

*California Living







*

It's no surprise that William Pester, eager to denounce worldly living, was attracted to the deserts of California, specifically Palm Desert.

With idyllic palm trees and isolated terrain, the Palm Desert area was already a mecca for naturalists seeking a remedy to urban life long before the "hippie boom" of the 1960s.
Palm Desert rests on the Agua Caliente Native American reservation, where the Cahuilla tribe have made Tahquitz Canyon home for at least 5,000 years.



> "When I first came to Palm Springs, there were only a few Indians and an occasional white man. Now there are tourists all the time and motion-picture people pestering me, and I am no longer able to lead the life of contemplation that I desire."
> William Pester, 1922


According to author Lyra Kilston, who wrote about desert dwellers like William Pester in her book _Sun Seekers: The Cure of California_, Pester settled on the reservation land sometime after 1906. He was the only white settler permanently living there.










Pester is photographed wearing shorts here but he usually spent his days in the nude.

Pester, who Kilston described as "lean, long-haired, and richly bearded," built himself a modest hut out of the wood and bushy fronds of the palm trees.

He wore nothing except for a pair of sandals, which he made himself. He foraged for nuts and food, bathed in a dugout he made from a natural spring, and went on long solo walks in the desert's brush.

After living out in the desert for a few years, Pester's prolonged presence began to attract attention from tourists who traveled to Palm Springs and Palm Canyon to get away from the city.

While some came to seek refuge from the machinations of urban life, many came to gawk at the naked white man living in a hut.
"All man's troubles, sickness, anxieties, and discontent, come from a departure from nature," Pester explained of his chosen lifestyle.
"I was never sick because I obey the laws of nature and my food is simple&#8230; I have little use for money, and I am not bothered by politics or religion, as I have no special creed."

All he wanted, he told people, was to find a way to return to the Garden of Eden, from which man had been banished.

*"Nature Boy" And Trouble With The Law








*
Despite his simple lifestyle, William Pester was often a fixture in the news. 

While there were others who turned to natural healing and spiritual remedies, William Pester raised the bar to the extreme.

His lifestyle was particularly unusual in the early 20th century, when remarkable advancements in technology and commerce were taking place all over the world.

As more people in Palm Springs and Los Angeles began to hear of the mysterious desert hippie, journalists and curious travelers came to visit Pester's hut to hear about his story.

Photographers were keen to capture the natural environment where they found William Pester bushy-bearded and living alone. He capitalized on this desire by selling postcards of his face to tourists.

Some of his most famous visitors were adventure novelist Zane Grey and Hollywood actor Rudolph Valentino, both of whom Pester was photographed with.

William Pester is widely believed to be the inspiration behind Nat King Cole's 1947 hit "Nature Boy."










The song was written by eden ahbez, an eccentric naturalist nomad from Brooklyn who preferred his name not be capitalized because he believed the only title worthy of such emphasis was "God."
The song's lyrics certainly fit Pester, though it is also plausible that ahbez got his inspiration from the group of young naturalist men he often hung out with in Laurel Canyon in the 1940s.

Pester's sacrifice of material possessions, however, did not extend to physical desires. According to the _Desert Sun_, Pester was arrested and imprisoned for oral copulation with teenage boys in 1940.
He was reportedly jailed at San Quentin Prison before he was later transferred to Folsom Prison.

William Pester was released on parole six years after his arrest. Upon his release, Pester moved to Arizona where he eventually married. Not much is known about his life there. Pester died in 1963.
Interestingly enough, a wave of German immigrants who brought the Lebensreform philosophy to Southern California continued decades after Pester's own move to the state.

Naturopathy practitioner Arnold Ehret and health entrepreneurs Hermann Sexauer and John and Vera Richter were among them.
The spiritual ideals embodied by the Lebensreform philosophy were captured by German artist Fidus, who drew a 1910 illustration titled "Back to Nature - A Couple."
The artwork portrays a man and a woman standing on what appears to be farmed land as they share a drink from a horn-shaped cup.









Like many extreme movements, the Lebensreform also had a dark offshoot.
The idealism of "blood and soil" was adopted by Germany's National Socialists, which led to a branch of Lebensreform infused with the Nazi belief of white supremacy. Fidus himself was an official member of the Nazi party.

Historian Christian Adam cites the popularity of Hans Surén's 1936 photographic study _Man and Sun: The Aryan-Olympian Spirit_ of nudist Germans with texts on the benefits of a natural lifestyle during the Third Reich as an example of how the two ideologies melded together.

Images that worshipped physical perfection of white bodies "didn't just hold the promise of freedom. They also held thoughts of breeding - the body as a breeding tool that must be properly trained and fed like a race horse," Adam wrote.

However, William Pester's hippie lifestyle originated from the mainstream Lebensreform, and Pester himself had no Nazi ties.

Lebensreform took a less insidious form in the counterculture era of the 1960s, a period in American history in which the peace-and-love generation was born.

Today, there is no palm tree hut, natural spring bath, or garden where William Pester once lived. His cabin was turned into a Native American trading post called "Hermit's Bench."
Only the memory of his peculiar presence in the California desert lingers on.









Meet The California Nudist Who Pioneered The Hippie Lifestyle — In The 1910s


He told people all he wanted was to find a way to return to the Garden of Eden.




allthatsinteresting.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Almonds or Cashews? Which do you prefer?⁠










Overall nuts are a great addition to any meal plan, while they're usually high in fat, the fat they contain is essential for good health, plus they are a good source of a range of nutrients including protein, fiber, and other essential vitamins, minerals & phytonutrients, in particular, zinc,⁠ magnesium, vitamin E, and selenium. All vital nutrients to maximize performance.⁠
⁠
Many studies have shown that nuts provide various health benefits, especially in regard to reducing heart disease risk factors. There is substantial evidence that regularly consuming nuts can cut the risk for coronary heart disease, for both men and women found an inverse relationship between nut consumption and a variety of heart conditions. That means that the more regularly people ate nuts, the lower their risk for coronary heart disease and some other cardiovascular conditions. 
⁠
Nuts are also full of antioxidants, which are the compounds in food that help repair damaged and stressed cells. Studies have shown nuts are a great source of antioxidants that can help reduce the risk of certain diseases. 
⁠
Nuts are high in calories, but they may actually protect against weight gain. A review of recent research found that more and more studies are reporting nut's important role in weight regulation and weight maintenance. 
⁠
In summary, nuts including almonds & cashews are an amazing addition to your diet and should be a key component of your diet!⁠
⁠
Almonds have slight higher protein & fiber, while cashews have more carbs, but overall both are very similar & should be included in your diet!⁠

links Nut consumption and incidence of cardiovascular diseases and cardiovascular disease mortality: a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies








Mediterranean diet supplemented with nuts reduces waist circumference and shifts lipoprotein subfractions to a less atherogenic pattern in subjects at high cardiovascular risk - PubMed


Lipoprotein subfractions are shifted to a less atherogenic pattern by consumption of Mediterranean diets enriched with nuts. The results contribute mechanistic evidence for the reduction of cardiovascular events observed in the PREDIMED trial.




pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

I tend to prefer cashews over almonds and macadamia nuts over everything else. I probably eat more walnuts than most other nuts though.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

Yeah, macadamias FTW, but they're a little spendy so they tend to not be in my daily rotation. I made a pecan tart for Thanksgiving and have been on a major pecan kick ever since.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vitamin E is an overlooked nutrient that you should pay attention to








*

_*Q: I've read that vitamin E can help prevent Alzheimer's. Is it a good idea to take a supplement?*_

Most of us don't pay much attention to vitamin E, a nutrient that's plentiful in nuts, seeds and leafy greens. But we should.
Vitamin E keeps cell membranes strong, enhances immune function, maintains healthy skin, helps relax blood vessels and prevents blood clots from forming in arteries.
But depending on what your go-to cooking oil is, or the type of diet you follow, you may not be getting enough of this underappreciated nutrient. Here's what to know about vitamin E.

*WHAT IS VITAMIN E?*

Vitamin E is actually a family of eight different naturally occurring compounds. The form that our bodies use, and which our daily requirement is based on, is called alpha-tocopherol.

Vitamin E's main role is to act as a fat-soluble antioxidant, defending cell membranes from free radical damage. Free radicals are highly reactive molecules that are produced in the body naturally and also by exposure to cigarette smoke, air pollution and ultraviolet light.
If left unchecked, free radicals can damage proteins and DNA in cells, as well as cell membranes, which are especially vulnerable to harm because they're rich in fatty acids.
As a potent antioxidant, vitamin E also protects immune cells, skin cells and tissues in the eye. It's also thought that the nutrient can help quell free radical damage associated with fatty liver disease.

*VITAMIN E AND BRAIN HEALTH BENEFITS*

The brain is highly susceptible to free radical damage, which increases during aging, and its accumulation over time is thought to contribute to cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease.
Several observational studies have found that cognitively healthy older adults with high dietary vitamin E intakes have a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease compared with those with low intakes of the nutrient.
Vitamin E may contribute to brain health by shielding brain cell membranes from free radical damage. Animal research also suggests that vitamin E is needed to provide the brain with adequate DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), an omega-3 fatty acid that maintains normal brain cell membrane function.
It's also possible that other nutrients in vitamin E-rich foods are important in keeping the brain healthy.
There's limited evidence for the benefits of vitamin E supplements on dementia risk. Including vitamin E-rich foods in your diet appears to be a more effective way to benefit to brain health.

*HOW MUCH, WHERE TO GET IT*

Males and females, aged 14 and older, need 15 milligrams (22 international units) of vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) each day. Women who are breastfeeding require 19 mg. Vitamin E needs of children range from six to 11 mg per day, depending on age.
Excellent foods sources include certain cooking oils, nuts and seeds and leafy green vegetables.
Per one tablespoon, wheat germ oil contains 20 mg of vitamin E, sunflower oil has six mg, safflower oil delivers 4.5 mg, grapeseed oil provides four mg and olive oil has two mg.

One-quarter cup of sunflower seeds provides 12 mg of vitamin E, while the same amount of almonds, hazelnuts and peanuts offer nine mg, five mg and three mg, respectively. Almond butter (four mg per tablespoon) and peanut butter (1.5 mg per tablespoon) are decent sources, too.
Eating cooked leafy greens will also increase your vitamin E intake. Cooked spinach and Swiss chard each provide 3.5 mg per one cup; kale has two mg.
Other food sources include avocado, canned tomato sauce, rainbow trout and kiwifruit.
People who eat a low-fat diet, or one that's high in heavily processed foods, can fall short on vitamin E. Previous U.S. research has found than 90 per cent of Americans don't meet their daily requirement for vitamin E from foods.

*WHAT ABOUT SUPPLEMENTS?*

In general, taking a vitamin E supplement isn't recommended. Get your vitamin E from foods.
High-dose vitamin E has the potential to interact with certain medications (e.g., anticoagulants) and some evidence has suggested it could increase prostate cancer risk.

If you don't get enough vitamin E from your diet, consider taking a multivitamin supplement; most contain 30 to 60 IU of the vitamin (check labels).









Vitamin E is an overlooked nutrient that you should pay attention to


In general, taking a vitamin E supplement isn’t recommended. Get your vitamin E from foods




www.theglobeandmail.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I confess, I've never drank a whole smoothie. I've had sips and been given small samples to try but I couldn't chug one. I've always preferred whole food instead and eat my calories rather than drink them but I know some people love juices and smoothies. The last gym I had a membership.... would try to pressure the sale of pre and post workout smoothies and that marketing pressure unsettled me, turned me off and I became even more sceptical. Just sharing this article

*Are Smoothies Good or Bad?*
In medical school, when time was shorter than short and I lived alone, I would periodically get concerned that I wasn't eating enough leafy greens, because I wasn't. Once or twice (Or maybe more, but I won't admit to it) I put about 6 cups of raw, cleaned kale tightly packed in a mixer along with a little water and nothing else and made the ultimate green smoothie. I chugged it and didn't enjoy any part of it. It was like a grassy tasting slime, or perhaps cow cud. It was what I imagined to be like a Campbell version of 1950s cod liver oil, and like a little kid, I approached it with a reluctant, yucky face. But these were times of desperation, and desperate acts were required. At least I felt more green.
It turns out that people less strange than I have also been using green smoothies. In fact, green smoothies are everywhere and drinking them is a major trend in health. I've been surprised at how many people I have met recently that have been trying to get healthy by replacing meals with green smoothies. They generally put veggies and fruit in a blender, zap it, and gulp it down. I am positive these drinks are far, far more enjoyable than the problematic recipe I had created. And intuitively, it seems like this might be a great way to get healthy. You get all the stuff in the fruit or vegetable and you get it conveniently, quickly, and enjoyably.

So should you be gulping down a smoothie every morning? I say no.

There is research to show that if you take exactly the same energy as a liquid instead of a solid, you will consume more calories later because the liquefied energy doesn't satisfy your appetite as well as the solid food[1]. In addition, you may be changing the rate and effect of nutrient digestion in important ways. We know that for some food, like rice, if you mechanically turn it into a slurry prior to consuming it, your body reacts with a significantly sharper and faster spike in blood sugar[2]. Lastly, people who consume green smoothies usually use fruit to make it taste palatable. The energy density of the fruit dwarfs the energy density of the greens and these smoothies usually end up being quite high in sugar.
*Here is what a 'healthy' green smoothie might contain:*

1 cup spinach, fresh
¼ cup water
¼ cup orange juice
¾ cups strawberries
½ cup blueberries
1 banana
This concoction contains 218 calories[3]. Even though it may feel like a 'green' smoothie with all those leaves in the blender, only about 6% of the calories come from the spinach. The rest is all fruit, with a total of 32 grams of sugar. 59% of the total calories in this smoothie come from sugar.

Now consider that by consuming this in the liquid form you may be less satisfied, less full, and subsequently eat more calories during the day than you otherwise would have if you ate those ingredients as solid foods. Also consider that by taking those foods as liquids instead of solids you may be significantly changing the immediate blood sugar spike and subsequent blood sugar fall you experience (in a bad way).

Considering these factors, I am particularly worried about the hidden harms of regular smoothie consumption on people who are trying to lose weight, have diabetes, or have high triglycerides.

Do I hate all smoothies all the time? Of course not. I know green smoothie consumers who put all the vegetables or fruits they eat for their entire day into the smoothie. Without the smoothie, they likely won't consume any fruits or vegetables. Replacing the smoothie with a fast food egg and bacon sandwich is a dubious proposition, so I don't always push hard to get rid of the smoothies.

But the bottom line is this: Use your mouth and your teeth the way nature intended and put the smoothies aside or have them just as treats. Compared to my medical school days, my life is now better in many ways, and I no longer imbibe the gross, green smoothie of old. I strive to eat and chew generous portions of dark green leaves every day, and thus hope the desperate times do not return. I recommend you do the same.









Are Smoothies Good or Bad?


In medical school, when time was shorter than short and I lived alone, I would periodically get concerned that I wasn’t eating enough leafy greens, because I wasn’t.




nutritionstudies.org


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

I tend to agree that smoothies are overrated. If that's the only way you'll consume greens I guess it's better than the alternative. In general, modern diets are overly soft as it is so anything that requires literally no chewing should be viewed with suspicion. People need to chew more, a lot more. Chewing tough foods is especially important for maxillary development in kids. James Nestor discusses the importance of chewing quite a bit in his book _Breath_, which I highly recommend reading.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is awesome. I'm sure a lot of people will benefit from the positive effects of shrooms, especially as an alternative to the anti-depressants available today that come with rather harsh side-effects.

*Magic mushrooms show promise in treatment for depression, study says*

Magic mushrooms have a long and rich history. Now scientists say they could play an important role in the future, with their active ingredient a promising treatment for depression.

The results from a small, phase two clinical trial have revealed that two doses of psilocybin appears to be as effective as the common antidepressant escitalopram in treating moderate to severe major depressive disorder, at least when combined with psychological therapy.

"I think it is fair to say that the results signal hope that we may be looking at a promising alternative treatment for depression," said Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, head of the centre for psychedelic research at Imperial College London and a co-author of the study.

Carhart-Harris said psilocybin was thought to work in a fundamentally different way to escitalopram. While both act on the brain's serotonin system, he said escitalopram seemed to work by helping people tolerate stress more easily.
"With a psychedelic it is more about a release of thought and feeling that, when guided with psychotherapy, produces positive outcomes," he said, adding participants given psilocybin had often reported feeling they had got more fully to the root of why they were depressed.

However, Carhart-Harris cautioned against seeking out magic mushrooms - a class A drug in the UK - for DIY treatment.

"That would be an error of judgment," he said. "We strongly believe that the &#8230; psychotherapy component is as important as the drug action."

The £1m trial builds on previous work by the team exploring how psilocybin affects the brain, and an earlier clinical trial in which the drug helped alleviate treatment-resistant depression in 12 patients.

Over the six-week trial, 30 out of 59 adults with moderate to severe major depressive disorder were randomly allocated to receive two 25mg doses of psilocybin three weeks apart - a dose that Carhart-Harris said was high enough to produce the kind of experiences often described as existential or even "mystical". The day after the first dose of psilocybin, this group began a daily placebo.

The other 29 participants were given two very low, or "inactive", doses of psilocybin three weeks apart. This was to ensure any differences in outcomes between the groups would not simply be down to the expectation of being given psilocybin. The day after the first dose of psilocybin, this group began a daily dose of escitalopram, the strength of which increased over time.

Each psilocybin session - which lasted six hours, including a three- to four-hour "trip" for those on the high dose - was supervised by at least two mental health professionals, with the participants lying on their back, propped up by pillows and listening to emotionally evocative neoclassical music.

All participants received psychological therapy the day after a psilocybin session, as well as a phone or video call in the week after the first dose.

The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, reveal that after six weeks both groups showed, on average, a decrease in the severity of depressive symptoms, according to scores from a questionnaire completed by the participants. However, this reduction did not differ significantly between the two groups.

"Psilocybin therapy, as we predicted, works more quickly than escitalopram," said Carhart-Harris.
He added that results from other scales were "tantalisingly suggestive of potential superiority of psilocybin therapy" not only for depression but other aspects of wellbeing. He warned the findings were not conclusive as the team did not take into account the number of comparisons being made.

However, the team noted that 57% of patients in the high-dose psilocybin group were judged to be in remission for their depression by the end of the six weeks, compared with 28% in the escitalopram group, while neither group had serious side-effects.

While the team said the results were promising, others said the study was not big enough to draw firm conclusions. Among other limitations, the majority of participants were white, middle-aged, highly educated and male, while participants may have been able to guess which treatment they received and there was no group given a placebo and therapy alone.

Anthony Cleare, professor of psychopharmacology at King's College London, said the study provided "some of the most powerful evidence to date that psychedelics may have a role to play in the treatment of depression".
However, he said far more data was needed before drugs such as psilocybin could be used outside of research, adding they would not replace existing treatments for depression.









Magic mushrooms show promise in treatment for depression, study says


Trial suggests psilocybin combined with psychological therapy is as effective as antidepressant drug




www.theguardian.com


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## MSU Alum (Aug 8, 2009)

cyclelicious said:


> This is awesome. I'm sure a lot of people will benefit from the positive effects of shrooms, especially as an alternative to the anti-depressants available today that come with rather harsh side-effects.
> 
> *Magic mushrooms show promise in treatment for depression, study says*
> 
> ...


I think there's a 5 or 6 year old Jordan Peterson video where he also makes this point in the context of treatment for severe depression in the case of end of life care for the terminally ill.

Edit: I guess it was 2 years ago - time flies on shut down!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Thai Basil Tofu Stir Fry*









*INGREDIENTS*

230 grams Firm or extra frim tofu 8 oz
3 tablespoons sesame oil divided
1.5 inches ginger peeled and minced
5 garlic cloves peeled and minced
1.5 teaspoon chili flakes can also use siracha, add along with soy sauce
3/4 cup sliced onions
1 cup thinly sliced bell peppers mixed colors
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black peppercorns
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
1/2 cup thai basil leaveas more for serving
3 tablespoons chopped spring onion greens
*INSTRUCTIONS*

To begin with, press your tofu block for 20 minutes using a tofu press or two heavy objects. Once done cut the tofu into very small cubes. Chopping the tofu into small cubes helps in absorbing the sauce really well.
Now heat a heavy cast iron pan or skillet with 1 tablespoon oil. In medium heat, add the tofu cubes as single layer.
Pan fry the tofu cubes for 4-5 minutes or until they turn slightly crispy and golden from all sides. Remove to a plate.
In the same pan heat 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil. Throw in the minced ginger garlic and chili flakes. Fry for a minute in high heat.
Now maintaining high heat add thinly sliced onions. Saute for a minute.
Next in goes the sliced bell peppers and saute.
Now add the soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar and freshly cracked black peppercorns.
Saute for 3-4 minutes. Throw in 1/2 cup torn thai basil leaves. Mix well and saute for a minute.
Finally in goes the pan fried tofu and toss in the sauce for a minute. Remove from flame, add more basil leaves and chopped spring onion greens. Serve hot.
*NOTES*

If you want to use paneer in this recipe instead of tofu you totally can, it would be vegetarian Thai stir fry with paneer ?
Increase or decrease the sauce ingredients as per taste.
You can add some toasted sesame seeds or crushed peanuts as toppings.
use tamari instead of soy sauce to make recipe this gluten free.
The recipe cab be doubled. Use a bigger pan accordingly.





__





Thai Basil Tofu Stir Fry Recipe | Cook Click N Devour!!!


Thai basil tofu stir fry, vegan stir fry with extra firm tofu, vegetables and sticky flavorful sauce. Delicious with rice or noodles!




www.cookclickndevour.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Calvin gets it


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Losing fat on a vegan diet is actually easier for most people, especially if you focus on whole foods as whole foods can contribute to greater satiety (feeling full) due to their fiber and water content and because for many whole foods, like legumes, vegetables & whole grains by volume they're relatively lower in calories. So you end up naturally consuming fewer calories which leads into point one.⁠
⁠







A calorie deficit is a key to losing fat if you're not then it won't work. (1) What does this mean? It simply means you are taking in less food than you are burning each day. This can be achieved through a variety of different ways, through reducing calories, increasing activity or a combination of both.⁠
⁠







Training is as important when losing fat as gaining muscle. A combination of both resistance training & cardio has been showed to be the best option as resistance training can preserve muscle mass while in a calorie deficit. (2,3) Cardio is great for cardiovascular health, while also burning calories.⁠
⁠







Consuming additional protein while dieting is potentially a useful strategy to mitigate losses of muscle and strength. (4,5) Consuming slightly higher than the 1.6g per kg body weight we recommend for muscle gain might be beneficial, especially if you are very lean already. ⁠
⁠







Finally, time & patience are key to achieve your fat loss goals, while it is possible to lose fat quicker than gain muscle, we want to minimize the loss in muscle mass when cutting. So avoid extreme diets that last a week & plan it over 8-12 weeks.⁠









"Calories in, calories out" and macronutrient intake: the hope, hype, and science of calories - PubMed


One of the central tenets in obesity prevention and management is caloric restriction. This perspective presents salient features of how calories and energy balance matter, also called the "calories in, calories out" paradigm. Determinants of energy balance and relationships to dietary...




pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov












Resistance training conserves fat-free mass and resting energy expenditure following weight loss - PubMed


AA women lost less FFM than EA women during equivalent weight losses. However, following weight loss in both AA and EA, RT conserved FFM, REE, and strength fitness when compared to women who AT or did not train.




pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov













A systematic review of dietary protein during caloric restriction in resistance trained lean athletes: a case for higher intakes - PubMed


Protein needs for energy-restricted resistance-trained athletes are likely 2.3-3.1g/kg of FFM scaled upwards with severity of caloric restriction and leanness.




pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*A Viral Thread Is Exposing The Truth About Peppers, And Minds Are Being Blown*

Let's talk about peppers.

Not the most controversial of plants, you might think. But a recent viral thread about one blogger's discovery regarding the _Capsicum _genus has set social media abuzz - as people learned there's far more to the stout little berry - yes, berry - than you might have realized.

It all started a few days ago, when Twitter user Amy, a style and lifestyle blogger, posted about her recent peppery revelation.

It turns out this is... _sort of_ true. Certainly, if left unharvested, green peppers can turn yellow or red as they mature. They're not different types of pepper - just different stages of ripeness.

The changes in color are due to the decomposition of certain chemicals inside the plant as it matures. The pepper starts off green due to the presence of green chlorophyll pigments, which are crucial for photosynthesis. But as it ripens, these break down into various different pigments, which can turn the pepper anything from yellow, to a vibrant orange, to red, and even colors like white or purple.










These chemical changes are also responsible for the different tastes and aromas of different colors of pepper. Green peppers contain a particular chemical compound with the catchy name of 2-methoxy-3-isobutylpyrazine - also known, appropriately, as "bell pepper pyrazine". This is one of the most odor-intense compounds on Earth, detectable by the human nose at a rate of parts per billion, and it's what gives green peppers their distinctive smell. As the pepper ripens, the concentrations of this and other compounds decrease, while levels of more fruity-smelling compounds rise to give a sweeter aroma. 
But the popular idea of yellow peppers being a midway point between green peppers and red - the teenager of the capsicum family, if you will - is apparently just a myth, as botanist James Wong clarified in his own response-thread.



> Although it _is_ true that green peppers are just unripe regular ones, yellow, orange and red peppers are all genetically different varieties at full maturity.
> 
> Their DNA predetermines the maximum amount of pigments they can produce, which creates this variation in colour. pic.twitter.com/g6zGi2YRgP
> - James Wong (@Botanygeek) September 14, 2018


After the original post went viral, other people volunteered their own flora "facts".

But the popular idea of yellow peppers being a midway point between green peppers and red - the teenager of the capsicum family, if you will - is apparently just a myth, as botanist James Wong clarified in his own response-thread.

This is definitely not true. As we learned from the bombshell at the start of the article, peppers are a berry - a fruit. They can't mate with each other - they exist to disseminate the seeds that have resulted from previous fertilization of the capsicum flowers.

Olives, those salty, bitter hate-grapes, are plagued by just as much controversy as their peppery brethren. Technically a drupe - a stone fruit like a peach or cashew - olives are so disgusting in their natural form that even wild birds can't bear the taste. And, once again, though they do change color as they ripen, the truth isn't quite what Twitter would have us believe.

Although green olives do indeed get their color from being picked, and cured, before they have a chance to ripen, it's not necessarily true that those same olives will turn black if left on the tree - they can turn brown or even purple.

Meanwhile, some black olives - known as "California" olives - are actually just green olives. Cured in an alkaline solution, they become artificially aged with an iron compound treatment which turns them black.

So it turns out the produce section has been hiding some crazy secrets from us all these years. And that's not even touching on the fact that peppers are a type of nightshade, a genus of mostly poisonous plants which also includes the potato, of all things. And all those other things we call peppers - jalapenos, piri piri, habanero - they're capsicum fruits too.









A Viral Thread Is Exposing The Truth About Peppers, And Minds Are Being Blown


A Viral Thread Is Exposing The Truth About Peppers, And Minds Are Being Blown




www.iflscience.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ You started following a vegetarian diet a year ago which is great. However, you shouldn't have a "lack of vitamins" if you are eating a well balanced diet whether it's vegetarian or vegan... unless you are eating crap. You're claiming that recently your skin turned pale and you became less active but suddenly improved with vitamins is a dubious claim

Canadian pharmacy is a dead link. This is not credible either


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The low-hanging fruit in the climate battle? Cutting down on meat*

Something is cooking in the world of climate politics. Or, perhaps more accurately, something isn't.

This week, the American recipe website Epicurious announced that, for environmental reasons, it wouldn't publish any new beef recipes. No more steaks, burgers or creative ways with mince; no more juicy rib. Since about 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock farming, with beef responsible for nearly two thirds of those, it wanted to help home cooks do their bit.

All this seems guaranteed to trigger the sort of people who get very emotional about roast beef and yorkshire pudding, particularly in the same week that the White House had to quash some wild scare stories about Joe Biden banning burgers to save the planet. (Spoiler alert: not happening.) But the twist in the tale is that Epicurious actually stopped publishing beef recipes a year ago without telling anyone, and it says its traffic numbers show the vegetarian recipes offered instead were gobbled up. Those who scream loudest don't, as ever, speak for everyone.

Cheap and relatively painless ways of tackling the climate crisis are rare, as Boris Johnson may discover once he actually spells out the detailed implications of Britain's ambitious pledge to cut carbon emissions by 78% by 2035. Swapping gas boilers for environmentally friendly heat pumps will cost thousands, and they won't be suitable for every home; so far, an awkward silence hangs over what the owners of those houses are supposed to do.

The Treasury, meanwhile, has still yet to rule on the potentially politically toxic question of introducing pay-as-you-go road charges, to replace the fuel tax that the increasing number of electric or hybrid drivers won't be paying. Johnson's preferred green solutions are ones that magically allow life to carry on much as before, while new technology does all the heavy lifting - a strategy he described at last week's climate summit as "cake have eat". But that was his Brexit strategy, too, and we've all seen how well that worked out. Dietary changes, however, are one of the few climate change measures where the biggest obstacle to change isn't economic but cultural, and where doing the right thing potentially saves rather than costs individuals money.

People hate being told what to eat, which is why social media is still full of furious Republicans shouting at Biden to "get out of my kitchen". But the Epicurious episode suggests it's the idea of being nagged or lectured that really hurts; the actual reality of eating other things instead of meat can be surprisingly palatable. Progress may, in short, be easier than it sometimes sounds.

Eating habits are already changing, if not fast enough for climate scientists then faster than angry burger warriors suggest. One in eight Britons claim to be vegetarian or vegan and another one in five flexitarian, eating meat-free sometimes; and although meat consumption rose over the last decade the big rise was in chicken, not red meat*.* Going veggie for the sake of the planet, rather than the animals, might have sounded eccentric a generation ago but it barely raises a millennial eyebrow now. By the time generation Z are their age, counting dietary carbons may seem no stranger than counting calories.

As a lifelong carnivore, even I've been slowly reducing red meat for a while. It started with one vegetarian day a week, then substituting fish for a couple of meat meals, then swapping in more chicken, and so far none of the family has actually noticed. (Like Epicurious, I've chosen not to advertise the strategy until someone complains.) We still eat beef and lamb sometimes, but it's becoming more of an occasional treat, less of a routine midweek spag bol. Taking it gradually, meanwhile, has made the whole thing feel doable rather than daunting.

True, if the entire planet went vegan by 2050, we could save nearly eight billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Realistically, that's not going to happen, but even the 4.5 billion tonnes saved by everyone eating according to healthy dietary guidelines (more fruit and veg but less sugar, meat and dairy) or the three billion plus saved on a "climate carnivore" diet that replaces three-quarters of red meat currently consumed with alternatives such as chicken, would be worth having. As with any diet, avoiding making the perfect the enemy of the good means people are less likely to give up halfway through, as does encouraging rather than hectoring.

Ministers have shied away from calls for a "carbon tax" on red meat for not entirely illegitimate reasons; taxing food is toughest on low-income households, because they spend proportionately more of their income on it. But if this government or its successors are reluctant to wield the big stick then they must dangle juicier carrots, starting with a public education campaign making the connection between healthy eating - something Johnson has finally agreed to push, after a near fatal brush with Covid shocked him into losing weight - and helping the climate. (Research commissioned by the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs found carbon emissions could fall by 14% if everyone in Britain stuck to healthy eating guidelines, which would also help reduce heart disease and cancer rates - although some cattle and sheep farmers would need financial help to find alternative uses for their land, with their markets taking a potentially painful hit.)

And that's just the start. A handful of restaurants are now experimenting with carbon labelling on their menus to highlight environmentally friendly choices. There's no reason that couldn't be extended to food sold in supermarkets, encouraging producers to cut unnecessary carbon emissions and earn better ratings. The food industry will protest, but it's that or stiffer tax and regulatory changes in years to come, which they'll like even less.

Even tiny changes such as putting the veggie dish at the top of restaurant menus, rather than at the bottom like a reluctant afterthought, can shift ordering habits - as could a few primetime TV shows on climate-friendly cookery, fronted by the kind of celebrity names capable of causing a run on ingredients. A plant-based menu for heads of state at this year's Cop26 climate crisis summit, showcasing adventurous meat-free cooking, should be a no-brainer, and so should providing more communal spaces to grow our own fruit and veg, building on a surge of enthusiasm for allotments in lockdown. In a culture war it's soft power that ultimately counts, and progressives may hold more of it than they know on this one. "Let them eat chickpeas" may not be a winning electoral strategy. But nor is burning down the planet just to make dinner.









The low-hanging fruit in the climate battle? Cutting down on meat | Gaby Hinsliff


Eating fewer animal products and less dairy would make a huge difference to carbon emissions, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How To Replace Meat*
*We don't need fake 'meat'; there are better solutions.








*

Last weekend Ezra Klein's New York Times Opinion column focused on the future of meat. There was nothing futuristic about the photo: a pair of hands, wedding-banded and watch-wearing, clutching a greasy half-pounder dripping with American cheese. The headline: "Let's Launch a Moonshot for Meatless Meat."

Klein opens: "I'm a vegan, but I'm also a realist." His realism: Even though animal farming is so destructive (true) and the politics of meat-eating are so fraught (also true), we can have our steaks and eat them, by developing meat-like stand-ins made from the usual soy and additives and, later, those engineered in labs.

The way to get Americans to eat less meat, according to Klein, is to use tax dollars to re-engineer it, trusting that environmental and health issues will be solved by new biotechnology and venture capital. There is no mention of eating, farming, processing, and encouraging actual food - just a push for a high-tech, junk-food substitute for high-tech, junk-food animal products.

On Klein's part, the push for meat alternatives comes from a place of caring and well-meaning. Meat as a cultural and political symbol is a live wire, vulnerable to scaremongering and totally untouchable in the eyes of many. The hesitancy to avoid policing, taxing, rationing, shaming, or otherwise intervening in diets directly makes sense enough.

It's funny, in a way, because the perfect meat alternative exists, and has always existed. It's natural, delicious, sustainable - even soil boosting! It takes no research dollars and is the world's most important protein source. It's called the legume. Sure, it's not smoked brisket or a juicy burger, but it has fed cultures for centuries.

As soon as the federal government stops propping up the meat industry and starts helping real people eat real food as opposed to Whoppers - whether Impossible or impossibly destructive - the sooner we can eliminate meat from the center of our plates. Our country's diverse culinary tradition, some of which omit meat entirely, can play a primary role in showing us the way.

The people calling for the meatless revolution - the alt-meat entrepreneurs, the fast-food- and agribusiness giants that have hedged their bets on alt-meat for years, think tank bloggers, Silicon Valley and Wall Street investors, and a select group of tech-y vegans, all moderately or extremely wealthy - are almost all white and male.

In short, _they _are the people profiting from this trend: not eaters. It turns out, fake meat isn't better for animals - meat consumption is going _up_, not down, despite its success.

Indeed, here's what fake meat "success" looks like: The Impossible Whopper costs as much as three times more to make than a "regular" Whopper, costs $1 or $2 more at the drive-thru, and parallels the nutritional value of a regular Whopper, which is next to nothing. Even so, if these technologies become cost-competitive, it's a fantasy to believe they'll _replace_ other products. Chicken revolutionized the industry with its price, accessibility, and health halo, but as one study from this week shows, its arrival didn't suppress consumption of other meats: They all grew together.
This "solution" simply compounds existing inequality and in no way makes the world any more just, healthy, or kind. We can be braver than this.

After his piece ran, Klein wrote on Twitter, "There's no conversation to be had about banning or taxing or undermining meat. But you can do what you did with electric cars and start helping the alt-protein industry get better."

That's dead wrong and ignores the hard work of food-related (and climate, farming, health, and justice) activists who target factory farms every day. Far from invulnerable, Big Meat is facing as much pushback as Big Energy. Industries that are comfortable in their position in society don't take out full-page ads in the Sunday New York Times to make tactless, declarative statements about their important contributions - as Tyson did a year ago and JBS did last week. This pattern does not project confidence. In fact, it comes off desperate.

Luckily, there's a lot more to America than hamburgers, and the media can play a role in breaking new ground, ushering us into the 21st century. Instead of saying, "They'll never give up their hamburgers," we ought to ask, "What would they give up their hamburgers _for_?"

What would some of those bold, unprecedented policies be that are better for us in every way and also ameliorate our meat problem? Here are just a few:

*Set a livable minimum wage across the economy, and make real food more accessible. *Hungry people who work hard and long are the ones who must buy fast food, cheap meat, and junk. Don't give more choice in the market; lift the prosperity of working-class Americans while supplying the market with affordable and healthy alternatives.

*Provide a swift path to citizenship for immigrants, and eliminate the tipped wage. *Undocumented labor powers the meat and restaurant industries and allows corporations to pocket the profits on denied benefits, taxes, and fair wages.

*Phase out medium and large CAFOs. *Cory Booker has introduced a bill that would get it done. We don't need these animal-raising facilities any more than we need coal plants. Even easier: Enforce existing regulations. One other thing that would cut meat consumption with almost no work? Full transparency in the form of publicly available webcam broadcasts of factory farms and slaughterhouses.

*Ramp up collective bargaining, accountability, and inspection in the meatpacking industry. *Injuries happen in meatpacking plants because bosses are constantly trying to speed up the chain that moves along carcasses by minimizing the inspections required - they even want their own employees to do it. Slow them down, provide union representation to stand up for workers, and make workers' jobs safer.

*Start talking about land reform. *Returning land to Indigenous people, and making Black people, other people of color, and women equal partners in land ownership and farming will improve food sovereignty and provide us with a collective right to determine what we eat. _We don't have that now_: Our diet is determined in corporate boardrooms based on what's most profitable.

The uncomfortable reality is that stopping meat production means stopping meat production, not producing something else that reminds us of meat. The latest report from the meat-substitute industry says that if all goes according to plan, these tech meats will be 22 percent of the global market by 2035, and that's hardly enough, especially while the OECD predicts a 12 percent expansion in meat production by the end of this decade. We ought to confront agribusiness, and the myths that preserve their power, head-on.

Still, you might say that technology is easier because it doesn't disrupt the status quo. Yet our democracy, our collective health, and our environment need us to get behind bigger, progressive policies that disrupt our current path on climate change and our careening toward oligarchy. Giving up on this kind of change is giving up on the future.









How To Replace Meat


We don’t need fake ‘meat’; there are better solutions.




www.bittmanproject.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Sharing Ezra Klein's article

*Let's Launch a Moonshot for Meatless Meat*










I'm a vegan, but I'm also a realist. There's no chance humanity is going to give up meat, en masse, anytime soon. That said, we can't just wish away the risks of industrial animal agriculture. If we don't end this system, soon, terrible things will happen to us and to the planet. Terrible things are already happening.

So this is going to be a column about finding a way to work with humanity's growing appetite for meat rather than against it. All we need to do is replace the animals, or at least a lot of them. Technologically, we're closer to that than you might think. What we need is for government to put money and muscle behind the project - just as it's doing for electric cars and weatherized homes and renewable energy - so that the future happens fast enough to save the present. This is the hole in the American Jobs Plan, and it wouldn't take much money, just a bit of vision, to fill.
Let me first lay out the urgency of the task and the rewards we could reap. As best we can tell, the novel coronavirus jumped from bats, to some other animal, to humans, with the locus of infection being a Chinese meat market. There's nothing unusual about that. Swine flus - yes, plural - jump from pigs to humans. Avian flus jump from birds to humans. Ebola most likely came from monkeys. "Preventing the Next Pandemic," a report by the United Nations Environment Program, estimates that 75 percent of the new infectious diseases that threaten humans come from animals.

The U.N. report goes on to name the seven major drivers of these emerging animal-to-human diseases. First is the increasing demand for animal protein. As populations get richer, they eat more meat. Since 1961, global meat production has more than quadrupled, to more than 340 million tons from 71 million tons. Americans are among the top meat consumers in the world: In 2018, each of us ate, on average, 222 pounds of red meat and chicken. Consumption in most other countries is far lower, but rising. In China, for instance, per capita meat consumption has more than doubled since 1990.

The more meat we eat, the more animals we need to raise. That brings us to the second driver of pandemic risk: the "intensification" of animal agriculture. There are still farmers who raise animals as our ancestors did, with respect both for their lives and for the land. But they're the exception. To get the quantity of meat we eat, at the prices we want, has meant turning animals into technologies. They're bred to gain weight fast, crowded together in sprawling industrial operations and pumped full of antibiotics to prevent disease.

These operations are petri dishes for viral mutation. The animals, whose immune systems are suppressed by stress and fear, fall ill easily, and every creature is a fresh opportunity for a virus to develop into a form humans can catch and then spread.
Viruses are not the only health risk from industrial animal agriculture, though. About 65 percent of antibiotics in the United States are sold for use on farms. These antibiotics are often, if not mostly, used to keep animals from getting sick, not to treat them once they're ill. They're then excreted in animal waste, where they make their way into waterways, into fish and into us. Antibiotic-resistant diseases are already killing 700,000 people a year worldwide. The U.N.'s interagency group on antimicrobial resistance estimates that could rise to 10 million per year by 2050.To put that toll in perspective, there are around three million confirmed deaths from Covid-19 so far.

The health risks of animal agriculture are compounded by the climate costs. Only 18 percent of the global calorie supply, and only 37 percent of the global protein supply, comes from meat and dairy. But about half of all habitable land on the planet is given over to agriculture, and more than 75 percent of that goes to animal agriculture.

This raises our disease risk. We keep encroaching deeper into the wilderness, bringing both our domesticated animals and ourselves into contact with new pathogens. But it's also a huge driver of global warming: We're cutting forests that were sequestering carbon and turning them over to cows, which emit tons of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.

About a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions are traceable to the food supply chain. Animal agriculture accounts for about three-quarters of those emissions and nearly 90 percent of those in the average American diet. A 2020 study found that even if all fossil fuel emissions ceased today, the food system would still push warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which most scientists consider unsafe. "The 7.8 billion of us on this planet cannot have a steak every night," Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, told me. "It doesn't compute."

It's these next paragraphs where I fear I might lose you. It's easier to argue for human welfare than animal welfare. I spent most of my life not just as a meat eater, but as an enthusiastic one. I posted my burgers on Instagram and I sought out the perfect roast chicken. Even now, I don't believe it's necessarily immoral to eat meat. What I believe is immoral is the way we treat animals in most factory farms. And the scale of that suffering melts the mind.

A reasonable estimate is that about 70 billion land animals are raised and slaughtered for food each year, a vast majority of them chickens. My colleague Nick Kristof has written eloquently about the plight of Costco's rotisserie chickens, but the horrors do not end there. I've spoken with farmers who lie awake with guilt over the way they treat their animals, but they are so buried in debt to the agricultural conglomerates that they see no way out for themselves.
We treat too many animals like inputs, and their suffering as a mere byproduct. Cheap meat isn't really cheap. It's just the animal that paid the cost, living in conditions so gruesome I fear describing them. But suffice it to say: If we could produce the meat we want without the suffering we now inflict, it would be one of the great achievements of our age.
My reason for optimism is technological: There have been remarkable strides made in plant-based meat - witness the success of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods - and milks. And the next step is cultivated meat, which is meat grown directly from animal cells. This isn't science fiction: There's now a restaurant in Singapore where you can eat lab-grown chicken made by Eat Just. Unsurprisingly, it tastes like chicken, because that's what it is.

But so far, most of these advances, most of these investments, are through private dollars, with the findings locked up in patents, by companies competing with one another for market share. We're going to need to move faster than that. "If we leave this endeavor to the tender mercies of the market there will be vanishingly few products to choose from and it'll take a very long time," Bruce Friedrich, co-founder and executive director of the Good Food Institute, told me.
This is where policymakers can, and should, come in. At its heart, the American Jobs Plan is a climate bill. But there isn't a dollar for alternative proteins, despite animal agriculture's huge contributions to both climate and pandemic risk. That's worse than a mistake. It's a failure of policy design. Luckily, it's easily fixed.

I keep asking alternative protein experts what they wish was in the bill, and the answers I get back are almost laughably small compared with the sums Congress is otherwise considering. The Good Food Institute produced a wish list calling for $2 billion in funding, half of it for research and half of it to set up a network of innovation centers. I'd like to see Congress dream a bit bigger, but the point is that it wouldn't take much to supercharge this industry. And doing so would serve an economic as well as an ecological purpose: It would ensure American leadership in what will be one of the defining agricultural products of the future.

"I've never seen anything like this in terms of the volume of money being talked about and the opportunities to do something transformational," Representative Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, told me. "It wouldn't take a lot of investment in alternative protein to take it to a whole different level. It'd be a rounding error in terms of the money going through Congress."

Funding alternative proteins doesn't mean adopting a vegan diet, or believing that all animal consumption is wrong. One possible future is that alternative proteins take over the market for cheap meat, replacing the commodity meat that goes into so many burgers and chicken nuggets and fish sticks, and animal-based meat becomes a much smaller part of our diet. But we raise those animals more humanely and we run less risk to the planet and ourselves.

Nor should the growth of this industry be a threat to farmers or ranchers: There are already legislative proposals, like A.B. 1289 in California, to pay farmers in the industrial animal agriculture system to transition to plants, and we desperately need skilled land stewardship to sequester carbon. If we can't make saving the planet pay as much as harming it did, then our economic philosophies have truly failed.

We are living, right now, with the true costs of cheap meat: a world of pandemics, climate emergency and suffering both for human beings and the creatures we consume.









Opinion | Let’s Launch a Moonshot for Meatless Meat (Published 2021)


It wouldn’t actually take that much of an investment for Biden to get us headed in the right direction.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Vegan Bulking vs Shredding Meals - Which would you pick right now?

You can technically eat both meals on a bulk or shred but typically if you want to bulk up you want to include more calorie-dense carbs and fats into your meal plan!⁠
⁠
Bulking meal ingredients:⁠
1. 6 oz tofu⁠
2. 6 oz sweet potatoes⁠
3. 4 oz avocado⁠
⁠
Shredding meal ingredients:⁠
1. 6 oz tofu⁠
2. 6 oz green beans⁠
⁠


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

*One of the world's best restaurants is going vegan*

"I'm excited to share that we've made the decision to serve a plant-based menu in which we do not use any animal products -- every dish is made from vegetables, both from the earth and the sea, as well as fruits, legumes, fungi, grains, and so much more," chef and owner Daniel Humm wrote in a statement on the restaurant's website.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1929247
> 
> 
> Vegan Bulking vs Shredding Meals - Which would you pick right now?
> ...


300 kcal barely qualifies as a snack, let alone a meal. Hell, 620 kcal is barely a meal. Also, if ethical eating is your goal, you probably shouldn't eat avocados:








Avocado: the 'green gold' causing environment havoc


Intensive avocado farming in Mexico is causing water shortages, biodiversity loss and even earthquakes – what are the solutions?




www.weforum.org












How demand for avocado is causing Chile’s water to run out - LifeGate


Increasing demand for avocados is generating unprecedented consequences in certain parts of the world, such as intense water scarcity in Chile's Petorca region.




www.lifegate.com












Stop eating avocados. Immediately


Forests face unprecedented deforestation - sometimes through illegal means - and local people harmed by the increased use of chemicals from agriculture




www.independent.co.uk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Herbal and diet supplements 'have no effect on weight loss'








*

There is insufficient evidence to justify recommending herbal and dietary supplements to help people to lose weight.

That is the emphatic view of researchers who will present studies on the effectiveness of supplements at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO) to be held online this week.

"Even though most supplements appear safe for short-term consumption, they are not going to provide weight loss that is clinically meaningful," said lead author Erica Bessell of the University of Sydney in Australia.

Herbal supplements contain whole plants or combinations of plants, while dietary supplements contain naturally occurring single compounds. They can be purchased as pills, powders and liquids and have become increasingly popular as aids to losing weight.

One recent estimate has suggested that 15% of Americans have tried a weight-loss supplement in an industry worth $40bn (£29bn) worldwide. Yet there have been few recent attempts to review the scientific literature on all available herbal and dietary supplements.

Herbal supplements include green tea, white kidney beans, ephedra (a stimulant that increases metabolism), African mango, yerba mate (a herbal tea made from the leaves and twigs of the _Ilex paraguariensis_ plant), liquorice root, and others.

To study the effectiveness of these supplements and others, the Australian researchers did a systematic review of all previous randomised trials in which the weight-loss impact of herbal supplements were compared with the impact of placebos. Data was analysed for 54 studies involving 4,331 healthy, overweight or obese adults - and revealed that only one single agent, white kidney beans, resulted in a statistically greater weight loss than a placebo.

In a separate study, the group analysed previous trials that compared the effect of placebos with dietary supplements that included chitosan (made from the hard outer skeleton of shellfish); glucomannan (found in the roots of the elephant yam, or konjac); fructan (a carbohydrate composed of chains of fructose); conjugated linoleic acid (which claims to change the body composition by decreasing fat); and others.

Analysis found that chitosan, glucomannan, and conjugated linoleic acid resulted in weight loss but not at levels that were clinically significant. In addition, some other dietary supplements - including modified cellulose (a plant fibre that expands in the stomach to induce a feeling of fullness) and blood orange juice extract - showed promising results but had only been investigated in one trial. Much more evidence was needed before they could be recommended as aids for weight loss, the researchers concluded.

"Herbal and dietary supplements might seem like a quick-fix solution to weight problems but people need to be aware of how little we actually know about them," said Bessell. "Very few high-quality studies have been done on some supplements, with little data on long-term effectiveness.

"What's more, many trials are small and poorly designed, and some don't report on the composition of the supplements being investigated. The tremendous growth in the industry and popularity of these products underscores the urgency for conducting larger, more rigorous studies to have reasonable assurance of their safety and effectiveness for weight loss."

*Vegetarians less prone to disease*
Vegetarians appear to have healthier profiles for disease than meat-eaters, according to a study in over 166,000 UK adults, which will be presented at this week's European Congress on Obesity.

"Our findings offer real food for thought," said Dr Carlos Celis-Morales from the University of Glasgow, who led the research. "As well as not eating red and processed meat, which have been linked to heart diseases and some cancers, people who follow a vegetarian diet consume more vegetables, fruits and nuts, which contain more nutrients, fibre and other potentially beneficial compounds.

"These nutritional differences may help explain why vegetarians appear to have lower levels of biomarkers that can lead to cell damage and chronic disease."









Herbal and diet supplements ‘have no effect on weight loss’


Popular aids sold by £29bn industry don’t cut obesity, says study




www.theguardian.com


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Three Sisters (agriculture) - Wikipedia







en.m.wikipedia.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Neanderthals carb loaded, helping grow their big brains*










Here's another blow to the popular image of Neanderthals as brutish meat eaters: A new study of bacteria collected from Neanderthal teeth shows that our close cousins ate so many roots, nuts, or other starchy foods that they dramatically altered the type of bacteria in their mouths. The finding suggests our ancestors had adapted to eating lots of starch by at least 600,000 years ago-about the same time as they needed more sugars to fuel a big expansion of their brains.

The study is "groundbreaking," says Harvard University evolutionary biologist Rachel Carmody, who was not part of the research. The work suggests the ancestors of both humans and Neanderthals were cooking lots of starchy foods at least 600,000 years ago. And they had already adapted to eating more starchy plants long before the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago, she says.

The brains of our ancestors doubled in size between 2 million and 700,000 years ago. Researchers have long credited better stone tools and cooperative hunting: As early humans got better at killing animals and processing meat, they ate a higher quality diet, which gave them more energy more rapidly to fuel the growth of their hungrier brains.

Still, researchers have puzzled over how meat did the job. "For human ancestors to efficiently grow a bigger brain, they needed energy dense foods containing glucose"-a type of sugar-says molecular archaeologist Christina Warinner of Harvard and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. "Meat is not a good source of glucose."










The starchy plants gathered by many living hunter-gatherers are an excellent source of glucose, however. To figure out whether oral bacteria track changes in diet or the environment, Warinner, Max Planck graduate student James Fellows Yates, and a large international team looked at the oral bacteria stuck to the teeth of Neanderthals, preagriculture modern humans that lived more than 10,000 years ago, chimps, gorillas, and howler monkeys. The researchers analyzed billions of DNA fragments from long-dead bacteria still preserved on the teeth of 124 individuals. One was a Neanderthal who lived 100,000 years ago at Pešturina Cave in Serbia, which produced the oldest oral microbiome genome reconstructed to date.

The communities of bacteria in the mouths of preagricultural humans and Neanderthals strongly resembled each other, the team reports today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In particular, humans and Neanderthals harbored an unusual group of _Streptococcus_ bacteria in their mouths. These microbes had a special ability to bind to an abundant enzyme in human saliva called amylase, which frees sugars from starchy foods. The presence of the strep bacteria that consume sugar on the teeth of Neanderthals and ancient modern humans, but not chimps, shows they were eating more starchy foods, the researchers conclude.

Finding the streptococci on the teeth of both ancient humans and Neanderthals also suggests they inherited these microbes from their common ancestor, who lived more than 600,000 years ago. Although earlier studies found evidence that Neanderthals ate grasses and tubers and cooked barley, the new study indicates they ate so much starch that it dramatically altered the composition of their oral microbiomes.

"This pushes the importance of starch in the diet further back in time," to when human brains were still expanding, Warinner says. Because the amylase enzyme is much more efficient at digesting cooked rather than raw starch, the finding also suggests cooking, too, was common by 600,000 years ago, Carmody says. Researchers have debated whether cooking became common when the big brain began to expand almost 2 million years ago or it spread later, during a second surge of growth.
The study offers a new way to detect major shifts in diet, says geneticist Ran Blekhman of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. In the case of Neanderthals, it reveals how much they depended on plants.

"We sometimes have given short shrift to the plant components of the diet," says anthropological geneticist Anne Stone of Arizona State University, Tempe. "As we know from modern hunter-gatherers, it's often the gathering that ends up providing a substantial portion of the calories."









Neanderthals carb loaded, helping grow their big brains


DNA from mouth bacteria suggest human ancestors ate diets rich in starchy plants by 600,000 years ago




www.sciencemag.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ Someone suggested: how have people living in the arctic been able to survive on a "meat laden diet"?

*Extreme Nutrition: The Diet of Eskimos**
The carnivorous diet of traditional Eskimo inhabitants of the frozen, northern, circumpolar regions of planet Earth (Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland), serves as a testament to the strengths and adaptability of the human species. The foods consumed by these hardy people are in "polar" opposition to those recommended by me (the McDougall Diet of starches, vegetables, and fruits): a carnivore vs. an herbivore diet. Unfortunately, misinformation surrounding the all-meat diet of the Eskimo has promoted dangerous eating habits to the modern-day general public.

For more than 6,000 years, natives of the frozen North have lived with almost no contact with the rest of the world. Not until the mid-1800s were reliable records made of their daily lives, their diets, and their health. Early reports describe these people as looking beautiful and athletic when they were young, but then they aged quickly, and "men and women who appeared to be 60 or over were rare."

Rumors have since circulated that traditional Eskimos have lived free of heart disease, cancer, and most other chronic diseases affecting western civilizations these days. Research published in the mid-1970s tried to explain this "Eskimo paradox" of living healthy with very few plant foods, on a high-fat, high-cholesterol, no-dietary-fiber diet. The omega-3 fish fats were noted as the miracle ingredient providing protection. Dietetic and medical experts have uncritically accepted this theory in the face of libraries filled with incriminating evidence to the contrary. They tell patients to eat more fish, poultry, and even red meat-like the Eskimos - and plenty of fish oil - in order to stay healthy.

*PUSHING THE NUTRITIONAL ENVELOPE*
Hunted animals, including birds, caribou, seals, walrus, polar bears, whales, and fish provided all the nutrition for the Eskimos for at least 10 months of the year. And in the summer season people gathered a few plant foods such as berries, grasses, tubers, roots, stems, and seaweeds. Frozen snow-covered lands were unfit for the cultivation of plants. Animal flesh was, by necessity, the only food available most of the time.

The fat, not the protein, from animal foods provided most of the 3,100 calories required daily for these active people. Plants are the primary source of all carbohydrates, including digestible sugars and non-digestible dietary fibers. Eating raw meat indirectly provided Eskimos with enough carbohydrates in the form of glycogen (found in the muscles and liver of animals) to meet their necessary nutrient requirements and keep them out of a starvation condition called ketosis. Muscle tissue contains almost no calcium, and as a result the daily intake was about 120 mg/day versus the 800 mg and more commonly recommended for good health. Plants (not people) synthesize Vitamin C, yet the Eskimo was able to avoid scurvy with the 30 mg of vitamin C consumed daily found in land and sea animals.

Recommendations for vitamin C are 60 mg/day and higher daily. Low levels of sunlight, and preformed vitamin D from fish, met the "sunshine D vitamin" requirement for Eskimo health. By the grace of environmental design, Nature made sure there was just enough nutrition for the Eskimo to survive.










*THERE IS NO ESKIMO PARADOX*
The human being is designed to thrive on a diet of starches, vegetables and fruits. The Eskimo experience serves as a testament to the miraculous strengths and adaptability of our bodies. We can survive on raw and cooked meat, but we thrive on starches, vegetables and fruits. These hardy people survived living at the edge of the nutritional envelope, but not in good health. Here are some of the health costs they paid:


*Eskimos Suffer from Atherosclerosis*
Claims that Eskimos were free of heart (artery) disease are untrue. A thorough review of the evidence concludes that "Eskimos have a similar prevalence of CAD (coronary artery disease) as non-Eskimo populations, they have excessive mortality due to cerebrovascular strokes, their overall mortality is twice as high as that of non-Eskimo populations, and their life expectancy is approximately 10 years shorter than the Danish population."

Mummified remains of Eskimos dating back 2,000 years have shown extensive hardening of the arteries throughout their brains, hearts and limbs; as a direct consequence of following a carnivorous diet of birds, caribou, seals, walrus, polar bears, whales, and fish. The June 1987 issue of _National Geographic_ magazine carried an article about two Eskimo women, one in her twenties and the other in her forties, frozen for five centuries in a tomb of ice. When discovered and medically examined they both showed signs of severe osteoporosis and also suffered extensive atherosclerosis, "probably the result of a heavy diet of whale and seal blubber."


*Eskimos Suffer from Severe Bone Loss*
Their low-calcium diet and lack of sunshine (vitamin D) are only minor factors contributing to the extensive osteoporosis found in recent and ancient Eskimos. Alaskan Eskimos older than age 40 have been found to have a 10% to 15% greater deficit in bone mineral density compared to Caucasians in the US. This research published in 1974 on 107 elderly people concluded, "Aging bone loss, which occurs in many populations, has an earlier onset and greater intensity in the Eskimos. Nutritional factors of high protein, high nitrogen, high phosphorus, and low calcium intakes maybe implicated."

Protein, and especially animal protein, consumed in excess of our needs places serious burdens on the body. The liver and kidneys work hard to process the excess protein and excrete its byproducts along with the urine. As a result of this extra work, Eskimos have been reported to have an enlarged liver while living on meat, and to produce larger than average volumes of urine in order to excrete the byproducts of protein metabolism. The bones also play a role in managing excess animal protein (acidic by nature) by neutralizing large amounts of dietary acids. In this process bone structure and bone mineral content are lost through the kidney system, depleting the bones into a condition called osteoporosis.


*Parasite Infections*
Diseases of animals are readily transmitted to humans when eaten. One example is trichinosis (an infection with the roundworm _Trichinella spiralis),_ which is found in about 12% of older Eskimos; a result of eating raw and infected walrus, seal, and polar bear meat. In most cases this parasite infestation causes no symptoms, but illness and death can result.


*Meat-derived Chemical Pollution*
Since the 1970s the diet of the Eskimo has contained high levels of toxic, organic pollutants and heavy metals. These lipophilic chemicals are attracted to and concentrated in the fatty-tissues of land and sea animals. As a direct result of the traditional Eskimo diet (now contaminated by industry wastes), the bodies of these Arctic people contain the highest human concentrations of environmental chemicals found anywhere on Earth: "levels so extreme that the breast milk and tissues of some Greenlanders could be classified as hazardous waste." Eskimo women have been found to have levels of PCBs in their breast milk five to ten times higher than women in southern Canada. These chemicals cause and promote many forms of cancer and cause brain diseases, including Parkinson's disease.

*Nutrition Has Gone Downhill for the Eskimo*

The notion that consuming meat, fish, and fish oil will promote health and healing has captured the attention of the scientific community in large part because of the misinterpretation** of the Eskimo experience. But life has gotten worse for the Eskimo. Over the past 50 years their traditional diet has been further modified with the addition of western foods. Rather than using a hook, spear, or club to catch their meal, as in the past, people living in this part of the world use the "green lure" (the dollar bill) and catch their meals through an open car window at the local fast-food restaurant. Obesity, type-2 diabetes, tooth decay, and cancers of the breast, prostate, and colon have been added to the Eskimo's traditional health problems of artery disease, bone loss, and infectious diseases.

People living in the frozen north these days have heated homes and drive around in comfortable SUVs. The challenging environment their ancestors barely survived through required a carnivorous diet. Those days of needing 3100 calories a day to counter the freezing cold and hunt for dinner are gone. The idea that current epidemics of obesity and sickness in these Northern people would be best fixed by returning to the old ways of carnivorous diet would not work unless they also returned to living in igloo homes and hunted their lands for every meal. Physicians and dietitians now caring for these people suffering from the western diet with the addition of too much traditional food (ancestral meat) should be prescribing a starch-based diet to help them lose excess weight and cure common dietary diseases.

*The term "Eskimo" comes from a Native American word that may have meant "eater of raw meat." The word "Eskimo" has come to be considered offensive, especially in Canada. Many prefer the name "Inuit," which means "the people" or "real people." However, "Eskimo" is the term used in the scientific and historical literature and will be used here.

**Misinterpretation is easy to spread because:

1) People love to hear good news about their bad habits.

2) Nutritional "facts," even when false and harmful, are used to sell meat, fish, and other foods.

3) The media loves headlines that sell their products, like "The Eskimo Diet proves Meat's Good."









Extreme Nutrition: The Diet of Eskimos*


The traditional inuit (or eskimo) diet is mythologized as a high-fat, heart-healthy diet and is part of the reason that fish oil is sold as a health food.




www.forksoverknives.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> Making and passing an egg requires so much energy and labor that in nature, wild hens lay only 10 to 15 eggs per year. It is a common misconception that chickens are always just naturally "giving" eggs, because modern egg hens have been intensively bred to lay between 250 to 300 eggs a year.

















Free From Harm - Farm Animal Advocacy and Education


Through animal rescue, education and advocacy, Free from Harm seeks to transform society's attitudes about violence and oppression.




freefromharm.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Some good news from the UK:

*Animals to be formally recognised as sentient beings in UK law*









Animals are to be formally recognised as sentient beings in UK law for the first time, in a victory for animal welfare campaigners, as the government set out a suite of animal welfare measures including halting most live animal exports and banning the import of hunting trophies.

The reforms will be introduced through a series of bills, including an animal sentience bill, and will cover farm animals and pets in the UK, and include protections for animals abroad, through bans on ivory and shark fins, and a potential ban on foie gras.

Some of the measures - including microchipping cats and stopping people keeping primates as pets - have been several years in preparation, and others - such as the restriction of live animal exports - have been the subject of decades-long campaigns.

George Eustice, the environment secretary, said: "We are a nation of animal lovers and were the first country in the world to pass animal welfare laws. Our action plan for animal welfare will deliver on our manifesto commitment to ban the export of live animal exports for slaughter and fattening, prohibit keeping primates as pets, and bring in new laws to tackle puppy smuggling. As an independent nation, we are now able to go further than ever to build on our excellent track record."

The action plan for animal welfare includes measures that will involve cracking down on pet theft, which has become a growing problem in the "puppy boom" sparked by the coronavirus lockdowns with a new taskforce. Controversial e-collars that deliver an electric shock to train pets will be banned, and import rules changed to try to stop puppy smuggling.

Illegal hare coursing will also be the subject of a new crackdown, and the use of glue traps will be restricted. In response to worries from farmers over dogs loose in the countryside during the lockdowns, police will be given new powers to protect farm animals from dogs.

However, the use of cages for poultry and farrowing crates for pigs will not be subject to an outright ban, as campaigners had called for. Instead, their use will be examined, and farmers will be given incentives to improve animal health and welfare through the future farm subsidy regime.

The government also repeated its pledge to uphold UK animal welfare in future trade deals, but will not put this commitment into law as campaigners have urged.

James West, senior policy manager at Compassion in World Farming, a pressure group, said some of the measures were the subject of protracted campaigns: "We have long been calling for UK legislation that recognises animals as sentient beings and for sentience to be given due regard when formulating and implementing policy. We are also delighted the government has confirmed it will legislate for a long-overdue ban on live exports for slaughter and fattening. We have been campaigning for this for decades: it is high time this cruel and unnecessary trade is finally brought to an end."

He called for the government to go further, and stop the import and sale of foie gras, and ban the use of cages for the UK's 16 million sows and laying hens that are still kept in cages.

He added: "All of these positive announcements must be supported by a comprehensive method of production labelling, and it is essential that the government ensure these much-needed animal welfare improvements are not undermined by future trade agreements."

The ban on the import and export of shark fins, the subject of a campaign by the chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and others, was also welcomed. Steve Backshall, the Wildlife TV presenter and patron of the Bite-Back campaign on shark finning, said: "[This] will be significant in helping restore the balance of the oceans [and] sends a clear message to the world that shark fin soup belongs in the history books, not on the menu."

Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society International/UK, said: "Delivering on the plan will require understanding and real commitment from across Whitehall. Respect for animal welfare is not only the right thing to do for animals, it will also play a critical role in tackling global environmental and public health challenges such as climate change, antibiotic resistance, and pandemic prevention."









Animals to be formally recognised as sentient beings in UK law


Set of government measures will include halting most live animal exports and a ban on hunting trophy imports




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegetarians Have Better Cholesterol Levels, and More, Than Meat-Eaters*

Vegetarians have more favorable levels of a number of biomarkers including cardiovascular-linked ones - total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and apolipoprotein A and B - than meat-eaters, shows the largest study of its kind to date.

Results of the cross-sectional, observational study of 178,000 participants were presented as an electronic poster at this year's online European Congress on Obesity (ECO), by Jirapitcha Boonpor of the Institute of Cardiovascular & Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK.

"We found that the health benefits of becoming a vegetarian were independent of adiposity and other sociodemographic and lifestyle-related confounding factors," senior author Carlos Celis-Morales, PhD, also from the University of Glasgow, told _Medscape Medical News_ in an interview.

Total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol concentrations for vegetarians were 21% and 16.4% lower than in meat-eaters. But some biomarkers considered beneficial -including vitamin D concentrations - were lower in vegetarians, while some considered unhealthy - including triglycerides and cystatin-C levels - were higher.

Vegetarian diets have recently become much more popular, but there is insufficient information about the health benefits. Prior reports of associations between biomarkers and a vegetarian diet were unclear, including evidence of any metabolic benefits, noted Celis-Morales.

Importantly, participants in the study had followed a vegetarian or meat-eater diet for at least 5 years before their biomarkers in blood and urine were assessed.

"If you modify your diet, then, 2 weeks later, you can see changes in some metabolic markers, but changes in markers of cardiovascular disease will take 5 to 10 years," he explained.

Health is complex and individual markers tell you just part of the story," said Mathers, of the Human Nutrition Research Centre, Newcastle University, UK.

He says a vegetarian diet can be nourishing but cautioned that "just because someone excludes meat from their diet does not mean necessarily that they will be eating a healthy diet."

"Some of the biomarker differences seen in this work - such as the lower concentrations of total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, GGT [gamma-glutamyl transferase], and ALT [alanine transaminase] - are indicators that the vegetarians were healthier than the meat-eaters. However, other differences were less encouraging, including the lower concentrations of vitamin D and higher concentrations of triglycerides and cystatin-C."

Also reflecting on the results, Jose Lara Gallegos, PhD, senior lecturer in human nutrition at Northumbria University, UK, said they support previous evidence from large studies such as the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), which showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of heart disease.

"A vegetarian diet might also be associated with lower risk for liver diseases such as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease," Gallegos said, but added that some levels of biomarkers considered to be 'healthy' were lower in the vegetarians and it is important to remember that strictly restricted diets might be associated with potential risks of nutritional inadequacies.

"Other, less restrictive dietary patterns, such as a Mediterranean diet, are also associated with...health benefits," he observed.

*Large Data Sample From the UK Biobank Study*
"Specifically, we wanted to know if vegetarians were healthier because they are generally leaner and lead healthier lives, or whether their diet specifically was responsible for their improved metabolic and cardiovascular health," Celis-Morales explained.

Data were included from 177,723 healthy participants from the UK Biobank study who were aged 37-73 years and had reported no major dietary changes over the last 5 years. In total, 4111 participants were self-reported vegetarians who followed a diet without red meat, poultry, or fish, and 166,516 participants were meat-eaters.

Nineteen biomarkers related to diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and liver and renal function were included, and the associations between vegetarian diet and biomarkers, compared with meat-eaters, were examined.

To minimize confounding, the findings were adjusted for age, sex, deprivation, education, ethnicity, smoking, total sedentary time, type of physical activity, alcohol intake, body mass index, and waist circumference.

Compared with meat-eaters, vegetarians had significantly lower concentrations of 14 biomarkers, including total cholesterol (21% lower); LDL (16% lower); lipoprotein A (1% lower), lipoprotein B (4% lower), and liver function markers (GGT: 354% lower, and ALT: 153% lower), IGF-1 (134% lower), urate (122% lower), total protein (29% lower), creatinine (607% lower), and C-reactive protein (10% lower).

However, the researchers found that, compared with meat-eaters, vegetarians had significantly higher concentrations of some unhealthy biomarkers, including triglycerides (15% higher) and cystatin-C (4% higher), and lower levels of some beneficial biomarkers including high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (5% lower), vitamin D (635% lower), and calcium (0.7% lower).

No associations were found for A1c, systolic blood pressure, and aminotransferase.

"Some biomarkers, for example urate, were very low in vegetarians, and this served to verify our results because we expected meat-eaters to have higher levels of urate," remarked Celis-Morales.

*Diet Commitment and Cardiovascular Outcomes*
Many people, whether vegetarians or meat-eaters, follow short-term diets, for example, the Atkins or the 5:2 diet, and often lack continuity switching from one diet to the next, or back to regular eating.

"They are healthy, but they do not commit for long enough to make a difference to metabolic markers or potentially long-term health. In contrast, vegetarians are usually fully committed but the reasons behind this commitment might be a concern for the environment or animal welfare, for example," Celis-Morales pointed out.

However, he added that many vegetarians replace the meat in their diet with unhealthy alternatives. "They often eat too much pasta or potatoes, or other high energy food with low nutritional value."

Having identified metabolic markers specific to long-term vegetarian diets, Celis-Morales wanted to know what happens to vegetarians' long-term cardiovascular health. He analyzed and published these outcomes in a separate study published in December 2020.

"Over 9 years of follow-up, we have found that vegetarians have a lower risk in terms of myocardial infarction in the long-term, as well as other cardiovascular disease," he reported.

Asked whether there was an optimum age or time in life to become a vegetarian to improve health, Celis-Morales explained that the healthier you are, the less likely you will reap the health benefits of dietary changes - for example to being a vegetarian.

"It is more likely that those people who have unhealthy lifestyle risk factors, such as smoking, and high consumption of high-energy foods or processed meat are more likely to see positive health effects," he said.

Lifestyle changes to improve cardiovascular outcomes are usually more likely to be required at 40 or 50 years old than at younger ages. He also noted that metabolic markers tend to show clear improvement at around 3 months of adopting a particular diet but improvements in disease outcomes take a lot longer to become evident.

Celis-Morales and his team are currently conducting a further analysis to understand if the vegetarian diet is also associated with a lower risk of cancer, depression, and dementia compared with meat-eaters.









Vegetarians Have Better Cholesterol Levels, and More, Than Meat-Eaters


People who follow a long-term vegetarian diet have better levels of a number of cardiovascular biomarkers than meat-eaters, with the greatest benefit seen in total and LDL cholesterol.



www.medscape.com


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

An interesting article/opinion to share. There are very strict rules governing the ethics of animals used in medical experiments (although some labs get called out when animal suffering is discovered) Pharmaceutical companies could use synthetic alternatives but it is 'the way it has always been done'. Nowadays there are lots of sensitive engineered 'reporter' cell lines that could be used instead. There should be more research on using synthetic means for testing etc than using animals. I continue to believe the treatment of animals by way of animal agriculture/factory farms is atrocious

*Animals are our overlooked allies in the fight against Covid*









'Limulus amebocyte lysate tests, the standard for screening vaccines for dangerous bacteria, are manufactured using the blood of horseshoe crabs.

A few weeks ago, I received my first shot of a vaccine against Covid-19. As the newly vaccinated exited the clinic, there was a mix of relief and elation on people's faces. We exchanged little smiles of solidarity. If we could have burst into spontaneous applause, I'm sure we would have done.

Recently, the lead scientist for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, Prof Sarah Gilbert, was honoured with the RSA Albert Medal. There are rumours that Gilbert's team, along with the pioneers of the mRNA vaccines, are up for a Nobel prize. It is quite right that gratitude should follow their game-changing achievement.

But the success of the vaccines offers an opportunity to acknowledge a different constituency. If we think back to clap for carers, the ritual of recognition that marked those grim weeks of Britain's first lockdown, its value was in shining a light on the keyworkers who are kept from view by circumstances and sometimes snobbery. For 10 weeks of the pandemic, we reflected on those otherwise invisible individuals on whom society depends.

Yet in every stage of our journey to create vaccines, we've had a large number of assistants we've neither appreciated nor applauded. Millions of animals have been a part of our rigorous process of drug safety and efficacy testing. The main reason we don't honour them is that they possess an uncertain moral status in our eyes. That may be uncomfortable, but does that mean that the role of animals should be ignored?

To take a few examples: Limulus amebocyte lysate tests, the standard for screening vaccines for dangerous bacteria, are manufactured using the neon-blue blood of horseshoe crabs. Pretty much any vaccine you've had will have been safety-tested using this because it's chock-full of immune cells that are super-sensitive to bacteria.

Acquiring this blood is not a pretty business. The crabs are harvested, often by fishers, and then strapped in rows and bled. And these spectacular creatures are already under threat due to fisheries and habitat loss. In the US, manufacturers are careful to try to secure the wellbeing and release of the crabs. Only about 15% die. But in China, where the regional species is endangered, nearly all will be killed in the process. There are synthetic versions of the test, but they haven't been taken up by many pharmaceutical companies at present and the US is yet to give regulatory approval.

When it comes to preclinical trials of vaccine candidates (trials that aren't ethically permitted on humans), mice are the most popular animal. Early in the pandemic, scientists discovered that wild lab mice are largely unaffected by this coronavirus. So transgenic mice have been bred, genetically engineered to simulate our immune response. And ferrets, which do show a similar progression of disease to ours, have also been used in early trials. Some of these animals will play a role in the development of the antiviral treatments the UK government hopes patients may be taking by this autumn.

In Britain, the bar for using primates in biomedical research is very high. But scientists working on Covid-19 vaccines have used both rhesus and crab-eating macaques, along with common marmosets, especially for efficacy testing. Animal testing is largely justified by the idea of some hard moral border between us and other species. Using animals within our own order unsettles us: scientists choose primates precisely because they're genetically similar to us, but that closeness is disquieting. Primates have rich and complex social lives. They also experience their pain and captivity, and their inability to consent creates rather than resolves the ethical problems. Yet we are rarely given the chance to reflect on all this.

The trouble is we often hide animal testing from public view. That is broadly true of the infrastructure that enables us to eat and wear animals, too. Many labs that run animal experiments are highly secretive because of the considerable threats they face from activists. And scientists and companies are also sensitive to the fact that public opinion is on the move. Before the pandemic, public acceptance of animal testing in biomedical research had been consistently trending downwards for decades.

For now, the UK's Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act of 1986 is the strictest law governing research animals anywhere in the world. That is something to be proud of. Most research is conducted using the "three Rs". These principles of "reduction", "refinement" and "replacement" were initiated in 1959 by two British scientists, William Russell and Rex Burch. They have become the standard for minimising the use of animals and any associated suffering.

Still, animal research is actually growing rather than declining. New gene-editing technologies allow us to modify an animal's immune system so that it is more like ours, making it a better research model than it would be naturally. That has undermined the move towards replacement. And this pandemic has also intensified demand.

There are some new initiatives, such as the Center for Contemporary Sciences, spearheaded by scientists Aysha Akhtar and Jarrod Bailey, set up to explore cutting-edge human-based methods: the "human-on-a-chip" model, for example. In essence, a human organ is used to produce a micro-version of itself on which tests can be conducted. This is exciting technology, but we're not yet at the point of substitution.

This moment in history has prompted a reassessment of our relationship to the rest of nature, not least because the origins of this pandemic, in one way or another, lie in our invasive use of other animals and their habitats. At the same time, throughout the past century, the use of animals in biomedical tests has hugely reduced deaths from disease outbreaks. Forty years' worth of research using monkeys, rats and mice led to the polio vaccine in the 1950s, which saved millions of lives. Then there was the TB vaccine. The flu vaccine. To put it bluntly, countless animals have given their lives to save ours.

On 12 May, the UK government launched its action plan to "reinforce its position as a global champion of animal rights". Key to this is the recognition by law of the sentience of other animals. It's a positive move. But the current plan is uneven in its rationale and silent on a number of fronts, including animal testing.

Acknowledging the animals that have had a role in life-saving vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 is not to take a position for or against their continued use in research. It is instead to accept that there is something wrong in obscuring or forgetting their part and the price they pay. Supporters just as much as opponents of animal testing should recognise the magnitude of their role. It would be the mark of a conscientious - and grateful - society.









Animals are our overlooked allies in the fight against Covid | Melanie Challenger


It’s important to recognise the vital role they’ve played in development of vaccines and treatments, says Melanie Challenger, author of How To Be Animal




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

I wonder if the person who did that hang tag still works there?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I guess chickens can't wear masks because they don't have ears... so control the urge to kiss your chicken

*CDC urges Americans not to kiss chickens amid salmonella outbreak *










*The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has urged people to refrain from kissing live poultry amid an outbreak of salmonella.*

The CDC and public health officials are investigating salmonella outbreaks after 163 people were reported ill in 43 states.
The infections have been linked to contact with backyard poultry.

"Don't kiss or snuggle the birds, as this can spread germs to your mouth and make you sick," the health agency said.
It warned that poultry, like chicken and ducks, can carry salmonella germs even if they look healthy and clean, and these germs can easily spread in areas where they live and roam.

Infection can cause fever, diarrhoea, stomach pain and vomiting. Most people recover without treatment, but more severe cases can cause death.

According to the CDC, one-third of the people reported ill in the recent outbreaks have been under the age of five.
Some 34 people have been taken to hospital since mid-February, but no deaths have been reported.
The CDC's advice also includes washing hands after coming into contact with poultry, and preventing children from touching the birds.

It estimates that salmonella bacteria - which can be found in raw or undercooked meat, eggs or other food products - causes about 1.35 million infections in the US every year, and 420 deaths.

The CDC is the US public agency in charge of issuing health advice; last week for example, it changed the guidance on face masks, saying that people who had been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 no longer needed them in most places.








Salmonella: CDC urges Americans not to kiss chickens amid outbreak


The US public health agency asks people to be careful around live poultry after a multi-state outbreak.



www.bbc.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Meat-eaters are showing their teeth in the new culture wars*

s a gesture of solidarity with the tens of millions of carrots murdered every year to facilitate #Veganuary," typed failed mayor Laurence Fox while still in his folk music period and presenting as a flaccid tree, "tonight I forsake vegetables." Then he uploaded a picture of his steak. As a piece of food photography it was poor; as a statement of resistance it was powerful. Last week Fox News apologised after airing a piece titled _Up in Your Grill_, which claimed Biden wanted to curb meat consumption. This would include, they said, a plan to cut 90% of red meat from the American diet, leaving them with 4lb of meat a year, or "one burger a month".

It wasn't true, but that mattered little, because it had the green taste of something true, and it pricked in all the right places. "I'm pretty sure I ate 4lb of red meat yesterday," Donald Trump Jr tweeted in response, a cry of freedom. Fox's steak and little Trump's tweet were self-portraits - food as a symbol of their identity politics. They were grenades lobbed into a culture war that is playing out in meat and soy and sausage rolls, and what it means to be a man.

Such wars are not new, but each battle updates its weapons. Prosaic objects and domestic choices come to symbolise the politics of each side, whether cars, lattes or bras, burned. Food has always been a key marker of who we are and how we see ourselves, so inevitably becomes a marker of identity, especially at a time when so many certainties, the economy, health, the environment, gender roles, are being challenged. When posted with a Veganuary hashtag, a steak is no longer just a steak.

There are battle lines being drawn in gravy. On one side vegans who, despite growing significantly in number, are viewed "more negatively than immigrants," said a 2015 study. And on the other side meat-eaters who, at a time when the production of meat-based food is (according to a Lancet report) "the largest source of environmental degradation", see their personal liberty as under threat. They hear the rational argument against burgers, but the confrontation breeds defensiveness. In the US, Ted Cruz wrapped bacon around the barrel of a rifle to cook it; his fans found the juxtaposition delicious. In the UK, the steaks of Fox and meats of Morgan (Piers) are wielded against what they see as an incoming tide of "wokeness". Morgan, a man desperately moved by the advent of Greggs's vegan sausage roll, once conjured up the image of a whole coach of conservative media personalities revving up to Farmacy in their jeans and shoes when he asked: "If I was to storm a vegan restaurant and demand meat, would they discriminate against me?" Would they? It's certainly something to think about, one night maybe, when alone.

The main problem here is suitably chewy - most meat-eaters don't want to harm animals, but unfortunately they also do want to eat them lightly grilled with a little rosemary. The cognitive dissonance is most clear in the language that turns a cow into beef when hot on a plate. And meat-eating overlaps with so many other of our contemporary anxieties. Thirty years ago, Carol Adams published _The Sexual Politics of Meat_, linking meat-eating to notions of masculinity and virility in the western world. The idea was that men and meat lean on each other, using the other's weight to survive like drunk people walking home, both terribly fragile. Since then the need to assert meat as a signifier of male identity has intensified. On her website Adams logs hamburgers "named for rapists - the Harvey Weinstein burger in England or the Bill Cosby in Pakistan", and maintains that when we remove meat from a meal, we're threatening the patriarchy. Which, to some, is terrifying.

And to the rest, it's becoming clear that conversations about vegan sausage rolls are not really about lunch. Sausage rolls are symbols of a changing world. Sometimes the objects are the thing (eating a vegan diet could be the biggest way to reduce one's environmental impact on earth) and sometimes they're an expression of the thing. Adams found a political pamphlet from 1902 that called for Chinese exclusion: "Meat v Rice: American Manhood Against Asiatic Coolieism, Which Shall Survive?" Immigration, it warned, would bring down the American worker, leading to them being forced to give up their meat. She likens it to pro-Trump T-shirts that read: "THIS IS AMERICA. WE EAT MEAT. WE DRINK BEER AND WE SPEAK FUCKIN' ENGLISH."

The choice of caps lock is always interesting, isn't it, as it suggests a level of panic. We are back in the vegan restaurant with our red-socked conservative media personalities, and they are shouting at the waiters and also trying not to cry. There is fear in the caps lock. Though vegans are reportedly viewed negatively, the overwhelming sense is that right-wing meat-eaters are not just angry with them, but scared of the changes they signal.

Could it be that many of the important debates that anchor our culture wars have been passed into legislation (civil rights, for example, however wobbly the legislation itself) and that what's left to argue about are largely the coffee grinds coating the sink? The rows that refuse to wash away, rows about how to live alongside each other despite our differences. Rows about carrots, rows about steaks: are these simply toy soldiers the right and left have been given to battle with in place of actual power, or constructive debate about immigration, gender? About equality? About the end of the world?









Meat-eaters are showing their teeth in the new culture wars | Eva Wiseman


Food has always been a key marker in the way we see ourselves, but now the battle lines are being drawn between those who see animals as a source of supper and those who don’t




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Allergic to nuts? Six seed alternatives to add to your diet*

_Q: Are seeds a good alternative for people with a nut allergy? Do they have the same health benefits as nuts do?_

Plenty of evidence suggests that a regular intake of tree nuts protects against heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Studies have also shown that adding nuts to a healthy diet helps prevent risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, insulin resistance and inflammation.

When it comes to seeds, though, research is more limited. Still, seeds are thought to deliver similar health benefits thanks to their nutrient profiles.

Like tree nuts (e.g., almonds, cashews, walnuts), seeds are rich in plant protein, heart-healthy fats, fibre, vitamins, minerals and bioactive plant compounds.

Whether you have a nut allergy or not, the following seeds are worthy additions to your diet. (Note: Even though seeds aren't related to tree nuts, it is still possible for people to be allergic to seeds.)

*6. PUMPKIN SEEDS*

Also known as pepita, pumpkin seeds offer protein, fibre, iron, zinc, potassium and plenty of magnesium (191 milligrams per one quarter cup). They're also an outstanding source of manganese, a mineral that's needed for a healthy immune system and strong bones.

Sprinkle pumpkin seeds, raw or toasted, over soups, salads and oatmeal, toss into granola and mix into guacamole. Crush pumpkin seeds for a flavourful crust for fish, and enjoy them toasted as a snack.

*5. SUNFLOWER SEEDS*

One quarter cup of these little seeds provides 80 per cent of a day's worth of vitamin E, an antioxidant that shields brain cells and immune cells from free radical damage. Sunflower seeds are also an excellent source of folate, magnesium and selenium.

Preliminary evidence suggests that a daily intake of sunflower seeds, as part of a healthy diet, may help improve LDL (bad) cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugar levels in women with type 2 diabetes.

Add sunflower seeds to hummus, stir into risotto, include in trail mix, sprinkle over roasted vegetables and blend into salad dressings. Use sunflower seeds to make dukkah, a delicious Egyptian spice blend comprising toasted nuts, seeds and spices (you can also make a nut-free version).

*4. SESAME SEEDS*

These tiny seeds are an excellent source of calcium (175 milligrams per two tablespoons) and provide decent amounts of iron, magnesium and zinc.

Sesame seeds have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and have been found to lower blood pressure in randomized controlled trials.

Make tahini with sesame seeds, or sprinkle toasted sesame seeds over stir-fries, salads and soups. In Canada, sesame is considered a major allergen and must be labelled on food packages.

*3. HULLED HEMP SEEDS*

Two tablespoons of these little brown seeds offer six grams of protein, 140 milligrams of magnesium and a hefty amount of immune-supportive manganese. You'll also get two grams of alpha linolenic acid (ALA), a plant-based omega-3 fatty acid. (Women require 1.1 grams of ALA daily; men need 1.6 grams.)

Toss hemp seeds into salads, sprinkle over avocado toast, stir into yogurt, add to overnight oats and blend into smoothies and protein shakes. Add hemp seeds to muffin, cookie and energy ball batters.

*2. CHIA SEEDS*

Two tablespoons of chia seeds deliver seven grams of fibre, 127 milligrams of calcium and 3.6 grams of ALA, along with magnesium, iron, zinc and selenium.

Some research suggests that chia seeds can help lower blood levels of LDL cholesterol while raising HDL (good) cholesterol. Chia seeds are also being studied for their potential effects on lowering blood sugar.

Use chia seeds as you would hemp seeds. Or make chia "pudding" by adding the seeds to dairy or plant-based milk, vanilla and a little maple syrup. You'll find lots of recipes online.

*1. FLAXSEEDS*

Like hemp and chia seeds, flaxseeds are an outstanding source of omega-3s, providing 3.2 grams of ALA per two tablespoons. Flaxseeds also contain lignans, phytochemicals thought to reduce the risk of breast and prostate cancers.

Studies conducted in people with hypertension have found that a daily intake of flaxseed (30 grams twice daily) helps lower blood pressure.

In order to gain the nutritional benefits of flaxseeds, they need to be ground before consuming. Use ground flax to make a vegan egg replacer (one tablespoon flax mixed with three tablespoons water).









Allergic to nuts? Six seed alternatives to add to your diet


For people with a nut allergy, seeds are thought to deliver similar health benefits. Substitutes to add to your diet include pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, hulled hemp seeds, chia seeds and flaxseeds




www.theglobeandmail.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

My preferred brand is Huma ... this looks a little fishy 









GU Rolls Out Seafood-Inspired Flavors — Mark Remy's DumbRunner.com


Savory gels “inspired by the ocean’s bounty,” company says.




dumbrunner.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Nutritional Benefits Of Spinach - Usage Tips and Recipes.*


















*Definition:*

Who among us has not seen or heard of the famous muscular sailor "Popeye", that cartoon program that instilled in our minds from a young age the many benefits of spinach, and it seems that Popeye was not at fault. Spinach is ranked among the healthiest foods you can eat worldwide. Spinach is a vegetable that is rich in vitamins, phytonutrients and minerals and has very little calories. Therefore, it is very suitable for people who follow a weight loss diet. In addition, it is a very strong source of vitamins such as "A-K-D" and it is also rich in minerals. It also contains iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium, phosphorous, copper, protein, folic acid, and finally, dietary fiber. Due to the high value of spinach, it provides health with a set of wonderful benefits, which we will mention in the following.

*Benefits:*

Heart health. Spinach contains a high percentage of potassium and a low percentage of sodium. Add to that the folic acid present in spinach water, and this helps to reduce high blood pressure, achieve relaxation of blood vessels, reduce stress and fatigue on the heart and blood vessels, increase oxygen access to different parts of the body and improve their functions.

Eye health. Spinach is a rich source of carotene and lutein, which are good elements for eyesight, especially beta-carotene, as it compensates for the lack of vitamin A in the body and thus treats itchy eyes, dry eyes and eye inflammation. Spinach water also contains a high percentage of glutathione, which plays an important role in preventing cataracts.

Immune support. Among the benefits of spinach is that it helps to strengthen the immune system in general, and it also helps to fight infections and diseases by containing vitamins A, C, and E, which are powerful antioxidants that fight free radicals and harmful bodies that attack the body from viruses, germs and others.

Bone health. Spinach helps fight and prevent osteoporosis, as spinach is a source of calcium, phosphorous and vitamin K, all of which are necessary for strengthening the bones and maintaining their density. Therefore, it is advised for those suffering from bone problems to include spinach in their diet.

Lose weight. Spinach is used in special diets to reduce weight, because it is rich in fiber that helps with fullness and a feeling of satiety, not to mention that it is low in calories. Spinach also contains a high amount of iron, which improves the metabolism and also the amount of oxygen that flows, which leads to burning fats in the body and causing weight loss.

Digestive health. Spinach helps to promote the health of the digestive system, because it contains a large amount of fiber, which is necessary to improve digestion and bowel movement. Spinach also works to protect the gastric mucosa, which reduces the occurrence of stomach ulcers and increases the strength of the lining of the digestive system.
Other benefits. Spinach helps prevent and treat anemia. Increase blood flow to the brain, improve focus and cognition. Strengthening the muscles, especially the heart muscles. Reducing various body infections and the associated pain. It also helps remove toxins from the body.

*Usage Tips and Recipes:*

Wash the spinach well in cold water before using it for cooking, then rinse it well to dry. Spinach can be used in all types of recipes in the kitchen, for example, try preparing spinach soup or use it in your side dishes minced, such as a green omelette with mushrooms. The most common use of spinach in the kitchen is kept in delicious pies, such as spinach and cheese pancakes. You can also chop spinach and add it to your salad, along with more vegetables.
Recipe. Rinse the spinach well in cold water, then let it dry. In a large pot, heat the olive oil, then fry the garlic on a low heat for a minute until it turns yellow. Add salt, spinach and pepper and cover the bowl for two minutes. Uncover the lid, increase the temperature, and let the spinach simmer for another minute. Stir the spinach until diced, then serve with lemon and salt and serve hot.









Nutritional Benefits Of Spinach - Usage Tips.







avmedicine.blogspot.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is big news

*Judge Rules That California Must Answer Lawsuit Calling for Processed Meat to Be Added to State Carcinogen List*









The Superior Court of California has ordered the state to answer a Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine lawsuit to require California to include cancer-causing processed meat-such as hot dogs, bacon, and deli meat-on the state's list of substances known to cause cancer, as required by Proposition 65. In a hearing on May 28, 2021, the court rejected the state's request for judgment in its favor.
"We've spent years asking California to follow the law and add carcinogenic processed meat to the Proposition 65 list," says Mark Kennedy, Esq., vice president of legal affairs for the Physicians Committee. "Now, the state must stop stalling and allow this case, which could help protect Californians from certain cancers, to proceed."
On March 11, 2020, the Physicians Committee filed a lawsuit arguing that California has neglected to follow a state law requiring the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) to include on its carcinogen list










Judge Rules That California Must Answer Lawsuit Calling for Processed Meat to Be Added to State Carcinogen List


The Superior Court of California has ordered the state to answer a Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine lawsuit to require California to include cancer-causing processed meat—such as hot dogs, bacon, and deli meat—on the state’s list of substances known to cause cancer, as required by...




www.pcrm.org


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## stripes (Sep 6, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> This is big news
> 
> *Judge Rules That California Must Answer Lawsuit Calling for Processed Meat to Be Added to State Carcinogen List*
> View attachment 1933273
> ...


While this is something that really is useful info,
Prop 65 is one of the most ignored labels anywhere because EVERYTHING has that label in California.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How Vegan Eggs of the Future Are Made*
In the near future, a pastry chef may whip up a batch of macarons, a colorful French confection made from meringue and almond flour, without having to crack an egg. In another kitchen, a baker pulls a light, fluffy, egg-free brioche loaf out of the oven. And in my home kitchen, I might recreate a family recipe for tiramisu, replacing eggs with a liquid or powder that functions just the same as chicken eggs.

It sounds like something out of a cyberpunk setting, but this is where the food system is headed. And it's thanks to a technique that humans have been using for thousands of years: fermentation.

From sauerkraut in Germany and kimchi in Korea, to yogurts and aged cheeses in Europe, to tempeh in Indonesia, natto in Japan, beer, and more, nearly every major civilization has its own type of fermented food.

And, that beer you crack open during (digital) happy hour is created through that same ancient technique. Evidence of a fermented alcoholic beverage made from rice, honey, and fruit produced in the Henan province in China has been discovered in ancient pottery that dates back to 9,000 years ago, according to the Penn Museum.

It's thanks to beer-brewers that Clara Foods, a San Francisco-based food technology startup, is nearing the launch of its animal-free egg protein. Earlier this year, the venture capital-backed company, a "graduate" of Indiebio's accelerator program, announced its partnership with ZX Ventures, the innovation arm of the world's largest brewer, AB InBev-the parent company of Budweiser, Corona, Modelo, and other well-known beer companies.

The relationship between the two is synergistic. Clara Foods uses precision fermentation, formerly called microbial fermentation, which is using microorganisms like yeast to produce specific proteins, such as whey, casein, and egg albumen, without the use of animals. And, ZX Ventures provides its know-how behind implementing fermentation on a large scale with the end goal being to make animal-free eggs accessible to a wider consumer base.

*The Weird Science Behind the Next Vegan Egg*
Simply put, precision fermentation adapts an age-old process to create proteins that contain the same amino acid profile, nutrition, and functionality of their animal-derived counterparts.

_"In the same way that brewers use yeast to convert sugar into alcohol to make beer and wine, or that bakers use yeast to convert sugar into carbon dioxide to leaven bread, yeast can also be used to convert sugar into protein," _Clara Foods Arturo Elizondo tells LIVEKINDLY.

Elizondo likens the behavior of the yeast during this process to computer coding. _"Only, instead of working with zeros and ones, they work with DNA. You insert a code for a particular protein and as the yeast eats sugar, instead of making alcohol, it starts producing protein."_

At the end of the fermentation process, you have a pure protein that, in a practical sense, is identical to the proteins that occur in nature. Identical, that is, without the cholesterol and all of the consequences that come with raising animals for food.

A former employee of the USDA's Food and Safety Inspection Service, Elizondo is acutely aware of animal agriculture's inefficiency in terms of resources. The behemoth of an industry accounts for 14.5 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. It takes 18 to 24 weeks before chickens begin to lay eggs, and it takes an enormous amount of resources to do so.

But a company like Clara Foods can create animal-free egg proteins in less than a week without harming chickens and with significantly less impact on the planet.

*Why Do We Need a Vegan Alternative to Eggs Anyway?*
Egg substitutes are nothing new. You can use ground flax and chia seeds, applesauce, vinegar mixed with baking soda, powdered egg replacers, and the JUST Egg, to name a few. Aquafaba, the liquid from a can of chickpeas, can be whipped like egg whites, but it has its shortcomings. (In the Facebook group Aquafaba (Vegan Meringue - Hits and Misses!), angel food cake remains the elusive white whale for professional and home bakers alike.)

At the end of the day, easy alternatives that function just like the ingredient they're replacing have a strong appeal. And as reliable as many egg replacers are, they just don't have the same chemical composition as a chicken egg, so they're not a shoe-in for everything.

In cooking, every part of the cracked egg has a function, which is why it's tricky to replicate certain recipes, like souffles and brioches, that call for eggs using vegan substitutes. The protein in eggs gives structure to baked goods, acting as a glue that binds ingredients together.

According to the Science of Cooking, egg yolks act as emulsifiers, which prevent fats and liquids from coalescing. (Think of it like shaking oil and water in a jar. When you shake the jar, the oil droplets disperse, but they eventually pool together again. Emulsifiers prevent that. Egg yolks contain a specific emulsifier called lecithin, a fat also found in soybeans.)

The protein-rich egg whites foam, bind, and jell, and they provide leavening-which is why angel food cake is so light and fluffy. The air that you introduce into egg whites when you whip them forces the proteins to unfold and then reform around the air bubbles into a foamy texture.

*Cooking With Vegan Eggs Is Getting Easier Too*
Clara Foods, Eunite Foods, and other egg alternatives are up against the beast of the industrial egg industry. According to the American Egg Board, 275.3 million U.S. eggs were distributed in 2019 for retail, foodservice, institution, and export

Similar to what Berkeley-based precision fermentation company Perfect Day is doing by selling its vegan whey and casein to companies to produce dairy-free ice cream (and soon, cheese), Clara Foods' technology could replace chicken eggs in brioche, fresh pasta, cookies, and more.

According to Elizondo, it's key that its egg alternative works like a chicken egg would. That's because he believes that working with companies to replace eggs in existing products is how Clara Foods will make the biggest impact.

_"We can make our own meringue [using our egg] but ultimately, our goal is to partner with bakeries to have them use our eggs to make products that they already make, like macarons and cakes," _Elizondo adds.

Early plant-based companies have helped build consumer familiarity with products that replace animal-based foods, which has helped pave the way for ingredients companies like Clara Foods, Motif FoodWorks (dairy and meat), Perfect Day (dairy), MeliBio (honey), and others whose products can act as one-to-one replacements for a specific animal-derived ingredient.

The challenge for companies that want to swap out eggs is finding a replacement that will provide the same binding, texture, and mouthfeel that consumers are already accustomed to.

Another company, Ontario, Canada-based Noblegen, also aims to replace chicken eggs with one made using a single-celled organism called _euglena gracilis_. This microorganism is found in fresh and salt water that is rich in organic matter, and it has both plant and animal characteristics. Noblegen's euglena, which is processed into a flour, does not mimic any specific proteins found in chicken eggs. It is adjusted during the fermentation process to naturally change the nutritional profile.

_"Protein from euglena doesn't exactly mimic animal protein but it is built similarly from an amino acid perspective," _Bryan Reid, manager of communications at Noblegen, tells LIVEKINDLY. _"Euglena also has the same ability to build muscle that animals do, making it a potential game-changer in the meat and dairy analogue industries."_

Through its food and ingredient brand, Eunite Foods, the company has launched a powdered vegan whole egg replacer called "the egg" made from pea protein and its proprietary "euglena flour." It also contains methylcellulose, a plant cellulose-derived ingredient that acts as an emulsifier and that gels when hot temperatures are introduced.

Eunite Foods' vegan egg also functions like a conventional chicken egg. It can be scrambled or be used for baking cakes. Unlike Clara, though, the Canadian startup is selling its products to consumers through its website in order to show foodservice companies what its products can do and to gain consumer feedback. The company is currently in the process of formulating a liquid version of its egg.

This vegan egg is made via fermentation, though not precision fermentation, like Clara Foods and so many other startups. However, it is part of a group of emerging brands that are using this age-old process to create new, more sustainable alternatives to foods that have been part of the human diet for thousands of years.









How Vegan Eggs of the Future Are Made


Startup Clara Foods has developed vegan eggs that function like chicken eggs through precision fermentation, which is similar to beer-brewing.




www.livekindly.co


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Yes! 

*VEGANS ARE HAPPIER THAN MEAT-EATERS, STUDY FINDS








*

Vegans are happier than meat-eaters and more accepted than what's commonly believed, according to a new study by organization Tracking Happiness. The study surveyed 11,537 people from the United States, grouped into four categories: vegan (1,179), vegetarian (948), pescatarian (422), and meat-eater (8,988). Respondents were asked: "If you look back at the last year of your life, how would you rate your happiness on a scale from 1 to 10?" The average happiness rating was 6.9, with meat-eaters scoring the lowest happiness rating of 6.8 on a scale of 1 to 10 and vegans scoring 7 percent higher.

The study also found that happier individuals consider themselves more likely to become vegan in the future. Of the nearly 9,000 meat-eaters surveyed, researchers found those who reported higher happiness ratings were more likely to adopt a plant-based diet. Additionally, they found that not only are happier individuals more likely to become vegan, vegans are also more likely to stay happy.

*Positive attitudes towards vegans*
The study explored the attitudes toward and acceptance of veganism and the motives for going vegan. The survey asked the participating meat-eaters what their opinion of vegans or veganism is, and findings showed that less than 15 percent had a negative opinion of vegans and that the average meat-eater thought positively of vegans (3.44 on a scale of 1 to 5).

The study also pointed out that only 16 percent of meat-eaters consider themselves likely or very likely to adopt a plant-based diet, with older respondents significantly less likely to do so. Notably though, among people already reducing their consumption of animal products, the study found they are 220 percent more likely to adopt a plant-based diet in the future.

*Vegans' motives and happiness levels*
Among vegans, the study found that the environment was the biggest motive for their dietary choice, followed by personal preference, animal cruelty, and intolerance for meat or dairy products. Of those individuals, researchers found that those who are vegan to help reduce their impact on the environment reported a higher average happiness rating (7.72 on a scale of 1 to 10) compared to those who are vegan to counter animal cruelty (6.77 on a scale of 1 to 10).

"Sustainable behavior is linked to increased mental health, which is why it's so important to talk about the consumption of animal products. Even though the positive environmental effect of veganism cannot be disputed, there is still a negative stigma surrounding people who claim to be vegan," Tracking Happiness Founder Hugo Huijer said. "We believe that happiness and sustainability go hand in hand. We hope that our findings help people make informed decisions regarding sustainability, happiness, and the consumption of animal products."

*Eating more veggies makes you happier*
A similar 2016 study carried out by the University of Warwick and the University of Queensland found that people who ate more fruit and vegetables experienced substantial increases in happiness over a two-year period.

For this study, researchers examined the food diaries of 12,385 Australian adults to measure their happiness levels and concluded that people who transitioned from eating few fruits and vegetables to eight servings per day felt increases in life satisfaction comparable to getting a job after being unemployed.


















Vegans Are Way Happier than Meat-Eaters, Study Finds. Here’s Why.


The new study of more than 11,000 Americans found that not only are vegans more likely to be and stay happy, but happier individuals are more likely to go vegan.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Something to think about


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

No Name has out done themselves this time!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Please hold the anchovies


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

More reasons to eat your veggies 

*Time to ditch the burgers? Vegetarians and pescatarians are up to 73% less likely to develop severe Covid-19 than meat-eaters, study finds*
Eating a vegetarian or pescatarian diet reduces your risk of developing severe Covid-19 when compared to people who eat meat, according to a new study.

Plant-based vegetarian diets reduce the risk of moderate to severe Covid-19 by up to 73 per cent and a fish-based pescatarian diet reduces the risk by 59 per cent.

Previous studies have shown a link between diet and the severity and duration of a Covid-19 infection, which the team wanted to examine in more detail.

Drawing on a survey of 2,884 frontline doctors and nurses exposed to the virus between July and September 2020, the team from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland looked into diet and Covid-19 severity.

The survey asked about diet, medical history and instances of Covid-19, revealing the notable link between avoiding meat and reducing the risk of severe coronavirus.

As it was a self-reported observational study they couldn't say why this was the case, but suspected it may be due to increased vitamins, nutrients and minerals in a plant-based diet that are vital for a healthy immune system.

Volunteers involved in the survey faced extensive exposure to SARS-CO-v2, the virus responsible for Covid-19 infection throughout the pandemic.

They were working in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the US last summer and were all part of the Survey Healthcare Globus market research network.

The researchers used this network to identify medical professionals, including doctors and nurses, at high risk of COVID-19 infection as a result of their jobs.

The survey also gathered information on personal background, medical history, medication use, and lifestyle.

They explored three diets: plant-based that was higher in vegetables than meat, pescatarian that was high in vegetable and fish, and a low carb-high protein diet.

Of the volunteers involved in the survey, 568 said they had Covid-19 symptoms or no symptoms but had positive swab test for the infection, and another 2,316 said they hadn't had any symptoms or tested positive.

Among the 568 cases, 138 clinicians said they had a moderate to severe Covid-19 infection and the remaining 430 said they had a very mild to mild infection.

The team then factored in several influential variables, including age, ethnicity, medical specialty, and lifestyle factors, such as smoking and physical activity levels

They found that those taking part in the survey who eat a plant or fish-based diet had significantly lower odds than meat eaters of developing a severe strain of Covid.

In comparison, those who eat a low carb-high protein diet had four times the odds of developing a moderate to severe infection than plant-eaters.

This means that eating a plant-based, vegetarian diet increases your odds of avoiding a severe dose of Covid-19 if you become infected, they found.

These associations held true when weight (BMI) and co-existing medical conditions were also factored in.

But no association was observed between any type of diet and the risk of contracting Covid-19 infection or length of the subsequent illness.

There were a number of issues with the study, the team explained, including the fact men outnumbered women, so the findings may not be applicable to women.

This was also an observational study, and so can't establish cause, only correlation.

It also relied on individual recall rather than on objective assessments, and the definition of certain dietary patterns may vary by country, point out the researchers.

'Our results suggest that a healthy diet rich in nutrient dense foods may be considered for protection against severe COVID-19,' they conclude.

'The trends in this study are limited by study size so caution is needed in the interpretation of the findings,' said Deputy Chair of the NNEdPro Nutrition and COVID-19 Taskforce, Shane McAuliffe.

'However, a high quality diet is important for mounting an adequate immune response, which in turn can influence susceptibility to infection and its severity.'

He adds: 'This study highlights the need for better designed prospective studies on the association between diet, nutritional status and COVID-19 outcomes.'

The findings have been published in the BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health journal









Vegetarians are up to 73% less likely to develop severe Covid-19


Eating a plant-based diet reduced the risk of severe Covid-19, say the team from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland who looked into diet and Covid-19 severity.




www.dailymail.co.uk





*VEGETARIAN DIETS CAN LOWER YOUR CHOLESTEROL *

Plant-based diets really do lower cholesterol, according to a review of nearly 50 studies.

Vegetarians generally eat more greens, fruits and nuts which means they have a lower intake of saturated fat, researchers found.

These foods are naturally rich in components such as soluble fibre, soy protein, and plant sterols (a cholesterol found in plants), all of which lower cholesterol.

The research, led by Dr Yoko Yokoyama, from Keio University in Fujisawa, found vegetarians had 29.2 milligrams less of total cholesterol per decilitre (one tenth of a litre) than meat-eaters.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Dairy-Free Diet Guide: Easy Tips & Helpful Advice*

*What is Dairy-Free?*
For both health and ethical reasons, dairy products raise serious concerns. On the health side, countless people who've quit dairy witnessed enormous improvements to their well-being. Maladies like nasal congestion, digestive problems, acne, or chronic ear infections may vanish within a few weeks. You might therefore consider going dairy-free for a month to see if doing so significantly improves your quality of life.

Nutritionally speaking, dairy brings lots of bad news. Nearly all of its carbohydrates come from sugar-all of it in the form of lactose, which many people can't properly digest. Upwards of 80 percent of people of Asian descent, and 70 percent of people of African descent, can't properly digest lactose. In fact, lactose intolerance afflicts large numbers of people in every part of the world. So if you suffer from chronic digestive issues, eliminating dairy products may resolve your problems.

Almost half of the calories in whole milk come from fat. Worse yet, this fat is highly saturated-making it as bad for your heart as beef fat (tallow) or pig fat (lard). Dairy also has absolutely no fiber or iron. And if all that were not enough, you might contemplate why the FDA refuses to answer the question about whether milk products contain pus.

*Ethical Considerations*
Many dairies operate with appalling appalling animal welfare standards. Several of the largest dairies never allow their cows outdoors to graze. Instead the animals spend their lives in cramped indoor stalls. Although cows can live twenty years, nearly all dairies slaughter their animals before age five. Why so young? Because aging cows don't produce nearly as much milk as do younger animals.

So shifting from beef to dairy does not enable you to avoid animal slaughter. Beef comes from slaughtered cattle, whereas dairy products come from cows _destined_ for slaughter.

Dairies impregnate their cows annually in order to maximize milk yields. Generally, these calves get taken away at just two days of age. What happens to these calves? The males commonly supply the veal industry. So if you oppose the crating and slaughter of young calves, know that the veal industry only exists because of the demand for dairy products. For detailed information about the dairy industry's cruel farming practices, see Jonathan Safran Foer's superb _Eating Animals_.

If the idea of cutting out all dairy products right away seems daunting, you can ease into it. Think for a moment about all the dairy products you currently consume. Chances are that you truly enjoy one or two of these foods, but that you aren't crazy about the others. For example, if you regularly consume a wide assortment of dairy products, perhaps you'd only actually miss eating yogurt and cheese pizza. So get rid of the others, and you've instantly moved to a mostly dairy-free diet!

*Recommended Dairy Substitutes*
The best approach for eliminating dairy foods involves not _cutting_ them out, but rather _crowding_ them out with superior non-dairy alternatives.

Luckily, there are all sorts of superb non-dairy products on the market. Whether you want to find replacements for milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, or ice cream, you can choose from dozens of excellent dairy alternatives.

*Milks*
Soy, rice, almond, coconut, and even hemp seed milks are available at all natural food stores and most supermarkets. Vegan milks are sold in two types of packaging: conventional milk cartons stocked in the refrigerated dairy case, and aseptic juice boxes sold at room temperature. You'll cut your sugar intake dramatically if you use unsweetened vegan milks, which are delicious out of a glass or poured on cereal.

It's better, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly to buy refrigerated soy milk. But you may want to keep a couple cartons of aseptic packaged non-dairy milk on hand for emergencies. These products usually have a shelf life of more than a year. Once opened, always store your aseptic packaged milk in the refrigerator.

Finally, note that "coconut milk" may refer to a pour-it-on-your-cereal milk alternative that's similar to soy milk. But it may also refer to _canned_ coconut milk-a much thicker and fattier product ideal for Thai curries. When cooking recipes, it's important not to confuse the two!

*Yogurt*
Silk's Peach & Mango soy yogurt delivers exceptional flavor and smoothness. Other brands of non-dairy yogurts include Kite Hill, So Delicious, Trader Joe's and Nancy's.

*Cheese*
You'll have no problem finding excellent non-dairy cheeses with wonderful taste and texture. We list all the top brands on our vegan cheese page. If the label does not say vegan, always check the ingredients for casein or sodium caseinate, which are proteins derived from milk.

*Butter*
Vegan butters have come a long way. Several brands offer wonderful flavor and are free of dangerous trans fats. Miyoko's Cultured Vegan Butter uses organic ingredients, and compares favorably in flavor to butter made from cows' milk. And most supermarkets carry Earth Balance, an excellent mass-market product. Neither of these products contains dangerous artificial trans fats. If you want to embark on a challenging but rewarding cooking project, you can also make superb vegan butter in your kitchen by following this recipe.

*Ice Cream*
Ice cream giants Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs both sell vegan pints, and Häagen-Dazs also offers two varieties of vegan chocolate covered bars on a stick. Turtle Mountain's "Purely Decadent" pints are outstanding, and conventional ice cream producer Double Rainbow makes several excellent varieties from soy milk.

If you love the flavor of coconuts, you owe it to yourself to try Luna and Larry's Coconut Bliss.Both So Delicious and Tofutti make vegan versions of those junky but delicious ice cream sandwiches you ate as a kid-you won't be able to tell the difference! Plus don't forget about sorbets, which tend to be vegan and are lighter and often more flavorful than ice cream.

For even more vegan ice cream brands, plus information on how to make your own, check out our vegan ice cream page.

*Cream Cheese*
Once again, you're in luck. Several companies make sensational dairy-free cream cheese: Miyoko's Creamery, Kite Hill, Follow Your Heart, Daiya, and Tofutti.

These brands are available at most natural food stores and many supermarkets.

*Sour Cream*
Follow Your Heart, Kite Hill, and Tofutti make vegan sour cream.

*Mayonnaise*
There are also several vegan brands of mayonnaise, the most popular of which is Just Mayo, which is carried by Walmart, Costco, and natural food groceries nationwide. Follow Your Heart also makes "Vegenaise" in several varieties.

*Coffee Creamer*
There's no need to put cream in your coffee: both So Delicious and Silk make vegan creamers that blend perfectly into coffee.

*Pudding.*
Bestselling cookbook author Mark Bittman concocted perhaps the best chocolate pudding recipe you'll ever try, and it doesn't contain a drop of milk. Zen makes refrigerated vegan pudding cups made from soy milk and almond milk.

*Is Vegan Dairy-Free?*
Anyone going dairy-free will find all sorts of vegan offerings helpful. Vegan foods never contain dairy, since veganism excludes all foods of animal origin. This in turns means that:


All vegan cookbooks are dairy-free.
Any restaurant menu offerings designated as vegan are likewise dairy-free.
There are hundreds of vegan products, from chocolate to frozen foods, that can further help you transition to a dairy-free lifestyle.
So even if you would never go vegan, the foods and resources marketed to vegans can help you to go dairy-free. Every time you try something that's vegan, you've found yet another dairy-free item you can add to your diet.

*Calcium and Dairy-Free Diets*
It's important for everyone-meat eaters, ovo-lacto vegetarians, and vegans alike-to read up on nutrition to ensure their diet isn't deficient in any nutrients.

Most dairy products are rich in calcium, but dairy is absolutely not the only rich source of this nutrient. Other excellent calcium sources include:


some leafy greens
some beans
calcium fortified soy milk
calcium-set tofu
For some people, a calcium supplement may be advisable. To learn more, check our calcium overview.

*Other Nutritional Considerations*
If you're switching to a dairy-free diet, three more nutrients deserve attention: protein, vitamin D, and iodine. Of these, only protein is naturally present in milk-vitamin D and iodine get added during milking and processing. Regardless, these three nutrients are all a vital part of a balanced diet. Luckily, they're all easy to get without consuming dairy products.

*Protein:*
There's no denying that milk products offer a rich source of protein, but there's nothing about dairy that makes it a better source than other protein-rich foods. Not all dairy products have much protein, either. Cheese has much less protein per calorie than milk, and butter has essentially no protein since it's pure fat.

Suffice to say, when cutting out dairy products, seek out dairy-free alternatives that contain comparable amounts of protein. In particular, that means avoiding almond and rice milk, since neither of these products contain much protein.

Our protein guide has the information you need to make sure your protein needs are met.

*Vitamin D:*
Government regulations require dairy producers to fortify milk with substantial amounts of vitamin D. If you consume a lot of milk products, most of your vitamin D probably comes from dairy. If that's the case, and you decide to go dairy-free, taking a vitamin D supplement may be sensible, since Vitamin D is never found in non-supplemented foods.

Some vegan milks are also supplemented with Vitamin D. Opt for a brand that contains about 25 percent of the RDA per serving.

*Iodine:*
Finally, everybody ought to check that they're getting sufficient iodine. About the only two reliable sources of iodine in Western diets are dairy products and iodized salt.

While many foods contain iodine, the levels vary wildly depending on the mineral content of the farmland. Seaweed also delivers an excellent source of iodine, but these levels also fluctuate dramatically from one variety to the next.

Since dropping dairy products from your diet is eliminating a reliable source of iodine from your life, see that you replace it with another excellent source. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics offers excellent information on iodine.

For comprehensive information on how to steer clear of deficiencies, our Vegan Nutrition Guide is well worth your time. Finally, please check our supplements guide for more information about meeting your protein, calcium, vitamin D, and iodine needs.

*Dairy-Free Cookbooks*
The easiest way to find a dairy-free cookbook is to choose one with _vegan_ in its title. There are hundreds of vegan cookbooks available covering every sort of food and cuisine you could possibly imagine. By including vegan cookbooks in your search, you'll gain access to a far wider range of titles than if you merely stick with books marketed as dairy-free.

Start with a cookbook offering a diverse assortment of easy recipes that take just a few minutes to prepare. Two excellent choices are Robin Robertson's _Quick-Fix Vegan_ or Mary Mattern's _Nom Yourself_.

If you want to make meals that are a little more upscale, check out titles like _Happy Healthy Vegan Kitchen_ or _Vegan Eats__._

*Making Your Own Dairy Alternatives*
We've already seen that natural food stores sell every imaginable sort of dairy substitute. But you can also make your own dairy replacements from scratch. Catherine Atkinson's _The Vegan Dairy_, offers recipes for every conceivable variety of dairy product. It's got recipes for milks, various styles of cheeses, yogurt, and more. On top of all this, the book features several dozen hard cheese recipes.

You can also make vegan milks at home-an easy project that offers great savings over commercial non-dairy brands. _The New Milks_ offers complete instructions for making numerous varieties of vegan milk, using your choice of soybeans, nuts, seeds, or grains. It also features recipes for meals that include these milks as key ingredients. The book is beautifully organized and photographed.

If all this isn't enough to keep you going, there are a number of outstanding cookbooks entirely devoted to dairy-free cheese. These titles include:


_Super Easy Vegan Cheese Cookbook_, by Janice Buckingham
_One-Hour Dairy-Free Cheese_, by Claudia Lucero
_This Cheese is Nuts!_, by Julie Piatt
Trying just a few of the recipes from books like these will surely convince you that cows are obsolete.

*Dairy-Free Baking*
If baking is your thing, the dairy-free options are endless. Our Vegan Baking Guide gives you all the advice you'll need to get started. Thanks to the growing popularity of vegan lifestyles there are a number of dairy-free baking cookbooks. Two comprehensive titles are _The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes_ and _Whole Grain Vegan Baking_.

For fantastic dairy-free dessert cookbooks, check out:


_Modern Vegan Baking_, by Gretchen Price
_Chocolate-Covered Katie_, by Katie Higgins
_Chloe's Vegan Desserts_, by Chloe Coscarelli
_Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar_
Give dairy-free baking recipes a try and you'll achieve impressive results. When it comes to baking delicious breads and desserts, going dairy-free entails nothing in the way of sacrifice.

*Your Dairy-Free Diet Will Keep Getting Easier*
Whether you want to cut down on dairy or eliminate it entirely, the transition requires surprisingly little effort. And the longer you stick with it, the more new foods you'll discover, and the easier it gets.

So why not make a commitment to try out a dairy-free lifestyle for a month? If you do, you may find the benefits so compelling that you'll never go back.

You might discover, like I did, that dairy products were gumming your body and significantly reducing your quality of life. Looking back now, I deeply resent how much dairy products stole from me, in terms of the nasal terrible congestion I suffered for so many years. And this doesn't even get into how much animal suffering occurred in order to produce all the milk and cheese I once consumed.

So, for me, the "non-dairy" label doesn't go far enough. I follow the lead of the people at Hug Life Ice Cream and embrace an *ANTI*-dairy lifestyle. There's something uniquely satisfying about kicking this horrible food to the curb once and for all, while showering it with the scorn it so richly deserves.









Dairy-Free Diet Guide: Easy Tips & Helpful Advice


Everything you need to know to go dairy-free. Learn how to ditch milk, cheese, and other dairy products healthfully and without sacrifice.




vegan.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Symptoms of Vitamin B12 Deficiency*
B12 deficiency is known as "The Great Masquerader."









The Symptoms of Vitamin B12 Deficiency | NutritionFacts.org


B12 deficiency is known as “The Great Masquerader.”




nutritionfacts.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Pure joy



http://imgur.com/a/2ajtfLZ


Hope Apple Blossom and her 6 piglets were rescued from slaughter. And this is her dance of joy at being outdoors for the first time, enjoying freedom in their forever home.

sauce Login • Instagram


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*NEW RESEARCH EXPLAINS THE LINK BETWEEN MEAT AND CANCER*

The World Health Organization identifies red meat as a probable carcinogen due to the positive correlation between its consumption and the development of colorectal cancer. Since this declaration, additional studies have also found a link between cancer and red meat, but none have been able to pinpoint causation, only correlation, until now. A new study published in the journal _Cancer Discovery _has identified a DNA mutation that could account for this relationship between meat and cancer.

*Red meat and DNA mutation*
This unprecedented research was conducted by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Head researcher and oncologist Marios Giannakis sequenced the DNA from 900 colorectal cancer patients and found a common mutation-or alkylation-significantly associated with patients who consumed both processed and unprocessed red meat prior to their cancer diagnosis. The chemical compounds found in red meat such as nitroso and heme are believed to cause this alkylation.

While not all cells with this mutation damage turned cancerous, Giannakis found that patients with the highest levels of this mutation had a 47 percent greater risk of colorectal cancer death in comparison to patients with a lower level of damage.

*Cancer research advances*
Scientists have been able to pinpoint the exact chemicals that make tobacco so dangerous, and they also discovered the specific bands of UV light that may mutate into skin cancer. This new research not only adds to the evidence between red meat consumption and cancer-it offers an explanation to support the correlation.

Researchers are hopeful that these findings can be used to help individuals prevent colorectal cancer, or at least catch it at an earlier stage. Doctors can look for this specific alkylation in patients' DNA and advise individuals who already show signs of mutation to cut out red meat. It may also be used as a prognosis for patients who already have cancer, as the amount of alkylation seems to be a reliable indicator of survival rate (the higher the alkylation, the lower the survival rate).

This research comes on the heels of additional evidence that links the consumption of meat and dairy products with an increased risk of breast cancer.









New Research Explains the Link Between Meat and Cancer


Prior research found a correlation between eating meat and colorectal cancer, but this new study has determined causation.




vegnews.com


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## singletrackmack (Oct 18, 2012)

Everything causes cancer...









Soy may raise risk of advanced prostate cancer


Researchers have identified a link between foods rich in isoflavones, such as soy, and a greater risk of advanced prostate cancer.




www.medicalnewstoday.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

singletrackmack said:


> Everything causes cancer...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I disagree and many types of cancer are preventable.



https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cancer-obesity-1.4326982


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Slow & Steady (Nov 4, 2018)

cyclelicious said:


> I disagree and many types of cancer are preventable.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cancer-obesity-1.4326982


Almost all cancers are preventable and it start in your gut! A healthy gut promotes emotional and physical wellness. Most people believe that it's only the physical is affected when you eat certain foods and nothing can be further from the truth it also affects your emotional state! When you eat lighter foods your vibration will follow. If you want to feel alive you must eat foods that are alive like plants uncooked vegetables. Eating meat might give you energy in the moment but in the long run doing it for many years will eventually cause severe issues more than just cancer. As well as eating any type of animal products like dairy or any kind of processed foods.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Wow this is a step in the right direction. They need to go full vegan and eliminate the goose feathers as well. Even if Canada Goose went fully vegan at this point I would still never buy one of their coats. They've gotten rich off animal cruelty and don't deserve a single Canadian penny of my money.









Canada Goose Commits to Going Fur Free


Today, Canada Goose announced that it will end the use of all fur in its products. This announcement is driven by its focus on its purpose-based platf



www.businesswire.com


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

After the software change here, I lost all the threads that I was following. Found this one again, and happy to see it still going.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

Slow & Steady said:


> When you eat lighter foods your vibration will follow. If you want to feel alive you must eat foods that are alive like plants uncooked vegetables.


Scientifically dubious statement is dubious.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> "After about age 20, we may have all the insulin-producing beta cells we're ever going to get. If we lose them, we may lose them for good. Autopsy studies show that by the time type 2 diabetes is diagnosed, we may have already killed off half of our beta cells.
> Fat breakdown products can interfere with the function of beta cells and ultimately lead to their death. A chronic increase in fat levels in the blood can be harmful to our pancreas. It's not just any fat, though, but saturated fat. Indeed, saturated fats are harmful to beta cells, the insulin-producing cells in our pancreas. Cholesterol is harmful, too. The uptake of bad cholesterol, LDL, can cause beta cell death as a result of free radical formation.
> What can we do? Cutting down on animal products and eating a plant-based diet may help in reducing both saturated fat and cholesterol intakes.
> To drastically lower LDL cholesterol levels, we need to drastically reduce our intake of trans fat (found in processed foods and naturally in meat and dairy), saturated fat (found mainly in animal products and junk foods), and dietary cholesterol (found exclusively in animal products, especially eggs)."


What Causes Diabetes? 








What Causes Diabetes? | NutritionFacts.org


Saturated fat can be toxic to the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas, explaining why animal fat consumption can impair insulin secretion, not just insulin sensitivity.




nutritionfacts.org


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## Slow & Steady (Nov 4, 2018)

RMCDan said:


> Scientifically dubious statement is dubious.


Of course it's much easier to make a statement out of ignorance than it is to simply ask what kind of energy is gained from a live plant. Don't worry your not alone..


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

Slow & Steady said:


> Of course it's much easier to make a statement out of ignorance than it is to simply ask what kind of energy is gained from a live plant. Don't worry your not alone..


Please feel free to enlighten me regarding the unique "energy" provided by live plants. I'll go prepare some popcorn.

There is substantial evidence that raw food diets are nutritionally inadequate and that many vegetables are _more_ nutritious when cooked:




__





raw food | Health Topics | NutritionFacts.org







nutritionfacts.org












Raw Food Diet Myths | NutritionFacts.org


Some nutrients are destroyed by cooking, but some nutrients become more absorbable.




nutritionfacts.org


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## Slow & Steady (Nov 4, 2018)

RMCDan said:


> Please feel free to enlighten me regarding the unique "energy" provided by live plants. I'll go prepare some popcorn.
> 
> There is substantial evidence that raw food diets are nutritionally inadequate and that many vegetables are _more_ nutritious when cooked:
> 
> ...


Let me guess you googled that..? Lol!!!
There's a difference between food energy and vibrational energy... I don't have to explain anything to you. Be a man and do your own research. And yes you've been on this forum for a long time so you'll definitely have a few homers jump on your back. Who cares!
But when I make a simple comment cause that's what I know to be true not really sure what about that comment has to do with you making and ignorant response to try and degrade me! Is it not enough mommy and daddy love or a lack of girth? Either way next time instead of making a derogatory remark why don't you go do some research. And remember google is not your answer.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

Congratulations, you've earned a spot my ignore list.


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Slow & Steady said:


> Let me guess you googled that..? Lol!!!
> There's a difference between food energy and vibrational energy... do your own research.


Serious question. I decided to jump down this rabbit hole to research vibrational energy as it applies to diet and well being. I have not found anything scientific that states one way or the other about vibrational energy and how it applies to humans. Do you have any links?


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

dubthang said:


> Serious question. I decided to jump down this rabbit hole to research vibrational energy as it applies to diet and well being. I have not found anything scientific that states one way or the other about vibrational energy and how it applies to humans. Do you have any links?


Links? This info cannot be found through Google, man. You need to go deep into the Dead Sea Scrolls, or the I Ching, or...something.

It's quintessential pseudoscience, like that _What The Bleep Do We Know!?_ movie. Cobble together a bunch of scientific jargon you don't understand, throw in some out-of-context quotes from actual scientists like Einstein, Feynman, Heisenberg, etc., maybe mention something about crystals, and you can put a veneer of empirical authority on just about any absurd idea--and a shocking number of people will believe it since most people's science education ended at Science 101 and they were asleep half the time anyway.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy July 4!


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I was making a red, white and blue fruit bowl for my family this morning, watermelon and blueberries served in a white bowl. But the watermelon smelled funny so I ended up peeling some peaches in place of the watermelon.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Nutritional Benefits Of Pistachios - Usage Tips and Recipes.















*

Definition:

Pistachios are one of the most famous nuts and snacks around the world. The origin of the pistachio tree is in Asia Minor and Western Asia, and to this day it grows in the region extending from Syria to the Caucasus and Afghanistan. When the tree becomes between 6-8 years old, it begins to produce a red seed once every two years. In one year, it produces a large crop, but it does not produce any crops in the following year. The yield of pistachio trees may be affected by several factors, such as drought, severe rains, or high temperatures. These plants grow in the form of clusters resembling grapes, and the core of the bean is the edible part, and it is wrapped with a brown-colored cover, and this envelope can be divided into two halves in appropriate circumstances, as for the color of the heart of the grain, it ranges between yellow and green degrees, and it should be mentioned that Its green color indicates its maturity. Pistachio contains important nutritional elements and benefits, and this is what we will present in this article.

Benefits:

Heart health. Some studies have reported that pistachios help reduce the rate of serious heart disease, and this is because they contain a high percentage of antioxidants that help reduce harmful cholesterol in the blood. In addition, it improves blood pressure levels, which in turn reduces cardiovascular disease. The researchers also found that pistachios are more effective than other types of nuts on lowering blood pressure.

Pregnancy. One of the wonderful benefits of pistachios is its ability to enhance the absorption of iron in the digestive system from various foods, which is especially important for patients with anemia. That is why it is very suitable for pregnant women, because they need iron during this period to prevent anemia during pregnancy, and it is considered a snack between meals.

Eye health. With age, the eye suffers from many problems, the most prominent of which is poor eyesight, but eating pistachios maintains eye health and protects it from macular degeneration diseases. This is because it contains powerful antioxidants such as lutein, which are essential in maintaining healthy eyes.

Proteins. While nuts are generally considered a food treasure, pistachios in particular are an exception as they are scarce in their calorie content. Pistachios are also the second most protein-rich nuts after almonds. Pistachios are rich in amino acids, which are the cornerstone of protein formation, which the body cannot manufacture, but rather gets it from certain food sources.

Weight loss. Pistachios are rich in protein and healthy fiber that promotes a feeling of satiety and loss of appetite, which helps you eat less food. Pistachios are low in calories, and high in unsaturated fats, which are important for weight loss, so it is important to include pistachios in your diet to maintain the ideal weight.
Digestive health. Pistachios contain a large amount of fiber, and while some of them move through the digestive tract to be drained out, others are digested by the beneficial gut bacteria. The beneficial bacteria in the intestine convert the fiber into chains of short fatty acids that have many health benefits, which reduce the chances of developing gastrointestinal diseases.

Other benefits. Pistachios help give the skin freshness and moisture and protect it from wrinkles and pigmentation. Enhancing the immune system in the body and preventing diseases and infections. Reducing blood sugar level. Maintaining healthy lungs and improving breathing. Maintaining the health of the kidneys and preventing stones from forming in them.

Usage Tips and Recipes:

You can introduce pistachios into your food in several ways, here are some of them: You can have your daily portion of pistachios as a small meal between the main meals. Pistachios can be added to fruit salads, which increases their nutritional value. You can add crushed pistachios to yogurt and oats, and enjoy them as a special breakfast. You can prepare a pistachio ice cream recipe.

Pistachios are also eaten and consumed in more than one form and in more than one way, either they are salted or roasted, or they are used to prepare certain products such as peanut butter and peanut flour, and on the other hand, pistachios are one of the basic ingredients of many recipes and delicious foods, especially sweets and sauces. As well as used to decorate various dishes.









Nutritional Benefits Of Pistachios - Usage Tips.







avmedicine.blogspot.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Seen in Toronto


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I was listening to a pod cast this morning about nutrition  and the topic centred around Filipino food and the guest talked about how challenging it was for her living in a country whose diet is primarily meatbased.

Attached is the podcast https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/1019-recovering-filipino

And an accompanying article:

*How Veganism Helped This Filipina Recipe Developer Reconnect With Home*

RG Enriquez, who grew up in the Philippines and now lives in the U.S., has assigned herself an important mission: to change the narrative around her home country's cuisine. The founder of recipe blog Astig Vegan is creating flavorful, plant-based Filipino dishes.

_"[I want to show] as many people as possible that Filipino food can be vegan, healthy, and delicious, without losing its soul," _the recipe developer tells LIVEKINDLY.

Although many traditional Filipino dishes are undeniably meaty (popular party meals like lechon consists of an entire roasted pig), Enriquez has proved that it is more than possible to make healthy, mouthwatering, plant-based versions. Through Astig Vegan and her growing social media platform, Enriquez is spreading the word about plant-based Filipino food beyond her home in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Astig is a slang word for tough, unique, or gutsy in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, and that's how Enriquez sees her food. On her blog, you can find new ways of making traditional dishes, like sisig, for instance. The dish, which originates from the region of Pampanga and is popular across the Philippines, usually features pig head and chicken liver. But Enriquez' version uses three different types of mushrooms, with the shiitake, oyster, and beech giving the dish an umami boost.










There's also vegan mechado. Traditionally a beef and potato stew, Enriquez uses fried tofu, fried mushrooms, or vegan meat to get those familiar textures. The dish is known for its fatty flavor, which often comes from adding lard during the cooking process. Instead, Enriquez uses cooking oil or vegan butter.

She's even created a jackfruit version of Lechon Paksiw, a sweet and tangy meal that uses up the leftovers from the lechon often served at big gatherings. Native to Southeast Asia, and a staple in the province of Davao, jackfruit is often used as a substitute for pulled pork. In this dish, Enriquez uses a fresh chopped, shredded version straight from the can.

On her YouTube channel, there's a wealth of cooking tutorials and "ask me anything" style videos. You can find tips and tricks on how to plant, grow, and cut Filipino recipe staples, like mature coconuts. (Have you ever wondered the best way to cut one open? Let Enriquez guide you here.)

Food is important to the recipe developer, for obvious reasons. But cooking is more than a career or even a passion. As a Filipina now living in the U.S., food provides Enriquez with a valuable connection to her motherland. But it hasn't always felt that way.

*Vegan in California*
Before moving to California at the age of 15, Enriquez was born and raised in the Philippines, about 40 minutes outside of Manila._ ("My mom was a full time homemaker, and my dad would work. We had a really nice life," _she recalls._) _Back then, she didn't just eat meat. She lived for it.

_"I was the biggest meat-eater among my siblings, who were all four girls," _she explains. _"I hated eating vegetables. I loved pork and rice drenched in lard, which was my favorite kids' meal. My mom would have to trick me to eat vegetables." _When she landed in California, she still loved meat, and food, in general. Partly because it reminded her of where she came from.

For Enriquez, being in America made her suddenly very aware of her identity as a Filipina. And, at the same time, she became very aware of losing it. _"It's an ironic thing,"_ she says. _"A 'you don't know what you have until it's gone' type thing."_

"_In the Philippines, you don't really feel the need to represent your heritage because you're already in the country," _she continues. "_I don't have to question or even represent my identity, I just eat whatever delicious Filipino meal my mom makes. But when we moved to the US, it made me miss my Filipino food. Because now, there's more of a barrier. And I'm surrounded by different kinds of heritage. It's not just mine."_

After going vegan - at first for health, and then for ethical reasons - she felt her culture slipping away even more. _"I was geographically away from the Philippines,"_ she recalls. _"And then to add more to that, I gave up animal products. And Filipino food is predominantly animal products."
_
But she cared enough about the nutritional and ethical benefits of veganism to stick with it. And by doing so, she found her calling.

It turns out, going vegan wasn't pulling Enriquez away from her roots, it was drawing her closer to them. She began trying to veganize traditional recipes, but to do that, she had to figure out how to capture those unique, Filipino flavors and textures within a new style of cooking. During that process, she started to learn more than ever about her own culture and country.

_"Before becoming vegan, I loved Filipino food but didn't go deep into studying and appreciating its cultural and historical context,"_ she says._ "Now that I'm vegan and I veganize Filipino food, I find joy in reading about Filipino food literature and studying what makes a dish uniquely Filipino. Because of my vegan lifestyle, I've felt more connected to my culture and community than ever before."_










*The Filipino Vegan Food Scene*
Enriquez is keen to get across that she's not the first to veganize Fillipino cuisine.

The Philippines is home to more than 7,000 islands, each with different cuisines and cooking styles. _"We're so tribal," _she says. _"So we actually have differences in our dishes. Different variations and versions."
_
When she went back to the country in 2019 to learn more about regional delicacies, she saw those differences up close. _"We have a lot of pork, we have a lot of fried chicken, we have a lot of processed meats, but if you really go deeper, if you go to different provinces, there are also vegan dishes," _she says.

And there's more. She didn't just discover plant-based meals during her travels, but a flourishing vegan activist community. _"It's very strong, vocal, and active in championing the cause," _she notes. "_They hold vegan festivals, operate vegan restaurants and businesses, and participate in protests and rallies. And this is not exclusive to Manila. Even other regions like Davao and Cebu have a thriving vegan Filipino community."_

Enriquez is working to grow this interest, and engage even more Filipinos in veganism. _"Filipino organizations both in the US and in the Philippines have invited me to do live cooking demonstrations to help our fellow Filipinos who are looking to transition to the vegan lifestyle and cook their favorite meals,"_ she explains.

To really connect with her audience back home, she's also creating social media content in Tagalog._"I understand they can fully understand English, but there's something different when you can relate," _she says_. "You can put your guard down, and it's not as professional."
_
Back in the U.S., diversifying the Western vegan movement is also important to Enriquez. She wants everyone to engage with her content, and to show non-Filipinos that her home country's food is more than the stereotype of meat centric dishes.

_"I want to share the beauty of our cuisine," _she notes. While she believes progress has been made in this space, with more diverse food on offer than ever before, there is more work to be done. _"It's a slow progression but it's a progression-I definitely see that now,"_ she says. _"I'm really glad that Filipino cuisine is getting more appreciated. It should be."_









How This Blogger's Vegan Filipino Recipes Help Her Connect With Home


Through her blog Astig Vegan, Filipina recipe developer RG Enriquez is changing the way people see Filipino food.




www.livekindly.co


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The horror!















Vulture bee - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*No Body Needs Milk*

Over the past several decades, cow's milk and its byproducts have come to be seen as an essential part of the diet of most Americans. Milk and milk products such as cheese, yogurt, ice cream, whey, kefir and butter have been effectively promoted by the Unified Marketing Plan[1] with a budget in excess of $165 million a year. But this promotion hasn't just been about advertising. Federal laws mandate that all schools will provide children with milk at each meal or face the loss of federal funds. Those responsible for this mandate have chosen to ignore the fact that up to 90 percent of African- American, 70 percent of Asian, and 15 percent of Caucasian children are unable to digest the sugar (lactose) in milk. Despite this and other controversies regarding health consequences, dairy consumption has steadily climbed since 1980. Half of all dairy consumption (per capita consumption currently exceeds 584 pounds per year) comes in the form of cheese, a super-concentrated form of health compromising saturated fat and salt. Of all the animals on the planet, people are the only creatures who routinely consume the milk products of other species. What has been assumed to be a beneficial practice is, in fact, more than merely questionable. The scientific evidence suggests that the consequences of this practice are devastating.[2] It appears likely that no other component in the modern diet causes more pain and suffering, including premature death and disability, than dairy products.

There is compelling scientific evidence that our consumption of dairy products is strongly associated with the following conditions:
Childhood onset (type one) diabetes[3]
Constipation[4]
Otitus Media (ear infections)[5]
Sinus congestion and Rhinitis[6]
Skin problems including rashes, dermatitis, eczema, hives and acne[1]
Asthma[8]
Digestive disturbance (including irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn's disease)[9]
Arthritis and joint pain[10]
Cancer (lymphoma, leukemia)[11]
Obesity[12]
*The Problems With Milk Are Numerous*

*Milk proteins* - All dairy products, especially low or non-fat dairy products, contain abundant quantities of milk proteins. Milk proteins are the most commonly implicated causal factor in promoting the diseases listed above.[13]
*Bacterial contamination* - Dairy products are among the most common foods recalled by the FDA for contamination with bacteria such as salmonella, staphylococci, listeria, Ecoli 01573,and Mycobacterium paratuberculosis.[14] Pasteurization kills most of the bacteria found in milk;however, in doing so, it creates viral fragments that may also be health compromising.[15]
*Biological concentration of toxins *- All animal products, including dairy products,biologically concentrate the various poisons, including pesticides and other environmental contaminants. The resulting meat or milk products have highly concentrated levels of these toxins.
*Hormones* - In order to maximize milk production, dairy cows are routinely injected with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH). This hormone dramatically increases milk production but also increases insulin-like growth factor-1 which has been shown to promote the growth of cancer cells.[16]
*Antibiotics* - Large quantities of antibiotics are given to dairy cattle and may be contributing to the increasing problems of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.
*Gut leakage *- Dairy proteins appear to be particularly well suited to stimulating inappropriate immunological reactions when they are absorbed through an inflamed intestinal mucosa, a process commonly called "gut leakage." In vulnerable patients a variety of inflammatory processes are aggravated and may be associated with many of the disease processes listed above.[17]
*Environmental -* The process of raising dairy cattle for milk and meat is a major user of fresh water and a leading contributor to both water and air pollution. Meat and dairy based diets are very hard on the environment.[18]
*Moral and ethical* - Some people believe that the involuntary incarceration of sentient beings is morally repugnant and refuse to participate in a practice they consider immoral and unethical.









No Body Needs Milk


Thanks to countless millions of dollars in advertising, almost everybody thinks they need milk. Over the past several decades, cow's milk and its byproducts have come to be seen as an essential part of the diet of most Americans.




nutritionstudies.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## J.B. Weld (Aug 13, 2012)

Going vegan could be the single most positive environmental impact you can make.









Going vegan is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce our impact, study finds


Avoiding meat and dairy could reduce your carbon footprint from food by nearly three-quarters




www.independent.co.uk





A healthier heart and improved sexual performance are a few other side benefits. Something to consider.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Hump Day!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*These 23 Vegetables Are Surprising Sources of Protein*

Maybe you're all hyped up from _The Game Changers_. Maybe you're just looking to move toward a more plant-based diet as a runner. Maybe you just like vegetables. Whatever the reason you have for being here, good on you.

If it's one thing that doctors and dietitians across the planet agree upon (and they don't agree upon much), it's that eating _more_ vegetables is good for you. Vegetables contain satiating fiber, disease-fighting antioxidants, and a host of important and essential vitamins and minerals that help you feel generally awesome.

And some vegetables contain protein, that vaunted macronutrient that can help you build and maintain muscle.

But let's set a few things straight before heading into the list of 23 vegetables with protein.

First, vegetables do not contain as much protein as animal sources. This is one of the challenges of following a vegetarian or vegan diet-especially if you're active.

For comparison's sake, one cup of chopped or diced chicken breast has 43 grams of protein. (Just keep this in mind as you move through the list.) While the vegetables that follow are high in protein relative to other vegetables, they aren't high in protein relative to other animal-based sources.

Now, _processed_ plant products like tofu, plant-based "meats," and seiten can all carry more protein, but this list isn't about those products. It's about straight-up, straight-out-of-the ground vegetables.

And, second, for the purposes of creating a diverse group of plant-based options for you to choose from on this list, legumes are considered a vegetable. That's also largely because legumes tend to have more protein than, say, leafy greens. If any biologists want to debate this as a sticking point, by all means go ahead, but don't you have more pressing biology-related issued to attend to?

With all _that_ out of the way, here's a list of 23 vegetables (and legumes) that are surprising sources of protein.

Edamame
They're soy beans in a pod. They're snack-able, especially clobbered with flaky sea salt and dipped into soy sauce. And they have about 11 grams of protein per cup









Pinto Beans
Another legume, yes. (See the intro if you feel like squabbling.) Pinto beans have seven grams of protein per 1/2 cup. Use them as you would any other bean-mixed with rice, stirred into chili, laced into tacos









Navy Beans
One half cup of these broad, white beans has eight grams of protein per cup. Like all beans, they're a strong source of fiber too.









Peas
Yeah, peas! If you eat roughly 3/4 cup of these little green guys, you'll consume five grams of protein.









Baked Potatoes
Mmmmmm, baked potatoes. One large potato has seven grams of protein. Filling too.









Spinach
For every cup of fresh spinach you eat, you'll consume about one gram of protein. Not a ton, yes, but if you eat a salad with four cups of spinach, that's at least something.









Broccoli Raab
One bunch of this bitter green contains a mighty 17 grams of protein-but, admittedly, that's a lot of broccoli raab. That said, a half bunch is pretty reasonable serving and a still delivers a decent about of the nutrient.









Brussels Sprouts
One cup of the cruciferous vegetables, boiled, contains four gram of protein-plus the same amount of fiber.









Button Mushrooms
Also known as white mushrooms, a cup of these contain three grams of protein. Technically, mushrooms are a fungi, and not a vegetable, but whatever.









Turnip Greens
If you tire of spinach, try these fibrous greens, which have the hearty texture of kale, but a mellower flavor. One cup of cooked turnip greens has has about five grams of protein.









Sweet Corn
One medium cob carries about three grams of protein and three grams of fiber. Tastes like summer too.









Oyster Mushrooms
Like white button shrooms, these fungi contain three grams of protein for every one cup, sliced. Unlike white button mushrooms, oyster mushrooms have a meaty texture and mild flavor.









Snowpeas
One cup of raw snowpeas has two grams of protein, which isn't much. But it's something?









Kale
Everyone's favorite superfood delivers on the protein too. Or, at least a bit of the nutrient. One cup of cooked kale has about three grams.









Artichokes
Just one cooked medium artichoke contains three grams of protein and a fiber payload of seven grams.









Broccoli
One cup of chopped broccoli contains about four grams of protein. If you smother it in nacho cheese, yes, that would add some more protein. But at what cost?









Cauliflower
Like it's cruciferous cousin, broccoli, cauliflower contains a little protein. Specifically, one cup carries about two grams of the nutrient.









Dandelion Greens
These bitter greens have a little protein to them. One cup of cooked dandelion greens has two grams of fiber. They make a nice pesto.









Arugula
One cup has about half a gram of protein. So four cups would have two grams. Not terrible for salad green.










Beet Greens
A cup of these cooked greens has about four grams of protein, plus a healthy dose of disease-fighting antioxidants.










Avocados
One avocado has four grams of protein, but also a massive 14 grams of fiber, so watch yourself there.









Asparagus
Eight delicious spears of cooked asparagus contain roughly three grams of protein and 1,325 grams of tastiness.









Lentils
They make a dang good vegetarian chili and a half cup cooked has nine grams of protien.

















These 23 Vegetables Are Surprising Sources of Protein


They're strong.




www.runnersworld.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Athlete Wins 'World's Toughest Race' For The Second Time*
Vegan ultrarunner Harvey Lewis just snagged first place in this year's Badwater 135. Lewis has previously credited his plant-based diet for his boosted athletic performance - especially his endurance.

The Badwater 135 is known as 'the world's toughest foot race'. It spans 135mi. (217km) and features massive slopes.

The start line is at Badwater Basin, Death Valley, which, at 85m below sea level, is the lowest elevation in North America. The finish line is at Whitney Portal, which is the highest point in the contiguous United States at 2530m.

The race includes three mountain ranges, covering 4450m of cumulative vertical ascent, and 1859m of cumulative descent.

Forty-five year old Lewis was the first to cross the finish line this year, completing in 25:50:23 and 100*°*F heat. It's the second time the vegan athlete has won the event.










Lewis has completed the race 10 times, made the podium in five of them, and won the 2014 Badwater race.









Vegan Athlete Wins ‘World’s Toughest Race’ For The Second Time


Vegan ultrarunner Harvey Lewis came first in the 2021 Badwater endurance race. The athlete credits his plant-based diet for his energy levels




plantbasednews.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Well I've done my bit to save the planet!  A new study has found that men emit 16% more greenhouse gases than women because they spend more money on fuel and meat.

*Men Are Worse for Climate Change Than Women Because They Love Meat and Cars*

Men emit 16 percent more greenhouse gases than women because they tend to spend more money on fuel and eat more meat, among other things, a new study has found.

The discrepancy is attributed to spending habits, or what men choose to spend their money on-and not because men spend more money than women overall. In fact, they only spend about 2 percent more than women in total, according to the study, published in the _Journal of Industrial Ecology_.

"These expenditures are as you would expect in a gender stereotype: Women spend more money on health care, furnishings, buy more food, clothes. Men spend more money on eating out, alcohol and tobacco, and more money on cars and fuels," said the study's lead author, Annika Carlsson Kanyama, with the research company Ecoloop in Sweden.

"If men spent money the same way as women, their emissions would be similar but they are not," Carlsson Kanyama said.

Carlsson Kanyama and her team analyzed 217 products and services frequently purchased by single men and women Sweden, and found that diets, holidays, and furnishings and their repairs (new and used cups, bookcases, beds, and dishwashers, for example) represented the largest sources of consumer emissions-up to 60 percent of emissions in total.

For single men and women in Sweden, food and drink accounts for about a quarter of emissions, holidays account for about a third, and furnishings make up between 2 and 5 percent. (While holidays and food habits are the biggest sources of emissions, the team included furnishings because it shows "where sharing and second-hand practices can make a difference.")

A person's total greenhouse gas emissions can decrease by 36 to 38 percent when people change their eating, vacation, and furnishing habits, and they don't have to spend more money to do so, according to the study. Men spent 70 percent more on fuel and other high emitters. They also spent more on meat, but women spent more on dairy. 
Meat and dairy have "much higher emissions than all their replacements," including tofu, soy and oat milk, and vegetables, the study says, while travel by train or "staycations" offer alternatives to air and car travel. Pork, for example, is five times more polluting than tofu, while lamb is a whopping 25 times more polluting than tofu.

Carlsson Kanyama's study seeks to illustrate how greenhouse gas emissions caused by household consumption can be reduced without additional costs. Experts have repeatedly said it's important to factor in the differences between men and women when measuring emissions, but few studies have captured it.

"Gender is one of many factors to take into account when talking about how we can reduce emissions," Carlsson Kanyama said. "Lowering car use, for example. Men use cars more than women, so maybe policies should target men."

"We should encourage men to spend money like a woman&#8230; even if of course women have to make changes too."
The team collected data from 2012 from Statistics Sweden-the most recent data available from the agency. They turned to other indices, so that they could make conclusions based on spending patterns from 2016. Carlsson Kanyama said more recent data could include some differences, but it would probably show the same "overall pattern."

"I looked at older data, beginning in 2000, and the differences were there then," she said. "And Sweden is a very equal country, so if you find differences in Sweden, you're likely to find them in many other countries-and perhaps more pronounced."

While women are less likely to emit greenhouse gases, they're bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a European network of citizen-led environmental organizations, recently released a report calling for a continent-wide environmental strategy that factors in gender diversity.

"Women with varying levels of marginalization, for instance, racialized women, young women, women with disabilities and non-gender conforming people, face intersectional discrimination," the report says. "They are more vulnerable to environmental problems and effects of climate change and the risk of being left behind in the green transition."

For decades, climate scientists have been issuing dire warnings about the climate crisis. This year, however, even they say they're surprised by how quickly extreme weather events have escalated-fatal floods, heat waves, and forest fires have been tearing through Canada, the U.S., and western Europe.

"We're at a point where everyone on the planet now has felt the impacts of climate change itself, or at least someone they love or know has," Merritt Turetsky, director at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, told CNN.









Men Are Worse for Climate Change Than Women Because They Love Meat and Cars


A new study has found that men emit 16% more greenhouse gases than women because they spend more money on fuel and meat.




www.vice.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to eat like a vegan athlete*

Millions of people around the world are tuning in to watch the Tokyo Olympic Games. Some of the Olympians who are the top of their game have credited their sporting success to adopting a vegan diet.

Novak Djokovic is one of the world's most famous vegan athletes. The world number one tennis player has said he attributes a great deal of his success to his diet. He started by removing gluten and dairy from his diet in 2010 after developing allergies and struggling with respiratory problems, and eventually switched to a completely plant-based diet.

In an interview with journalist Graham Bensinger, Djokovic revealed that he eats a lot of fruit and salads, and grains such as quinoa, millet and wild rice. He also takes superfood supplements which give him "mental clarity."

"I cut out red meat because I had to put a lot of energy and effort into the digestive process. That would take a lot of essential energy I needed for my focus, recovery and the next training session," he said during the interview.

Other vegan athletes competing at the Tokyo Olympics include Australian sprinter Morgan Mitchell, who says a vegan diet has made her feel less sluggish, and US basketball player Diana Taurasi who has credited her vegan diet for her career longevity.

Eating a vegan diet is the single biggest way to reduce our environmental impact on the planet, research shows.

Meat and dairy production is responsible for 60 per cent of agriculture's carbon emissions, but provides just 18 per cent of calories and 37 per cent of protein levels worldwide, according to a 2018 study by researchers at the University of Oxford.

Not eating meat and dairy could reduce an individual's carbon footprint from food by up to 73 per cent, the researchers concluded.
If everyone stopped eating meat and dairy, global farmland use could be reduced by 76 per cent, 3.1 billion hectares, an area equivalent to the size of the US, China, Australia and the EU combined, the study found.

Besides the environmental impacts, there are health benefits associated with a vegan diet.

Vegetarian and vegan diets are linked with a reduced risk of a number of chronic diseases including obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and overall cancer mortality, according to a 2016 study by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

"More plant-based diets can provide a wide variety of nutrients and natural phytochemicals, plenty of fibre and tend to be low in saturated fat, salt and sugar," according to Alex White, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation.

Athletes have higher energy and protein dietary requirements than the general population. Current protein recommendations for the general adult population are 0.75g of protein per kg of bodyweight per day. Professional athletes should aim to consume 1.2-2.0g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight, according to the British Nutrition Foundation.

"This can be achieved through a well-planned vegan diet," White told _The Independent._ "There is no clear evidence to suggest that vegan diets impact performance differently to a mixed diet."

To ensure they get enough protein, vegan athletes should consume a range of plant-based proteins which contain essential amino acids, such as grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, said White.

Certain important nutrients, including omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, vitamin D, zinc and vitamin B12 are found less abundantly or are less well absorbed in plant-based food compared to animal products, according to a report by the Gatorade Science Institute. Vegan athletes may choose to take supplements to ensure they absorb enough of these essential nutrients.

Athletes, especially young women, also need to make sure they consume enough iron. "One tip for vegans is that vitamin C helps the body absorb iron from plant-based sources, such as beans and pulses, so pairing these foods with foods high in vitamin C, such as tomatoes, peppers and leafy green veg, can help the body absorb more iron," said White.

Vegans often have lower muscular stores of creatine, an organic compound which helps energy production during high intensity exercise or heavy lifting, than other athletes. They therefore may benefit from taking the supplement phosphocreatine, White said, adding that it should only be taken after consulting a sports nutritionist and for short-term, high-intensity exercise.

_What world number one tennis player Novak Djokovic eats in a day:_

Breakfast: Warm water with lemon and celery juice. Fruit smoothie with algae

Lunch: Fruit and grains such as quinoa or millet

Dinner: Sweet or normal potatoes, boiled or steamed

Source: 




_What Australian sprinter Morgan Mitchell eats in a day:_

Breakfast: Vegan breakfast burrito with tofu, beans, mushrooms, vegan cheese and spinach.

Lunch: Vegan chicken salad or vegan grilled cheese sandwich

Dinner: Beyond meat burger or Buddha bowl made with tempeh

















How to eat like a vegan athlete


Olympians including Novak Djokovic and Australian sprinter Morgan Mitchell credit sporting success to their vegan diet




www.independent.co.uk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## J.B. Weld (Aug 13, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> Eating a vegan diet is the single biggest way to reduce our environmental impact on the planet, research shows.


I know I'm repeating myself but anyone who considers themselves an environmentalist (and/or an animal lover) should really consider this. Think of improved overall health as a side benefit.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Eating foods high in flavonoids could slow down cognitive decline, a study says*









Eating a plate full of colorful foods like strawberries and peppers, which include flavonoids, could slow your cognitive decline, a new study found.
People who ate about 600 milligrams (0.02 ounces) of flavonoids per day had a 20% lower risk of cognitive decline than those who ate only 150 milligrams (0.005 ounces) per day, according to the study published Wednesday in the American Academy of Neurology journal.
A 100-gram (3.5-ounce) serving of strawberries has about 180 milligrams (0.006 ounces) of flavonoids, while an apple has about 113 milligrams (0.003 ounces), the study said.
Flavonoids are a series of compounds with strong antioxidant abilities that are commonly found in many fruits and vegetables, said study author Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Damage to the "blood supply to the brain is an important contributor to cognitive decline," said Willett, adding that the anti-inflammatory properties of flavonoids help protect that blood supply, which in turn slows down the cognitive decline.
Cognitive decline can lead to diseases like dementia and Alzheimer's, he added.
The study spanned nearly a quarter of a century and had about 75,000 participants. The average age of the participants at the start of the study was 50, and they are now in their 70s and 80s, Willett said.

People's brain functions begin to decline in our 20s and 30s, but we usually don't notice it until we reach our 70s, he said. Eating foods high in flavonoids could make the downward slope less steep, he added.
After tracking the participants' diets over 20 years, researchers had them answer a questionnaire multiple times over a four-year period to determine cognitive decline, Willett said.
Each person's cognitive decline was calculated with six yes or no questions. Questions included "Do you have more trouble than usual remembering a short list of items, such as a shopping list?" and "Do you have trouble remembering things from one second to the next?"
Because the study took place over decades, the results are much more valid than other studies that occur over a couple years, said Dr. Daniel Potts, a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and attending neurologist at the US Department of Veterans Affairs in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who was not involved in the study.
"Cognitive decline is something that takes place slowly, so when you're assessing it, you're able to pick up subtle changes better over a long period of time," he said.
*How to eat more flavonoids*
Willett said there isn't a specific number of flavonoids people should eat each day, and they shouldn't be counted or measured.









Eating foods high in flavonoids could slow down cognitive decline, a study says | CNN


Flavonoids are commonly found in fruits and vegetables and have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties.




www.cnn.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Eat like a vegan athlete - Lisa Gawthorne*









One of the most well-known vegan athletes in the country, Lisa Gawthorne is also a successful author, entrepreneur and passionate advocate for veganism. She has represented Great Britain in the duathlon and is currently ranked at 9th in the world for her age group at Sprint Duathlon.

Alongside being a full-time athlete, Lisa launched the vegan snack company Bravura Foods in 2011 which produces a wide range of well-known plant-based brands. She is also the author of the bite-sized vegan health and fitness book Gone in 60 Minutes and has been featured in a number of journals, magazines and papers, as well as appearing on TV.

We asked Lisa how a plant-based diet supports her training, what her favourite meals and snacks are, plus any advice she has for new vegan athletes&#8230;

*When did you decide to go vegan and why?*
I turned vegan in 2003 after being vegetarian since the age of six. I have always had a strong affinity with animals and never truly felt comfortable relying on them for any source of food or material so in 2003, I decided to switch from being vegetarian to vegan.










*What does your typical daily diet look like when training for a big event?*
*Breakfast* - Homemade muesli with oats, barley, spelt, berries, flaxseed and almond milk.

*Lunch* - Layered salad bowl with tofu - lettuce, spinach, tomato, beetroot, quinoa, marinated tofu.

*Dinners* - Greens (broccoli, green beans and peas) with seitan or tempeh strips.

*Snacks* - Cashew nuts, vegan vanilla protein powder, vegan protein bars, apple and peanut butter, peanut butter on rice cakes, vegan yogurt.

*Do you find that a plant-based diet boosts your performance?*
I really believe it does as plant-based foots are rich in phytonutrients which are full of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Plant based foods are also rich in vitamins that help boost our energy levels. I also find that because you are not asking your body to do the hard work of digesting animal based protein in the stomach overnight, you wake up feeling more refreshed, so it helps with recovery in between those training sessions. This in turn also offers great benefits to performance.










*What are your main sources of vegan protein for muscle recovery and maintenance?*
Tofu, seitan, tempeh and jackfruit are my go-to mock meats along with mixed beans and legumes. Cashew nuts, pumpkin seeds and peanut butter also feature largely in my diet. It's really important to try and mix your protein sources up so if you are planning a vegan curry for example, you don't just have to put tofu in there, think about other mixed beans and nuts you can add. It makes it tastier and more nutritious and a vegan curry like this is a big favourite of mine after tough sessions.

*Are there any nutrients that a vegan diet may lack for duathletes, and if so, how do you compensate for them?*
Everyone gets very fixated on B12, but I have never had a B12 deficiency in my 18 years of being vegan and my 34 years of being meat-free, and I am quite a fussy eater to be honest. I think the more important thing to remember here is to listen to your body. If you feel fatigued - and this applies to anyone not just vegans - then look at taking a vitamin B complex as the other B vitamins are really important for their energy-producing properties.

I have always taken vegan multi vitamins as I think its important, particularly as an athlete, to try and safeguard the immune system. The beauty about a lot of vegan foods now is that they are fortified with vitamins - particularly vegan milks and cereals so that's super helpful too.

*How do you stay hydrated when cycling and running over long distances?*
I am caffeine-free, so I use electrolytes instead. I just make sure that they are vegan and they also happen to be sugar free too which is good for the teeth! I always make sure I have them handy in training and race sessions.

*What are your favourite vegan snacks for boosting energy?*
Peanut butter and banana on toast is a good one and I also love quinoa porridge with strawberry jam.

*What do you typically eat after a big race?*
I make sure I have a good balance of carbs and proteins so I will have some kind of grain - either rice, quinoa, millet or farro, with some green vegetables and grilled tofu strips.

*What would your all time favourite meal be inside/outside training?*
*Inside training* - Layered veg bowls - lots of mixed vegetables mixed in with tofu, tempeh and some farro.

*Outside training* - Vegan pizza and birthday-style cake.

*What would be your top diet and exercise tip for people considering starting duathlons? And especially those who are following vegan diets?*

The first thing would be to ensure you are enjoying it. Make sure you pick a sport you love - it just so happened I loved running and cycling and duathlons combined the two.
Exercise-wise, I would say its important to plan out your week in advance as its important to give a good amount of time to each discipline to try and improve them both at a similar rate, that's where the big gains are! Once you have trained and you are feeling comfortable with where you are at, look to enter a local race to put your work to good use and every time you race, you will learn new things that you could do better next time, so every race - no matter how well or bad it goes - take the learnings on board.
Diet-wise, I would say its important you are taking in enough fuel to get the most from your sessions, and try and look at how functional your food is - ask yourself what is this food doing for me - Is it boosting my energy? Is it helping me recover? Make a note of how foods make you feel so you can select the best foods to keep you energised and well recovered.
Avoid any foods that make you fatigued, bloated or sleepy unless it's on a non-training period. Generally eat foods that are kind to you and will help you on your journey.
Don't be too restrictive - I tend to eat very clean in the week but I do relax that at weekends as its all about balance.





__





Eat like a vegan athlete - Lisa Gawthorne | BBC Good Food


Elite duathlete, Lisa Gawthorne discusses how a vegan diet effectively fuels her training. Read her tips on energy-boosting meals, protein sources and more.



www.bbcgoodfood.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Should you go gluten-free?*
*Unless you have gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, a gluten-free diet isn't necessarily healthier







*

Gluten-free products are everywhere, it seems. But is a gluten-free diet healthier? It's worth educating yourself before making a decision on whether to go that route.

*Gluten sensitivity and celiac disease*
Gluten is a general term for the storage proteins found in wheat, barley, rye and related cereal grains, like triticale, spelt and kamut. In people with celiac disease (an autoimmune disorder that affects fewer than one per cent of people in North America) or dermatitis herpetiformis (a skin version of celiac disease), gluten damages the small intestine, resulting in poor absorption of nutrients. For them, even a small amount of gluten is harmful, and a strict gluten-free diet is the only effective treatment. (Symptoms may include diarrhea, constipation, stomach pain, bloating, gas, weight loss, chronic fatigue or weakness, low iron levels, muscle cramps and pain in the bones or joints.)

People with non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which may affect up to 13 per cent of North Americans, also benefit from avoiding gluten-containing foods. Since the symptoms are very similar, a proper clinical assessment is necessary for a clear diagnosis. Some of these symptoms may also be related to irritable bowel syndrome (ibs), so it is important to determine whether gluten is the cause.

I hit a paywall... but you can get the drift. 








Should you go gluten-free? - Canadian Running Magazine


Unless you have gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, a gluten-free diet isn’t necessarily healthier




runningmagazine.ca


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Kinda surprised...clean sweep for beans!

















Lentil vs Bean - In-Depth Nutrition Comparison


Lentil vs Bean - In-Depth Nutrition Comparison. Compare Lentil to Bean by vitamins and minerals using the only readable nutrition comparison tool.




foodstruct.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I'm not saying it


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## trmn8er (Jun 9, 2011)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Watermelon is a summertime staple. But what's hidden behind the sweetness?*










Whether they're serving as snacks at a family reunion or props in a late-night comedy act, watermelons and fun just seem to go together. But how does watermelon hold up health-wise?

Smashingly, you might say.

"I'm definitely impressed by its health benefits," said Tim Allerton, a postdoctoral researcher at Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.

Fruit is always part of a healthy diet. But watermelon's combination of nutrients makes it special, Allerton said.

It's a rich source of minerals such as potassium and magnesium. It's also a good source of vitamins C and A (plus beta carotene, which helps produce vitamin A), and it has fair amounts of vitamins B1, B5 and B6. You get all of that for only 46.5 calories per cup.

Befitting its name, watermelon is about 92% water, which suggests why ancestral watermelons were carried in Africa's Kalahari Desert as long as 5,000 years ago. This is a treat with a lineage: Modern-looking versions are depicted in ancient Egyptian tombs.

Where watermelon really stands out is in its concentration of certain antioxidants, which regulate cell-damaging free radicals in the body. "Our body has its own antioxidant system, but it helps to get a boost from our diet," Allerton said. "And watermelon is a good source of those antioxidants."

Lycopene, which gives watermelon its reddish color, is one of those antioxidants, along with vitamins C and A. Lycopene also works as an anti-inflammatory and has been linked to lower stroke risk. It is most abundant in cooked tomato products, but watermelon's lycopene levels are about 40% higher than raw tomatoes.

Watermelon also has glutathione, which Allerton called a "versatile, global antioxidant."

And watermelon is high in an amino acid called citrulline, which has been a focus of Allerton's research. "Watermelon is pretty unique because not a lot of foods are high in this," he said.

In a small 2013 study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, citrulline in watermelon juice was credited with helping relieve sore muscles in athletes.

Citrulline also is linked to the production of nitric oxide, which is important for the health of blood vessels. Several small studies suggest citrulline in watermelon extract could lower blood pressure, although those effects were seen in people eating the equivalent of more than 3 pounds of watermelon a day for six weeks.

That's a lot of watermelon. But aside from the general idea that overindulgence in anything is a bad idea, Allerton said there's no downside to enjoying it.

Even though it has natural sugar and a high glycemic index - a measure of how fast sugar enters the bloodstream - it has a low glycemic load. That means its actual effect on blood sugar is small. And it will fill you up faster than, say, a bowl of cookies.

All nutrition and science aside, afficionados of the fruit just enjoy the taste. Superfan Mark Twain wrote, "It is the chief of this world's luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat."

Allerton prefers his straight up, but he adds that watermelon juice retains many of the benefits of the whole fruit because so much of the fruit is water already.

That makes watermelon work well in smoothies. Or you can turn it into a fruit salsa.

Experts agree the secret to finding a ripe one is to look for a creamy yellow spot from where the watermelon sat on the ground. If the spot looks more white than yellow, then the melon may not be fully ripe. Weight also is a sign of quality - the heavier the better.

But most experts say you can't learn much about a watermelon's ripeness from thumping one. So you can probably leave that to the comedians.









Watermelon is a summertime staple. But what's hidden behind the sweetness?


Lycopene and citrulline are just two of the nutrients that make watermelon a healthy summertime treat.




www.heart.org


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I was laughing earlier because my wife bought a watermelon and we already have so much fruit around, blueberries, grapes (muscadines), and figs I picked, blackberries in the freezer that I picked earlier in the summer (we already had three cobblers), peaches I bought on the way home from the mountains last week and strawberries that she'd bought earlier. Oh, and there's a few oranges in the fridge and apples from the grocery store as well. And bananas. And avocados. And tomatoes.

It's a bountiful time of year!


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> Allerton said there's no downside to enjoying it.


It is a pretty potent diuretic.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Miyoko's Kitchen Wins Landmark Legal Battle To Label Vegan Butter Products








*

iyoko's Kitchen, a leading vegan cheese and butter brand, is celebrating victory over a landmark legal battle.

Last year, it was served a temporary injunction by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). It came as the company was using labels including 'cruelty-free' for its vegan butter products.

Following this, the company filed a first amendment lawsuit against the CDA - and won.

*Miyoko's Creamery*
Federal court documents confirm California is not allowed to ban the brand from using terms 'butter', 'lactose-free', and 'cruelty-free'. Additionally, Miyoko's Creamery can include 'revolutionizing dairy with plants' on its vegan butter.

Under US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeling regulations, companies are restricted from 'misbranding' items.

In 2019, the CDA wrote Miyoko's a letter stating the company was giving a 'misleading' - and therefore illegal - impression of 'a dairy food without [dairy] characteristics'.

Furhtermore, Miyoko's was asked to remove images on its website of a woman hugging a cow.

Founder and CEO Miyoko Schinner announced: "Food is ever-evolving, and so too, should language to reflect how people actually use speech to describe the foods they eat.

*Vegan butter battle*
The Animal Legal Defense Fund represented Miyoko's Kitchen's in court, helping to secure the win. Executive Director Stephen Wells said: "The CDA's attempt to censor Miyoko's from accurately describing its products and providing context for their use is a blatant example of agency capture.

"The fact that animal-milk producers fear plant-based competition does not give state agencies the authority to restrict one industry in order to help another.

"Using words such as 'butter' and 'milk' in the context of even products made from plants and not from animals is common parlance among consumers in the modern world.

"We are extremely pleased by this ruling. And, believe that it will help set a precedent for the future of food."









Miyoko’s Kitchen Wins Landmark Legal Battle To Label Vegan Butter


Leading vegan cheese brand Miyoko's Kitchen is celebrating winning a legal battle to label its vegan butter 'cruelty-free'




plantbasednews.org


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

*7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Went Vegan*
Joy Manning

When my cholesterol numbers climbed out of the normal range, my doctor prescribed me a statin and strongly advised me to take it. My high cholesterol is genetic-I exercised and my diet was already pretty good. Nonetheless, I told her I wanted to try diet first, and she reluctantly gave me six months to bring those LDL levels down.

As a health writer, I had read the research on plant-based diets and heart disease. I felt confident that I could move the needle on my cholesterol by cutting out animal foods. Spoiler alert: It's four years later now, and all my blood lipid numbers are in the "ideal" range. Thanks, plants! But my journey wasn't entirely smooth or linear. Here are the things I wish I had known before making the switch.

*What I Wish I Knew Before Going Vegan*
*1. Mindset is everything.*

Some of my biggest obstacles had to do with how I thought about myself and what I feared other people would think about me. I worried about being labeled "high-maintenance" when I shared meals with other people.

A huge turning point for me was embracing a new identity as a food rebel. I don't eat like everybody else, and I'm cool with that now. I started thinking of myself not as "weird" but as "ahead of the curve." Everyone will be eating more plant-based in 10 years, after all.

I practiced putting my own health needs ahead of other people's comfort and convenience. It turns out that making bold public statements such as, "Pizza doesn't work for me; let's order from the falafel joint instead" and "I'm bringing vegan mac and cheese to Thanksgiving" actually doesn't cause your friends and family to immediately disown you.

*2. None is easier than some (for me).*
After my initial diagnosis, I decided to adopt a "mostly" plant-based diet. I figured I could get all the benefits by being 90% vegan. And I still think that's probably true-for some people.

To use a Gretchen Rubinism, I'm an "abstainer." She writes, "If I never do something, it requires no self-control for me; if I do something sometimes, it requires enormous self-control." Over time, my self-control wore out. My supposedly 90% vegan diet sometimes looked more like the ice cream and Parmesan cheese diet.

After having some initial success bringing my numbers down, they crept back up as my vegan-ish diet became less vegan, more -ish. I decided to embrace my "abstainer" personality, go full vegan and bid a fond farewell to all animal products. And almost immediately after making that commitment to myself, adhering to a fully plant-based diet became effortless.

*3. Vegan junk food exists-and it's good.*
If it's been a while since you sampled it, I'm telling you: Vegan junk food has become dangerously good. (Have you tried the Field Roast mini corn dogs or Oatly's mint chip ice cream?)

Every diet needs some treats, and I absolutely enjoy some vegan junk food. But I try to stick to options that are low in saturated fat (Tofutti Cuties are a fave) because you can do just as much damage to your health on a processed-food-laden vegan diet as you can eating animal products. By some accounts, a vegan junk food diet is worse. I have been through times of overdoing processed vegan snacks, and I know now that when it comes to any kind of ultra-processed food (vegan or not) I want to proceed with caution.

*4. Planning is essential.*
In my life as an omnivore, I could take off on an adventure without thinking too much about what I would eat. I could find a meal at any restaurant or convenience store. Now I don't leave home without supplies: nuts, an apple, a container of hummus, whole-grain crackers or carrot sticks. I research available restaurant options in my path with the Happy Cow app to know what plant-based options I'll find. Many times, I eat before parties and other events because vegan food can be scarce out there.

*5. You can still go to restaurants.*
For a while, I was afraid to visit restaurants without clearly marked vegan menu items. I've learned along the way that a majority of restaurants can offer me something wonderful for dinner. Calling the restaurant in advance to chat about my dietary restrictions is a must.

Sometimes a chef will make you something so inventive and appealing, your table mates will be jealous. Other times, you'll get a serviceable bowl of pasta and vegetables which is also pretty good. But most of the time, you will be able to make it work so you can eat with your people. You'll just need to learn how to advocate for yourself if you want something more than french fries and a side salad.

*6. You'll probably be a positive influence.*
A lot of people are vegan-curious. A 2017 Nielson report found that 39% of non-vegans want to eat more plant-based foods. Be prepared for questions from their ranks after you make the switch.

I've been very surprised by loved ones who have followed my lead. My mother is making an effort to eat plant-based most of the time, and my brother-in-law has taken an interest in vegan cooking and baking. My husband has been surprisingly happy to eat the plant-based meals I make for myself. He eats very few animal products these days and no meat-centric meals. This is a good thing for all of us, since eating plant-based can be great for your health.

*7. You must take a vitamin B12 supplement.*
I always knew this in theory, and yet I wasn't taking one. My last round of bloodwork revealed I was B12 deficient. I thought I would get enough B12 from fortified packaged foods, but during the pandemic my husband began making our soymilk and breakfast cereal (two of the most commonly fortified foods) from scratch. I thought I was getting plenty in the copious amount of nutritional yeast I enjoy, but I accidentally switched to an unfortified brand without this essential nutrient.

If you're planning on following a low-to-no animal product diet, get yourself a B12 supplement before you begin. Plus, make sure you're getting other important nutrients on a vegan diet with these tips.



https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/7-things-wish-knew-went-201801918.html


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good stuff Squeaky!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Ultramarathon Runner Attempts Gruelling 2,190 Mile Challenge For 2nd Time*








Scott Jurek, a world-renowned ultramarathon runner, is attempting to break his own record for the second time in a grueling challenge.

The tricky Appalachian Trail stretches along a staggering 2,190 miles from Georgia to Maine in the US.

And, six years after setting the world record, Jurek plans to beat it again.

*Vegan ultramarathon runner*
Since going vegan in 1997, Jurek has smashed a host of victories such as the Spartathlon, Hardrock 100, and 135 mile Badwater Ultramarathon.

His reasons for changing his diet are both to improve endurance, recovery, and to help the environment.

Currently, he's taking on the Appalachian Trail for the second time. Moreover, the course consists of 157,000 meters and will see Jurek take on at least two miles of height every day.

On his first go in 2015, Jurek set the fastest known time (FKT) of 46 days, eight hours, and eight minutes. As it has since been broken, Jurek hopes he can claim the title once again.

*Record-breaking challenge*
Jurek told _Great Vegan Athletes_ about his preparations. He said: "I'm going to be consuming tons of coconut oil and olive oil, olives, avocados. And, just going for fat sources because it has nine calories for every gram.

"Also, I'll rely on this plant-based egg from JUST, for some comfort food egg sandwiches.

"I'll also have vegan ice cream and green smoothies with spinach and kale and things, so I can still get some veggies. I think last time, I ate two salads the whole time."

The athlete is expected to complete the challenge this September.









Vegan Ultramarathon Runner Attempts Gruelling 2,190 Mile Challenge


Scott Jurek is a world-renowned vegan ultramarathon runner and is attempting the challenge once again since setting the record six years ago




plantbasednews.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Fish feel pain, are sentient, and are far more intelligent than we thought.

*It's an inconvenient truth that fish have feelings too*
Now that there is scientific consensus that fish feel pain, it's time to change how we think about catching and eating fish










Ready for another inconvenient truth? Here's one: fish feel pain, are sentient, and are far more intelligent than we thought.

Even more inconvenient - we need to do something about it.

The scientific evidence that fish are sentient (able to feel and perceive things) has been piling up over the past few decades, but this information, much less its implications, has yet to permeate public consciousness.

When people think of fish, it's usually as food, sport or something to look at in an aquarium. Are we ready to accept that fish have feelings?

There is now a scientific consensus that fish feel pain. Research has shown that, like mammals, they have pain receptors (nociceptors) that detect injury. And, although their nervous systems and brains are different from ours, they are capable of experiencing pain. Studies have found that fish change their behaviour when subjected to a painful event and that painkillers prevent that behaviour, indicating that they are suffering, not just physically reacting to a negative stimulus.

In her groundbreaking 2010 book Do Fish Feel Pain?, biologist Victoria Braithwaite summed up her view on the issue: "I have argued that there is as much evidence that fish feel pain and suffer as there is for birds and mammals - and more than there is for human neonates and preterm babies."

But fish can feel more than pain. Research has shown they can experience fear, depression and pleasure. The case for fish sentience has been eloquently made by Jonathan Balcombe in his book What a Fish Knows, which he says he was inspired to write "when I became aware of fascinating scientific discoveries about fishes that revealed rich, complex lives, and I realized how very little of this information was reaching the public consciousness."

Many scientists now subscribe to such views. Culum Brown, a biologist at MacQuarie University in Australia who has studied fish cognition and behaviour for 25 years, has said, "You should think about fish in the same way you think about a pig or a cow."

Evidence for fish intelligence is also well established. One remarkable example is the cognitive ability of the frillfin goby, a small fish frequently trapped in rock pools when the tide goes out. Often, the gobies jump from pool to pool, but how do they know where the next pool is and how far to jump? Scientists have researched this question for a number of years, concluding that the gobies are able to make a mental map of the positions of the pools so they know exactly where to jump. So much for the myth that fish have a three-second memory.

*Humane choices for fish eaters*
Studies have found that fish use tools, recognize other fish and can recognize themselves in a mirror (an ability previously thought to be confined to humans and a few other animals such as primates and dolphins.)

Our image of fish as dead-eyed, silent, scaly creatures makes it hard to regard them as intelligent beings with feelings, but the science cannot be ignored. We need to change the way we think about fish.

That means thinking about fish welfare. We give many other animals - dogs, cats, farm animals, terrestrial wildlife - at least some measure of welfare protection under the law or through regulation. Fish get almost none.

Improving their welfare is challenging, but there are steps that consumers, government, and industry can take.

As vegetarians and vegans will argue, the best step is to stop eating fish and switch to a plant-based diet. It's an ethical choice that would also reduce the consumption that has led to 90 per cent of the world's marine fish stocks being fully exploited, overexploited or depleted.
For those who do eat fish, there are few humane choices. Hooks hurt. Fish suffocate when they are hauled out of the water. Some pioneering fishers have invested in technology to stun fish within seconds of being brought aboard, but such methods are rare in the fishing industry.








It's an inconvenient truth that fish have feelings too - NOW Magazine


Now that there is scientific consensus that fish feel pain, it's time to change how we think about catching and eating fish




nowtoronto.com




Fish farms are notorious for poor fish welfare and environmental problems, but the development of Canada's first code of practice for farmed salmonids is a sign that fish welfare is starting to be taken seriously.

Such developments may take years to have a significant impact on fish welfare. They need support and investment from government and industry.

In the meantime, it's best to leave fish off your plate.


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## J.B. Weld (Aug 13, 2012)

cyclelicious said:


> Fish feel pain, are sentient, and are far more intelligent than we thought.
> 
> *It's an inconvenient truth that fish have feelings too*
> Now that there is scientific consensus that fish feel pain, it's time to change how we think about catching and eating fish
> ...


Many decades ago I remember my dad thumping the head of a fish before cleaning it and I asked him if that hurt the fish and he replied "Fish don't have feelings". Even though I was only 6 years old and the info was coming from my dad I was skeptical, mainly because I could plainly see the fish writhing and gasping for oxygen. I continued to fish with my dad and really enjoyed those times together but as the years wore on I became more and more sure that fish do indeed have brains and feelings just like any other animal. It's amazing to me that any adult would think otherwise.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How To Pick The Perfect Watermelon*










Most people think that picking the perfectly juicy, red and tasty watermelon is a game of luck. Watermelon season usually runs through the summer from May to September, but this can also depend on the climate in your region. I've had some bad experiences selecting these fruits myself, but now, I know better than to go home with two watermelon heads and find over-ripe, rotten fruit all over. So let's talk about how to pick a watermelon - the perfect watermelon

Sometimes, you may cut it open and you'll have bland, whitish, under-ripe fruit in the center. Although watermelons are 92% water, a perfectly ripe watermelon fruit should have simple sweetening sugars and enough lycopene to give it a rich red color.

If you're looking to change your watermelon-buying game for life, an experienced farmer has some awesome tips for you this season. Since no one's going to cut it open and put it back if it's not ripe, you have to learn to select the right one by assessing its shell.

*How to pick a watermelon*
Here are five important things to bear in mind when choosing the perfect watermelon:

*Gender*
Yes, watermelons have genders too. The female fruits are the sweeter variety. The males tend to be watery and more on the tasteless side. Look out for those shorter, rounder fruits (the girls), rather than the elongated, spherical ones (the boys).

*Look out for the field spots*
The field spot is the part of the watermelon's shell on which it was resting out in the farm or field. Field spot colors can range from creamy-white to creamy-yellow and golden-yellow. Go for the ones with the golden-yellow spots. They are usually the ripest and sweetest.

*Not every glittering thing is gold - don't go for the shiny ones*
It's a trap. Go for the ones with a dull, uninviting appearance. They usually have the reddest fruit inside. Shiny, perfect colors indicate an unripe fruit. Don't fall for it, especially when you're with a little kid.

*Size*
A lot of people believe that the larger fruits have the sweeter taste. This is true for the most part. However, don't go for the extra-large ones. Usually, all the parts on the inside wouldn't be equally sweetened, and these take longer to ripen. The smaller fruits are quicker to spoil. Go for the average-sized fruits. They are somewhere in between and are always the perfect ones. Also, not all large watermelons are heavy enough. Heaviness is an indication that the fruit is juicy, so go for the average-size, heavy ones.

*Knuckle bounce*
To check the ripeness of the fruit, knock on it and observe the bounce-back of your knuckles. If the fruit is still good, the shell should be hard and firm, and your knuckles should bounce right off. If it's starting to spoil, you'll get a dull sound and a soft feel on your knuckles.

*Brown webbing*
The webbing is the outer scarring that shows the frequency of pollination of the watermelon plant. Bees have to pollinate the flowers, and the more the pollination, the sweeter the fruit would be. Go for the fruits that have deep brown webbings. They are usually the sweetest ones.

*The fruit tail*
Even if the tail has been nipped to the bud, you should still be able to see a stud somewhere. Go for the fruits with a dried brown tail. This shows it was picked at the right time and should be sweet enough. Fruits with a fresh, green tail are often under-ripe and bland-tasting.

A plate of chilled, red, juicy watermelon in the heat of the summer is life-saving. From the above tips, I'll say that the perfect watermelon is the female, gold-spotted, brown-webbed, hard-shelled, average-sized, dull-colored, dry-tailed, heavy fruit.

We hope this guide on how to pick a watermelon helps make your next bbq one to remember!









How To Pick The Perfect Watermelon: 5 Tips From An Experienced Farmer


Have you ever picked an under-ripe watermelon and ruined your entire summer's work over it? Let's talk about how to pick a watermelon.




thegardenmagazine.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*This Is What Happens to Your Body When You Give Up Meat*









Many esteemed evolutionary anthropologists point to a growing body of evidence showing that our earlier ancestors weren't the skilled and canny hunters of popular imagination. Increasingly, they posit that we got our taste for the flesh of other beasts from scavenging from animals that really are natural born killers. A 2015 study measured how much meat lions and leopards left on a kill and concluded that they'd be plenty left to meet the total daily caloric requirements of at least one male **** erectus, possibly more.

There's a broad consensus among scientists that the frequent consumption of meat enabled our brain volume and mental capacity to grow far beyond that of the other hominidae-the taxonomic family that includes all the extant species of gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and bonobos. Though many of us might blanch at the thought, eating meat has made us who we are as a species. (As a side note, we are now on the cusp of consuming meat that comes without all the death that, until now, has been part and parcel of every delicious, nutritious mouthful.)
Given how important meat has been to the human story, and how vegetarianism and veganism has done a takeover of your Instagram feed, you might wonder what happens to the human body if you walk away from it completely. Well, wonder no more.

*Inflammation decreases*

The complex biological response of body tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants is commonly known as inflammation. In essence, it's a protective response-considered a mechanism of "innate immunity" and in many circumstances, it's your friend. Still, you don't want inflammation to come to your "rescue" when you have been chowing down on a ribeye, yet that's what can happen.
"Animal products contain inflammatory compounds such as saturated fats and endotoxins," says Virginia Beach-based dietician Jim White. He adds that by contrast, plant-based diets are naturally anti-inflammatory due to their high fiber and antioxidant content. White points us to a study which demonstrated that plant-based diets result in a decrease of the C-reactive protein, an indicator of inflammation within the body.

*You may run low on certain vitamins and minerals*

Most of us are well aware that meat packs a lot of protein and, depending on the animal, cut and preparation method, a fair amount of fat, too. What we don't talk about as much is the vitamins and minerals present in things we eat that once mooed, clucked, baaaed, or oinked. Going without some of these vitamins and minerals for extended periods of time can have health consequences. That's why vegetarians and especially vegans often need to seek them elsewhere.

"Not eating meat does require you to pay more attention to certain nutrients," says Atlanta-based nutritionist Marisa Moore. Moore explains that B12, omega-3 fatty acids, and iron are a few of the top ones you'd need to keep an eye on. They can be found in places other than flesh: B12 is abundant in nutritional yeast and fortified foods, for instance, and "you can get vegetarian sources of iron in beans and leafy greens"-enhanced when combined with a source of vitamin C. Omega-3s, found in fish, come in an algae supplement or foods like chia or hemp seeds.

*Your microbiome changes*

Your microbiome is the word used to describe the the trillions of microorganisms living in your body. Long overlooked, these microorganisms are increasingly recognized as being crucial to our overall health. They produce important nutrients, train our immune systems, turn genes on and off, help protect us from cancer, and keep the tissue in our gut healthy. Studies have demonstrated they play a role in obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, atherosclerosis, autoimmune disease and liver disease.
The bad news for meat lovers is that meat and other animal products can a create something called trimethylamine oxide, or TMAO, in the gut that frankly, you don't want in there. "Meat consumption triggers bacteria within the gut to produce a substance that the liver converts to the toxic product TMAO, which [at high levels] increases cholesterol, which could up your risk of cardiovascular disease," White says, explaining that plant-based diets produce little to no TMAO and their high fiber content promotes growth of healthy bacteria within the gut.

What's more, research suggests that people who have been sticking to a plant-based diet for some time make little or no TMAO after a meal containing meat, because they have a different gut microbiome. It only takes only a few days of cutting out animal products for our gut bacteria to change.

*Living longer is not out of the question*

Seventh Day Adventists are a protestant Christian denomination whose American members, on average, live several years longer than the national average. The fact that their church discourages them from smoking and drinking alcohol is likely responsible for some of that difference, as are their tight-knit communities. They are also non-meat eaters. Given that the regular consumption of meat is associated with a slew of chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, infections, kidney disease, liver disease or lung disease, the significance of this particular behavior on longevity can't be ignored.
At the DNA level, there's evidence showing that plant-based diets are better at stopping people from fraying at the ends-literally. "A plant-based diet has been shown to lengthen telomeres, or the caps at the end of chromosomes that keep DNA stable, resulting in cells and tissue to age more slowly," says White, adding that shortened telomeres are associated with earlier death and aging. "Additionally, the nutrients in plant-based diets optimize how cells repair damaged DNA."








This Is What Happens to Your Body When You Give Up Meat


The more subtle effects of going vegetarian.




www.vice.com





utm_source=vice_facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR1Hku1jibszdQ_qYGtmal-YmF9D9GlWdF-Ax5llH7kFKY7dr7_vNiADUgM


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

How bad was this problem that the Sobey's had to make a sign to address it?
Also, one of the first things you see when you walk in.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

This is pretty much what I aim for (very similar to Dr. Greger's daily dozen checklist). Although I have to go out of my way to get enough non-berry fruit in a day.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*6 TIPS FOR LOSING WEIGHT ON A VEGAN DIET*

According to a study published in the _Journal of General Internal Medicine_, individuals who follow a vegan diet for approximately 18 weeks shed, on average, four pounds more than those who follow animal-based diets. The beauty of the vegan diet is that there are no gimmicks involved, no hardcore caloric restriction, and no bonking from malnutrition in the middle of the afternoon. Plus, you can eat carbs (unrefined carbs, that is)! Follow these six tips to lose weight the healthy way, and save the animals and the planet while doing so.

*1. Weigh calories versus nutrient density*
Weight loss and nutrition are all about return on investment. You want to aim for foods that are low in calories but high in nutrients. Stick with these, and not only will you feel energized and satiated throughout the day, but you also won't have to bother with calorie counting. Typically, vegetables have the least amount of calories while providing a robust profile of nutrients-followed by fruit, starchy produce (squash, potatoes, corn, and oats), whole grains, and beans and legumes. Focus on these foods to make up the bulk of your meals, and consume higher-calorie plant foods such as nuts, seeds, and avocados sparingly.

*2. Focus on fiber*
Constant hunger is one of the main reasons why diets fail. When you focus on high-fiber foods, you'll feel fuller for longer, as this essential (but highly underrated) nutrient is slow to digest. Most Americans are fiber-deficient and don't even come close to the American Heart Association's recommendation of 25 grams per day. High-fiber foods include leafy greens, fruit, legumes (includes beans, lentils, and peas), and oats.

*3. Limit processed foods*
Sure, those vegan crackers might contain some fiber, but they probably also contain calorically dense oils and other ingredients that could lead to weight gain. It's a wonderful thing to live in a world where vegan options abound, but just because it exists doesn't mean we should help ourselves to non-dairy ice cream or vegan grilled cheeses every day. Focus on plants, and enjoy these vegan treats only on occasion.

*4. Train your taste buds*
We're just going to say it-cravings suck. Along with hunger, those incessant neurological signals are another culprit of weight-loss failure. There is no magic pill to stop the cravings, but over time, you can at least bend them to your will. Your taste buds and gut microbiome can adapt to what you feed them. Over time (give it six weeks or so), your body will start to crave the healthier food you give it. We know that this is a major trust exercise, but we promise it works. For example, there is probably a vegan product or vegetable you didn't like before you went vegan. Not a fan the first time you tried vegan cheese, but now you always keep it stocked? Freaked out by Brussels sprouts, but now you crave them every winter season? See? Trust the process.

*5. Put food in your fridge*
Don't leave your meals to spur-of-the-moment decisions. You don't have to write out a plan or spend hours on a Sunday meal-prepping, but you should keep healthy food on hand so you don't end up getting vegan pizza delivered. Convenient foods to keep on hand include frozen veggies, quick-cooking grains, pre-chopped vegetables and lettuce, canned beans, oil-free hummus, and sauces (try Roots), and fruit galore (if you've never tried cotton candy grapes, you need to). For especially busy lifestyles, a digital meal planner is a great place to start (we created this one curated just for plant-based eating). With a well-stocked kitchen, there's no excuse to not eat incredibly delicious, plant-based meals.

*6. Spring clean your Instagram feed*
Just as you would unfollow a person who was giving off negative vibes, it helps to unfollow any accounts that trigger cravings or undermine your self-esteem. If you know that you act on impulse whenever your local vegan bakery posts a two-for-one deal, it might be time to take a break from that account (you can always re-follow them after you hit your weight-loss goal). Also, get rid of any accounts that make you feel guilty or like you're not good enough. Images of ripped vegan bodybuilders or lean plant-based yogis can be aspirational and motivating to some, but if they make you feel down on yourself or trigger thoughts of hopelessness, these accounts aren't helping. During the first few weeks of your weight-loss journey, you may even want to delete the app from your phone. Focus on you; because you're worth it, and you're going to be successful.









6 Tips for Losing Weight on a Vegan Diet


Looking for tips to losing weight on a vegan diet? From more fiber to limiting processed food, here’s what you need to know.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why potato milk, a newcomer to plant-based dairy, may be the most sustainable option








*

Non-dairy milks made from oats, almonds and soybeans have become commonplace in grocery stores and coffee shops, but this fall, a new competitor is making its way to select cafés in Canada: potato milk.

The product was developed by Eva Tornberg, a professor with the department of food technology, engineering and nutrition at Lund University in Sweden. She says she saw an opportunity to create sustainable milk with potatoes because they contain high-quality proteins that are transformed into milk by adding rapeseed oil, chicory fibre and pea protein.

"Potatoes saved people from starving during the 19th century," said Tornberg, who is also head of innovation and development at Veg of Lund, the Swedish company behind potato milk, which is marketed as Dug. "It has everything: good protein, high starch content and high vitamin C content."

Potato milk is currently only available in Sweden, U.K. and China, but Tornberg said it's been a hit among consumers, and they've nearly run out of stock. She credits the milk's success to its creamy texture and rather neutral taste.

Potato milk might also be the most environmentally friendly milk option. Tornberg's research revealed it takes 56 times less water to grow potatoes than it does to produce almonds.

The potato is one of the most productive and easy-to-grow foods in the world. Potatoes are very water- and land-efficient, meaning they produce more food per square metre and use less water than many other plants.

But how sustainable is it? Let's compare it to other milks.

*Almond*

Tornberg said it requires 16,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of almonds, compared to 270 litres for a kilo of potatoes. And about 80 per cent of the world's almonds are grown in California, which is experiencing a record-breaking drought.

"Almonds are grown in Mediterranean[-type] climates, where there is a lot of sun and not a lot of water," said Alissa Kendall, professor of civil environmental engineering at University of California, Davis. "Almonds take a lot of water to grow and that water is often irrigated instead of rain-fed water. You end up using groundwater or surface water to grow the food."

*Soy*

Soy milk performs better in terms of water use, averaging around 2,500 litres of water per kilogram of soybeans, but studies have found that soy milk is the worst plant-based milk in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. That's largely because of the clear-cutting that can occur to make space to grow soy, which ends up releasing more carbon.

Kendall, who studies the environmental impacts of agricultural systems, said it really depends on where the soy is being grown.

"Soy grows all around the world and is then turned into soy milk, so some of the really high numbers are generated from studies in Europe that assume that the soy is grown in Brazil and and has some responsibility for deforestation," said Kendall.

Soy milk can be more sustainable when grown in other parts of the world, she said, especially when it's grown closer to where you, the consumer, live.

*Oat*

Oat and potato milk have comparable carbon and water footprints, but according to Tornberg, growing potatoes is twice as efficient as growing oats in terms of land use.

"Potatoes are more productive than other plant bases that are used in milk."

*Dairy*

Despite some of their shortcomings, Kendall said all plant-based milks perform better than dairy milk in terms of water use, carbon footprint and land use.

"With dairy, you have to feed cows a lot of feed, and on top of that, they generate methane while they metabolize all that feed and produce milk, so their carbon footprint is huge," she said.

Not only that, but she said growing cattle feed requires a lot of water and dairy processing is an energy-intensive process.

*Choosing the most sustainable milk*

While potato milk seems like a strong, sustainable option, Kendall cautions that where and how your vegan milk is packaged can have a bigger impact on the environment than its production.

"These plant-based milks are actually mostly water, meaning that there's not much of the plant in the milk," said Kendall. "So just like any product where most of the product is water, things like shipping and packaging are actually pretty important to think about."

Kendall recommends people check labels to see where plant-based milks are packaged. Some companies package the milk closer to where it is sold, which saves shipping and is thus better for the environment.



https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/what-on-earth-potato-milk-1.6169917?fbclid=IwAR3BZObyAFamo7aEgfsAvTctvp2ifI5Q5N5vUu6t039mrHgJtydc4GwioC0


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How Fermented Food Works Its Magic on Your Gut*










Culinary trends come and go, but it seems like fermented food's popularity is here to stay. Fermented food is easy to buy and simple to make-plus, it's delicious, nutritious, and can help reduce kitchen waste. So, whether you're a die-hard sauerkraut enthusiast or a curious novice, you might be wondering what the fermentation process actually involves. How does the science work? And is fermented food and drink really as good for you as people say?

Natural fermentation dates back thousands of years to human prehistory, and some of the earliest evidence indicates that people have enjoyed fermented alcoholic beverages since at least 13,000 BC. But according to the outdoor museum Living History Farms, humans' first forays into fermentation may go back even further than this.

Some of humanity's early attempts aimed to preserve easily-spoiled food sources such as dairy would have resulted in natural fermentation, producing yogurt. It's likely that North Africa was home to the first-ever yogurt makers, thanks to the region's high temperatures and the microflora already present in goat, sheep, camel, and cow milk.

In general, fermented foods are a central part of human history, and people have used the science of fermentation to produce everything from beer to bean curd. Today, fermentation as a natural preservative could even help reduce the world's food waste at an industrial level if transformed into new and shelf-stable fermented products such as sauces and snacks.

Furthermore, the Good Food Institute (GFI) has said that fermentation could become the third pillar of alternative protein production-revolutionizing the flavor, texture, appearance, and sustainability of plant-based meat, eggs, and dairy products in the coming years.










*How does fermentation work?*

The chemical process of fermentation involves the breaking down of one substance into a simpler substance via enzymes. In food and beverage manufacture, fermentation can refer to any use of microorganisms to bring about desirable chemical changes in ingredients.

This could describe the brewing of alcohol, the preserving of food, or the development of new flavors. This is because fermentation can alter the taste and nutritional profile of staple ingredients along with their longevity.

The fermentation process itself occurs with the introduction of beneficial microorganisms (such as bacteria and yeast) to an ingredient, alongside the removal of oxygen. Temperature also plays a critical role, though this varies from recipe to recipe (and sometimes region to region).

For example, the majority of modern, home vegetable fermentation requires some time at room temperature for the enzymes to get to work before refrigeration. This then slows the process down and allows for further safe storage.

French chemist Louis Pasteur (yes, the process of pasteurization is named after him) first discovered the connection between yeast and fermentation in the mid-1800s. He thereby created zymology, the science of fermentation, as we know it today.

At this time, the process was purely a way to preserve and extend the longevity of stored food. Experts would not recognize its various health benefits until the early 1900s when Russian bacteriologist Elie Metchnikoff noted the relative unusual longevity of Bulgarian citizens for the time (up to 87 years).










*Is fermented food good for you?*
Fermented food really is good for you, but the jury is still out on whether it can actually extend your life. As with all "health foods," fermentation is not a cure-all-but it does give your stomach's natural bacteria (and thereby your immune system) a nutrient-dense and delicious boost.

Some research indicates that fermented foods can have antimicrobial, anti-carcinogenic, anti-allergenic, and blood-pressure-lowering effects. At the very least, the probiotics (or "good" bacteria) contained in foods like kombucha help your body digest and absorb other nutrients.

There are approximately 100 trillion bacteria in a person's intestinal system, and everyone's microbiota is different. Humans' relationship with this bacteria is symbiotic, and keeping your gut healthy (by taking exercise, avoiding stress, consuming less sugar, and eating probiotic foods) can have a direct, positive impact on your overall wellbeing, including mood.

Plus, fermented foods are rich in vitamins. Sauerkraut is high in fiber, iron, magnesium, calcium, and vitamins B, A, K, and C, while miso is rich in vitamins B, E, and K, plus folic acid and essential minerals.

In addition, fermented foods are simply easier for your body to digest. The fermentation process even makes ingredients such as soy and gluten (which many people have trouble digesting comfortably) more manageable. For example, tempeh is easier on the digestive system than processed tofu, and sourdough bread is better for those with a gluten sensitivity.










*What foods can be fermented?*
Simple fermentation techniques make preserving and flavoring fruit, vegetables, grain, nuts, and legumes easy. But there are a surprisingly large number of popular ingredients that already incorporate fermentation. In fact, you may have been eating fermented foods for your entire life without realizing.

One of the most popular foods of the moment is kombucha, a fermented tea-based drink that combines sugar with a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast ("SCOBY"). It's a far cry from sauerkraut, but the naturally fizzy beverage has that distinctive tang of fermentation.

The probiotic drink originated in 220 BC Northeast China (Manchuria) and was popular for its perceived healing benefits and tart flavor, much like today. However, it's worth noting that a lack of regulation and empirical evidence casts some doubt on some bolder claims.

For example, some say that kombucha can help tackle health problems such as arthritis and depression. While fermented foods can be nutritious-and a well-balanced diet undeniably supports health improvements-they are not a replacement for medical treatment.

Tempeh is another fermented product you may have consumed without realizing it. The traditional dish involves the inoculation of cooked soybeans with rhizopus mold to create a nutrient-dense loaf of mycelium. (Note: both miso and nattō use fermented soybeans and live cultures.) Tempeh originates from Indonesia and makes an easy swap for tofu and other plant proteins.

Modern brunch staple sourdough is actually the single oldest form of leavened bread in human history. Much like the creation of yogurt, the first sourdough starter may have been created by accident. Sourdough bread is delicious and comes with several benefits that conventional bread does not, such as a lower glycemic index and reduced gluten.










*Can you do it at home?*
DIY fermentation is simple, affordable, and satisfying. The easiest ingredients to ferment at home are fresh vegetables, as in dishes such as sauerkraut (cabbage and caraway seeds), kimchi (cabbage, radish, and spices), and beet kvass (beets, raisins, and sugar).

Lacto-fermented fruit and lacto-fermented veggies are also simple to make. They rely on naturally occurring lactobacillus bacteria for fermentation and taste tangy rather than vinegary. Fermented fruit is both sweet and sour, a perfect accompaniment to desserts, yogurt, and smoothies.

Sterilized jars, your desired fruit or vegetables, salt, and spices, are all you need for basic home fermentation. You can sterilize jars easily by washing and then drying them in a preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or by boiling them thoroughly on the stove.

Cut your ingredients into small, even pieces, as preferred. For sauerkraut, many recipes suggest a salt rub to start off the cabbage. Once the shreds have separated from their own brine, it's time to stir through the spices and place the mixture in jars. Remove all the oxygen by topping with cling film or a piece of parchment paper.

To learn more about fermenting (and pickling) at home, check out LIVEKINDLY's in-depth guide here. To find out about the need to prevent unnecessary food waste, read on here.









Here's How Fermented Foods Can Heal Your Gut


What is fermentation? From kombucha to tempeh, fermented foods, and recipes are more popular than ever (and easy to make at home).




www.livekindly.co


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's not straightforward. Deforestation that's done to herd cattle or grow crop that serve as food for livestock; animal transport; processing meat; methane emitted from cattle, etc etc. It's a tough number to calculate but the study does provide a good presentation of the impact

*Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds

Production of meat worldwide emits 28 times as much as growing plants, and most crops are raised to feed animals bound for slaughter *









The global production of food is responsible for a third of all planet-heating gases emitted by human activity, with the use of animals for meat causing twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods, a major new study has found.

The entire system of food production, such as the use of farming machinery, spraying of fertilizer and transportation of products, causes 17.3bn metric tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, according to the research. This enormous release of gases that fuel the climate crisis is more than double the entire emissions of the US and represents 35% of all global emissions, researchers said.

"The emissions are at the higher end of what we expected, it was a little bit of a surprise," said Atul Jain, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois and co-author of the paper, published in Nature Food. "This study shows the entire cycle of the food production system, and policymakers may want to use the results to think about how to control greenhouse gas emissions."

The raising and culling of animals for food is far worse for the climate than growing and processing fruits and vegetables for people to eat, the research found, confirming previous findings on the outsized impact that meat production, particularly beef, has on the environment.

The use of cows, pigs and other animals for food, as well as livestock feed, is responsible for 57% of all food production emissions, the research found, with 29% coming from the cultivation of plant-based foods. The rest comes from other uses of land, such as for cotton or rubber. Beef alone accounts for a quarter of emissions produced by raising and growing food.

Grazing animals require a lot of land, which is often cleared through the felling of forests, as well as vast tracts of additional land to grow their feed. The paper calculates that the majority of all the world's cropland is used to feed livestock, rather than people. Livestock also produce large quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

"All of these things combined means that the emissions are very high," said Xiaoming Xu, another University of Illinois researcher and the lead author of the paper. "To produce more meat you need to feed the animals more, which then generates more emissions. You need more biomass to feed animals in order to get the same amount of calories. It isn't very efficient."
The difference in emissions between meat and plant production is stark - to produce 1kg of wheat, 2.5kg of greenhouse gases are emitted. A single kilo of beef, meanwhile, creates 70kg of emissions. The researchers said that societies should be aware of this significant discrepancy when addressing the climate crisis.

"I'm a strict vegetarian and part of the motivation for this study was to find out my own carbon footprint, but it's not our intention to force people to change their diets," said Jain. "A lot of this comes down to personal choice. You can't just impose your views on others. But if people are concerned about climate change, they should seriously consider changing their dietary habits."

The researchers built a database that provided a consistent emissions profile of 171 crops and 16 animal products, drawing data from more than 200 countries. They found that South America is the region with the largest share of animal-based food emissions, followed by south and south-east Asia and then China. Food-related emissions have grown rapidly in China and India as increasing wealth and cultural changes have led more younger people in these countries to adopt meat-based diets.

The paper's calculations of the climate impact of meat is higher than previous estimates - the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization has said about 14% of all emissions come from meat and diary production. The climate crisis is also itself a cause of hunger, with a recent study finding that a third of global food production will be at risk by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at their current rate.

Scientists have consistently stressed that if dangerous global heating is to be avoided, a major rethink of eating habits and farming practices is required. Meat production has now expanded to the point that there are now approximately three chickens for every human on the planet.

Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist at Columbia University who was not involved in the research said the paper is a "damn good study" that should be given "due attention" at the upcoming UN climate talks in Scotland.

"A fundamental unknown in global agriculture is its impact on greenhouse gas emissions," Ziska said. "While previous estimates have been made, this effort represents a gold standard that will serve as an essential reference in the years to come."









Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds


Production of meat worldwide causes twice the pollution of production of plant-based foods, a major new study has found




www.theguardian.com


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## Slow & Steady (Nov 4, 2018)

dubthang said:


> Serious question. I decided to jump down this rabbit hole to research vibrational energy as it applies to diet and well being. I have not found anything scientific that states one way or the other about vibrational energy and how it applies to humans. Do you have any links?


Sorry I know this is a bit old and I just seen your response. Haven't been on for a while. This give you an idea, other than that the best way for you to experience it is just to feel it yourself by raising your consciousness.








Top 10 Foods for Raising Your Vibration - Happy earth people


by Sara Best We all know that you are what you eat. If you eat nutrient-poor, unbalanced, processed food, your energetic vibration will be drastically reduced. You will feel tired, maybe a little sad and discouraged. The people you interact with will feel your low energetic frequency (even if...




happyearthpeople.com


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## Slow & Steady (Nov 4, 2018)

By eating dead animal you also take on the vibration of that animal in which it experiences right before death. Meat and processed foods all create cancer and other type of medical issues. This may not happen while you're young or even the first 20 years that you eat these products but when you get older your body can't keep up and eventually start getting sick. It can be a slow process for some but over time the inevitable will happen!
Cancer, heart disease, liver damage 
Hair loss, skin issues, being lethargic,
ECT.....


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## dubthang (Apr 2, 2009)

Slow & Steady said:


> Sorry I know this is a bit old and I just seen your response. Haven't been on for a while. This give you an idea, other than that the best way for you to experience it is just to feel it of yourself.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So no science. Got it, thanks.


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## Slow & Steady (Nov 4, 2018)

dubthang said:


> So no science. Got it, thanks.


Science? Lol.... Remember science once said cigarettes weren't bad for you? Science also said that eating meat was good for you, science also said that cocaine wasn't bad for you so Coca-Cola put it in their drink. Grow up!!! Since science has yet to fully catch up, this is as good as you're going to get for now. And yes I'll admit I said don't trust Google but I'm in the middle of something and I don't have time to hold your hand.





__





quantum physics - Google Search






www.google.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Healthy plant-based diet associated with lower stroke risk








*

People who eat diets with higher amounts of healthy plant-based foods and lower amounts of less-healthy plant-based foods may reduce their risk of stroke compared to people with lower-quality diets, according to a new study led by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. They found that healthy plant-based diets-defined as rich in foods such as leafy greens, whole grains, and beans, and including lower levels of foods like refined grains, potatoes, and added sugars-may lower overall stroke risk by up to 10%.

"Our findings have important public health implications, suggesting that future nutrition policies to lower stroke risk should take the quality of food into consideration," said first author Megu Baden, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Nutrition.

The study was published online March 10, 2021, in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Evidence suggests that plant-based diets may lower the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases; however, few studies have looked at whether these diets lower the risk of stroke, and their results have been inconsistent.

In this study, researchers analyzed health data from 209,508 women and men in the Nurses' Health Study, Nurses' Health Study II, and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, who did not have cardiovascular disease or cancer at the start of their participation. They were followed for more than 25 years and completed diet questionnaires every two to four years.

Participants were scored on diet quality based on the healthfulness of the plant-based foods that they ate. People who ate a serving or less of meat or fish per month were classified as vegetarians.

The researchers found that a healthy plant-based diet-in addition to being linked with 10% lower overall stroke risk-was associated with a modest reduction in risk of ischemic stroke, the most common type of stroke, which occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked. There was no association found between a healthy plant-based diet and reduced risk of hemorrhagic stroke, which occurs when an artery in the brain leaks blood or ruptures.

In a separate analysis, the researchers did not find any association between a vegetarian diet and lowered risk of stroke, although they noted that the number of study participants classified as vegetarians was small. The researchers suggested that this result-as well as inconsistent results in prior studies looking at plant-based diets and stroke risk-may in part be explained by a high proportion of low-quality plant-based foods in participants' diets.

"Many individuals have been increasing the amount of plant-based components in their diet," said Kathryn Rexrode, associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and co-author of the paper. "These results show that higher intake of healthy plant-based foods may help reduce long-term stroke risk, and that it is still important to pay attention to diet quality of plant-based diets."









Healthy plant-based diet associated with lower stroke risk


For immediate release: Wednesday, March 10, 2021 Boston, MA – People who eat diets with higher amounts of healthy plant-based foods and lower amounts of less-healthy plant-based foods may reduce th…




www.hsph.harvard.edu


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

Slow & Steady said:


> Science? Lol.... Remember science once said cigarettes weren't bad for you? Science also said that eating meat was good for you, science also said that cocaine wasn't bad for you so Coca-Cola put it in their drink. Grow up!!! Since science has yet to fully catch up, this is as good as you're going to get for now. And yes I'll admit I said don't trust Google but I'm in the middle of something and I don't have time to hold your hand.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You're doing God's work here my friend, don't ever change.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

Read _The Immortality Key_ by Brian Muraresku and you'll never look at witches the same way again.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

RMCDan said:


> Read _The Immortality Key_ by Brian Muraresku and you'll never look at witches the same way again.


I'm going to check this out!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is milk bad for you? *

Sixty-five percent of the global population is lactose intolerant, and yet most Americans (even those who are lactose intolerant) are convinced that they need to drink the mammary secretions of another animal to survive. Dairy is a food group after all, and we're indoctrinated at a young age through our parents, marketing ads, and even the school cafeteria that milk does a body good. Are vegans missing out on optimum health benefits of cow's milk, or is there a good reason to stay away? Here's everything you need to know if you've got milk.

*What's in milk?*
Flavored milk and lactose-free milk aside, the only thing that is added to milk during the udder-to-carton process is vitamin D. All commercially sold milk is fortified with this vitamin. The substance that ends up in a plastic gallon with a cheery illustration of pasture-raised dairy cows is a pasteurized concoction taken from lactating dairy cows. Therein lies the issue-it's not what's added to milk, it's milk itself that poses health risks. Each mammalian species produces milk that is unique to their offspring. Milk is essentially baby food, and in the case of cows, it's meant to nurture and grow a 100-pound calf into a roughly 1,000-pound cow over the course of a year. Compounds in milk-such as IGF-1, a growth hormone-spur this development. While necessary for baby cows, too much IGF-1 can be harmful to humans. A mounting body of scientific research has linked the hormone specifically found in cow's milk to increased cancer risk, as it may trigger unregulated or excess growth of cancer cells.

In addition to natural growth hormone, cow's milk also contains a cocktail of bovine sex hormones. A label claiming "no added hormones" is inconsequential, because the animal's hormones naturally pass into her milk. Due to the speed in which dairy cows are impregnated, give birth, and re-impregnated (yes, mammals must give birth to produce milk), most commercially available milk comes from a pregnant cow. Like humans, a pregnant female cow's body is raging with hormones including estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, testosterone, and others. These hormones can all be found in the glass of 2 percent served with dinner or the whole milk used in a Starbucks latte.

Dairy milk also contains lactose-a sugar molecule. Lactose is the culprit of lactose intolerance. Everyone is born with the ability to digest lactose, but as we age, most lose this ability because nature believes we should be eating solid foods and therefore have no use for breast milk. Mammalian bodies stop producing lactase-the enzyme needed to break down lactose-after infancy. This explains why the majority of humans are lactose intolerant as well as why lactose intolerance symptoms (bloating, gas, diarrhea, stomach pain), may get more severe over time. Note: lactose-free milk isn't truly lactose-free-it's treated with a lactase enzyme which pre-digests the lactose for you.

Neu5Gc is another component found in all dairy milk. It's a sialic acid found in many mammals, yet it is a foreign compound to human bodies. As such, when Neu5Gc enters the system, the body mounts an immune response, triggering inflammation. While this inflammation may be acute to start (meaning temporary), regular consumption of dairy milk (and therefore a constant influx of Neu5Gc) can lead to a chronic inflammatory condition which sets the stage for a number of diseases including cardiovascular issues and cancer.

*Is milk healthy?*
To define what is healthy, it's necessary to look at the complete nutrient package. There's no denying that milk does provide some essential nutrients including eight grams of protein, about a third of the Recommended Daily Allowance for calcium, and some vitamin D (thanks to fortification). The dairy industry capitalizes on these nutrients to promote the idea of health, but ads fail to mention the other components of milk that are less than beneficial. All milk-even skim varieties-contains trans fat, a harmful substance that the USDA claims is not safe in any amount. Trans fat is not always apparent on nutrition labels, because according to food labeling laws, a company may write "0" for any nutrient that comes in at under 0.5 grams per serving. Trans fat can cripple arteries, impede blood flow, and eventually lead to heart disease when consumed in excess. Milk also contains saturated fat and cholesterol which can lead to similar ailments. As mentioned earlier, dairy milk naturally contains several components that have been linked to an increased risk of cancer.

Consuming cow's milk for its protein or calcium content is like consuming artificial fruit gummies for their vitamin C content. Sure, both contain necessary nutrients, but they also contain a whole lot of other things that aren't good for you. It's all about the total package, and milk simply doesn't cut it.

*Milk and the environment*
Meat gets a bad rap for its environmental toll, but despite milk's massive demand on natural resources, it often gets a pass. At the very least, people don't tend to think of the dairy industry's impact on the environment as much as meat, and if they do, they often point their finger at those darn thirsty almonds. Here are the facts: it takes 1,000 gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk. Broken down by the glass, that's 120 liters of water for every eight-ounce serving of cow's milk. In comparison, only 74 liters of water are needed to produce an eight-ounce serving of almond milk, and a mere 10 liters of water are needed for the same amount of oat milk. Also on the topic of water, the Environmental Protection Agency has faulted the dairy industry as a major contributor to US water pollution, as the runoff from its manure lagoons-enormous cesspools of cow excrement-can seep into the soil or overflow. These pools are so difficult to seal completely, the industry is even allowed a certain amount of leakage, determined by the state. For example, Wisconsin dairy farmers may have up to 500 gallons of leakage per acre per day. Considering a 2,500-herd dairy farm produces as much waste as a city the size of Minneapolis per year (90 million pounds of waste), one can imagine how vast and deep those manure lagoons can be.

Hand-in-hand with cow excrement comes emissions and climate pollution. The dairy industry as a whole is responsible for 4 percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. While that number may seem insignificant, think about it as just one food. If other foods were just as damaging, we'd hit our global total of emissions with just a few food groups without even adjusting for the emissions of the transportation or industrial sectors. In California alone-America's largest dairy producer-the industry accounts for 45 percent of the state's total methane and 38 percent of the overall nitrous oxide emissions. And the majority it results from cow burps and farts. They seem harmless, but with over 1.7 million "happy" milking cows in California, these enteric emissions add up into a big problem.

Considering it takes far more land to raise a 1,000-pound cow than any plant, milk also requires an incredibly wasteful amount of land. To compare, 1.75 square meters are needed to produce one eight-ounce glass of cow's milk, whereas only 0.25 square meters and 0.1 square meters of land are needed to produce the same amount of oat and almond milk, respectively. For a grander perspective, the land needed to sustain America's consumption of fluid milk is equal to the size of Virginia. Imagine, an entire state of cows, manufacturing facilities, and milking sheds packed shoulder-to-shoulder, wall-to-wall, as far as the eye can see.

When it comes down to it, researchers at the University of Oxford said it best: the single most effective way to reduce one's impact on the environment is to go vegan. Ditching meat isn't enough. Milk is an environmental villain, too.

*Vegan milk nutrition*
No matter the lense you look through-health, environmental, or ethical-cow's milk is not the optimal option. But do non-dairy alternatives stack up in regards to nutrition? Many do. According to the updated 2020-2025 US Dietary Guidelines, fortified soy milk is nutritionally equivalent to cow's milk. Cup for cup, soy milk contains the same amount of protein (8 grams), calcium (30 percent of the RDA), and vitamin D (15 percent of the RDA). While unrecognized by the USDA, pea milk provides a similar nutritionally robust profile. Other milks-such as oat, almond, cashew, hemp, flax, and coconut-may be fortified with calcium and vitamin D, but do not naturally contain as much protein. However, there are other benefits to these milks, including their amazing taste. Unlike dairy milk, vegan milk also contains fiber-up to two grams per serving for soy and oat. Dairy-free milk is also free from cholesterol, hormones, and trans fats. So drink up.









Is Milk Bad For You? The Truth About Dairy


VegNews deep dives into the truth behind dairy milk. From the presence of hormones to why so many are lactose intolerant, here is the truth behind dairy milk.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Cause Of Autoimmune Diseases Like Rheumatoid Arthritis Could Be In Your Fridge








*

Want healthy joints? Maybe put down that glass of milk.

A study from the University of Central Florida suggests that a bacterium easily acquired by consuming dairy products, beef, or produce grown in cow manure may trigger development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in those who are genetically predisposed to the disease.

About 1.3 million adults in the US and 400,000 in the UK suffer from pain, progressive joint deformity, and organ damage associated with RA.

The research was based on past findings indicating that irregularities in two related genes called PTPN2/22 increase the risk of the autoimmune disorders Crohn’s disease, Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), and RA. These chronic conditions arise when the body’s defensive cells mistakenly attack its own tissue due to unknown genetic and environmental cues.

"If mutations occur in these genes, the PTPN2/22 protein will not function correctly, thus leading to an overactive immune system that leads to autoimmune disorders," lead author Robert C. Sharp told IFLScience.

Recently, team leader Dr Saleh Naser uncovered a link between the bacteria in question,_ Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis _(MAP), and both Crohn’s disease and T1D. It appears that the presence of MAP can act like an “on switch” for the abnormal PTPN2/22 in these patients, sending their cell recognition and inflammatory signaling systems into overdrive and cueing the emergence of symptoms.

Knowing that RA is also affected by the PTPN2/22 genes, Naser and his co-authors hypothesized that MAP plays a role in this mysterious disease as well.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study designed to elucidate the molecular cause of inflammation in RA in association with environmental triggers such as MAP,” the authors wrote in Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.

They began by analyzing the DNA from blood samples of 70 RA patients and 48 healthy volunteers. Traces of MAP DNA were detected in 34.3 percent of subjects with any type of RA, whereas only 8.3 percent of people without rheumatoid arthritis showed evidence of past exposure to the bacteria. 




Sequencing each subject’s risk genes revealed that a small mutation in PTPN2 was present in 78.6 percent of people with RA and 60 percent of people without. Additionally, a mutation specific to PTPN22 was detected in 28.6 percent of RA samples compared with 6.45 percent of healthy controls. 

“We believe that individuals born with this genetic mutation and who are later exposed to MAP through consuming contaminated milk or meat from infected cattle are at a higher risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis,” Naser said in a statement.


Another telling finding came about by exposing T-cells (a type of lymphocyte that act like the body’s bouncers to identify and remove threats) within the blood samples to a purified MAP protein. Cells from subjects with multiple mutations responded with a frenzy of activity compared to the T-cells from subjects who had RA but did not carry abnormal PTPN2/22 genes. Moreover, the genetically abnormal subjects' immune cells stayed in overdrive even when the MAP protein was no longer present. In a healthy immune system, cells are supposed to relax from high alert when the perceived threat is neutralized, but those with autoimmune diseases are unable to do so. 

“We don’t know the cause of rheumatoid arthritis, so we’re excited that we have found this association,” said co-author and rheumatologist Dr Shazia Bég. “But there is still a long way to go. We need to find out why MAP is more predominant in these patients – whether it’s present because they have RA, or whether it caused RA in these patients. If we find that out, then we can target treatment toward the MAP bacteria.”









The Cause Of Autoimmune Diseases Like Rheumatoid Arthritis Could Be In Your Fridge


The Cause Of Autoimmune Diseases Like Rheumatoid Arthritis Could Be In Your Fridge




www.iflscience.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Good on Eminem! The name of the restaurant makes me giggle...

🎵His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy.
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti🎵🤮










*EMINEM’S FIRST RESTAURANT SERVES “MOM’S SPAGHETTI” WITH VEGAN MEATBALLS*
*Legendary rapper Eminem is turning his famous song lyrics into Mom’s Spaghetti, a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Detroit with a menu that features vegan “Rabbit” meatballs*


On September 29, legendary rapper Eminem will open his first restaurant in Detroit and vegan meatballs are on the menu. Mom’s Spaghetti—named after popular lyrics in his song “Lose Yourself”—serves a curated menu of spaghetti and meatballs as plates or a sandwich. The song was written for Eminem’s 2002 biographical film _8 Mile_ and the vegan “Rabbit” meatballs are named after his character. 

The 48-year-old rapper previously tested the Mom’s Spaghetti concept at several pop-ups, including one at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. While not all of the pop-ups featured vegan meatballs, prior to hitting the stage to headline the Coachella festival, Eminem treated fest goers to plates of spaghetti with the option of adding vegan meatballs. 

For the brick-and-mortar business, Eminem chose to keep vegan meatballs on the menu and worked with his manager Paul Rosenberg and restaurant group Union Joints to bring the concept to life. “We’ve had a lot of fun putting this project together with the folks at Union Joints, and the response from fans has been overwhelmingly positive,” Rosenberg said in a statement. “The previous pop-ups were really a test for us to determine whether there was enthusiasm for a regularly-occurring Mom’s Spaghetti spot that would be open all year long.”

*Eminem is ready with (vegan) Mom’s Spaghetti *
By design, Mom’s Spaghetti sits inside a small bodega space and orders are made from a walk-up window in the alley with very limited seating inside. Designed by Ann Stevenson, the space is meant to evoke a nostalgic feeling of a longstanding neighborhood restaurant. The opening of Mom’s Spaghetti was teased with a ‘90s-style infomercial that was aired on local television stations over the weekend. 

Upstairs from the Mom’s Spaghetti restaurant, Stevenson also designed The Trailer, a “uniquely-curated environment” related to what Rosenberg calls Eminem’s “pasta operation.” There, only eight “stans” are allowed to enter at a time and can pursue Emimen merchandise (including limited editions and coveted dead stock) and memorabilia from the Eminem archives. 

“The opportunity to build a permanent location based on an incredibly meta reference was one that everyone at Union Joints, as a Metro Detroit restaurant group, took very seriously,” Union Joints Co-owner Curt Catallo said in a statement. “We’re proud of the fact that we created a scratch sauce that tastes like it’s straight from the jar, and wok-firing the noodles gives it that leftover pasta snap. The walk-up window and small diner-like spot for people to eat add to the feeling that this is a homegrown, DIY experience. And The Trailer retail space that Ann (Stevenson) designed is a nod to Eminem’s character in _8 Mile _… it’s something that belongs in Detroit, and it feels right at home in this space.”

To help the local community and Eminem’s childhood home, throughout the pandemic, Shady Records worked with Union Joints to deliver the Mom’s Spaghetti menu to frontline workers at eight local hospitals and to those administering COVID-19 vaccinations.









Eminem’s First Restaurant Serves “Mom’s Spaghetti” with Vegan Meatballs


Legendary rapper Eminem is turning his famous song lyrics into Mom’s Spaghetti, a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Detroit with a menu that features vegan “Rabbit” meatballs.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Ripley's Aquarium Rescues a Super Rare Orange Lobster From a Toronto Grocery Store*










An extremely rare orange lobster has avoided becoming someone's dinner and found itself a new home at Ripley's Aquarium of Canada after being rescued from a Toronto grocery store.

Ripley's wrote on Facebook on Wednesday that people at the store had reached out to inform them that they'd noticed the rare orange crustacean in the store's lobster tank. 

The good Samaritans then invited experts from the aquarium to come and rescue the lobster, who they adorably named Pinchy.

And it's a good thing, too, because the odds of finding one of these special creatures are one in 30 million. 

"Pinchy is settling in very well to his new home and is doing brilliantly!" wrote Ripley's Wednesday. "Pinchy's claws were wrapped during transport and to make sure he didn't hurt himself."

According to the aquarium, orange lobsters get their unique, pumpkin-like colour from a rare genetic mutation that only occurs in one out of roughly 30 million lobsters, which makes it even more incredible that yet another orange lobster was rescued from a restaurant in Arizona earlier this week. 

Kitchen staff at Nobu Scottsdale noticed the creature's rare colouring and notified OdySea Aquarium, where the lobster will now live out the rest of its days. 









Ripley's Aquarium rescues super rare orange lobster from Toronto grocery store


An extremely rare orange lobster has avoided becoming someone's dinner and found itself a new home at Ripley's Aquarium of Canada after being rescu...




www.blogto.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*FIRST STUDY OF ITS KIND LINKS VEGAN MEAT TO BETTER GUT HEALTH (PLUS AN ICKY SIDE EFFECT)*
*Researchers found that replacing animal meat with vegan meats such as burgers, sausages, and meatballs can increase levels of health-promoting gut bacteria.*

Plant-based meats have a positive impact on gut health, according to a new study published in peer-reviewed scientific journal _Foods_. The randomized and controlled real-world study found that consumers who eat just five plant-based meals per week instead of meat-centric dishes experience an increase in the levels of a group of bacteria that produce butyrate, a fatty acid that promotes good digestive health and lessens inflammation to protect against disease. 

The study, titled “Impact of Plant-Based Meat Alternatives on the Gut Microbiota of Consumers: A Real-World Study,” followed 40 participants between the ages of 18 and 55 for four weeks with one intervention group replacing at least four meat-containing meals per week with meals cooked with plant-based meat products (the study used products from vegan brand Meatless Farm). Researchers compared the changes in the composition and functionality of gut microbiota to those in a size-matched control group that continued to eat meat, dairy, and eggs and no plant-based meat products. Stool samples were collected and the resulting data was analyzed in a compositionally aware manner using a range of bioinformatic methods. 

*Vegan meat on gut health*
The study’s findings that plant-based meats have a positive impact on gut health are likely due to the products’ nutritional profile, specifically the fiber content which helps produce gut-friendly butyrate. The study also found a decrease in the potentially harmful Tenericutes bacteria, which indicates that plant-based offerings lead to holistic changes within the gut microbial ecosystem. At the same time, because participants in the intervention group increased their weekly fiber intake by an average of 19 grams due to the addition of plant-based meats, more than half of them reported increased gas and bloating, making this the most commonly reported adverse symptom. 

“This study is ground-breaking as it’s the first to indicate a direct correlation between plant-based meat offerings and changes in gut bacteria consistent [with] better gut health outcomes,” lead researcher Miguel Toribio-Mateas of the School of Applied Sciences at London South Bank University said in a statement. “The key factor driving these changes is the nutritional value of Meatless Farm’s offerings, most importantly the high fiber content and phytonutrients found within and their role on the production of butyrate.”

*Nutritional profiles of vegan meat*
The goal of the study was to find out if plant-based meats such as burgers, sausages, and meatballs that are manufactured with plant-based ingredients and rich in vegetable protein, fiber, and phenolic compounds can elicit positive changes in the gut bacteria of consumers when used to substitute their animal-based product equivalents. While plant-based meat products by brands such as Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and Meatless Farm are classified by some consumers as “highly processed,” the process used to manufacture these plant-based products can still maintain their ingredients’ high nutrient profiles. 

Some processed convenience foods include reduced amounts of ingredients of nutritional value along with high levels of unhealthy fats and refined carbohydrates, and these fiber-poor foods are known to alter the supply of nutrients to the colon and therefore promote negative changes in both the composition and metabolic activity of the gut bacteria. However, the study’s researchers argue that the potential for a plant-based meat product to promote these negative changes in the gut lies in the nutrient profiles of its individual ingredients. Because there was a lack of literature from trials on the quality of plant-based meats compared to conventional animal-based products on the microbiome of consumers, this study aimed to fill a knowledge gap in the intersection of nutrition, microbiology, and consumer behavior.










First Study of Its Kind Links Vegan Meat to Better Gut Health (Plus an Icky Side Effect)


New study finds that replacing animal meat with vegan meats can increase levels of health-promoting gut bacteria.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Richmond B.C. man grows pumpkin weighing nearly 900 kilograms*









David Chan's 'papa bear' pumpkin was officially weighed at 1911 pounds (866 kilograms) at a giant pumpkin event in Langley B.C. on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021. It set a new record for the biggest pumpkin grown in the province, according to Giant Pumpkins British Columbia. 

The organization in B.C. for growing giant pumpkins says a Richmond man has grown the biggest ever in the province, weighing close to 900 kilograms.

David Chan's 'papa bear' was among several giant pumpkins weighed at an annual event in Langley on Saturday, hosted by Giant Pumpkins British Columbia.

Chan's pumpkin weighed 866 kilograms or 1,911 lbs. He also grew two other huge pumpkins, 'mama bear' and 'baby bear,' which earned him a special honour at the weigh-off for growing three pumpkins weighing a collective 1,811 kilograms (4,000 pounds) or more.

"I'm excited," he said about the honour. "I've been watering them six times a day for a total of 200 gallons (757 litres) of water per plant."











Chan says he's been growing giant pumpkins for 40 years since seeing the giant vegetables on an episode of _The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson._

He learned from the show that the seeds, called Atlantic giant, came from a farmer in Nova Scotia named Howard Dill. Chan sent a letter to Dill asking about growing giant pumpkins and Dill responded with seeds.

"And so we started growing them back then in a backyard," he said. Twelve years ago he acquired additional space, some 2,000 square feet, to grow pumpkins after moving to Richmond.

"I like the outdoors, I like growing things and I always like a challenge," he said.

Chan usually sprouts the seeds indoors in April and moves the seedlings outside in May, but with cover.

*'Loved the heat'*
This year, he covered his entire pumpkin patch with a greenhouse to increase the temperature, in which the giant pumpkins thrive.

"They really loved the heat, that's probably one reason why they got so big."

He also has an irrigation system to ensure the pumpkins are evenly watered. He says he grows pumpkins for the pure joy of it and for exercise.

"Everybody laughs in my backyard. It's just a fun thing to do. My garden is my gym."










Scott Carley, another grower and one of the organizers of the B.C. competition says the event helps children understand the importance of agriculture and food sustainability.

"To treat agricultural land as a positive thing," he said. "Just a good way to connect with kids for future generations."

Carley says no pumpkin in Canada has ever been grown weighing more than 907 kilograms (2,000 pounds).

Also on Saturday, a grower in Nova Scotia had a pumpkin he grew — named Howard in honour of Howard Dill — weigh in at 887 kilograms or 1,956 pounds, just three pounds below the Canadian record.

Chan says he will eventually carve his giant pumpkins for Halloween and display them in his driveway. Then he'll begin planning for the next growing season.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brit...p6ykvCeaApRmtYCRMkGnUAz6r-LWly2wskbleOruqHU5A


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving  🦃❤


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*From fringe to mainstream: how millions got a taste for going vegan*
It says something about the gathering momentum of veganism that last week it breached not one but two bastions of British culinary culture. First there were complaints after that fanfare of eggs, butter and cream, _The Great British Bake Off_, was left with separated yolk on its face when its first vegan contestant, 19-year-old Freya Cox, was given animal products to use during a technical challenge.

Then Cadbury announced that from next month there would be a vegan alternative to its signature confectionery, the Dairy Milk chocolate bar. The Cadbury Plant Bar substitutes almond paste for the “glass and a half of milk” said to go into every Dairy Milk bar.

Both events made headlines because each, in their own small way, signalled the growing incursion of veganism into “normal” life. And nothing, other than perhaps a cup of tea (which is in any case increasingly made with oat milk), bespeaks normality in Britain more insistently than cakes and chocolate.

They were just the kinds of treats that for many years vegans were expected to forgo in their commitment to what was widely viewed as an ascetic lifestyle. But as well as having undergone its own gastronomic revolution, with a wealth of cookbooks and recipes from celebrity chefs, veganism has recently had a radical image overhaul.

“I used to think of vegans as pasty-faced and generally quite thin,” says 61-year-old Mike Harper, who became a vegan six years ago. A retiree in North Devon, he moved from a vegetarian to vegan diet under pressure from his daughters, and promptly completed an Ironman triathlon.

That old vegan profile, which Harper soon learned was false, has gone the way of Cranks restaurant and the cliche of nut roasts. In place of earnest caricatures like Keith in Mike Leigh’s 1976 Play for Today, _Nuts in May_, who liked to yawn on about the importance of chewing, there are now a host of celebrity figures – among them Bella Hadid, Lewis Hamilton, Joaquin Phoenix, Thandie Newton and Natalie Portman – presenting a far more media-friendly image of veganism.

Meat consumption in this country has declined by 17% over the past decade. The _Economist_ magazine named 2019 “The Year of the Vegan”. And last year the World Health Organization recommended a plant-based diet for a healthy life. That endorsement, along with growing concerns about the impact of dairy farming on the environment, combined with the lifestyle rethink enabled by the lockdown, has significantly increased the number of people turning their backs on animal products in the UK.

The exact numbers of vegans are almost impossible to establish, but surveys have shown rapid growth. One suggested there had been a 40% increase in 2020, bringing the total to around 1.5 million. That is probably an overestimate, but certainly more than 500,000 pledged to eat vegan as part of this year’s Veganuary. As the figures swell so, of course, do the market and commercial opportunities.

It is not just the vegan convenience foods that now line supermarket shelves or the menu options in restaurants, but also the many ranges of clothing and cosmetics. It is now possible to buy non-leather Dr Martens boots and Hermes bags made from fungus, while Veja faux suede trainers triumphed in the fashion stakes four years ago.

Alice Adams, a novelist and ex-data analyst, says that there have always been non-animal clothing alternatives – if not necessarily fashion – but the labelling has changed.

“Now, you look at shoes and they’ll have a vegan label on them,” she says. “Anyway, leather has been superseded by other materials that perform better in things like running shoes and hiking boots.”

A lifelong vegetarian, she came to veganism over several years, before finally going all the way 15 years ago. “For most people,” she says, “it’s a process. For me, the cognitive dissonance just became too much and I finally tipped over the edge.”

In much the same way, veganism as a movement grew out of a schism in vegetarianism. In 1944, a few members of the British Vegetarian Society asked that a section of the society’s newsletter be set aside for those who also avoided eggs and dairy. When the request was flatly turned down, the secretary of the Leicester branch, Donald Watson, set up a new quarterly. He coined the term “vegan”, taking the first three and last two letters of vegetarian because, he declared, it marked “the beginning and end of vegetarian”.

The initial response was promising, attracting a correspondence of more than 100 supporters, among them George Bernard Shaw who promised to abandon eggs and dairy. Thereafter progress was slow, with the step from a meat-free diet to one without any animal products often proving a chasm.

Adams says that cheese is often the stumbling block. “Vegan cheese is mostly horrendous. There is good vegan cheese in the world. Miyoko’s in the US make amazing vegan cheese but it hasn’t reached the UK yet.”

When Verna Burgess, 57, from Hertfordshire, started out on veganism in the late 1980s, there was almost nothing available by way of substitutes. “You couldn’t even get ice-cream,” she recalls.

She remembers the gradual introduction of products and brands, and when the cafe in her local Waterstones introduced plant-extract milk she wrote a letter of gratitude to the manager. “I said: ‘Thank you very much. Now I can have a cappuccino.’”

For her, forgoing such pleasures was never a sacrifice because, as she puts it, she would just think of the animals’ suffering. If meat is murder, then dairy is torture, by the reckoning of most vegans. Increasingly, however, it is concern about carbon production and the environment that is driving a new generation towards a plant-based diet.

Chandu Gopalakrishnan, a sign-language interpreter, is 24 and became a vegan four years ago. “I originally did it more for environmental reasons,” she says, but then she went to a vegan festival where she wore a virtual reality headset that showed the life and death of a dairy cow. “It was really immersive and very moving to see something so innocent being so needlessly used,” she says.

While that experience has reinforced her veganism, the environment is still at the centre of her concerns. She would like to see a system introduced in which environmental impact was detailed on meat and dairy packaging, in the same way that health implications are displayed on cigarette packets.

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“If it was side by side with a non-animal product that might be more expensive, then people could make an informed choice,” she says.

However Mike Harper would prefer to see a more interventionist approach from government.

“A lot of vegans I know are white middle class,” he points out. “But the fact is, if you’re on a low wage and you’re bringing up a family, then you’re going to go for the cheaper food option. But if the government subsidised non-meat products, then people would try them.”

It is hard to imagine a laissez-faire government with close ties to the traditional farming industry making that kind of move any time soon. For all the contemporary interest in veganism, the global demand for dairy products continues to rise, mostly as a result of population growth and the westernisation of diets in countries such as China and India. Set against that massive backdrop, the insensitivity of _The Great British Bake Off _production team or the introduction of a new chocolate bar hardly seem of great import.

Yet from such gestures and options spring new futures. A generation ago, vegans were dismissed as moralising bores. As the old joke went: “How do you known someone’s a vegan? Answer: They’ll tell you.” Today, a plant-based diet is seen by ever-increasing numbers of people as the only sensible way forward. In the years ahead even the most cheese-loving carnivores will have little choice but to consider it, if only as food for thought.

*In numbers*
*79 million*
_The estimated number of vegans in the world_

*500,000*
_People who took part in Veganuary in the UK this year, up from 400,000 in 2020 and 250,000 in 2019_

*66%*
_The proportion of UK vegans who are female_

*163%*
_The increase in Deliveroo’s vegan orders in the UK in 2020 compared with 2019_

*55,000*
_The number of products with the Vegan Society’s vegan trademark, including 18,000 food and drink items_

*$24.3bn*
_The forecast size of the global vegan food market by 2026, with cosmetics worth $20.8bn_









From fringe to mainstream: how millions got a taste for going vegan


First, it was a fad. Now, as meat consumption falls, it’s part of everyday life … the unstoppable rise of the plant-based diet




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

"Watermelons" the new vegetable trick devised by the parents union


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Condiment You Can't Say No To*
*An ode to the small-but-mighty mustard seed*​










The humble, yet extraordinarily tasty mustard! I love it on various items from the grill, french fries, and sandwiches; in salad dressings and marinades; as a sauce for meat, a glaze for vegetables, stirred up with honey for dipping —generally speaking, if a dish uses mustard, sign me up.

It’s easy to forget how versatile mustard is, but, well, it IS. Read on to educate yourself on the various types of mustard, get our recipe for Grainy Mustard (plus 14 ways to flavor it!), and enjoy one of my all-time favorite recipes (which, of course, calls for mustard).

*The Mustard Lexicon
Dry mustard*: When seeds are ground very finely, the result is a powder or “flour.” The simplest mustard is made from this: Mix about 1/4 cup with a sprinkle of salt and 1-2 teaspoons sugar. Stir in water, wine, or beer a little at a time until you get the desired consistency. It will be very strong, though the sugar rounds it out a bit. Chinese Mustard Dipping Sauce, below, is a little more sophisticated.

*Dijon-style mustard:* Smooth, pleasantly hot wine-based mustards modeled after those from Dijon, France. Since getting such a smooth grind with everyday kitchen equipment is impossible, you’ve simply got to buy it. American-made Grey Poupon is the most familiar brand; Maille (from France) is another good choice. Use for salad dressings, sauces, and all-purpose smearing.

*Coarsely ground, whole grain, or stone-ground mustard:* When bits of the seeds remain intact, the mustard has a slight crunch with an almost nutty flavor. This kind is easy to make at home (see below). Perfect for hearty dishes, next to a slab of corned beef, or whenever you want a more assertive flavor combined with texture.

*Chinese mustard: *A sauce-like mustard, on the thin side and quite sharp. You can find it in Asian markets, well-stocked grocery stores, and of course Chinese restaurants. To make your own, just make a thinner version of the dry mustard recipe above. And to make a delicious dipping sauce, add a little sesame oil and a splash of soy sauce; serve it with dumplings, fried wontons or egg rolls, or deep-fried vegetables.

*Prepared yellow mustard: *A very mild version that gets its neon-yellow color from turmeric, not the mustard seeds. About the only thing it has going for it is its mildness, which isn’t really a plus. Most contain extra ingredients you don’t want anyway.

*Wasabi: *Natural fresh wasabi is a rhizome (a stem that grows underground, like ginger). It’s bright green, with a heat that will clear your sinuses. It’s now pretty easy to find ground-dried wasabi. But mustard is the main ingredient of the prepared “wasabi” we use most often. We know and love it on sushi, but it adds a bite to anything that needs it.

*“Gourmet” mustards: *Any of the above preparations with additions. They can range from outstanding to not-worth-the-price. You’re better off making your own. (See below!)

*Grainy Mustard*

​
Makes 1½ cups
Time: 15 minutes, plus a day or two to soak the seeds

Like mayonnaise, homemade mustard is superior to almost anything you can buy and is endlessly customizable — see the list that follows. Only it’s easier. If you need mustard right away, grind the seeds in a spice grinder and slowly add the liquids until you get the consistency that you want. It will be sharper and less subtle, but that’s not always a bad thing.

*Ingredients*

1/4 cup yellow mustard seeds (about 1½ ounces)
1/4 cup brown or black mustard seeds (about 1½ ounces)
1/2 cup red wine or water
1/2 cup sherry vinegar or malt vinegar, or any vinegar with at least 5 percent acidity
Pinch salt
*Instructions*
1. Put all the ingredients in a jar with a tight-fitting lid or other sealed glass or ceramic container. (Don’t use metal; it will corrode.) Shake or stir, then let soak for a day or 2.

2. Put the mixture in a blender and purée for several minutes to grind, adding a little extra water as needed to keep the machine running. Stop and scrape the sides down once or twice and repeat. You’ll never get the mustard as smooth as Dijon, but you can control the coarseness by how long you blend. Taste and add more salt if you like.

3. Return the mustard to the container and cover tightly. Store in a cool, dark place or refrigerate for up to several months. The mustard will be quite sharp at first, but it will thicken and mellow with time.

*14 Ways to Flavor Grainy Mustard*

Start with 1/2 cup mustard and stir in the following ingredients. Note that using fresh herbs, fruit, or vegetables will reduce the mustard’s storage time to a week.

1. *Mustard relish: *Add 1/2 cup chopped sweet pickle and 1/4 cup each chopped red onion and red bell pepper.

2. *Tarragon mustard: *Add 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon.

3. *Rosemary mustard: *Add 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary.

4. *Tomato mustard: *Add 1 tablespoon tomato paste.

5. *Honey mustard: *Add 2 tablespoons honey.

6. *Horseradish mustard: *Add 1 teaspoon freshly grated or prepared horseradish, or more to taste.

7. *Molasses mustard: *Add 1 tablespoon molasses.

8. *Balsamic mustard: *Add 1 to 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, to taste.

9. *Creole mustard: *Add 1/4 teaspoon cayenne, or more to taste.

10. *Roasted garlic mustard: *Add 2 or 3 cloves roasted garlic, mashed with a fork.

11. *Peach mustard: *Add 1/4 cup fresh peach purée (1 medium peach, peeled, pitted, sliced, and puréed or mashed with a fork).

12. *Mango mustard: *Add 1/4 cup fresh mango purée (1/2 medium mango, peeled, pitted, cubed, and puréed or mashed with a fork).

13. *Brewhouse mustard: *Instead of the red wine or water, use 1/2 cup strong-flavored beer, like stout, porter, bock, or dark or amber ale.

14. *Mock mostarda: *For a shortcut to the fruity Italian sauce (usually served with rich meats), combine 1/2 cup mustard with 1/2 cup orange marmalade or cherry or apricot preserves. Add 2 tablespoons cider vinegar.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*ANOTHER STUDY LINKS PLANT-BASED DIET TO REDUCED PROSTATE CANCER RISK*
*The new study, published in the Journal of Urology, finds that greater consumption of plant-based foods lowers the risk of prostate cancer for men under 65.*


Greater overall consumption of plant-based foods is associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer in men under the age of 65, according to a new study published in scientific, peer-reviewed publication _Journal of Urology_. The prospective study followed 47,243 men for up to 28 years. Plant-based dietary patterns were calculated using data from food frequency questionnaires collected every four years to discover the association between plant-based diets and the risk of prostate cancer. 

During the study, a total of 6,660 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, including 516 with advanced stage at diagnosis, 958 with lethal disease, and 807 deaths from prostate cancer. Researchers found that greater consumption of plant-based foods was associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer. In men under 65 years of age at diagnosis, greater overall consumption of plant-based foods was associated with a lower risk of advanced prostate cancer. Among younger men, greater consumption of a healthful plant-based diet was associated with lower risks of total prostate cancer. There were no associations with either the overall or healthful plant-based diet indices with prostate cancer among men older than 65 years. 

Researchers pointed out that a limitation of the study was that less than one percent of participants followed a strict vegetarian or vegan diet, so they were unable to measure the risk in men who eat plant-based foods and no animal products.

*Do plant-based diets lower prostate cancer risk?*
Overall, the researchers determined that the study provides supportive evidence that greater consumption of healthful plant-based foods may be associated with a lower risk of total and fatal prostate cancer among younger men. The conclusion is similar to that of previous studies that suggest a beneficial role of specific plant-based foods, such as lycopene-rich tomatoes, and the potentially harmful role of meat, dairy, and other animal products. 

One such study was presented to the American Institute for Cancer Research’s 2016 conference in Washington, DC. Researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center divided 32 men undergoing prostate cancer treatment into two groups. One group was assigned a plant-based diet and exercise regimen while the other was given standard care. In addition to reporting an overall improvement in their quality of life, after the three-month study period, the men on the plant-based diet were able to walk one-quarter mile up to four times faster than the control group. Plant-based patients also lost an average of four pounds, while the control group gained one-percent body fat. 

*Animal products increase risk*
On the flip side, studies have determined that animal-based foods could increase men’s risk of the disease. A 2014 meta-analysis that looked at 32 related studies found that high intakes of dairy products, including whole and low-fat milk and cheese, increase the risk of prostate cancer and death from prostate cancer. One study published in the _International Journal of Cancer_ found that men who consume three or more servings of dairy products a day had a 141 percent higher risk of death due to prostate cancer compared to those who consumed less than one serving. 

In response to these findings, non-profit medical group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine recently placed advertisements in bus shelters across Washington, DC that urge residents to “Ditch Dairy to Protect Your Prostate.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Washington, DC has the highest prostate cancer mortality rate in the country. 

As part of the health campaign, Maggie Neola, RD, LD, a dietician at PCRM and Barnard Medical Center, sent a letter to the Department of Health urging the center to update its cancer information with these findings. “To help fight prostate cancer in Washingtonian, DC, which has the highest prostate cancer mortality rate in the country, I encourage the District of Columbia Department of Health to update its prostate cancer information to warn that dairy products increase prostate cancer risk and to recommend a plant-based diet, which can be protective against prostate cancer,” Neola wrote.









Another Study Links Plant-Based Diet to Reduced Prostate Cancer Risk


The new study, published in the Journal of Urology, finds that greater consumption of plant-based foods lowers the risk of prostate cancer for men under 65.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Please Stop Eating The "Clean" Bit Of Moldy Bread, It's Not Safe*










Food waste is a terrible thing, but busy lives make it easy to lose track of what’s expiring first in the kitchen cupboard. There are some foods you can rely on to be quite transparent with their state of decay, but some can be much more inconspicuous. If you’ve ever cut or scraped off the green stuff growing on a piece of bread, you may have fallen victim to a sneakier breed of decay.

Most of the mold that affects food is a type of fungus, arguably one of the most secretive kingdoms on Earth that’s separated from animals and plants as eukaryotes. Their fruiting bodies sit loud and proud atop whatever soil they have fixed themselves to but underneath rages a war of fungus and host that stretches beyond the visible mold we can see on the bread’s surface. Slime mold, an organism that can aggregate to form a colony and move around the environment, isn’t included in this group as they are actually a type of amoeba.

Depending on the food, mold can seep deep into its core using a series of roots called hyphae that spread very easily through soft foods, like bread. Some are safe to eat and are even selected by humans for consumption, including those used to create "blue" cheese and soy sauce. However, there are many other molds that are to be avoided and if you eat their visible fruiting bodies or the hyphae hidden below, you could find yourself in a medical emergency.

Unfortunately for you and that bread you were saving, it’s also unlikely that only one slice within a bagged loaf has been infected. Visible mold indicates the fungus has reached the reproductive stage, sending spores out that will easily and swiftly start working their way through the rest of the bread.

While it’s true you could get lucky and have a benign species of mold on your bread, spotting the difference between good and bad mold is almost impossible and the threat applies to any food item that’s been contaminated. A report on moldy bread from Business Insider details the case of an elderly couple who were taken to hospital with severe muscle tremors after eating some moldy canned soup. The perpetrator was _Penicillium crustosum_ (yes, like the antibiotic), which is known to release mycotoxins, a type of poison.

“The effects of some food-borne mycotoxins are acute with symptoms of severe illness appearing quickly after consumption of food products contaminated with mycotoxins,” says the World Health Organization (WHO) on its website. “Other mycotoxins occurring in food have been linked to long-term effects on health, including the induction of cancers and immune deficiency. Of the several hundred mycotoxins identified so far, about a dozen have gained the most attention due to their severe effects on human health and their occurrences in food.”

The allure of a good sandwich is undeniable, but it’s not worth risking your health. If you’re worried about food waste, you can always freeze fresh bread to keep it for longer. Just make sure you get to it before the mold does.









Please Stop Eating The "Clean" Bit Of Moldy Bread, It's Not Safe


Please Stop Eating The "Clean" Bit Of Moldy Bread, It's Not Safe




www.iflscience.com


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## Shark (Feb 4, 2006)

All this time I thought green bread was just trying to turn itself into veggies.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is Coffee Good for You?*
Yes! But it depends on the kind of coffee and the quantity.










We’ve come a long way from the cans of Folgers that filled our grandparents’ cupboards, with our oat milk lattes, cold brews and Frappuccinos. Some of us are still very utilitarian about the drink while others perform elaborate rituals. The fourth most popular beverage in the country, coffee is steeped into our culture. Just the right amount can improve our mood; too much may make us feel anxious and jittery.

*Is coffee good for me?*
Yes.

In moderation, coffee seems to be good for most people — that’s 3
to 5 cups daily, or up to 400 milligrams of caffeine.

“The evidence is pretty consistent that coffee is associated with a lower risk of mortality,” said Erikka Loftfield, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute who has studied the beverage.

For years, coffee was believed to be a possible carcinogen, but the 2015 Dietary Guidelines helped to change perception. For the first time, moderate coffee drinking was included as part of a healthy diet. When researchers controlled for lifestyle factors, like how many heavy coffee drinkers also smoked, the data tipped in coffee’s favor.

A large 2017 review on coffee consumption and human health in the British Medical Journal also found that most of the time, coffee was associated with a benefit, rather than a harm. In examining more than 200 reviews of previous studies, the authors observed that moderate coffee drinkers had less cardiovascular disease, and premature death from all causes, including heart attacks and stroke, than those skipping the beverage.

In addition, experts say some of the strongest protective effects may be with Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and liver conditions such as cirrhosis, liver cancer and chronic liver disease. For example, having about five cups of coffee a day, instead of none, is correlated with a 30 percent decreased risk of Type 2 diabetes, according to a meta-analysis of 30 studies.

The potential benefit from coffee might be from the polyphenols, which are plant compounds that have antioxidant properties, according to Dr. Giuseppe Grosso, an assistant professor in human nutrition at University of Catania in Italy and the lead author of an umbrella review in the Annual Review of Nutrition.

However, coffee isn’t for everyone. There are concerns about overconsumption. This is especially true for expecting mothers because the safety of caffeine during pregnancy is unclear. While the research into coffee’s impact on health is ongoing, most of the work in this field is observational. 

“We don’t know for sure if coffee is the cause of the health benefits,” said Jonathan Fallowfield, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, and co-author of the British Medical Journal review.* “*These findings could be due to other factors or behaviors present in coffee drinkers.”
compounds within the coffees,” said Neal Freedman, a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute. “But it’s not clear at all how these different levels of compounds may be related to health.”

Roasting, for example, reduces the amount of chlorogenic acids, but other antioxidant compounds are formed. Espresso has the highest concentration of many compounds because it has less water than drip coffee.

A study in JAMA Internal Medicine examined the coffee habits of nearly 500,000 people in the U.K. and found that it didn’t matter if they drank one cup or chain-drank eight — regular or decaf — or whether they were fast metabolizers of coffee or slow. They were linked to a lower risk of death from all causes, except with instant


*Does the way coffee is prepared matter?*
Yes. Do you prefer a dark or light roast? Coarse grinding or fine? Arabica or robusta?

“All of these different aspects affect the taste, but also affect the coffee, the evidence was weaker.

The way you prepare your cup of joe may influence your cholesterol levels, too. “The one coffee we know not suitable to be drinking is the boiled coffee,” said Marilyn C. Cornelis, an assistant professor in preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and co-author of the JAMA Internal Medicine study

Examples of this include the plunge-happy French press, Scandinavian coffee, or Greek and Turkish coffee — the kind commonly consumed in the Middle East. (When poured, the unfiltered grounds settle on the tiny cup’s bottom like sludge. To peek into the future, elders in the region have a tradition of reading the sediment of an overturned cup, like a crystal ball.)

However, the oil in boiled coffee has cafestol and kahweol, compounds called diterpenes. They are shown to raise LDL, the bad cholesterol, and slightly lower HDL, what’s known as the good kind.

“If you filter the coffee, then it’s no issue at all,” said Rob van Dam, a professor at Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at National University of Singapore. “For people with cholesterol issues, it’s better to switch to other types of coffee.” He’s been studying coffee for two decades. (And, yes, he’s had a lot of coffee in that time.)
However, other researchers say not to throw out the boiled coffee just yet. The clinical significance of such small increases in cholesterol may be questionable, given that it’s not associated with an increase in cardiovascular deaths.

Many consumers have also swapped loose grounds for coffee pods. While there are environmental concerns with single use pods, researchers believe them to hold the same benefits as, say, drip coffee. The latter applies to cold brew, too, but more research is needed.

*Do all kinds of coffee have the same amount of caffeine?*
No. Espresso has the highest concentration of caffeine, packing about 70 milligrams into a one-ounce shot, but is consumed in smaller quantities. By comparison, a typical 12-ounce serving of drip coffee has 200 milligrams of caffeine, more than instant’s 140. And, yes, brewed decaf has caffeine, too — 8 milligrams — which can add up.

When buying coffee, you never really know what you’re going to get. At one Florida coffee house, over a six-day period, the same 16-ounce breakfast blend fluctuated from 259 milligrams all the way up to 564 — which goes beyond federal recommendations.

But for some of us, knowing how much caffeine is in our coffee can be especially important. You’ve probably noticed it before. How a friend can pound quadruple espresso shots at 10 p.m. and sleep afterward, while you can’t have any past noon, or you’ll be watching “Seinfeld” reruns until dawn. Some of us have a polymorphism, a genetic variant that slows our metabolism for caffeine. It’s these individuals that Dr. Grosso recommends limit their refills. “They take a coffee, and then they have the second and the third, and they still have the caffeine of the first,” he said.

You can even find out whether you are a fast or slow metabolizer through a variety of direct-to-consumer testing services, including 23andMe.

*Is coffee addictive?*
Evidence suggests there can be a reliance on the drink, and tolerance builds over time. Withdrawal symptoms include a headache, fatigue, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and depressed mood.

Indeed, caffeine is a psychoactive drug, and coffee is its biggest dietary source. About a half-hour after sipping a cup of joe, the caffeine kicks in, and is quickly absorbed. Blood vessels constrict. Blood pressure increases. A moderate amount of caffeine can wake you up, boost your mood, energy, alertness, concentration and even athletic performance. On average, it takes four to six hours to metabolize half the caffeine.

For those knocking back more than 400 milligrams of caffeine a
day, there’s not enough evidence to assess the safety, according to the Dietary Guidelines. Higher doses can lead to caffeine intoxication, with its shakiness, nervousness, and irregular heartbeat. Caffeine is also linked with delaying the time it takes for you fall asleep, how long you stay there, and the reported quality of that shut eye.


“I think that caffeine is so common and so ingrained in our culture, and daily habits, that we often don’t think about it as a potential source of problems,” said Mary M. Sweeney, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Cutting down coffee may help with gastroesophageal reflux, too. A new study found that women drinking caffeinated beverages —
coffee, tea, or soda — were associated with a small but increased risk of symptoms, like heartburn. The study’s authors predicted fewer symptoms when substituting two servings of the drinks with water. 
Current available research hasn’t determined what amount of caffeine can be safely consumed during pregnancy, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Caffeine does cross the placenta so some doctors may recommend pregnant women stay below 200 milligrams of coffee daily.

Extremely high doses of caffeine can be fatal. But researchers say that’s more likely to occur accidentally with caffeine powder or pills. “You don’t see a lot of people going into the emergency room because they accidentally drank too much coffee,” said Dr. van Dam.

*What is a coffee bean?*
Inside the red fruit of _coffea _lie two coffee beans. Green in color, the duo spoon together, the rich brown hue to appear only after roasting. In fact, they aren’t beans at all. “It’s like a cherry, you pick off the tree,” said Patrick Brown, a professor of plant sciences at University of California, Davis. Unlike the cherry, though, the seed is the prize, and the flesh is discarded.

In addition to caffeine, coffee is a dark brew of a thousand chemical compounds that could have potential therapeutic effects on the body. One key component, chlorogenic acid, is a polyphenol found in many fruits and vegetables. Coffee is also a good dietary source of vitamin B3, magnesium and potassium.

“People often see coffee just as a vehicle for caffeine, but, of course,

it’s a very complex plant beverage,” said Dr. van Dam. 

With _coffea’s _estimated 124 species, most of flavors remain untapped; and perhaps will be forever, with an estimated 60 percent under threat of extinction, largely from climate change, disease, pests and deforestation. What fills our mugs at cafes, the office, and on road trips are from two species: arabica and canephora, known as robusta. Arabica fills specialty cafes, and costs more than robusta, which fuels instant coffees and some espressos.

For all of the pomp swirling around arabica, the fact remains it is an extremely homogeneous little seed. Almost all of the world’s arabica coffee progeny traces itself back a few plants from Ethiopia, coffee’s birthplace, or Yemen.

*Does adding milk or sugar cancel out benefits?*
Doctors don’t know. One 2015 study found that those adding sugar, cream or milk had the same associated benefit as those who preferred it black. But the coffee industry has exploded since the ’90s when the older adults in the study filled out their dietary history. “It was only about a tablespoon of cream or milk, and a teaspoon of sugar,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Loftfield, with the National Cancer Institute. “This is very different, potentially, than some of these coffee beverages you see on the market today.”

Sweet coffee and tea are the fourth largest source of sugar in the

diets of adults, according to the October survey from the U.S.D.A. That includes dessert-like beverages, like Dunkin’ Donuts’ 860-calorie creamy frozen coconut caramel coffee drink, with 17 grams of saturated fat, and 129 grams of total sugars. Experts say some of these drinks bear little relation to the 2-calorie cup of black coffee of the past, worrying health officials.

“When you talk about a drink that has that load of unhealthy fats and that much sugar, can’t possibly be a healthy beverage on balance,” Dr. Jim Krieger, a clinical professor of medicine and health services at the University of Washington. “That amount of sugar alone is astronomical compared to the current recommendations of U.S. Dietary Guidelines of 50 grams of sugar a 
The concern is heightened, experts say, especially because an estimated 43 percent of teens are now drinking coffee — nearly doubling since 2003 — according to the research firm Kantar, driven partly by sweet drinks.

“People should worry a lot about what they put in the coffee and what the food and beverage industry puts in it,” said Laura Schmidt, a professor at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. “And sweetened coffee is one of the things that the beverage industry is pushing on the public now that consumers have turned away from soda for health reasons.”

*Should I start pounding down more coffee?*

Depends on your goals in life.

If you are enjoying the drink in moderation, doctors say continue onward, and savor those sips. And for those patients with a sensitivity to the beverage, Dr. Sophie Balzora, a gastroenterologist, weighs the benefits and risks very carefully. The clinical associate professor of medicine at N.Y.U. School of Medicine understands its cultural significance, and knows to tread lightly. As she put it: “Robbing people of their coffee seems cruel.”










Is Coffee Good for You? (Published 2020)


Yes! But it depends on the kind of coffee and the quantity.




www.nytimes.com


----------



## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Factory farms of disease: how industrial chicken production is breeding the next pandemic*










^Chickens at a farm in Hefei, China. Huge farms help spread antibiotic-resistant bacteria, with virologists warning of variants spilling over to humans.

One day last December, 101,000 chickens at a gigantic farm near the city of Astrakhan in southern Russia started to collapse and die. Tests by the state research centre showed that a relatively new strain of lethal avian flu known as H5N8 was circulating, and within days 900,000 birds at the Vladimirskaya plant were hurriedly slaughtered to prevent an epidemic.

Avian flu is the world’s other ongoing pandemic and H5N8 is just one strain that has torn through thousands of chicken, duck and turkey flocks across nearly 50 countries including Britain in recent years and shows no sign of stopping.



But the Astrakhan incident was different. When 150 workers at the farm were tested, five women and two men were found to have the disease, albeit mildly. It was the first time that H5N8 had been known to jump from birds to humans.











^A civet cat on a wildlife farm in Tonglu, Zhejiang province. Thousands of the animals were slaughtered in China as suspected spreaders of the Sars virus


The World Health Organization (WHO) was alerted but, this being at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, little attention was paid even when Anna Popova, chief consumer adviser to the Russian Federation, went on TV to warn “with a degree of probability” that human-to-human transmission of H5N8 would evolve soon and that work should start immediately on developing a vaccine.

Global attention is fixed on the origins of Covid-19, either in nature or from a laboratory, but eight or more variants of avian flu, all of which are able to infect and kill humans and are potentially more severe than Covid-19, now regularly rattle around the world’s factory farms barely noticed by governments.

There have been no further reports of human H5N8 infections in 2021, but concern last week turned to China, where another type of avian flu known as H5N6 has infected 48 people since it was first identified in 2014. Most cases have been linked to people working with farmed birds, but there has been a spike in recent weeks and more than half of all the people infected have died, suggesting that H5N6 is gathering pace, mutating and extremely dangerous.

WHO and Chinese virologists have been worried enough to call on governments to increase their vigilance. “The likelihood of human-to-human spread is low [but] wider geographical surveillance in the China affected areas and nearby areas is urgently required to better understand the risk and the recent increase of spillover to humans,” said a WHO Pacific-region spokesperson in a statement.

Earlier this month, China’s Centre for Disease Control [CDC] identified several mutations in two recent H5N6 cases. The spread of the H5N6 virus is now a “serious threat” to the poultry industry and human health, said Gao Fu, CDC director, and Shi Weifeng, dean of public health at Shandong First Medical University.

“The zoonotic potential of AIVs [avian influenza viruses] warrants continuous, vigilant monitoring to avert further spillovers that could result in disastrous pandemics,” they say.

*Factory farming and disease*
The WHO suspects, but has no proof, that Covid-19 is linked to the intensive breeding of animals in south-east Asia’s many barely regulated wildlife farms. Major outbreaks over the past 30 years including Q fever in the Netherlands and highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreaks have been linked with intensive livestock farming.

Governments and the £150bn-a-year poultry and livestock industries emphasise how intensive farming is generally extremely safe and now essential for providing fast-growing populations with protein, but scientific evidence shows that stressful, crowded conditions drive the emergence and spread of many infectious diseases, and act as an “epidemiological bridge” between wildlife and human infections.

UN bodies, academics and epidemiologists recognise the link between the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses and increasingly intensive poultry farming.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): “Avian influenza viruses are evolving into a large, diverse virus gene pool … A pathogen may turn into a hyper-virulent disease agent; in monocultures involving mass rearing of genetically identical animals that are selected for high feed conversion, an emerging hyper-virulent pathogen will rapidly spread within a flock or herd.”

Wild birds are routinely blamed by governments and industry for spreading avian flu along migratory routes, but evidence is mounting that intensive farms are potential “mixing pots” for new, deadly viruses.

“Blaming migratory waterfowl … is clearly no longer a tenable position,” says Rob Wallace, an American virologist who argues that the new strains of flu emerging are adapting to industrial poultry production. “Influenza’s infiltration into industrial livestock and poultry is so complete that these farms now act as their own reservoirs [of disease],” he says. “They are their own source.”










^A duck farm in Zhangzhou, Fujian province, where 400,000 ducks a week were being slaughtered when H7N9 bird flu hit China’s poultry market.


With more than 20 billion chickens and nearly 700 million pigs being farmed at any one time, Wallace says the chances of new flu strains and variants emerging and spilling over to humans are high.

He is backed by Sam Sheppard, a biologist at Bath University, who says overuse of antibiotics, overcrowding and the genetic similarity between animals provide ideal conditions for many bacteria, viruses and other pathogens to merge, mutate, spread and then jump into humans.

Sheppard researches how keeping animals penned together triggers genetic changes in common bugs such as campylobacter, which are now widespread in poultry, pigs and cattle. “These first emerged in the 20th century, coinciding with large increases in the number of farmed cattle. The bugs are now resistant to antibiotics as a result of overuse of medicine,” he says.

Nor is it just poultry and pigs. The emergence of respiratory diseases such as Mers in camels, coronaviruses in mink farms and BSE in cattle suggests that the intensive breeding of any animal increases the risks of infection.

*The next pandemic*
Marius Gilbert, an epidemiologist at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, and others have shown how bird flu is linked to the rapid intensification of poultry farming, which is now making bird flu viruses more dangerous.

Public health experts have long warned about the dangers of industrial farming but since Covid the stakes have become higher as the full costs of a modern pandemic are seen, says medical doctor and historian Michael Greger, author of the book Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching.

Greger argues that there have been three eras of human disease: first, when we started to domesticate animals about 10,000 years ago and were infected with their diseases, such as measles and chickenpox; then in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the Industrial Revolution led to epidemics of diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer; and now, because of the agricultural intensification that is leading to zoonotic, or animal-borne, diseases such as bird flu, salmonella, Mers, Nipah and Covid-19.

“In evolutionary terms, rearing poultry, cattle and pigs in high-intensity, crowded, confined, entirely unnatural conditions may be the most profound alteration of the human-animal relationship in 10,000 years,” he says

“We are seeing an unprecedented explosion in outbreaks of new bird flu viruses, which historically have presented the greatest pandemic risk and certainly have the potential to be worse than Covid.”

Gilbert says it is not just factory farming that leads to dangerous avian flu, but changes humans are making to the wider environment. “Most viruses which circulate in wild birds are of low danger and cause only mild effects. [But] from time to time they enter the poultry system, where they go through evolutionary change, mostly linked to the conditions in which the animals are farmed. We have seen low-pathogen viruses gain pathogenicity in farms.”

This can set up a vicious circle where a virus mutates on a farm and then spills back into the wild bird population where it can spread further via migratory pathways, he says. “Every time people are infected there is a danger that viruses become more dangerous or transmissible.”

Gilbert says it is not just factory farming that leads to dangerous avian flu, but changes humans are making to the wider environment. “Most viruses which circulate in wild birds are of low danger and cause only mild effects. [But] from time to time they enter the poultry system, where they go through evolutionary change, mostly linked to the conditions in which the animals are farmed. We have seen low-pathogen viruses gain pathogenicity in farms.”

This can set up a vicious circle where a virus mutates on a farm and then spills back into the wild bird population where it can spread further via migratory pathways, he says. “Every time people are infected there is a danger that viruses become more dangerous or transmissible.”









Factory farms of disease: how industrial chicken production is breeding the next pandemic


At least eight types of bird flu, all of which can kill humans, are circulating around the world’s factory farms – and they could be worse than Covid-19




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Rush hour at an animal rescue centre in Wiltshire. The owner enthusiastically films this every morning.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I agree  ❤🥕🍆🌽🥰🐮🐔🐽🐟🦞🐣

*VEGANS ARE HAPPIER THAN MEAT-EATERS, STUDY FINDS*
*The new study of more than 11,000 Americans found that not only are vegans more likely to be and stay happy, but happier individuals are more likely to go vegan*

Vegans are happier than meat-eaters and more accepted than what’s commonly believed, according to a new study by organization Tracking Happiness. The study surveyed 11,537 people from the United States, grouped into four categories: vegan (1,179), vegetarian (948), pescatarian (422), and meat-eater (8,988). Respondents were asked: “If you look back at the last year of your life, how would you rate your happiness on a scale from 1 to 10?” The average happiness rating was 6.9, with meat-eaters scoring the lowest happiness rating of 6.8 on a scale of 1 to 10 and vegans scoring 7 percent higher. 

The study also found that happier individuals consider themselves more likely to become vegan in the future. Of the nearly 9,000 meat-eaters surveyed, researchers found those who reported higher happiness ratings were more likely to adopt a plant-based diet. Additionally, they found that not only are happier individuals more likely to become vegan, vegans are also more likely to stay happy. 

*Positive attitudes towards vegans*
The study explored the attitudes toward and acceptance of veganism and the motives for going vegan. The survey asked the participating meat-eaters what their opinion of vegans or veganism is, and findings showed that less than 15 percent had a negative opinion of vegans and that the average meat-eater thought positively of vegans (3.44 on a scale of 1 to 5). 

The study also pointed out that only 16 percent of meat-eaters consider themselves likely or very likely to adopt a plant-based diet, with older respondents significantly less likely to do so. Notably though, among people already reducing their consumption of animal products, the study found they are 220 percent more likely to adopt a plant-based diet in the future. 

*Vegans’ motives and happiness levels*
Among vegans, the study found that the environment was the biggest motive for their dietary choice, followed by personal preference, animal cruelty, and intolerance for meat or dairy products. Of those individuals, researchers found that those who are vegan to help reduce their impact on the environment reported a higher average happiness rating (7.72 on a scale of 1 to 10) compared to those who are vegan to counter animal cruelty (6.77 on a scale of 1 to 10).

“Sustainable behavior is linked to increased mental health, which is why it’s so important to talk about the consumption of animal products. Even though the positive environmental effect of veganism cannot be disputed, there is still a negative stigma surrounding people who claim to be vegan,” Tracking Happiness Founder Hugo Huijer said. “We believe that happiness and sustainability go hand in hand. We hope that our findings help people make informed decisions regarding sustainability, happiness, and the consumption of animal products.”

*Eating more veggies makes you happier*
A similar 2016 study carried out by the University of Warwick and the University of Queensland found that people who ate more fruit and vegetables experienced substantial increases in happiness over a two-year period. 

For this study, researchers examined the food diaries of 12,385 Australian adults to measure their happiness levels and concluded that people who transitioned from eating few fruits and vegetables to eight servings per day felt increases in life satisfaction comparable to getting a job after being unemployed.









Vegans Are Way Happier than Meat-Eaters, Study Finds. Here’s Why.


The new study of more than 11,000 Americans found that not only are vegans more likely to be and stay happy, but happier individuals are more likely to go vegan.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*10 Seeds Everyone Should Grow and Store in Case of a Global Emergency*











Doomsday prepping used to be a fringe movement that many people regarded as a community of paranoid fanatics. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, people across the country are looking toward preppers for survival advice. One way they stay prepared for possible disaster is by stockpiling emergency seeds. 

To some, the thought of stores running out of food during a crisis may have at one time seemed outrageous. The empty grocery store shelves last spring, however, made that scenario feel much more possible. In the event of a national or global crisis, having a collection of emergency seeds is an excellent way to ensure that you and your loved ones will be able to sustain themselves. 

Beyond an apocalypse-style crisis, however, storing heirloom seeds over winter is a great way to cut down the cost of your annual vegetable garden. By saving seeds, you can grow a garden without having to purchase new seeds or plants every season. 

*What are the Best Emergency Seeds?*
When it comes to storing seeds, not all of them are made equal. Plants with flowers that are self-pollinating, like tomatoes or peppers, tend to be easier for seed saving. They require little or no special treatment before saving.

Seeds from biennial crops, however, are harder to save because they require two growing seasons in order to set seed. 

Open-pollinated plants are also a better choice for seed saving rather than hybrids. This is because it is impossible to predict the quality of a hybrid plant and its fruit. When it comes to emergency seeds, you don’t want to leave anything up to chance. 

The following are some of the most practical plants for harvesting and storing seeds:
*Tomatoes*
Non-hybrid tomato plants, like “Big Rainbow”, “San Marzano”, and “Brandywine” are excellent seed-savers. These varieties will give you a consistent fruit season after season. Nutritionally, tomatoes are an excellent choice because they are high in vitamin C and other antioxidants. They also provide potassium, folate, lycopene, lutein, and beta-carotene. 
*Peppers*
“Habanero”, “California Wonder” and “Corno di Toro” peppers are also non-hybrids that will produce a consistent crop. Peppers also provide a good amount of vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin B6, folate, and vitamin E.

*Beans*
Open-pollinated bean varieties include “Kentucky Wonder”, “Blue Lake” and “Tendercrop”. They are a rich source of vitamins A, C, and K, as well as folic acid and fiber.

*Peas*
Non-hybrid varieties of peas include ‘Lincoln’, ‘Little Marvel’ and ‘Perfection’ peas. They are an excellent source of vitamin K, as well as manganese, B vitamins, fiber, vitamin C, phosphorus, and folate.

*The following plants are more difficult to harvest seeds from, but provide a variety of nutrients in the event of an emergency:*

*Kale*
Kale is an excellent source of vitamins A, K, B6 and C, calcium, potassium, copper and manganese. It is also a very robust green vegetable that grows well in a variety of conditions.

*Spinach*
Spinach is a good source of calcium, magnesium, potassium, vitamin A, and folate. It also contains vitamin K, fiber, phosphorus, and thiamine.

*Carrots*
Carrots are one of the best vegetable sources of vitamin A. They are also high in biotin and vitamin K, and contain a good amount of fiber. They are more difficult in terms of seed storage because they require two growing seasons to drop seed, but they are worth the wait.

*Beets*
Like carrots, beets also won’t produce seeds until their second growing season. That being said, they provide a lot of nutrition. They contain betalains, which are phytonutrients that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Beets are also a great source of folate, manganese, copper, and fiber.

*Radishes*
Radishes are a good source of antioxidants like catechin, pyrogallol, vanillic acid, and other phenolic compounds. They also contain chemical compounds like glucosinolate and isothiocyanate and the antioxidant coenzyme Q10 that can help regulate blood sugar levels and block the formation of diabetes.

*Zucchini*
Zucchini made it on this list in part because of how large the squash are able to grow and how productive just one plant is. When you let the squash grow larger, they get seedy and a bit watery – not the best. That said, because of how quickly these squash grow, they can provide an important food source for other food sources. For example, if you keep chickens, they’ll enjoy eating big, overripe zucchini, especially if grain feed became scarce for any reason.

*How to Harvest Emergency Seeds*
For vegetables like carrots, kale, spinach, beets, and radishes, you’re likely better off purchasing seed packets from your local garden shoppe and storing them for safe-keeping. You can ask the experts there for advice on how to store them properly so they will remain viable for the long-term.

For tomatoes, peppers, beans, and peas, however, you can harvest those seeds yourself quite easily. To do so, follow these steps:


*Allow the fruit to fully ripen.* In the case of peppers, you want to wait until the pepper has started to wrinkle before picking it. For beans and peas, you should allow the pods to ripen on the plant until they are dry and starting to turn brown. You should be able to hear the seeds rattling around on the inside.
*For tomatoes: *put the seeds and gel in a glass jar with water. Swirl the mixture twice per day. Within five days it should ferment and the seeds will fall to the bottom. Pour off the liquid, rinse the seeds, and spread them on paper towels to dry.
*For Peppers:* Simply scrape the seeds out and lay them out to dry.
*For Peas and Beans:* remove the pods from the plant and spread them out inside to dry. You can leave them in the pods until you’re ready to plant them or remove the seeds from the pods after they’ve been drying for at least two weeks.
*How to Store Emergency Seeds*
Here are three tips for storing your seeds to ensure they are viable come planting season:

*Tip #1: Keep them cool *
You should keep your seeds in a cool location that is out of direct sunlight. This area should also maintain a fairly consistent temperature. A cold closet or a basement can be a good spot. Alternatively, so long as your seeds are fully dry you can store them in the refrigerator.

*Tip #2: Keep them dry*
The location in which you store your seeds should also not be humid. This is because humidity can cause your seeds to sprout before you’re ready to plant them. It is also important to ensure your seeds are sufficiently dry before you store them, for the same reason.

*Tip #3: Protect your seeds*
Rodents and pests may enjoy your seeds as a little snack, so choose a spot that is safe from critters. Glass jars, metal containers, or wire mesh can also protect your seeds from would-be predators.

Some seeds, like carrots, for example, don’t tend to last as long in storage. To ensure these seeds last until next growing season, keep them in the freezer so they don’t lose their ability to germinate and grow.

*Emergency Seeds to Meet Your Needs*
While it may sound extreme to some, having emergency seeds in case of a crisis is a good way to ensure that your family will have access to healthy food. At the very least, harvesting and saving your own seeds can reduce the costs associated with growing your own vegetable garden, so you can enjoy a delicious crop season after season.









9 Seeds Everyone Should Grow and Store in Case of a Global Emergency


Foods for survival that everyone should have in their garden.




thegardenmagazine.com


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

We grew almost everything in our garden from seeds we'd saved from the year before, except radishes, which I'd never grown before. Radishes go from seed to table really fast. I've never been a big radish eater but we enjoyed them, usually stir-fried along with their greens, so much that my wife now buys them at the grocery store. We're still harvesting yard-long beans and a Chinese squash, though we're all pretty sick of them at this point and my wife has frozen some as well. Still getting some okra, too. And I noticed today we have blossoms on our eggplants, though they'll get zapped before they produce fruit. Pretty good stash of acorn squash in the basement and I haven't dug up the sweet potatoes yet. I'll be interested to see how big they are as my wife grew them for the greens and clipped them pretty regularly so they are probably stunted but we'll see.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## frdfandc (Sep 5, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> *How to Store Emergency Seeds*
> Here are three tips for storing your seeds to ensure they are viable come planting season:
> 
> *Tip #1: Keep them cool *
> ...



Another good way of drying seeds is to put them in lunch sized paper bags to dry. Put them in the bag and shake every 3-4 days. Repeat for 2-3 weeks until completely dry. Once they are dry, store them in small ziploc bags for storage. Keep them in a cool/dry place. I keep all my seeds together in a gallon sized Ziploc bag, individually divided in my front room where it's usually dark, dry and cool.


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## frdfandc (Sep 5, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> I agree  ❤🥕🍆🌽🥰🐮🐔🐽🐟🦞🐣
> 
> *VEGANS ARE HAPPIER THAN MEAT-EATERS, STUDY FINDS*
> *The new study of more than 11,000 Americans found that not only are vegans more likely to be and stay happy, but happier individuals are more likely to go vegan*
> ...



I feel that there are variables missing in this. As a meat eater I'm very happy with the last year of my life. Especially regarding food choices. I think the reason these surveyed meat eaters are not as happy as vegan's is due to the diets of those surveyed. How many people eat meat that isn't home cooked? Probably most of them. I know I feel like crap after eating most fast/processed foods.


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## RMCDan (Feb 28, 2008)

frdfandc said:


> I feel that there are variables missing in this. As a meat eater I'm very happy with the last year of my life. Especially regarding food choices. I think the reason these surveyed meat eaters are not as happy as vegan's is due to the diets of those surveyed. How many people eat meat that isn't home cooked? Probably most of them. I know I feel like crap after eating most fast/processed foods.


It's a non-scientific non-peer reviewed poll completed by paid respondents* that found only a 7% difference between meat-eaters and vegans and found that vegetarians were the group with the highest self-reported happiness.** In other words, it's a statistical dumpster fire from which no actual conclusions can or should be drawn.

*Surveys were completed by MTurk employees (Amazon Mechanical Turk) so it's a not a representative randomized sample, which any statistician will tell you is the single most important criteria for accurately extrapolating your results to the general population.

**Source material: Eat Green, Be Happy: Evidence Of The Connection Between Veganism And Happiness


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Throwback Thursday October 28, 2018










Mindblowing vegan tacos










Vegan monster donuts









Urban agriculture: frontyard swisschard










street market


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Got room for a garden at your new place @cyclelicious ?

We expanded ours this year and now it's a good size for us. I've got to figure out where to plant a couple of figs I started from cuttings and I'll transplant a few blueberries. And my wife wants a persimmon tree so I'll have to find a spot for it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

chazpat said:


> Got room for a garden at your new place @cyclelicious ?
> 
> We expanded ours this year and now it's a good size for us. I've got to figure out where to plant a couple of figs I started from cuttings and I'll transplant a few blueberries. And my wife wants a persimmon tree so I'll have to find a spot for it.


We will have a nice garden at the new place! The previous owners grew lots of greens, tomatoes, beans etc. No fruit trees but there are many options for the future. I'm looking forward to planning for next year's crops  There's even a pond with Koi fish! I'm more nervous about keep the Koi's alive!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I don't like any of these ... the worst? Probably Rockets


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A nice healthy treat although I may get my house egged and t.p'd


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

November 1 is World Vegan Day

*How to go vegan: 31 top tips to make the transition easy*











The only regret vegans have about going vegan is that they didn’t do it sooner. As it’s World Vegan Month, it’s the perfect time to spend a month discovering the joys of being vegan before taking the plunge yourself.

Your first vegan month will see your eyes open, mind widen, taste buds tantalised and preconceptions challenged.

Be prepared. You are about to enter a world where cheese is made from cashew nuts, fruits can be cooked to resemble meat and meringues are made from canned bean juice (No, really).

Cooking as a vegan can take some serious getting used to. Intimidated? Don’t be.

In reality, going vegan is pretty simple. In no time at all, you’ll look at your vegan lifestyle and plant-based diet in a whole different light.

This handy guide will show you how to go vegan the easy way.

*Day 1 – Get educated*
It’s day one. You’re officially vegan and it’s time to educate yourself! The Vegan Society, Veganuary, and nutritionfacts.org will provide all the key information you need regarding the main dietary dos and don’ts, including all you need to know about key food groups.

This is a great place to start building the foundations of your new vegan lifestyle.

*Day 2 – Discover new ingredients*
There are thousands of edible plants to choose from, so why just stick to the same few you’ve always eaten?

It’s time to take a stroll down the produce aisle and pick up some new and exciting ingredients you’ve never tried before.

Search out your local farm or produce markets to source fresh and seasonal produce that is bursting with flavour – and often is so much cheaper than when bought from the average supermarket.

From tempeh and tofu to seitan and aquafaba, there’s a world of plant-based foods waiting to be tried.

*Day 3 – Be inspired*
The first week is full of discoveries. An online search reveals countless vegan blogs, magazines, recipe books and social media full of stories, recipes and news to inspire your journey.
If you’re looking for a friendly, encouraging place to learn more about veganism, tune into the Simply Vegan podcast.

How to be the perfect vegan coach for others this Veganuary
10 reasons you should stay vegan after Veganuary
Vegan pantry staples that will make going vegan simple this Veganuary
*Day 4 – Veganise your favourite meal*
Steak and ale pie may have been your go-to meal, or maybe you revelled in a chilli con carne? Whatever your favourite meal was prior to going vegan, re-master it!
Source the substitutes needed to reinvent dishes even better, and this time make it vegan. It’ll aid your transition and stop any cravings during your first week. As a vegan, you can truly have it all.
*Day 5 – Discover accidentally vegan items*
A brief scour of the supermarket shelves will reveal all manner of staggeringly secretly items that you never knew were vegan!
Original Oreos, Jus’ Roll Pastries and even vegan ice cream such as Swedish Glace are just a few of the secrets in the vegan community, with many more to be revealed!
You might be surprised just how many products in UK supermarkets are accidentally vegan when you check out this guide.
*Day 6 – Preparation prevents relapses*
Make some larger meals in advance and keep them in your fridge or freezer for busy days and easy meals to prevent you from reaching for a ready meal.

Staples in my freezer include hot-pots and Thai curries.

*Day 7 – One week in! Remember why you started*
You’ve reached a whole week of plant-based living!

Take a second to think about why you chose this new diet to help focus your energy and mind to motivate you onwards.

*Day 8 – Get social*
Almost every form of social media these days has links to vegan clubs and meeting groups for you to try out and get together with more like-minded people.

UK Vegan Supermarket Finds (Facebook) and London Vegan Meetup (Facebook and in person) are a great way to find new restaurants, friends and good conversation! Search online to find the nearest group to you.

*Day 9 – Become a master of label reading*
The easiest way to identify a product as vegan is to search for the official Vegan Society logo, although most supermarkets now label their products as vegan too.

However, if this is not available there will be a list of common food allergens on the packaging of products with eggs and milk being shown in bold lettering.

*Day 10 – Tell your friends and family*
Coming out as a vegan can be met with mixed responses! Prepare yourself for a whole array of thoughts and reactions ranging from positive and supportive to confusing and questioning with everything in between.

Just remember to be strong, stick to your principles and be passionate. Remember, not everyone will agree with your choices, but there are many more out there who will.

*Day 11 – Experiment with vegan meats*
Everything from beef chunks, sausages and kebab-style slices, to faux fish fingers and gourmet roasts. No meat is un-veganised!

Often soya or wheat-based, alternatives to meat can be useful when substituting in early vegan meals, and can even fool children and amaze friends to the tasty ways of veganism.

*Day 12 – Go out to eat*
There’s never been a better time to eat out as a vegan.
Over the last few years the number of vegan items on menus, along with proper allergen labelling, mean it’s easier than ever to eat out as a vegan (crafting your own dish from various menu items is so last year).
Some restaurant chains even offer their own vegan menus. Enquire ahead to get the best from the experience.
*Day 13 – Start a food diary*
A creative way to re-think your diet is to start a food diary. Make a note of what you made, ate and sampled – what did you like? What didn’t you like?
How would you change the dish or what would you do next time to make it even better? This will help you discover your new tastes and help begin weekly meal planning.
*Day 14 – Swot up on supplements*
Think you know your vitamins A, B and C from your Vitamin D? It is recommended that all vegans supplement with both vitamin B12 (1000 mcg) and Vitamin D (1000 iu) every day to maintain optimum health.
These can be found in vegan varieties from health food shops or from the Vegan Society’s website – www.vegansociety.com/shop/supplements.
*Day 15 – Buy in bulk*
By now you should be getting to grips with the basic ingredients you need to cook with regularly.
Everything from pulses, lentils and wholegrains to nuts and seeds can be ordered online in bulk from reputable sellers offering the best price per kg.
I store nuts, seeds and legumes in glass jars – it saves space and makes for a unique kitchen display!
*Day 16 – Embrace your culinary disasters!*
The first few weeks of experimenting with vegan food and ingredients is likely to be a combination of delicious hits, and the…not so delightful misses. Don’t hang up that apron!
The first time I made tofu, I swore I’d never again. A few non-stick pans, recipe trial and errors and weeks later, my relationship with this delightfully versatile ingredient blossomed to become one of my everyday staple foods!
If at first you don’t succeed…bake it in the oven instead! Be sure to check out our handy guide to marinating tofu too.
*Day 17 – Become a vegan athlete*
There’s never been a better time to get into shape and fulfil sporting ambitions.
Being vegan, cholesterol levels will drop (plant-based foods contain no cholesterol), circulation improves and you may even see a few extra lbs naturally falling off.
Take the opportunity of starting a fresh lifestyle to take up a new sporting hobby, whether it’s becoming a gym bunny or casual cyclist.
*Day 18 – Slip up? No problem!*
The first time I became vegetarian, the very next day I found myself instinctively ordering a chicken dish at a restaurant!
Being vegan takes some getting used to, and if you make a mistake or accidentally consume an animal product, don’t give up.
Learn from where you went wrong, try not to dwell on your experience, and simply move on.

*Day 19 – Veganise your alcoholic drinks*
Becoming vegan doesn’t mean an end to enjoying a drink or two. There are so many drinks that are certified vegan, so just take your pick and enjoy responsibly.

Brands include; Malibu Rum, Grey Goose Vodka, Coors beer and Red Truck Wines. There is a plethora of independent brewers and distilleries who are also vegan – many can be found and bought online.

*Day 20 – Equip your kitchen*
One of the best bits of gear for a vegan is a large food processor. From making huge batches of fresh hummus, creating raw cheesecakes and blitzing burgers together, a processor is used again and again.

It’s worth investing in a high powered machine, with a longer warranty, that’s built to last.

*Day 21 – Go greener*
Altering your lifestyle has already reduced your carbon footprint and helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Why not consider upping the effort? Start recycling household waste more, reduce the food waste you produce by buying and eating smarter, and switch to ecologically friendly cleaning products (available from most supermarkets).

*Day 22 – Substitute staples*
By now, you may start craving things like mayonnaise or yoghurt. You’ll be pleased to know that soya-based alternatives to both of these common dairy products are available to buy.

What’s more, you’ll most likely find that they taste exactly the same (if not better, in my opinion) than the originals!

Alternatively, create your own veganaise and coconut yoghurts for ultimate kitchen-revelling glory.

*Day 23 – There’s an app for that*
Thanks to modern technology, every aspect of being vegan is handily condensed into a smartphone app!

From restaurant finders including HappyCow and VanillaBean, to product scanner app Is It Vegan? enabling you to scan any product barcode to check its allergens and suitability.

There’s even the BunnyFree app that checks whether brands of products are tested on animals or not.

*Day 24 – Organise a vegan trip*
There is no better place to discover more about being vegan than at a local or nationwide vegan festival. Some top picks are The Allergy and Free From Show and VegFest.

These great festivals provide you with inspiration and products you never expected to discover, alongside some delicious free samples and a melting pot of like-minded individuals.

*Day 25 – Be a great vegan guest*
Crumbling at your first invitation to a dinner party? Has the thought of a birthday gathering reduced you to a nervous wreck?

Fear not! To be the perfect vegan guest, simply inform your host in advance. Give them a list of dishes or recipes that you enjoy eating and suggest simple alternatives they could create.

Clueless host? Just take your own dish! That way you can share your delicious creation around the table.

*Day 26 – Eat a variety of foods*
Just as with any diet or lifestyle, it’s easy to fall into a rut of eating the same dishes again and again.

Maintain your interest and creativity by thumbing through the pages of our magazine, some vegan cookbooks or websites such as Pinterest.

There’s nothing better than shaking up your daily food staples and finding ways to freshen your diet and spark creative genius.

*Day 27 – Watch out for non-vegan items*
There are some hidden animal products lurking in seemingly vegan foods that you need to be aware of.

Common ingredients include cochineal (artificial red colouring made from ground insect shells), most jelly sweets contain gelatine (sourced from animal bones), and certain mass-produced baked goods may contain egg or milk.

You can see more ingredients to watch out for here.

*Day 28 – Don’t worry about protein*
I guarantee after a month you’ll be used to people asking about protein!

You may be surprised to know you only need 10-15% of your energy from protein each day, and it can all come from plant-based foods.

Sources include buckwheat, wholegrains and quinoa, which should be combined with legumes, beans, and pulses such as soya and chickpeas.

*Day 29 – Supercharge your pantry*
Now you’re getting used to a plant-based diet, why not upgrade your pantry with some superfoods?

Chia seeds and flaxseeds are a rich source of plant-based omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids, cocoa nibs will give your breakfast an antioxidant hit, while a variety of nuts are going to boost your protein and mineral intakes.

Simply add a few of these into your diet and watch your health and palette grow!

*Day 30 – Don’t be scared to ask for help*
There will be many different aspects of veganism that you’re still yet to discover. Never be afraid to ask your vegan friends or members of a vegan group/community for help.

From my experience of being a loyal member of the UK vegan community, I can honestly say that vegans are extremely enthusiastic and supportive of others who ask for help or need support.

There are so many places to turn if you’re unsure or need advice, there is never a need to feel alone – you’re part of a global support network.

*Day 31 of the rest of your vegan life – Have your cake and eat it*
Congratulations! The first month of being vegan has officially ended, and you can now call yourself a certified Veganuary Veteran.

Mark this special occasion by baking yourself and your loved ones (or just yourself – you’ve earned it after all!) a delicious vegan cake.

Make this day your official Vegan-niversary, knowing that you have contributed to the promotion of a more healthy and sustainable lifestyle, what more reason could you need to celebrate?









How to go vegan: 31 daily tips to guide you through the first month


Navigate your newly vegan life with this easy-to-follow one-tip-a-day guide to help keep you on track through your first month as a vegan.




www.veganfoodandliving.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Florentine bean soup, corn bread and cashew spread... all vegan all delicious. The dish in the centre is BBQ crispy cauliflower 
Chris has the bean burger


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Modern pentathlon votes to ditch horse riding after Tokyo Olympic turmoil









*
Germany’s Annika Schleu left the arena in tears after struggling to control her horse, Saint Boy, during competition at the Tokyo Games


It is a sport conceived originally by the founder of the modern Olympics to help cavalry riders to develop the skills needed to survive behind enemy lines. But after 109 years, *modern pentathlon’s governing body has voted secretly to remove horse riding and replace it with cycling, *the Guardian can reveal.

Multiple sources have said the decision was taken by the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne’s executive board in recent days, and was hastened by the distressing scenes at the Tokyo Olympics when a horse was punched by a German coach after it refused to jump a fence.

Those pictures made global headlines and the UIPM is understood to have acted in order to preserve its status in the Olympics in the lead-up to the Paris 2024 Games.


While the decision has not yet been announced officially, it is already facing a backlash from some countries who believe that losing the horse-riding element fundamentally changes the sport. Modern pentathlon has been a core Olympic event since 1912 when it was invented by Pierre de Coubertin – and while it has since moved from a five-day event to a solitary day it has always tested athletes in fencing, swimming, show jumping, pistol shooting, and cross-country running.

The UIPM refused to deny the story when confronted by the Guardian, with a spokesperson saying: “I am not able to give you any information right now.”

However, the organisation later released a statement: “As part of UIPM’s commitment to maintaining a strong, dynamic profile for modern pentathlon, a series of strategic meetings are being held. These meetings will include an upcoming call with national federations later this week. The outcome of these meetings will be detailed in a press release to be published on 4 November.”

The former British modern pentathlete Kate Allenby, who won a bronze for Team GB at the Sydney Olympics, told the Guardian any move to replace riding would be a “disaster” for the sport. “This needs talking about because it’s not modern pentathlon if it hasn’t got riding in it,” she said.

However another British Olympian Greg Whyte, who also won a world silver medal in 1994, said he could understand the change. “I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “Back in the day, the fencing part alone used to take 14 hours, while in Paris the whole event will last just 90 minutes. All sports evolve, and no sport is immune from change in the modern TV era.”

The UIPM is understood to have acted after the sport was heavily criticised in Tokyo. The German competitor Annika Schleu, who had been in the gold-medal position before the showjumping, was seen in tears after her ride, Saint Boy, refused to jump over the obstacles.

The German coach Kim Raisner, who was seen punching Saint Boy, was sent home from Tokyo and the UIPM promised to conduct a full review as well as disciplining Raisner.
Britain won the men’s and women’s modern pentathlon events at the Tokyo 2020 Games courtesy of Joe Choong and Kate French.









Modern pentathlon votes to ditch horse riding after Tokyo Olympic turmoil


Modern pentathlon has voted secretly to replace horse riding with cycling to preserve its Olympic status after a coach punched a horse in Tokyo




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

That's what I say...


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## PHeller (Dec 28, 2012)

I'm curious about Vegan's and Vegetarian's thoughts on keeping pets?

I know lots of Vegans who are also pet owners, and oddly enough, feed the only meat in the house to their animals. I read somewhere that the pet industry accounts for something like 30% of total meat production worldwide. Yes, there are vegan pet foods, but they are only a small percentage of the market.

When I mention to Vegans that their dog is the among the top 5 most common mammals in the USA, among chickens, mice, cats and squirrels, they ask "so what?" Well, basically, we have prioritized the domesticated dog (and cat) over our wildlife. This is particularly ironic when someone on the local facebook group complains that we need more hunting of Coyotes or Bobcats because they are eating people's pets, and that bringing back wolves might deplete that heards of game animals hunters enjoy. The best is when someone says on the topic of climate change "I'd rather we have more dogs and less people." That's funny because in the USA, the population growth of domesticated dogs has actually outpaced the population growth of humans. 

Another good conversation I had with a Vegan about this topic was that of the "life of a farm animal" vs the life of a domesticated house cat or dog. I was advocating that they keep their cat indoors, and by allowing their cat to roam outside, they were contributing the senseless death of many wild animals, songbirds especially. They fired back that keep an animal indoors its entire life was torturous imprisonment. I said, well what about just walking your cat, like you would a dog? They laughed at this idea. 

I have some friends who are vegan and they specifically sought out pure-bred dogs. I asked why, if they were so against eating meat, was it ethical to breed an animal specifically for their enjoyment, whom would spend 80% of its life indoors? In this case, my justification swayed their decision to stop keeping pets or only adopt from shelters. 

Our relationship with animals needs to change, but that also means those animals in our own homes, too.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^Simply put, some vegans have pets and some don't

The general vibe in veganism is rescued pets are fine, pets that are bred are not (obviously there is disagreement and nuance, but that's the general position) I'm personally against buying pets from breeders, because there are already plenty of animals in shelters that need homes, and also the puppy mill farming business is probably worse than most people imagine.
I also fully believe the language we use to describe our relationships with animals is important. So no, as a vegan, I don't think owning a pet aligns with veganism. However I do think adopting an animal companion can be vegan.
BTW I have an indoor cat. It's healthier and safer for her. I had a dog (a rescue as well) that lived 17 1/2 years


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

such value!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*TIME NAMES VEGAN TUNA ONE OF THE 100 BEST INVENTIONS OF 2021*

TIME magazine included vegan tuna made by startup Kuleana on its prestigious 100 Best Inventions of 2021 list. To create the list, TIME solicited nominations from its editors and correspondents and through an online application process and then evaluated each contender on key factors such as originality, creativity, efficacy, ambition, and impact. Kuleana’s sushi-grade vegan tuna was chosen for its unique ingredient list (which includes algae, koji, radish, bamboo, and potato), its health-promoting qualities, and its world-saving potential to make industrial tuna fishing obsolete. 

“Tasty and nutritious plant-based alternatives for meat and chicken have been available for years. But seafood? Not so much,” TIME wrote about Kuleana’s innovative tuna. “That’s the void that Kuleana is trying to fill with its 100-percent plant-based, sushi-grade, ready-to-eat tuna …[and it] retains the iron, vitamin B12, and omega-3 fatty acid of the real thing—without the microplastics, mercury, or high cholesterol. And the benefits are more than nutritional—it may also help to alleviate reliance on industrial fishing in the face of increasing demand for fresh food.”










Kuleana shares the TIME best inventions list with the COVID-19 vaccine, and its vegan tuna was one of only three food category inventions TIME honored—the other two being SAVRpak (a packet that keeps food fresh) and Sfognili cascatelli (a new noodle shape). TIME’s special mentions include UPSIDE Chicken (cell-based chicken made by California-based UPSIDE Foods) and vegan honey from MeliBio (which uses proprietary technology to create real honey without exploiting bees). 

*Kuleana’s vegan tuna, delivered*
San Francisco-based Kuleana—which counts Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian as an investor—was founded to solve many problems in the traditional seafood industry, including overfishing, plastic pollution, fish fraud, human slavery, and human health concerns. Its first product, Kuleana Tuna, can be used in traditional dishes that call for sushi-grade tuna such as carpaccio, sashimi, sushi, and ceviche. The vegan tuna is currently available on the menu at select locations of Poké Bar and Blue Sushi Sake Grill.

In the retail sector, Kuleana Tuna was only sold at Los Angeles area health store Erewhon until today, when the innovative vegan tuna launched online through e-tailer GTFO It’s Vegan. Now available in two formats (poké cubes and fillets) for $13.99 per 8.8-ounce pack, Kuleana Tuna has a shelf life of seven days in the refrigerator and 12 months in the freezer. “We’re providing the next generation of seafood without the environmental consequences,” Jacek Prus, CEO and co-founder of Kuleana, said in a statement. “Kuleana is seafood that is good for our palate and our planet.”










In addition to Kuleana, GTFO—which stands for “GreaTFOods”—recently launched its own brand of konjac-based vegan sashimi in tuna, salmon, sailfish, and calamari varieties to offer the most extensive selection of plant-based sashimi in the United States. With its Kuleana partnership, GTFO is further expanding into the lucrative vegan seafood space.

“After monitoring tens of thousands of transactions and observing customer purchase patterns on our platform, we believe the next big wave of innovation in plant-based food will come in the category of seafood,” Marc Pierce, CEO of GTFO It’s Vegan, said in a statement. “We were very excited to find and partner with Kuleana as they truly have a leading-edge plant-based sashimi solution in a category that is rapidly growing. With the taste and texture of this product, we know it will be a winner among our wholesale and retail customers.”

*TIME recognizes vegan innovation*
Kuleana is not the first vegan innovator to be recognized by TIME. In 2018, TIME named Beyond Sausage to its 2018 Best 100 Inventions list, pointing out that its first foray into the plant-based pork space “tastes surprisingly close to the real thing.” In 2019, TIME spotlighted Beyond Meat top competitor Impossible Foods on its innovations list for its Impossible Burger 2.0, which improved on the beef-like texture and flavor of the original. 











Last year, TIME also recognized Impossible Foods’ on its annual innovators list for its Impossible Pork, praising the plant-based pork’s ability to replace traditionally raised pork, the most-consumed meat in the world that comes with many environmental downfalls such as waste pollution. 

When it comes to vegan people, TIME awarded climate activist Greta Thunberg its prestigious “Person of the Year” title in 2019, making the 16-year-old the youngest person to ever hold the title in its 92-year history. 









TIME Names Vegan Tuna One of the 100 Best Inventions of 2021


Sushi-grade vegan tuna made by Kuleana is one of TIME’s top 100 best inventions of 2021 and the San Francisco-based startup is just getting started.




vegnews.com


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

I've always thought it was odd how people separate animals that are pets from animals that are food. It seems to be common thinking from people that are so caring of pets and wild animals yet have no problem with the slaughter of cows, pigs, etc as they were "raised to be food", as if being tortured their whole life and then killed is ok but if someone were to mistreat a dog, they'd be all up in arms.

I remember as a kid playing with a large calf that had been bottle raised. It was just a really big puppy.


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

chazpat said:


> I've always thought it was odd how people separate animals that are pets from animals that are food. It seems to be common thinking from people that are so caring of pets and wild animals yet have no problem with the slaughter of cows, pigs, etc as they were "raised to be food", as if being tortured their whole life and then killed is ok but if someone were to mistreat a dog, they'd be all up in arms.
> 
> I remember as a kid playing with a large calf that had been bottle raised. It was just a really big puppy.


I guess that somewhat describes my perspective. We coevolved with dogs, a mutual beneficial relationship in the game of survival. I'd wager this is why we form such strong bonds with them and vice versa. Eating them, to me, is very weird.

This is the privileged white guy speaking here but as of the last bunch of years I've had the benefit of being exposed to some idyllic farms. Basically just wineries utilizing some land to grow other things like high-end meat. The animal has a truly idyllic life right up until it doesn't and it has no idea or pain upon it's death. Another aspect of this I learned that I think people might not realize is how specified a lot of these animals are. They are very specifically bred to get fat quickly and once they reach that stage they're pretty much miserable. 

*Sorry if this is inappropriate here cyclelicious. I have the utmost respect for veganism, vegetarianism, and all the effort you put in here. 

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

What can I say? I hated licorice... I had 2 grandmothers. The Irish Canadian grandmother who would have a small bowl of licorice all sorts on her living room coffee table. She would offer me to "have some" but I always refused ... remembering the first time I tried tasting black licorice, gagging and spitting it out. My Slovenian grandma on the other hand, would offer apple strudel, walnut bread, plum dumplings etc. Which nanny did I prefer to visit? 


*American Man Dies After Eating Licorice Every Day For Three Weeks*










A man has died after eating licorice every day for three weeks, highlighting a danger of the terrible sweet that you might not be aware of.

In a case report in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), doctors outline how a classic sweet led to the death of a 54-year-old man from Massachusetts. When the patient arrived at Massachusetts General Hospital, he was unresponsive following cardiac arrest. He had been in his "usual state of health" that day until he collapsed shaking to the ground in a fast-food restaurant around midday, when he lost consciousness.

After attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at the scene, he was moved to the emergency room with an irregular heartbeat of just 40 beats per minute, before being placed on a mechanical ventilator in the cardiac intensive care unit (ICU).

During investigations, he was found to be low in potassium, and medical history was taken from his friends and family. The construction worker had been in good health, with no history of chest pain, shortness of breath, or any other symptoms of heart failure or abnormal heart rhythm. None of his friends were ill, and he showed no other signs of ill health himself.

However, he did have a poor diet and would consume several packets of candy a day. Furthermore, he had switched the type of candy he was eating just 3 weeks earlier, from fruit-flavored soft candy (red licorice) to black licorice-flavored, finally giving the medical team a clue about what had caused his condition, especially given his low potassium levels. Black licorice contains glycyrrhizic acid, which can cause changes to levels of potassium, disrupt electrolytes, and increase levels of cortisol, which can lead to hypertension, hypokalemia, metabolic alkalosis, fatal arrhythmias, and renal failure, all of which was seen in the patient.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration, for people 40 or older, eating just 56 grams (2 ounces) of black licorice a day for at least two weeks could land you in the hospital with irregular heart rhythm or arrhythmia. The death here however was clearly an extreme case.

"The goals of care were discussed with his family, who declined renal replacement therapy, and the patient was subsequently transitioned to comfort measures only," the authors wrote in the report. "He died comfortably with his family at his bedside, 32 hours after presentation."

If you must insist on eating licorice – let's be honest here, it tried to warn you it was dangerous with its flavor – be assured that this man's consumption was excessive, and you are extremely unlikely to eat enough to cause your own ill health. However, that's not to say it's risk-free.

“Even a small amount of licorice you eat can increase your blood pressure a little bit,” Dr Neel Butala, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital told Associated Press.

Maybe try a remotely edible candy instead.










American Man Dies After Eating Licorice Every Day For Three Weeks


American Man Dies After Eating Licorice Every Day For Three Weeks




www.iflscience.com


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

WHALENARD said:


> This is the privileged white guy speaking here but as of the last bunch of years I've had the benefit of being exposed to some idyllic farms. Basically just wineries utilizing some land to grow other things like high-end meat. The animal has a truly idyllic life right up until it doesn't and it has no idea or pain upon it's death. Another aspect of this I learned that I think people might not realize is how specified a lot of these animals are. They are very specifically bred to get fat quickly and once they reach that stage they're pretty much miserable.


Yet it still boils down to unnecessary violence inflicted on the defenseless for profit and flavor. Getting people to feel good about the way animals are harmed for their pleasure is how animal exploitation perpetuates itself.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Farmers In BC Told To Leave Their Animals As 'People's Lives Are More Important'










Abbotsford, B.C., has whole areas submerged in water due to flooding, leading to the Sumas Prairie region being evacuated and a local state of emergency being ordered.

Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun said at a news conference on Tuesday that people in flooding areas should leave their farm animals behind to get out immediately.
Abbotsford has a huge agricultural industry, many farms being in the Sumas Prairie region. Chief of Police Mike Serr explained in an earlier press conference on the same day that many farmers were actively trying to save their livestock.

Multiple photos and videos were shared online showing attempted rescues of animals.

Braun said that he understands why some would want to stay on their farms and save their livestock.

"There are people with powerboats hauling cows out of their barns," he said.

In the conference, Braun said that Abbotsford is "just at the beginning of a big fight," in reference to the major flooding.

"I have not seen this kind of devastation in my 68 years that I've lived here and it breaks my heart to see what's happening to those farmers who put their life savings into their properties and into their farms," he added.

Braun later stressed that, although he understands the farmers, "people's lives are more important to me right now than livestock and chickens."


Abbotsford is also dealing with a "fairly major" fire event taking place at an RV lot, that is blowing in potentially toxic smoke.

B.C. is reportedly considering a provincial state of emergency due to the storm, which resulted in flooding and mudslides.

Vancouver is now cut off by road from the rest of Canada after highway closures because of floods.















































Farmers In BC Told To Leave Their Animals As 'People's Lives Are More Important'


"I have not seen this kind of devastation in my 68 years that I've lived here"




www.narcity.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Poor animals as if they haven't suffered enough


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

It beats swiming across


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*NEW STUDY FINDS MUSHROOMS MAY LOWER RISK OF DEPRESSION








*


People who eat mushrooms could have a lower risk of experiencing depression, according to a new study published in the scientific journal _Journal of Affective Disorders_. For the study, researchers from Penn State University used data on diet (specifically to assess mushroom intake frequency) and mental health collected from more than 24,000 American adults between 2005 and 2016. Because mushrooms contain numerous bioactive compounds that may be associated with reduced anxiety, including B12, nerve growth factor, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory agents, the researchers hypothesized that mushroom consumption is associated with a lower risk of depression. 

“Mushrooms are the highest dietary source of the amino acid ergothioneine—an anti-inflammatory which cannot be synthesized by humans,” lead researcher Djibril Ba said in a statement. “Having high levels of this may lower the risk of oxidative stress, which could also reduce the symptoms of depression.”

The average age of the study’s participants was 45, the majority (66 percent) of whom were non-Hispanic white people. The researchers observed a significant association between mushroom consumption and lower odds of depression after accounting for socio-demographics, major risk factors, self-reported diseases, medications, and other dietary factors. However, the study found that there is no clear additional benefit with relatively high mushroom intake.










*Replacing meat with mushrooms to lower depression?*
The research team conducted a secondary analysis to see if the risk of depression could be lowered by replacing a serving of red or processed meat with a serving of mushrooms each day. But findings show that this substitution was not associated with a lower risk of depression.

The researchers noted some limitations that could be addressed in future studies, including the fact that the data used for the study did not provide details on the types of mushrooms consumed. Because the researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005–2016, food codes issued by the US Department of Agriculture were used to determine mushroom intake. As a result, the researchers could not determine the effects of specific types of mushrooms on depression. 

Prior to this research, there have been few studies that have examined the association between mushroom consumption and depression, and the majority of studies that have been conducted were clinical trials with fewer than 100 participants. The researchers said this study highlights the potential clinical and public health importance of mushroom consumption as a means of reducing depression and preventing other diseases.

*The link between diet and mental health*
While this study specifically focused on mushrooms, a number of other medical studies have examined the relationship between mental health and diet. One study conducted in 2012 found that converting to a vegetarian diet can actually improve one’s mood. Of 39 participants, the researchers found that omnivores reported experiencing more negative moods—such as anxiety, stress, and depression—than vegetarians, possibly due to meat’s higher content of arachidonic acid, a component found to create brain changes that impact disposition. 

Additionally, another study found that frequent consumption of fast food and processed sweets can increase the risk of depression. Of the nearly 9,000 participants, the researchers discovered that the subjects who ate the most fast food (such as hamburgers and pizza) and baked goods (doughnuts, croissants, and other pastries) were 51 percent more likely to develop depression.









New Study Finds Mushrooms May Lower Risk of Depression


With 24,000 participants, this new study highlights the importance of consuming mushrooms as a means of reducing depression.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Please Stop Eating The "Clean" Bit Of Moldy Bread, It's Not Safe*









Food waste is a terrible thing, but busy lives make it easy to lose track of what’s expiring first in the kitchen cupboard. There are some foods you can rely on to be quite transparent with their state of decay, but some can be much more inconspicuous. If you’ve ever cut or scraped off the green stuff growing on a piece of bread, you may have fallen victim to a sneakier breed of decay.

Most of the mold that affects food is a type of fungus, arguably one of the most secretive kingdoms on Earth that’s separated from animals and plants as eukaryotes. Their fruiting bodies sit loud and proud atop whatever soil they have fixed themselves to but underneath rages a war of fungus and host that stretches beyond the visible mold we can see on the bread’s surface. Slime mold, an organism that can aggregate to form a colony and move around the environment, isn’t included in this group as they are actually a type of amoeba.

Depending on the food, mold can seep deep into its core using a series of roots called hyphae that spread very easily through soft foods, like bread. Some are safe to eat and are even selected by humans for consumption, including those used to create "blue" cheese and soy sauce. However, there are many other molds that are to be avoided and if you eat their visible fruiting bodies or the hyphae hidden below, you could find yourself in a medical emergency.

Unfortunately for you and that bread you were saving, it’s also unlikely that only one slice within a bagged loaf has been infected. Visible mold indicates the fungus has reached the reproductive stage, sending spores out that will easily and swiftly start working their way through the rest of the bread.






While it’s true you could get lucky and have a benign species of mold on your bread, spotting the difference between good and bad mold is almost impossible and the threat applies to any food item that’s been contaminated. A report on moldy bread from Business Insider details the case of an elderly couple who were taken to hospital with severe muscle tremors after eating some moldy canned soup. The perpetrator was _Penicillium crustosum_ (yes, like the antibiotic), which is known to release mycotoxins, a type of poison.

“The effects of some food-borne mycotoxins are acute with symptoms of severe illness appearing quickly after consumption of food products contaminated with mycotoxins,” says the World Health Organization (WHO) on its website. “Other mycotoxins occurring in food have been linked to long-term effects on health, including the induction of cancers and immune deficiency. Of the several hundred mycotoxins identified so far, about a dozen have gained the most attention due to their severe effects on human health and their occurrences in food.”

The allure of a good sandwich is undeniable, but it’s not worth risking your health. If you’re worried about food waste, you can always freeze fresh bread to keep it for longer. Just make sure you get to it before the mold does.









Please Stop Eating The "Clean" Bit Of Moldy Bread, It's Not Safe


Please Stop Eating The "Clean" Bit Of Moldy Bread, It's Not Safe




www.iflscience.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I don't want to hear any FOWL language when it comes to our turkey friends. There are so many wonderful things to know about these social, playful and intelligent birds, but here are 5 I hope you love just as much as I do


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*FOREST TO PLATE: SHAWN ADLER ON THE SKILL OF FORAGING*










For Shawn Adler, foraging is a skill that is not only important to him and his culture, but a skill he uses in his day-to-day life. 

Adler is an Anishinaabe chef and owner of the Pow Wow Cafe in Toronto’s Kensington Market and The Flying Chestnut Kitchen in Eugenia, ON. He centres much of his cooking around the use of seasonal ingredients provided to him by local farms as well as wild edibles he has foraged from the forest near his Eugenia restaurant, less than a two-hour drive from Toronto. 

Foraging is the harvesting of wild edibles, or “letting mother nature do the planting,” as defined by Adler. Although in the past this skill has been a crucial for human survival, with the invention of grocery stores, Adler claims it’s a craft lost in history. 










Born to an Anishinaabe mother and a Jewish-Polish father in the town of Orangeville, about 60 kilometres outside of Toronto, Adler was taught at a young age the importance of foraging from his mother. 

Adler’s mother first learned how to forage as a way to combat hunger at the residential school she attended.

“She said there was nothing around the school that didn’t get eaten, if it was edible. The kids were always eating it because they were always hungry.” Adler says. 

Although Adler’s foraging background came out of a dark time in his family’s past, he has been able to use the skill to set himself apart in his cooking. 

He expresses his heritage and culinary skills through his unique use of foraged ingredients. Adler, who forages all four seasons, loves to showcase the wild edibles found in southern Ontario in many of his dishes. 










“I’m definitely into foraging, in terms of adding these little elements to my menus at both restaurants that not everyone has as easy access to,” he says. 

In addition to showcasing the potential for using foraged ingredients to his restaurant goers, he is also passionate about educating the next generation of ethical foragers.

“My mother taught me what is edible in the bush, that’s from my indigenous culture and now I take my daughter out. I’m just passing on that tradition,” he says. He’s been passing down the skill to his eight-year-old daughter who he foraged for puffball mushrooms with this autumn. 

He was also involved in the CBC web series Forage, which taught people to forage and cook with collected ingredients at home. “I go through the three rules of foraging: you should have the owner’s permission of the land, you should always sustainably harvest, which has been historically a problem in Canada, and then of course, you should have a knowledgeable guide,” Adler explained. 

Along with the importance of ethical foraging, Adler says foraging is a way he connects to his culture. As he forages, he lays tobacco leaves down as an offering to the Creator, which is part of the Anishinaabe tradition. 

“We smudge, it’s a similar ceremony (offering tobacco) to really slow your life down for a minute to say thank you and realize that it’s not all about us but the Creator has put everything here for us to use, it’s a pretty amazing to acknowledge,” he states.

When asked if he thinks that the practice of foraging will ever fade, Adler states that he hopes it is passed down through future generations. “Food is a great way to connect with the land, it’s cool to have the knowledge and it’s even cooler to be able to make restaurant worthy dishes with food that you just foraged.” 









Forest to plate: Shawn Adler on the skill of foraging - Rrampt.


Rrampt freelancer Elise Kieffer learns the art of foraging from the Flying Chestnut' and Pow Wow Cafe's Shawn Adler.




www.rrampt.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to Make Really Good Bread*









America is no longer a Wonder Bread nation. Gone are the days when bleached, sliced and plastic-wrapped bread from the supermarket was the default. Increasingly, Americans feast on ciabatta, tortillas and pita breads and Instagram their home-baked loaves.

Nutritionally and flavorwise, this is progress; after all, industrially produced white bread is effectively a vitamin-fortified sponge cake. But if we want bread to be as nourishing as it was in preindustrial times, there’s something missing from this picture: whole grain wheat.

Carbohydrates, mostly in the form of grains, have always made up the bulk of humans’ calories, and whole grains are the foundation of a healthy diet. (Grains other than wheat make breads too, of course, and some societies make no bread whatsoever but rely on grains in other forms. But I’m focusing on wheat here.)

We have become a society dependent on ultraprocessed grains, which offer calories without much in the way of nutritional benefits. Huge artisan loaves, organic banana muffins, even the crispest baguettes do not bring us back to the bread most people ate 150 years ago, bread that is made from not much more or less than a dried berry that’s ground into a powder.

It’s all very well to say we’re going to eat more plant-based food. But even those bakers seeking authenticity, who often strive to evoke an idealized European pastoral life, rely mostly on white flour. I love brioche and focaccia and pane Pugliese as much as the next person and have offered recipes for these and other foods made with white flour and sugar over the years. But as I’ve learned more about bread and what truly good bread can be, I’ve realized that we can make bread more real, we can make it more natural (a word with actual meaning, if you think about it), we can make it more nutritious and we can make it more enjoyable.

When we were housebound by the Covid pandemic, many of us discovered that bread baking is a relaxing, joyful, productive and rewarding pastime that can easily and fluidly be integrated into the routines of people who spend much of their time at home. Yes, it’s time-consuming, but it’s not a lot of work. This is not news — humans have known this for centuries — but it’s knowledge that was mostly lost amid the fast-paced change of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Many of these new bakers discovered the magic of natural starters, too, also known as sourdough. This, the original, natural and in my opinion most flavorful leavener, is most commonly a mixture of water, flour and naturally occurring wild yeasts and other microcritters. Maintaining one takes less daily effort than making coffee or, for that matter, buying coffee. If you don’t have a starter in your fridge, you can start one now — it’s a lovely project for a holiday weekend — and be baking bread with it in three days.

That starter will encourage you to rediscover the bread that sustained us before flour was roller-milled and sifted and bleached, because sourdough performs miracles with whole grain flour. In fact, the steps needed to transform sourdough into 100 percent whole grain bread are far less challenging than those required to get into baking in the first place, and certainly more economical than buying bread of this quality.










We’ve all, including chefs and bakers, been raised on white bread, and most of us never developed a taste for real whole wheat bread (as distinct from the widely available breads sold as whole wheat or multigrain, that often contain a lot of white flour).
For more than 10,000 years, eaters knew where their wheat and bread came from. If they didn’t grow, grind or make it themselves, they bought it from someone in their neighborhood or their village who did. The main ingredients of that bread were whole grain, grown and ground locally, and that natural starter. That was a whole food, with protein and fiber and good fat, as well as carbohydrates.
With industrialization and urbanization in the late 1800s and early 1900s came bread that was made by strangers with commodity flour, as well as the soft, airy crumb that many enjoy in white bread. Roller mills facilitated the separation of whole grain into its three main components: bran, germ and endosperm. Bran is fiber, and it began to be discarded both because it detracted from the smooth texture of the flour and because it makes producing a light, high-domed bread more difficult. Germ is protein and fat, and it begins to spoil when it’s ground, so removing it increases the flour’s life from weeks to virtually infinite. The endosperm that’s left is the carbohydrate portion of wheat, the shelf-stable white powder you probably know as all-purpose flour. Endosperm offers calories, but it is the least nutritionally potent component of flour. It’s also the least flavorful.
This factory-produced flour was far less perishable and was easily transported over long distances. The bread it made was marketed as pure and white — which came with all the racist overtones you might imagine — and was perceived to be cleaner than the loaves from immigrant-run bakeries in American cities.
In the process, whole grain flour became first uncommon and then an acquired taste, like that for brown rice or pasture-raised meat. And like those foods, real whole grain bread is simply better_ — _more nutritious, more interesting.
Baking delicious whole grain bread is doable for even inexperienced home bakers. The keys are that natural starter and a bit more time than it takes to make a loaf baked with white flour. (My new book, written with Kerri Conan, explains the process in depth, and I discussed it on this podcast.)
Of course, even as the pandemic leaves some of us at home more often, not everyone has the time, space or access to ingredients necessary to bake whole wheat bread regularly. We need better systems to create the whole grain products that have sustained humans most efficiently for thousands of years, to get them onto supermarket shelves, not just the display cases of specialty bakers. It might seem a lofty goal, but given how much American eaters have already changed American bread, it’s not impossible.
It’s clear that American eaters can evolve how and what we eat; we have remade our food systems again and again. If consumers demand it, I have no doubt that a return to bread as a fundamental, life-supporting food is possible.









Opinion | How to Make Really Good Bread


Baking whole wheat bread can reacquaint us with food that truly nourishes us.




www.nytimes.com


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

On meat and the environment


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Livestock death toll from B.C. flooding: 628,000 poultry, 12,000 hogs, 420 cows*










With recovery efforts underway in flood-stricken parts of British Columbia, officials are getting an idea of the massive impact the extreme weather has had on the province's livestock.

In an update Thursday, Agriculture Minister Lana Popham said more than 640,000 animals are known to have died.

That total includes 628,000 poultry, 12,000 hogs and 420 dairy cows. Additionally, 110 beehives were destroyed.

There are still more than 800 farms under evacuation, so official believe the death toll will likely change as residents and operators return.


Popham said solemnly that the weather is expected to be better over the next few days, which will be "critical for removal of carcasses."

"The work by farmers and volunteers and companies to clean out barns and to remove those animals continues to be extremely heartbreaking. I request that folks remain empathetic and caring in their comments, as they continue to do this very difficult work," she said.

Popham did not provide details on her motive for making such a statement, but it may have been a reference to comments posted on social media suggesting those who look after these animals didn't care for their wellbeing anyway, as they'd raised them for consumption.

The minister said that the farmers she's been in contact with are showing resilience, and she said they're experiencing what she described as "a good problem to have." They're having to find several centres for the public to drop off feed and supplies.

"The generosity of people is exceptional," she said.

Popham said she's also working with the B.C. Agriculture Council to ensure farmers are supported, and she's met with her federal counterpart, Marie-Claude Bibeau, to discuss a recovery package from Ottawa.

"We're still in the process of quantifying losses, whether it be animal crops or plant crops, and we hope to firm up those numbers as the waters recede," Popham said.

The waters reached depths of 2.4 metres in places, including on properties owned by blueberry producers, and some plants are still under water.

There are about 700 acres of blueberries planted in the Sumas Prairie, part of which is located in Abbotsford, and as with other crops, the full extent of the damage is not yet known.

A series of intense storms brought days of relentless rain over southern B.C., leading to mudslides and flooding across the area. The City of Abbotsford was among the areas hit hardest by the floods.

Further north, a mudslide claimed the lives of at least four people. Another person is still missing and presumed dead.









Livestock death toll from B.C. flooding: 628,000 poultry, 12,000 hogs, 420 cows


With recovery efforts underway in flood-stricken parts of British Columbia, officials are getting an idea of the massive impact the extreme weather had on the province's livestock.




bc.ctvnews.ca


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*EATING FAT FROM PLANTS INSTEAD OF MEAT DROPS STROKE RISK BY 12 PERCENT, NEW STUDY SUGGESTS*
*Researchers find that consuming plant-based fats versus meat-derived fats resulted in a decreased risk of stroke*












A new study found that the source of dietary fat plays a key role in stroke risk. Researchers studied self-reported dietary patterns of more than 117,000 health professionals as part of the longest-running nutritional study in the United States. After 27 years, more than 6,000 participants suffered a stroke. 

Researchers found that the risk for stroke decreased by up to 12 percent in participants who consumed the most dietary fat from plant-based sources (such as olive, safflower, and canola oil). For participants who consumed most of their dietary fat from meat-derived sources (such as beef, pork, lamb, bacon, salami, and other processed meats), the risk of stroke increased by 16 percent. Further, each serving of meat increased stroke risk by 8 percent, whereas a serving of processed meat spiked the risk by 12 percent. Researchers did not associate dietary fat from dairy sources with increased stroke risk. 

“Our findings indicate the type of fat and different food sources of fat are more important than the total amount of dietary fat in the prevention of cardiovascular disease including stroke,” lead author Fenglei Wang, from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement.

The study has yet to be peer-reviewed and researchers will present their findings during the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions to be held virtually on November 13. 











*Plant-based for heart health*


These preliminary findings are supported by various peer-reviewed studies that have linked diets high in animal fats to an increased risk of illnesses. In a study published in scientific journal _Frontiers in Nutrition _in July, researchers studied the long-term effects of a ketogenic diet—which traditionally focuses on limiting carbohydrate intake in favor of fat and protein, typically from animal sources. For the meta-analysis, a group of physicians, researchers, and registered dietitians analyzed more than 100 peer-reviewed studies and found that people who follow a keto diet have a significantly increased risk of developing heart disease, LDL cholesterol buildup, kidney failure, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and cancer. 

This study bolsters other findings about the health dangers of animal fat consumption. A 2018 study published by The Lancet Public Health found that diets low in carbohydrates and high in animal fat can shorten an individual’s lifespan by up to four years. The American Heart Association also published a study in 2018 that linked animal-based monounsaturated fats—particularly those from dairy, fish, eggs, poultry, and red meat—with an increased risk of premature death. This study found that participants who consumed monounsaturated fats from animal sources had a 21-percent higher risk of death, while those who consumed the highest amount of monounsaturated fats from plant sources had a 16-percent decreased risk of death from any cause.

A 2019 study published in the _Journal of the American Heart Association _linked a plant-based diet to a 32-percent decreased chance of dying from cardiovascular related illness, including heart attack and stroke. The nearly 30-year study, which looked at the dietary habits of 10,000 middle-aged Americans, also found that participants whose diets were proportionally highest in plant-based foods than animal-based foods had a 16-percent lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease. 

And while the new study did not associate the consumption of dairy with increased risk of stroke, other studies have linked dairy consumption to other poor health outcomes. Released earlier this year, a study of more than 300,000 female participants found that diets high in meat, dairy, and processed sugar increased one’s relative risk of breast cancer by as much as 12 percent.









Eating Fat from Plants Instead of Meat Drops Stroke Risk by 12 Percent, Study Suggests


Researchers find that consuming plant-based fats versus meat-derived fats resulted in a decreased risk of stroke.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What The Meat Paradox Tells Us About Human Psychology







*


The meat industry is, to put it bluntly, unfathomably cruel. Every day, billions of animals across the USA survive in horrific conditions: barely able to move, living in constant pain, and often never even glimpsing the outside world before they are herded, scared and struggling, to their slow, premature deaths.

As for those “ethically sourced” or “humane” labels – according to figures from the United States Department of Agriculture, only 1 percent of livestock animals in the country live outside of factory farms.

“I love animals,” a fair few of you may protest. “I’m not a _bad person_ just because I eat meat!”

You wouldn’t be alone. The vast majority of us proclaim ourselves to be animal lovers: about nine-tenths of Americans believe animals deserve protection from harm and exploitation. A reasonable chunk of people go even further, saying animals deserve the exact same protections as humans. More than half of Americans live with pets; almost $1 of every 20 donated to non-religious organizations goes towards animal charities. Studies have even found that we empathize more with dogs than other humans.

And yet, the amount of meat being eaten – both in the US and around the world – has never been higher. Although the number of vegans has shot up over the last 15 years, they still only make up 2 to 6 percent of the American population.

How can so many of us claim to love animals while supporting their suffering?

_That’s_ the meat paradox.

*WHAT IS BEHIND THE MEAT PARADOX?*
This isn’t just a way to make meat-eaters feel guilty. The meat paradox is one manifestation of a kind of psychological conflict that each of us faces every day: cognitive dissonance.

“[It’s] the inconsistency between our belief that animals are cute, and we need to protect them and we probably shouldn’t torture them, and on the other hand, eating them and turning them into meat – and in the process, putting them in factory farms and torturing them in various ways,” psychological scientist Dr Julia Shaw told BrainCraft.

“Clearly those two beliefs are inconsistent with each other. And that’s what we call cognitive dissonance,” she explained. “[When] we hold two beliefs at the same time, and a paradox lies in the middle.”

To understand this phenomenon a bit better, it might help to go back to the beginning – which in this case is Stanford University in the late 1950s. There, intrigued by reports of strange behavior in India some years earlier, a social psychologist named Leon Festinger set out to prove something fundamental – and yet at the time, completely overlooked – about human nature.

“[There was] an especially severe [earth]quake in the province of Bihar, India, on January 15, 1934,” Festinger wrote in his seminal 1957 work A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. “The quake itself, a strong and prolonged one, was felt over a wide geographical area. Actual damage, however, was quite localized … people … felt the shock of the earthquake but … did not see any damage or destruction.”

You might expect that a lack of visible destruction would be reassuring to people who had just survived an earthquake – but you’d be wrong. People freaked out, and not just about the quake they’d just felt – rumors started circulating about numerous, supposedly imminent, disasters that were _even_ _worse_.

These reactions, Festinger pointed out, “do not agree entirely with so-called common sense. After all, why should the occurrence of an earthquake impel people to spread and believe rumors which are frightening?”

The answer, he thought, was not that they were trying to scare people – it was that they were already scared. These rumors were “fear-justifying”: people were using the rumors of incoming catastrophes to subconsciously resolve an internal conflict between their feelings of fear and the lack of anything obvious to be afraid of.

*DISCOVERING COGNITIVE DISSONANCE*
In 1959, with co-worker James Merrill Carlsmith, Festinger carried out what is now the classic demonstration of cognitive dissonance. In their now-famous paper, the pair asked volunteers to perform two tedious tasks intended to incite negative opinion. The actual tasks themselves weren’t important – the real experiment was what came next. 

As the study participants left, they were given one more instruction: to tell the next subject that the tasks they had just wasted an hour of their life performing were “very enjoyable,” “intriguing,” or even “exciting.” In return for telling this bare-faced lie, they were given either $1, $20, or nothing at all. 

As you might have expected, those paid nothing rated the experiment boring, unenlightening, and unimportant. But what about the people who got paid?

Well, here’s where things get interesting. The group who were given $20 were pretty forthright about not enjoying the tasks, and in terms of scientific importance, they rated the experiments even lower than the control group.

The outliers were the group given just $1. These guys rated the tasks as more enjoyable than the other two groups, thought the experiments were more important, and were the _only_ group who said they’d be up for doing the study again. What was going on?

Those paid $20 could justify their lie because they were paid for it, Shaw explained. “But if you only got paid $1 … that’s not enough to make you feel like that excuses lying.”

So you “change how you feel about the task,” she continued. “You instead think, ‘you know what, … I actually had a pretty good time.’”

Basically, the participants’ brains had been confronted with two conflicting, yet equally true, ideas: they hadn’t enjoyed themselves, but they had said that they had. One of those things had to change in order for the conflict to be resolved – and since you can’t un-say words, the only option was for the subjects’ opinions on the tasks to change.

*THE MEAT PARADOX*
Once you understand cognitive dissonance, a whole lot of apparently “normal” behavior starts to look a bit … well, suspect.

Society, according to researchers Brock Bastian and Steve Loughnan, is “shaped by attempts to resolve dissonance” and let “morally troublesome behaviors vanish into the commonplace and every day.”
Take the meat paradox. If you think of yourself as an animal lover, it can be upsetting to be reminded that little piglets suffered and died for that BLT in your hand. How do we deal with this?

The answer is clear – just go to any supermarket to find it.

“The presentation of meat by the industry influences our willingness to eat it. Our appetite is affected both by what we call the dish we eat and how the meat is presented to us,” explained Jonas Kunst, co-author of a 2016 paper dealing with the meat paradox. “Highly processed meat makes it easier to distance oneself from the idea that it comes from an animal … People thought less about it being an animal, they felt less empathy and disgust, and they were less willing to consider a vegetarian alternative.”

Basically, to resolve the dissonance between “I love animals” and “I love meat,” we have two choices: either decide we don’t like animals all that much, really, or give up meat. For most of us, neither seems very appealing, so we go for option three: pretend the two ideas have no connection to each other.

"Reminding people of the animal origins of their meat … can just be very triggering, because people tend to, for example, when they eat meat, forget about the animal’s existence, to forget that the meat comes from the animals,” Sarah Gradidge, first author of a recent review paper on the meat paradox, told Technology Networks. According to her, people tend to reach for a handful of strategies to help them cope with their cognitive dissonance from eating meat: they may reclassify some animals as “food” animals, which are somehow less able to think, feel, or understand (that’s not true, by the way), or else use “the four Ns” – saying that meat is nice, normal, necessary, or natural.

“As soon as you remind people that meat comes from animals, this can really trigger that discomfort, because it basically stops their ability to dissociate,” Gradidge said. “It reminds them of where [the meat] is coming from.”

But the meat paradox isn’t just about meat. There are all kinds of examples where we engage in this kind of doublethink to let ourselves get away with a morally questionable decision. We worry about the environment, for example, but we continue to use air travel and buy cars because we like holidays and don’t like walking for hours. We “think that it’s not OK to underpay people or to put people in really dangerous working conditions,” Shaw pointed out, “yet we show up at cheap shops and we buy things that are really cheap just because of the price tag.”

*CAN WE OVERCOME COGNITIVE DISSONANCE? *
It might seem hard to draw any conclusion from the meat paradox that isn’t a searing indictment of humanity. After all, as psychologist Steve Loughnan pointed out, “people could change their behavior … [but] most people are unwilling to deny themselves the enjoyment of eating meat, and denying animals moral rights lets them keep eating with a clear conscience.”

But cognitive dissonance – and our ability to overcome it – doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In Princeton, researchers have found a way to use cognitive dissonance to encourage mask-wearing and social distancing, thus helping slow the spread of COVID-19. Over in Houston, the phenomenon is being used to stop college kids from binge drinking, and researchers in New York think it might help online addicts reduce their internet usage.

“It's very uncomfortable to have inconsistency in your values and your behavior,” explained Professor Clayton Neighbors, the researcher behind the Houston study. “If you create discrepancies within people it will motivate them to change, at least theoretically.”

And if you don’t want to change – well, at least be honest with yourself, says Shaw.

“Meat is one good example where there’s lots of excuses,” she said. “We’re constantly telling ourselves a story that it’s okay … because everybody else is doing it, because there’s this industry and it’s not our problem.”

“We [should] at least accept that we’re being hypocritical,” she added. “Don’t get angry … when someone challenges us and says there are problems with that behavior. Instead … reflect on it, and if it isn’t consistent, then ideally we do change our behavior … we stop, for instance, eating as many animal products, we stop polluting the planet like crazy, and we stop buying cheap clothes just because of the price tag.”









What The Meat Paradox Tells Us About Human Psychology


What The Meat Paradox Tells Us About Human Psychology




www.iflscience.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Stewiewin (Dec 17, 2020)

Dion said:


> Okay all you fellow hippies, check in here. Share recipes and other BS, tree-hugger stuff - ethical cycling gear (non-skin) perhaps?
> 
> By the way, do I still get to be part of the club if I'm a strict vegetarian (for ethical reasons) yet have a gun collection and a proud member of the NRA?


wth is ethical cycle gear 🤠 😋


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## Stewiewin (Dec 17, 2020)

cyclelicious said:


> *What The Meat Paradox Tells Us About Human Psychology
> View attachment 1960418
> *
> 
> ...


that's just big business cashing in, no different that selling over priced bikes. the only difference is that instead animals they use slave human labor. 😅


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Compassion Is Not a Crime: Animal Rights Activist Avoids Jail After Conviction for Baby Goat Rescue*











Animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung has been convicted on felony charges of burglary and larceny for removing a sick baby goat from a goat meat farm in North Carolina in 2018. Hsiung is the co-founder of the animal rights organization Direct Action Everywhere. He was given a suspended sentence and 24 months probation. He describes how the prosecutor in the case hugged him at the end of the trial and says the case revolves around a simple question: “Are the living creatures of this Earth property or are they living creatures that deserve some form of dignity and respect?”


*Transcript*
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
*AMY GOODMAN:* This is _Democracy Now!_, Democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman with Juan González. In North Carolina, an animal rights activist has been convicted on felony charges of burglary and larceny for removing a sick baby goat from a goat meat farm. Wayne Hsiung was given a suspended sentence and 24 months probation. The cofounder of the animal rights organization Direct Action Everywhere was arrested in 2018 for taking the baby goat from the Sospiro Goat Ranch in North Carolina in a direct action that the group livestreamed in an effort to expose animal cruelty. In a moment, Wayne will join us. But first, I want to go back to what happened on that night in 2018. Wayne Hsiung spoke on a livestream as he drove toward the farm.


> *WAYNE HSIUNG:* The plan is we’re going to park the car outside of the farm, make a little U-turn, get the car ready to leave. We are going to go in, document the conditions. We’re going to have dog treats. We’ve actually tried this before, in the past. But we have a huge number of dog treats in our pants because we know these barking dogs are going to need something to calm them down if we’re going to stop them from alerting the farm. The farm security is just a few hundred feet from where the goats are so that’s another reason this is extremely dangerous.





> If we need to make a getaway, we’re actually going to have to make a run down a hill—just changed my four-wheel drive to four-wheel low—we’re going to have to make a run down a hill, jump onto a tree stump and then jump across an electrified fence in order to get out. If we have to do that with a goat, we will do it. But we are going to do whatever we can to make sure at least one of these animals gets out.





> For those of you who don’t know what open rescue is, the idea behind open rescue is we believe what we’re doing is right, that there is nothing wrong with trying to take an animal from harm’s way. Many of you know I have been accused of being a terrorist, a criminal, I’m being sued by a major turkey farm, all for taking animals who are quivering in fear and pain to the vet. That’s all we’re going to do today. We’re going to take an animal who’s scared, who does not want to die, we’re going to take her to the vet. The industry wants to claim that this is a crime and we know that is not true. I know many of you know that’s not true, either.


*AMY GOODMAN:* Minutes later, Wayne Hsiung of Direct Action Everywhere entered the goat farm for the rescue operation.


> *WAYNE HSIUNG:* There’s the baby right there, guys. Okay, so there’s a baby right here. She looks like she’s pretty young. All these goats are going to be sent to slaughter. There are one million goats killed every year in the United States. It’s one of the fastest-growing types of meat in the United States, unfortunately, because people think it’s sustainable. But the reality is these poor mothers have their babies taken away from them over and over again. They are raised in these tiny pens. Look at this little pen for this mom and her baby. It’s going to be heartbreaking to take this baby away from her mama. We’re going to say “I’m sorry” to the mama and tell her we’re going to give the baby a good life. But if we leave the baby here, she’s going to be killed. And the way they kill these poor goats is just heartless. They drag them by their hind legs. They hit them on the head with a captive bolt on. Maybe of them are not even unconscious when they are ultimately eviscerated in the slaughter line. So this is the future for this baby. We can’t allow that to happen so we’re going to take her out.


*AMY GOODMAN:* The group Direct Action Everywhere continued to livestream after Wayne Hsiung had taken the goat from the farm.


> *WAYNE HSIUNG:* We’ve got a little baby here. She is sad because her mama, to take her from her, but we didn’t alarm, we didn’t trigger any sort of attention, which is good. But this baby is scared. She has never been outside of that little pen. Let me turn her around the other way a little bit so you guys can all see her. But she’s very young. Not just born, but her fur is still kind of just developing. She’s only about, I’d say, seven pounds. At adult weight, goats will be 35 pounds or so. The two breeds of goat they most commonly use in goat meat are Kiko breeds and Boer goats. She looks like probably a Kiko, which is from New Zealand, because she’s got a black head. Boer goats tend to have brown heads. They will usually raise them for about six months and they’ll send them off to a processing plant for slaughter.


*AMY GOODMAN:* That was Wayne Hsiung, cofounder of the animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere in 2018. He was convicted this week for that action and given a suspended sentence of two years probation. He’s a former faculty member at Northwestern Law School. As a lawyer, he represented himself during the trial. He joins us now from Asheville, North Carolina. Wayne Hsiung, last Monday you began your opening statements by saying, “The question of this case is really a simple one. The question is, is compassion a crime?” Talk about why you did this, what you call a rescue, and respond to your sentence. You were convicted but then given a suspended sentence.
*WAYNE HSIUNG:* —to be out of jail right now. I very much expected to be in a North Carolina jail facility. I think the reason I’m out of jail is because of media attention from places like _The Intercept_ and _Democracy Now!_ The reason we are doing this is because there is an incredible amount of animal cruelty unfolding in states like North Carolina, which has a very powerful agricultural industry. When citizens have complained about this, including employees at some of these farms, the government has consistently, instead of trying to create some transparency or accountability in corporate animal agriculture, passed laws to prevent undercover investigations, passed laws preventing local citizens from suing pig farms and other facilities for polluting the local air and water. So activists have started resorting to direct action tactics to expose what is happening and to try to give some direct care to the animals who are suffering.
*JUAN GONZÁLEZ:* During your trial, the judge repeatedly sustained objections from the prosecution when you tried to explain your past animal rescue efforts, including of a goat named Lenny?
*WAYNE HSIUNG:* That’s right. It was a strange trial. Because there are so many folks on the right who are advocating for free speech, which I think is a worthy cause to advocate for, but in this case, even when I was trying to present a defense in my own criminal case, we were prevented from talking about our reasons for being there. The state filed a motion on the first day of trial saying, “You’re not allowed to talk about the conditions the animals were facing, the veterinary care you provided them.” So my opening statement was cut off mid-sentence and I was not allowed to talk to the jury about why we were there.
One of the strangest things about the state’s motion was the way they phrased it was “witnesses at this testimony, at this trial are not allowed to talk about efforts they made to protect the life of the property at issue.” That is just such a strange non-sequitur, the idea that we are talking about the life of property. I think it goes to the central issue: Are the living creatures of this Earth property or are they living creatures that deserve some form of dignity and respect?
*AMY GOODMAN:* What has happened to the goat since then? If you could talk about that. And then do you see your case as setting any kind of precedent? And can you talk about animal farmers?
*WAYNE HSIUNG:* The goat was immediately rushed to a veterinarian when we removed him and he had pneumonia. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to talk about this at trial. The veterinarian we called was stopped mid-sentence from describing the treatment the goat received. But he’s happy and healthy. Unfortunately, because the authorities attempted to return the goat to the farm, I don’t actually know where he is. Activists had to abscond and take him away, somewhere where I don’t know, but I’ve heard he’s in good shape.
But I think this is going to set a precedent, because the prosecution thought this was going to be a very easy and quick trial. They thought it was going to be a one-day trial, would convict and hopefully incarcerate me for a long time. But there were dozens of local residents who came out and protested. My understanding is thousands of people wrote to the local district attorney and complained and said, “Why are you protecting property more than protecting life?” Partly as a result, I think they decided, “We don’t want to turn this guy into a martyr” so they didn’t put me in prison. They said, “Let’s just let him go and tell him to get out of North Carolina.” So that’s what I’m planning to do.
*AMY GOODMAN:* And the animal farmers?
*WAYNE HSIUNG:* One of the things that came out in court is that a lot of the animal farming industry has been describing us as terrorists. You can see on the livestream what we did. All we did was take a sick animal to the veterinarian. The fact that we live in a political system where trying to help a suffering living creature is terrorism while exploiting that same animal is just business as usual is an indication of how the political parties of the system and the industry of animal farming are just out of whack. It does not make a lot of sense. I think that if we had gotten a chance to talk in the trial openly about these issues and present the evidence of what actually happens on animal farms, the jury might have been swayed. But at the same time we got a wonderful chance, not in the court of law but in the court of public opinion, to talk about these issues openly. In that way, I think we are setting a very important precedent.
*JUAN GONZÁLEZ:* At the end of the trial, the prosecutor gave you a hug? Do you think you changed some minds during the process of the trial?
*WAYNE HSIUNG:* Yeah, it was a strange thing because the prosecution, the judge were all very hardened and thought, “This guy is a radical. He’s an extremist. Let’s throw him in jail and throw away the key.” The jury did not get to hear most of the evidence of animal cruelty. The judge and the prosecution did. My sense was both the judge and the prosecution when we were arguing about what evidence should be allowed, we had to talk about that evidence, and even they, when they heard about how much a baby goat suffers when they have pneumonia, when they heard about the fact that one of the baby goats was covered with lice and unable to stand, they were swayed. Because I think the reality is when any of us are confronted with the reality of what happens in some of these industrial slaughterhouses and farms or even small-scale facilities, even the thought of cutting one animal’s throat, killing one animal, is disturbing. And they were swayed. That’s a victory for us, I think.
*AMY GOODMAN:* Wayne Hsiung, thank you for being with us, animal rights advocate and cofounder of Direct Action Everywhere. Just convicted on felony charges of burglary and larceny for removing a sick baby goat from a goat meat farm. Got a suspended sentence of two years. Thanks to everyone who tuned in for our 25th anniversary celebration Tuesday night. You can watch the full event at Democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman with Juan González. Thanks for joining us.










Compassion Is Not a Crime: Animal Rights Activist Avoids Jail After Conviction for Baby Goat Rescue


Animal rights activist Wayne Hsiung has been convicted on felony charges of burglary and larceny for removing a sick baby goat from a goat meat farm in North Carolina in 2018. Hsiung is the co-founder of the animal rights organization Direct Action Everywhere. He was given a suspended sentence...



www.democracynow.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*MEAT-EATERS PRODUCE NEARLY 60 PERCENT MORE GREENHOUSE GASES THAN VEGETARIANS, STUDY FINDS*
Meat-eaters produce 59 percent more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than vegetarians, according to a new study published in the scientific journal _PLOS One_. For the study, University of Leeds senior researcher Darren Greenwood and his colleagues performed a detailed analysis of more than 3,000 different foods, assessing the GHG emissions generated during the production of each food source.

As part of the study, researchers linked the foods to an automated online dietary assessment for 212 adults over three 24-hour periods. Variations in GHG emissions were explored by dietary pattern, demographic characteristics, and World Health Organization recommended nutrient intakes in an effort to determine if less environmentally sustainable diets are also often more processed, energy-dense, and nutrient-poor. 

The researchers discovered that meat was linked to 32 percent of diet-related GHG emissions, and dairy products account for 14 percent of food’s carbon footprint. Other foods that had a notable impact on the climate include drinks such as tea, coffee, and alcohol, which contribute 15 percent of diet-related greenhouse gases; and cakes, cookies, and sweets contribute almost 9 percent.

“Meat was the dominant driver for diet-related GHG emissions, explaining most of the differences between GHG emissions associated with vegetarian and non-vegetarian diets, and between the differences in GHG emissions associated with the diets of men and women,” the study’s authors said. However, drinks such as tea and coffee, and cakes, biscuits and confectionery, explained a quarter of diet-related GHG emissions, and present alternative routes to reduce diet-related GHG emissions. 

Overall, the study found that non-vegetarian diets had GHG emissions 59 percent higher than vegetarian diets. Additionally, the research found that men’s diets produce 41 percent higher emissions than women’s diets, primarily due to greater meat intake, the study authors said. “Those who met dietary recommendations had generally lower diet-related GHG emissions, suggesting future policies to encourage sustainable dietary patterns and plant-based diets could be good for both individual and planetary health,” the study’s authors concluded. 

*Meat’s high environmental impact*
The study’s findings are consistent with previous reviews that found animal-based foods have the greatest environmental impact, specifically beef. A study published earlier this year in the scientific journal _Nature Food_ found that meat production is responsible for 57 percent of GHG emissions—twice as much as growing and processing plants for food. 

For the study, researchers quantified GHG emissions from the production and consumption of plant- and animal-based foods and built a database that provided an emissions profile of 171 crops and 16 animal products, drawing from more than 200 countries.










And while the study concluded that the use of cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals for food is responsible for the vast majority of all food production emissions, the researchers found that beef alone accounts for one-quarter of emissions produced by raising and growing food. Growing and processing plants for food, however, make up only 29 percent of emissions, with the rest coming from other uses of land, such as cotton or rubber. 

Environmental experts have noted that raising and slaughtering animals for food is responsible for higher GHG emissions because, in addition to requiring more land and water, animals’ waste gases and manure add to meat’s carbon footprint, as does the cropland used to feed livestock rather than people. 









Meat-Eaters Produce Nearly 60 Percent More Greenhouse Gases than Vegetarians, Study Finds


University of Leeds researchers studied the carbon footprints of 3,000 foods to find that non-vegetarians produce 59 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than vegetarians.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*We Will Look Back on This Age of Cruelty to Animals in Horror*

It’s hard to know where your charitable dollars will do the most good. This year, I’ll focus most of my giving on GiveDirectly, which does exactly what it promises: Gives money to the world’s poorest people, without attaching strings, conditions or complexity.

Its approach has been proven to work, in part because it is built on a foundation of respect: GiveDirectly recognizes that the global poor are the experts on their own lives, and their own needs, and that what they are missing is money. When giving to ease human suffering, sometimes the simplest strategy is best.

But about 10 percent of my donations every year goes to easing, or ending, the suffering of factory farmed animals, which is mind-melting in its scale. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about 80 billion — yes, billion — land animals are slaughtered each year for food, and, according to some estimates, between 51 billion and 160 billion farmed fish join them. The overwhelming majority of these animals are raised and killed in conditions with no analogue in history, and they suffer terribly. But farm animals are often an afterthought even in animal-related giving, in which two-thirds of the money goes to shelters.

Two strategies dominate among groups trying to help factory farmed animals. One is amelioration: trying to better the conditions of these animals now. Here, the Humane League and Mercy for Animals are my picks. The second is substitution: replacing the animals with meat made from plants or grown from cells. Here, the Good Food Institute, New Harvest and the Material Innovation Initiative are my recommendations. In choosing these groups, I’ve relied heavily on the work Open Philanthropy and Animal Charity Evaluators have done assessing the effectiveness of dozens of animal-suffering groups, as well as my own reporting.

Naming the groups is the easy part. Now comes the hard part: Persuading you that they’re worthy of your support.

How we treat farm animals today will be seen, I believe, as a defining moral failing of our age. Humans have always eaten animals. We’ve hunted them, bred them, raised them and consumed them. What’s changed over the past century is that we’ve developed the technology to produce meat in industrialized conditions, and that has opened vast new vistas for both production and suffering.

In past eras, we didn’t have the antibiotics and sanitation chemicals needed to keep so many animals crowded so closely together, nor the preservation and transportation technologies needed to ship them en masse. Disease would rip through thick 
flocks, and carcasses would spoil across long trips. Today, the factory farms that produce the overwhelming majority of meat, both globally and domestically, are dark marvels of technology, as are the carefully bred and managed animals inside them.

Since the 1950s, broiler chickens have roughly quadrupled in size, and it now takes them six weeks, not 15, to grow to slaughter weight. These are inventions, not just chickens. But the cheap meat they made possible sent demand skyrocketing: In the United States alone, the available amount of chicken meat per person has shot from about 10 pounds in 1910 to about 65 pounds in 2018.

In 2020, David Coman-Hidy, president of the Humane League, told me about his work trying to persuade companies to shift from live shackling of chickens to atmospheric killing. In live shackling, which remains the dominant method, workers turn chickens upside down to shackle them by their legs to a conveyor. These are birds that have barely ever moved being handled by low-paid workers with inhuman production quotas. The birds flap and squawk in terror, and the shackling can leave them with broken legs or dislocated hips.

The conveyor is supposed to drag them through electrified water, stunning them before their throats are slit. But the panicked, spasming birds sometimes miss the bath, and their throats are cut while they are conscious and terrified. If the kill isn’t clean, they are pulled through boiling water that defeathers them while still conscious. You can watch the process here, if you have the stomach for it.

The Humane League, and others, are trying to persuade chicken producers to simply gas the birds to death. I’ve never forgotten what Coman-Hidy said when I asked him how he could bear to spend his days negotiating over the finer points of chicken slaughter: “The thought experiment that helped me is if I could die, or have a member of my family die, by being euthanized by gas, or have what I just described happen to them, what would I give to get the gas? And the answer is everything.”

This is activism that does not permit itself the comforts of purity. The Humane League and Mercy for Animals have become, in a way, part of a system they loathe. They are fighting to see farm animals treated in a way that’s far beneath what they believe to be moral, but far above what’s become normal. And they’re succeeding.

Battery cages, for instance, are small cages where egg-laying hens are kept for almost the entirety of their mature lives. According to 2017 guidelines by the industry group United Egg Producers, each bird should have 67 to 86 square inches of usable space within the cage. As the Humane League notes, a typical piece of paper is no more than 90 square inches.

The European Union has phased out battery cages and India has declared them illegal. In the United States, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah and Washington have either banned them or are in the process of doing so. Dozens of companies have pledged to source only cage-free 
eggs, including Trader Joe’s, Unilever, Pizza Hut, Mars and Hormel Foods. By no means do these pledges render the lives of these chickens luxe, and many cage-free hens still suffer terribly. There is simply no way to humanely raise so many birds, in such close quarters. But better is better.

Most meat, of course, is produced outside the United States. And so the Humane League founded the Open Wing Alliance, which now has 80 member organizations in 63 countries, to share strategies and drive global campaigns, like the successful effort to convince Yum! Brands to go cage free. Mercy for Animals works in Brazil, Canada, India and Hong Kong.
But amelioration won’t reduce the number of animals being raised in industrial facilities for food. Substitution might. Do you really need a chicken to make a nugget? Or a cow to make a burger? When we slaughter a cow to produce ground beef, we used the cow as a machine to turn the plants the cow ate into meat. The question is whether we can replace the cow with something else that turns plants into meat.

For now, I’d say the plant-based burgers, sausages and nuggets are pretty good, and they’re getting better, fast. There’s no reason a Happy Meal nugget should ever involve a chicken. But there’s a long way to go in mimicking more texturally demanding meats, 
like bacon or fatty tuna or even steak.

Perhaps those meats can one day be grown directly. This has passed from the realm of science fiction into reality, and I’ve swallowed the evidence. A few months ago, I went to Upside Foods and tried “cultivated” chicken. When I said, a bit awed, that it tasted just like chicken, my hosts laughed and said that’s because it was chicken. They just took chicken cells and grew them into a chicken breast rather than an entire bird.

The question is whether this can be done at scale, for the hundreds of millions of tons of meat we eat. The technical challenges here are 
real, and some believe them insurmountable. Even if they can be overcome, the political challenges are daunting, too. Meat producers are organizing around the world to try to stop these products from coming to market, and to wrap them in red tape and warning labels if they threaten profits.

But the benefits to directly growing meat, at scale, would be incalculable — and not just for animals. Meat production is a huge driver of climate change, of deforestation and of pandemic and antibiotic risk. Having the meat we love without the health and environmental consequences it now imposes would prevent vast human suffering, too. This should be a moonshot we’re making as a 
society, but it’s being left, instead, to private capital, and so there’s too little basic science being done, and too many advances are patented and protected.

The Good Food Institute is the most important organization pushing this work. It’s second-to-none in the influence of its public policy efforts, its centrality to the ecosystem of companies and researchers, and its international footprint. It has also been effective at convincing traditional meat companies to explore alternative proteins, which could lead both to important products and turn political enemies into allies. It’s my top recommendation, though I want to note that Animal Charity Evaluators found some 
cultural turbulence in a staff survey. I’m glad to see that the Institute is taking those concerns seriously.

New Harvest is more directly focused on building the scientific community and funding the research to make cellular agriculture possible. It’s directly focused on the technical challenges of cultivated meat. If those aren’t solved, then all the lobbying efforts in the world won’t matter.

The Material Innovation Initiative is the third on my list. It’s trying to build alternatives to animal-based materials used for fashion, cars and home goods. There has been much less innovation and investment here than in alternative proteins, and that suggests enormous opportunities if an ecosystem of financing and information-sharing and start-ups can be built.
Technological advances, as well as the global desire for cheap meat, have turned this into an age of animal cruelty. But we can also see glimmers of how it might, one day, end. Perhaps we live in the lag between when it became possible to treat sentient animals as industrial inputs and when it will become unnecessary and perhaps even indecent to do so, because we will be able to grow or mimic most meat with less animal involvement, and abusive treatment of animals will be easier to abhor.

But that future is not assured. It must be created, and the Humane League, Mercy for Animals, the Good Food Institute, New Harvest and the Material Innovation Initiative are trying to do just that.









Opinion | We Will Look Back on This Age of Cruelty to Animals in Horror


How we treat farm animals today will be seen as a defining moral failing of our age.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I like bananas too


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is there a single food that you can survive on forever?*










For all of 2016, Andrew Taylor ate only potatoes. There were a few caveats to his potato diet: He ate both white potatoes and sweet ones, and sometimes mixed in soymilk, tomato sauce, salt and herbs. He also took B12 supplements. But, overall, he ate potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He took four blood tests over the year which he claims all came back normal. He even lost weight and felt more energized. 

“If you have to choose one food, if you’re one of the people that’s getting sent to Mars, choose potatoes,” says Taylor. “I’m not trying to be evangelical about potatoes, but it was a really good experience for me.” 

First and foremost, it’s not a good idea to only eat one kind of food. To survive, we need 20 amino acids—of which nine are essential, meaning we can’t make them ourselves and must get them from food—as well as a plethora of minerals and vitamins. (And, obviously, we need water in addition to food to keep our cells hydrated so they don’t wither and stop functioning.) Throughout history we’ve often combined foods, like rice and beans, yogurt and nuts, and even macaroni and cheese to a certain extent, in an attempt, or by accident, to intake the proper balance of nutrients that you usually can’t attain from eating a single food item. But in times of famine, fasting, or strange double-dog-dares, there are a couple of foods a human could survive on…at least for awhile.

*The potato diet*

The potato is one good example. Andrew Taylor isn’t the only person in history who has relied almost exclusively on potatoes for sustenance. In the beginning of the 1800s, about a third of the Irish population got most of their calories from spuds. The average American ate about 113 pounds of these starchy tubers in 2015. “For the money and your blood pressure, you can’t beat a traditional baked spud,” says Joan Salge Blake, a clinical nutrition professor at Boston University.

Technically, the traditional white potato contains all the essential amino acids you need to build proteins, repair cells, and fight diseases. And eating just five of them a day would get you there. However, if you sustained on white potatoes alone, you would eventually run into vitamin and mineral deficiencies. That’s where sweet potatoes come in. Including these orangey ones in the mix—technically, they belong to a different taxonomic family than white potatoes—increases the likelihood that the potato consumer will get their recommended daily dose of Vitamin A, the organic compound in carrots that your mom told you could make you see in the dark, and Vitamin E. No one on a diet of sweet potatoes and white potatoes would get scurvy, a famously horrible disease that happens due to a lack of Vitamin C and causes the victim’s teeth to fall out.

Even with this combo, you’ll still need to eat a lot of spuds before you intake the right levels of everything. Consuming five potatoes would give you all the essential amino acids you need to build proteins, repair cells, and fight diseases. But unless you ate 34 sweet potatoes a day, or 84 white potatoes, you would eventually run into a calcium deficiency. You would also need 25 white potatoes a day to get the recommended amount of protein. Soybeans have more protein and calcium—but they don’t have any Vitamin E or beta-carotene.

Of course, there are a lot of health disadvantages to potatoes, especially when you eat them en masse. White potatoes are high in a kind of carbohydrate that causes your blood sugar to spike and then dip, which puts a strain on the insulin system. People who ate a lot of these tubers were more likely to get diabetes and become obese, according to multiple studies.

Andrew Taylor actually lost weight—probably from eating less overall and giving up sugar—which wasn’t his ultimate goal. He quit eating most food to train himself to get comfort and joy from other areas of his life. But now even though his spud experiment is over, he still gets pretty excited about potatoes. “It was just an experiment and turned out to be exactly like I wanted,” he says.

*Foods you can survive on*

No nutritionist would get on board with an all-potato diet. Nor would they recommend an all coconut, kale, seaweed, or yogurt one either. There’s a reason that the U.S. dietary guidelines recommends eating a variety of vegetables, grains, proteins, fruits, and oils. Eat any of these just by themselves and you would soon run into the same nutritional deficiencies that you would with a potato. Variety is important, and in this case, it’s vital. So don’t just eat a baked potato, load it with other healthy stuff, too.

**_This article originally stated that we need 20 essential amino acids to survive, when, in fact, we need 20 amino acids in total, of which nine are essential. The article has been updated to reflect that. We regret the error._










Is there a single food that you can survive on forever?


A combination of sweet and white potatoes hypothetically has all the major nutrients you need to survive for awhile, though you may have to eat a lot of spuds.




www.popsci.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Spotted some sexy plant based pump 'er nickel bread


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Champion Track Cyclist, Orla Walsh is plant powered.
Orla is a record-holding track cyclist from Ireland and 6x National Champion. She won two gold medals and set a national record at the Cycling Ireland National Championship in August 2020.

Quote from Orla's feature in The Plant-Based Athlete (linked in bio):

"Originally, my favorite part of being plant-based was the belief that I was feeding my body with the best possible source of fuel. I felt that I had some sort of advantage as an athlete, and my blood test results indicated it was a great choice in terms of reducing my cholesterol, which was borderline too high before I switched (my LDL has reduced by over 30 percent). I felt more energetic, recovered faster, and overall felt ‘cleaner’ with the types of food I was consuming—I never had that sick, lethargic feeling after eating a meal that I would have from heavy meat and dairy meals. However, my favorite part of being plant-based now is feeling like I’m taking the most ethical and environmentally friendly approach too. This has extended from just my diet to all of my daily purchases, and I always try to make the most sustainable and harm-free choices when possible.”

















'The way out for me was becoming addicted to something else, which is the bike'


Orla Walsh speaks to The42 about swapping 20 cigarettes a day for a shot at Olympic qualification in the space of three years.




www.the42.ie


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*WHAT IS TOFU, EXACTLY? PLUS THE 7 BEST WAYS TO USE IT*
*The answer: tofu is anything you make of it*

ofu is technically a processed food. It doesn’t come from an animal, it doesn’t spring from the sea, and there is no such thing as a tofu tree. However, just because it takes a few steps to get from A to B doesn’t mean it’s unhealthy. Tofu has been around for hundreds of years thanks to the ingenuity (or accident) of ancient Asian cultures. There are multiple theories as to its invention, and with records dating back to 950 AD, there’s good reason for this uncertainty surrounding its origins. However, China is most often given credit for tofu’s existence. Formed from the industrious soybean, it’s sustained generations of people across the globe. Today, the Western world’s understanding and interaction with tofu range from averse and ignorant to tofu lovers. Even if you consider yourself a tofu pro, you may not know what it actually is and how it’s made. Here is everything you need to know about tofu—where it comes from, how it affects your body, and how to use it. 










*What is tofu?*
Tofu is coagulated and pressed soy milk. It’s not too far off from the basic process of cheese making, though most cheeses today include a concoction of ingredients while tofu is plain and simple soy. Tofu makers steam soy milk (pure soy milk, not the kind you’d find with stabilizers or flavorings on the shelf), add a vegan-friendly coagulant to turn it into curds, then press the water out of these curds, forming solid blocks. Coagulants typically used are gypsum (natural calcium sulphate), nigari (seawater extract/magnesium chloride), and lemon juice (more often used in home kitchens). One caveat—silken tofu is not pressed, it’s simply formed into blocks and retains much of the water, giving it a more delicate texture. More on that below. Anyone can make tofu at home, though it’s more of a “see how it’s made” exercise rather than a “better than store-bought” recipe. Sometimes, it’s best to leave things to the pros. However, if you can find a local tofu producer rather than rely on a big-box brand from the store, that is always the tastier way to go. 









House Foods

*Kinds of tofu*
We asked the experts. Sarah—one part of the four-member family food blog _The Woks of Life__—_explained, “One of the most fascinating things about tofu is that it’s not a monolithic ingredient. There are so many different types, all aimed at a different texture, mouthfeel, or cooking application. It can be crispy, silky, chewy, soft … it can be prepared raw, stir-fried, braised, fried, and in soups or hot pots. It all depends on the type of tofu you’re using. We even freeze firm tofu in order to give it a different texture for hot pots and soups.”

When purchasing tofu, it is essential to understand that tofu is found in two sections of the grocery store—the refrigerated section and the shelf-stable section (typically by the dried seaweed and soy sauces). The shelf-stable tofu sold in the aseptic package is of the silken variety. This tofu is very delicate—even the silken firm variety—and will fall apart if pressed, seared, grilled, or generally heated at all. It’s meant to be used in dressings, sauces, and creamy desserts. Vegan bakers have also had some success with using it as an egg replacer in baked goods when blended into a recipe. You’ve been warned: if your grocery delivery accidentally comes with silken tofu and you think you’ll “just try it” in your stir-fry, you will be disappointed. 

The tofu found in the refrigerated section—sealed in a plastic container and covered with water—is the kind you want if you plan to consume your tofu intact. Soft tofu is still very fragile and is best handled lightly. Don’t press it—just gently cube and toss into your miso soup, soondubu jjigae, or mapo tofu dish. Medium and firm tofu are slightly more concentrated, but they still break up easily and can be used in scrambles. Extra firm tofu is the sturdiest of all forms of tofu. You’ll want to reach for extra firm if you’re grilling, searing, frying, or looking for the “meatiest” texture. 









Vegan Food Crazy

*Tofu nutrition*
Tofu is a nutrient-dense and calorie-poor food. We won’t say it’s perfect, but it’s pretty darn close. Note: the firmer the tofu, the more nutrient- and calorically dense it is. Just think about it—the firmer the tofu, the less water there is, meaning more substance. Extra firm tofu averages around 80 calories for a three-ounce serving (or a quarter of the package). Each serving contains about 4.5 grams of fat (most of it unsaturated), two grams of fiber, eight grams of protein, and about 10 percent of your daily dose of calcium. Tofu—no matter the variety—is also a cholesterol-free food. Some brands also offer fortified options with more protein and calcium. 









Woon Heng

*Tofu and cancer*
Due to a miscommunication, tofu has been linked to cancer because it is a derivative of soy. Research has since come out to disprove this link. Soy contains phytoestrogens which are plant-based estrogens that act differently than mammalian-based estrogens. Phytoestrogens bind to estrogen receptors and can block animal-based estrogen, thereby regulating the amount of estrogen in one’s body. What people need to be more concerned about is dairy milk which contains animal estrogen and can elevate estrogen levels to a concerning degree. In fact, a recent study found that women who consumed just three glasses of cow’s milk a day increased their relative risk of breast cancer by up to 80 percent in comparison to soy milk drinkers. Of course, anything in excess can lead to issues, but unless you’re consuming a block of tofu for every meal and guzzling soy-based shakes in between, you shouldn’t have to worry about any negative health effects in regards to tofu. 









House Foods

*Do you need to press tofu?*
Well, here’s a rhetorical question: do you want your tofu to taste good? Then yes, it’s advised to press your tofu. There are a plethora of ways to get water out of tofu—from the rushed squeeze with a bunch of paper towels to the makeshift Vitamix-balanced-on-a-cutting-board approach to the advanced tofu press. We’ve tried them all and eventually graduated to the tofu press. At $20-$30, it’s a worthy investment if you plan on making tofu even on a monthly basis. While piling heavy things on a cutting board does the trick, the press is just more convenient and less demanding of precious counter space. It’s highly recommended to budget 10-30 minutes for your pressing vessel of choice to squeeze the water out of your spongy soy block, but if all you have is paper towels and five minutes, it’s far better than nothing. 









The Plant-Based Wok

*How to prepare tofu *
*Freeze it*
To impart the maximum amount of flavor in your block of soy, freeze it first. Hannah Che of The Plant-Based Wok educated us on the history and preparation of this centuries-old tradition: “My parents grew up eating frozen tofu in northern China—it was a thing centuries before frozen tofu became popular on the Internet! Back then most families did not have refrigerators or freezers at home, so they bought it in icy slabs from the village’s tofu vendor, or they froze it themselves in the frigid winter. Freezing tofu changes its cellular structure—as the water in the tofu freezes into ice crystals, all the moisture is pulled out of the curds, leaving a darker-colored and marvelously porous tofu that absorbs flavors and sauce. If you freeze soft or medium tofu, you’ll get a looser sponge with open crevices, which is delicious in soups. Using firm or extra-firm tofu produces a denser sponge that can withstand stir-frying or braising.”
TRY THIS RECIPE









Serious Eats

*Grill it*
According to Kenji Lopez-Alt—the science-minded author of _The Food Lab_—the key to a good grilled tofu is its girth. You’ll want to use extra firm tofu and cut big, thick slices. He also advises using slow, indirect heat for a crispy, evenly cooked slab of soy, then marinating it after it’s grilled. We have to admit, the photo for the recipe below looks pretty appetizing.
TRY THIS RECIPE









Nora Cooks

*Fry it*
When battered and fried, a simple block of bland soy can turn into a convincing fried chicken or fish analog. You’ll want to press as much water out of your block as possible and make sure it’s dry before the dredging process—remember, water and oil do not mix.
TRY THIS RECIPE









The Plant-Based Wok

*Sear it*
Not quite deep-frying, a good seared, pan-fried tofu still results in a crispy finish with a soft interior without using inches of oil. This style works well in stir-frys, but the trick is to cook the tofu first, remove it from the pan, heat the other ingredients, then add it back in at the last minute to absorb some of the sauce. The recipe below offers step-by-step instructions to help you achieve the perfect sear.
TRY THIS RECIPE









The Korean Vegan

*Soup it*
Soup is one of the few applications where you’ll want to reach for a softer tofu. The silkiness of soft tofu gives little resistance and allows the tofu to slide down your throat with each comforting spoonful. Try a traditional Korean soup such as soondubu jjigae or _doenjang chigae_ (soybean stew). The Korean Vegan blog is our top resource for these spicy, warming soy-based soups.
TRY THIS RECIPE









Wicked Healthy

*Bake it*
A solid, baked tofu can add texture, flavor, and nourishment to virtually any dish—stir-frys, salads, grain bowls, pastas … you name it, baked tofu will make it better. When brushed with a bit of olive oil and tamari and sprinkled with salt and pepper pre-bake, it’s even great on its own as a high-protein snack. Try the basic recipe below then get creative with sauces, herbs, and spices.
TRY THIS RECIPE









Healthy Happy Life

*Scramble it*
Before JUST Egg and other vegan egg products, there was scrambled tofu. While these new developments are extremely satisfying, we still crave a quality tofu scramble from time to time. So customizable, budget-friendly, and quick to prepare, scrambled tofu will always have a place alongside our toast, stuffed in breakfast burritos, and underneath dollops of salsa.
TRY THIS RECIPE

Want more ways to use tofu? Check out our 9 Fabulous Ways to Prepare Tofu here. 










What Is Tofu, Exactly? Plus the 7 Best Ways to Use It


The answer: tofu is anything you make of it.




vegnews.com


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## DrDon (Sep 25, 2004)

I’ve been told that tofu has so much estrogen in it that ingesting too much of it can have deleterious effects. I haven’t done any research. What say you?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I'm skeptical about the estrogen thing, but really, the key is to diversify your protein sources! Some good ones: beans, seitan, tofurky's italian sausage (great in baked beans!), lots of non-tofu choices. Plus If you're eating too much food (ie tofu) , you will bloat and or gain weight.

Soy contains phytoestrogens but there's no scientific proof that it harms you in any way. My understanding is they are not of concern for humans consuming soy in a reasonable amount (e.g. not 100 blocks of tofu a day etc.) 

No, you don't need to worry about the phytoestrogens in soy, though overconsumption of soy can be an issue for people with thyroid issues because it interferes with iodine absorption 

Here's a scientific meta-analysis that tackles the issue,DEFINE_ME


and here's another, DEFINE_ME Both are from the journal _Fertility and Sterility_ from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

For a humorous takedown of the idea of soy producing feminising effects, 





Some benefits: 
Soy foods, isoflavones, and breast cancer









Is Soy Consumption Good or Bad for the Breast?


Genistein in soy activates estrogen receptor (ER)-α and ERβ and acts as an estradiol in multiple target tissues. Because estrogens increase breast cancer risk and genistein promotes the growth of ER-positive human breast cancer cells, ...




www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*GORDON RAMSAY PUTS VEGAN BURGERS ON THE MENU AT HIS FIRST CHICAGO RESTAURANT









*


British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay just opened his first restaurant in Chicago and he made sure vegan burgers were on the menu. Previously a staunch critic of anything vegan, Ramsay’s eponymously named Gordon Ramsay Burger is built around eight signature burger creations, one of which is simply the Vegan Burger. The entirely plant-based burger features a vegan patty, bib lettuce, tomato, avocado, eggless garlic mayo, and is served on a vegan bun. The vegan patty can also be substituted in place of meat in any of the other burgers for an additional $6. 

“As a huge fan of Chicago and its food scene, it’s an honor to now have a restaurant in this amazing city,” Ramsay said in a statement. “We can’t wait to serve Chicago residents our signature burger and some really delicious variations.”

Ramsay opened the first Gordon Ramsay Burger inside the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas in 2012. The slightly different menu here has since been updated to also include a Viva Vegan Burger and, as with its Chicago location, a plant-based patty can be substituted in any signature burger. 

*Gordon Ramsay goes vegan … for lunch*
Prior to 2018, Ramsay often made vegans the butt of jokes and once stated that he was allergic to them. But as the plant-based movement picked up steam, Ramsay changed his tune. In 2018, to the surprise of many, he tweeted: “Going to give this #vegan thing a try,” alongside a photograph of the vegan Charred Aubergine Pizza he added to his Gordon Ramsay Street Pizza restaurant in London. 

Positive feedback inspired the chef to continue experimenting with plant-based cooking and in January 2019, Ramsay kicked off the new year with a full plant-based Veganuary menu at the same restaurant (now called Bread Street Kitchen). The varied vegan menu included pumpkin soup dotted with truffle oil, a superfood salad, risotto made with wild mushrooms, eggplant-topped pizza, and a selection of desserts ranging from chocolate avocado mousse to banana-based ice cream. 

The chef has also recreated a vegan version of his famed Beef Wellington using beets instead of meat and a vegan Sunday roast (which drew the ire of disgraced television personality Piers Morgan). Earlier this year, Ramsay went viral on TikTok with his most ambitious vegan recipe to date: a crispy vegan bacon made with a combination of buttered and spiced tofu crumbles (which act as the bacon fat) layered between marinated strips of rice paper that get baked to a crisp. At the end of the TikTok video, Ramsay makes a BLT with this vegan bacon creation and says: “I’m turning vegan … for lunch.” 

*Gordon Ramsay embraces veganism *
In addition to Gordon Ramsay Burger, the chef also operates other concepts in the US, including Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill where items such as Moroccan Spiced Vegan Meatballs and Impossible Burger (served with vegan cheddar cheese) grace the menu at the restaurant’s Atlantic City, NJ location. 

In recent years, Ramsay has had many vegan moments and is even embracing veganism outside of his own restaurant kitchens. Earlier this year, Ramsay took his newfound love of the plant-based lifestyle one step further by welcoming the first vegan contestant, Josie Clemens, to the most recent season of his cooking reality show _Hell’s Kitchen_. And Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen—a restaurant inspired by the reality show that is located inside the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas—a vegan menu is now available featuring dishes such as tofu scallops, truffle risotto, and white bean in purgatory (made with cashew cream cheese). 

In July, Ramsay also became an ambassador for a new campaign by vegan brand Silk to promote its oat milk. The Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T.) campaign features celebrity ambassadors who are the G.O.A.T. in their own right, with Ramsay earning the title of “G.O.A.T. of Yelling in Kitchens.” The chef took to social media to promote Silk’s oat milk—which is allergen friendly, even if you’re allergic to vegans. 

“Well, it took my kids getting on me, but now I really enjoy cooking more plant-based dishes at home and in my restaurants,” Ramsay said. “Let me tell you, I know greatness when I taste it, and I am loving Silk Oatmilk for both sweet and savory recipes.” 









Gordon Ramsay Puts Vegan Burgers on the Menu at His First Chicago Restaurant


Once critical of vegans, chef Gordon Ramsay has had a change of heart and is now proudly serving vegan burgers at his first Chicago restaurant Gordon Ramsay Burger.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*HIGH CHOLESTEROL*









*Cholesterol levels are a risk factor for coronary heart diseases, which are the leading cause of death worldwide*.* However, there is much we can do to protect ourselves, and studies show that cholesterol levels tend to be lower in vegans than in the rest of the population.* 



> _“A 10% decrease in total blood cholesterol levels can reduce the incidence of heart disease by as much as 30%._“
> Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)


Our bodies make almost all of the cholesterol we need in order to build the structure of membranes, make hormones, and produce vitamin D. The remainder comes from our food, either directly from cholesterol in animal products or through saturated fat. But the modern western diet contains far too much of these, and that’s where problems begin.

*CHOLESTEROL FROM FOOD*
Only animal products – meat, dairy, and eggs – contain cholesterol, and most saturated fat also comes from animal products, too. Butter, meat, cheese, and processed foods like pastries, cakes, and ice creams contain significant amounts.

There is some saturated fat in vegan foods, too, including coconut oil, palm oil, and processed foods, but there is generally much less saturated fat in vegan diets, which is one reason they can be so healthy. We get all that we need, but not too much.

*GOOD AND BAD CHOLESTEROL*
Cholesterol needs proteins to help it travel through the blood. When it is carried by high-density lipoprotein (HDL), it has come to be known as “good cholesterol.” It’s “good” because it absorbs cholesterol and carries it back to the liver, which then flushes it from the body. High levels of HDL cholesterol can lower our risk of heart disease and stroke.

But there is another type: Low-density lipoprotein (LDL), known as “bad cholesterol.” Most of the body’s cholesterol falls into this category, and high levels of it raise the risk of heart disease and stroke.

So, we need to avoid meat, dairy, cheese, and those other saturated fats and instead load up on the foods that support good cholesterol. These include nuts, seeds, beans and legumes, whole grains, apples, pears, prunes, avocado, and soy products.

*WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY?*
In October 2015, the _Journal of the American Heart Association_ published a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on the effects of vegetarian diets on cholesterol levels. In the study the most common diet was vegan. The study concluded that:



> _“This systematic review and meta‐analysis provides evidence that vegetarian diets effectively lower blood concentrations of total cholesterol, low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol, high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol, and non–high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol. Such diets could be a useful nonpharmaceutical means of managing dyslipidemia, especially hypercholesterolemia_.”


Hypercholesterolemia is another word for high cholesterol. So, in other words, vegetarian and vegan diets are an effective way to manage high cholesterol without medication.

Another study, published in t_he European Journal of Clinical Nutrition_ in 2014 examined cholesterol levels in 424 meat-eaters, 425 fish-eaters, 423 vegetarians, and 422 vegans. *It found that cholesterol levels in vegans were the lowest of the four groups.* Although the difference could be explained by the fact that vegans were, on average, the least overweight group, the authors concluded that the biggest difference was due to diet.

Similarly, a meta-analysis that examined 30 observational studies and 19 clinical trials, published in 2017 in _Nutrition Reviews_, found that plant-based diets were associated with decreased total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. 

*DOES A VEGAN DIET LOWER CHOLESTEROL?*
Given that only animal products contain cholesterol, and that most saturated fat is also found in animal products, it should come as no surprise that those who don’t eat animal products (vegans!) tend to have lower cholesterol levels.









High cholesterol: Can a vegan diet help?


Studies show cholesterol levels are lower in vegans than the standard population




veganuary.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Check out HappyCow.net for vegan friendly food near you! Interested in going Vegan? Take the 30 day challenge!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*BUSTING THE 3 BIGGEST VEGAN DIET MYTHS*

he first question I am often asked when discussing a whole-food, plant-based diet is, “Where do you get your protein?” Protein has become widely recognized as a miracle macronutrient that, apparently, is challenging to acquire in effective doses. However, this is far from accurate. Let’s clear up three of plant-powered protein’s three most common misconceptions.

*1Myth: The More Protein, The Better*
Humans do indeed require protein, as it is one of the three macronutrients we need to attain from our diet. Protein is involved in virtually all of the body’s structural and functional mechanisms. All of our cells contain protein and it constitutes the building blocks of muscles, hair, nails, organs, skin, tendons, ligaments, enzymes, membranes, some hormones, hemoglobin, antibodies, enzymes, and much more. However, just because something is critical doesn’t mean that more is better. In fact, when it comes to protein, consuming an excess of what we need may promote disease.

The US Department of Agriculture’s Recommended Daily Allowance for protein is 0.7 grams per kilogram body weight per day for adults older than 19 years of age. For a 130-pound female, that means 47 grams of protein per day. For a 170-pound male, 62 grams is recommended. Many people are consuming approximately 20 to 30 percent of their calories from protein, which equals 90 to 135 grams of protein on a 1,800-calorie diet (typical female intake) and 125 to 188 grams of protein on a 2,500-calorie diet (average male intake). This is equivalent to two to three times more than the USDA recommendations. Much of this excess protein comes from animal sources, which may be particularly damaging. Excess protein taxes the kidneys, contributes to gout, and is associated with an increased risk for many chronic diseases.

*2Myth: “Complete Proteins” are Hard to Find*
The other popular misconception is that animal products are the best source of protein. One important reason this myth has been perpetuated is because the amino acids—the building blocks of protein—are assembled in a way in animal foods that more closely resembles what humans actually utilize. However, we now know that this is inconsequential. When you consume any protein, it is broken down via digestion into its separate amino acid constituents and is pooled in the blood for further use. When the body needs to construct a protein for an enzyme or to repair muscle tissue, it collects the necessary amino acids and strings them back together in the sequence appropriate for what it is currently creating. This occurs regardless of whether you consume animal or plant protein. 

If you eat a variety of whole plants, you will easily attain all of the essential amino acids necessary to sustain proper metabolism and to thrive. Plus, plant protein is perfectly packaged along with an abundance of phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber—all critical components for optimal health and disease prevention. On the contrary, animal protein is wrapped up with unhealthy saturated fat and dietary cholesterol. Animal products are also devoid of phytonutrients, antioxidants, and fiber, and are very low in most vitamins and minerals.

*3Myth: The More Active You Are, the More Protein You Need*
Humans need about 10 percent of calories from protein. Virtually all whole, plant foods contain at least this amount, so if you consume enough volume and variety of whole plant foods, your protein requirement will easily be met. This applies to athletes too, who are often thought to require larger amounts of protein to sustain muscle size and optimize performance. However, athletes have increased overall calorie requirements, so when they boost their intake of whole plant foods, they automatically meet their greater need for all of the macronutrients, including protein.

When it comes to protein, it is not about consuming as much as we can, but rather consuming the right amount. Whole plant foods, as provided in nature, offer the ideal amount of protein necessary for the growth, maintenance, and functioning of metabolic processes.









Vegetarian and Vegan Passion







www.mtbr.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Some Veganuary humor 


*Some Important Advice for Anyone Doing Veganuary*


Forget Dry January; going vegan is much harder than dropping the bottle.










Veganuary 2017 was always set to be bigger than Dry January 2017. Last year was the year of the sesh; it would be weird to just absolve ourselves of that for the sake of slightly improved liver function. Plus, not drinking is still boring and mocktails are still just £9 salty juices.


Besides, being vegan is cool now. There are now more than half a million vegans in the UK. The word "vegan" was in the headlines constantly last year. It probably brought Metro most of its online traffic, the amount they were barking on about it. "Desperate" vegans queued hours for pizza! Veggan – like vegan, but eats eggs, get it? – was supposedly a food trend! Research found that vegans live longer than meat eaters, and that a third of people wouldn't date a vegan! And then that those new five pound notes weren't vegan, or even vegetarian! Did it even matter?!



Naturally, the capitalist world accommodated this trend by making it better and easier to be a vegan. The big supermarkets started stocking more vegan products than ever before, and their own brands of vegetarian food widely made switches from being only veggie-friendly to being vegan-friendly. Ben & Jerry's unveiled their plans for dairy-free ice-cream. Quorn started doing vegan products. The culinary bastion for all that is Basic, Pret a Manger, made a Veggie Pret in central London that was so popular it was made permanent, and the brand is now reportedly looking to open or convert more stores. Zizzi got a vegan menu. Carluccio's got a vegan menu. Wetherspoons got a vegan menu.




By the end of the year I was standing in a vegan Christmas market with queues so long it took near enough an hour to get served. Then came the news that we would be gifted the first vegan "fried chicken" shop in the world. Veganism had made it.





It makes sense that this is happening now. Netflix's 86 million subscribers were treated to various documentaries on veganism last year; you couldn't help but learn about its pros and perhaps a few of its cons. And importantly, in a year where it felt like nothing you did made a difference to the world, veganism was an easy way to make the personal political. Change didn't rely on a vote that got lost, or a tweet that got bombarded with negative comments, but something you could do alone three times a day and, after a year, would mean you'd saved 200 animals and that your carbon footprint would have been cut by about a half.


The effect of all this meant that, last year, veganism lost its historical association with sitars and body odour and became a part of the wider health conscious, environmentally aware, 20-something identity. And now it's January, 2017 and Clapham Common tube station is completely filled with Peta posters telling you to go vegan, and fine eateries like All Bar One and Las Iguanas are putting on 2-4-1 deals and new vegan menus for you to try. So you too have decided to go vegan for the month. What a champ.

Because you're going to need a lot of guidance through what's going to be a very strange and difficult 31 days, I (a vegan) am here to help. Here is what's going to happen to you in Veganuary:

*YOU'LL **** A LOT*

Meat and dairy have been clogging up your pipes for years and now you're putting nature's equivalent of Senokot through them. We're only four days in, but you'll have noticed already that, depending on the amount of fruit, vegetables and pulses you've been eating, you'll have been pooping approximately after every meal. Breakfast: poop. Maybe a lil one mid-morning after the coffee. Lunch: yes, another check-in at the nice private disabled toilet at work. And if you can make it home before the next one, good on you. If you make it to the end of the month, you'll have a newfound respect for the human body and its processing powers.

*YOU MIGHT GET CRAMPS*

And that's because your diet is now like 85 percent fibre. If you get a stomach ache or cramping, just chill out and don't bother WebMD-ing "I have cramps am I dying" or anything; it will pass. Your system will get very used to it quickly. (Also you're probably eating more beans and pulses, so there's that side effect to consider IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN).

*YOU WILL TRY TO EAT FAKE MEAT AND CHEESE BUT GET ANGRY QUICKLY BECAUSE AT THIS POINT IT TASTES EXACTLY LIKE PLASTIC*

The last time you popped a delicious fatty globule of cheddar in your mouth was Boxing Day, meaning you very much remember what cheddar is supposed to taste like. So don't expect your brain to suddenly go: "Okay, sure, this substitute made solely of coconut oil and fucking xanthan gum tastes exactly like Cathedral City."

Some people go vegan and immediately eat all the same things made of substitutes. Some go _au naturel_ at first, because that's essentially just eating more of what you were kind of already eating. If you're a big meat lover I'd recommend the latter option, because otherwise you'll get very angry and disillusioned and become convinced that vegans only pretend to like the fake stuff. The answer is that they don't; they've just forgotten what it actually tastes like and it seems the same to them now.

*EGGS ARE IN EVERYTHING, WHICH AGAIN WILL ANGER YOU*

"It'll be easy!" you laugh. "Hahaha!" Don't like meat that much and dairy makes you bloated, and anyway, vegans probably cheat with an eggs royale once in a while.

But you do not yet truly understand what vegans know: eggs are in everything. So is dairy, but eggs more so. Those two points combined mean you can't just cruise into a supermarket and eat what you think is vegan. Look at the ingredients and you'll see most of these are off the list: cakes, pastries, pesto, the cheese Doritos, Nutella, granola, breakfast bars, hot chocolate, crackers, caesar salad dressing, lollies, mayonnaise, soup, crepes, pancakes.

Even a lot of innocent-looking veggie stuff still contains egg as a binding agent – like most Quorn products. These things won't even just say "egg" either; they might say stuff containing the incredibly gross word "ova": ovalbumin, ovomucin, ovomucoid. And they contain dairy if it says whey, lactose or casein. Sorry, I know it's anal, but you have to do this if you want to really understand what it takes to be a #smoking #hot #vegan.

*PEOPLE WILL SNEER AT YOY AND AT LEAST 20 WILL SAY, "HOW DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE'S VEGAN? DON'T WORRY, THEY'LL TELL YOU"*

How do you know if someone's a boring bastard? They will say the above joke as if it's their own. They will also say "eating meat is natural, cavemen did it", to which you must respond: "Yeah, Dan, but at various points in history we also thought it was OK to have sex with animals. Grow up." Thing is, people don't like other people trying something new. We don't like people doing anything that's going to better either themselves or the world as a whole if we're not doing it ourselves. We get defensive if people aren't as predictable as us because it calls into question our own actions and belief systems. We want everyone to be as shitty as us, thanks v much.

*YOU WILL HAVE A FUN CONVERSATION WITH YOUR GRANDPARENTS, OR ANYONE OVER 60, FOR WHOM THE IDEA OF NOT EATING MEAT, DAIRY OR EGGS WITH EVERY MEAL IS INCONCEIVABLE*

Old people will be kind and try to serve you vegetarian pizza and then be completely bemused and have to be talked through why it's not vegan at all and that pizza cheese is still cheese. What about eggs? No, nan. Well you can have fish can't you? No, nan. You can just have one boiled egg, don't be ridiculous. LOL FRAID NOT, NAN!

*WHEN YOU'RE DRUNK OR HUNGOVER YOU WILL FAIL OR VERY NEARLY FAIL*

Forget the "not eating cheese" bit; this is the real litmus test for whether you'd make it as a Full Blown Vegan. Hopefully you're doing Dry January too, which, combined with Veganuary, now means you have no friends at all, meaning no peer pressure and very little risk of drunk cheese toasties.

*YOU'LL HAVE TO EAT SIDES AT RESTAURANTS AND PRETEND YOU'RE HAPPY ABOUT IT*

Nah, it's fine – I completely don't mind paying quite a lot more than you for a meal of sweet potato fries, fancy broccoli and plantain chips.

*YOU MIGHT PUT ON WEIGHT*

Thought I was going to say you'll lose weight, didn't you! Sorry, all that shitting has done little to help you shed the pounds. If you're going temp-vegan to lose weight without trying then don't bother. All those carbs – combined with the fact you may be overeating to compensate for all the meat and cheese you're missing – could see you put a load of weight on.

*VEGAN CHOCOLATE IS BETTER THAN MILK CHOCOLATE*

Milk chocolate is a disgusting affront to the cocoa bean and only for children still suckling from the teet. I sort of don't want to tell you about this because you might buy them all, but Vego bars will become your best friend. They're basically sugar, hazelnuts and cocoa, and might leave you sweating from the blood sugar spike, and so therefore are obviously delicious.

*ONE MONTH ISN'T ENOUGH TO MAKE THE CRAVINGS STOP, SO JUST CARRY ON*

It takes about 45 to 60 days to "get over" your emotional and physical cravings for something. You're not going to be completely onboard with this hip new lifestyle after one month. You might, however, get the initial boost of energy most new vegans get, which may be enough to inspire you to carry on. If you need an extra hand, just watch _Cowspiracy_ repeatedly and eat 300 of those Vego bars.









Some Important Advice for Anyone Doing Veganuary


Forget Dry January; going vegan is much harder than dropping the bottle.




www.vice.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Healthy Weight Loss = 80% Nutrition + 20% Exercise

Around 1995, I was twenty-eight years old and somewhat overweight. I began an excruciating exercise program of power walking/jogging 35-40 miles per week, plus an additional 20 miles on the bike. Did I lose the weight? Sure. Think of the calories I was burning! I thought I was eating healthier too, but learned later that what I _thought_ was healthy, really wasn’t.











I was even featured in _Shape_ magazine’s “Success Stories” in July 1998. (Pictured below










A few years later, I started gaining a little bit of weight back, even though I was wearing myself out with exercise. I came across an article that said as we age, our metabolism slows down due to natural muscle mass decreases, so we need to increase our calorie burning exercise. If we don’t, we gain 10 lbs every few years, even though we are still exercising. I remember thinking, “WHAT?!” I was exercising myself to death to keep the weight off, and now I’m going to need to continually increase the intensity and distance, just to keep from gaining? That discouragement was the beginning of the end of my exercise-warrior days.

*My Weight Increased and My Health Declined*
I gradually began to put the weight back on and gained many more pounds in addition. Over the years, my health began to decline—high cholesterol, high blood pressure, swollen and painful joints, and hormonal issues. I was only in my forties, and my lack of health had become a source of great stress. I couldn’t imagine what I would be like in my 60’s. My joints already hurt so much!

Then in February 2013, everything changed for me. After a year of my daughter asking me to watch a documentary called, _Forks Over Knives_, I finally did. That changed everything.

I learned that I’d had it backwards all these years! Optimal health wasn’t all about exercising _more_. It was about eating the right foods. Not chicken and fish like I had thought, but whole grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits!

Although I had thought chicken and fish were low-fat, the truth is that while the _leanest_ cut of beef is around 28% calories from fat, white, skinless chicken is nearly the same at 24% of calories from fat! Tuna is 21% and salmon 40%. Eggs are 70% fat! My weight loss efforts were failing because I was doing everything wrong.

*Nutrition is Key*
With my new understanding about nutrition, I have finally been able to lose all the pounds and maintain a healthy weight. I’ve done it despite the fact that I’m older and should have a slower metabolism, and I’ve done it without jogging 35 miles & biking 20 miles a week. I understand now that while exercise and stress management are important, the real key—80% of the equation—is nutrition. My transformation came not through excruciating workouts but by eating PLANTS!

Now, my exercise consists of walking and hiking with my German shepherd daily for 30-45 minutes and doing gentle yoga four days a week. That’s all it takes—not an exercise warrior mentality!

Every good fitness program starts with walking. Walking is by far the most underrated form of exercise. Not only does it burn calories, it also reduces stress and helps regulate your wake-sleep cycle, especially if done outdoors.

My cholesterol runs around 141 these days, and my joints are excellent! I no longer suffer from inflammation and pain. I no longer worry about a slowing metabolism as I age or needing to forever increase my exercise program. These days, I’m older and smarter. I know the truth.

Exercise and stress management are very important pieces to the health puzzle; it’s not whole without them. But, nutrition is the biggest piece of the picture. _“You can’t outrun your fork.”_









Healthy Weight Loss = 80% Nutrition + 20% Exercise


Many people feel the key to health is the opposite: 80% exercise + 20 % nutrition and stress management. I used to be one of them.




nutritionstudies.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What Really Happens When A House Fly Lands On Your Food*









The common housefly is one of the more annoying insects we have to deal with. Not only can they be a real party-pooper (more on that later) at an outdoor picnic, but they always find a way to sneak into our homes and bother us indoors, too. Often we find ourselves batting them away from our food. But what actually happens when a fly lands on our food? The answer is, well, difficult to stomach. 

*What Happens When A Fly Lands On Your Food*
We’ve all been there. You’re attempting to enjoy patio season when a fly keeps on buzzing by your food. Everyone leaves unattended food at a barbecue only to come back to find it covered in insects. You’re trying to enjoy a bowl of popcorn while you watch a movie at night and a fly keeps five-bombing your head.

Most of us will just swat the pest away and continue eating. After all, it’s just a tiny fly, right? It wasn’t on the food very long, so how bad could it be? Well, we’re here to inform you that the answer is worse than you think. In fact, it’s really quite gross. 

If you have a weak stomach and want to keep living in blissful ignorance, we suggest you stop reading here. Otherwise, these are exactly the reasons why you may want to consider integrating more fly protection at your next picnic and avoid eating food that they come in contact with. 

*1. Vomit*
Flies are very small, so it’s hard to get a look at their faces. If you assumed that this tiny insect eats with a regular mouth, you are unfortunately incorrect. Flies don’t have teeth. Instead, they have a tiny suction-tube-like trunk that they use to slurp food up. The issue is that not all food they like to eat – which is mostly everything – is a liquid.

In order to eat solid foods, they need to turn them into a liquid format. They do this by vomiting up saliva onto it. This saliva turns the solid food into a liquid which they can then suck through their trunk. When you eat food that flies have been on, you’re getting an extra seasoning that you didn’t ask for – Fly vomit. 

*2. Feces *
If a fly only lands on your food for a split second, chances are they haven’t had the opportunity to do much damage. Walk away and come back to flies feasting on your meal, however? You’ll likely want to throw it away.

As flies walk all over vomiting on your food and sucking it up, they’re also then defecating (aka pooping) it out the other end. They’ve got tiny, simple bodies – this doesn’t take very much time. So again, you’re winding up with extra spice that we’re going to guess you have no interest in ingesting. 

*3. Flies Aren’t Picky*
Some species of animals and insects have very specific diets. Flies are not one of those species. They will eat anything and everything – this includes trash, rotting food, roadkill, and even feces. Naturally, when they eat these things they don’t put on tiny fly hazmat suits and they certainly don’t bathe afterward. Nope – they go directly from walking around the trash bin to walking around on your food

First of all, this means that their bodies are covered in hundreds if not thousands of different types of bacteria. Some of those can be quite dangerous. This also means that they are ingesting those bacteria and vomiting or pooping it out onto your food.

Among the pathogens and parasites, they leave behind while traipsing all over your lunch are a few that can cause some pretty serious illnesses. Scientists believe that flies have transmitted over 65 diseases to humans. Among these include typhoid fever, cholera, and tuberculosis. That’s more than a few uninvited brunch guests.

*When To Keep, When To Toss*
So, should you toss everything that a fly touches? The short answer is no. If you watch the fly land and you swat it away immediately, then you don’t have much to worry about. Anything longer than that, however, and things begin to get questionable. 

Of course, we don’t want to promote food waste. Instead, practice food safety. Use lids to cover things when no one is minding the food. There are also plenty of different types of fly nets and covers you can purchase. Consider, as well, using fly traps and deterrents to keep them far away from your food.









What Really Happens When A House Fly Lands On Your Food


If a fly lands on your food, should you throw it out?




thepremierdaily.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Melatonin Isn’t a Sleeping Pill. Here’s How to Use It.*












Most people think of melatonin as a natural nod-off aid, kind of like chamomile tea in pill form. Even the name of the popular dietary supplement sounds sleepy — that long “o” sound almost makes you yawn mid-word. But melatonin is also a hormone that our brains naturally produce, and hormones, even in minuscule amounts, can have potent effects throughout the body.
“There are some clinical uses for it, but not the way that it’s marketed and used by the vast majority of the general public,” said Jennifer Martin, a psychologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Experts strongly urge people to consult their doctor or a sleep specialist before taking melatonin, in part because the supplement does not address many underlying health problems that may be disrupting sleep. Anxiety can cause insomnia, as can a host of other potentially serious ailments, such as sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome or mood disorders like depression, that may require medical treatment.
Melatonin, however, is relatively inexpensive and readily available at local pharmacies in the United States (in other countries it typically requires a prescription), and many people will go out and buy it on their own. So what’s the best approach to taking melatonin? Here’s what experts had to say.

*How does melatonin work?*
During the day, the brain’s pea-sized pineal gland remains inactive. A few hours before our natural sleep time, as it starts to get dark outside and the light entering our retina fades, the gland switches on to flood the brain with melatonin.
“Melatonin is sometimes called the ‘hormone of darkness’ or ‘vampire hormone,’” because it comes out at night, said Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of the book “Why We Sleep.” As levels of melatonin rise, levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, fall. Respiration slows. Soon, our eyelids begin to droop.
Instead of a lights-out trigger, melatonin acts more like a dimmer switch, turning the day functions off and switching night functions on. So taking a melatonin supplement is sort of like taking a dose of sunset, tricking your body into feeling like it’s nighttime. It doesn’t put you to sleep as much as it tells the body that it’s time to sleep.
“It may take several hours,” said Dr. Ilene M. Rosen, a sleep medicine doctor and associate professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, “which is what I think is the misconception about how melatonin is used.”
Melatonin may make you feel a little drowsier when you take it, but it has a bigger impact on regulating the timing of your overall sleep-wake cycle and helping to set the circadian clock, the roughly 24-hour internal timekeeper that tells your body what time of day it is and syncs it with the outside world.

“The impact it has on our sleep depends on the time of day that you take it,” said Dr. Martin, who is also a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “If you took a sleeping pill in the middle of the day, it would make you feel sleepy. If you took melatonin in the middle of the day, it doesn’t really have that effect.”

Hypnotic drugs like Ambien or Benadryl generally cause people to feel sleepy right away, and the sedation effect of those medications “far exceeds that which they obtain from melatonin,” said Dr. Alon Y. Avidan, a professor of neurology and director of the Sleep Disorders Center at U.C.L.A.
*How effective is melatonin?*
In one analysis published in 2013 in PLOS One, which combined results from 19 studies involving 1,683 men and women, people who took melatonin supplements fell asleep seven minutes faster and increased overall sleep time by eight minutes. That may not sound like much, but there was a lot of individual variation, and researchers found that melatonin also improved overall sleep quality, including people’s ability to wake up feeling refreshed.
But there’s no guarantee that melatonin will work for you.
Dr. Sabra Abbott, an assistant professor of neurology in sleep medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said the most common complaint she hears from patients is “I tried melatonin and it didn’t work.” Many also feel hung over or groggy the next morning.
Dr. Martin said that in many studies, melatonin does not work any better than a placebo but added, “One caveat I always like to mention, though, is that placebos work pretty well for insomnia.”
*What about dosage?*
We naturally make melatonin in our brains, but only in picogram amounts, or one trillionth of a gram, which Dr. Rosen described as “a whiff of it coming out at dusk.” Over-the-counter melatonin supplements come in much higher milligram doses, or a thousandth of a gram. That’s a big difference, although the amount that ultimately reaches the brain more closely approximates natural levels.
Many experts recommend starting with the smallest available dosage — 0.5 milligrams to 1 milligram, 30 minutes to an hour before bedtime — and seeing how you do from there. If that has no effect, the dose can be gradually increased.

“If you try a dose, stick to it for a few days before you make an adjustment,” Dr. Martin said. “It’s one of those things that may not happen overnight.”
“Keep a close eye on how you feel the next day,” Dr. Abbott said. “Feeling groggy or hung over is a sign that the dose is probably too high.”
*Are there side effects?*
The good news: In the short term, at least, melatonin is unlikely to do any harm.
“Compared to most other sleeping pills, the side-effect profile is much better,” and it’s not going to be addictive, said Dr. Bhanu Prakash Kolla, an associate professor of psychiatry and a consultant at the Center for Sleep Medicine at the Mayo Clinic. But because melatonin can cause drowsiness, the Mayo Clinic warns that you shouldn’t drive or operate machinery within five hours of taking it.
*Does melatonin affect our dreams?*
“Far and away, the most common side effect that I have patients report to me is that their dreams just become much more vivid,” Dr. Abbott said. Scientists aren’t sure why that happens.
Dr. Kolla has also seen patients who have nightmares or disruptive dreams, which are also common with sleeping pills. “In that case, you want to try to lower the dose,” he said. “Or, if it’s too problematic, stop.”
*How do doctors use melatonin?*
Sleep doctors may use melatonin to help patients with circadian rhythm disorders regulate their sleep-wake cycles. For example, during the pandemic, Dr. Avidan said, “we’ve seen those people who become super night owls” unable to fall asleep until 2 or 3 a.m.
Experts also suggest people use a bright light in the mornings to help them wake up, which has “alerting properties and can suppress any remaining melatonin production,” said Dr. Abbott.

*Should you take melatonin for jet lag?*
Jet lag is a circadian rhythm disorder, albeit a temporary one, so melatonin may help. To alleviate the worst effects, doctors recommend consulting one of several online calculators available, which ask you for your destination and arrival points, your flight time and your normal sleep patterns. Two sites that Dr. Avidan recommends are Jet Lag Rooster or the calculator from Fleet Street Clinic.
“They’re trying to tell you when to take the melatonin so your body knows: ‘Oh, it’s dusk where I’m going,’” Dr. Rosen said, explaining how you can use the supplement before your trip to readjust your body clock.
*How do you pick a reliable brand of melatonin?*
Like other dietary supplements, melatonin is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which means there may be wide variation among products. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that the content of more than 70 percent of melatonin supplements varied widely from their label claims. The concentration ranged from 83 percent less than the amount listed to 478 percent more.
Dr. Kolla advised looking for a GLP (good laboratory practice) or GMP (good manufacturing practice) label, which refers to federal regulations designed to affirm a product has the advertised quality and purity. “You really don’t know what you’re getting, so you’re trusting the manufacturer,” he said. Melatonin comes in pills, gummies or liquid; the choice comes down to personal preference, he added.
*What are alternatives for chronic insomnia?*
Sleep doctors strongly urge people with chronic insomnia to seek out cognitive behavioral therapy, a short-term psychological treatment that can help get to the root of the problem.
“If you give melatonin to a patient and you don’t complement it with behavioral therapy for insomnia, you may not necessarily see the effects that you’re looking for,” Dr. Avidan said.
Many common behaviors can also make it harder for us to fall — and stay — asleep, including using our phones near bedtime, which can hamper natural melatonin production. Meditation may help, as can warm showers and cool bedrooms, or giving up caffeine and alcohol.

“There are a lot of other things people could do to help themselves sleep better,” Dr. Martin said. “They’re just harder.”








Melatonin Isn’t a Sleeping Pill. Here’s How to Use It.


The “vampire hormone” can act like a dose of sunset, tricking your body into feeling like it’s time to sleep.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Something that helps cause less suffering for animals is great. Will I eat it?.... probably not


*THE ETHICS OF LAB GROWN MEAT: A NEW VEGAN OPTION?







*


There can be no doubt that factory farming is a scourge on human and environmental health. Not to mention on animal welfare. It’s also black mark on the moral ledger of mankind.

Of course, the best way to avoid this scourge is by going vegan. But another potential solution to the problem is lab-grown meat. Apparently, once the technology’s a bit more refined, we won’t be able to taste the difference between meat from a lab and meat off the bone. And it certainly won’t cost its current price of $18,000/lb.

No greenhouse gases, no animals killed. It seems like a win-win, right? Hmm….let’s look a little deeper.

*Unasked Questions On The Ethics Of Lab Grown Meat*
Firstly, the technology for lab grown meat comes from rather dubious sources. The three companies leading the way – SuperMeat, Future Meat Technologies, and Meat the Future – are based in what may well be the world’s least ethical nation: Israel. And the investors? Well let’s put it this way: one of the biggest investors in cloned meat is also:


the biggest pusher of GMO foods
a guy who is now the biggest private owner of farmland in the USA
the owner of a Foundation that’s one of the largest shareholders of Monsanto/Bayer stock
Yep, I’m talking about Bill Gates.

If you think GMO seeds are bad, how would you feel about transgenic meat? This is already happening. Animal organs are being genetically modified, ostensibly to treat diabetes, Parkinson’s, and other diseases in humans. But no one knows what the ultimate results of such experiments could be on human and environmental health. The same techniques could easily be used to cross species barriers by say, combining cow genes with fish genes to create lab grown meat with Omega oils- with completely unknown consequences.

The ethical questions no one seems to be asking are:


what are the long term health consequences of eating transgenic meat?
what are the consequences of genetically manipulating animals?
should humans be playing with genetic code when we don’t know the results of doing so?
*Cruel Cloning*
Whilst lab grown meat isn’t commercially available yet, cloned meat and milk has been available in some countries like the USA for years. Companies like ViaGen clone not only pets (creepy!) but actual cattle and pigs for agricultural purposes. This means they still slaughter sentient animals for ‘cloned meat’. The only difference is that this livestock was not born in the usual, natural way. So…how is that more ethical in any way at all?

Whilst the USA has approved cloned meat and milk for human consumption, the European Union is concerned that not enough data is available for a viable study on the safety of such products. They’ve also expressed ethical worries. That’s because cloned animals tend to suffer from more health problems at birth than conventionally bred animals, making cloning animals a serious animal rights issue.

In fact, around 95 percent of clones don’t even survive gestation. Of those that do survive, many suffer and die from respiratory, digestive, circulatory, nervous, muscular, skeletal, and placental abnormalities during their first year of life, according to Friends of Animals.

*A Shift In Power*
Experts such as Andrew Weil, M.D., point to another concern. Safe or not, cloned meat and dairy products will come from factory farms that threaten the environment and make use of hormones and other additives, he states. He adds that _‘it’s all part of an unhealthy trend in artificial food production.’_

Cloning, he says, increases the control of factory farms by large corporations, decreases genetic diversity, and removes food production from farmers, and instead puts it in the hands of scientists.

Similar arguments could be made for lab grown meat. Cultured meat uses technically sophisticated production methods. This makes it harder for traditional farming communities to produce food self-sufficiently. It also potentially increases dependence for our food supply on global food corporations. And at the end of the day, it seems _that_ is one of the key issues here.

*The Impact Of Lab Grown Meat On Human Health*
Some people are switching to lab grown meat in the name of better health. But those folks should take note: all of that engineered ‘meat’ contains potentially very unhealthy genetically engineered ingredients, including yeast and something called _heme_, which exists in soy roots and meat.

Impossible Foods, a pioneer in lab-grown meat and the home of the Impossible Burger, uses genetically modified ingredients including heme. In 2015, they asked the Food and Drug Administration to review the burger’s safety. The company was taken aback by what it received: a long letter saying that the data they’d submitted wasn’t sufficient to “establish the safety” of heme for human consumption.

What’s more, an article published in Food and Wine magazine warmed that “excessive” heme consumption had been linked to colon and prostate cancer. These negative results have already been noted – and that’s without widespread consumption of the stuff.

As Impossible Burger fans grow, we suspect health problems will, too.










*Morality…or Money?*
Factory farming is largely a moral issue. Yet this solution of lab-grown meat is pretty clearly rooted in technology and economics, _not_ morality. The fact remains that meat – be it cloned, conventional or lab-grown, is a highly moral issue.

So, if the rise of the bioengineered-meat industry leads to fewer animals suffering, what’s the problem? The answer is more troubling than you may think.

In switching to lab-grown meat for our own sake rather than for the sake of animal welfare, we’ve failed to make the appropriate moral adjustment, so to speak.

A moral evolution would acknowledge that we _don’t need that much meat – or perhaps any meat – to survive._ It would see rooftops and empty lots being used for urban agriculture. More veganism, and less food waste. It would acknowledge that we, the people, should have more control over what we eat. We should be encouraged to grow our own fruits and vegetables, rather than being fully dependent on high-tech labs and huge corporations for our food supply.

The main point here is this: lab grown meat isn’t about ending animal suffering. It isn’t about improving our health. It is about controlling where our food comes from.

*In Conclusion*
Our human qualities of indifference, thoughtlessness, complacency and lack of curiosity, as well as our tendencies to silence or dismiss qualms and blindly follow what the media and corporations tell us is good for us, has in the past made us more vulnerable to manipulation from morally dubious leaders. The pandemic has made this more than clear.

Examining the ethics of lab grown meat is an opportunity. It’s a chance for us to consider not only whether meat is truly essential to our lives – in whatever form. But it also forces us to ask ourselves to which extent we want to trust corporations with what’s most essential to our lives: food.

The average person has nothing in common with mega-landowners and investors like Bill Gates or the geneticists creating lab grown meat. But we all know this: food creation should not be concentrated in the hands of a few technocrats. The “billionaires know best” mentality is rooted in colonialism and fascism, and ignores those who actually know best how to use and live with the land. And while proponents of bioengineered meat insist it’s kinder to animals, its very notion is still deeply rooted in speciesism.

It’s time we reconnected to the earth and reconsidered our relationships with animals, instead of further distancing ourselves from nature with bioengineered food.









The Ethics Of Lab Grown Meat: A New Option?


ethics of lab grown meat, ethics of synthetic meat, is lab grown meat vegan friendly, are impossible burgers healthy,




eluxemagazine.com


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## bingemtbr (Apr 1, 2004)

cyclelicious said:


> In switching to lab-grown meat for our own sake rather than for the sake of animal welfare, we’ve failed to make the appropriate moral adjustment, so to speak.
> 
> The main point here is this: lab grown meat isn’t about ending animal suffering. It isn’t about improving our health. It is about controlling where our food comes from.


I'm not vegan. However, this place (Gallery - Pizza Head) has one of the most delicious pizzas in town. If I order 2 pies from here, thats 2 less pies that are being ordered from a regular pizza parlor serving real meat. Cumulatively, the existence of PizzaHead (the vegan pizza joint in the link) has contributed to lowering demand for real meat locally. I think this is a good thing and it illustrates why investors are backing the faux-meat industry: increasing market demand. 

Most consumers do want healthy good tasting food. I believe the faux-meat industry is experiencing an increase in demand because of improvements to taste, texture, availability and affordability. 

I believe the author of that article is over thinking the situation and _might be a little paranoid (i.e. "controlling where our food comes from"). _


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Here’s What You Need For Healthy Bones – And What You Should Avoid*


What do you need for healthy bones, and what types of food should you be avoiding?

Your bones are like living cities, always rebuilding and repairing themselves and exchanging materials with their environment – discover what they need to stay strong!

*Healthy bones*
Your skeleton gives your body its shape, houses and protects your organs, gives your muscles something to cling to, and stores minerals such as calcium and phosphorus.

In the center of your bones (some of them) is red bone marrow which is responsible for producing blood cells so your skeleton is much more than just a collection of bones – it is a living network of cells, protein fibers, minerals, and blood vessels.

As bones grow, become worn, or suffer minor damage from physical activity, they are constantly repaired. Damaged bits are cleared away and new bone is built in the gaps.

This allows bones to adapt to the changing demands placed on them. For example, if you start a new sport that puts unusual pressure on your bones, their architecture will slightly rebuild to make them better suited to the new challenges.

*Calcium*
There’s no denying that we need calcium for healthy bones. It’s the most abundant mineral in your body and some 99 percent of it is in your skeleton.

The rest floats around in the blood and is used by your muscles, nerves and for many biochemical reactions. We need around 700 milligrams of calcium a day.

The best plant sources are almonds, sesame seeds, and tahini, chia seeds, beans, calcium-set tofu (that’s most of the tofu on the market), dried figs, oranges, kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, plant milk fortified with calcium, and some fortified breakfast cereals.

The recommended daily dose is achievable entirely through diet. If you take a multivitamin supplement that contains calcium, that can contribute a little but you should not take a high-dose calcium supplement as intakes of over 2,000 milligrams a day may be dangerous.

Anything that can affect calcium levels in the body – food, lifestyle, or medication – has an impact on your bones.

If you lose more calcium than you’re receiving, over time it can result in bone loss leading to osteopenia (the forerunner to osteoporosis) and it can happen at any age.

So, it’s easy to ensure you get sufficient calcium but how do you make sure you’re not flushing it out of your system at the same time? How can that possibly happen?

*Animal products and foods to avoid*
If your diet includes animal protein from meat and dairy, during digestion it produces acid and your body has to neutralize it as maintaining an acid-alkaline balance is essential to it.

If there isn’t sufficient calcium readily available in your blood and muscles, bone calcium may be extracted and used. And this is where plant-based diets win big-time!

They don’t cause this acid imbalance in the first place because of all the alkaline salts contained in fruit and vegetables and other wholesome plant foods rendering neutralizing unnecessary.

What’s more, they provide many nutrients that bones need. This marks a sharp distinction between foods from animals and foods from plant sources – animal protein may damage bones while plant protein protects them.

Having said that, a plant-based diet isn’t always great for your bones. Sugary and processed foods, fizzy drinks, caffeine, and high salt intakes can cause calcium loss.

If your staples are biscuits, chips, pot-noodles, sweets, and coke, your bones may be in trouble.

If you’re also a smoker, it gets worse as smoking reduces calcium absorption from food. Luckily, all this is easily remedied with diet and lifestyle changes.

One more important point: you cannot utilize calcium without vitamin D…

*Vitamin D*
This vitamin is essential for calcium absorption but also helps to keep it in the body and regulates calcium blood levels.

In spring and summer, we mostly get vitamin D through exposing our unprotected skin to sunlight, which triggers vitamin D production in the body.

Fair-skinned people need about 15-20 minutes of face and arms exposure, two to three times a week. But the darker your skin, the longer the exposure you need. About 30-40 minutes should be sufficient for most dark-skinned people.

Of course, there is a problem – in autumn and winter, we not only cover up more than in the summer but the sun doesn’t shine as strongly and therefore we don’t make enough vitamin D as a result.

That’s why it’s recommended that everyone, regardless of diet, takes a vitamin D supplement from October to April. People who always wear sunscreen, cover-up, or work indoors should take a supplement throughout the year.

Vitamin D is so important that even if you have plenty of calcium in your diet, you won’t be able to use it properly without this essential vitamin.

The consequences are extremely serious, possibly resulting in rickets or osteomalacia – softening of the bones.

A supplement providing 10 micrograms (400 IU) is sufficient for most people and you should never go above 100 micrograms as high doses can be toxic.

Vitamin D is essential for healthy bones and teeth but that’s not where the story ends. We also need it for a strong immune system and having healthy vitamin D levels has been shown to lower your risk of depression, cognitive decline, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

So, make sure you get enough!

*Vitamins*
To be healthy, your bones need a wide range of nutrients – more than simply calcium and vitamin D!

They also need vitamins A, C, K, and the B group as well as minerals, such as magnesium, potassium, selenium, boron, iron, copper, and zinc.

A wholesome plant-based diet provides all these if it’s centered around fruits and vegetables, pulses, whole grains, nuts, and seeds with the obligatory supplement top-ups of vitamins D and B12.

A word of caution – alcohol consumption is bad for bones so go easy on it!

*Exercise*
Bones respond to how they are used so physical activity is also a key player. Any weight-bearing exercise, such as walking, running, dancing, yoga, ball games, gym classes, or even gardening, stimulates your bones. This makes them stronger, while a sedentary lifestyle can weaken them.

Unfortunately, swimming or cycling don’t count because you’re not carrying your full body weight. So, if these are your thing, compliment them with another activity.

If you treat your bones right, they will stay strong well into old age. Feed them the good stuff, move them about, don’t smoke and you’ll reap the rewards!









Here's What You Need For Healthy Bones - And What You Should Avoid


Your bones are like living cities, always rebuilding and repairing themselves – here's what they need to stay strong...




plantbasednews.org


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## GKelley (Sep 4, 2018)

Factory farming is not only a symptom of our diets... It's a more-so a symptom of over-population. Until we admit that over-population is a problem, many things will only get worse.

Basically, we're fucked!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

cyclelicious said:


> *What Really Happens When A House Fly Lands On Your Food*
> View attachment 1965068
> 
> 
> ...


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Best Brain Foods You’re Not Eating*

It’s time to start feeding your brain.
For years research on healthy eating has focused primarily on physical health and the link between diet, weight and chronic disease. But the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry studies how foods can make us feel.
“Many people think about food in terms of their waistlines, but it also impacts our mental health,” said Dr. Uma Naidoo, a Harvard psychiatrist and the director of nutritional and lifestyle psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. “It’s a missing part of the conversation.”
The connection between the stomach and the brain is strong, and it starts in the womb. The gut and brain originate from the same cells in the embryo, says Dr. Naidoo. One of the main ways the brain and gut remain connected is through the vagus nerve, a two-way chemical messaging system that explains why stress can trigger feelings of anxiety in your mind and butterflies in your stomach.
Food can also influence the state of your microbiome, and some species of gut microbes have been linked to higher rates of depression. Even the brain chemical serotonin, which regulates mood, has a strong gut connection. Only 5 percent of your body’s serotonin is made in the brain; the rest is made, stored and active in the gut, said Dr. Naidoo, author of the new book, “This Is Your Brain on Food.”

Nutritional psychiatrists say food shouldn’t replace other treatments for mental health, including therapy and prescription drugs, but it shouldn’t be ignored either. A number of studies have suggested that dietary changes can lead to meaningful improvements in mood and mental well-being.
“We have to eat; it’s a basic need,” said Dr. Naidoo, who is also a professional chef and instructor at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts. “And food is also a very powerful lever in terms of our mental health.”

*The myth of comfort food*
Often people try to influence their mood by eating comfort foods like ice cream, pizza or mac ’n’ cheese. The problem, experts say, is that while those foods typically offer a tantalizing combination of fat, sugar, salt and carbs that make them hyperpalatable, they can actually make us feel worse.
Traci Mann, who heads the health and eating laboratory at the University of Minnesota, ran a series of studies to determine whether a person’s preferred comfort food improves their mood. Participants were asked the question: “What foods would make you feel better if you were in a bad mood?” The most common responses were chocolate, ice cream and cookies. The respondents also rated foods they enjoyed but would not normally eat to seek comfort.
Before each test, the participants watched film clips that were known to elicit anger, hostility, fear, anxiety and sadness. After the film, the viewers filled out a “negative mood” questionnaire to indicate how they were feeling. Then they were given a heaping portion of their favorite comfort food, a food they liked but didn’t view as a comfort food, a “neutral” food (an oat and honey granola bar) or no food at all. Everyone had three minutes alone to eat their food, or sit quietly. After the break, they filled out the mood questionnaire again.

Whether a participant ate comfort food, any food or no food didn’t make a difference in the person’s mood. The factor that seemed to matter most was the passage of time.
“If you eat comfort food you might feel better, but if you didn’t eat it, you would also feel better just with time going by,” said Dr. Mann. “People believe in comfort food, and they are giving it credit for mood improvements that would have happened anyway.”

*Using food to treat depression*
While Dr. Mann’s research found that traditional comfort foods don’t have a meaningful effect on mood, a growing body of research shows that improving the quality of a person’s diet can have a significant effect on mental health. An analysis of 16 studies found that dietary interventions significantly reduced depression symptoms.
The first intervention to test dietary changes as a treatment for depression included 67 patients, all of whom had poor diets consisting of a lot of processed and sugary foods, with very little fruits, vegetables or fiber. About half the patients were given nutrition counseling for a Mediterranean-style diet, as well as food baskets containing sample foods, recipes and meal plans. The rest of the group met weekly to chat and receive friendly support, but diet wasn’t discussed. At the end of the three-month study, the food group showed significantly greater improvement in depression symptoms, and a third of them had achieved full remission, compared to just 8 percent of the social support group.
The effect has been seen in larger studies too. A four-year study of more than 10,000 university students in Spain found that people who closely followed a Mediterranean diet were at lower risk for depression. Australian researchers examined food diaries of 12,385 randomly sampled adults from an ongoing government survey. They found that higher fruit and vegetable intake predicted increased happiness, life satisfaction and well-being. The psychological gains were equivalent to moving from unemployment to employment. And people who changed their diet to include more vegetables saw mood improvements within two years.
There’s still much to learn about which foods and how much of them can improve mental health. One yearlong trial published in JAMA in 2019 found that a Mediterranean diet reduced anxiety but didn’t prevent depression in those at high risk.
Scientists do know that about 20 percent of everything we eat goes to the brain, said Dr. Drew Ramsey, a psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Critical neurotransmitters and receptors are made when you eat specific nutrients and amino acids, he said. Your glial cells, for example, which make up a substantial portion of the brain, are dependent on omega-3 fats. Minerals including zinc, selenium and magnesium provide the foundation for cell activity and brain tissue and the synthesis of neurotransmitters that directly affect mood. Iron, folate and vitamin B12 help your body produce serotonin.

“Our brains evolved to eat almost anything to survive, but increasingly we know there’s a way to fuel it to improve overall mental health,” said Dr. Ramsey, author of the book “Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety.” “We know if you eat a bunch of garbage, you feel like garbage, but the idea that it extends into our mental health risk is a connection we haven’t made in psychiatry until recently.”

*Try some new ‘brain’ foods*
To help patients remember the best foods to eat to support brain health, Dr. Ramsey has devised a simple mantra: “Seafood, greens, nuts and beans — and a little dark chocolate.” He also hosts a free online cooking class (the next one is Feb. 7) called “Mental Fitness Kitchen.”
For this week’s Eat Well Challenge, try adding some new foods to your plate that have been linked to better brain health. This list is based on suggestions from Dr. Naidoo and Dr. Ramsey. Much of the science on the possible brain benefits of various foods is still in its early stages, and eating these foods won’t result in mood changes overnight. But incorporating several of these foods into your meals will improve the overall quality of your daily diet — and you might notice a difference in how you feel.

*Leafy greens*
Dr. Ramsey calls leafy greens the foundation of a brain health diet because they’re cheap, versatile and have a high ratio of nutrients to calories. Kale is his personal favorite, but spinach, arugula, collards, beet greens and chard are also great sources of fiber, folate and vitamins C and A. If you’re not a fan of salads, add greens to soups, stews, stir fries and smoothies, or turn them into a pesto. He also recommends adding a small serving of seaweed (the “leafy green of the sea”) to your plate once a week as a source of iodine, fiber, zinc and additional phytonutrients.

*Colorful fruits and vegetables*
The more colorful your plate, the better the food is for your brain. Studies suggest that the compounds in brightly colored fruits and vegetables like red peppers, blueberries, broccoli and eggplant can affect inflammation, memory, sleep and mood. Reddish-purplish foods are “power players” in this category. And don’t forget avocados, which are high in healthy fats that enhance the absorption of phytonutrients from other vegetables.

*Seafood*
Sardines, oysters, mussels, wild salmon and cod are sources of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids that are essential for brain health. Seafood is also a good source of vitamin B12, selenium, iron, zinc and protein. If you don’t eat fish, chia seeds, flax seeds and sea vegetables are also good sources of omega-3s. For those on a budget, canned salmon is a more affordable option, said Dr. Naidoo.

*Nuts, beans and seeds*
Try to eat between a half and a full cup of beans, nuts and seeds a day, says Dr. Ramsey. Nuts and seeds, including cashews, almonds, walnuts and pumpkin seeds, are a great snack, but they can also be added to stir fry dishes and salads. Black and red beans, lentils and legumes can also be added to soups, salads and stews or enjoyed as a meal or a side dish. Nut butters count too.

*Spices and herbs*
Cooking with spices not only makes your food taste better, but studies suggest certain spices may lead to a better balance of gut microbes, reduce inflammation and even improve memory. Dr. Naidoo especially likes turmeric; studies suggest that its active ingredient, curcumin, may have benefits for attention and overall cognition. “Turmeric can be very powerful over time,” she said. “Try incorporating it into your salad dressing or roasted vegetables,” or adding it to marinades, curries, sauces, stews or smoothies. “Adding a pinch of black pepper makes curcumin 2,000 percent more bio-available to our brain and body,” she said. “It’s an easy hack to do when you’re cooking.” Other spices that may support brain health include cinnamon, rosemary, sage, saffron and ginger.

*Fermented foods*
Fermented foods are made by combining milk, vegetables or other raw ingredients with microorganisms like yeast and bacteria. A recent study found that six servings a day of fermented foods can lower inflammation and improve the diversity of your gut microbiome. Fermented foods include yogurt; sauerkraut; kefir, a fermented milk beverage; kombucha, a fermented drink made with tea; and kimchi, a traditional Korean side dish of fermented cabbage and radish. Coconut kefir is a nondairy option. Other fermented foods include miso, cottage cheese, Gouda cheese and some types of apple cider vinegar. You can also drink probiotic-containing “gut shots,” which are small bottles of fermented beverages, usually about two ounces in size, sold in many grocery stores.

*Dark chocolate*
People who regularly eat dark chocolate have a 70 percent reduced risk of depression symptoms, according to a large government survey of nearly 14,000 adults. The same effect was not seen in those who ate a lot of milk chocolate. Dark chocolate is packed with flavonols, including epicatechin, but milk chocolate and popular candy bars are so processed they don’t have much epicatechin left in them.









The Best Brain Foods You’re Not Eating


For this week’s Eat Well Challenge, try some new foods that have been linked with improving your mood.




www.nytimes.com


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*Is there a single food that you can survive on forever?*









For all of 2016, Andrew Taylor ate only potatoes. There were a few caveats to his potato diet: He ate both white potatoes and sweet ones, and sometimes mixed in soymilk, tomato sauce, salt and herbs. He also took B12 supplements. But, overall, he ate potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He took four blood tests over the year which he claims all came back normal. He even lost weight and felt more energized. 

“If you have to choose one food, if you’re one of the people that’s getting sent to Mars, choose potatoes,” says Taylor. “I’m not trying to be evangelical about potatoes, but it was a really good experience for me.” 

First and foremost, it’s not a good idea to only eat one kind of food. To survive, we need 20 amino acids—of which nine are essential, meaning we can’t make them ourselves and must get them from food—as well as a plethora of minerals and vitamins. (And, obviously, we need water in addition to food to keep our cells hydrated so they don’t wither and stop functioning.) Throughout history we’ve often combined foods, like rice and beans, yogurt and nuts, and even macaroni and cheese to a certain extent, in an attempt, or by accident, to intake the proper balance of nutrients that you usually can’t attain from eating a single food item. But in times of famine, fasting, or strange double-dog-dares, there are a couple of foods a human could survive on…at least for awhile.

*The potato diet*
The potato is one good example. Andrew Taylor isn’t the only person in history who has relied almost exclusively on potatoes for sustenance. In the beginning of the 1800s, about a third of the Irish population got most of their calories from spuds. The average American ate about 113 pounds of these starchy tubers in 2015. “For the money and your blood pressure, you can’t beat a traditional baked spud,” says Joan Salge Blake, a clinical nutrition professor at Boston University.

Technically, the traditional white potato contains all the essential amino acids you need to build proteins, repair cells, and fight diseases. And eating just five of them a day would get you there. However, if you sustained on white potatoes alone, you would eventually run into vitamin and mineral deficiencies. That’s where sweet potatoes come in. Including these orangey ones in the mix—technically, they belong to a different taxonomic family than white potatoes—increases the likelihood that the potato consumer will get their recommended daily dose of Vitamin A, the organic compound in carrots that your mom told you could make you see in the dark, and Vitamin E. No one on a diet of sweet potatoes and white potatoes would get scurvy, a famously horrible disease that happens due to a lack of Vitamin C and causes the victim’s teeth to fall out.

Even with this combo, you’ll still need to eat a lot of spuds before you intake the right levels of everything. Consuming five potatoes would give you all the essential amino acids you need to build proteins, repair cells, and fight diseases. But unless you ate 34 sweet potatoes a day, or 84 white potatoes, you would eventually run into a calcium deficiency. You would also need 25 white potatoes a day to get the recommended amount of protein. Soybeans have more protein and calcium—but they don’t have any Vitamin E or beta-carotene.

Of course, there are a lot of health disadvantages to potatoes, especially when you eat them en masse. White potatoes are high in a kind of carbohydrate that causes your blood sugar to spike and then dip, which puts a strain on the insulin system. People who ate a lot of these tubers were more likely to get diabetes and become obese, according to multiple studies.

Andrew Taylor actually lost weight—probably from eating less overall and giving up sugar—which wasn’t his ultimate goal. He quit eating most food to train himself to get comfort and joy from other areas of his life. But now even though his spud experiment is over, he still gets pretty excited about potatoes. “It was just an experiment and turned out to be exactly like I wanted,” he says.

*Foods you can survive on*

No nutritionist would get on board with an all-potato diet. Nor would they recommend an all coconut, kale, seaweed, or yogurt one either. There’s a reason that the U.S. dietary guidelines recommends eating a variety of vegetables, grains, proteins, fruits, and oils. Eat any of these just by themselves and you would soon run into the same nutritional deficiencies that you would with a potato. Variety is important, and in this case, it’s vital. So don’t just eat a baked potato, load it with other healthy stuff, too.









Is there a single food that you can survive on forever?


A combination of sweet and white potatoes hypothetically has all the major nutrients you need to survive for awhile, though you may have to eat a lot of spuds.




www.popsci.com


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As hard as this probably is to believe, crescent rolls don't contain any dairy. That's mostly because butter has a much shorter shelf life than hydrogenated palm oil.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*5 Farm Animals That Are Probably Smarter Than Your Dog*









If you knew that farm animals were as intelligent as your children or pets, would you stop eating meat? If you answered “yes,” then it might be time to do so.

From pigs to cows, sheep to chickens, farm animals are all much smarter than we’ve ever given them credit for. Pigs learn their names and can do tricks like a dog. Cows, goats, and chickens all have incredibly complex social constructs, and they have best friends just like we do.

These are all amazing, sentient beings, yet, because we think of them as commodities, they are never afforded the respect or care that they deserve. Thinking that farm animals are in some way different than our cats and dogs is a cultural construction that allows us to rationalize mass-producing and slaughtering these animals for food. However, when we take a step back and learn how intelligent these creatures really are, suddenly we can begin to break down our preconceptions and see farm animals as someones, not somethings. 

*1. Pigs*
More and more, people are waking up to the fact that pigs are highly intelligent. These lovable animals are one of only a few species that can recognize themselves in a mirror. The mirror recognition test measures how self-aware an animal can be. Typically, this test is done by letting an animal look at the mirror. You then put a red dot or some other marker on the animal’s face that was not there before. If they try to remove the dot after looking in the mirror, you can be sure they know it is them looking back from that devilishly handsome reflection. Human children don’t pass this test until around age two! Dogs and cats have yet to pass the test.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge found that not only do pigs recognize themselves, but they also show an understanding of how mirrors work, and can use the reflections to find food.

As if that wasn’t enough to convince you that pigs are incredibly intelligent, they are also known to play games (in exchange for a delicious treat). Pigs like to play with toys, such as balls, and are prone to getting bored if they aren’t provided with enough stimulation.










*2. Cows*
Cows have extremely good memories. It has been found that they not only recognize faces, but they will remember faces even after a long period of time. Cows also remember where to find the best grazing spots and directions to their favorite watering hole.

Perhaps it is this great memory that makes them the ideal best friend. Cows form strong bonds and friendships with other cows and will even select a “cow clique,” and hang out with only their best friends.

And as if the cow cliques weren’t enough, cows even have a social hierarchy among the members of their herd. There is typically one cow who is the “boss” and dictates the behavior of her followers. If a cow doesn’t want to listen to this head cow, they are isolated from the herd (just like high school). And when a new cow is introduced to the herd, she has to network and build relationships with other members of the herd before she is fully accepted.

*3. Chickens*
Chickens have proven that they aren’t necessarily “bird-brained.” Like pigs, chickens can learn to do puzzles and play games.

While we might not think of chickens as being especially affectionate animals, this is far from true. Chickens are amazing mothers and take care of their babies long before they have hatched. It has been found that they “talk” and “purr” to the eggs during incubation. When the chicks hatch, hens are even more loving. They defend their babies from predators, show empathy for their chicks, and teach their young everything they need to know.

All the clucking and purring mom did to the eggs was actually the beginning of her lessons. When chicks are hatched, moms continue to teach them all the ways of the chicken. They teach them what is safe to eat and what to avoid. They also teach them about the social hierarchy, or pecking order.

Baby chicks are pretty brilliant right from the beginning. They are known to show object permanence, the ability to understand an object exists, even when they can’t see it. Chicks develop this ability when they are around two days old, while it takes human babies six months to learn this skill.











*4. Sheep*
Sheep have gained the reputation of being followers who don’t ask questions. They are considered one of the less intelligent species in the farm world. This, however, is just not true!



One example of their amazing intelligence is that sheep are capable of recognizing all kinds of faces. They recognize sheep in their flock and are aware when these sheep are missing. They can recognize “bully” sheep, and get distressed when they come around. These sheep can even recognize the person who cares for them and the sheepdog that herds them! If the appearance of another individual is altered, the sheep have no problem still identifying who it is, and they can keep track of over 50 different sheep faces!

If you make a sheep mad, chances are they are going to remember you and that event for over two years! Talk about a grudge.

*5. Goats*
Finally, we have our goats. Goats never cease to make us smile with their sheer enthusiasm for life. It turns out that goats aren’t only adorable, but they are incredibly good at problem-solving. Researchers from Queen Mary University of London and the Institute of Agricultural Science in Switzerland always suspected that there was more to goats than meets the eye and found that goats are excellent at puzzles.

These researchers presented goats with a puzzle, originally intended for primates, and placed food inside a box that can only be reached by solving the puzzle. The goats had to use their teeth to pull on a rope to activate a lever, and then lift the lever up with their muzzle. If they were able to do this correctly, out came a glorious snack. When the goats were given the challenge again ten months later, they did even better!

Their determination plus aptitude for challenges allows them to apply these problem-solving skills to help them get to food other animals wouldn’t be able to reach. Goats in Morocco, for example, are known to climb trees to reach the tastiest branches.

*Reconsidering How We Think About Farm Animals*
People love their dogs and cats, most want to treat their pets with the kindness and respect they truly deserve. Farm animals, unfortunately, rarely get treated in this manner. Though they have proven to be just as smart, adorable, and loving as their dog and cat counterparts, they are still categorized as a “commodity.” The more we learn about these farm animals and how similar they are to the animals we bring into our homes, the more we want to change the situation we place them in.

Once we acknowledge how amazing these animals truly are, it becomes harder to justify the ways we abuse them. While it might be uncomfortable to challenge the idea that farm animals are food, when we know what we do about their intelligence and abilities, don’t we owe it to them to share the truth?









5 Farm Animals That Are Probably Smarter Than Your Dog


If you knew that farm animals were as intelligent as your children or pets, would you stop eating meat? If you answered "yes," - it might be time to do so.




www.onegreenplanet.org


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*How Chef Charity Morgan Got Athletes Hooked on Vegan Food*









Chef Charity Morgan stood dutifully at her prep station at West LA’s Lemon Moon, chopping the same veggies until her fingers blistered. Not far from her station, she could see head chef Nyesha Arrington directing the flow of the kitchen, creatively repurposing ingredients, and redistributing labor like a chessmaster. Morgan looked down at the mirepoix she was chopping for the hundredth—or maybe thousandth—time, and knew it was time to make a life-defining change.

“I was frazzled, bored, and I wasn’t happy to go to work every day,” Morgan says. “I was too young and dumb to understand that unless you’re the head chef, and unless it’s your restaurant, you’re stuck at a prep station and working the same items every day, with no flexibility in creativity.”

That frustrating moment was a game changer for Morgan—one that would lead to her becoming the chef who converted 13 of her husband Derrick Morgan’s fellow Tennessee Titans teammates to a plant-based diet. We talked to Chef Morgan about her childhood food memories, catering Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth’s plant-based wedding, and her mission to dispel gendered preconceptions about plant-based diets. Her new cookbook debuting today, _Unbelievably Vegan_, features over 100 of her plant-based recipes. 

*LIVEKINDLY:* You credit your frustration as a prep chef in your twenties with kick-starting your career in creative, culturally-focused vegan cuisine. What were you feeling at that moment, and how was it instrumental to your eventual success as a chef?


*Charity Morgan:* My antsy self was like, “Oh my god, I cannot do this anymore—I need to create; I have this bursting fire of creativity that I need to explore.” I said to myself, “How can I _not_ make the same thing every day?” That’s how I ended up transitioning into catering, which is what I do now. 

*LIVEKINDLY: *But it wasn’t an easy path—you had a long road from quitting Lemon Moon to becoming the chef to star athletes you are today. 

*Morgan: *Oh, definitely. I did what other young twenty-somethings do: comparing myself to other people. I started working for a large Hollywood craft services company on the sets of films like _Along Came Polly_, but I was still struggling to figure out who I was and what my role in life would be. I considered becoming an esthetician or a marine biologist, but there was only one thing I couldn’t see myself _not _doing: cooking. So I started catering and meal prepping, delivering home-cooked meals across LA and working as a private chef, and after a while, I thought, “I can see myself doing this as a career.” Eventually, God lets you rely on him, so you can find your niche. 

*LIVEKINDLY: *That niche is creating culturally-focused sustainable vegan dishes that drive optimal health and strength. We love the new recipes in your new cookbook, _Unbelievably Vegan_, especially comfort dishes like the sopa azteca. What inspires your cuisine?
*Morgan: *My mom, being Puerto Rican, loved sharing her culture, and she had friends from all walks of life. When I was five, her Indian friend would be over making homemade roti and curry, and her Filipina friend would be making fried rice and homemade lumpia. So I got exposed to all these amazing flavors very early on. [My mom] was also very good at adapting to my dad’s Creole culture and stealing little tips and tricks from how my paternal grandmother cooked. After my grandmother passed, we got her gumbo recipe and her special recipe book. It was amazing that my mom was very eager to learn so much from other cultures, and was very happy pleasing others. I have all these early childhood memories of food and cooking, and that’s why I love food so much. 

*LIVEKINDLY:* How does that melange of influences reflect in your cookbook?

*Morgan: *_Unbelievably Vegan_ is a compilation of how I eat now and how I was raised. I went down the road of comforting, warm, nostalgic food, so you’ll find all these southern comforts in my book. But then you’ll also get the pho inspired by my Vietnamese friend, the gochujang bowl inspired by my Korean friend, and then Creole and Hispanic cuisine. Puerto Rican food is a blend of native and Spanish cultures, and Creole food is a blend of French, Native American, and African elements. I love and embrace these cultures, and it shows in my food. If you don’t love food in all its layers, I just think you’re boring (laughs).

*LIVEKINDLY: *That diversity of cuisine is one of the reasons you’ve been so successful, because your food is so flavor-packed and culturally-focused. In the documentary, _The G__ame Changers_, your husband Derrick Morgan’s Tennessee Titans teammates devour a plant-based feast of your soulful comfort food. How did you convert NFL linebackers from skeptical of meat-free food into true believers?


*Morgan: *Most athletes will do anything to be at the top of their game. [Derrick’s] nutritionist said to him one day, “Have you ever decided to get rid of meat and dairy, because that will lower your inflammation?” He said, “I don’t know about giving up my tomahawk or Wagyu steak, but let me look into it.” He did _tons _of his own research because he’s not the kind of person you can just tell to do anything. He found out athletes have been going plant-based for decades and no one was talking about it—before _The Game Changers_, this diet wasn’t public knowledge. He tried it and said, “Babe, my six-pack finally came back,” and was walking around with his shirt off (laughs). He had the best sleep of his life in the past 10 years, and said, “It’s this plant-based diet.” He had all this energy and was the poster child for it, so the teammates who never got insight into what fuel really looks like, who were drinking Gatorade and surviving on pizza and wings, saw those health benefits. 

*LIVEKINDLY: *How do you translate the science behind eating plant-based to these athletes?

*Morgan: *When [Derrick’s] teammates tried my food, I said to them, what kind of gas do you put in your Porsche or Maserati? They said, “I gotta put that 93 in—it’s expensive, but you know I can’t even think about that 87.” I said, “Well, isn’t your body more sophisticated than a $300,000 car? If you want performance and energy, and you put 87 in your car right now, give it two days and it’s going to stop running. You’re better than a Ferrari.” They were like, “Sign me up.”

*LIVEKINDLY:* You’ve since helped many athletes adapt a flexitarian or vegan diet. Is working with athletes to create performance diets your life mission?


*Morgan:* I love working with athletes, but more so, I love my work projecting the testimony of the millions of men who are plant-based. Every single day, I get messages and comments that say, “Because of what you’ve done with athletes, I’ve finally been able to take my husband off his blood pressure medication, and he has his diabetes under control.” These men believe that if a 300-pound athlete can do it, then they can do it, too. I say to them, “If an elephant eats plants and is as strong as it is, then what about you?” It’s this really mind-blowing myth that plant-based diets are for women—we’ve been able to show the world it’s about our health.

*LIVEKINDLY:* After you and Derrick fielded criticism for being part of the football world, where players wear leather shoes and play with a pigskin football, you coined your personal philosophy of “pleganism,” referring to a transitional space for people who eat a plant-based diet, but might still use leather or other animal byproducts. What is the context around this community, and how did giving it a name empower other plegans?

*Morgan:* I got attacked by certain animal rights folks, and I was like, “Are you kidding me?” I’m getting a football team to eat plants, and you’re talking about the wrong thing. If you’re being judgy like this, you’re cutting off an entire group of humans. These guys have millions of dollars of Nike shoe contracts, and they’re not going to drop them because most football players are taking care of multiple families. People don’t understand the background of being a football player, which can be very short-lived. 

*LIVEKINDLY:* Everyone just assumes a plant-based chef is doing it for the animals, but you’ve said before that you’re also motivated by compassion for other human beings. 


*Morgan: *While my connection with animals isn’t as deep as most vegans, what I understand and really love is people, because I feel like a lot of people are just broken and hurt, and had some kind of trauma in their lives, but they find different ways to express it. A lot of people are lacking that love, and we’re getting so cold as a society, and we just don’t care anymore and say what we think. Sometimes when I read comments, I think, “Damn, what type of evil miserable person would say this?” But then, I come to the point of “hurt people hurt people.” They’re just individuals, but I’m taking a stance for humans to show more love and more compassion. Instead of, how dare you eat an animal, I say, let me empower them.

*LIVEKINDLY:* In 2018, Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth requested that you cater their Nashville wedding. Was that a thrill, and a chance to showcase some showstopper plant-based dishes?

*Morgan:* I was already cooking Miley stuff like vegan chicken and dumplings with gravy, and she said, “Your food is insane—you’ve got me over here flipping out.” One day she said to me, “Hey, nobody knows this, but Liam and I are getting married, and you’re going to cook all the food for it.” So I did all the Southern classics, including fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, and a few fun things like spicy Buffalo egg rolls with a ranch dip that Billy Ray [Cyrus] loves. Miley didn’t tell anyone that everything was vegan until they demolished the food. When her grandmother found out, she lost her mind. Miley’s mom Tish [Cyrus] texted me and said, “Mamaw can’t believe she just ate an entire vegan meal.”










*LIVEKINDLY: *Your recipes include fluffy pancakes as well as well-spiced stews, lentils, gumbo, jambalaya, and salsa. What are a few of your inside tricks for evoking flavors and textures that satisfy a wide range of palates?


*Morgan:* The trick to make fluffy pancakes is that instead of using all-purpose flour, you use self-rising flour. In my cookbook, I show you how to spice walnuts to taste like chorizo. For the sopa azteca, nature gives us all these aromatic tricks, from soaking spicy chilis and grinding them, to sauteing spices in oil to bring out their flavor. When I make a Vietnamese “fish” sauce, I use kelp powder with lots of lime juice and Himalayan salt. Since I don’t use bone broth, I use aromatics like cinnamon, and I use techniques like charring vegetables, ginger, and garlic. 

*LIVEKINDLY:* Since your appearance on _The Game Changers_, have you considered branching out into hosting your own show or documentary, doing a podcast, or more television?

*Morgan:* Yes to everything—it’s all on its way. I have a virtual book tour, an appearance on _Good Morning America_, and a lot of other opportunities to bring people together over food. We’re not going to judge you—we want to crawl before we walk. I’m encouraging people, because good god, we’re such a depressed and anxious society already. And then, there are the last two years of what we’ve been going through—let’s just come back together. I don’t care what background you’re from and what you grew up eating—if you put out an amazing spread of food no matter what it is, everybody forgets about their differences real quick. What is the common denominator? It’s food, and I’ve witnessed that happening. 

*Charity Morgan’s comfort food recipes*
Charity Morgan has shared two exclusive recipes from her new cookbook, _Unbelievably Vegan_. These fluffy vanilla pancakes are a delicious, protein-packed option for a weekend brunch, while her sopa azteca bubbles with spicy chilis and golden, sautéed spices.

*Fluffy Vanilla Pancakes*
INGREDIENTS


1¼ cups self-rising flour
2 tablespoons vanilla powder or vanilla protein powder
2 teaspoons organic sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon fine pink Himalayan salt
1 to 1¼ cups unsweetened, unflavored plant-based milk
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon neutral oil, such as avocado or grapeseed, plus more for the griddle
pure maple syrup, for serving
PREPARATION

1
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, vanilla powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Gently whisk to blend.
2
In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 cup of the milk, the vinegar, and oil.
3
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients all at once, whisking to blend. (This batter is thicker than your traditional pancake batter to make the pancakes extra fluffy—if you want thinner pancakes, add the remaining ¼ cup milk.)
4
Preheat the oven to 200°F or the warming setting. Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat and grease with oil.
5
When the griddle is hot, use a ladle to add about ¼ cup of batter onto the griddle for each pancake (do not overcrowd; the pancakes need room to expand and rise). Splash about ½ teaspoon water around the pancakes, then cover with a lid large enough to cover all (or most) of the griddle.
6
Cook the pancakes for about 1½ minutes per side, or until golden brown. Transfer to a plate or sheet pan and keep warm in the oven. Repeat with the remaining batter.
7
Serve warm with maple syrup, or get creative. My kids love to add colored sprinkles to the batter for a funfetti vibe, but fresh blueberries, diced bananas, toasted nuts, peanut butter, and even bittersweet vegan chocolate chips are great additions, too. For chocolate pancakes, add 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cacao powder to the batter.
RECIPE NOTES

Makes 8 pancakes.
For waffles, heat a waffle iron, lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray, and add the batter per your manufacturer’s recommendations. Close the lid and cook until golden brown. Repeat until all the batter is used.



*Sopa Azteca*
INGREDIENTS



1 cup plus 2 tablespoons
neutral oil, such as avocado or grapeseed
6 (6-inch) corn tortillas, halved and cut into short, ¼-inch strips
fine pink Himalayan salt
2 dried ancho chiles 1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 large carrot, diced
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 poblano chile, roasted, seeded, peeled , and diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon chili powder
5 cups chik’n broth or any vegetable broth
1 cup cooked black beans (rinsed and drained, if canned)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
thinly sliced epazote or fresh-chopped cilantro, diced avocado, plant-based cheese shreds, vegan sour cream, and/or lime wedges, optional
PREPARATION

1
In a large, deep skillet, heat the 1 cup of the oil over medium-high heat until it reaches 350°F. Line a sheet pan with paper towels. Fry half of the tortilla strips until golden brown, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Drain on the lined sheet pan. Season lightly with salt; set aside. (Leave the remaining tortilla chips uncooked.)
2
In a small bowl, cover the ancho chiles with boiling water. Let soak for 5 minutes to rehydrate, then strain and discard the soaking water. Remove the stems and seeds and transfer the chiles to a highspeed blender. Add the tomatoes and blend for 1 to 2 minutes, or until smooth. Set aside.
3
Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over mediumhigh heat. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. When the oil shimmers and is hot, add the onion, carrot, celery, and poblano. Sauté until the onion is translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the garlic, cumin, oregano, and chili powder and sauté for another 30 seconds, or until the spices are fragrant.
4
Add the broth and tomato-chile mixture and bring to a simmer. Add the uncooked tortilla strips and cook for 15 minutes to allow the tortillas to break down and thicken the soup. Add the black beans and season with salt and pepper.
5
Ladle the soup into bowls and top with the crispy tortilla strips and any other garnishes you’d like, such as epazote, cilantro, avocado, plant-based cheese shreds, vegan sour cream, and/or lime wedges.
RECIPE NOTES
Reprinted with permission from_ Unbelievably Vegan_ by Charity Morgan. Copyright © 2022. Photographs by Emily Dorio. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House.









How Chef Charity Morgan Got Athletes Hooked on Vegan Food


Chef Charity Morgan helped NFL players ditch meat, and now she's put her expert tips on paper in her debut cookbook, "Unbelievably Vegan."




www.livekindly.co


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Are You Getting the Nutrients You Need on a Plant-Based Diet?*









Plant-based diets have surged in popularity after the release of Netflix’s 2018 documentary _The Game Changers_, and endurance athletes haven’t been immune to the trend. Plant-based diets may improve performance and recovery due to positive effects on cardiovascular health, blood flow, body composition, antioxidant capacity, systemic inflammation, and glycogen storage. It’s no wonder some endurance athletes are switching to a plant-based diet to gain an extra edge in performance. 

However, despite these benefits, it can be tricky to ensure adequate caloric and macronutrient intake to support training and recovery. This article aims to give you a broad overview of your nutrient needs on a plant-based diet.

*Getting Enough Plant-Based Proteins and Amino Acids*
Endurance sports break down your muscles and tendons, making protein crucial for recovery and staying injury-free. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends athletes aim to eat 1.2-2 g of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. For a 130 lb athlete, that is between 70-118 grams of protein per day; for a 160 lb athlete, 87-145 g is recommended per day. Some excellent sources of plant-based protein include: 


soy (tofu, tempeh, edamame) 
beans and lentils
quinoa 
hemp seeds and chia seeds 
buckwheat 
spirulina 
Besides protein, you also need to make sure you’re getting enough amino acids — the smaller building blocks of protein. Of the 20 different amino acids in existence, nine are essential, meaning your body doesn’t produce them and therefore needs to get them from food. Plant-based protein sources contain essential amino acids, but rarely have all nine of them. But as long as you are eating a variety of foods to meet your energy demands, you can easily get in all protein and amino acid requirements. 

*Ensuring Adequate Vitamin and Mineral Intake*
Getting adequate vitamins and minerals is important for both general health and for athletic performance. Eating a variety of healthy foods with different types of legumes, seeds, nuts, vegetables, and grains should cover most of your vitamin requirements. And, if you’re consuming plant-based products like soy or oat milk, they are often enriched with vitamins and minerals. One exception is vitamin B12, since its main sources are animal products like meat, fish, and eggs. Therefore, consider supplementing with a B12 vitamin.

*Combatting Iron Deficiency on a Plant-Based Diet*
Iron deficiencies are common in female athletes, and you are at a higher risk if you don’t eat animal products. Plant-based foods like whole grains, beans, and nuts all contain iron, but this type is harder to absorb than the iron found in animal products. So, it’s important to keep track of iron levels when following a plant-based diet and to include iron-rich foods regularly. You can also combine foods rich in vitamin C with iron-containing foods for better iron absorption.

Whether you’re already eating plant-based or plan to in the future, be sure to include a variety of foods in your diet to ensure proper nutrient and energy demands. If you’re someone who has trouble keeping weight on during the season, you may need to eat larger volumes, combine food groups each time you eat, and add extra healthy fats — such as olive oil, canola oil, avocado, nuts, and seeds — to your meals and snacks. Always eat enough to support your training and racing, and remember, food is meant to be enjoyed! 

*REFERENCES *
Barnard, N.D. et al. (2019, January 10). Plant-Based Diets for Cardiovascular Safety and Performance in Endurance Sports. Retrieved from Plant-Based Diets for Cardiovascular Safety and Performance in Endurance Sports 









Are You Getting the Nutrients You Need on a Plant-Based Diet?


Though plant-based diets have many merits, adherents need to ensure they're getting adequate calories and nutrients — especially if they're an athlete.




www.trainingpeaks.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*WHAT IS SOY-FREE TOFU AND 5 REASONS TO TRY IT *
*Made with one simple ingredient, soy-free tofu (or Burmese tofu) will change up your meals for good. *











Soy and tofu are a given—you need one to make the other, just as you need cacao to make chocolate. But just as vegan innovators have made meat without animals, it is possible to create tofu without soy. While at first the concept may seem more impossible than a vegan burger that bleeds, it’s been done, and it’s firmly “a thing.” Whether you’re avoiding soy for allergy reasons or just looking to mix up your meals, take a step into the world of soy-free tofu and discover where to buy it, how to make it, and what to do with it. 










*What is soy-free tofu (and how to make it)?*
Soy-free tofu is not a modern product born out of the recent soy fear mongering—it’s a longtime staple of Burmese cuisine. Sometimes referred to as Burmese tofu or Shan tofu (named after the region from which it originated), soy-free tofu is simply made from chickpeas and water. While the traditional (and far more laborious) method calls for soaking split chickpeas and blending the beans and their liquid into a batter, the more modern method relies on chickpea flour (flour made from ground chickpeas) to hasten the process. Most preparations loosely follow the steps for making polenta—mix flour, water, and optional spices together to make a batter; cook until thickened, cool, refrigerate, and slice. Granted, you can still use chickpea flour and complicate things, depending on the texture you’re after. Some cooks swear that fermenting the flour first and then resting the cooked batter a good eight hours before slicing makes for a firmer texture. It’s up to you—and your schedule. 

*Soy-free tofu nutrition *
Given that soy-free tofu is primarily made with chickpea flour and water, you can expect the nutrition to be fairly advantageous. Like soy-based tofu, this varietal is naturally gluten-free. It’s also very low in total fat and contains no saturated or trans fats. Exact amounts vary based on the recipe and ratio of chickpea flour to water, but expect the fat content to hover around a mere one to two grams per serving. Burmese tofu also contains some iron and calcium and serves as a decent source of dietary fiber—around three grams per serving. While not as protein-rich as tofu, this food still provides four to six grams of protein per serving—again, depending on the recipe. The higher the chickpea flour-to-water ratio is, the more protein the resulting product will have. Calorically speaking, chickpea-based tofu generally mimics the caloric density of extra-firm tofu—about 70-80 calories per three-ounce serving. 











*5 reasons to try soy-free tofu*
No, “soy will give you manboobs” is not a reason to give soy-free tofu a try. To hash out the great soy debate, take a look at this article. Once up to speed on why soy isn’t the demonized food some make it out to be, please return to this reading, as there are other reasons to put some chickpea-based tofu on your plate. 

*1You’re allergic to soy*
Most people can tolerate soy just fine, but it is one of the top eight most common food allergens, commonly referred to as The Big 8. According to a survey from the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, 0.6 percent of the American adult population is allergic to soy—a percentage that is lower than any of the other Big 8. Most food allergies—soy included—develop during infancy and often abate during childhood or adolescence. Like all food allergies, symptoms range from mild (itchiness and digestive issues) to severe (vomiting, wheezing, swelling, hives, and life-threatening anaphylaxis). If you’re even mildly allergic to soy, its chickpea-based cousin is a perfect fit. 

*2You’re seeking your next culinary project*
Making soy-free tofu at home is far easier than making soy-based tofu from scratch, but as mentioned above, it can get fairly time-intensive if that’s what you’re looking for. Whether you go the simple route or take the multi-day journey, there’s no denying that homemade tofu tastes exponentially better than anything you could have purchased at the store. Pride really adds that extra bit of _je ne sais quois _flavor. 

*3You’re craving variety*
While soy-free tofu can be used in a number of dishes that typically contain traditional tofu, the taste and texture are different enough to light up your taste buds and transform something old into something new. Burmese tofu isn’t spongy—it’s a bit more dense and has a more complex mouthfeel than its soy counterpart. If you like polenta, there’s a solid chance you’ll love chickpea tofu. 

*4You don’t have to press it*
Once you’ve made (or purchased) Burmese tofu, you can use it right away. No need to take out the tofu press, wait 20 minutes, or settle for less-than-superb tofu because you didn’t have the patience to properly press the moisture out of your store-bought soy block. Soy-free tofu is always good to go. 

*5You’ve had soy for every meal*
Soy isn’t bad for you (unless you’re allergic), but like any food, it’s best to consume in moderation. If you had soymilk in your cereal for breakfast, a soy protein shake post-workout, a soy latte after lunch, and plan on tucking into some soy-based ice cream for dessert, you may want to consider a non-soy option for dinner. You can still have your savory scramble, just swap out the soy for chickpeas. 










*Store-bought soy-free tofu*
We are highly anticipating the first commercially available Burmese tofu. Previewed at Expo East, a natural foods trade show, VegNews editors got a first taste of the product that will be rolling out to consumers in January 2022. Produced by Big Mountain Foods, The Original Chickpea Tofu is an allergen-friendly option for anyone looking to try soy-free tofu without the culinary confidence to make it at home. Alternatively, while not exactly tofu, PUMFU offers an Original variety of its pumpkin seed-based proteins that’s a cross between seitan and tofu. 










*5 vegan recipes with soy-free tofu *
With plenty of chickpea flour and a dash of turmeric on hand, you can whip up a fresh batch of soy-free tofu with just a few basic kitchen tools. Check out the recipes below for chickpea tofu how-tos and meal inspiration.

*1Vegan Richa’s Chickpea Flour Tofu*
Always reliable when it comes to fantastic vegan recipes, this food blogger opts for the more manageable Burmese tofu-making process. The hands-on time requires less than 20 minutes, and after the mixture has chilled in the fridge for an hour, it’s ready to devour. Start here if you’re looking for a basic recipe that works.
GET THE RECIPE

*2Sarah Jampel’s Burmese Tofu*
Plan ahead, because this recipe will take you a day and a half to make. The vast majority of that is chilling time, so it’s still a fairly low-key project—it just requires some patience. We advise making this recipe after you’ve mastered the quick version above. Compare the two and let us know if the extra time is worth it.
GET THE RECIPE

*3Vegan on Board’s Burmese Tofu with Garlic, Ginger & Chili Sauce*
Unlike soy-based tofu, you don’t need to do much to make Burmese tofu appetizing. A quick pan fry and a spoonful of spicy sauce will do. Pro tip: the sauce is great on store-bought tofu, too!
GET THE RECIPE

*4Mary’s Test Kitchen’s Burmese Tofu Crispy Dippers*
Breaded, seasoned, and fried, the humble chickpea tofu can be transformed into an addictive, nugget-esque snack. Infused with tiny pieces of nori, these savory dippers are excellent served alongside vegan tartar sauce.
GET THE RECIPE

*5V for Veganista’s Tohu Thoke*
This traditional Burmese tofu salad is more of a salad in the sense that ingredients are cooked separately and then mixed together and served in a bowl. The majority of this salad consists of pan-fried chickpea tofu that’s tossed with a spicy, slightly sweet sauce, fried shallots, crushed peanuts, and fresh coriander and ****** lime leaves. There’s a lot going on, and you’ll love every bite of it.
GET THE RECIPE









What Is Soy-free Tofu and 5 Reasons to Try It


Made with one simple ingredient, soy-free tofu (or Burmese tofu) will change up your meals for good.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*HOW TO GET CALCIUM ON A VEGAN DIET: THE BEST FOODS TO EAT EVERY DAY*
*Learn how much calcium you really need and where to get it on a vegan diet.*

ow many times have you heard that you need to drink milk for strong bones? While your body does need calcium, there are better—and healthier—sources of calcium that come without the deleterious effects of dairy. The marketing promoting milk and its “superior” calcium content is severely misleading. “You can get all of the calcium you need from a vegetarian or vegan diet,” assures Dr. Robert Graham, Chief Health Officer for Performance Kitchen and co-founder of FRESH Med in New York City. Here’s what you need to know to make sure you’re on the right track. 









*How much calcium do I need?*
Your calcium needs depend on your age and sex, says Stacie Hassing, R.D.N., L.D., co-founder of The Real Food Dietitians and co-author of _The Real Food Table_. The average adult needs 1,000 milligrams (mg) of calcium per day. Yet for women over the age of 50 and men over 71, that jumps to 1,200mg per day. One point to remember? “Vitamin D is necessary for the absorption of calcium to take place in the body, which is why some foods like orange juice, milk, and some breakfast cereals are fortified with calcium and vitamin D,” she says. Despite the incessant promotion of milk for its vitamin D content, this isn’t natural. All the vitamin D in cow’s milk is fortified, just as it is with many plant-based milks. 

*Benefits of calcium*
One of calcium’s best-known benefits is maintaining and building strong bones and teeth, but it’s important for many other functions in your body. “Your heart, muscles, nerves, and circulatory system all require calcium to function properly,” Hassing says. 

No doubt, maintaining healthy bone strength is important. Yes, it can help prevent breaks when we have an accident, but it’s not just falls that can cause damage to our bones. Osteoporosis and osteopenia (the early onset of osteoporosis) cause the weakening and brittling of bones. The disease tends to occur in older adults as humans lose bone mass as they age (starting in your thirties), but those first three decades of your life are opportunities to build a strong foundation to prevent osteoporosis. Approximately 10 million Americans over the age of 50 suffer from the disease, but another 43 million have been diagnosed with osteopenia or low bone mass. While other lifestyle choices can be preventative (such as regular weight-bearing exercise), getting enough calcium surely helps. 










*What foods contain calcium?*
A plethora of whole foods contain calcium, but some are significantly higher than others. It’s true that there is a significant amount of calcium in some animal products including cow’s milk, yogurt, sardines, and canned salmon with bones. However, an abundance of plant-based foods are also high in calcium. What’s more, the calcium found in many plant-based foods such as dark leafy greens is more bioavailable than the calcium found in milk. The body absorbs approximately 33 percent of the total calcium in dairy, but a whopping 62 percent of the calcium in broccoli is absorbed upon digestion. Other high calcium plant-based foods include tofu, fortified nut milks, beans, kale, tahini, sweet potatoes, watercress, okra, chia seeds, and almonds, Graham says. You can also find many calcium-fortified orange juices and cereals at the supermarket.

*Best vegan sources of calcium*
While the list of calcium-containing plant foods is long, Hassing offers some of the best sources for vegans.

*1Nuts and seeds*
When deciding between nut butters, opt for the almond to get the most calcium. While many nuts and seeds contain modest amounts of calcium, almonds reign supreme at 75 milligrams per 30-gram serving (about 20 almonds). Hazelnuts come in at a decent 56 milligrams per serving, and while slightly lower at 42 milligrams per serving, tahini is a versatile and delicious way to up the calcium intake of any meal. 

*2Amaranth*
Swap out the quinoa with some amaranth from time to time. With 80 grams of calcium per one-quarter cup (dry), this ancient grain adds both antioxidants, fiber, and a boost of calcium to any Buddha bowl. We also love to swap out a morning bowl of oats for this Berry & Almond Amaranth Porridge. 

*3Beans*
White beans (navy beans), kidney beans, and chickpeas are the calcium powerhouses of legumes. Navy beans top the charts at 132 milligrams of calcium per one-cup serving, and kidney beans and chickpeas follow with 93 and 99 milligrams, respectively. Use all three in a deliciously hearty combination of a vegan chili. 

*4Minimally processed soy*
Tofu, tempeh, and edamame are all stellar sources of vegan calcium. Just one three-ounce serving of tofu clocks in 10 percent of the daily recommended amount of calcium, tempeh supplies about 6 percent of what you need (78 milligrams per 2.5-ounce serving), and one cup of edamame provides about 9 percent of the daily recommended amount. Soy milk is also a solid option. Not only does it naturally contain calcium, many are fortified with up to one-third of the calcium you need per day (that’s the same as cow’s milk). 

*5Blackstrap molasses*
We wouldn’t recommend consuming a spoonful of molasses to fulfill your daily calcium needs, but this sticky substance can be incorporated in small amounts into a medley of delicious dishes. Try whipping up a batch of nutty muhammara dip or baking off a batch of this addictive Nutty Pecan-Walnut Cinnamon Granola. Just one tablespoon of the stuff contains 200 milligrams of calcium—20 percent of what most adults need each day! 

*6Dark leafy greens*
There are countless reasons to up your greens intake—calcium just happens to be among them. A humble 120 grams of broccoli (a little over a cup) delivers 112 milligrams of calcium, and the typically underutilized okra contains 77 milligrams for the same amount. Other dark leafies such as kale, collards, and bok choy also contain some calcium, though not quite as much as these two options. 










*How do you know if you’re getting enough calcium?*
The only way to tell if you’re chronically low in calcium is through a blood test, Hassing says. Signs that you might be low include muscle cramping, brittle nails, easy hair breakage, poor circulation that causes tingling and numbness in your fingers and toes, and an irregular heartbeat. If you’re concerned that your levels are low, talk with your doctor about getting a blood test. For most vegans, Graham recommends eating foods that are high in calcium and/or taking a calcium supplement to get all that you need.

*Do you need a calcium supplement? *
You may need to supplement if a blood test shows that you’re low in calcium. Yet because the standard American diet is 65-percent processed foods, Graham generally recommends supplementation for most Americans, especially women over the age of 50. “Calcium is absorbed best when you take 500mg or less at one time,” he says, adding that current recommendations call for 1000mg to 2000mg in divided doses, ideally taken with vitamin D. 








How to Get Calcium on a Vegan Diet and 6 Foods to Keep Your Bones Strong


Learn how much calcium you really need, and where to get it on a vegan diet.




vegnews.com


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## Cleared2land (Aug 31, 2012)

Kudos and accolades to Judy for the efforts and great content she continually produces here!


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

^Ditto!

Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Eating a diversity of plants = Getting a variety of different types of fiber into the diet = Increased growth of healthy bacteria species = A healthy microbiome = Increased production of short-chain fatty acids = Better overall health!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Fart Facts


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*12 Benefits of Leafy Greens In Your Diet*









Leafy greens including kale, spinach, arugula, and chard are the undeniable superstars of the food world. Low in calories, yet high in fiber, vitamins, and phytonutrients, the benefits of leafy green vegetables are incredible for your health in more ways than you would even suspect.

Whether in whole food form, smoothies, or organic greens powders, leafy greens have the power to make you look and feel younger, and can even support healthy aging! Let’s discuss what exactly dark leafy greens are, the benefits of leafy greens, and how to include them in your diet.










*Dark Leafy Greens*
While we all know that organic, non-GMO fruits and vegetables of any kind are good for us, some are far better than others. Fortunately, many crowd favorites such as spinach, kale, and collard greens are packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and even protein. Not to mention, dark leafy greens are very versatile and can be incorporated into your diet in *fun, delicious ways*.

If you still need convincing, read on to learn about all the amazing benefits of leafy greens.

*1. Green Veggies Support Optimal Brain Function*
Want to support memory and reasoning as you enter your golden years? Eat your leafy green vegetables! A recent study published in The National Library of Medicine found that those who ate the most leafy greens each day had slower rates of cognitive decline compared to those who ate the least.1 In fact, the leafy green-eaters had the memory equivalent of someone 11 years younger! This was even true after adjusting for other factors including lifestyle, education, and overall health.

Organic vegetables contain high levels of folate (B9). B vitamins have been shown to *boost the production of neurotransmitters* (chemicals that transfer messages from the brain to the rest of the body) in the brain. Folate is found in leafy green vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, and lettuce as well as in lemons, bananas, and melons.

*2. Leafy Greens Fight Belly Bloat*
If you struggle with *bloating*, whether caused by diet, hormones, *gut infections*, or other digestive issues, there’s a secret ingredient in leafy greens that could help. Potassium, a mineral, and electrolyte found in abundance in leafy greens, is essential to keep an optimal fluid balance in your body. A diet high in sodium (often due to an overreliance on processed foods) can trigger or worsen bloating and must be kept in check by adequate potassium intake–roughly 4,700 mg/day according to the USDA’s 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines.2 A single cup of cooked spinach contains a whopping 840 mg of potassium to get you well on your way to meeting your daily requirements.3

*3. Green Leafy Veggies Make Your Skin Glow*
Beta-carotene, the plant pigment that we normally associate with carrots and other yellow-orange veggies, is also hiding in leafy greens. Think of leaves changing color in the fall. As they lose chlorophyll (the pigment that makes them green), you can see the red, orange, and yellow pigments those leaves contain underneath. It’s these vibrant colors that are also responsible for the amazing health benefits of leafy greens.

Beta-carotene can give your skin a youthful glow and even works from the inside out as a *natural sunscreen*, protecting your skin from harmful UV rays!4 Kale is one of the top sources of beta-carotene, and research shows that cooking, juicing, or dehydrating kale helps your body better absorb this carotenoid.5

*4. Leafy Greens Relieve Stress*
For a natural way to *relieve your stress*, start every day with a big *green smoothie*! Dark leafy greens are an excellent source of folate, which helps your body produce mood-regulating neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin.6

Plus, the *magnesium* found in leafy greens can help support optimal vascular health.7

*5. Leafy Green Vegetables Support Bone Health*
All those “Got Milk?” ads might have you believe that drinking milk is the only way to build strong bones. However, research has shown that milk consumption has no protective effect on fracture risk and may even increase the risk of hip fractures among women.8 That’s yet another great reason to *ditch dairy* for good! Instead, you can get plenty of calcium for supporting optimal *bone health* from dark leafy greens. Green veggies such as broccoli and kale also contain tons of all-important vitamin K.9

*6. Leafy Greens Support Healthy Aging*
Are you looking to age healthfully? Who isn’t? Leafy greens have the power to delay the shortening of telomeres, the protective caps on our DNA that shorten with age.10 Once its telomeres are completely gone, the cell dies. Broccoli sprouts, in particular, seem to have a superb ability to preserve telomere length.

What’s more, eating dark leafy greens has been found to promote skin health by protecting against the sun’s harmful UV rays. The beta-carotene found in leafy vegetables converts to vitamin A in the body, which supports the reduction of fine lines and wrinkles, smooths the complexion, reduces dullness, and stimulates cell turnover for clear skin. To sum it all up? Healthier, younger-looking skin is yet another one of the many benefits of leafy greens.

*7. Green Leafy Vegetables Improve Inflammatory Response*
Though this may be a no-brainer, I want to re-emphasize how important it is to *support a healthy inflammatory response* in order to protect yourself from a battery of chronic illnesses. Leafy greens such as spinach, kale, and collards are high in vitamin D, which promotes regulatory T cells that are responsible for accurately differentiating between outside invaders and “self” cells. When active vitamin D promotes them, it essentially makes your immune system smarter, teaching it not to attack itself and preventing the development of an autoimmune disease.11

*8. Green Veggies Help Balance Sugars*
Eating a serving of leafy greens with every meal can support appropriate blood glucose levels. Even just including a little over one extra serving of green leafy vegetables daily can make a big difference!12

Not to mention, if you have a thyroid condition, dramatic swings in blood sugar encourage your body to convert more T4 to Reverse T3, the inactive form of thyroid hormone.

*9. Leafy Greens Support Optimal Gut Health*
Do you struggle with *leaky gut*, *food sensitivities*, or *autoimmunity*? If so, getting more dark leafy greens into your diet could help. A recently discovered gene known as T-bet that gets switched on by *cruciferous veggies* such as broccoli or brussels sprouts instructs precursor cells in your intestinal lining to produce innate lymphoid cells (ILCs). The ILCs found in leafy greens protect your body against gut infections and inflammation, control food allergies and intolerances, support a healthy immune response, and seal the leaks in your gut.13 They also protect your body from bad bacteria, while the fiber in dark leafy greens feeds your *good bacteria*, making leafy greens an all-around great choice for anyone dealing with gastrointestinal distress of any kind.

*10. Leafy Green Vegetables Tame the Toxins*
*Taming the toxins* is an essential component of The Myers Way® and another one of the benefits of leafy greens. Dark leafy greens are *expert detoxifiers*, thanks to chlorophyll–the pigment that makes green veggies…green! Chlorophyll-rich foods such as spirulina, chlorella, parsley, and alfalfa bind to *heavy metals* and toxins in your blood and carry them out of your body. Chlorophyll also helps *cleanse your liver* to support your body’s natural detoxing nutrient, glutathione, and supports immune function to keep toxins from collecting in your body in the first place!14

*11. Healthy Greens Boost Digestive Enzymes*
As I always say, you aren’t what you eat, you’re what you digest and absorb. *Digestive enzymes* are critical for breaking down and absorbing the nutrients from our food, so if you are deficient in these enzymes you are likely to experience all sorts of gastrointestinal issues including bloating, *constipation*, *reflux*, and *nutrient deficiencies*. Leaky gut is one of the biggest culprits of *enzyme deficiency*, as well as inflammation from food sensitivities, *chronic stress*, genetics, and aging. Dark leafy greens are one of the best foods you can eat to support your body’s natural ability to produce digestive enzymes.

*12. Leafy Greens Support Your Immune System*
One of the most promising benefits of leafy greens may be their ability to support your immune system. Dark leafy greens such as moringa leaf can support a healthy response to oxidative damage which, if left untreated, can lead to autoimmunity.15 Studies specifically mention broccoli, arugula, and kale as vegetables that support many internal processes including the immune system and inflammation modulation.16









12 Benefits of Leafy Greens In Your Diet | Amy Myers MD ®


The benefits of leafy greens go beyond what you would even suspect. They can make you look and feel younger, and even extend your lifespan!




www.amymyersmd.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegetarians have 14% lower cancer risk than meat-eaters, study finds*
Oxford University research also finds pescatarians have 10% reduced risk compared with those who eat meat regularly 










Vegetarians have a 14% lower chance of developing cancer than carnivores, according to a large study that links meat-eating to a heightened risk of the disease.

A team of researchers from Oxford University analysed data on more than 470,000 Britons and found that pescatarians had a 10% reduced risk. Compared with people who eat meat regularly – defined as more than five times a week – those who consumed small amounts had a 2% lower risk of developing cancer, the study found.



“In this large British cohort, being a low meat-eater, fish-eater or vegetarian was associated with a lower risk of all cancer sites when compared to regular meat-eaters,” the analysis found.

However, the authors, led by Cody Watling from Oxford’s population health cancer epidemiology unit, made clear that their findings did not conclusively prove regular meat-eating increased the risk of cancer. Smoking and body fat could also help explain the differences found, they said.

Their study of participants in the UK Biobank study also found that:


Low meat-eaters – who consume meat five or fewer times a week – had a 9% lower risk of developing bowel cancer than regular meat-eaters.
Vegetarian women were 18% less likely than those who ate meat regularly to develop postmenopausal breast cancer, though that may be due to their lower body mass index.
Vegetarian men have a 31% lower risk of prostate cancer while among male pescatarians it is 20% lower.











“The results … suggest that specific dietary behaviours such as low meat [and] vegetarian or pescatarian diets can have an impact on reducing the risk of certain cancers; in this case bowel, breast and prostate,” said Dr Giota Mitrou, director of research and innovation at World Cancer Research Fund International (WCRF), which co-funded the study with Cancer Research UK.

The results confirm WCRF’s longstanding advice that people should limit their intake of red and processed meat and eat more wholegrains, vegetables, fruit and pulses, she added.

The Oxford study authors said: “The lower risk of colorectal [bowel] cancer in low meat-eaters is consistent with previous evidence suggesting an adverse impact of meat intake. Vegetarian women’s lower risk of postmenopausal breast cancer is likely to be “largely” explained by their lower BMI.

“It is not clear whether the other differences observed for all cancers and for prostate cancer reflect any causal relationship or are due to other factors.”

While the researchers found that “being a low meat-eater, pescatarian or vegetarian was associated with a lower risk of all cancer”, they added that this “may be a result of dietary factors and/or non-dietary differences in lifestyle, such as smoking”. Their results are published on Thursday in the journal BMC Medicine.

Richard McIlwain, chief executive of the Vegetarian Society, said: “This study adds to a growing body of research reinforcing the positive, protective effects of a vegetarian diet.

“With cancer now affecting one in every two of us across the country, adopting a healthy vegetarian diet can clearly play a role in preventing this disease. Indeed, evidence from previous surveys suggests a balanced vegetarian diet can also reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes, in addition to cancers.”

Watling and his colleagues are undertaking further research among vegetarians, pescatarians and vegans to examine more closely the relationship between diet and cancer risk.

Between 5% and 7% of Britons are thought to be vegetarian and 2-3% follow a vegan diet, according to surveys by YouGov.

Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK’s head of health and patient information, said that while reducing intake of processed meat has been proven to reduce the risk of bowel cancer “having some bacon or ham every now and then won’t do much harm”, adding: “If you are having a lot of meat a lot of the time then cutting down is a good idea, but a vegetarian diet doesn’t always mean someone is eating healthily.”


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How Sweet is a Sweet Potato? Pretty Sweet!*

Sweet potatoes are a super food that I have only recently come to appreciate. While preparing a lecture on heart disease epidemiology, I found reports of several traditional cultures known for avoiding heart disease that subsist largely on this delicious tuber. In fact, a 1978 paper cited a dietary survey finding that sweet potatoes supplied about 90% of total calorie intake in the traditional subsistence culture of the Papua New Guinea highlanders. 90%! Sinnett and Whyte write, “Indeed, non-tuberous vegetables accounted for less than 5% of the food consumed, while the intake of meat was negligible.” There was no evidence of malnutrition from this diet and no evidence for hypertensive heart disease.

Here are some facts to chew on. If HALF of your diet was solely baked sweet potatoes with no salt, you would get all the nutrients in the table. To top it off: you get all this in a package with a lower glycemic index than white potatoes and many grains.

*Nutrients in 1000 calories of sweet potatoes (about 10)*

Percentage of daily requirements (2000kcal diet)*
* Nutrient amounts calculated from USDA, reference 3, using the average daily requirements listed on http://www.dsld.nlm.nih.gov/dsld/dailyvalue.jsp









How Sweet is a Sweet Potato? Pretty Sweet!


Here are some facts to chew on. If HALF of your diet was solely baked sweet potatoes with no salt, you would get all the nutrients in the table.




nutritionstudies.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Heartbreaking Photos Show Ukrainians Clinging To Their Pets As They Flee*
As hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians flee their country, many are refusing to leave without their pets by their side. Across social media, photos have popped up of people and their animals attempting uncertain border crossings or huddling in bomb shelters and subway stations.

According to recent reports, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are allowing Ukrainians to bring pets across borders without veterinary paperwork. However, there are still many animals in Ukraine in need of food, medicine and care. Heroic volunteers and shelter workers are staying behind in the face of missile strikes to care for these homeless animals.





































Ukrainians Are Only Leaving If Their Pets Can Come Too


They need our support now.




www.thedodo.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The 13 Healthiest Leafy Green Vegetables*

Leafy green vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet. They’re packed with vitamins, minerals and fiber but low in calories.
Eating a diet rich in leafy greens can offer numerous health benefits including reduced risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and mental decline
Here are 13 of the healthiest leafy green vegetables to include in your diet.

*1. Kale*








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Kale is considered one of the most nutrient-dense vegetables on the planet due to its many vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
For example, one cup (67 grams) of raw kale packs 684% of the Daily Value (DV) for vitamin K, 206% of the DV for vitamin A and 134% of the DV for vitamin C (2).
It also contains antioxidants such as lutein and beta-carotene, which reduce the risk of diseases caused by oxidative stress (3Trusted Source).
To benefit most from all that kale has to offer, it’s best consumed raw since cooking can reduce its nutrient profile (4Trusted Source).


> *SUMMARY*
> Kale is rich in minerals, antioxidants and vitamins, particularly vitamins A, C and K. To reap the most benefits, it’s best eaten raw, as cooking reduces the nutritional profile of the vegetable.


*2. Microgreens*

Microgreens are immature greens produced from the seeds of vegetables and herbs. They typically measure 1–3 inches (2.5–7.5 cm).
Since the 1980s, they have often been used as a garnish or decoration, but they have many more uses.
Despite their small size, they’re full of color, flavor and nutrients. In fact, one study found that microgreens contain up to 40 times more nutrients compared to their mature counterparts. Some of these nutrients include vitamins C, E and K (5Trusted Source).
Microgreens can be grown in the comfort of your own home all year round, making them easily available.


> *SUMMARY*
> Microgreens are immature greens, which have been popular since the 1980s. They’re flavorful and packed with nutrients like vitamins C, E and K. What’s more, they can be grown all year.


*3. Collard Greens*

Collard greens are loose leaf greens, related to kale and spring greens. They have thick leaves that taste slightly bitter.
They’re similar in texture to kale and cabbage. In fact, their name comes from the word “colewort.”
Collard greens are a good source of calcium and the vitamins A, B9 (folate) and C. They’re also one of the best sources of vitamin K when it comes to leafy greens. In fact, one cup (190 grams) of cooked collard greens packs 1,045% of the DV for vitamin K (6).
Vitamin K is known for its role in blood clotting. In addition, more research is being done regarding its ability to improve bone health (7Trusted Source).
One study in 72,327 women aged 38–63 found that t
hose with vitamin K intakes below 109 mcg per day had a significantly increased risk of hip fractures, suggesting a link between this vitamin and bone health (8Trusted Source).



> *SUMMARY*
> Collard greens have thick leaves and are bitter in taste. They’re one of the best sources of vitamin K, may reduce blood clots and promote healthy bones.


*4. Spinach*

Spinach is a popular leafy green vegetable and is easily incorporated into a variety of dishes, including soups, sauces, smoothies and salads.
Its nutrient profile is impressive with one cup (30 grams) of raw spinach providing 181% of the DV for vitamin K, 56% of the DV for vitamin A and 13% of the DV for manganese (9).
It’s also packed with folate, which plays a key role in red blood cell production and the prevention of neural tube defects in pregnancy (10Trusted Source).
One study on the neural tube defect spina bifida found that one of the most preventable risk factors for this condition was a low intake of folate during the first trimester of pregnancy (11Trusted Source).
Along with taking a prenatal vitamin, eating spinach is a great way to increase your folate intake during pregnancy.


> *SUMMARY*
> Spinach is a popular leafy green vegetable that can be used in a variety of ways. It’s a great source of folate, which may prevent neural tube defects, such as spina bifida, during pregnancy.


*5. Cabbage*

Cabbage is formed of clusters of thick leaves that come in green, white and purple colors.
It belongs to the _Brassica_ family, along with Brussels sprouts, kale and broccoli (12Trusted Source).
Vegetables in this plant family contain glucosinolates, which give them a bitter flavor.
Animal studies have found that foods that contain these plant compounds may have cancer-protective properties, especially against lung and esophageal cancer (13Trusted Source, 14Trusted Source).
Another benefit of cabbage is that it can be fermented and turned into sauerkraut, which provides numerous health benefits, such as improving your digestion and supporting your immune system. It may even aid weight loss (15Trusted Source, 16Trusted Source, 17Trusted Source, 18Trusted Source).


> *SUMMARY*
> Cabbage has thick leaves and comes in various colors. It has cancer-protective properties and can be turned into sauerkraut, which offers additional health benefits.


*6. Beet Greens*

Since the Middle Ages, beets have been claimed to be beneficial for health.
Indeed, they have an impressive nutrient profile, but while beets are commonly used in dishes, the leaves are often ignored.
This is unfortunate, considering that they’re edible and rich in potassium, calcium, riboflavin, fiber and vitamins A and K. Just one cup (144 grams) of cooked beet greens contains 220% of the DV for vitamin A, 37% of the DV for potassium and 17% of the DV for fiber (19).
They also contain the antioxidants beta-carotene and lutein, which may reduce the risk of eye disorders, such as macular degeneration and cataracts (20Trusted Source, 21Trusted Source).
Beet greens can be added to salads, soups or sauteed and eaten as a side dish.


> *SUMMARY*
> Beet greens are edible green leaves found on the tip of beets. They’re full of nutrients, including antioxidants that may support eye health.


*7. Watercress*

Watercress is an aquatic plant from the _Brassicaceae_ family and thus similar to arugula and mustard greens.
It’s said to have healing properties and has been used in herbal medicine for centuries. However, no human studies have confirmed these benefits so far.
Test-tube studies have found watercress extract to be beneficial in targeting cancer stem cells and impairing cancer cell reproduction and invasion (22Trusted Source, 23Trusted Source).
Due to its bitter and slightly spicy flavor, watercress makes a great addition to neutrally flavored foods.


> *SUMMARY*
> Watercress has been used in herbal medicine for centuries. A few test-tube studies suggest it may be beneficial in cancer treatment, but no human studies have confirmed these effects.


*8. Romaine Lettuce*

Romaine lettuce is a common leafy vegetable with sturdy, dark leaves with a firm center rib.
It has a crunchy texture and is a popular lettuce, particularly in Caesar salads.
It’s a good source of vitamins A and K, with one cup (47 grams) providing 82% and 60% of the DVs for these vitamins respectively (24).
What’s more, research in rats showed that lettuce improved their levels of blood lipids, potentially reducing the risk of heart disease. Further studies need to investigate these benefits in people (25Trusted Source).


> *SUMMARY*
> Romaine lettuce is a popular lettuce found in many salads. It’s rich in vitamins A and K, and a study in rats suggests it may improve blood lipid levels.


*9. Swiss Chard*

Swiss chard has dark-green leaves with a thick stalk that is red, white, yellow or green. It’s often used in Mediterranean cooking and belongs to the same family as beets and spinach.
It has an earthy taste and is rich in minerals and vitamins, such as potassium, manganese and the vitamins A, C and K (26).
Swiss chard also contains a unique flavonoid called syringic acid — a compound that may be beneficial for lowering blood sugar levels (27).
In two small studies in rats with diabetes, oral administration of syringic acid for 30 days improved blood sugar levels (28, 29).
However, it’s important to note that these were minor animal studies and that human research supporting the claim that syringic acid may aid blood sugar control is lacking.
While many people typically throw away the stems of the Swiss chard plant, they’re crunchy and highly nutritious.
Next time, try adding all parts of the Swiss chard plant to dishes such as soups, tacos or casseroles.


> *SUMMARY*
> Swiss chard is rich in color and often incorporated into Mediterranean cooking. It contains the flavonoid syringic acid, which may be beneficial for reducing blood sugar levels. However, human-based research on its effectiveness is lacking.


*10. Arugula*

Arugula is a leafy green from the _Brassicaceae_ family that goes by many different names, such as rocket, colewort, roquette, rucola and rucoli.
It has a slightly peppery taste and small leaves that can easily be incorporated into salads or used as a garnish. It can also be used cosmetically and medicinally (30Trusted Source).
Like other leafy greens, it’s packed with nutrients such as pro-vitamin A carotenoids and vitamins B9 and K (31).
It’s also one of the best sources of dietary nitrates, a compound that turns into nitric oxide in your body.
Though the benefits of nitrates are debated, some studies have found that they may help increase blood flow and reduce blood pressure by widening your blood vessels (32Trusted Source).


> *SUMMARY*
> Arugula is a leafy green vegetable that goes by several different names, including rocket and rucola. It’s rich in vitamins and naturally occurring nitrates, which may help reduce blood pressure and improve blood flow.


*11. Endive*

Endive (pronounced “N-dive”) belongs to the _Cichorium_ family. It’s less well known than other leafy greens, possibly because it’s difficult to grow.
It’s curly, crisp in texture and has a nutty and mildly bitter flavor. It can be eaten raw or cooked.
Just one-half cup (25 grams) of raw endive leaves packs 72% of the DV for vitamin K, 11% of the DV for vitamin A and 9% of the DV for folate (33).
It’s also a source of kaempferol, an antioxidant that has been shown to reduce inflammation and inhibit the growth of cancer cells in test-tube studies (34Trusted Source, 35Trusted Source).


> *SUMMARY*
> Endive is a lesser-known leafy green vegetable that is curly and crisp in texture. It contains several nutrients, including the antioxidant kaempferol, which may reduce cancer cell growth.


*12. Bok Choy*

Bok choy is a type of Chinese cabbage.
It has thick, dark-green leaves that make a great addition to soups and stir-fries.
Bok choy contains the mineral selenium, which plays an important role in cognitive function, immunity and cancer prevention (36Trusted Source).
In addition, selenium is important for proper thyroid gland function. This gland is located in your neck and releases hormones that play a key role in metabolism (37Trusted Source).
An observational study associated low levels of selenium with thyroid conditions such as hypothyroidism, autoimmune thyroiditis and enlarged thyroid (38Trusted Source).


> *SUMMARY*
> Bok choy is popular in China and often used in soups and stir-fries. It contains the mineral selenium, which benefits your brain health, immunity, cancer protection and thyroid health.


*13. Turnip Greens*

Turnip greens are the leaves of the turnip plant, which is a root vegetable similar to beetroot.
These greens pack more nutrients than the turnip itself, including calcium, manganese, folate and the vitamins A, C and K (39).
They have a strong and spicy flavor and are often enjoyed cooked rather than raw.
Turnip greens are considered a cruciferous vegetable, which have been shown to decrease your risk of health conditions, such as heart disease, cancer and inflammation (40Trusted Source, 41Trusted Source, 42Trusted Source).
Turnip greens also contain several antioxidants including gluconasturtiin, glucotropaeolin, quercetin, myricetin and beta-carotene — which all play a role in reducing stress in your body (43Trusted Source).
Turnip greens can be used as a replacement for kale or spinach in most recipes.


> *SUMMARY*
> Turnip greens are the leaves of the turnip plant and are considered a cruciferous vegetable. Studies have found that they may decrease stress in your body and reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer and inflammation.


*The Bottom Line*

Leafy green vegetables are packed with important and powerful nutrients that are critical for good health.
Fortunately, many leafy greens can be found year round, and they can easily be incorporated into your meals — in surprising and diverse ways.
To reap the many impressive health benefits of leafy greens, make sure to include a variety of these vegetables in your diet.









The 13 Healthiest Leafy Green Vegetables


Packed with nutrients but low in calories, leafy greens are crucial to a wholesome diet. Here are 14 of the healthiest leafy green vegetables you should eat.




www.healthline.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I started following this guy with his super-duper easy hacks to help you vegans, plant based athletes and gardeners out there. But he shares so much more. Check him out Armen Adamjan. 










Armen Adamjan on TikTok


This video is making headlines everywhere! 😳 #lifehacks #tips #plantbased #vegetarian #kitchenhacks #cookinghacks #learnfromme #vegan #fruits #howto




www.tiktok.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*THE BEST VEGAN PROTEIN SOURCES








*


*Lentils, tofu, and tempeh, oh my! While some vegan protein sources are obvious, a few foods on this list may surprise you*

As long as people keep asking about it, we’ll keep talking about protein. The subject is a seemingly never-ending black hole of conversation when it comes to vegan diets, but it really doesn’t have to be that complicated. A vegan diet can contain a bounty of protein sources, and there’s no need to worry about developing a protein deficiency or experiencing a lack of variety in meals. All whole foods contain protein (we’ll repeat that later, because it deserves repeating), and here are the best vegan protein sources to fulfill your daily needs and satisfy the relentless questions from omnivores about where vegans get their protein.


*How much protein do you need?*
Protein deficiency is typically not an issue in first-world countries. That’s not to say protein is not important, because it’s extremely essential to life and optimum health, but industrialized nations tend to put an enormous emphasis on an issue that doesn’t really affect them. America’s protein obsession is a bit like Southern Californians worrying about hypothermia—it’s not completely out of the question during a cold January night, but it’s very unlikely. For the vast majority of people, it’s not necessary to count your protein intake, but if you’re curious, it’s fairly simple to calculate. The USDA’s Recommended Daily Allowance is 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight. To calculate your protein needs, multiply your weight in pounds by 0.36, and the result is the number of grams of protein you need each day. For example, a 130-pound woman should aim for 46.8 grams of protein per day, and a 170-pound man should aim for 61.2 grams of protein per day. Note: this formula is designated for the “average” individual—someone who may exercise on occasion but not at high intensities nor a majority of the week. Those who are more active—who exercise at a moderate to high intensity at least four days a week—should aim for 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight. This is a general guideline—to truly optimize performance, a plant-based dietitian can help fine-tune your exact protein needs based on your activity level.











*The best vegan protein sources*
Every single whole food contains protein, but some pack in significantly more than others. This list isn’t comprehensive—you’d need a textbook to list them all—but here is a list of some of the best high-protein vegan foods.

*Seitan*
This meaty vegan staple is mostly made from vital wheat gluten which is extremely high in protein. There’s a whopping 18 grams of protein in a mere two-ounce serving of seitan. Many vegan meats rely on seitan for their chewy texture, but you can also purchase it in its original form and season to your tastes (try Upton’s Naturals). Those who enjoy DIY can make their own seitan fairly easily. Here’s a recipe if you’re into that.

*Beans*
Beans are not a singular food—they’re a category. While many are content with sticking to just a few varieties, there are dozens of kinds of beans that all have a unique taste and texture—not to mention a significant amount of protein. Lima, fava, black, pinto, kidney, cannellini, and garbanzo beans all contain between 12-15 grams of protein per cup, cooked. While not called a bean, black-eyed peas are also high in protein, weighing in at 13 grams per cup.

*Tofu *
The protein content of tofu fluctuates slightly, as it depends on the type of tofu you buy. The firmer the tofu, the more protein, as firm tofu is more concentrated than the softer options. For example, a three-ounce serving of extra-firm tofu contains nine grams of protein, while silken tofu hovers around four grams. Many brands (like Wildwood) also offer a high protein variety, and those contain upwards of 14 grams of protein.

*Tempeh*
Finish your tempeh bacon—it’s high in protein. Also made from soy, tempeh naturally contains a substantial amount of protein—a three-ounce serving contains 18 grams! This crumbly, meaty vegan protein source is an excellent base for a good marinade. Try it yourself with this smoky tempeh peanut satay recipe.

*Protein powder*
While not a whole food, there’s no denying that plant-based protein powder will help you reach your daily quota. Most vegan protein powders contain between 15-20 grams of protein. If you’re looking for a product with complete protein, opt for soy or pea protein-based brands such as 22 Days Nutrition or NuFYX. 

*Spirulina *
This powdered algae does more than turn smoothie bowls into a pretty blue—it’s a super concentrated protein source. Just one tablespoon packs in four to six grams of protein (the green variety is lower on the scale, whereas blue spirulina contains slightly more protein). The next time you’re at a smoothie bar, opt for the menu item with spirulina (or Blue Majik, as some call it) for an extra dose of protein.

*Plant-based milk *
The latest US Dietary Guidelines—revised in late 2020—now state that fortified soy milk is nutritionally equivalent to cow’s milk. This is huge, as it completely undermines one of the dairy industry’s strongest arguments for drinking milk. Cow’s milk has eight grams of protein, it’s true, but so does soy milk. Pea milk also contains eight grams of protein, and some brands (like Califia Farms and Silk) are fortifying their plant-based milks with even more protein—up to 10 grams per eight-ounce serving.

*Nuts, seeds, and butters*
Like beans, the nuts and seeds category is huge. When looking for the seeds with the most protein, lean toward a 30-gram serving of hemp seeds (12 grams), chia seeds (seven grams), and flax seeds (nine grams). High-protein nuts include peanuts (7 grams), almonds (6 grams), and brazil nuts, cashews, walnuts, pine nuts, hazelnuts, and pistachios (all 4 grams) per 1-ounce serving. Nut and seed butters have similar protein profiles.

*Nutritional Yeast*
Fondly referred to as “nooch” in vegan circles, these yellow flakes are packed with nutrients. Two tablespoons of this cheesy-tasting condiment amount to five grams of protein. Not sure what to do with a canister of nooch? Check out 16 Ways to Use Nutritional Yeast.

*Non-dairy yogurt*
Like plant milk, dairy-free yogurt can contain a good amount of protein, depending on the brand. For the largest protein dose, seek out a product with added protein, such as Kite Hill Protein (11 grams) or Chobani Oat (seven grams).

*Quinoa*
If you’re looking to up your protein intake, swap out rice for quinoa. This sturdy grain contains eight grams of protein per one cup, cooked. Quinoa also makes for a terrific, satiating porridge. Change up your next bowl of morning oats for this belly-warming Sticky Banana Bread Quinoa Breakfast Bowl.











*Lentils*
No matter the color—green, brown, yellow, or red—lentils are protein powerhouses. A quarter cup serving (dry), will provide 10-12 grams of protein, depending on the variety. Not sure how to prepare them? Start with this easy Vegan French Lentil and Kale Stew.

*Spinach *
The cartoon may have exaggerated the protein powers of spinach slightly, but there was some truth to Popeye the Sailorman’s spinach-chugging philosophy. The leafy green provides just over five grams of protein per one cup, cooked. Go ahead and be liberal with it. We love adding it to smoothies, soups, pizzas, pastas, and big bowls of salad.

*Bread *
Excluding the white varieties (sorry, sourdough enthusiasts), bread can top off your daily protein quota. Varieties such as whole wheat and Ezekiel bread contain four and eight grams of protein per slice, respectively. Don’t fear bread, just choose the higher protein options.

*Vegetables*
Spinach isn’t the only veggie with a decent amount of protein. Greens such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and asparagus all hover around four grams of protein per cup; collard greens contain five grams of protein per cup; and a large potato comes in at just under eight grams of protein. There’s more than one reason to eat your vegetables!









15 Vegan Protein Sources That May Surprise You


Lentils, tofu, and tempeh, oh my! While some vegan protein sources are obvious, a few foods on this list may surprise you.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What Does the End of Beef Mean for Our Sense of Self?*
When it comes to America’s legacy of Manifest Destiny, there’s perhaps no meal more symbolic than a bleeding steak. So who are we now that we’re consuming less red meat?










MEAT IS PRIMAL, or so some of us think: that humans have always eaten it; that it is the anchor of a meal, the central dish around which other foods revolve, like courtiers around a king; that only outliers have ever refused it. But today, those imagined outliers are multiplying. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports that the consumption of beef per capita worldwide has declined for 15 years. Nearly a fourth of Americans claimed to have eaten less meat in 2019, according to a Gallup poll. The recipe site Epicurious, which reaches an audience of 10 million, phased out beef as an ingredient in new recipes in 2020. Diners at some McDonald’s can now sate their lust for a Quarter Pounder with a vegan McPlant instead. Faux meat products are projected to reach $85 billion in sales by 2030, according to a recent study by UBS, and Tyson Foods, one of the biggest beef packers in the United States, has hedged its bets by introducing its own plant-based line.

Even in the stratosphere of the world’s most expensive restaurants, where multiple-course tasting menus often rely on the opulence of a marbled steak as their denouement, a few notable exceptions have abandoned meat within the past year, including the $440-per-person Geranium in Copenhagen (still serving seafood) and the $335-per-person Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan (save for the puzzling persistence of a tenderloin on its private dining room menu through this past December). Could this be the beginning of the end of meat — or at least red meat, with its aura of dominion and glory?

Those who believe humans are born carnivores might scoff. Indeed, archaeological evidence shows that we have been carnivores for longer than we have been fully human. As the French Polish Canadian science journalist Marta Zaraska recounts in “Meathooked” (2016), two million years ago, early hominids in the African savanna were regularly butchering whatever animals they could scavenge, from hedgehogs and warthogs to giraffes, rhinos and now-extinct elephant-anteater beasts.

Yet it wasn’t necessarily human nature to do so. Meat eating was an adaptation, since, as Zaraska points out, we lack the great yawning jaws and bladelike teeth that enable true predators to kill with a bite and then tear raw flesh straight off the bone. To get at that flesh, we had to learn to make weapons and tools, which required using our brains. These in turn grew, a development that some scientists attribute to the influx of calories from animal protein, suggesting that we are who we are — the cunning, cognitively complex humans of today, with our bounty of tens of billions of cortical neurons — because we eat meat. But others credit the discovery of fire and the introduction of cooking, which made it easier and quicker for us to digest meat and plants alike and thus allowed the gastrointestinal tract to shrink, freeing up energy to fuel a bigger brain.

Whatever the cause of our heightened mental prowess, we continued eating meat and getting smarter, more adept with tools and better able to keep ourselves alive. Then, around 12,000 years ago, our hunter-gatherer ancestors started to herd animals, tend crops and build permanent settlements, or else were displaced by humans who did. Our diet changed. If we narrow our purview to more recent history, from the advent of what we call civilization in the fourth millennium B.C., the narrative of meat eating shifts.

“For nearly all of humanity’s existence, meat was not a central component of people’s diets,” the American historian Wilson J. Warren writes in “Meat Makes People Powerful” (2018). Far from being essential, for most people around the world, meat has been only occasional, even incidental, to the way we eat: craved and celebrated in certain cultures to be sure, showcased at feasts, but not counted on for daily nourishment. This was true outside of the West well into the 20th century, but even in Europe before the 19th century, the average person subsisted on grains (cakes, ale) that made up close to 80 percent of the diet. The Old English “mete” was just a general word for food.

The rich were different, of course, with the resources to dine as they pleased. And not just royals and aristocrats: In 18th-century England, as incomes rose, an ambitious middle class began to claim some of the same privileges as their supposed betters. The Finnish naturalist Pehr Kalm, in a 1748 account of a visit to London, reports, “I do not believe that any Englishman who is his own master has ever eaten a dinner without meat.” The caveat was key. Those not so fortunate as to control their own lives had to make do, as the British poor had done for centuries, with mostly gruel, perhaps enlivened by vegetables, although these were perceived, the late British urban historian Derek Keene has written, “as melancholic and terrestrial and in need of elevation by the addition of butter or oil.”

So meat was both sustenance and symbol. To eat it was to announce one’s mastery of the world. No wonder, then, that the citizens of a newborn nation, one that imagined itself fashioned on freedom and the rejection of Old World hierarchies, should embrace it. “Americans would become the world’s great meat eaters,” the former Librarian of Congress Daniel J. Boorstin writes in “The Americans: The Democratic Experience” (1973). And the meat that would come to define Americans was beef: a slab of it, dark striped from the grill but still red at the heart, lush and bleeding, leaking life.

ALTHOUGH THE AMERICAN love of meat has infiltrated almost every corner of the globe, the world’s consumption of meat per capita remains only a third of North America’s. On average, Asians eat a fourth as much meat as Americans; Africans less than a fifth. Outside the West, a number of countries have long-lasting and sophisticated vegetarian traditions, from India — home to nearly 1.4 billion people, of whom 39 percent identify as vegetarian and another 41 percent restrict how much meat they eat — to Ethiopia, where more than 40 percent of the population are Orthodox Christians and the most devout shun both meat and dairy on 250 fasting days a year.

The human response to meat, then, is ambivalent, and not because of any intrinsic deliciousness or lack thereof. What draws us to a food or makes us reject it goes beyond the immediacy of flavor and a moment’s satiation. In the countries that consume the least meat per capita, religion and food are intimately entwined; the choice to eat meat or not is for many a spiritual one. Only with the pressure of modernity and the encroachment of the West have certain cultures yielded their taboos and embraced meat.

Consider the example of early Japan. In 675 A.D., Emperor Tenmu decreed that no one in the country should eat beef. Cows — along with chickens, horses, dogs and monkeys — became a protected class of animals, released from the fate of becoming fodder for humans. Ostensibly this was done in pursuit of virtue, for in Buddhism, which had come to the country by way of Korea the previous century, animals are recognized as beings, like humans, with sentience and consciousness. And not only _like_ humans: In the cycle of life known as samsara, your consciousness, or that of a loved one, might have once been born in animal form. So forgoing meat was not simply compassion but self-interest. The animal is your sister; the animal is you.

There were also practical reasons for spurning beef. Oxen were important draft animals, with their brawn pressed into service to till the land for rice, the foundation of the Japanese diet. (The oxen may have been our brothers, but that didn’t stop us from putting them under the yoke.) There weren’t many of them — cattle use up a lot of resources, implacably devouring hay and requiring pastures to graze — and thus they were too valuable to eat. With the ban, the emperor was able to craftily codify efficient agricultural practices and, in so doing, help give shape and purpose to a nation whose unity was still uncertain. Notably, the law was enforced only from late spring through summer, when people were farming. And wild boar (before the 20th century, domesticated pigs were largely unknown in Japan outside of the southwestern island of Kyushu), deer (which would later be considered sacred in the former capital of Nara) and fish were exempt, their status as prey justified, perhaps, because they lived freely, unlike animals bred as part of one’s household, for whom one was morally responsible — or because Tenmu’s subjects, deprived of meat entirely, might otherwise have rebelled.

In the centuries that followed, the government continued to issue prohibitions on meat, and the Japanese continued to eat it anyway, if not in large amounts, because of a lack of wide-scale livestock rearing. Still, there remained some cultural consensus that meat eating was impure: Those who handled dead animals, like tanners and butchers, were stigmatized and assigned a lower social status; when approaching a shop that carried meat, pious passers-by might hold their breath. The trade in animal flesh had something of a clandestine air, with red meat sold under names like fuyu botan (“winter peony”) and obake (“preternatural creature”). To this day, a particular species of wild boar is known as _yama-kujira_ (“mountain whale”), based upon the theory that sea creatures don’t count as meat.

When Westerners started arriving in 1543, they brought with them a relatively blithe attitude toward the consumption of animals. Christianity advocated abstaining from meat only on certain holy days and as an act of personal sacrifice — not to relieve the suffering of animals but to experience suffering oneself, by renouncing a sensual pleasure and denying the desires of the flesh. Within a century, Japan had banned these interlopers, too, and shut off almost all contact with the outside world. But in 1853, the country was forced to come out of seclusion, with an American armada sitting at the mouth of what is today Tokyo Bay. Foreigners, now reluctantly welcomed, expected meat, and enterprising inns served it to them — then threw out the polluted dishes and utensils and stuck their guests with the bill, the Japanese anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney recounts in her 1999 essay “We Eat Each Other’s Food to Nourish Our Body.”

The difference in diet was a difference in worldview. “The discourse on the Japanese self vis-à-vis Westerners as ‘the other’ took the form of rice versus meat,” Ohnuki-Tierney writes in “Rice as Self” (1994). Meanwhile, in the West, similar battle lines were being drawn. “Some peoples, because of their differing conditions, are forced to live almost solely on fish,” the French epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin observes, with seeming mystification, in “The Physiology of Taste” (1825), then pronounces, “These peoples are less brave than others who live on meat.” (He concedes that they might have better longevity.)

But other Westerners feared what they perceived as the eerie stamina and relentlessness of peoples inured to the supposed austerity of a meatless diet. The Indian-born British writer Rudyard Kipling, in his 1899 chronicle of travels through Asia and elsewhere, “From Sea to Sea,” quotes a fictionalized companion who marvels of the locals, “They can live on nothing … they will overwhelm the world.” In the United States in 1879, concerns over growing numbers of Chinese immigrant laborers led Senator James G. Blaine, Republican of Maine, to declare, “You cannot work a man who must have beef and bread, and would prefer beer, alongside of a man who can live on rice.” A 1902 pamphlet in favor of Chinese exclusion put it bluntly: “Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood Against Asiatic Coolieism. Which Shall Survive?”

At the same time, some Japanese intellectuals were disavowing ancient superstitions against eating meat and lobbying for a change in diet, pointing to Westerners’ physical strength and Japan’s need to compete. Less than two decades after the country opened to the West, Emperor Meiji ordered the imperial kitchen to begin serving beef.
COWS ARE NOT indigenous to the Americas. Yet the Amazon is burning, set on fire by ranchers seeking more land for their cattle, and the United States is the world’s biggest producer of beef, with a projected output of 12.7 million metric tons last year, about a third more than its closest competitor, Brazil, and $71.4 billion in sales. The beef we eat — and Americans ate, per capita, roughly 59 pounds of it, nearly 300 Big Macs’ worth, last year — is the beef of empire.

The Spanish brought the first cows to the New World in the late 15th century. They were used to power the sugar mills in what was then the West Indies, on plantations that relied on enslaved people for labor. Later, in both North and South America, the sprawl of cattle herds became a means of wresting land from its original inhabitants. “By occupying the vast spaces between population centers, cattle helped secure colonial control of more and more territory,” writes Rosa E. Ficek, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Puerto Rico, in her 2019 essay “Cattle, Capital, Colonization.”

For some, that whiff of conquest is a maddening perfume and, arguably, what makes beef so difficult to give up. The so-called tomahawk steak — named after the ax wielded by some North American Indigenous peoples (the word “tomahawk” was adapted from “tamahaac” in Powhatan, an Eastern Algonquian language) — is big enough to feed two and may be splendor or gore, depending on your perspective, redolent of the Old West and a country in the often violent process of becoming. In the decades after the Civil War, a romanticized vision of the cowboy was touted as American values incarnate: a vaguely lawless figure, quick with a gun, and a rugged individualist (even if in reality he was just a hired hand, beholden to his boss for $30 to $40 a month), driving cattle across the plains while hide hunters and settlers massacred the native bison that once grazed there, and displacing Indigenous peoples along the way. Beef is the myth of the American frontier; beef is Manifest Destiny.

It was also the foundation of enormous wealth, and it wasn’t the cowboys who got rich. “It is difficult to turn a living thing into a meal,” the American business historian Roger Horowitz writes in “Putting Meat on the American Table” (2006). “Animals’ bodies resist becoming an expression of our will.” The profit lay in running the meatpacking plants, which were among the first pioneers of the industrial assembly line (and filthy, dangerous places to work, as documented in the American journalist Upton Sinclair’s 1906 social realist novel, “The Jungle”), and the railroads, which carried live animals (in appalling conditions) and then, with the development of refrigerated cars, freshly butchered meat that would eventually wind up in every corner of the country.

It’s impossible to talk about beef without talking about the arc of capitalism: Livestock was one of the earliest forms of private property, and in England starting in the 12th century, the demands of grazing led to enclosures of what had once been common lands and the formation of manorial estates, where peasants with no acreage of their own had to toil for wages. Today, the mean hourly wage of an American meat worker is $15, just over the poverty level to support a family of four, although meatpackers are three times more likely than others to suffer serious injuries such as amputations, head trauma and second-degree burns. In the United States, meatpacking plants average about 17 “severe” incidents each month requiring hospitalization and two amputations a week, according to data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The American activist Carol J. Adams, the author of the groundbreaking 1990 study “The Sexual Politics of Meat,” has written of the moral dubiousness of transforming “living beings into objects.” She is speaking of animals and their hidden deaths; the workers, and their suffering, are invisible, too. The meat comes to the table, a pound of flesh, carefully stripped of any sign of what it was before.

WHEN IT WAS made public in 1872 that the Emperor Meiji had eaten beef, 10 monks from a particularly ascetic sect devoted to mountain worship tried to storm the Imperial Palace, hoping to persuade the leader to forswear this barbarian custom. They clashed with the imperial guards; five of the monks were shot.

Today, Japan has refined the art of beef and produces some of the most expensive cuts on earth, using secret methods that may or may not include feeding the cows beer or olives, giving them massages and generally keeping them calm and happy. Nevertheless, the Japanese eat only about 20 pounds of beef per capita each year, less than half of the amount consumed in the United States.

Americans themselves eat less beef than they used to, down more than a third from a peak of 94.1 pounds per capita in 1976. This is part of an overall trend of eating less meat in the United States, and most respondents to the 2019 Gallup poll said they did so for health reasons — as opposed to animal welfare or the damage to the environment from gigatons of greenhouse gases released by cows, or the 111 million acres of forest that vanished between 2001 and 2015, replaced by cow pastures — which suggests that self-interest, rather than compassion, is still the most potent way to get people to change their behavior.

Even the vegetarian activists of the 19th century often framed their crusade in terms of the ills caused by eating meat — that it turned you savage and put you in thrall to uncontrollable sexual urges, which to some diners may not have sounded so bad. Savagery was just a nuance away from virility, after all. Boorstin recounts that in the 1840 presidential election, the Whig William Henry Harrison was lauded for eating a plain-spoken diet of raw beef, untainted even by salt, while his Democratic rival, Martin Van Buren, was smeared with the accusation that he preferred hoity-toity delicacies like raspberries and cauliflower. Raspberries lost; beef won. (Harrison ended up dying 31 days into his term.)

The idea that not eating meat is a sacrifice (and possibly un-American) persists in the technological race to create nonmeat alternatives. The Israeli-based Redefine Meat, founded in 2018, offers ersatz marbled flank steaks, 3-D printed from vegan ingredient cartridges labeled “Alt-Fat,” “Alt-Muscle” and “Alt-Blood.” It takes pains to insist on its website, “We don’t just love meat; we’re obsessed with it,” and promises “the same great meat you know and love, simply better.” Burger King has rolled out a plant-based version of the Whopper — albeit cooked on the same grill as its beef counterparts and daubed with traditional mayo, so not, from a purist’s perspective, truly vegan — featuring Impossible Burger patties that, in an uncanny valley-like moment, bleed when cut.

Impossible achieves this simulacrum by deploying heme, a protein present in animal tissues but here derived from plants. (The company tested heme first on rats, which sparked the ire of some animal rights activists, for whom it undermined the burgers’ ethical stance.) Heme adds flavor, but it’s the literalism of the blood that matters, spilling under the teeth with its mineral tang. Unlike the mock meat cooked for centuries in China — lotus root standing in for bones in pseudo pork ribs, crispy layers of tofu skin mimicking the crackle and plush of duck — these fakes aim to provide not just the taste and texture but the cultural freight of the real thing, in “a continuation of meat as symbol,” as the Puerto Rico-based journalist Alicia Kennedy has written. (Her book on the history of plant-based eating in the United States comes out next spring.)

It’s as if the only way to get people to stop eating beef is to trick them into thinking they’re still eating it. Nothing has been lost, no sacrifice required. We can save the planet from those greenhouse gases without giving up the carnal pleasure of sinking teeth into what at least feels like animal flesh, rich with fat, its juices roiling. This is how deep it goes, the mythology of the open range and conquest, with the trickle of blood on the plate to reassure us that our own runs red. “To himself, the meat eater seems to be eating life,” the British philosopher Mary Midgley writes in “Animals and Why They Matter” (1983). For what does a bloody steak or burger invoke but something wounded, dominated, brought to its knees? Only now the diner need never wonder what, or who, that might be.










What Does the End of Beef Mean for Our Sense of Self?


When it comes to America’s legacy of Manifest Destiny, there’s perhaps no meal more symbolic than a bleeding steak. So who are we now that we’re consuming less red meat?




www.nytimes.com


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“Of the ten leading causes of death in the United States, at least seven, including the top four, are directly related to diet choices. These conditions include heart disease, cancer, lung disease, cerebrovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and kidney disease.”
“Nearly half of all deaths due to heart disease, stroke and diabetes are due to poor, suboptimal diet. We now know that a poor diet is responsible for more deaths from chronic disease at the population level than smoking... Most of our patients know that it’s probably not a good idea to smoke, but I don’t think they have a sense of the magnitude of the importance of the food choices they are making every day.”

-Michelle McMacken, MD, assistant professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine

Foods labeled as healthful, including whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, are foods which have a very broad consensus that they promote health and prevent disease, she said. Conversely, foods labeled as unhealthful, including processed meat, red meat, added sugar, refined grains and ultraprocessed foods, have a broad consensus that they produce harm.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan celebrities 2022: 55 stars share why they went vegan*

*Not one to miss out on a trend, celebrities around the world are going vegan! Here are the ethical vegan celebrities who are inspiring change and making the world a kinder place.*

Veganism was once considered a fringe movement but is now firmly in the mainstream thanks in part to vegan celebrities. Inspired by environmental and ethical concerns, people from all walks of life are adopting a plant-based diet.
Vegans once struggled to find a platform to share their views. But thanks to vegan celebrities sharing the positive benefits of their plant-based diets, millions of fans have been inspired to give veganism a try.
Reaching audiences of millions via social media, the rising number of plant-based celebrities and vegans celebrities has helped to reach new audiences like never before. It’s official, Hollywood is going vegan thanks to these vegan celebrities!

*53 vegan celebrities share why they went vegan*

*1. Moby*










One of the most high-profile vegan celebrities who has been vegan since 1987 is American musician and animal advocate Moby.

The musical legend first cut meat from his diet aged 19 thanks to his beloved pet cat Tucker.

Following an epiphany, Moby told _Rolling Stone _he realised he “would do anything to protect him and make him happy and keep him from harm.”

Recognising that he had “an amazing brain and an incredibly rich emotional life”, he questioned why he would continue to eat other animals too.

He said: “I would never in a trillion years think of hurting this cat. So why am I eating other animals who have four (or two) legs, two eyes, amazing brains, and rich emotional lives?”

In 1987, Moby decided that he no longer wanted to contribute to animal suffering and realised so gave up all animal products and became a vegan.

More recently, the artist gave a TEDx Talk at Venice Beach titled ‘Why I’m A Vegan’ to discuss the cognitive dissonance of eating meat.

Sharing his passion for vegan food, Moby opened vegan restaurant Little Pine in 2015 in Los Angeles and donated all profits to animal rights organisations.

Moby proudly lets the world know he is vegan for life with a number of tattoos on his arms and neck, inked by fellow vegan, Kat Von D.

*2. Joaquin Phoenix*









Vegan actor Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t let the pressures of Hollywood stand in his way of spreading the vegan message. The actor hit the headlines in February 2020 with his powerful Oscar’s acceptance speech slamming the cruel dairy industry.

Taking to the stage, Phoenix urged people to adopt a plant-based diet to lessen the suffering of farmed animals.

“We’ve become very disconnected from the natural world,” he warned the star-studded audience.

He also questioned why “we feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable.”

The actor has been vegan since he was 3 years old after he and his siblings “witnessed fish being killed in a really violent and aggressive way.”

As well as featuring in a number of vegan billboard ads for PETA, he also attends protests and vigils. In fact, just hours after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor he was seen liberating cows from slaughter.

*3. Billie Eilish*









Billie Eilis was raised vegetarian before going vegan and uses her time in the spotlight to advocate for veganism. She also regularly uses her platform to share the truth surrounding animal agriculture.

Responding to fans on Tumblr, Billie explained was vegan because she loves animals and wants them to be left alone.

Encouraging her fans to go vegan, she pleaded: “Leave animals alone. Damn.”

In 2018 she took to social media to show her 26 million followers the horrors of an Indiana dairy farm. Expressing her disgust, she questioned how anyone “can watch the videos that I just posted and not give a f—k.”

*4. Woody Harrelson*









When it comes to vegan celebrities, it’s fair to say that Hollywood actor Woody Harrelson was way ahead of the curve! The _Hunger Games_ star is passionate about animals and the environment and has been vegan for over 30 years.

Many vegan celebrities have credited Harrelson with turning them vegan, including Thandiwe Newton, Sadie Sink and former-vegan Liam Hemsworth.

The actor is friends with vegan chefs and Wicked Healthy founders Derek and Chad Sarno. He has employed Chad as a personal chef on a number of occasions and even wrote the forward for the brothers’ cookbook.

The actor is so passionate about veganism that when starring in _Zombieland_, he had to eat specially made mock Twinkies made of cornmeal.

Speaking about his vegan lifestyle, Harrelson said: “Becoming vegan was the biggest change I ever made in my life, and one of the greatest accomplishments as well.”

*5. Rainn Wilson*









Rainn Wilson is worlds away from the meat-loving character he portrayed on _The Office, _Dwight Shrute, as the star is an animal-loving vegan!
During a 2017 appearance on American talk show, _Conan_, Wilson revealed his beloved rescue pigs inspired him to go vegan. While eating breakfast, Wilson realised he loved Snortington and Amy more than bacon and so went vegan.
He told Conan O’Brien that he had a revelation one day as he was eating some bacon and “looking at these adorable little pigs”.
Dubbing himself ‘_The Fifty Year Old Vegan_’ in an Instagram post, Wilson shared the positive health benefits he had enjoyed since going vegan. He told his 2.5 million fans: “I noticed that I had more energy! I was sleeping better and deeper.”

*6. Evanna Lynch*









_Harry Potter_ star and vegan podcast host Evanna Lynch has said that being vegan was always in her nature. The actress stopped eating meat at 11 years old as she was “viscerally repelled by the idea of eating animal flesh”.
Lynch said that before turning vegan in 2014 she was in “cloud cuckooland eating my ice-cream and imagining that the cows were having a grand old time in the open fields.”
It wasn’t until she read the book _Eating Animals _that her eyes were opened to the violence inherent in the process of eggs and milk production.
As well as hosting _The Chickpeeps_ podcast, Evanna has also launched her own vegan beauty subscription box for cruelty-free beauty fans.

*7. Stevie Wonder*









Legendary musician Stevie Wonder, who has scooped up an impressive 25 Grammy Awards to date, made the decision to go vegan in 2016 for both health and environmental reasons.

Discussing the benefits of his vegan diet, Wonder said: “I’ve been a vegan for two years, so that’s helped my already good-looking self. I think that eating healthy is important.”

The superstar regularly discusses his vegan lifestyle, even singing a vegan jingle with James Corden on _The Late Late Show with James Corden_ in 2017.

Stevie is passionate about spreading the vegan message in order to safeguard the future of our planet. He said: “We have to be about making our planet more greener, the urban areas more sustainable for the children.

“We can’t just talk about it, we have to be about it,” he added.

*8. Elliot Page*









Actor Elliot Page, best known for his role in iconic teen comedy _Juno_, has been a vegan for a decade. Dubbed the ‘World’s Sexiest Vegan’ by PETA in 2014, the star is an ethical vegan.

The actor has previously spoken out about the injustices facing farmed animals. In 2011, he tweeted his 1.8million followers to ask why people make fun of vegans.

Sharing his confusion, he questioned why the “inhumane factory farming process regards animals and the natural world merely as commodities to be exploited.”
*9. Lewis Hamilton*








Five-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton has been vegan since 2017. The British racing legend adopted a plant-based diet to aid with his athletic performance and help the environment.
Keen to make the fast-food industry a kinder, greener place, Hamilton has even opened a chain of plant-based burger restaurants, Neat Burger.
Neat Burger opened the doors to its first restaurant just off Regent Street in London last year and has since opened a second branch in Camden Market.
Lewis isn’t the only vegan in his family either as his beloved bulldog Roscoe has also been feeling healthier since switching to a vegan diet.
His furry companion has suffered from health issues in the past which are common amongst the breed. As a result of his vegan diet, Roscoe’s life has been transformed for the better.
Delightedly sharing the good news, Hamilton wrote: “He’s like a puppy again! It’s been amazing to see these changes in Roscoe and I’m so grateful to be able to share this.”
*10. Rooney Mara*








Rooney Mara has been vegan for almost a decade after ditching animal products in 2011, having eaten a vegetarian diet on and off since she was nine.
Speaking to Coveteur in 2018 about the reasons why she went vegan, Mara revealed a disturbing video was the catalyst.
“About seven years ago, someone sent me this horrible undercover video of a pig, which led me to another horrible video and another horrible video. I went down the YouTube rabbit hole,” she said.
After finding it difficult to find stylish combat boots that weren’t made from leather, Mara co-founded Hiraeth. The vegan clothing line aims to prove that vegan clothing can be stylish without the use of animal materials.
Alongside her clothing line, Mara also narrated the animal rights documentary _Dominion_ with her partner and fellow vegan, Joaquin Phoenix.
The vegan power couple recently announced that they are teaming up with Cowspiracy filmmaker to executive produce a new documentary, _The End of Medicine_.
This feature-length documentary focuses on ‘how our treatment of the natural world and the animals within it contribute significantly to the spread of infectious disease and antimicrobial resistance.’
*11. Lizzo







*
Singer-songwriter Lizzo is one of the latest vegan celebrities to go vegan after she took the plunge and ditched animal products from her diet in 2020.
The _Juice _singer had previously followed a vegetarian diet for seven years before taking the plunge and finally going vegan in the summer.
Lizzo first revealed she has gone vegan in a TikTok video shared to her 8 million followers. In the video, Lizzo said: “As a new vegan I’m enjoying exploring flavours from plants & plant-based proteins! Every journey is personal & deserves to be celebrated.”
The Grammy-award winner celebrated her six-month vegan anniversary in October in another TikTok video reflecting on her vegan journey. She also showed fans some of her favourite plant-based recipes in celebration.
*12. Pamela Anderson*








Former _Baywatch_ star Pamela Anderson is a proud vegan and longtime animal rights activist. Pamela has been vegan for over 30 years, making her one of the OG vegan celebrities in Hollywood.
PETA named Anderson its 2016 Person of the Year for her efforts to encourage vegan eating and animal activism.
Regularly collaborating with the animal rights organisation, Pamela has appeared in multiple campaigns encouraging people to go vegan.
The star regularly tweets about animal protection issues to over a million Twitter followers and even opened a vegan pop-up restaurant in France.
*13. Alan Cummings*









_X-Men_ and _James Bond_ actor Alan Cummings has been vegan for around 12 years and regularly teams up with animal rights group PETA to promote its campaigns.
Speaking about the positive effects on his health since being vegan, Cummings said: “When I stopped and became vegan my skin cleared up.
“I feel much better, I feel I’ve got more energy, I feel cleaner, I feel younger because I’m not asking my body to cope with things that it’s not necessarily good with coping at.”

*14. Sia Furler*









Famously private Australian singer Sia revealed that she was vegan in a tweet in 2014 when a vegan restaurant owner invited her to come and visit his restaurant.

Having followed a vegetarian diet for many years prior, the songstress has joined forces with animal rights organisation PETA in the past to campaign to help end animal homelessness.

*15. Peter Dinklage*









Famed for his role as Tyrion Lannister in the hit show _Game of Thrones_, actor Peter Dinklage was a vegetarian for 15 years before deciding to go vegan in 2014.
A staunch animal-rights activist, Dinklage has appeared in several PETA campaigns over the years such as the Face Your Food video. In the video, Dinklage revealed the ugly truth behind the meat, egg, and dairy industries.
The star also warned fans that dogs are a lifetime commitment amid the deadly “direwolf trend”. _GOT_ fans were inspired to purchase their own ‘direwolves’ by the show, leading to a shocking rise in the number of abandoned huskies at animal shelters.
*16. Russell Brand*








Like many people, Russell Brand had a few false-starts when he first decided to transition to veganism. The actor and comedian has been a strict vegetarian since he was 14, but later turned vegan in 2011 after viewing the documentary _Forks Over Knives._
Following his stint on _Celebrity Bake Off_ in 2019, Brand took to Instagram to say: “I’ve been baking like a maniac ever since. And I’m vegan now (again),” alongside a mouth-watering selection of vegan bakes.
*17. Mayim Bialik*









Actress and star of _The Big Bang Theory_, Mayim Bialik, is a long-term vegan who regularly uses her celebrity status to advocate for the animals.
Bialik has shared many videos on her YouTube channel explaining her reasons for being vegan, as well as offering advice on how to raise happy and healthy vegan children.
Bialik first cut meat from her diet aged 19, but took the plunge and went vegan after reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2009 book, _Eating Animals_.
Keen to share the benefits of veganism, Mayim has even published her own vegan cookbook, _Mayim’s Vegan Table_, with over 100 family-friendly plant-based recipes.

*18. Fearne Cotton*








Celebrity TV presenter Fearne Cotton said going vegan was ‘energizing’ and ‘not as hard’ as she thought. The star revealed she has gone vegan in an episode of _The Chickpeeps Podcast_, hosted by _Harry Potter _star Evanna Lynch_. _
Fearne said that she stopped eating meat aged 11 after watching a distressing news show on the transportation of animals. However, she said she ‘hadn’t even heard’ of veganism at this time as the movement was still in its infancy.
With veganism becoming mainstream in recent years, Fearne became interested in removing animal products from her diet and decided to ditch them entirely.
“I incrementally became vegan,” Cotton said. “The last thing to go – because I was never a big dairy fan anyway – was eggs.
“It was about a year and a half ago that I just went ‘that’s it, no more eggs. Goodbye eggs.’ And it’s been amazing. It hasn’t been as hard as I thought at all.”
The presenter was asked by podcast host Evanna whether ethical considerations came into play in her decision to adopt a plant-based diet.
Fearne replied: “I think I just wanted to go full hog vegan and really kind of live and breathe that experience and not buy any new leather products.
“Now, I always try and buy either just non-leather products or shoes like Dr. Martens that do great vegan shoes.”
In 2019, the TV host released her first vegan cookbook packed full of family-friendly recipes.
*19. Colin Kaepernick*








It will probably come as no surprise to hear that one of the US’s most well-known football players, Colin Kaepernick, is a vegan. After all, the sports star and activist has his own flavour of vegan Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to honour his fight for racial justice.
Kaepernick revealed in 2016 that he had been vegan for nine months after making the switch with his longtime girlfriend, Nessa Diab, in order to help him recover from injuries sustained in his career.
The vegan athlete received a lot of criticism for his decision to go vegan, with many doubting that it would help him recover. Proving them all wrong, Kaepernick bounced back stronger than ever, sharing a gym selfie highlighting his muscular physique alongside the caption, “Always ready #NotBadForAVegan.”
*20. Sadie Sink*









Stranger Things star Sadie Sink credits Hollywood-legend Woody Harrelson for showing her that going vegan ‘totally doable’. Sink met veteran vegan Harrelson five years ago whilst filming _The Glass Castle_ and was inspired to go vegan after spending time with his family.
Sink explained, “He’s a very passionate vegan and his entire family is vegan as well, so by spending time with them, I was able to learn that a vegan lifestyle is totally doable and it’s not as hard as it may seem.”
Before meeting Harrelson Sadie followed a vegetarian diet. But after discovering the horrors of the egg and dairy industries, she decided “That’s it! Going vegan!” and cut out animal products immediately.

*21. Leona Lewis*









British singer Leona Lewis was actually raised in a vegan household! As a result, she has always been conscious of her dietary choices. She turned vegetarian at the age of 12 saying it was a “natural choice”, but went fully vegan in 2012.

The talented star has been a trustee at Hopefield animal sanctuary in Essex for eleven years. The _X-Factor_ winner regularly takes to social media to raises awareness about the sanctuary and animal welfare.

Lewis even had a fully vegan wedding when she tied the knot with husband Dennis Jaunch in 2019, according to her dessert chef, Marco Failla.

Marco told _Hello! Magazine_ that the entire wedding menu was vegan. “Of course everything was vegan and without artificial flavours,” Marco said.

*22. Lucy Watson*









_Made in Chelsea _star Lucy Watson went vegan after watching the hard-hitting documentary, _Cowspiracy. _According to the star, “everything changed” when she found how the truth about the cruel dairy and egg industries.

Watson explained that after coming to that realisation “it just didn’t make sense for me to continue to eat dairy, as an animal lover!”

A keen cook, Lucy has released two best-selling vegan cookbooks and a line of vegan ready-meals and desserts. The vegan actress and model also owns vegan restaurant Tell Your Friends in London with her sister Tiffany.

*23. Kat Von D*









Controversial celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D was first inspired to give up animal products for good after watching _Forks Over Knives. _

Having followed a vegetarian diet for many years, she said that “eliminating all animal products was a natural step.”

A passionate and outspoken vegan, Kat Von D made the bold decision to transition her popular make-up brand, Kat Von D Beauty, to become a fully vegan brand.

Since then, Von D has sold her eponymous make-up brand to concentrate on new vegan ventures. Von D Shoes debuted its first collection of vegan shoes in 2018 which are handcrafted in Italy.

*24. Thandiwe Newton*









_Star Wars_ actress Thandiwe Newton was just one of many vegan celebrities who count Woody Harrelson as their inspiration for going vegan!

While promoting the movie she starred alongside Harrelson in, _Solo: A Star Wars Story_, Thandiwe said she enjoyed having a vegan on the set.

“I think it’s good to have a vegan in the mix. [Good to have] a vegan in a position of power. I have been vegan since working with Woody,” the actress revealed.

Telling the interviewer how long she had been a vegan, she added: “The last four months, it’s been four months. It hasn’t done anything to my brain, I’m absolutely fine.”

*25. Jason Mraz*








Grammy-nominated singer Jason Mraz has been vegan since 2011. and is a big fan of raw vegan food in particular.
Like many vegan celebrities, Mraz first adopted a plant-based diet thanks to its numerous health benefits. In a blog post, Mraz said he was “feeling stronger, fitter, healthier and more productive” thanks to his plant-based diet.
Mraz has enjoyed a number of health benefits since being vegan. Not only is he fitter and able to “do more pull-ups than ever”, but he also said it has improved his performance in the bedroom!
*26. Tobey Maguire*








Photo credit: Loic Venanace/AFP via Getty Images
_Spiderman_ star Tobey Maguire has been a vegetarian since 1992 and a vegan since 2009.
“I’ve never had any desire to eat meat. In fact, when I was a kid I would have a really difficult time eating meat at all,” he told _Parade._
While filming _The Great Gatsby_, Maguire even returned a hire car with leather seats. Instead, the actor requested one with a cruelty-free interior.
Actress Natalie Portman also claims that Maguire inspired her to go vegan in 2008 after starring in the movie _Brothers_ together.
*27. Russell Simmons*








Music mogul Russell Simmons has been a vegan since 1998 after learning about “the cruelty animals raised for food must endure.”
Long before Veganury, Simmons took the vegan pledge on New Year’s Day and hasn’t looked back since! A keen practitioner of meditation and yoga, going vegan was the natural step for the hip hop icon.
In an interview with Al Roker, Simmons said: “Well, it started with my yoga practice and you know, the practice of non-harming, ‘ahimsa.’”
“So I became a vegan because [of] compassion [for] the animals.”
Simmons has even published a book entitled _‘The Happy Vegan’ _to show ‘how a vegan diet can let to greater success and fulfilment’.
*28. Mýa*








R&B singer Mýa credits her plant-based diet for her youthful appearance. In a post, she said: “I would definitely recommend [a vegan diet] in every possible way.
Mýa went vegan to test her willpower but stuck to it after learning the truth about factory farming and the dairy industry.
Speaking to PETA, Mýa praised the “wonders” that eating vegan has done for her skin, body, and overall health.
Encouraging fans give it a try, she said anyone wanting to “see a huge difference in your life” should go vegan. The singer has even released a free online guide to help fans to transition to a vegan lifestyle.

*29. Madelaine Petsch*








When it comes to vegan celebrities, few can claim they’ve been vegan since birth. But Madelaine Petsch is one who can!
The _Riverdale_ star was raised in a vegan household eating fresh produce grown in her family’s garden.
“I was lucky to grow up with two incredibly environmentally-aware parents, who ingrained these thoughts in me,” Petsch told _Elle_.
The eco-conscious loves to show her fans how fun a sustainable vegan lifestyle can be. “I want to teach people how positive and easy it is to be vegan”, she said.
On her YouTube channel, Petsch can be seen making delicious vegan recipes, including cinnamon rolls. What better way to show the benefits of going vegan than by showing off some tasty food!
*30. Alicia Silverstone*








Few vegan celebrities have been vegan as long as _Clueless_ star Alicia Silverstone who went vegan in 1998. Questioning why she continued to eat animals when she loved her pet dog, she made the decision to go vegan.
“I just took a look at my dog and said, ‘If I’m not willing to eat you, how can I continue to eat these other creatures that have the same desire to live, are just as funny, just as cute as my dogs?'” she told Oprah.
Now, Alicia is a passionate animal activist who is raising her son as a vegan. The actress has even posed nude for a PETA campaign, claiming she would “rather go naked than wear wool.”
*31. Natalie Portman*








Natalie Portman credits Tobey Maguire as her inspiration for going vegan in 2008. She said: “I was around Tobey Maguire in rehearsals and he’s vegan and I was eating this energy bar, which was really nice.
“I’m honest about caring about animals. You know, eggs and milk products, there’s a lot of animal discomfort in that, too. I don’t know if it’s a permanent thing.”
Throughout quarantine, Portman has been sharing vegan cooking videos on social media. Speaking to Jimmy Fallon she explained that she enjoyed showing how varied a vegan diet can be.
“I like showing that there are really delicious, varied, easy things that you can do at home that your kids will eat that are plant-based,” she told Fallon.
The actress also recently invested in MycoWorks, a company creating vegan leather from mushrooms.
*32. Daisy Ridley*








The vegan movement is even mainstream in galaxies far, far away as _Star Wars_ actress Daisy Ridley is a vegan.
During an interview about _The Last Jedi_, she praised the vegan options while balancing filming and promoting the film.
Moreover, on this year’s _Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer_, Daisy cooked with 100% vegan ingredients. She created vegan banoffee-inspired millionaire’s shortbread, a chocolate and raspberry tart and a rather unconventional toilet-shaped cake.
*33. Emily Deschanel*








Bones actress Emily Deschanel is a fierce vegan advocate, having adopted the lifestyle at just 17.
Her passion for animal welfare is undeniable, helping to raise $1.2 million for animal rights charity Mercy for Animals in 2018.
Speaking on a podcast, she explained her reason for going vegan was driven by the environmental impact of factory farming.
“The impact on the environment that meat and dairy have and that factory farming has on the environment, and what it does to the animals, how horribly they’re kept.
“How horribly they’re treated and killed for us to eat, and then it’s about how it affects our health. It was always the triple-whammy that really affected me”, she explained.
*34. Kate Mara*








Rooney isn’t the only vegan in the Mara family as Kate Mara is also a vegan too!
According to Mara, she “decided to go vegan after reading a book called _The Beauty Detox Solution_ by Kimberly Snyder.”
Since going vegan eight years ago, Mara has found eating a plant-based diet much easier on her digestion. “I’ve always had a pretty sensitive stomach, but when I cut animal products out of my diet, I felt so much better”, told Shape Magazine.
A keen animal activist, Mara also said she felt responsible for making “choices about what I’m putting into my body”.
She added that knowing how animals suffer, she felt she couldn’t “just do whatever I want because something tastes good or something’s convenient.”
*35. Ruby Rose*








_John Wick_ star Ruby Rose started to question why we eat animals at a young age.
Speaking about a childhood memory that prompted her to go vegan, Rose said: “I used to get something called ‘shark fin soup,’ and I didn’t know. I said to my mom, ‘Wait, is this made out of an actual shark’s fin?’ and she was like, ‘Oh no, darling, of course not.”
Rose when shocked to find out later than the soup did indeed contain shark fins. Sharing her horror at the realisation, she said: “That really scared me.
“I used to have nightmares that they were finless in the ocean and I couldn’t eat any fish ever again”, she recounted.
The Australian-born actress has now been vegan for several years and even won PETA’s Sexiest Vegan Award in 2017.
*36. Danielle Brooks*








It turns out that _Orange Is The New Black _star Danielle Brooks is just as compassionate as her character Taystee!
Brooks is an outspoken humanitarian who regularly uses her platform to advocate for minorities and the LGBT community. But in 2017, she told her 2.2 million Instagram followers that she was going vegan too.
Sharing a photo of a delicious tempeh dish, Brookes wrote: “Vegan life! Day nine of the rest of my life??”

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/895818112947298304*37. James Cromwell*








James Cromwell had been a vegetarian since the 1970s, but his experience while filming _Babe_ led to him going vegan.
While on set with the animals, he realised he could no longer bring himself to eat them after working closely alongside them.
“I cared about their welfare and then of course you have lunch and it’s all there in front of you. I thought I should go the whole hog, so to speak,” he explained.
Since starring in the movie, Cromwell has teamed up with PETA on a number of campaigns to improve animal welfare.
*38. Benedict Cumberbatch*








Photo credit: Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images
_Sherlock_ star Benedict Cumberbatch has mostly kept his vegan diet under wraps, only revealing tidbits of information about his diet.
When questioned whether he liked Nando’s, the actor replied with a chuckle: “Well only if they’ve got a vegan option.”
Similarly, when asked if he tried the local cuisine in Singapore while filming, the star answered: “As much as a vegan can.”
Benedict might not be very vocal about his diet unlike some vegan celebrities, but we love that he’s secretly doing his bit for the animals.
*39. Nathalie Emmanuel*








_Game of Thrones_ star Nathalie Emmanuel has been vegan for nine years after trying the diet to see how she felt.
Reminiscing about the beginnings of her vegan diet, Nathalie said the changes she felt were even obvious to others.
“People kept coming up to me and telling me I looked glowy and my eyes looked really bright, so I kept going,” she said.
Now, Nathalie indulges in vegan pancakes as well as veganised Jamaican dishes such as rice and peas with ackee ‘saltfish’.
*40. Kevin Smith*








_Jay and Silent Bob_ star Kevin Smith went vegan following a heart attack that threatened his life. Realising he needed to make drastic changes to his lifestyle, his daughter Harley Quinn persuaded him to go vegan for two months.
Harley Quinn told _New York Post_ publication _Page Six,_ “He’s the healthiest he’s ever been. He’s vegan now, which is amazing.”
Now, the duo host their own vegan podcast where they interview vegan celebrities and answer ‘vegan-curious’ questions from non-vegans wanting to learn more about veganism.
*41. Bimini Bon Boulash*








It will come as no surprise to fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK to hear that finalist Bimini Bon Boulash is proudly vegan. Upon entering the workroom, the 26-year-old non-binary drag queen announced: “I’m vegan!
“I’m East London’s plant-based princess. I’m like, the most famous vegan in East London because I don’t stop going on about it,” she added.
In the ‘Meet the Queens’ teasers, Bimini told viewers they have been vegan for nearly seven years, joking “I invented veganism about seven years ago.”
The vegan queen is vocal about animal rights on their Instagram. In fact, she even recreated Pamela Anderson’s famous ‘All animals have the same parts’ PETA campaign in a white bikini.
*42. Rob Zombie*








Metal rocker and filmmaker Rob Zombie has been vegan for almost a decade after he found himself repulsed one day by his breakfast of eggs. He told GQ that he came to the realisation that “This is disgusting and I’m done.”
Zombie had been a vegetarian since he was 18, but said that he “never really liked eating meat”. According to the musician, he believes that: “We’re all brainwashed from the moment we’re born that all the cows are happy and the pigs are happy.”
Rob and his wife Sheri Moon both enjoy a healthy vegan diet full of homegrown fruits and vegetables ‘elaborate salads’. The couple has also opened up their home to a number of rescued animals, including six goats he rescued with the help of PETA.

*43. Romesh Ranganathan*








British comedian Romesh Ranganathan first cut out meat and went vegetarian when he was 10-years old before turning vegan in 2013.
Speaking in the past, Ranganathan has said the reason people hate vegans is because “they know it’s the right choice”.
Starring in a hilarious video for BBC2 Two, Ranganathan said: “People hate vegans and the reason they hate vegans is because they think we’re humorless, they think we think we’re better than non-vegans, they think we’re always banging on about it, and all of those things are true.
“I am better than you if you’re not vegan. In terms of my ethical decisions, I am so much better than you. I’m better for the planet, I’m better for the animals. There’s nothing worse about me apart from I’m slightly irritating to have round for dinner”, he added.
During an episode of Jamie & Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast, Romesh discussed what led him to go vegan. Check out it below:

*44. Will.i.am*








Photo credit: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images
Black Eyed Peas singer Willi.i.am first went vegan in 2018 as a way of taking back control of his health after suffering from high cholesterol and high blood pressure,
“After we finished filming [The Voice] in December I went home, I became vegan, I biked to work, and I lost 15 lb,” he explained.
Since then, the rapper has been a vocal advocate for veganism and regularly speaks out about the ethics of killing animals for food, as well as the corruption in the food industry.
Willi.i.am even shared a video to Instagram where he highlighted the importance of a plant-based diet as a form of self-help and self-medication. In the caption, he wrote that vegans were “a group of people taking a hardcore gangster approach to wellness and conscious living.”

*45. Travis Barker*








Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker has been vegan since 2008 after surviving a tragic plane crash inspired him to focus on his health. A vegetarian since the age of 13, Barker now enjoys a healthy vegan and gluten-free diet, with the occasional vegan treat!
The musician starts his day with an oat milk coffee and often enjoys dinner from his favourite vegan restaurant, Crossroads. Barker certainly doesn’t miss anything on his vegan diet, telling GQ: “I love vegan pizza, I’ll also have vegan sushi, Vietnamese vegan food, a dear friend of mine owns this spot called Au Lac which is just so good.”
*46. Brian May*








Legendary Queen guitarist isn’t just a talented musician, he’s also an animal lover and activist to boot.
A passionate and outspoken vegan, May recently spoke out about the link between the pandemic and eating animals.
Speaking to _NME_ May said: “This pandemic seemed to come from people eating animals… It’s becoming more well known that eating animals is not the greatest thing for our health.
“To go vegan was just a decision, and I haven’t been preachy about it. But now, we’ve seen more of the effects of how eating animals has brought us to our knees as a species.
“I think it’s time to re-examine our world in a way that doesn’t abuse other species.”
*47. Maggie Q*








For American actress Maggie Q, eating a plant-based diet is nothing new. After all, the _Divergent _star has been vegan for over 20 years!
Maggie has been a vocal animal activist for many years, and regularly teams up with PETA to promote the organisation’s causes. She’s also a badass athlete who performs her own stunts thanks to her plant-based diet.
In fact, it was PETA who first inspired her to go vegan when she met a PETA Asia employee at a concert who sent her “information on animal-welfare in the fashion, food, and entertainment industries.”
She told _Veg News_. “It made me sick, but nothing prepared me for the truth of the environmental impact of meat production. I quit cold turkey and never looked back. I didn’t understand how I could have ever claimed to love animals but hadn’t made the choices to protect them.”
But Maggie isn’t just passionate about saving animals, but also about saving the planet too and regularly shares the benefits of eating a plant-based diet for the environment.
However, despite being an animal rights advocate, Maggie prefers not to call herself a vegan so as not to alienate people from going plant-based.
Explaining her stance to _The Beet, she said: _“I don’t [call myself vegan], because it has become a weird, negative term and people feel very judged by it.
“So I like plant-based better because it’s friendlier: It’s inclusive. You can’t judge people. They have to be where they’re at, and you have to accept them for where they are.”
*48. Theo Rossi*








_Sons of Anarchy_ star Theo Rossi has been vegan since way back when “it wasn’t cool”. In fact, the actor has been vegan for an impressive 24 years after turning vegan at the age of 22. As Rossi has been vegan for over half his life, he is one of the most dedicated vegan celebrities in Hollywood.
According to Rossi, he has a “certain connection to animals,” and grew up surrounded by them.
Speaking on the _PEOPLE Every Day_ podcast, Rossi said: “I’m surrounded by animals. They’ve kind of dictated my life.”
Inspired by his love of animals and having learned the truth about how meat is produced, Rossi went vegan and hasn’t looked back since.
Even though his family don’t follow a vegan diet, Rossi has stayed true to his morals for over two decades.
But it wasn’t always as easy to be vegan as it is now. Speaking about the perception of veganism in 1997, Rossi said: “It wasn’t fashionable and it wasn’t cool.”
Undeterred, the vegan actor made it his mission to make it work.
“I was trying things, because I was trying to see what works for me. Being a vegan works for me,” he explained.
*49. Boy George*
*







*
The secret to singer Boy George’s ageless looks is his raw vegan diet which he has followed since 2014.
Like many vegan celebrities, the Culture Club singer first turned to a plant-based diet of raw whole foods in a bid to ditch weight after piling on the pounds.
To help him stick to his vegan diet, Boy George enlisted the help of dietician Amelia Freer’s and followed her nutrition plan.
The _Karma Chameleon_ crooner has tweeted about veganism in the past and regularly shares photos of his meat-free meals.

As well as following a vegan diet, Boy George has been practising Buddhism since 2012.
*50. Casey Affleck*








Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Haute Living
Actor and director Casey Affleck might be better known for his role _The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, _but he’s also one of the original vegan celebrities, having gone vegan in 1995.
The younger brother of actor Ben Affleck was inspired to cut out animal products after learning about the horrors of the animal agriculture industry.

Since then Affleck has been an outspoken animal advocate and regularly teams up with PETA to help the organisation promote its animal rights campaigns.
Speaking about why he is vegan, Affleck explained: “When people ask me why I don’t eat meat or any other animal products, I say, ‘Because they are unhealthy and they are the product of a violent and inhumane industry’.”
*51. Jenna Dewan*








Dancer and actress Jenna Dewan went vegan in 2013 after being vegetarian for 22 years. She explained to the LA Times: “When I was 10 or 11, I saw a program on slaughterhouses.
“I just remember being blown away, utterly traumatized. And I declared the next day that I was never eating meat again. And I didn’t—it started then.
“As I got older, I learned more, and as I understood about the sufferings of factory-farmed animals it just tears into you.”
Like many vegan celebrities, she has participated in numerous PETA and other animal rights campaigns, criticising the use of animals for fur, clothing, cosmetics and other beauty products.
What’s more, she even tried to get ex-husband Channing Tatum on the vegan train during their marriage, now that’s definitely a plus!
*52. Jessica Chastain*








Red-headed bombshell Jessica Chastain has been vegan for over 15 years, despite not being very vocal about it.
The actress initially adopted a plant-based diet to improve her health but has since expressed environmental and animal welfare concerns associated with meat, dairy and egg consumption.
Speaking about her journey to veganism, she told _W Magazine_ that “immediately I just had more energy than I’ve ever had in my life” when she went vegan.
She is an investor in Beyond Meat and even bought her mother a vegan food truck to live out her dream as a vegan chef.
Now that’s true dedication to the vegan cause!
*53. Daryl Hannah*








Actress Daryl Hannah went vegetarian aged 11 after she discovered some cows she met would be slaughtered the next day.
“I literally lost the ability to disassociate what was on my plate from the creature it had been,” she said.
As well as being an animal lover, Hannah is passionate about the environment too. In recent years, she has gone vegan in a bid to combat climate change.
*54. Morrissey*








(Photo Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images)
When it comes to vegan celebrities, few have been vegan as long as British singer Morrissey.
Morrissey is not afraid of speaking his mind when it comes to veganism, even declaring that “vegans are superior beings”.
The controversial songwriter first went vegetarian aged 11 before cutting out animal products entirely at the turn of the 2010s, according to The Telegraph.
Speaking about his plant-based diet, Morrissey explained that “I refuse to eat anything that had a mother, that’s obvious.”
Instead, the musician prefers to stick to a diet of “bread, potatoes, pasta and nuts… all stodge.”
Not only is Morrissey vegan, but he’s also a vocal animal rights advocate too. Morrissey even famously penned a heart-wrenching song entitled ‘Meat Is Murder’ decades ago as the former frontman of rock band The Smiths.
*55. Jared Leto*








American actor and musician Jared Leto is another vegan celebrity who has been vegan way before it became mainstream.
In fact, Leto has been vegan for over 20 years and credits his plant-based diet for his youthful appearance.
Speaking about his diet in _Rolling Stone_ in July 2016, Leto said: “I’m pretty healthy – I’ve been that way for a long time. Twenty solid years of eating vegetarian/vegan and taking care of myself. That probably helps the preservation process.”
The star has also previously given fans a look inside his pantry, where he revealed that Uncle Eddie’s vegan peanut butter chocolate chip cookies are his guilty pleasure!









Vegan celebrities 2022: 55 stars share why they went vegan


Celebrities all around the world are going vegan! Check out the animal-loving vegan celebrities who are changing the world.




www.veganfoodandliving.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Here Come the Artificial Intelligence Nutritionists*

After 20 years of living with Type 2 diabetes, Tom Idema had given up hope of controlling his condition. He had tried many diets that proved unsuccessful and even considered weight loss surgery. When his employer offered him a chance to try a new dietary app that uses artificial intelligence to control blood sugar, he took it.

Mr. Idema, 50, sent in a stool sample to get his microbiome sequenced and filled out an online questionnaire with his blood sugar, height, weight and medical conditions. That data was used to create a profile for him, to which he added continued blood sugar measurements for a couple of weeks. After that, the app, called DayTwo, rated different foods according to how good or bad they might be for Mr. Idema’s blood sugar, to aid him in making better food choices.

After nearly 500 days using the program, his diabetes is in remission and his blood sugar levels have dropped to the upper end of normal. And even though DayTwo says the app isn’t aimed at weight loss, he’s gone from 320 pounds to 229 pounds. “I’m wearing pant sizes I haven’t worn since high school,” said Mr. Idema, who is an administrator at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Mich.

DayTwo is just one of a host of apps claiming to offer A.I. eating solutions. Instead of a traditional diet, which often has a set list of “good” and “bad” foods, these programs are more like personal assistants that help someone quickly make healthy food choices. They are based on research showing that bodies each react differently to the same foods, and the healthiest choices are likely to be unique to each individual.

Whether these A.I. nutritionists are ready for widespread use is still unclear, and there is very little research available from sources outside the companies selling apps. Users should be wary of overly broad claims that go beyond predicting how foods affect blood sugar.

But proponents say blood sugar is just the beginning and that artificial intelligence programs could target other aspects of metabolic health, such as obesity and heart disease, eventually helping to guide a person’s everyday meal choices.

*How to make (artificially) intelligent food choices.*

The DayTwo app uses an algorithm based on research by Eran Elinav and Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, who co-founded the company in 2015. Last year, the company found that when they used their algorithm to match a diet to an individual’s microbiome and metabolism, it was better at controlling blood sugar than the Mediterranean diet, considered one of the healthiest in the world.

“Rather than measuring foods by caloric content and trying to come up with a ‘healthy diet,’” said Dr. Elinav, “you need to start measuring the individual.”

This technology is relatively new and only relates to blood sugar. The Mediterranean diet, meanwhile, has decades of research behind it and will likely remain the gold standard for healthy eating for years to come. Still, for people like Mr. Idema, A.I. like DayTwo’s can make it easier to maintain healthy eating patterns.

The app’s machine-learning algorithm can identify patterns and learn from data with human help. It analyzes data from different individuals’ blood sugar responses to tens of thousands of different meals to identify personal characteristics — age, gender, weight, microbiome profile and various metabolic measurements — that explain why one person’s glucose spikes with certain foods when another person’s doesn’t. The algorithm uses these observations to predict how a particular food will affect one’s blood sugar and assign each meal a score.

The system can’t yet take into account the candy bar someone had two hours ago — but users can play around with food combinations to change the score for each meal. For example, the app gave macaroni and cheese — one of Mr. Idema’s favorites — a low score, but he was able to improve it by adding protein. That’s because adding protein or healthy fats can temper the blood sugar spike from a carbohydrate-heavy meal like macaroni.

“I thought they were going to say, ‘Oh my gosh, you’ve just got to become a salad eater, and that’s not been the case,’” said Mr. Idema.

DayTwo, which is currently only available to employers or health plans, not consumers, is one of a handful of A.I.-based apps recommending healthier meal options. Another company, ZOE, also generates meal scores and is available directly to consumers for $59 per month. ZOE’s algorithm uses additional data, such as blood fat levels, in addition to microbiome and blood sugar tests. The algorithm was able to predict how a person’s blood sugar and fats respond to different foods in a large 2020 study led by one of the company’s founders, Dr. Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College in London.

Currently these algorithms mostly focus on blood sugar, but newer versions will incorporate more personal data, and, in theory, recommend diets that reduce cholesterol, blood pressure, resting heart rate or any other measurable clinical indicator.

“Bringing in all these different data types is very, very powerful, and that’s where machine learning kicks in,” said Dr. Michael Snyder, a genetics professor at Stanford University who helped found the health start-up, January.

*Buyer, beware.*

The field of personalized nutrition is still in its Wild West phase, and experts say it’s important to sort through the hype. Many companies are willing to test your microbiome and offer A.I.-driven dietary recommendations — as well as sell you supplements — but few are based on scientifically rigorous trials. Last year, uBiome, which made one, was even charged with fraud. In general, the more broad-ranging the health and weight loss claims the companies make, the less reliable the evidence to support them.

“I think it is all overhyped right now, unfortunately,” said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and the founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
The data used by apps like DayTwo and ZOE also only capture a fraction of the interplay between the gut microbiome, our metabolism and diet. There are certainly a lot more factors, like genetics, that affect metabolism and are ignored by current A.I. programs.

“It does not tell you the whole story, and just optimizing around glucose is not going to be enough to create the perfect diet for you,” said Dr. Casey Means, co-founder and chief medical officer at a digital health company called Levels. A.I. apps could nudge users into eating foods that are good for preventing blood sugar spikes and diabetes, but may be unhealthy in other ways.

For instance, when Dr. Topol tried out the DayTwo app, its recommendations for controlling his blood sugar — such as eating spinach and raspberries — were high in oxalic acid, which could have induced kidney stones. That’s because the app didn’t take into account his pre-existing risk for the condition.

Additionally, restrictive diets are increasingly seen as a bad way to change eating habits and often backfire. But many experts hope personalized A.I. apps will be easier to follow and build better long term behaviors.

For now, these apps could assist nutritionists with meal suggestions, but aren’t going to replace them, and both ZOE and DayTwo have regular virtual checkups with a dietitian or nutritionist built into their programs.

According to Dr. Topol, larger and longer-term studies that incorporate more layers of data, such as sleep, exercise or stress, into the algorithms could make these programs more precise and accurate for each individual. They could also help people see how short-term responses, such as post-meal glucose spikes, influence long-term health.

What we don’t know is how or if the day-to-day improvements translate to long-term health. Dr. Topol said of A.I. diet programs. “Can you prevent diabetes? Can you prevent heart disease and other chronic diseases?”

These larger studies are coming. The National Institutes of Health’s Nutrition for Precision Health research program began a multiyear study in January to develop algorithms to predict individual responses to foods.

But for Mr. Idema, the effects of personalized diets are already tangible, most recently when his improved blood sugar levels allowed him to enjoy his daughter’s birthday cake. “I had the glucose monitor out at the time, and I stayed well within range, so my body handled it just fine,” he said. “So I’m in such a much, much better place now, and in my mind this program definitely saved my life.”









Here Come the Artificial Intelligence Nutritionists


Companies are experimenting with personalized diet apps, saying the future of healthy eating is A.I.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*It Could’ve Been the World’s Largest Potato, if Only It Were a Potato*










In August last year, while weeding a patch of garden behind their home in New Zealand, Colin and Donna Craig-Brown struck gold, or what seemed like the world’s largest potato.
“I had a big hoe in my hand, and it went, ‘clonk,’” said Mr. Craig-Brown, speaking by phone on Thursday from his farm near Hamilton, where a cow could be heard in the background. “I said to my wife, ‘What the hell’s that?’”
Then, he said: “I got a great big four-pronged garden fork and laid into it, like an over-excited Viking warrior. I thrust my foot deep into the earth, dragged this thing out, kicking and screaming. It was the size of a rubbish bin lid.”
They called it Doug.
Doug, spelled Dug in some news reports, was as bronze and as burly as any Thanksgiving turkey and weighed 17.4 pounds. It came seemingly out of nowhere, and to Mr. and Ms. Craig-Brown, it looked, tasted and felt very much like a big potato. (They cut off and ate a small piece of it — raw.)

The discovery made its way into the news media, and with subsequent weigh-ins, excitement grew. After friends and family suggested the protuberance might be a contender for the Guinness World Records, the couple submitted an application for “the world’s heaviest potato,” sat back and waited.
All over the world, people have grown, proudly displayed and sometimes won prizes for their giant pumpkins, potatoes and tomatoes. In February, a farmer in Israel was confirmed to have grown the world’s heaviest strawberry, according to Guinness: 289 grams (10.19 ounces). For some, it’s a hobby; for others, an obsession with the promise of a world record, fleeting fame and perhaps a few chuckles. For the Craig-Browns, it was an accident.
Mr. Craig-Brown, 62, is the son of a horticultural scientist. He and his wife, Donna, 60, ran a small farm. The couple had not previously grown potatoes, meaning Doug would have had to have been self-seeded. At 17.4 pounds, it was substantially larger than the world’s heaviest known potato, which weighed in at 11 pounds and was unearthed in 2010 by Peter Glazebrook, a seasoned grower of massive vegetables in Britain.
As the couple waited for word from Guinness, doubts began to creep in elsewhere. To some in the trade, the photos of Doug suggested that, while impressive, it wasn’t quite a potato.

Then, an email from Guinness landed in Mr. Craig-Brown’s inbox last week. A slice of the growth had been submitted for DNA testing, and the results confirmed the doubters’ suspicions: Doug was not a potato at all.

“Sadly the specimen is not a potato and is, in fact, the tuber of a type of gourd,” a spokesman for the organization wrote, adding, “For this reason we do unfortunately have to disqualify the application.”
To those without green thumbs, “tuber of a type of gourd” might be frustratingly oblique wording. A tuber can be any kind of swollen underground stem — including a potato. Gourds, which include pumpkins, marrows and cucumbers, are entirely unrelated plants.
So what is Doug really, where did it come from, and why did it show up in the garden near Hamilton, a city in New Zealand’s North Island? No clear answers have emerged.
Chris Claridge, a horticulturist and the chief executive of the industry group Potatoes New Zealand, which assisted in the DNA testing, described the growth as a kind of scar tissue on a wound, similar to the lumps sometimes seen on trees after a branch is removed.
“It could have had an infection, it could have had a disease, it could have just formed and grown as an accident of nature,” he said. “But it’s not even the same family as the potato.”
He added: “Put it this way: We’re good at growing potatoes in New Zealand, but we’re not that good.”

For Mr. Craig-Brown, the result was disappointing. It was also a puzzle that kept him awake at night.
“How could a bloody gourd get in my garden?” he recalled thinking.
And then, a possible breakthrough.
“There was a stage where I was growing these hybridized cucumbers, right where Doug appeared,” he said. “During a hybridization process, who’s to say they didn’t crossbreed it with a gourd plant to give it tremendous disease resistance or prolific flowering?”
In a statement, Adam Millward, managing editor of Guinness World Records, said, “This has been a fascinating journey of discovery, and we’re glad we’ve been able to get to the root — well, technically, tuber — of the matter.”
He also wished the Craig-Browns the best in their future horticultural endeavors.
As for Doug, Mr. Craig-Brown said: “He’s a pretty cool character, aye.”
“He’s pretty happy sitting there in the cryogenic storage facility that we’ve got here on the farm — the deep freezer. He’s not fazed at all.”










It Could’ve Been the World’s Largest Potato, if Only It Were a Potato


A couple in New Zealand found a giant growth in their garden, named it Doug and applied to Guinness World Records. Then the results of a DNA analysis came in.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*An orange's journey from the orchard to the Arctic highlights food insecurity in the North*










*An orange in Inuvik costs about $1.95 to $3, depending on the season, with gas prices driving things up*

As a child, Ruth Wright loved oranges so much that she'd trade candy for them — a treat she rarely got in the Northwest Territories, outside of her stocking on Christmas morning. 

Now an elder in the Inuvik Gwich'in community, Wright pays between $1.50 to $3 for one orange, knowing the fruit travelled roughly eight days and more than 6,000 kilometres to reach her. 

The cost of most fruit and vegetables in Arctic grocery stores is exponentially higher than in Canada's southern communities, rising even more alongside the price of gas. To investigate the factors affecting food security in northern areas amid rising inflation, CBC Radio tracked the journey oranges take from California to the Arctic, including the costs that add up along the way. 

*The price of an orange*
Over the past year, the price of an orange at Inuvik's NorthMart grocery store rose about eight to 10 per cent.

In 2020, a kilogram of oranges would set you back $7.97. Last week, meanwhile, Wright paid $13.79 for a 1.3-kilogram bag — which she said worked out to about $1.95 per orange.

So when "southerners" complain about the price of groceries, Wright laughs.

"If they came up here, they would just collapse," she said.

A basket of groceries that cost $186 in Edmonton would cost 81 per cent more in Inuvik. That means a northern family would pay $337 for that same basket, according to figures provided by Jeff Barichello, an economic statistician with the Northwest Territories Bureau of Statistics.










*What drives the costs?*
Inflation has been driven by everything from the pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has spiked global fuel costs — a major factor in transporting food the extra distance to the North. 

Grocery managers who spoke to CBC Radio say they try to absorb cost spikes, drawing on a federal government grant that pays $1 for every kilogram of food sold during periods when the roads are not passable and they have to fly goods in.

There are 121 isolated northern communities eligible for the federal Nutrition North Canada subsidy, which means they're considered food insecure as roads cannot always connect to these remote areas year-round.










"We are very cognizant of costs," said Garth Hay, category manager of produce and bakery at The North West Company. "We want to make sure that we keep products as affordable as we can." 

*Where the journey begins*
The orange's journey to Inuvik begins when it's plucked from a tree in California, usually from an orchard between Fresno and Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley.

In the off-season, the oranges might come from as far away as Mexico or South American countries, including Brazil, Chile, Peru or Argentina.

Once picked, the fruit gets driven to processing plants where it's cleaned and sorted by size and grade.

Ugly oranges become juice. The blemish-free fruit are packed in 18-kilogram boxes, which then get loaded onto a truck in Los Angeles.

Four days later, they'll arrive at the Edmonton distribution centre.

But the journey is only half over.

In Edmonton, the oranges are wrapped in brown construction or kraft paper to keep them warm and the truck is temperature controlled to ensure the fruit stays at about 38 F.










Those trucks head toward Whitehorse, Yukon, then toward Dawson City, before the turn to Inuvik. During that four-day trek, the rig can encounter ice roads, gravel or frozen rivers where the ice is too thin for trucks and too thick for ferries.

During the nine weeks of winter freeze and about six weeks of spring thaw, groceries must be driven to Yellowknife and then flown into Inuvik.

"Over a journey that long, there are challenges from weather or traffic accidents — but the most problematic is the river crossings," said Justin Jones, manager of the hub and local delivery options at The North West Company.

*From California to ice roads*
Alex Debogorski has driven over ice roads for decades, and he said it's sometimes a risk to life to deliver produce to Inuvik.

It's a cold job that requires long underwear "so the wind doesn't do you in," he said.


A delivery that includes oranges would be driven from Edmonton to Whitehorse, then north from Whitehorse to Dawson City — all the way up the often treacherous Dempster Highway with its 700 kilometres of gravel.

After the risky and sometimes harrowing trip, the truck arrives in Inuvik.












Everyone who meets it hopes the oranges haven't frozen; trucks are sometimes delayed by up to five days, store manager Kevin Giesbrecht says.

"Sadly, [oranges] have gotten too cold and they are little frozen balls."

But if fortune smiles, and the orange arrives intact, it's put on display.

There, Giesbrecht used to show fruit off to school children on field trips. He hopes that he can do that again, as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.

"There's this generation of kids who might have not tried some fruit," he said. "It's quite upsetting."

*Orange delivered*
Wright still thrills at the tart-sweet gush from a fruit that brings memories rushing back of Christmas mornings. Having an entire orange to herself still makes her feel "rich," she says.

When oranges are scarce, the Inuvik elder refuses to fret.

"You have to get used to what you've got," she says. "If this is what you got — you can only have oats every morning — then we'll have oats every morning and enjoy it."












https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/from-russian-oil-to-thrift-stores-and-the-trip-an-orange-takes-from-fresno-to-inuvik-1.6381556/an-orange-s-journey-from-the-orchard-to-the-arctic-highlights-food-insecurity-in-the-north-1.6381649


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What's the difference between a vegan and a computer programmer?*








One is disgusted by rack of lamb and the other is disgusted by lack of RAM.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## 981PCAR (Sep 24, 2013)

Went Vegan 4 years ago, best thing I did to help with my autoimmune issue.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Environmental Impact of Eating Meat
Did you know it is estimated that if everyone in the world ate as much meat as Canadians, we would need over 4 planets to sustain our global diet?*

Animal agriculture is the _second-largest contributor_ to human-made greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after fossil fuels and is a _leading cause_ of deforestation, water and air pollution, and global biodiversity loss.

Clearly, addressing Canada's meat-heavy diet and the impact animal agriculture has on our environment is of vital importance.

Fortunately, studies have shown that cutting meat consumption and moving to plant-based eating is one of the biggest individual steps we can take to fight climate change - here's how!

*It increases biodiversity*










As the _primary driver_ of global biodiversity loss, animal agriculture converts species-rich natural ecosystems to arable land and pastures for growing animal feed and raising 'livestock', typically eliminating 30-90% of the biodiversity. By eating less meat and more plant-based foods instead, we can minimize this loss of wildlife and biodiversity. 

*It saves water and mitigates water pollution* 









Animal agriculture is a _massive drain_ on our global water use! It can take up to 20,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of beef - this means _cutting_ out just one 200g beef burger saves as much water as 30 days worth of even just 5-minute showers.

For the greatest _reduction_ of your personal water use, simply reduce or stop your meat consumption!

*It reduces deforestation* 












Animal agriculture is one of the most significant drivers of deforestation. If we combine all the land used for grazing animals with the land growing crops for animal feed, livestock _accounts_ for 77% of global farming land - as well as _80%_ of the deforestation of the Amazon forest alone - weakening our planet's resilience against global warming and damaging its intricate ecosystems.

By reducing consumer demand for meat, you mitigate the deforestation required to produce those products.

*It lowers GHG emissions* 









Producing plant-based food emits _drastically_ fewer greenhouse gases than animal protein. For example, producing 100g of protein from peas _emits_ just 0.4kg of CO2 compared to 35kg for beef - nearly 90x higher.

To _quote_ Our World In Data: "If you want a lower-carbon diet, eating _less _meat is nearly always better than eating the _most sustainable_ meat."

*It frees up land, and can help address global hunger* 










Switching to a plant-based food system would use land much more efficiently and address global hunger. Livestock takes up most of the world’s agricultural land but _only produces_ 18% of the world’s calories and 37% of total protein. If we used the land currently used for animal agriculture to grow food directly for humans instead, around 70% more calories _would be available_ globally. This would free up so much land that it could feed an extra 4 billion people!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*EATING FAT FROM PLANTS INSTEAD OF MEAT DROPS STROKE RISK BY 12 PERCENT, STUDY SUGGESTS*
*Researchers find that consuming plant-based fats versus meat-derived fats resulted in a decreased risk of stroke*

A study found that the source of dietary fat plays a key role in stroke risk. Researchers studied self-reported dietary patterns of more than 117,000 health professionals as part of the longest-running nutritional study in the United States. After 27 years, more than 6,000 participants suffered a stroke. 

Researchers found that the risk for stroke decreased by up to 12 percent in participants who consumed the most dietary fat from plant-based sources (such as olive, safflower, and canola oil). For participants who consumed most of their dietary fat from meat-derived sources (such as beef, pork, lamb, bacon, salami, and other processed meats), the risk of stroke increased by 16 percent. Further, each serving of meat increased stroke risk by 8 percent, whereas a serving of processed meat spiked the risk by 12 percent. Researchers did not associate dietary fat from dairy sources with increased stroke risk. 

“Our findings indicate the type of fat and different food sources of fat are more important than the total amount of dietary fat in the prevention of cardiovascular disease including stroke,” lead author Fenglei Wang, from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement.

The study has yet to be peer-reviewed and researchers will present their findings during the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions to be held virtually on November 13. 










*Plant-based for heart health*
These preliminary findings are supported by various peer-reviewed studies that have linked diets high in animal fats to an increased risk of illnesses. In a study published in scientific journal _Frontiers in Nutrition _in July, researchers studied the long-term effects of a ketogenic diet—which traditionally focuses on limiting carbohydrate intake in favor of fat and protein, typically from animal sources. For the meta-analysis, a group of physicians, researchers, and registered dietitians analyzed more than 100 peer-reviewed studies and found that people who follow a keto diet have a significantly increased risk of developing heart disease, LDL cholesterol buildup, kidney failure, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and cancer. 

This study bolsters other findings about the health dangers of animal fat consumption. A 2018 study published by The Lancet Public Health found that diets low in carbohydrates and high in animal fat can shorten an individual’s lifespan by up to four years. The American Heart Association also published a study in 2018 that linked animal-based monounsaturated fats—particularly those from dairy, fish, eggs, poultry, and red meat—with an increased risk of premature death. This study found that participants who consumed monounsaturated fats from animal sources had a 21-percent higher risk of death, while those who consumed the highest amount of monounsaturated fats from plant sources had a 16-percent decreased risk of death from any cause.












A 2019 study published in the _Journal of the American Heart Association _linked a plant-based diet to a 32-percent decreased chance of dying from cardiovascular related illness, including heart attack and stroke. The nearly 30-year study, which looked at the dietary habits of 10,000 middle-aged Americans, also found that participants whose diets were proportionally highest in plant-based foods than animal-based foods had a 16-percent lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease. 

And while the new study did not associate the consumption of dairy with increased risk of stroke, other studies have linked dairy consumption to other poor health outcomes. Released earlier this year, a study of more than 300,000 female participants found that diets high in meat, dairy, and processed sugar increased one’s relative risk of breast cancer by as much as 12 percent.









Eating Fat from Plants Instead of Meat Drops Stroke Risk by 12 Percent, Study Suggests


Researchers find that consuming plant-based fats versus meat-derived fats resulted in a decreased risk of stroke.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

FMT Cookies - Introducing Bunner’s (one of my favorite vegan bakery in Toronto) all new line of Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) (aka stool transplant) cookies! That’s right, the FDA has finally approved the use of medical grade human colonic microflora for use in everyday consumer products - and Bunner’s is stepping right in the proverbial poop with this delicious and effective new product!!! Proven relief from colitis, constipation, CDI, & IBS now comes in a delicious and ever so cute emoji! One cookie contains enough medical grade fecal mater for two doses - perfect for sharing on a first date And one more thing… happy April Fool’s day! In stores for one day only - poop emoji sugar cookies - they won’t last long so grab one while their steaming hot! xoxo


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*ARE OREOS VEGAN? THE HISTORY OF THIS 110-YEAR-OLD COOKIE 








*


*We’re reclaiming this 110-year-old cookie’s tagline. Oreos are vegan, and they’re oat milk’s favorite cookie. *
Milk’s favorite cookie is accidentally vegan. Well, at least some are. The classic Oreo and many of its flavor iterations are completely devoid of animal ingredients, which leads to a natural follow-up question: what is the cream filling made out of? Well, it’s made of quite a few ingredients, but none of them are dairy-based milk or cream. Take that as you will, but despite its less-than-clean ingredients, few can deny the Oreo cookie of its comforting and nostalgic taste and texture profile. Oreos are familiar, accessible, and darn good with or without a tall glass of chilled oat milk. Curious about the vegan nature of this 110-year-old cookie, we dove into the history (and the ingredients) of the iconic Oreo

*Are Oreos vegan?*
Back in the day before vegan cookies were readily available on supermarket shelves, newly transitioned plant-based eaters relied on the Oreo for a sweet treat. It’s one of the most widely known secrets amongst the vegan community—who would have thought a cream-filled sandwich cookie would eschew dairy? But Oreos weren’t always vegan-friendly. Up until 1998, the Oreo filling contained lard. The move to swap the lard for a plant-based fat was partly due to a decades-long contention with the Hydrox cookie. Technically the original chocolate-and-cream sandwich cookie, Hydrox did not contain lard and therefore could claim the Kosher label. While Oreos had steadily outperformed Hydrox since they debuted in 1912, the original Hydrox brand was popular amongst the Jewish community and experienced occasional resurgence in sales. Once the Oreo cookie could claim to be Kosher and vegan, Hydrox only survived a few more years, officially being discontinued in 2003. However, if you’re curious about the cookie that inspired (inspired is a loose term—the National Biscuit Company, now Nabisco, essentially stole the idea) the Oreo, you can purchase a box of Hydrox on Amazon. Leaf Brands resurrected the Hydrox in 2015 and claims it’s a less-sweet version of the Oreo that stays crisper when dunked in milk and is made with un-hydrogenated oils, higher-quality cocoa, and no high fructose or corn syrup. A six pack of Hydrox goes for $23.99, and we’re almost curious enough to try the first plant-based iteration of the Oreo that never gave up a fight. Truly, the name was its demise. 

We can definitely say that as of 1998, the classic Oreo is vegan. So are the Double-Stuf (which are actually only 1.8 times more stuffed, but who’s counting?), Mega Stuff, Gluten-Free and Gluten-Free Double Stuf, and Golden and Golden Double Stuf. Any fudge-covered Oreo is not vegan, as the chocolate coating contains dairy. Oreo Cakesters are also not vegan. But then there are the 85-plus Oreo flavors to consider. Not all of these flavors are available now or even in the US, but between the Thins and the Flavors and the Classics, the average US consumer faces a choice of over 25 variations at this given moment. Before you reach for that novelty or limited-edition flavor, be sure to check the ingredients, as some of these options contain animal-based ingredients. 

*Vegan Oreo flavors*
Beyond what Nabisco calls the Classics—the classic Oreo, Golden Oreo, Gluten-Free Oreo, and the Stuf variations of these flavors—there are the Flavor Oreos and Oreo Thins. The latter claims to be a “lighter, crispier” version of the original Oreo. In reality, a single Oreo Thin is only seven calories less than a single classic Oreo (35 compared to 42) and four millimeters thinner. Perhaps a bit ironically, Thins also come in an Extra Stuf variety. If you love filling and could do without the cookie part, this might be the Oreo spin-off for you. Thins come in a number of flavors that mimic the currently rotating line of Oreo variations including Mint, Golden, Lemon, and Dark Chocolate. All of these options are vegan. 

Thins aside, the current line up of vegan Oreo flavors include Mint, Lemon, Dark Chocolate, Chocolate Hazelnut, Java Chip, Chocolate, Birthday Cake, Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, Peanut Butter, Carrot Cake, Chocolate Marshmallow, and Caramel Coconut. These flavors do not contain dairy, eggs, gelatin, or honey; however, if you avoid processed cane sugar or artificial flavors that are not explicitly labeled vegan, these cookies are not suitable for those diet standards. 

*How to make vegan Oreos*
Despite the wild variations of the original Oreo, the ingredients are fairly consistent. All of the cookies contain sugar, unbleached enriched flour, palm and/or canola oil, artificial flavors, cacao, high fructose corn syrup, leavening, salt, soy lecithin, and a variety of food colorings. The differentiation in flavors mostly comes from the artificial flavors and colorings, though the Mint does contain some peppermint extract and the chocolate cream renditions have a bit more cocoa. 

Homemade Oreos are far less complicated. Yes, they won’t be as crispy or perfectly embossed, but if Yellow 5 Lake or palm oil aren’t your jam, it is possible to make a cookie that is Oreo-adjacent at home. 










*1Healthy Vegan Oreos*
Don’t pass over this recipe because of the “healthy” qualifier—it’s only there to say that the ingredients don’t call for any of the artificial flavors or palm oil found in the original Oreo cookie. There is still plenty of sugar to make these cookies nearly as addictive as their muse. We love slathering peanut butter on these treats (a trick we learned from _The Parent Trap _decades ago—thank you, Lindsay Lohan). 









Healthy Vegan Oreos!


These Healthy Oreos give you the same deliciousness of the original... without all the unhealthy ingredients or trans fat!




chocolatecoveredkatie.com





*2Vegan Oreo Cookies*
The beauty of making your own vegan Oreos is that you control the thickness of the cookie and the filling. Want extra cream? Slather it on? Love a cakier cookie? Make them thicker and bake for a minute longer. You can also use a large cookie cutter and make super-sized Oreos. Because who doesn’t love a giant, five-inch-wide cookie? 









Vegan Oreo Cookies - Gretchen's Vegan Bakery


A homemade version of the commercial favorite Oreo Cookies! The topic is hot about Oreos NOT being vegan so why not just make your own to be sure!




www.gretchensveganbakery.com





*3OMG Peanut Butter Brownies*
Tag “Oreo” onto any dessert and it becomes at least 50-percent more appealing. That’s a fact we have no data to support with, but the anecdotal evidence is strong. These triple-layer brownie bars feature a gooey chocolate chip cookie base, an Oreo and peanut butter middle, and a fudgy brownie top layer. They are all you need for any celebration, breakup, or situation calling for a major dopamine hit. 









OMG Oreo-Peanut Butter-Fudge Brownies


Impress your friends and dominate holiday baking competitions with these four-layer brownies.




vegnews.com





*4Creamy Chocolate Almond Butter Pudding Pie*
Pre-made Oreo crusts are naturally vegan, but it’s not hard to make your own. In fact, it can let out a bit of pent-up aggression. Simply smash Oreo cookies into powder then mix with melted vegan butter or coconut oil. Press the mixture into a pie pan, bake it off, then fill with this decadent chocolate almond butter mixture. The result is a cross between super-indulgent cheesecake, almond butter filling, and deep chocolate torte. In a word: heavenly. 









Creamy Chocolate-Almond Butter Pudding Pie


Oreo cookies, chocolate, coconut cream, and almond butter. What else could you want in a pie?




vegnews.com





*5Copycat Vegan Cookies & Cream Crumbl Cookies*
Only recently did we hear about the phenomenon of Crumbl Cookies—a national chain with a cult following. The shops don’t offer a vegan version, so we were kept in the dark until Mary-Kate of Mary-Kate’s Vegan Cakes started posting copycat renditions of the giant, soft-and crumbly-cookies. These Oreo-studded delights feature big chunks of Oreo cookies dispersed throughout the batter as well as baked into the topping. They’re the perfect mashup between gooey chocolate chip and crispy Oreo. Given their girth, one is certainly enough, but we’ve definitely polished off two in a single sitting. 





__





Copycat Crumbl Cookies & Cream Cookies – Mary-Kate's Vegan Cakes







marykatesvegancakes.com













Are Oreos Vegan? The History of This 110-Year-Old Cookie


We’re reclaiming this 110-year-old cookie’s tagline. Oreos are vegan, and they’re oat milk’s favorite cookie.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

> With Easter fast approaching, remember that a "Roast leg of lamb" is the limb of a baby just like her. She doesn't just donate it either. It's taken from her by force, & so is her life. Celebrating a holiday that embraces life restored while serving up a slaughtered infant makes no sense. This Easter respect the meaning of the holiday by leaving the babies off your menu & celebrate life by not taking someone else's.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It’s easy to swap out animal proteins for more nutritious fibrous vegan protein foods, that don’t kill animals and waste precious resources. - And a detriment to our health. 





__





Eating meat ‘raises risk of heart disease, diabetes and pneumonia’ | Meat | The Guardian


UK researchers find link between regular meat intake and nine non-cancerous illnesses




amp.theguardian.com


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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

on pg 141 in the article about protein and amino acid, i'd like to add to it that nutritional yeast is very high in amino's and has a good deal of protein too. another note is that the body is believed to be able to utilize up to 30g of protein every couple hours. most people know this but many do not. garden of life makes great protein/meal replacement shakes also


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Ho Ho Ho Happy 4/20


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How to Sustainably Harvest Ramps*
*Over-harvesting threatens to endanger a beloved springtime ingredient. Learn how to source ramps more responsibly.*









Springtime is when the Earth awakens from its long winter slumber, filling farmers market stands with the first crops of peas, garlic scapes, and, in some places, ramps. With their jewel-like bulbs and delicate leaves, ramps look a little like baby leeks, and boast a garlicky, onion-y flavor that's rounded out with a touch of sweetness. Unfortunately, these popular vegetables have been rampaged.


Quebec offers a cautionary example: In 1995, Quebec made it illegal to sell ramps, as authorities tried to curtail over-harvesting, which had led the province to include them on its list of threatened species. Yet demand for ramps was high enough that a lucrative black market emerged. Despite concerns about the sustainability of harvesting ramps, the popularity of the wild allium has only grown, with interest peaking every spring.


"The commodification of this food source has led to the decline of its presence in our ecosystem," says Candace Thompson, an artist, activist, and founder of The Collaborative Urban Resilience Banquet (CURB). The environmental toll has been exacerbated by seemingly widespread ignorance of how to properly harvest ramps in a way that allows the plant population to thrive. Here, then, is an overview of essential ramp botany, with a particular emphasis on how to approach harvesting ramps with sustainability in mind.


*What Are Ramps?*










_Allium tricoccum_—known as ramps, wild leek or wild garlic, or, to the Ojibwa people, shika’ko—is endemic to North America. Ramps are in the family of amaryllidaceae, which consists of bulbous perennials like lilies, narcissus, and shallots. 

Ramps are found in deciduous forests and grow best on north-facing slopes in moist soil. They need lots of sun early in their season, but as their leaves die and they start to produce tiny white or purple flowers, they require more shade. In North America, ramps grow as far west as Minnesota and Missouri; and from Canada down through the Appalachian mountain region, where ramp dinners are a longstanding tradition.


Understanding the ramp lifecycle is crucial to understanding how best to harvest the plant. In the Northern hemisphere, ramps lie dormant from late October to late March. Just as the snow begins to melt, the plant’s first few leaves emerge, and by May its leaves have fully formed and fanned out, at which point the plant is usually harvested. From the months of June through late August, the plant’s leaves fall back and tiny white or purple blossoms grow from its shoots. Come late September, its seeds disseminate. The seeds take a full six to 18 months to germinate, but it takes each plant five to seven years to produce seeds, according to the USDA.


Ramps are a valuable product because of the high market price they command—often around $5 per bunch or $20 per pound—but because of their long germination and the degree to which their growth is dependent on seasonal atmospheric conditions, they're typically foraged, not cultivated. However, they’re often foraged improperly, with foragers plucking the entire plant, bulb and all, from the ground, which halts its life cycle and prevents the species from repopulating.


*How to Harvest Ramps Sustainably*
Every March brings a new crop of articles discussing the many ways that ramps can be used. Almost every single one of these articles features a photo of ramps with the bulb intact, and some of them even have roots attached. While the whole ramp is a beautiful sight, the normalization of this image has encouraged improper harvesting techniques.










Improperly harvested ramps. [Photograph: Vicky Wasik]


Pulling the entire ramp out of the ground, including the root, causes permanent damage to the plant. Many people pull whole clumps out of the ground, or they will harvest from the same patch year after year. This has become common practice, and should stop. A study by Janet H. Rock, Brian Beckage, and Louis J. Gross published by Elsevier in 2004 recommends a 10% harvest once every 10 years would, on average, be a sustainable level of harvest for ramps.


Neftali Duran of the I-collective, an autonomous group of Indigenous chefs, activists, and herbalists, suggests foragers instead "harvest only the tops of the plants, never the roots, and from the middle of clumps so that the population stays strong. This is not just responsible harvesting, but also a respectful way of communing with other species that rely on ramps in early spring."


While foraging, use your best judgement whenever you come across a patch of ramps. If it looks thin, move on. When approaching thick, healthy patches of ramps, as Duran explained: With a small sharp knife, cut leaves from the center of clusters of ramp plants, and never pull up their roots.


The rise in popularity of ramps offers an opportunity to practice sustainable ways of cultivating and harvesting ramps. "Foraging can be an educational and spiritual tool and can help people find agency in an opaque, extractive food system. Practically speaking, foraging can help us steward ecosystems into healthier and more vibrant places," Thompson says. She goes on to explain that in order to create resiliency in our food system we need to promote plant diversity.


Practiced holistically, foraging, defined as the act of finding wild food sources, is a way to grow resilient and diverse ecosystems outside of the farming industry. One of the main tenets in foraging is that when you consume wild invasive species, you make space for endemic species to come back, which, in turn, restores ecosystems. Foraging has existed for much of our history, and it has the propensity to sustain cultures and identities of urban populations who might not have commercial access to cultural foods, all the while supporting the environment.










High in vitamins A and C and many minerals, ramps are quite versatile. If you do find yourself with responsibly sourced ramps, your options are extensive. They can be pickled or made into vinegars or seasoned salts to preserve their flavor, or they can be used in all sorts of dishes, from pasta and pizza to soups and stir-fries. You can check out our collection of ramp recipes right here.


For many, ramps are so much more than food. The Ojibwa, Cherokee, Iroquois, and Potawatomi tribes have long believed in the sacred and medicinal properties of this plant, and documented its importances as one of the first to provide them with nutrients after long hard winters, according to Native American Ethnobotany. Ramps continue to sustain Indigenous people and communities across Appalachia today.


"A codified foraging practice could do a lot for land stewardship if it was imbued with an inherent sense of reciprocity with the natural world," notes Thompson. Ramps may be delicious, but they're only one of the many forage-able plant species in our ecosystem. Being a conscientious eater means not always reaching for an overharvested plant like the ramp. In other words: Practice moderation, and take the time to educate yourself about the environmental concerns and dynamics of the area you're foraging in.









How to Sustainably Harvest Ramps


Over-harvesting threatens to endanger a beloved springtime ingredient. Learn how to source ramps more responsibly.




www.seriouseats.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*THESE 10 FISH FACTS WILL MAKE YOU SWEAR OFF SEAFOOD FOREVER *
*Environmental Netflix documentary ‘Seaspiracy’ helped create the new tidal wave of veganism*

I knew I had to watch _Seapiracy_ when my pescatarian boyfriend told me he was never eating fish again. A bit more context: this man didn’t just eat fish, he’d catch it and smoke it himself. It was more than food, it was a hobby. As a vegan, I was glad _Seaspiracy _did its job for him but wasn’t particularly excited to see it myself. I assumed it would be a 90-minute retelling that confirmed my beliefs and told me what I already knew. I was so wrong. The entire film grabbed my very limited attention span and even made me tear up (and I. Don’t. Cry.). Everyone—vegan or otherwise—can learn something from this film. Here’s a preview before you settle into the documentary. 

*1Fresh new host offers a compelling new perspective*
Some people loved watching Kip Andersen in his previous environmental film, _Cowspiracy_, whereas others could do with a little less Kip. If you lean toward the less-Kip camp, you’ll be relieved that _Seaspiracy_ features a new narrator—a British bloke named Ali Tabrizi. The narrative arc is similar—Tabrizi has a passion for the environment, discovers fishing is destroying it, uncovers shocking realizations about the industry, interviews powerful companies that refuse to speak to him, and ends with a message of empowerment and hope. This formula works, and it even got my sushi snob roommate to question his own eating habits. 









*2Plastic is bad. Like, whales-full-of-plastic-bad *
When it comes to plastic pollution, I could do better. A lot better. I order a lot of vegan takeout and take full advantage of the plastic baggies when picking my produce at the grocery store. After seeing whale carcass after whale carcass full of plastic, I realized just how dangerous my nonchalance can be. Granted, I dispose of my plastic in a trash can—never on the beach—but I can’t get those poor plastic whales and sea creatures out of my head. 

*3 It’s not okay to fish non-endangered species*
As vegans, we can all agree that it’s not okay to kill any animal, endangered or not. However, my boyfriend’s friend—let’s call him Bryan—justified his open-water fishing hobby by claiming he only fished for non-endangered animals. Here’s the thing—fishing leads to plastic pollution. There are millions (not exaggerating) of commercial fishing boats in the world, and their discarded fishing nets are piling up in our oceans. So, everyone who’s giving themselves a pat on the back for using a paper straw while enjoying all-you-can-eat sushi, you might want to reassess your strategy (cough, cough, my roommate). 












*4 Let’s talk about bycatch*
Here’s another note for Bryan: fishing leads to horrendous bycatch. Dolphins, sharks, turtles, you name it, fishing nets don’t discriminate. Humans kill 11,000 to 30,000 sharks every hour, and while some are intentional for shark fin soup (still not okay), the majority of these sharks are “accidentally” killed thanks to bycatch. The film makes a strong case for ditching fish. Many people are against shark fin soup—it’s wasteful, inhumane, and honestly bland—but they’re okay with eating fish. However, the demand for fish leads to the murder of sharks due to bycatch. It all comes full circle. There is no such thing as a conscious consumer who eats fish. Case closed. 

*5 Sealife does more for the climate than the Amazon*
You’ll have to watch the film for specifics, but due to the vastness of ocean life, these animals have more of an impact on our climate than the Amazon rainforest. People rant about the Amazon burning, but what’s really helping our planet stay afloat are the aquatic species they love to eat. Chew on that. 










*6Dolphins deserve better*
Early on in the film, Tabrizi and his girlfriend set off for this coastal town in Japan to document the dolphin killings. They’re constantly under surveillance from the local authorities; they were even warned that they might get shot if caught filming. Despite the dangers, they managed to capture one of the more gut-wrenching scenes of the film—the systematic slaughter of dolphins. What really breaks your heart is not watching the water turn red, but knowing that these dolphins are killed essentially for pest control. Dolphins are seen as competition to fishing vessels, and for some reason, humans believe they deserve the fish more, so they eliminate the competition. 

*7If you’re anti-slave labor, you should be anti-fishing*
Apparently, the world is not past slave labor. Remember we mentioned those millions of fishing vessels? Well, there’s strength in numbers, and it’s impossible to regulate working conditions on the high seas. The documentary interviews anonymous fishermen who survived truly horrific conditions. If found out, they feared for their lives. 



*8Like land animals, labels mean nothing*
We know that “cage-free” and “free-range” don’t carry much weight when it comes to the welfare of farmed animals. The same holds true for fish. “Dolphin-safe” labels are about as reliable as the legally reneged “happy cows come from California” slogan. Notes are forged, lies are taken at face value, and dolphin-safe or sustainably caught labels are passed out as easily as ketchup at a fast-food joint. You can’t justify fish with a meaningless label. 










*9 Farmed fish aren’t any better*
According to _Seaspiracy, _50 percent of the world’s seafood comes from farmed fish. Unfortunately, it’s really not as sustainable as the industry makes it out to be. As icky as it may sound, farmed fish are fed dehydrated fish. The amount of fish needed to create fish food exceeds the total output of fish killed for human consumption. Essentially, we’re breeding fish to feed fish, not humans. According to the experts, farmed fishing is “biological nonsense.” 

*10 A whale is a fish is a dog is a chicken*
The concept of speciesism—or loving some animals but eating others—is brought up by a Scottish whaler. He plainly states that those who consume fish and other animals have no right to criticize the slaughter of whales—an animal is an animal. In his mind, killing one whale is better than killing 2,000 chickens. To him, a life is a life, and his whaling activities actually save animals. In theory, it’s true. But as vegans, we have an edge. Fair warning: the Scottish whaling scene toward the end of the film is extremely hard to watch. It broke me. I blame the perfectly timed, emotional music but also admit that I have a soul and watching the water turn bright red should crush anyone with an ounce of compassion. As a vegan who often doesn’t think about animals, just goes about my business, it was a much needed reality check. Whether we eat animals or not, we all need an awakening sometimes. This does it. 









These 10 Fish Facts Will Make You Swear Off Seafood Forever


Environmental Netflix documentary ‘Seaspiracy’ helped create the new tidal wave of veganism.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Eating meat may not have been as crucial to human evolution as we thought*
Ancient humans definitely ate meat, but it probably didn't supersize their brains.











The oldest evidence of _**** erectus_ comes from an arid hillside near the border of Ethiopia and Kenya. Though the 1.9-million-year-old fossil is only a tiny shard, more complete, if more recent individuals show that the species looked recognizably human. The species had long legs and short arms. Its face was flat, without a chimp-like snout. Behind that face was a hefty brain, bigger than that of any of its predecessors. 

The question, then, is what forces shaped _H. erectus_, and further down the line, its descendant _**** sapiens_. 

One popular theory has it that a meat-heavy diet allowed _H. erectus _to invest in its brainpower. But a new report casts doubt on the basic evidence to support the idea.

The theory that a meaty diet allowed human brains to develop is sometimes called the “meat made us human” hypothesis. “One of the leading ideas is that if you switch from a plant-based diet towards a diet that’s rich in protein and fat, like eating meat and bone marrow from carcasses, you have the energy you need to feed a larger brain,” says Andrew Barr, a paleoanthropologist at George Washington University, who studies the environment of early human evolution.

Meat-eating could explain another feature of _H. erectus_: its dainty, human-like digestive system. The guts of other apes are shaped “almost like a skirt,” says Briana Pobiner, a zooarchaeologist at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, “with a small top and a wide bottom. A modern human’s is like a slim skirt as opposed to a wide skirt.”

For decades the theory’s proponents pointed to physical objects for support. “The archeological evidence has lined up with this,” says Pobiner. “In the 1980s, archaeologists started finding butchery marks on fossil bones in East Africa, and going, okay, early humans were eating these animals.”

Plenty of other apes eat meat—chimps even use basic tools to hunt—but the proliferation of butchered bones suggested that perhaps, _H. erectus _or its close ancestors had become more skilled carnivores.

But that evidence isn’t what it appears, according to a new study co-authored by Pobiner and Barr, and published in the journal _PNAS_. There is an explosion of recorded butchered bones and stone tools after 1.9 million years ago, when _H. erectus _was wandering around—but it appears to be because anthropologists have excavated more sites from that period.

“We definitely see an increase in the number of cut-marked bones,” says Pobiner. “But what we were trying to figure out is: is that a real behavioral signal? Or is it just that you get more cut marked fossils if you pull more fossils out of the ground?” 

To get an overhead view of the evidence, the team went back to sites dating to 2.6 million to 1.2 million years ago, and counted the number of fossils and the number of butchered bones. 

If the theory were true, they would have seen a higher proportion of cut bones after the emergence of _H. erectus_, say from 10 percent to 50 percent. Instead, the proportion of butchery didn’t change with time—sites with more bones just had more butchered ones, as well. That suggests that earlier hominids were also chopping up meat, but contemporary researchers just haven’t found as many bone stashes from that period.

“After **** erectus, there’s been a lot of intensive research activity on finding these smoking guns of human carnivory,” Barr says. “Whereas prior, there’s less research effort. Our study shows that it is influencing how much evidence is available.”

The lack of pre-_H._ _erectus_ fossils is also related to a quirk of geology, says Barr: The rock containing the pre-_H. erectus_ period tends to be less accessible. “We’re at the whim of mother nature and Earth’s crust in terms of what sediments are easily exposed at the surface.”

The study doesn’t fully disprove the “meat made us human” idea. Future sites could find that earlier hominids weren’t eating much meat. The available evidence just doesn’t say one way or another.

“The study shows us that sometimes in science we need to look even more critically at data sets that fit our preconceptions and expectations,” says Peter Ungar, an anthropologist at the University of Arkansas who has written extensively on the role of diet in human evolution, and wasn’t involved with this new research. “The results underscore the fact that the story of human evolution is too nuanced and complex for simple answers to the question of what made us human.”

Other possibilities that could have given our brains more fuel include technological shifts, like cooking, that unlocked extra nutrients. Social changes, like elders foraging food for young children, could have contributed.

Ungar cautions against latching on to any one theory. “I do not think that ‘fire made us human’ or ‘stone tools made us human,’” he says. “But all of these things are part of the story of increasing access to a broader variety of foods to fuel our ancestors’ bodies given ever-changing conditions.”

_H. erectus _is also the first hominid to have unambiguously left Africa—the first fossils were found in Indonesia, and it’s possible that it evolved somewhere in Asia in the first place. _H. erectus _wasn’t a specialist. Like us, it was probably shaped by its ability to live through massive changes.









Eating meat may not have been as crucial to human evolution as we thought


A new study of animals eaten by **** erectus shows that ancient humans definitely ate meat, but it probably didn't supersize their brains.




www.popsci.com


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)




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## fishwrinkle (Jul 11, 2012)

the negative calorie food


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

*Colorado inmate becomes first person in US to test positive for bird flu*

Infection comes amid worst outbreak of the virus in seven years but CDC says health risk to general public remains low

An inmate in Colorado has become the first human in the US to test positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, amid the worst outbreak of the virus in seven years and a cull of millions of poultry in dozens of states.

The unnamed prisoner contracted the infection during a work release assignment at a farm in Montrose county where workers were euthanising an infected flock, the Colorado department of public health and environment said.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the health risk to the general public remained low.

“The patient reported fatigue for a few days as their only symptom and has since recovered,” the agency said, adding that the man, who was younger than 40, was treated with the antiviral drug oseltamivir.

The Colorado case “does not change the human health risk assessment”, the CDC said.

“[The agency] has tracked the health of more than 2,500 people with exposures to H5N1 virus-infected birds and this is the only case that has been found to date. Other people involved in the culling operation in Colorado have tested negative for H5 virus infection, but they are being retested out of an abundance of caution.”

The only other known human case of the strain of bird flu currently predominant was in the UK in December last year, the CDC noted, although almost 900 cases have been reported worldwide from earlier H5N1 viruses since 2003.

The US agriculture department has been tracking the spread of avian influenza across 30 states and affecting more than 35 million birds, according to its latest figures.

The Guardian reported on Thursday that more than 22 million birds have been killed in an attempt to contain the outbreak, the majority in Iowa, the biggest US producer of eggs. That figure didn’t include a commercial egg farm in Knox, Nebraska where 2.1 million poultry were reported affected on Wednesday.

At one egg factory in Rembrandt, Iowa, about 250 employees were fired after roasting alive 5.3 million chickens, the largest cull at any factory farm in the country, in circumstances some fired workers and animal rights groups say were inhumane.

The Storm Lake Times revealed that birds at Rembrandt were culled using a system known as ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+) in which air is closed off to the barns and heat pumped in until the temperature rises above 104F (40C).

“They cooked those birds alive,” said one of the workers involved.

Earlier in the week, an H3N8 strain of bird flu was detected in humans for the first time in Henan province in China.

The four-year-old boy infected had been in contact with chickens and crows raised at his home, according to reports from China’s National Health Commission.

Avian influenza, or bird flu, is a highly contagious viral disease. The first reports of human cases came in the 1990s.

Some strains have been passed to humans but it is currently very rare and usually occurs only after very close contact with infected birds or animals.









Colorado inmate becomes first person in US to test positive for bird flu


Infection comes amid worst outbreak of the virus in seven years but CDC says health risk to general public remains low




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*9% of people taste soap when they eat cilantro*










You know those people who absolutely despise cilantro? That may be due to the 9% of the population that taste soap when they bite into these leafy greens. This is all because of genetics. Certain people have a variation in a group of their genes that gives them that soapy aftertaste.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Fiddleheads are out... forage sustainably
































https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## speedygz (May 12, 2020)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 1979830
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I knew there was a reason I absolutely love Chilli con Carne. Best of both worlds


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is B.M.I. a Scam?*
It can be a helpful health measure for large groups of people, but it won’t tell you much about yourself.










There are few single measures in health care that seem to carry as much weight as body mass index, or B.M.I. We encounter it not just at doctor’s offices, but with online calculators and smart scales, at gyms and even when determining eligibility for the Covid vaccine.
Its formula is simple: Take your weight (in kilograms), and divide by the square of your height (in meters). The result, which slots you into one of four main categories, is meant to describe your body in a single word or two: underweight (B.M.I. less than 18.5), normal weight (18.5 to 24.9), overweight (25.0 to 29.9) or obese (30 or greater).
Many feel judged by these categories, given that only about a quarter of adults in the United States can call themselves “normal” on the B.M.I. scale. But after talking with an epidemiologist, two obesity medicine physicians, a health psychologist and a sociologist, none claimed that B.M.I. was a very useful measure of a person’s health. And, in fact, some said they would indeed call it a scam.

*How is B.M.I. useful?*
Introduced in the 1830s by a Belgian statistician who wanted to quantitatively describe the “average man,” the calculation was named the body mass index and popularized in the 1970s by the Minnesota physiologist Ancel Keys. At the time, Dr. Keys was irritated that life insurance companies were estimating people’s body fat — and hence, their risk of dying — by comparing their weights with the average weights of others of the same height, age and gender. In a 1972 study of more than 7,000 healthy, mostly middle-aged men, Dr. Keys and his colleagues showed that the body mass index was a more accurate — and far simpler — predictor of body fat than the methods used by the insurance industry.

“It is a very useful tool in epidemiologic research,” said Dr. JoAnn Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Research has shown that across large groups of people, higher B.M.I. is generally associated with greater risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer, she said. On average, people with a higher body mass index have more body fat, so it can be useful for tracking rates of obesity, which have nearly tripled globally over the last several decades. It also has a “J-shaped” relationship with mortality; very low and very high B.M.I.s are associated with greater risk of dying sooner, whereas the “normal” to “overweight” range is associated with lower mortality risk.

As Dr. Keys found, B.M.I. is also easy and inexpensive to measure, which is why it is still used in research studies and doctor’s offices today.

*Does it accurately describe individual health?*
For all its utility as a research tool, though, body mass index is “fairly useless when looking at the individual,” said Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa.

B.M.I. can’t tell, for instance, what percentage of a person’s weight is from their fat, muscle or bone. This explains why muscular athletes often have high B.M.I.s despite having little body fat. And as people age, it’s common to lose muscle and bone mass but gain abdominal fat, a change in body composition that would be concerning for health but might go unnoticed if it didn’t change a person’s B.M.I., Dr. Manson said.

The measure also does a poor job of predicting a person’s metabolic health. In a 2016 study of more than 40,000 adults in the United States, researchers compared people’s B.M.I.s with more specific measurements of their health, like their insulin resistance, markers of inflammation and blood pressure, triglyceride, cholesterol and glucose levels. Nearly half of those classified as overweight and about a quarter of those classified as obese were metabolically healthy by these measures. On the other hand, 31 percent of those with a “normal” body mass index were metabolically unhealthy.

B.M.I. can “label a huge swath of our population as somehow aberrant because of their weight, even if they’re perfectly healthy,” said A. Janet Tomiyama, lead author of the study and an associate professor of health psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Another problem with B.M.I. is that it was developed and validated mostly in white men, said Sabrina Strings, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine. But body composition and its relationship with health can vary depending on your gender, race and ethnicity. “Women and people of color are largely not represented in many of these data,” Dr. Strings said. “Nevertheless, they’re being used to create a universal standard.”

*Can B.M.I. be harmful?*
It can be if it’s used to set arbitrary goal posts for body size. Dr. Rekha Kumar, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College, said that some patients who have lost weight and reached what she sees as their “healthy, happy weight,” but who still have a high B.M.I., may feel that they have to unnecessarily or unrealistically drop more pounds to be considered normal on the scale.

It can also be harmful if a doctor assumes that a person with a normal body mass index is healthy, and doesn’t probe them about potentially unhealthy habits they may have, like following a poor diet or not getting enough physical activity, Dr. Freedhoff said. And if the doctors of patients with higher B.M.I.s focus on weight alone as the cause of any health issues they may have, the doctors may miss more important diagnoses and risk stigmatizing patients.

There is plenty of evidence that weight stigma is harmful, Dr. Tomiyama said. Research has shown that anti-fat bias is common among medical doctors, which can result in lower quality care and cause patients to avoid or delay medical attention. People who have felt discriminated against because of heavier weight are also about 2.5 times more likely to have mood or anxiety disorders, and are more likely to gain weight and have a shorter life expectancy.

“You can see a situation where this hyper focus on body mass index, and that there are allowable and unallowable B.M.I.s, could be highly stigmatizing,” Dr. Tomiyama said. “And that stigma in turn could ironically be driving future increases in weight.”

This burden may fall disproportionately on Black Americans, Dr. Strings said, who as a group tend to have higher B.M.I.s than white Americans — especially among Black women. Yet evidence suggests that having a higher B.M.I. is not as clearly linked to earlier death in Black Americans. If doctors only focus on body mass index, Dr. Strings said, they may be more likely to blame their patients’ health issues on their B.M.I. or counsel their Black patients to lose weight.

In her own research, Dr. Strings has traced the origins of fat phobia in the Western world to the time of slavery, when Black women were “deemed to be excessively corpulent,” she said, as a way of positioning them as inferior to white women.

Dr. Strings argued that focusing on body mass index as a measure of health only distracts from the more important work of addressing the structural factors that lead to poor health, like “poverty, racism, lack of access to healthy fruits and vegetables” and environmental toxins, she said. “But instead, we just keep wanting to vilify fat people.”

*If B.M.I. isn’t important to monitor for health, what is?*
If you’re concerned about your weight, a more direct and relevant way to gauge potentially unhealthy body fat is to measure your waist circumference, Dr. Manson said. This estimates abdominal fat, which lies deep within the abdomen and accumulates around vital organs. In excess, it can increase the risk of certain obesity-related conditions like Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease. It is also more harmful than subcutaneous fat — the soft fat you can pinch with your fingers that lies in a layer just beneath the skin.

But in Dr. Freedhoff’s weight management clinic, he and his team don’t set patient goals around B.M.I., weight or waist circumference at all. “We discuss something we call ‘best weight,’ which is whatever weight a person reaches when they’re living the healthiest life they can actually enjoy,” he said. If a patient’s weight is negatively affecting their health or quality of life, Dr. Freedhoff and his colleagues will explore weight loss strategies including lifestyle changes, medication or, in some cases, surgery. But if it’s not, Dr. Freedhoff tells patients that they may already be at their healthy weight, regardless of their B.M.I.

Rather than focusing on body size as a gauge of health, Dr. Tomiyama said that your blood glucose, triglyceride and blood pressure results can be better windows into your well-being. How you _feel_ in your body is important, too, she said. “Can you go up a flight of stairs and feel good about how you feel after that? How are you able to live your life in the body that you have?” she said.

If you’re seeking better health, prioritize behaviors that are more within your control than your body mass index, Dr. Tomiyama said, like “better sleep, more exercise, getting a handle on stress and eating more fruits and vegetables.”









Is B.M.I. a Scam? (Published 2021)


It can be a helpful health measure for large groups of people, but it won’t tell you much about yourself.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Soy Cromwell! Babe actor’s Starbucks plant milk protest shows why he’s movies’ top revolutionary*











t’s probably time that we face facts and declare James Cromwell to be our greatest living actor. When James Cromwell turns up in something, ropey Jurassic Park sequels notwithstanding, the audience automatically knows to breathe a sigh of relief. The moment he first appeared on Succession, for instance, was the moment that viewers could relax in the knowledge that the show would contain more than just surface-level nastiness. And while he was handed perhaps the silliest arc of anyone who appeared on 24 – he played Jack Bauer’s dad, and ended up getting blown to smithereens on an oil platform – we at least knew that the role was in the safest possible hands.

But that isn’t the reason why James Cromwell is our greatest living actor. No, that’s because the man can walk it like he talks it. When other actors try to effect genuine change, they’ll do it in the most toe-curling ways. They will hop in a private jet in order to attend a climate crisis summit. They will make boneheaded, insincere awards ceremony speeches. They will, in the worst possible scenario, attempt to sing their way to raised awareness.

Not James Cromwell, though. Cromwell is a man who, upon learning that Starbucks charges slightly more for oat milk than cow milk, will walk into a local branch and literally glue himself to the counter in protest.

That is what happened this week. Cromwell, accompanied by some Peta activists, strolled into a New York Starbucks branch, calmly glued his hand to a counter and proceeded to read out a statement about the unfairness of the chain’s vegan policies, noting that he was following up on an unacknowledged petition that had been signed by 13,000 people. When he finished, the police showed up. Just as calmly, Cromwell unstuck his hand with a knife, then walked off.

And while you could argue that Cromwell had picked the wrong target for his protest – maybe gluing himself to the Starbucks head office would have been a little more fair on the baristas, many of whom are young and badly paid and just trying to get through their shift without much hassle – you can’t help but commend the man’s guts.










This is by no means his first rodeo, either. He protested against the Vietnam war in the 1960s, and defended the Black Panthers. A vegetarian since the mid-70s, he turned vegan after playing a farmer in the film Babe. In 2013 he was arrested for protesting over alleged animal mistreatment at the University of Wisconsin. In 2015 he was arrested for protesting against the construction of a natural gas power station in Wawayanda, New York. The following year he was arrested again, for protesting about underground gas storage near Seneca Lake. In 2017 he was arrested for protesting about SeaWorld’s treatment of its orcas. Then in 2019, he was arrested for protesting about the mistreatment of dogs at Texas A&M University.











And now this. With everything else going on in the world, it would be easy to write off a coffee chain charging from 50 cents to a dollar for plant milk as a minor inconvenience. But this is the level at which Cromwell operates. He would rather fuse his skin to the interior of a building than let it slip. And it was worth it, too. This news story has gone international, and has caused such an unnecessary PR headache for Starbucks that you can expect the surcharge to be quietly dropped in the coming weeks.

And perhaps he will change even more than that. Perhaps, when other celebrities see how efficiently James Cromwell managed to effect change – and, more importantly, how much press it got him – we will start to see them getting involved in more incidents of direct action. Today, James Cromwell glues himself to a Starbucks. Tomorrow, who knows, we might get to see Leonardo DiCaprio staple his bum to an abattoir.









Soy Cromwell! James Cromwell’s Starbucks plant milk protest shows why he’s movies’ top revolutionary


Supergluing himself to a coffee counter in protest at non-dairy milk surcharges is the latest in a long line of direct actions from James Cromwell. So-called activists who hop on planes to climate conferences should watch and learn




www.theguardian.com


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

*Iceland urged to ban ‘blood farms’ that extract hormone from pregnant horses*
EU concern over ‘cruel’ practice of taking blood from mares to create hormone products that increase reproduction in farmed animals

Iceland is under pressure to ban the production of a hormone extracted from pregnant horses, a practice that has been described as “cruel” and “animal abuse”.

The hormone is used by farmers across the UK and Europe to increase reproduction in pigs, cows and other female farm animals.

Pregnant Mare Serum Gonadotropin (PMSG) is extracted from pregnant horses in Iceland during the summer at “blood farms”, before being converted into powder and shipped around the world.


Animal welfare campaigners in Iceland visiting farms with the Guardian showed broken restraint boxes and enclosures covered in bite marks, which they claimed was a sign of anxious horses.

Undercover footage from farms, taken by animal welfare campaigners, also appeared to show distressed horses being hit and struggling in restraint boxes before blood was drawn using a large cannula inserted in their jugular vein.

The European Commission said it was “seriously concerned” about the treatment of horses farmed for blood, while the European parliament has called for imports of the hormone to be banned.

In late March, an international coalition of 17 NGOs submitted a complaint against Iceland to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Surveillance Authority (ESA), which monitors compliance with European Economic Area (EEA) rules in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

The complaint accused Iceland of breaching EEA law on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes and said Icelandic authorities should ban blood collection.

Support for a ban is also growing within Iceland. The opposition People’s party has put a bill through parliament calling for a ban. The bill, which is awaiting a vote, is supported by groups including the Icelandic Tourism Association.

A working group, set up by Iceland’s Fisheries and Agriculture department is due to report its findings this summer.

Experts have also expressed concern about the amount of blood taken from horses. The pharmaceutical company Isteka, which owns or subcontracts farms, said five litres of blood are taken from pregnant mares every week for eight consecutive weeks – around four times the amount specified on international guidelines.

The Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (Mast), which granted Isteka a licence, said: “There is no indication that blood collection of five litres a week for up to eight weeks has a negative impact on the health and welfare of the mares or their foals.”

Ingunn Reynisdóttir, a veterinarian who lives in north Iceland and has worked with horses all her life, disagreed. “It’s too much [blood] and if you take too much they are trembling and have difficulty walking,” she said.

Mette Uldahl, vice-president of the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE), said of the practice: “It’s animal abuse and it’s cruelty. You shouldn’t use untrained horses because they get too scared.”

Iceland is home to about 80,000 Icelandic horses, 5,383 of which are used as “blood mares”. There are 119 blood farms operating in the country.

Blood farms are believed to have been operating in Iceland for about 40 years, but Icelanders who spoke to the Guardian said they had little knowledge of them until last November, when the Animal Welfare Foundation undercover video was shown on television. A survey in December found most of the population was opposed to the blood farms.

“I didn’t have a clue we were doing this here and I was shocked when I saw it,” said Bjarnheiður Hallsdóttir, chair of the Icelandic Travel Industry Association. “It [is] awful.”

“I would like people to know that Iceland is actually stabbing semi-wild pregnant mares, taking their blood in extreme volumes and frequency, just to … make pigs have more pigs,” said Rósa Líf Darradóttir, a medical doctor and horse owner in Reykjavik.

In Germany, 6.4m single doses of PMSG – the equivalent of about 32,000 litres of blood – were given to sows between 2016 and 2019, according to the federal ministry of food and agriculture.

PMSG can be obtained legally in the UK from a registered vet, with products available including vaginal sponges for sheep, which induce early lambing, with advertised benefits such as producing lambs “at the optimum time for autumn sales”.

A spokesperson said the EU commission believes dialogue with non-EU countries is crucial to “bringing positive change on animal welfare issues”.

“The EU cannot impose its animal welfare standards in third countries and our trade policy has to respect the rules of the World Trade Organization. For this reason, the commission continues to address the importance of improving the welfare conditions of horses involved in the production of PMSG at multilateral level in the framework of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).”


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*GORDON RAMSAY REVEALS VEGANISM IS HIS FAVORITE SUBJECT, TAPS BOSH! DUO FOR ‘FUTURE FOOD STARS*

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s newest competition show just got a little more vegan with the help of social media stars Ian Theasby and Henry Firth, the duo behind viral vegan sensation BOSH! Ramsay’s _Future Food Stars_, which is currently in its first season on the United Kingdom’s BBC One, offers 12 up-and-coming entrepreneurs in the food and beverage industry the chance to compete for mentorship and a £150,000 ($185,000) investment from the chef himself. “The food and drink industry has never been more exciting, but it’s also never been tougher to succeed,” Ramsay says at the start of each episode. “I want to catapult someone to the next level.”

Throughout the series, the Michelin-starred chef puts contestants’ skills and business acumen to the test with a series of individual and team challenges. Last week’s semi-final episode challenged the remaining entrepreneurs with the task of creating a 30-second TikTok video promoting Ramsay’s self-proclaimed “favorite subject,” veganism. 

Valentina Fois—the show’s only vegan competitor—teamed up with Victoria Omobuwajo to face off against Leah Harkess and Stephanie Buttery. In their video, Fois and Omobuwajo transformed a can of chickpeas into vegan tuna salad while Harkess and Buttery chose to highlight hacks for vegan meat alternatives. 

Ramsay, who holds the title for most-followed chef across social media with more than 95 million followers, noted the importance of leveraging virality to capture new markets, stay ahead of trends, and connect with followers—all aspects of modern business. 

Theasby and Firth—who’ve amassed more than 2 billion views and 3 million followers across social media under their BOSH! platform—joined Ramsay to judge the contestants’ video creations. Fois and Omobuwajo proved victorious, with the BOSH! duo commending the entrepreneurs for their recipe-focused approach. 

*BOSH!’s vegan empire *
Theasby and Firth launched BOSH! in 2018 as a Facebook video channel, and quickly amassed a large following. The duo’s first video, which showed viewers how to make watermelon jägerbomb punch, garnered one million views within an hour and nearly 50 million views in its first few weeks. 










Since then, the duo has authored five best-selling cookbooks (with a sixth coming this summer), hosted a vegan cooking show, and launched vegan cakes at Tesco supermarkets across the United Kingdom. 

During last week’s episode, Ramsay credited BOSH! for putting veganism on the map. For Theasby and Firth, joining Ramsay as co-judges was nothing short of monumental. “The experience was fantastic and such an amazing sign of the times that vegan food is getting highlighted on primetime national TV,” the duo told VegNews. “Even the biggest chefs in the world are now taking vegan food seriously.”

*Gordon Ramsay loves vegans (now) *
While the celebrity chef has recently begun to embrace veganism, he was formerly a staunch critic, going so far as to state that he was “allergic to vegans.” 

Last spring, Ramsay welcomed Josie Clemens to season 20 of the cooking competition show _Hell’s Kitchen_, making her the first vegan contestant in the show’s 17-year history. The Michigan-born chef revealed that her connection with Ramsay first began on social media after she tweeted “When are you going vegan, mate?” at him, sparking Ramsay to follow Clemens on Twitter. 

More recently, the celebrity chef became the face of Silk’s new vegan oat milk campaign. The campaign, which celebrates Silk’s oat milk as the Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T.) milk, features celebrity ambassadors who are the G.O.A.T. in their own right. Ramsay—known for his unapologetic and often loud critiques of subpar cooking, dishes, and chefs—was named the G.O.A.T. of Yelling in Kitchens. As part of the campaign, the chef took to social media and explained that he is becoming a fan of plant-based cooking. “Well, it took my kids getting on me, but now I really enjoy cooking more plant-based dishes at home and in my restaurants,” the chef said. “Let me tell you, I know greatness when I taste it, and I am loving Silk Oatmilk for both sweet and savory recipes.” 










Ramsay’s change of heart is evident on his restaurant menus, where the chef has introduced countless vegan dishes. In 2019, Ramsay kicked off Veganuary by introducing a vegan menu at his London restaurant, Bread Street Kitchen. Last year, the chef launched his first restaurant in Chicago and made sure vegan burgers had a place on the menu. The eponymously named Gordon Ramsay Burger restaurant is built around eight signature burger creations, one of which is the Vegan Burger. The entirely plant-based burger is made with a vegan patty, bib lettuce, tomato, avocado, egg-free garlic mayonnaise, and is served on a vegan bun. For an additional $6, the vegan patty can also be substituted in place of meat in any of the other burgers. 

Outside of his restaurants, Ramsay has made headlines for the vegan recipes he often shares on social media. The Michelin-starred chef has impressed digital audiences with his recipes for crispy vegan bacon and vegan bang bang cauliflower, proving the power of social media in captivating new markets. 









Gordon Ramsay Reveals Veganism Is His Favorite Subject, Taps BOSH! Duo for ‘Future Food Stars’


Ian Theasby and Henry Firth, the recipe creators behind viral sensation BOSH!, joined Gordon Ramsay as guest judges on the chef’s newest show ‘Future Food Stars.’




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

today May 20 is World Bee Day!

I don't eat honey but I'm all for helping the bees!


*World Bee Day a chance to remind people how important, and how threatened, the insects are*










World Bee Day is often a chance to celebrate the hard work bees do to pollinate our plants and keep our ecosystems healthy — but this year, experts say it's also an opportunity to sound the alarm about the dangers they face, especially after more than two years of COVID-19.

"I'm not really sure how the pandemic helped native bees, but certainly it didn't help honey bees at all," said Amro Zayed, a professor of biology and the director of the Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Centre at Toronto's York University.

These vital insects play a central role in agriculture. In fact, more than a third of the food we eat depends on pollination by bees, either directly or indirectly. But according to experts like Zayed, not only do they face an array of challenges, including pesticides, climate change and habitat loss, the pandemic has also hurt bee populations.

He says public health measures meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus have also limited the importation of honey bees, and the hiring of migrant workers, that farms rely on. He says a rise in construction projects during the pandemic has taken away more of the bees' habitat.

Zayed also says an estimated 50 to 90 per cent of honey bee colonies were lost this year alone due to a harsh winter.

Despite that, he says he's hopeful for the future since awareness of the problem is more widespread than ever.

"I think the next step is to kind of galvanize that support and actually create better habitats in Ontario, and support legislation that kind of protects bees from pesticides and other stressors."

*How to save the bees*
The Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Centre, launched in 2020, has been doing research as well as education, public outreach and policy development.

Some projects include bee colony research to find out how the insects react to problems like viruses and poor nutrition, how to breed at-risk bees to maintain populations, and a program called Bumble Bee Watch, which is a compilation and analysis of photos of bumble bees submitted by citizens — aimed at helping researchers track and conserve bee populations.

To help save the bees, Zayed says people can do things like plant native plants and flowers or "pollinator gardens" on the land they occupy, participate in programs like the Bumble Bee Watch, and try to support legislation that promotes biodiversity, environmental protection, and more transparency about the chemicals used on public land.

Carolyn Davies, the centre's co-ordinator, says all these projects are exciting to watch and be a part of, no matter how discouraging the end goal of saving the bees may sometimes seem.

"We've become this source of knowledge, this source of connection about bees and how bees are important, how we study bees and all the different ways that we do that, and that's really inspiring."



https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/world-bee-day-after-pandemic-1.6459952


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The audacity!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

The bacteria in our guts can break down food the body can't digest, produce important nutrients, regulate the immune system, and protect against harmful germs. And while we can't control all the factors that go into maintaining a healthy gut microbiome, we can manipulate the balance of our microbes by paying attention to what we eat. This Ted Talk shares the best foods for a healthy gut.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

My Birthday lunch at Mexhico in Barrie Ontario a vegan Mexican Restaurant


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

At the local Farmer's market picked up a sampler box of vegan treats/pastries to share


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Happy birthday! Those tacos look amazing.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> Happy birthday! Those tacos look amazing.


Thanks SqueakyMC ! Yes the tacos were truely delish! They were made with dried mushrooms, giving them a chewy texture like seitan. The salsa was also a hit!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

My new destination town  

*WHY ROCHESTER, NEW YORK IS THE BEST SMALL CITY IN AMERICA FOR VEGANS *
*No, it’s not Portland. But Rochester is a vegan destination for so many reasons.*

What if I told you there was a vegan-friendly city located in an area of the country where long-term climate change projections were relatively promising, everything you needed was a ten-minute drive away (or a short walk, depending upon your neighborhood), and houses were still comparatively affordable? 

If you think I’m talking about Portland, OR, you’d be wrong—though it is true that perhaps this city is following in the footsteps of Portland, back before the hipsters put a bird on it. 

The plant-based heaven I speak of is Rochester, NY—the third-largest city in the Empire State (pop. 205,000). Also known as “Lilac City,” due to a massive annual Lilac Festival that blankets the town in bright purple, Rochesterians love this place for its tight-knit community, surprisingly bustling nightlife, and stunning green spaces. 

If you’re interested in a town that caters to vegan sensibilities, here’s why Rochester should be on your radar.

*13 Reasons Why Rochester, NY is the Best Small City for Vegans*









*1Vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants*
There are a small handful of vegan restaurants here serving 100-percent plant-based fare. Stand-outs include Red Fern, boasting a “Compost Plate” that is the ethical alternative to the city’s iconic “Garbage Plate (traditionally containing a cacophony of various types of meat with dairy-laden side dishes); ”New Ethic Pizza (it also has a spin on a garbage plate featuring Beyond burgers); Allah’s Kitchen (the Culture Bowl is basically a better version of a soul food plate); Natural Oasis Cafe (for next-level Ethiopian food); and new bakery, Hollycake House (consider your croissant cravings met, vegans). 

There’s also a vegan butcher shop (yes, you read that correctly) that will fool both you and your meat-eating uncle. Mom-and-Pop shop Grass Fed is redefining plant-based meats with its small-batch selections made from all plant-based ingredients. With kosher offerings including everything from brisket to butter chicken and even pâté, this shop boasts an old-school flair (think Lower East Side, 1930s), complete with an adorable deli scale to measure your pastrami slices. 

On top of those all-vegan mainstays, the vegan-friendly options abound in this town—with standouts including the always-charming Voula’s Greek Sweets and, for a date night, romantic Owl House.

*2Vegan food service *
Or you could just stay in and have your food cooked and delivered to you. SweetPea Plant-Based Kitchen delivers whole foods-based vegan meals to your house, and there are a number of plans to choose from. 

Rotating specials include Gigante Beans “Oreganata” with Tomato and Broccoli Rabe, BBQ Beetloaf with Red Flannel Hash and Cabbage Slaw, and Chick n’ Jack Salad Pita. So even when your workday-from-home is over, you don’t need to change out of your pajama bottoms (no judgment).

*3Rochester Area Vegan Society*
Not only does Rochester have vegan food options everywhere you turn, but it also boasts the iconic Rochester Area Vegan Society (RAVS), which has been around for more than 30 kale-infused years. 

RAVS features regular events—both online and in-person—as well as a variety of different types of potlucks, picnics, and publications (oh my!). Some of the highfalutin’ go-to plant-based experts on the itinerary include notable MDs Neal Barnard and Caldwell Esselstyn. Get your beans ready and tune in.

*4Vegan-friendly policymakers*
It was RAVS that sent out word that a local advocate—the unflappable Pearl Brunt—was running for a political seat in nearby Pittsford with a platform that featured plant-based advocacy. 

So I eagerly attended a backyard fundraiser that featured Brunt’s very own vegan chili and cornbread, and I’ve been dreaming about it ever since. A policymaker who ran her campaign around veganism? Politics have never been so tasty.

*5Rochester Lifestyle Medicine *
One of the most special perks of Rochester is that there is an entire lifestyle medicine facility that is rooted in a plant-based ethic. Focused on preventative care and self-care, lifestyle medicine offers a holistic take on modern-day medicine. 

Rochester Lifestyle Medicine steps it up a notch by being entirely plant-based, offering a varied mix of online programming that helps people transition to a wholesome plant-based diet, as well as in-person one-on-one meetings with MDs who offer both impeccable bedside manner as well as a genuine desire to help you troubleshoot everything from life stressors to what to eat for breakfast.

*6Long-term climate change projections *
Most vegans I know care a helluva lot about the planet and understand the deep connection between climate change and animal agriculture (animal ag is the second-largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and is a leading cause of biodiversity loss and deforestation, amongst others). 

Rochester is considered a climate-refuge city, due to its lack of extreme weather conditions and its easy access to fresh water. This is the primary reason I moved up here, and I’m seeing more and more people making this choice. The green city also has the infrastructure to support a rapidly growing population, which is good news because Rochester might double in population in the next half-century.

*7Strong activism scene *
As someone who deeply cares about animal rights—both by itself and also as a cause that sits at the intersection of multiple social justice issues—I am lit up by the strong activist community in the city. 

This includes everything from a Rochester-based chapter of hunger-relief organization Food Not Bombs (which is and has always been vegan) to various antiracism efforts (this is more than necessary since this city, like so many others, suffers from racial-based violence—including three police killings of Black people by police in the past two years), to a tremendous amount of volunteer opportunities with the Center for Youth (from sponsoring meals at shelters to providing transitional housing to youth experiencing houselessness). There are more than enough opportunities here to put your passion to good use (and no excuses not to). 

If you’re seeking more inspiration than that, head on over to the historic Mt. Hope Cemetery where, among other historical heroes, you’ll find the gravesites for Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. 

*8)Access to nature, beaches, and festivals*
There are so many green spaces in Rochester that it’s hard to list them all. Renowned nurserymen Ellwanger and Barry planted their roots (so to speak) right here in Flower City, home to the world-renowned annual Lilac Festival (amongst a handful of other lively festivals that bring in tourists from near and far year after year). If, like me, you’re a Manhattanite-turned-Rochesterian, take note that the vast and artful Highland Park is designed by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead—who also designed Central Park. 

The city also boasts stunning, nature-filled experiences such as the Sunken Garden and the Lamberton Conservatory (I became an annual member for less than twenty bucks). In the mood for urban nature? There’s an enormous waterfall downtown (amidst a downtown revitalization project) that will leave you speechless. 

As for beaches, you’ll have your pick of several gorgeous ones on Lake Ontario—from boardwalks to rustic to state parks and everything in between. It’s hard to imagine that a city as hopping as Rochester also offers such a stunning array of outside green spaces, but it’s blissfully true. 










*9Gay bars, nightlife, and culture*
It’s possible I’m projecting here since I happen to love the queer scene, but forward-thinking Rochester has several venues to choose from—including Alex, which has the added perk of offering a very vegan-friendly menu (including Pizza Logs featuring vegan cheese and a vegan egg roll wrap), and the quaint, queer coffee shop, Equal Grounds. 

The nightlife in “The Roc” is lit, so plan on partying down at Roar or Lux Lounge, or slowly sipping your wine at the more buttoned-up Avvino. Beer snob? The extensive scene here will not leave you thirsty; Rochester is also home to the iconic Genesee Brewery (“Jenny,” as it’s fondly called, is totally vegan, as is the very popular Genny Cream Ale). 

*10No brain-drain here*
Rochester is home to genius innovators, past and present. Drawn here by leading higher education facilities including Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, and Eastman School of Music, wide-eyed students of all ages in this city are notoriously big thinkers about everything from music composition to advanced astrophysics. And since veganism is the future, those on the plant side will fit right in.

*11Relative affordability*
Astoundingly, the median cost of a home in the United States is about $375,000, making “the American dream” of homeownership a near impossibility for most people. In Rochester, however, the average cost of a home is teetering around $195,000, making it much more likely for many to go the route of buying. 

There are obviously a million caveats here—since nearly five percent of people in this country are unemployed, and more than 37.2 million people are living in poverty. If you’re privileged enough to not be part of those stats, you might find your future dream home in Rochester’s very active real estate market, which features many old, gracious, and well-cared-for homes on tree-lined streets. 

If you do, be sure to explore energy-optimized solutions for your home, such as solar and geothermal (check out ACES Energy) as well as insulation (check out Wise Home Energy) to keep your heating and cooling bills down and your conscience up. While, yes, there is snow here, you can keep your home cozy and warm without wrecking the planet.










*12Close proximity to the airport, Amtrak, and many big cities*
Let’s be real: There is still a global pandemic and many of us are still not traveling unless absolutely necessary. But whenever it feels safer to gallivant about, Rochester is your perfect home base. 

Not only are both the airport and the downtown Amtrak station a very short ride away, but there are also more day-trip destinations you could reach by car than I could possibly mention. If you’ve already eaten your way through The Roc (impressive!), head an hour-and-a-half downstate to Syracuse for an IG-ready lunch at Strong Hearts Cafe (they had me at Chocolate Banana Milkshake).

If you’re seeking solace and not bustle, a peaceful afternoon visit at the Watkins Glen location of world-renowned Farm Sanctuary—home to rescued farmed animals whose charm and bravery will bring you to tears—is just what the activist ordered. That’s right in the center of the stunning Finger Lakes, so be prepared for some impressive views. And as long as you’re pulling over for that selfie, you might as well also enjoy the extensive panoply of wineries all around you. 

Still hungry for more? Cross the close by border to Toronto where vegan options await on every corner—you might even make a weekend of it (be sure to have your negative Covid test on hand or the country won’t let you in).

*13People are kind*
Though the rest of the country might consider all of New York state to be on the east coast, this Western New York city has more of a midwest feel; thus, it has long been known for its genuine neighborly charm. As a small city, Rochester has a vibe that is endlessly chill (and no, I’m not referring to the cold winters—but rest assured that the city is well-prepared to deal with the snowfall, including plowing the sidewalks for you). 

Within a few weeks of moving here, my neighborhood hosted a block party where my wife and I felt earnestly welcomed. My neighbors had caught wind of our veganism and generously offered ample plant-based dishes to share. 

This kind spirit is not unusual, so if you’re seeking an open-armed welcome, make your way to western New York. I’ll be waiting for you with a meatless casserole.









Why Rochester, New York Is The Best Small City in America for Vegans


No, it’s not Portland. But Rochester is a vegan destination for so many reasons.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*DRINKING MILK INCREASES PROSTATE CANCER RISK FOR MEN BY 60 PERCENT, STUDY FINDS*


en who regularly consume dairy, particularly milk, compared to those who abstain from it, could be at approximately a 60-percent higher risk of developing prostate cancer, according to a new study. Published in the scientific journal _The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,_ the study was conducted by researchers at Loma Linda University who were interested in investigating links between diet and prostate cancer.

Since 2001, researchers have been monitoring the health of 28,737 Seventh-day Adventist men in the United States and Canada. The cohort study examined the dietary habits of these men over a period of five years and monitored their health throughout. Researchers used the state cancer registries to find that at the end of the study, 1,254 participants had developed prostate cancer. 

The researchers analyzed participants based on their intake of non-dairy calcium and compared them based on the amount of dairy they consumed. The study found that men who consumed 430 grams of dairy per day (which equates to 1¾ cups of milk) faced a 25-percent increased risk of prostate cancer compared to men who consumed 20.2 grams of dairy per day (or about ½ cup of milk per week). When the highest dairy intake group was compared to the men who consumed zero dairy, that risk was much higher. The type of milk—full fat versus low fat—was not linked to significant variation in prostate cancer risk. 

Researchers also noted that calcium intake from non-dairy sources did not play a role in prostate cancer risk, suggesting that substances other than calcium in dairy are involved. “Our findings add important weight to other evidence associating dairy products, rather than non-dairy calcium, as a modifiable risk factor for prostate cancer,” Gary Fraser, the study’s principal investigator and professor at Loma Linda University School of Medicine and School of Public Health, said in a statement. 










*Dairy hormones and prostate cancer*
Fraser explained that one possible factor that links dairy consumption to higher prostate cancer risk is that the illness is hormone-responsive. Since up 75 percent of lactating cows are pregnant, presence of hormones in milk could be what increases prostate cancer risk. The study also notes that previous studies have linked the consumption of dairy and other animal products to a higher blood level of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), which is thought to promote certain cancers. 

Another interesting factor in this study revealed that an incremental increase in dairy intake did not result in a corresponding rise in prostate cancer risk but rather a curvilinear spike at certain levels, which means that previous studies might have missed the link between dairy and prostate cancer because participants were already consuming more than one cup of milk per day. “Most of the continuing increase in risk is done with by the time you get to 150 grams, about two-thirds of a cup of milk per day,” Fraser said. “It’s almost as if some biological or biochemical pathway is saturated at about two-thirds of a cup of milk per day.” 

The findings of this study are notably similar to a separate study the researchers published in 2020 that found a significant increase in breast cancer risk among women who consumed dairy milk regularly. “The parallels between our breast cancer in women paper a year ago and this paper relating to men, are striking,” Fraser said. “It seems possible that the same biological mechanisms are at work.”

Fraser noted that more research is needed in this field to definitively link dairy consumption with increased cancer risk and advised: “If you think you’re at higher-than-average risk, consider the alternatives of soy, oat, cashew, and other non-dairy milks.”










*Plant-based diet for prostate health*
On the flip side, a growing body of research has shown that a plant-based diet can be protective against certain cancers, including prostate. One recent example is a study published in 2021 in the _Journal of Urology that followed_ 47,243 men for up to 28 years. Plant-based dietary patterns were calculated using data from food frequency questionnaires collected every four years to discover the association between plant-based diets and the risk of prostate cancer. 

The study found that a greater consumption of plant-based foods was associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer. Furthermore, in men under 65 years of age at diagnosis, greater overall consumption of plant-based foods was associated with a lower risk of advanced prostate cancer. 










Drinking Milk Increases Prostate Cancer Risk for Men by 60 Percent, Study Finds


A new study finds that high dairy milk consumption in men substantially increases risk for developing prostate cancer—a hormone-responsive disease.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How Much Water Do You Actually Need?*
Here’s how to know when you truly need to hydrate.











If you’ve spent any time on social media or visited an athletic event lately, you’ve surely been bombarded with encouragements to drink more water. Celebrity influencers lug around gallon-sized water bottles as _the_ hot new accessory. Twitter bots constantly remind us to make more time to hydrate. Some reusable water bottles even come emblazoned with motivational phrases — “Remember your goal,” “Keep drinking,” “Almost finished” — to encourage more drinking throughout the day.
The purported benefits of excess water consumption are seemingly endless, from improved memory and mental health to increased energy to better complexion. “Stay hydrated” has become a new version of the old salutation, “Stay well.”


> this is to remind you all to drink water!! some of you may forget but it’s important to stay hydrated, so that’s why i’m here :]
> — water reminder !! (@MCYTWATERBOT) January 8, 2021


But what, exactly, does “stay hydrated” mean? “When lay people discuss dehydration, they mean loss of any fluids,” said Dr. Joel Topf, a nephrologist and assistant clinical professor of medicine at Oakland University in Michigan.

But that interpretation “has been completely blown out of proportion,” said Kelly Anne Hyndman, a kidney function researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Staying hydrated is definitely important, she said, but the idea that the simple act of drinking more water will make people healthier isn’t true. Nor is it correct that most people are walking around chronically dehydrated or that we should be drinking water all day long.
From a medical standpoint, Dr. Topf added, the most important measure of hydration is the balance between electrolytes like sodium and water in the body. And you don’t need to chug glass after glass of water throughout the day to maintain it.

*How much water do I really need to drink?*
We’ve all been taught that eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day is the magic number for everyone, but that notion is a myth, said Tamara Hew-Butler, an exercise and sports scientist at Wayne State University.
Unique factors like body size, outdoor temperature and how hard you’re breathing and sweating will determine how much you need, she said. A 200-pound person who just hiked 10 miles in the heat will obviously need to drink more water than a 120-pound office manager who spent the day in a temperature-controlled building.

The amount of water you need in a day will also depend on your health. Someone with a medical condition like heart failure or kidney stones may require a different amount than someone taking diuretic drugs, for example. Or you may need to alter your intake if you’ve been ill, with vomiting or diarrhea.

For most young, healthy people, the best way to stay hydrated is simply to drink when you’re thirsty, Dr. Topf said. (Those who are older, in their 70s and 80s, may need to pay more attention to getting sufficient fluids because the thirst sensation can decrease with age.)
And despite popular belief, don’t rely on urine color to accurately indicate your hydration status, Dr. Hew-Butler said. Yes, it’s possible that dark yellow or amber urine could mean that you’re dehydrated, but there’s no solid science to suggest that the color, alone, should prompt a drink.

*Do I have to drink water to stay hydrated?*
Not necessarily. From a purely nutritional standpoint, water is a better choice than less healthy options like sugary sodas or fruit juices. But when it comes to hydration, any beverage can add water to your system, Dr. Hew-Butler said.
One popular notion is that drinking beverages with caffeine or alcohol will dehydrate you, but if that’s true, the effect is negligible, Dr. Topf said. A 2016 randomized controlled trial of 72 men, for instance, concluded that the hydrating effects of water, lager, coffee and tea were nearly identical.
You can also get water from what you eat. Fluid-rich foods and meals like fruits, vegetables, soups and sauces all contribute to water intake. Additionally, the chemical process of metabolizing food produces water as a byproduct, which adds to your intake too, Dr. Topf said.









How Much Water Do You Actually Need?


Here’s how to know when you truly need to hydrate.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Here's everything you need to know about a plant-based diet from a talk given at the Eco Medics conference on May 22nd 2022 at the Royal Geographic Society by Dr. Shireen.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The 14 things you need to know before you go vegan*









More and more of us are going vegan. The environmental and ethical case for a diet free of all animal products, including meat, fish, dairy and eggs, is compelling. According to research from the University of Oxford, going vegan is the “single biggest way” to reduce your impact on the planet. And that is before you consider the ethical arguments against eating industrially farmed animals, which have an appalling quality of life and are often pumped full of powerful antibiotics that may pose a risk to human health.

But if you are a lifelong meat-eater, it is hard to know where to start. We asked some leading vegans for their advice for adults who want to make the transition.


*Should you jump right in? Or is it better to dip your toe into a plant-based diet first?*
“I don’t think there is a right answer about whether to do it immediately or not,” says Henry Firth, one half of the vegan social-media sensation Bosh!. “It’s about what’s right for you and what’s sustainable for your lifestyle.” Some experts suggest easing into veganism via a sightseeing tour of the world of vegetarianism, while others favour going cold tofu.

Katy Beskow, a longtime vegan and the author of three bestselling cookbooks, suggests a gradual approach. “The availability of vegan products means you can do it so much more easily than before. My advice is to replace products in your diet with alternatives step by step, be it milk, mayonnaise or yoghurt. That way, you won’t see a difference.”

*How do I deal with negative responses from meat-loving family and friends?*
Kill the haters with kindness – and delicious food. “You can make your meat jokes or tell me I’m going to die, but I’m comfortable with my decision,” says the author and columnist Isa Chandra Moskowitz. “Treat people with kindness, even if they are being jerks. And cook for them – you get to show them how yummy things are. It’s a really beautiful gesture that stops people from being aggressive and helps them to see that the food is good – and you’re OK.”

Be empathic towards people expressing negative attitudes. “I can understand when people have some negativity towards veganism because I was in that position once,” says the YouTuber, chef and author Gaz Oakley. “It was just fear of the unknown and not being educated on the matter.” Treat such encounters as a teaching opportunity – but don’t lecture people. “If I’m at a party and someone makes a little dig about veganism, it’s just about educating them and making them feel at ease. Say stuff such as: ‘I never thought I would be a vegan until I saw this or found out this.’ Don’t be judgmental or argue back. Just try to educate them as best you can.”

Humour helps. “I remember doing a TV programme once where someone asked me: ‘How bad are your farts because you’re a vegan?’” says the poet, actor and musician Benjamin Zephaniah. “I said: ‘Your farts smell of dead, rotting flesh. My farts smell like broccoli. Don’t worry about mine, man – think about yours.’”












*How do I make sure I am getting enough protein?*
“It’s the only time people ever ask you about protein, when you go vegan,” Beskow says. “Protein deficiency is a really rare thing in the western world. It’s just about combining protein such as beans, pulses, seeds and nuts. It sounds as if you’re eating rabbit food, but you’re not. You can just sprinkle a handful of toasted pine nuts over some pasta or add a can of beans into your chilli.”

Heather Russell, a registered dietician at the Vegan Society, says there is no cause for concern. “A common myth is that it’s difficult to get protein from plant foods. In reality, they can provide all the essential protein building blocks that we call amino acids. Good sources include beans, lentils, chickpeas, soya products, peanut butter, cashew nuts and pumpkin seeds.”

*What about vitamins and minerals?*
If you are going vegan, it is important to make sure you get enough vitamin B12 – commonly found in meat, eggs and fish – as without it, you will feel exhausted and weak. You can get B12 from fortified foods including “dairy alternatives, breakfast cereal, dairy-free spread and yeast extract”, says Russell. Alternatively, you can take a B12 supplement, which you can buy in most pharmacies and health-food stores. Russell also advises you think about your calcium intake. “Fortified plant milk contains the same amount of calcium as cow’s milk, and fortified yoghurt alternatives, calcium-set tofu, and a soya and linseed bread fortified with extra calcium are also really rich sources.”

*Veganism seems expensive. How do I make a plant-based diet affordable?*
Zephaniah hears this a lot. “I speak to single parents who say: ‘When I’m going down to the supermarket, you think I’ve got time to go and nip into a health food store and read all the labels? I’ve got three kids in tow!’” He tries to allay their concerns. “Basically, we want fruit, vegetables and lentils of various kinds. Forget about all the posh cuisines and all that stuff. That’s all right if you’ve got the money for it. But veganism, in principle, should be really cheap.”

If you are on a limited budget, steer clear of processed foods. “It’s a myth that vegan food has to be expensive,” says Firth. “In order to keep it cheap, though, it’s a good idea to avoid products that even say ‘vegan’ on them. So you’re not going to go to the expensive supermarkets and buy products in plastic that have been made in labs or factories; they’re going to be expensive. You’re just going to go back to basics and eat fruit, vegetables, grains, nuts and beans – and you are going to be incredibly healthy, as well as saving money.”

*Do I have to give up going to dinner at other people’s houses?*
That depends on whether you trust them to respect your dietary preferences. “If I’m going to a friend’s house who really respects my veganism and will make the effort to look after me, I will,” Zephaniah says. “But, on the whole, I don’t want people to bend over backwards for me, so I’ll say: ‘Let’s go out,’ or: ‘I’ll come round and you have your dinner and we’ll have some drinks.’”

A good approach for any well-mannered guest is to offer to bring a vegan dish with them. “By offering to bring some food, you’re contributing and you’re getting a chance to show delicious food to everyone who is not vegan, as well as taking the stress or annoyance out of the hands of the host,” says Firth. If the host prefers to cook, remind them of what you can and can’t eat – animal products have a way of slipping into things – so that they don’t accidentally put fish sauce in your curry. You may even want to suggest a recipe for them to try. But the most important thing is to have a frank conversation with your host before you turn up at their front door. “The one thing you don’t want to do is just turn up without having made a plan or had a conversation,” says Firth. “That’s going to annoy anyone.”

*What should I do if I have a wobble and really crave some meat?*
Breaking a decades-long attachment to the smells, flavours and textures of meat can be hard. Perhaps you are hungover and craving a bacon sandwich or at a barbecue when the smell of sausages wafts over to you. The good news is that nowadays it is easy to recreate the flavours and textures of meat in vegan food, whether it is a plant-based burger that bleeds like real meat, jackfruit “pulled pork” or seitan with the texture and crunch of fried chicken. “In my recipes and YouTube videos, often I recreate certain dishes, whether it’s vegan chicken, beefsteaks or turkey – whatever else I can veganise,” says Oakley. “You can get that same texture and taste when you’re vegan. You’re spoilt for choice these days. You can get chicken, ribs, bacon, steaks, burgers, sausages – everything is available. When I went vegan four years ago, those things weren’t there.” 

*What if I am not that keen on eating plants?*
“Eat familiar recipes and replace ingredients with plant-based alternatives,” says Beskow. Take shepherd’s pie: “Instead of mince, you can use a can of green lentils. That way, you are getting some of your five a day because you have onion, carrot and celery, just as you would with any shepherd’s pie, but you’re hiding those lentils in there.” If you simply cannot eat your greens, do as parents of toddlers do and puree some vegetables, then bung them in a pasta sauce.

But you are going to have to get over your vegetable phobia at some point. “Vegan or not, you should be working vegetables into your life,” says Moskowitz. “I don’t know if it’s good to say: ‘I don’t like any vegetables, so I can’t go vegan.’ You’re going to have trouble actually living.”

*Is it difficult to maintain a healthy weight on a vegan diet?*
If you only eat salad, perhaps – but what a joyless life that would be. “Well-planned vegan diets can support healthy living in people of all ages,” says Russell. “They can provide all the calories and nutrients needed to hit nutritional targets and maintain a healthy weight.”

Being vegan doesn’t mean you are on a diet. Beskow urges converts to indulge in all their favourite treats from their pre-vegan lifestyle, in moderation. “If you are used to eating biscuits, you can buy lots of biscuits in supermarkets that are accidentally vegan … Have some crisps, enjoy your food – that’s what it’s all about. People see veganism as so restrictive and about saying no, but it’s about saying yes – but to different things.”

*It is difficult to find vegan options where I live. How can I keep my diet varied and interesting?*
If you are fortunate enough to have access to a garden or an allotment, get out there. Growing your own fruit and vegetables can be a great way to keep a vegan diet interesting. “I live in the middle of a field in Lincolnshire,” says Zephaniah. He has devoted a part of his garden to growing vegetables; in summer, he always has a glut. “I hardly have to go to a supermarket – I’ve got too much food. I have to give it away to the neighbours.”

Firth says: “You don’t need loads and loads of quirky ingredients. You can get a few base ingredients from your local shop and cook up thousands of delicious treats.” Most supermarkets, even in rural areas, will be able to cater to vegan diets. “I live in east Yorkshire and we don’t have any specialist vegan shops around us,” says Beskow. “But that’s OK because I don’t tend to shop in health-food shops or vegan shops anyway. Everything that I need is in the supermarket or the local market.” She advises following the Instagram account Accidentally Vegan, which uploads supermarket products that happen to be vegan.

*What if my partner doesn’t want to go vegan? Will it affect our relationship?*
Let’s face it: all couples do these days is eat food in front of box sets. But what if your partner is an avowed steak-eater? Will it affect your relationship? Not necessarily, says Moskowitz. “Find food you both like, eat separately, do whatever you have to do. There are lots of relationships where people have different political ideologies; most people have other things in common and that’s the reason they’re together.” Beskow’s fiance isn’t a vegan, but they muddle through: he doesn’t cook meat at home, but will eat meat when they go out for dinner. “I think it’s about making food you are both happy with, so they’re not missing out on anything.”

*What about children? Is veganism safe for them?*
Children can be healthy vegans. “It is possible to provide all the nutrients needed for growth and development without animal products,” Russell says. She advises parents to consult the Vegan Society website, which has detailed guidance on vegan diets for children of all ages, including infants, and can offer advice on which fortified foods and supplements it may be necessary for them to take.

*What are your favourite very simple vegan recipes?*
Bosh!’s Ian Theasby suggests a simple pasta dish: take vegetables, roast them in olive oil for half an hour, take them out of the oven and cover them with tinned tomatoes, then stick them back in for another 10 minutes. “What you are left with is an extremely tasty, really nutritious pasta sauce that will satisfy anybody.” Oakley suggests learning how to make a simple ramen. “Stir-fry some vegan protein, whether it’s tofu or vegan chicken, along with some vegetables. Get a nice vegetable stock, squeeze some miso paste in there, add some soy sauce and chilli, and throw in some noodles. You’ve got a quick ramen that takes you about 15 minutes.”

*What if I slip up and break my vegan streak? Should I just give up?*
We’re only human and we make mistakes. If you do end up eating some meat, take the time to rediscover why you went vegan in the first place. “Don’t get too down about it,” says Oakley. “We don’t live in a vegan world yet. It may even be out of your hands: perhaps you are given something that isn’t vegan. But refer back to the initial thing that made you go vegan. Get your real motivation and you won’t slip up.”

The crucial thing, all the experts agree, is not to beat yourself up about it. “Vegans aren’t perfect,” says Zephaniah. “We just think it’s worth it. We’re trying to do the most good and the least harm. And that’s the best you can do. So just keep trying.”









The 14 things you need to know before you go vegan


The environmental, health and ethical benefits of veganism are beyond doubt. But what if you feel a bit intimidated by the idea? Some experts offer their advice




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It was probably healthier for their teeth than fruit drinks.


*Kids at camp given floor sealant instead of milk to drink, parents say it was a poor substitute*









Summer school participants at Glacier Valley Elementary School in Juneau, Alaska, received glasses of floor sealant for breakfast in place of milk at a summer school program.

Juneau School District Superintendent Bridget Weiss told _Newsweek_, "We are still investigating how it happened. What we do know is that sealant that was packaged in large pouches was mistakenly delivered to the site on the same pallet as boxes of large pouches of milk. The liquid looked just like milk and was mistakenly put in the milk dispenser. The sealant did not have any odor so wasn't immediately obvious."

Fortunately, the safety data sheet for Hillyard Seal 341 says it is "expected to be a low ingestion hazard." The product's description page states that it has an "attractive, low lustre finish."

Parents weren't informed of the mistake until hours later.

_Newsweek_ reported that Weiss said the kids are doing great but had some stomach aches, headaches, and burning in their mouths and throats after ingesting the medication.









Kids at camp given floor sealant instead of milk to drink, parents say it was a poor substitute | Boing Boing


Summer school participants at Glacier Valley Elementary School in Juneau, Alaska, received glasses of floor sealant for breakfast in place of milk at a summer school program. Juneau School District…




boingboing.net


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Can Your Diet Really Affect Your Skin Cancer Risk?*
A new study found that older adults who ate more fish were more likely to develop melanoma, but experts urged caution when interpreting the findings.











A large study published Wednesday found a surprising link between fish consumption and developing melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer. But while the finding raises questions about possible links between diet and melanoma, the study’s lead author and other experts cautioned that it’s not a reason to avoid eating fish. It also doesn’t change the most important advice for reducing melanoma risk: Limit your exposure to UV rays from the sun or tanning beds.

The new study, published in the journal Cancer Causes & Control, evaluated data from more than 490,000 adults in the United States between the ages of 50 and 71 who were enrolled in the N.I.H.-A.A.R.P. Diet and Health Study. At the start of the study, participants completed detailed questionnaires, including information about their fish intake, and then were followed for about 15 years to track cancer diagnoses among the group. Compared with those who ate hardly any fish, the group that ate the most — on average 10 ounces, or about three servings, per week — had 22 percent more cases of malignant melanoma, the researchers found.

It’s not clear why eating fish might affect a person’s risk of developing melanoma, said Eunyoung Cho, an associate professor of dermatology at Brown University and the lead author of the study. “We believe it’s not fish per se, but probably some contaminant in fish,” she said. Other studies have found that people who eat more fish have higher levels of heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic in the body. These same contaminants are also associated with a higher risk of skin cancer, she noted. However, her study didn’t measure contaminant levels in participants, and more research is needed to explore this link, she said.

“I wouldn’t discourage people from having fish just because of our finding,” Dr. Cho said. Eating fish is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and maybe even some other cancers, she pointed out. The American Cancer Society recommends choosing fish, poultry and beans more often than red meat, and the American Heart Association advises eating two servings of fish per week for heart health. (One serving is three ounces of cooked fish, according to the A.H.A., or about three-quarters of a cup of flaked fish.)

Other experts were similarly cautious in their interpretation of the study’s findings. “This does not change dietary recommendations for fish intake as part of a heart-healthy, anti-inflammatory or broad cancer prevention diet,” Carrie Daniel-MacDougall, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, wrote in an email.

Dr. Daniel-MacDougall led an earlier analysis, with a shorter follow-up time and fewer variables, of the same N.I.H.-A.A.R.P. cohort included in the most recent study. Her paper, published in 2011, also found a correlation between fish intake and melanoma risk. However, the N.I.H.-A.A.R.P. study was originally designed to track many types of cancers, and it didn’t measure important and well-known melanoma risk factors, like a history of sunburns or greater lifetime UV exposure, Dr. Daniel-MacDougall wrote. People with these risk factors may have spent more time in the sun — perhaps at the beach or fishing — and may have also been more likely to enjoy seafood, she pointed out. Without more information, it’s impossible to determine if it’s the fish, time in the sun or some other factor driving the greater melanoma risk.

Dr. Sancy Leachman, director of the Melanoma Research Program at Oregon Health & Science University, said the new study was well-designed and called the findings “intriguing.” But, she said, when “you crunch large data sets like this,” what you find are correlations between factors, not evidence that one causes another. This type of study is good for developing new hypotheses — that contaminants found in fish might increase the risk of melanoma, for example — but they need much more research to see if they hold up.

“Science evolves, and you can’t do everything overnight. That’s just part of the process,” Dr. Leachman said.

When it comes to correlations between cancer risk and specific foods, “don’t get overwhelmed by this incomplete data that is yet to be proven,” Dr. Leachman said. “Hold on to the tried and true things: Eat well, sleep well, exercise well, all of that in moderation,” she said. “That gives you the most resilience you can possibly have against any kind of disease, including cancer.”

And for melanoma specifically, “the most effective practices we have to prevent melanoma are limiting sun exposure — across the life span, starting in childhood — and skin cancer screening,” Dr. Daniel-MacDougall wrote.

Compared with the limited data on fish and other dietary factors, there’s far more evidence to support this advice, Dr. Leachman agreed. Having had five or more sunburns doubles your lifetime risk of melanoma, and using an indoor tanning bed can increase your risk by 75 percent, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.

Check your skin regularly for any spots that seem to be new, changing or unusual, and see a doctor if you find something concerning, Dr. Leachman said. “If you see something that looks funny, don’t just blow it off,” she said. “The earlier you can get it checked, the better off you’re going to be.”

Many studies have identified correlations between certain foods and types of cancer, but in general, when more studies are conducted and the results are looked at as a whole, the effects often become smaller or disappear altogether. For melanoma specifically, limited studies have turned up some strange and surprising correlations with certain foods. Eating more citrus fruit has been associated with a greater melanoma risk in some, but not all, studies, for example; and red and processed meat has been associated with lower risk of melanoma but a higher risk of other cancers.










Can Your Diet Really Affect Your Skin Cancer Risk?


A new study found that older adults who ate more fish were more likely to develop melanoma, but experts urged caution when interpreting the findings.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Over 2,000 Cows Die in Kansas in Record-Breaking Heat Wave*

At least 2,000 cows have died in recent days in Kansas due to excessive heat and humidity. Much of the United States has been facing a brutal heat wave this week as more than 1,800 temperature records have been shattered from California to Michigan. More than 100 million people have been advised to stay indoors due to the excessive heat. Europe and much of South Asia are also facing record heat waves this week. UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said more extreme heat events will keep occurring if global emissions are not slashed.



> *Daniel Swain*: “Obviously, in the long run, the only solution is to bring carbon emissions to close to zero and eventually halt global warming, and thereby halt the increase in extreme heat events.”











Over 2,000 Cows Die in Kansas in Record-Breaking Heat Wave


At least 2,000 cows have died in recent days in Kansas due to excessive heat and humidity. Much of the United States has been facing a brutal heat wave this week as more than 1,800 temperature records have been shattered from California to Michigan. More than 100 million people have been advised...



www.democracynow.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Will Cutting Out Dairy Give Me Clear Skin?*
Maybe, experts say, but the science is mixed.


*Q: Does cutting out dairy really help control acne?*

With the rising popularity of plant-based milks and beauty bloggers insinuating that dairy-based foods and beverages like cheese, “gooey pasta” and “frothy cappuccinos” will worsen conditions such as acne, you might think you need to ditch dairy for the sake of clearer skin.

But while some evidence suggests that cutting back on certain dairy products may help clear up your acne, it may not be for the reasons you think. Here’s what we know.

*What does the science suggest?*
Nutrition research is inherently difficult to conduct, and few studies have examined the relationship between dairy and acne in general, so results are often conflicting, said Dr. Andrea Zaenglein, a pediatric dermatologist at the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Experts can only hypothesize as to what the underlying connections may be, and so far the results of studies have been limited and mixed.

In one study of 225 teenagers published in 2016, for example, Dr. Zaenglein and her co-authors found that those who drank low-fat or skim milk were more likely to have acne than those who drank whole milk. In another study published in 2016 and performed on more than 1,000 adults, researchers concluded that whole milk (in addition to reduced-fat milk) was linked to the appearance of pimples.

When it comes to yogurt and cheese, there is no evidence that they can lead to more breakouts, according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association.
Some dermatologists suggest that the amount of milk (rather than the type of milk) you consume may be most important in acne flare-ups. Others have hypothesized that the artificial and natural hormones present in milk could influence breakouts. And limited research has suggested that the whey protein found in milk might be linked to pimples in some people, based on case studies of athletes whose acne improved after cutting out whey supplements.
*It may be the sugar and the carbs, not the milk*
Still, the most popular theory of all when it comes to the relationship between food and acne has to do with a food’s glycemic index. Food that is rich in sugars and simple carbohydrates tends to rank higher on the glycemic index and is quickly digested by your body, causing blood glucose levels to spike. Regularly eating high G.I. foods like pizza, cookies and sweetened yogurts can force your body to increase its production of insulin and lead to a host of issues over time, including inflammation and acne, said Dr. Amy Kassouf, a dermatologist at the Cleveland Clinic. While many dairy products are low G.I. foods, consuming too much of them may also trigger the same pathway of inflammation in the body, exacerbating acne.
Studies have suggested that focusing on eating low glycemic foods, like many vegetables and fruits, beans and whole grains, not only helps stabilize insulin levels, but also leads to a reduction in acne.
“What this really tells us is that acne is a very complex inflammatory disorder,” Dr. Zaenglein said. “It’s incredibly difficult to say that one single factor makes a huge difference.”

*What is actually proven to improve acne?*
While more research is needed to determine whether going dairy-free can clear up your skin, there is no harm in taking a closer look at the impact your diet may be having. The A.A.D. recommends keeping a food diary and noting when certain foods or drinks seem to trigger a breakout or worsen existing zits. Then, they recommend experimenting with cutting out those foods or drinks to see if that helps.
If you think dairy products in particular are making your skin worse, start by eliminating those that have a high glycemic index, like ice cream, milk shakes and sugary yogurts. But make sure you’re still getting important nutrients, like protein and calcium, from other parts of your diet. “For many people, dairy is a primary source of protein and calcium in particular. So we have to be very cautious about saying dairy causes acne, because dairy may also be preventing osteoporosis and all sorts of things that are a little bit more directly correlated,” Dr. Zaenglein said.
Keep in mind that if you do see any skin changes as a result of cutting out certain foods from your diet, it won’t happen overnight. Based on what she’s seen in her own clinic, Dr. Kassouf said, “you have to commit to at least three months and maybe closer to six to really see a positive benefit.”
Still, keeping your skin acne-free may require more than a diet change, said Dr. Hilary Baldwin, a dermatologist and medical director of the Acne Treatment & Research Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. “I have never had a patient come to me and say, ‘I gave up dairy and it made all the difference in the world.’”
People with mild acne may benefit from certain over-the-counter products containing the topical retinoid adapalene or the antimicrobial compound benzoyl peroxide, Dr. Baldwin said. But be wary of using too many harsh products, which could include astringents, toners and exfoliants, and products containing alcohol. These can irritate or dry out your skin or make your acne worse, she said.
In fact, according to the A.A.D., acne-friendly skin care is actually pretty simple: Wash your face twice a day (using gentle cleansers, avoiding harsh scrubbing and rinsing with lukewarm water), avoid touching your face, shampoo your hair when it gets oily and remember to remove makeup before going to bed.
However, people with moderate to severe acne may require prescription treatments, Dr. Baldwin said, including topical or oral antibiotics, prescription retinoids, creams that reduce oil production or inflammation, or oral contraceptives. A dermatologist may also recommend lesser-known treatments, like the blood pressure medication spironolactone, which can reduce oil production and acne.

Nutrition is just one of the many factors that may play a role in acne, Dr. Baldwin said. Your genetics, hormones, sleep quality and environment can also influence acne. And in the end, she added, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for everyone.









Will Cutting Out Dairy Give Me Clear Skin?


Maybe, experts say, but the science is mixed.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*WHY 10 PERCENT OF MEAT, EGGS, AND DAIRY WILL COME FROM ALTERNATIVE PROTEINS BY 2035*

One in 10 servings of meat, eggs, and dairy will be derived from alternative proteins by 2035, according to a new report on Canada’s alternative proteins industry. The report, called _Game Changers: Canadian Opportunities in Alternative Protein_, also reveals that the alternative proteins market is projected to be worth $290 billion by 2030. 

_Game Changers_ is the first report to compile Canada’s extensive activity in alternative protein development in one place. It features more than 100 Canadian start-ups, large agri-food corporations, investors, research facilities, and others engaged in the sector. The report aims, in part, to be a resource for investors and corporations looking for partners in research, development, or investment in all areas of alternative protein, including plant-based, fermentation, cellular agriculture, or other methods that are not dependent on animals. 

“We work closely with innovators and investors in the alternative protein sector every day, and we were still pleasantly surprised by the number of companies, transactions, IPOs, and investments that were identified in the research for the _Game Changers_ document,” Shelley King, CEO, Natural Products Canada, said in a statement. Natural Products Canada is a co-author of the report along with Protein Industries Canada, Humane Society International/Canada, and The Protein Highway. 










*Growth of the alternative proteins sector*
The _Game Changers_ report was developed through meta analysis, stakeholder interviews, and input from key players active in the alternative protein industry, including Roquette, AGT, Blue Horizon, CellAgri, Dalhousie University, and the Good Food Institute. 

Information from a first-of-its-kind study by Blue Horizon in 2021 revealed that the market for alternative proteins will grow from the current 13 million metric tons a year to 97 million metric tons by 2035, when it will make up 11 percent of the overall protein market in its base case scenario. Faster technological innovation and full regulatory support could speed growth to 22 percent of the market by 2035. The report said that, at that rate, Europe and North America would reach “peak meat” by 2025, and the consumption of animal protein in those regions would actually begin to decline.

“One of the most telling signs of the staying power of the alternative protein industry is the fact that mainstream grocery and other retail outlets, as well as restaurants and food service companies, have adopted it broadly,” the _Game Changers_ report said.

The global demand for alternative proteins is driven by multiple factors, including environmental sustainability, health and nutrition, and food security. The report notes a Canadian survey, undertaken by the Agri-food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, in partnership with Caddle Inc. with insight from over 10,000 respondents, found that just over one third believe that cell-based and cultured food will help ease climate change and be more ethical than animal-based foods. And notably, by 2030, 27 percent of Canadians estimate that we will obtain our protein from equal parts animal, plant, and cell-cultured sources, and another 26 percent believe protein will be obtained from plant-based sources only. 











Canadian companies and investment and progress in other forms of alternative protein—such as fermentation and cellular agriculture, which address the factors driving consumers demand—are also included in the _Game Changers_ report.

*Challenges of an emerging industry*
However, the report also notes three key challenges that come with filling white space in a growing industry: quality, capacity, and price. When it comes to quality, the report notes that the biggest issue is the ability of alternative proteins to stand up to traditional counterparts in taste, texture, variety, and nutrition. But it also notes that with consumers actively seeking out “clean label” and non-processed foods, there is a significant opportunity to increase the flavor and texture with fewer and more nutritious ingredients.

When it comes to capacity, the report notes that the true test of any new industry is how well it can scale to meet demand. When it comes to the alternative proteins sector, it will mean more land to grow and process ingredients and a substantial increase in bioreactor capacity for emerging industries such as cellular agriculture and fermentation-based proteins.

And lastly, when it comes to price, the report notes that many predict price parity by as early as 2023, which could significantly increase consumers’ willingness to try and buy alternative proteins. And new technologies from fermentation and cell-based agriculture are following the same path, with an expectation to reach price parity with animal-based meats by 2030.










The _Game Changers _report notes the significant resources available in Canada to continue growing the market, and a substantial segment of the activity involves strategic projects to develop new plant-based products or technologies by multinational corporations and Canadian agri-tech companies with co-investment by Protein Industries Canada.

“Proteins developed through plants, cellular agriculture, and fermentation will build a more diversified food system that is better for animals, our planet and human health, while ensuring food security well into the future,” Riana Topan, campaign manager of HSI/Canada, said in a statement. “We are in a race against time to address the climate crisis and with global demand for protein expected to nearly double by 2050, Canada has an opportunity to leverage its strengths in research, innovation and agriculture to build a strong alternative protein sector.”









Why 10 Percent of Meat, Eggs, and Dairy Will Come from Alternative Proteins by 2035


A new report on Canada’s alternative proteins industry reveals that one in 10 servings of meat, eggs, and dairy will come from alternative proteins by 2035.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Wabatuckian (9 mo ago)

I'm a vegetarian, once removed.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*TAIKA WAITITI’S ‘SAVE RALPH’ NABS MAJOR AWARD IN CANNES. IS THE END NEAR FOR COSMETIC ANIMAL TESTING?*

*Humane Society International scores a big win at the Cannes Lions Festival for its short film ‘Save Ralph’—which features characters voiced by Taika Waititi, Ricky Gervias, Zac Efron, Olivia Munn, and more—made in support of its initiative to end cosmetic animal testing worldwide. *

Short animal-rights film _Save Ralph _just won the Grand Prix for Good award at the Cannes Lions Festival, securing the top recognition for a nonprofit film entered in this year’s creative arts festival. The Cannes Lions Awards are known as one of the most prestigious global awards in creative excellence, and the Grand Prix for Good award is given in recognition of employing creativity in a way that benefits the world at large. 

Created by Humane Society International (HSI) for the purpose of exposing the horror of cosmetic animal testing in a new way, the stop-motion animation film follows Ralph (voiced by famed director Taika Waititi) as he goes about his day as a rabbit who is tested upon in a lab. Interviewed by comedian Ricky Gervais, Ralph—who has lost sight in one eye—divulges his life as a lab animal and the effects it has had on him and his family. Other A-list celebrities, including Zac Efron, Olivia Munn, Tricia Hefler, and Pom Klementieff, lend their voices to supporting roles in _Save Ralph_. 










Donna Gadomski, HSI’s senior director of external affairs and _Save Ralph_ executive producer, was in Cannes to accept the Grand Prix for Good award. “We are absolutely ecstatic that _Save Ralph_ was awarded the Grand Prix for Good. This prestigious recognition by the Cannes Lions jury is an honor and a testament to Ralph’s powerful message that testing cosmetics on animals is cruel and needs to stop,” Gadomski said in a statement. “It was truly a privilege to accept this award on behalf of the extraordinary _Save Ralph_ filmmakers and the brilliant HSI team working tirelessly around the world to end cosmetics animal testing for good.” 

The three-minute, star-studded, stop-motion animation film is written and produced by vegan filmmaker Spencer Susser, filmed by British cinematographer Tristan Oliver, and animated by industry giant Tobias Fouracre (the latter two are known for their work on Wes Anderson films). The film’s puppets and sets are made by puppet master Andy Gent’s Arch Model Studio. “A few small stop-motion frames in camera and one giant leap forward for animal testing kind,” Gent said about the Cannes Lions win in a statement. 










*The state of cosmetic animal testing worldwide *
As is illustrated so poignantly in _Save Ralph_, cosmetic animal testing includes horrific experiments where animals are abused with impunity for the sake of beauty products. Luckily, these archaic and ineffective testing methods are increasingly facing bans in countries around the world. Currently, 41 countries, including Australia and Mexico, have banned cosmetic animal testing.

In the United States, California was the first state to pass its Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act (SB 1249) in 2018 that prohibits the sale of cosmetics tested on animals after January 1, 2020—with Illinois and Nevada following shortly thereafter with similar legislation. Since then, a growing number of states, including Maine, Virginia, and Maryland, have passed cosmetic animal testing bans. The Humane Cosmetics Act, federal legistlation to outlaw cosmetic animal testing, was introduced in 2019 by bipartisan politicians, including vegan Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ). However, the US has yet to pass this legislation, despite it gaining support from more than 900 companies within the cosmetics industry. 










HSI has worked to end cosmetic animal testing around the globe, and _Save Ralph_’s new Cannes Lions award brings the conversation about the cruel practice back into the public eye during a critical time. The European Union has had a version of a cosmetic animal testing ban in place since 2009, with a wider ban in place since 2013. However, the EU is now considering allowing animal testing to return to the cosmetic industry. In response, HSI, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and other animal-rights groups have taken action to keep the EU free from cosmetic animal testing. 

HSI initially created the film to support its initiative to ban animal testing worldwide so that the countless rabbits like Ralph—along with mice, guinea pigs, dogs, fish, and many others—no longer have to suffer needlessly in the beauty industry. “We are very grateful to Cannes Lions for this high-profile opportunity to keep the issue in the global spotlight and we hope that it adds momentum to our efforts to end this unnecessary cruelty,” Gadomski said. 









Taika Waititi’s ‘Save Ralph’ Nabs Major Award in Cannes. Is the End Near for Cosmetic Animal Testing?


Humane Society International scores a big win at the Cannes Lions Festival for its short film ‘Save Ralph’—which features characters voiced by Taika Waititi, Ricky Gervias, Zac Efron, Olivia Munn, and more—made in support of its initiative to end cosmetic animal testing worldwide.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*BEYOND MEAT CEO ETHAN BROWN SAYS VEGAN STEAK IS COMING THIS YEAR*
*Beyond Meat is working on vegan steak slices and CEO Ethan Brown thinks “it’s probably one of our best products to date.”*

California-based company Beyond Meat will soon release its newest product: whole-cut vegan steak. “It’s probably one of our best products to date,” Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said during _The Wall Street Journal’_s Global Food Forum today. The new Beyond Meat vegan steak will come in a sliced format and is expected to launch sometime this year. 

While Beyond Meat is best known for its plant-based Beyond Burger—a replacement for ground beef—the brand’s new product will bring it into a new category of whole-cut meat, advancing its mission of disrupting the global $1.4 trillion meat industry with plant-based alternatives that are better for human health, animals, and the environment. 

VegNews has reached out to Beyond Meat for more information about its new vegan steak and where consumers can expect to see it. 










*Beyond Meat builds a global plant-based protein category*
Despite a turbulent year in terms of its stock prices, Beyond Meat is holding steadfast to its mission of making animal-based meat obsolete with new innovations, such as its forthcoming vegan steak. Brown founded Beyond Meat in 2009 and the brand has already revolutionized the plant-based beef, pork, and chicken with its analogous Beyond Burger, Beyond Sausage, and its new Beyond Chicken Tenders. 

On the foodservice side of Beyond Meat’s business, the brand has many large partnerships under its belt. It has been working with Yum! Brands to deliver plant-based options to the fast-food corporation’s properties, which include Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC. Beyond Meat also entered into a three-year global strategic partnership with fast-food giant McDonald’s in 2021 that has thus far resulted in a limited launch of the McPlant, the first burger made with plant-based meat at McDonald’s. While this burger is still in its testing phase, Beyond Meat will continue to help McDonald’s build out its McPlant platform—which can include varied regional launches worldwide such as breakfast items and plant-based chicken. 










Beyond Meat is also expanding the consumer goods side of its business. In 2021, the vegan company partnered with PepsiCo in 2021 to create Planet Partnership, a venture that will result in new products that will leverage Pepsi’s extensive marketing and production networks while Pepsi can capitalize on the growth of the plant-based industry. In March, Beyond Meat and Pepsi released the first product under this partnership: Beyond Jerky. This is the brand’s first venture into the snack aisle. With its Beyond Jerky on store shelves nationwide, the brand is now exploring sliced vegan steak as the next part of its journey in creating a multi-billion dollar plant protein category that can truly disrupt animal agriculture with more sustainable, cruelty-free products. 

*Ethan Brown is building a $40 billion vegan meat company*
During today’s WSJ event, Brown was pressed about whether the plant-based meat “bubble” has popped—or if the category is losing momentum. “The reasons to do what we’re doing and the reason for the consumer to engage with what we’re doing strengthens every day,” Brown said. “There’s the pandemic. There’s recession. There’s gas prices. There’s all this noise out there, but what continues to strengthen is the need to do what we’re doing … We’re getting better at that every year and with reason to do it in terms of climate, human health, the overall environment (land, energy, and water), and animal welfare … all those reasons continue to be present and increase in importance.”












During the event, he explained that disruptions to major incumbents, such as the global meat industry, do not happen in a linear fashion and he expects to go through several downturns while keeping his eye on the mission at large. “You’re going to have disturbances and you’re going to have distractions as you build a new category,” Brown said, explaining that similar trajectories have happened when technologies such as solar power or lithium ion batteries first emerged. “You go for a long run. You take a plateau. You go for another long run and then all of a sudden it’s mainstream,” he said. “That’s what’s happening in [the plant-based] sector.”

Brown often references the replacement of landlines by cell phones as a way to contextualize what he sees will happen in the food space, with new technologies (plant-based meat) replacing outdated models (animal agriculture). “What I see is an increasing global opportunity into a $1.4 trillion market,” Brown said, touching on all of the major partnerships—from McDonald’s to Pepsi—that Beyond Meat is currently involved in as an indicator about the scale of disruption that is planned. “All of these things are about building the next global protein company. And my vision for this is a $40 billion company not a $4 billion company. So I don’t think in quarterly terms. I don’t think in annual terms. I think in a longer term perspective we will deliver on this. I am absolutely certain of that.” 









Beyond Meat’s Vegan Steak Comes to 5,000 Stores. Here Is Where to Find It.


CEO Ethan Brown thinks Beyond Meat’s new vegan steak slices are “one of our best products to date.” You can now find them at 5,000 stores, including Kroger and Walmart.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Consider the octopus*
Octopuses are smart in ways humans are only beginning to understand – just as companies are about to farm them from food on a much larger scale










In May, 2019, Jennifer Mather, one of the world’s leading octopus researchers, travelled from her home in Lethbridge, Alta., to False Bay, South Africa. The producer of a new documentary, Craig Foster, who had been reading her research papers, sought her expert opinion on footage of an octopus he had been following for a year.

Over the course of 10 days, they played through clips in a studio in the director’s home overlooking the ocean. Dr. Mather saw the little octopus reaching out a delicate tentacle to inspect a human hand. Sprinting to its den, startled by sudden movement. Bouncing around with a school of fish – just, it seemed, for fun. For the University of Lethbridge professor, the scenes confirmed her long-held theory: “Octopuses live their whole lives on the edge between curiosity and fear.”

But then, Dr. Mather watched the octopus, trapped too far from the safety of her den and hunted by a hungry shark, execute a brave and ingenious strategy: She somehow managed to suction herself to the back of her most fearsome predator, while the shark swam around, befuddled by dinner’s sudden disappearance.

“I have never seen an octopus do that,” Dr. Mather says, the awe still electrifying her voice over Zoom from her university office this spring. ”What do we really know about the octopus? _Nothing_.”

The footage in South Africa became the film _My Octopus Teacher_, which won an Oscar. But long before an international audience was captivated by the movie’s charismatic star, Dr. Mather and her peers have been trying to crack the mystery of an animal that researchers like to say is the closest we may ever come to meeting an alien life form.








The octopus has already challenged our theories on evolution, intelligence and consciousness. It has proven itself smarter, more playful, more feeling than we ever imagined. You can devote decades to studying how and where the octopus lives and, as Dr. Mather will attest, still be surprised by what you learn.

Here is a creature, marvellously cunning and elegant, living in a space so vast and deep, so foreign to human experience, that we still mostly peer into the dark and wonder. Surely, such a creature is worthy of careful consideration?

“Yes, yes!” Dr. Mather says. “A thousand times, yes.”

And yet, no. We have plowed ahead, trying to tame the wildness of the octopus for our own ends. In many countries, including the United States (though not Canada, thanks to a small, prescient committee, including Dr. Mather, who advocated early for its welfare), the octopus can be used in experiments without standards and procedures to ensure its care. A Spanish company is pushing forward with plans to open the first commercial octopus farm in the Canary Islands; research continues apace in places such as Japan and Mexico to raise and domesticate the animal for profit.

Never mind that a loud and angry chorus of scientists, environmentalists and philosophers say that octopus farming can’t ethically – or humanely – be done. Last November, a London School of Economics study, funded by the British government, concluded that “high-welfare octopus farming is impossible.” A campaign to stop octopus farming continues in the European Union. Animal-welfare advocates in countries such as Britain and Canada are calling for a pre-emptive ban on the import of farmed octopus, to close the market doors before they open.

I never really thought much about the octopus, until I started seeing essays by scientists vehemently opposed to farming and began researching their objections for a story.

My favourite film version was not the _Octopus_ _vulgaris_, or common octopus, of the Oscar-winning documentary, but the diaphanous cephalopod-like aliens, Abbott and Costello, who work so hard to communicate with Amy Adams in the movie _Arrival_ to warn humans away from an apocalyptic future.

But the more I learned about the octopus, the more I fell in awe of it. The more outrage I felt about the idea of farming it, the more shame for my own species.

This was another example of us failing, yet again, to adopt the precautionary principle, to put the interests of an animal above our own, to avoid causing harm to a life we don’t fully understand.

The existence of the octopus makes you think differently, not just about eating and farming animals, but our relationship to them, our assumptions about them, and what this all says about us, the humans, languishing so pridefully on our animal kingdom throne.

Much like Abbott and Costello, what we learn from the octopus, our resident earthly alien, is really a warning to change our ways.



















Octopuses, like the Graneledone verrucosa shown at Bear Seamount in the North Atlantic, are so alien-looking to humans that they sometimes inspire the design of fictional creatures from space, like the ‘heptapods’ that Amy Adams tries to communicate with in the 2016 film Arrival.

Humans have a long-standing bias for “cuddlies,” to use Dr. Mather’s nomenclature. We see furry mammals as smarter and cuter than slimy sea creatures, feel more morally responsible for their care, and apply more rules to their welfare. This doesn’t stop us from eating the cuddlies, of course. Or ignoring the fact that the pork chops and chicken drumsticks we buy in the grocery store begin with animals raised in often terrible conditions – a self-serving myopia that psychologists call the “meat paradox.”

But pretending that juicy steak wasn’t once a doe-eyed cow is, for many of us, a tolerable mind game. You’d probably be horrified, however, to boil a rabbit alive on the kitchen stove, the way we do lobsters. Or turn a pig inside out to kill it, which is how fished octopuses are sometimes dispatched.

That’s because, despite growing evidence to the contrary, it’s been convenient to assume that aquatic invertebrates aren’t sentient – that they don’t feel. An animal that doesn’t feel can’t experience pain. It doesn’t care if you hang it in the air and let it suffocate – another way that octopuses are sometimes killed. To paraphrase Kristin Andrews, a philosophy professor at York University and York Research Chair in Animal Minds, feelings in animals make the moral world more complicated.

So along comes the octopus, luminous ambassador to the underestimated invertebrate, to complicate our world. The LSE study found that the octopus, along with other cephalopod mollusks such as the squid and cuttlefish, and decapod crustaceans, such as lobster and crabs, should be considered sentient, and was thus entitled to animal-welfare protection. Freed from EU constraints after Brexit, the British Parliament passed a law making that official in April.

Sentience doesn’t require an animal to be self-aware. But it does open the door to levels and types of consciousness. Most experiments into animal sentience have tested for pain, but scientists are increasingly studying positive emotions as well. If an animal can feel pain, why can’t it feel joy?

In the LSE study, the octopus was the star; a team of researchers led by philosopher Jonathan Birch found “very high evidence of sentience.” Maybe that seems obvious if you’ve seen _My Octopus Teacher_, but in fact it’s a finding that further quashes some long-standing beliefs about invertebrates in general. Once we agree these animals have the capacity to feel, we are forced to consider their interests beyond conservation to include their ”psychological welfare,” as a pair of American philosophers argue in the journal Animal Sentience with a 2020 paper titled Minds Without Spines.

The octopus pokes holes in a few other anthropocentric theories. Charles Darwin described evolution as a tidy tree; scientists today argue it’s more like a thicket, with tangled branches of DNA. But in any event, the creature that would become the octopus hasn’t been found in our part of the thicket for more than 600 million years. Our last common ancestor was a primitive worm-like creature, and from there the octopus went its own way, in the darkness of the deep sea. That’s another reason the alien metaphor works: The octopus really did evolve in a different way, and on a different Earth than the one we know.

There’s a great line in Peter Godfrey-Smith’s thought-provoking 2016 book, _Other Minds, _that explores the octopus and the origins of consciousness: “If we can make contact with cephalopods as sentient beings,” he writes, “it is not because of a shared history, not because of kinship, but because evolution built minds twice over.”

And what a mind evolution built. The octopus didn’t just survive in a hostile environment. It thrived. For the past several decades, as Dr. Mather explains, the dominant theory of intelligence has been that animals get smart by navigating complex social interactions. Loners, she says, were assumed to have limited intelligence.

But the octopus is about as far from social as a smart animal can be. Confine two together, and one of them is likely getting eaten. The parents don’t hang around either: The male dies shortly after mating, and the female lays her eggs and dies around the time her babies hatch. The octopus prefers a solitary life, although its confirmed loner status has been recently challenged by the discovery of two groups of gloomy octopuses, or _Octopus tetricus_, living near each other off the coast of Eastern Australia. (Typical of the octopus, what we think we know may not apply to all 300 species, yet alone those scientists have yet to discover.) Still, Octopolis and Octlantis aren’t exactly friendly communities; the residents chase, fight and evict weaker neighbours from their homes. Scientists aren’t sure why they risk life and limb to live in close proximity – perhaps it’s for the plentiful local stock of clams and scallops.

An octopus is born with innate survival skills, including the ability to change colour and feed itself. But the survivors still have to figure out life in a dangerous place with no parental guide, no peer role model, and no built-in body armour to deflect shark teeth. (Having eight arms that grow back – another incredible trait – does leave some room for error.) Octopuses, at least the kind most studied, also have pretty short lives – a year or two for _Octopus vulgaris_, and a few more for larger ones, such as the Giant Pacific – so time is of the essence.

Dr. Mather is part of an international team of scientists currently working on a theory of octopus intelligence. They are only one year into a multiyear project, but she surmises that it will be more ecological in nature – the octopus got smart by going on risky, solo adventures and by being curious about the world.

That should be humbling. Perhaps it might inspire an instructional instance of human curiosity: Should we assume dominion over an exceptional brain that developed parallel to our own, in a foreign place and against the odds? Do we too often assume that thinking differently means thinking less?

“We humans tend to think we are the best thing around,” says Bruce Robison, a marine biologist and senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, wryly observing the obvious when we discuss octopus intelligence. “Well, that depends on your perspective. We are not necessarily at the top of the heap when it comes to solving problems about how to exist on Earth.”

“I wouldn’t expect an octopus to drive a car,” Dr. Robison says. “But on the other hand, I would have a hard time, moving into the octopus’s habitat, and opening clams for lunch.*”*









Marie-Claire Louis holds her octopus catch in the lagoon around Rodrigues Island, northeast of Mauritius, in 2007. Stocks were badly depleted before the early 2010s, when authorities and fishers began closing the fishery voluntarily for part of the year.

“Have you heard about the coconut shell-carrying octopus?” Dr. Mather asks me during one of our Zoom calls. “Well …” This particular octopus was observed by researchers carrying two halves of a coconut shell, as it went hunting for crabs – a trip that took it far from the cover of its den. Out in the open, the octopus would conceal itself under the shells, hiding from sharks. It planned ahead to bring protection and camouflage. It had prepared for the future. And it used a tool, a skill that requires sophisticated thinking.

Or how about this one? Dr. Mather and a colleague wanted to test, in a lab setting, whether an octopus would engage in play. The filter in one of the tanks created a small current, so they floated a pill bottle where it would drift toward the octopus. Of the six octopuses, two used their spray to push the pill bottle back and forth. One of them did it more than 20 times, like a game of catch. “I am never going to know for sure whether an octopus is having fun,” she says. “But I do know that it does things that we think are fun when we do them.”

Dr. Mather has been obsessed with octopuses since she first began studying their behaviour in the 1970s. The moment she knew she was observing a special animal happened on a snorkelling research trip in Bermuda, early in her career. She watched an octopus collect shells and bring them back, one by one, stacking them at the opening of its den, a crevice in a rock. Then it slipped inside, shells suctioned to its arms, shaped them into a door and went safely to sleep.

In labs, the octopus has passed a number of tests designed by humans. It can navigate mazes, sensing and interpreting the world with its resourceful arms. It can open a jar, and remember the trick of it some time later. If you zap it in one corner of the tank – a test to see if the octopus feels pain – it will remember to avoid that place in the future.

But some of the best stories are the great escapes. Jean McKinnon, a marine biologist at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, regaled me with an entire cast of octopus characters who made a run for it at the marine centre where she studies them.

There was Sid, who vanished for five days, and was eventually found in a floor drain after someone spotted an errant arm; researchers suspected he was looking for a mate, and released him back into the wild on the eve of Valentine’s Day. Houdini, with an arm span of nearly two metres, was discovered one evening, sloshing up the steps toward the second-floor staff kitchen. On another occasion, researchers noticed rock lobster disappearing from an aquarium tank. A caretaker who showed up early for his shift one evening caught the stealthy cephalopod culprit; he’d been sneaking out when the place was empty, grabbing dinner and returning to his tank, with none the wiser.

Octopuses can squeeze through tiny crevices in their tanks; the only hard part of their body is their beak. At the New Zealand aquarium, researchers used duct tape, bricks and plastic lids to block holes, and were often outsmarted.

“If you’ve got an octopus,” Dr. McKinnon says, “you spend most of your life to keep them in their tank.”

Researchers who study octopuses in the lab describe how the animals watch them from behind the glass, figuring out the human routines, and telling different staff apart, even if they’re wearing the same white lab coats. Octopuses prefer darkness; in Dunedin, one famously learned to smash lights with a targeted spray of water. Another took an apparent dislike to the staffer who was often assigned to clean his tank. If the other researchers, including Dr. McKinnon, walked by, the octopus ignored them. But this one staffer would get a blast of water in the back of her neck. Dr. McKinnon speculates that the octopus perhaps identified her by the vibration of her footsteps on the ground.

Smart, creative, problem-solving and able to plan ahead, the octopus has an impressive résumé. It is, at least, as smart as our dogs, though its talents differ. Some of the tests it fails may just not make any sense to it. For instance, the octopus, like many clever animals, has not so far passed the mirror test; it gets angry at its own reflection. But Dr. Mather suggests that may just be because the animal doesn’t use its eyes in the same way we do – yet another riddle that researchers are still figuring out.






For me, the most reverentially awesome story about the octopus is the one that Dr. Robison and his team discovered, completely by chance. They were out on the ocean, doing research, when their remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, happened upon a deep-sea octopus – the G_raneledone boreopacifica_ – protectively guarding 150 or so freshly laid eggs, about 1,400 metres down, on a rocky outcrop in the Monterey Submarine Canyon.

They knew roughly when she started because the spot had been empty during a dive the previous month. So they decided to keep checking on her. Every so often, while boating over her location, they sent the ROV down to observe on camera, from a careful distance, how she was faring.

Again and again, they went back, expecting her to be gone, her progeny hatched. But she was always there, in the same place, latched onto the rock face like a climber trapped on the side of mountain, her arms curled over her eggs. She never appeared to eat, and there was no sign that she took a break. They watched her swat away a persistent army of crabs; they returned to find crab carcasses strewn around her.

Over time, Dr. Robison says, the team began to lose scientific objectivity; they worried about her when they were back on land, cheered from the control room when the camera showed she had endured.

“She was attempting something that humans strive for as well,” he says, “protecting her young, making an investment, exhibiting parental care.”

Aside from offering her a piece of crab meat, which was refused, they did not interfere. But she was slowly dying, sacrificing herself to keep her eggs safe. Her skin began to sag. Her eyes turned cloudy. And still week after week, month after month, year after year, she hung onto that rock. Until one day, the camera found only an empty spot, the eggs cracked open, the babies gone. It was almost a relief, Dr. Robison says: “She had finally finished her job.”

When the team published the paper in 2014, they named her Octomom. She guarded her future offspring for four years and five months – more than three times longer than the egg-brooding period of any known animal. In that time, a human child would have been born and gone off to senior kindergarten. A robin, by comparison, sits in her nest for about two weeks.

I think about Octomom, hanging onto that rock, all alone. About her ferocious devotion. All those years, passing by.

And we would never have known about her, except that Dr. Robison and his team happened to toss a camera like a random pebble into the ocean, in the right time, at the right place.

What else don’t we know?









An octopus-shaped kite flies at the Fanoe International Kite Festival in Rindby, Denmark, on June 16.

On YouTube, there is a video of a floating octopus languorously reaching out its arms like a dancer. It stretches slowly, until it resembles a hot-air balloon drifting in the air. The pose is held for brief seconds, before the octopus goes back to looking like an octopus. I have watched the video dozens of times; it is mesmerizing.

Who says the octopus is not an artist?

Of course, I have committed the classic error: I am attaching human characteristics to a non-human animal. I am seeing emotions where there may only be instinct. But is that wrong, if it makes us lean toward caution and care?

We often categorize other animals as different, or less-than, to conveniently justify the way we treat them. Increasingly, we are learning that our assumptions are mistaken, especially for the ones we previously underestimated. Not just octopuses and lobsters, but bees, fish and spiders. On the whole, science is proving that the world around us is a lot smarter, and more feeling, than we humans have long assumed.

One observation that Dr. Mather makes seems particularly salient to how we think about the octopus. In the lab, there are lazy and playful octopuses; some are chill, others are grumpy. Only two of the six subjects wanted to play with the pill bottle; the rest just seemed irritated by it. In other words, octopuses have personalities. In fact, Dr. Mather tells me, one of the earliest papers to suggest that non-human animals had personalities was about the octopus.

“In some ways, personality is just as important as thinking about whether animals have intelligence and sentience,” she says. Then you have to stop thinking about _the_ octopus, and start thinking about _an _octopus.

The octopus becomes not a something, but much closer to a _someone_. And would we lock thousands of someones into small, empty tanks where they’d be stunted by boredom, just to fatten them up so their marinated arms can be served in a seafood salad?

This question – should animals be considered someones and not somethings – is not only philosophical or moral. It is becoming a legal issue as well, especially as we grow increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of caging and displaying smart animals for our own purposes.

In New York, a recent case on this very question revolved around Happy, an elephant living at the Bronx Zoo. An animal-advocacy group called the Nonhuman Rights Project argued that Happy, as an intelligent animal, was being illegally detained at the zoo, citing habeas corpus, which protects an individual against unlawful imprisonment. In June, the New York Court of Appeals, in a 5-2 ruling, rejected the argument, finding that the “liberty rights” of habeas corpus only applied to humans. The elephant may be staying in the Bronx, but the case is still seen as an important moment in the debate about the rights of animals.

Meanwhile, in Ottawa, a new animal-welfare bill known as the Jane Goodall Act reflects another shift in our relationship with the wild world. The legislation, now making its way through the Senate, would create new legal protections in Canada for wild animals in captivity, such as big cats, wolves, bears and sea lions; eventually phase out captivity entirely for elephants; and prevent wild animals from being used in performances for entertainment.

The legislation doesn’t go as far as defining animals as “someones,” but it does give them limited legal standing in court during sentencing. And it includes a notable preamble that refers to “an Indigenous understanding that all life forms of Creation are interconnected and interdependent,” and that “science, empathy and justice require everyone to respect the biological and ecological characteristics and needs of animals.”

The bill covers more than 800 wild species. The octopus isn’t on the list, but the legislation expressly allows the federal cabinet to add more animals in the future.









Octopus cooks, or pulpeiros, work in in Carballino, Spain, in 2018 to set a new world record for the biggest octopus tapa. This traditional Galician dish involves boiling the octopus in copper pans, cutting them into bite-sized pieces and seasoning them with olive oil and paprika.

From a human point of view, the common octopus is a good candidate for farming. It grows quickly and lives only a year; its meat is protein-rich, and has a culinary flare that makes it sought after by gourmands, who will pay a good penny for it. Once the logistics are figured out, domesticating octopuses will be easier and cheaper than hunting wild ones.

But there are many more reasons why rushing ahead is such a queasy, unsettling prospect.

Farming an aquatic species doesn’t necessarily reduce pressure on wild stock – often, it just creates a larger market. Octopuses are hard to raise in captivity, and they don’t like to share close space with each other. They have soft bodies that are easily injured, and sharp minds that need activity. They are carnivores, which means taking another species out of the ocean to feed them. According to the LSE study, there is no scientifically validated way to slaughter them in large numbers “that is both humane and commercially viable.”

“It is one thing to hunt them in the wild,” Dr. Andrews says. “It is another thing to create a slum and force them all together and then kill them. That is a horrific science-fiction nightmare.”

Under what conditions does a life matter? What level of feeling and sentience must be met for us to just walk away, and leave an animal to live and evolve on its own?

Watching _My Octopus Teacher_ for the second time, I felt a different kind of empathy for the octopus – one less framed around my humanness, and more by its otherness. The octopus never sought a human fan club; it just wants to be an octopus. We are intruding, without permission.

So much of our connection to animals starts, and ends, with us: We admire elephants, so we put Happy in a zoo; we pollute an animal’s environment, so we have to save them; we are curious about how they compare to humans, so we study them; we want to eat them, so we farm them, even while we claim to love them. After the documentary won the Oscar, the place where it was filmed was designated a protected area for octopuses; good news, to be sure, but let’s not forget from whom the octopus needs protecting.

What ultimate talent must an octopus demonstrate, what test must it pass, for us to just let it be an octopus? When I pose this question to University of Toronto anthropology professor Naisargi Dave, she quotes to me the famous line: “A master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” As long as we test the octopus against human measurements, we will never let it be free.











Even our love, Dr. Dave points out, makes the animal’s life about the strength and sustainability of our caring attention: “What does that mean for ethics if it requires us to care about everything first?” she asks. “Because that is just impossible. We cannot care about everything.”

Instead, she advocates for a “respectful indifference” based on a kind of ethics of the moment – a subject she explores in a book coming out next year: “Sometimes the octopus needs our attention, most of the time it doesn’t.” We would be aware and attuned to animals, but not need to know or possess them.

Dr. Dave also helps me resolve another moral conflict: Why the octopus, and not the cow? The other week, I saw octopus arms poking out of a container of insalata di mare at the local Metro, and my stomach turned over; and yet, a few days later, I ate a steak, barely thinking about the animal that it used to be.

“The tyranny of consistency has one goal,” she tells me, “and that is to make people tired.” It becomes too complicated to defend one, imperfect choice, so we accept the norm out of weariness. Take action, even inconsistently, she argues, and the ideology may follow after.

So the question isn’t why care about the octopus when we are already so far down the path with the cow. Ask instead: What larger ideology might develop from a decision to draw a line here and now, for this one extraordinary animal?

The octopus is both reckoning and reminder. The perks of being at the top of the animal pile come with responsibilities: to treat nature carefully and respectfully, to avoid unnecessary harm, to be sustainable in our actions. That shouldn’t be such a daunting task for the most thinking, feeling animal of them all. And yet, here we are.

In her dissent of the court’s finding of Happy’s fate, Judge Rowan Wilson made a poignant argument that we should recognize the elephant’s right to liberty not only because she is a wild animal never meant to be locked up in a zoo, but “because the rights we confer on others define who we are as a society.”

Those decisions too often become injustices that need correcting. As Victoria Shroff, a prominent animal-law lawyer in Canada, points out, in a few decades, we will likely look back on our current laws around the treatment of animals, shake our heads and ask ourselves: What were we thinking?

The octopus is still revealing itself to us, and the more we learn, the more remarkable it becomes. Domesticating this wondrous creature into what seems certain to be captive misery is a mistake that we haven’t yet made. Would we factory-farm pigs the way we do, knowing now how intelligent they are?

The pending fate of the octopus suggests, sadly, that we would. Even though, of all animals sharing the planet, the octopus may have the most to teach us about humility and possibility – about what we’ve gotten wrong, and how we can do better.

For our sake, as much as theirs.



















Vegetarian and Vegan Passion







www.mtbr.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## Quinntin Rogers (6 mo ago)

cyclelicious said:


> Here's everything you need to know about a plant-based diet from a talk given at the Eco Medics conference on May 22nd 2022 at the Royal Geographic Society by Dr. Shireen.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Helpful video, thanks!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

First Plant-Powered Wimbledon Final
Novak Djokovic
“I do eat plant-based. I think that’s one of the reasons why I recover well. I don’t have allergies that I used to have any more.”
Vs
Nick Kyrgios
“I don’t eat meat or dairy anymore. That’s not for my health, I just don’t believe in eating animals.”


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is Chocolate Good for You?*









*Q: Is chocolate good for you?*
Chocolate has a long and illustrious reputation. Made from cocoa, which is derived from the beans of the cacao tree (whose scientific name translates to “food of the gods”), it was used by some of the earliest Mesoamerican cultures as food, medicine, ritual offering and perhaps even currency. It’s no less valuable in modern times; the global chocolate market grew by nearly 20 percent between 2016 and 2021, with an approximate revenue of $980 billion in 2021, according to the market research firm Statista.
Taste surely plays a role in chocolate’s popularity, but you may have also heard that this delectable treat is good for your health. How does this perception stack up against the science?

“Cocoa is clearly good for you,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and professor of nutrition at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. “Whether _chocolate_ is good for you or not depends on how much cocoa is actually in it, and what else is in it.”

Cocoa beans are packed with fiber and “loads of phytonutrients,” Dr. Mozaffarian said, referring to the natural chemicals found in plants. Cocoa is thought to contain about 380 different chemicals, among them a large class of compounds called flavanols that have attracted significant research interest for their potential health benefits. But it’s less clear how many flavanols and other phytonutrients you need to improve health, or whether your chocolate bar of choice contains enough of them to do so. And experts have differing opinions on this point.
Milk chocolate typically contains about 20 percent cocoa, Dr. Mozaffarian said, though the cocoa content can vary. (The Food and Drug Administration requires milk chocolate to contain at least 10 percent cocoa, but some milk chocolate bars contain as much as 50 percent or more.) Dark chocolate usually contains more cocoa than milk chocolate, but it can also vary greatly, so check labels carefully, he said. For possible health benefits, he recommended choosing dark chocolate that is at least 70 percent cocoa.
Many small, short-term human trials, have found that dark chocolate or standardized cocoa supplements or drinks can modestly lower blood pressure and improve blood cholesterol and the health of blood vessels in adults. And some longer term observational studies have found that those who eat more cocoa might have a lower risk of certain cardiovascular diseases, Dr. Mozaffarian said.
In a systematic review published in February in the journal JAMA Network Open, Dr. Mozaffarian and his colleagues examined how certain foods and nutrients were associated with heart health conditions. They found “probable or convincing evidence” that eating chocolate was linked with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, estimating that an average daily intake of just 10 grams, or about one-third of an ounce of chocolate, was associated with a 6 percent reduction in the overall risk of cardiovascular disease.

But these types of estimates are based on observational studies, which have important limitations, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. These studies can only identify correlations between eating chocolate and health; they can’t prove that chocolate causes benefits — people who eat more chocolate may be different in other ways that affect their health, Dr. Manson said.

Observational study findings have also been inconsistent. Some have found no benefit, and others have found that those who eat chocolate habitually or more frequently are more likely to gain weight, she pointed out. Such studies also don’t often account for the different types of chocolate, which can vary in their cocoa content. And the sugar, fat and calorie count might negate any health benefits from the cocoa.

To address some of these shortcomings, Dr. Manson and her colleagues conducted a large, randomized trial of more than 21,000 older adults in the United States. Half of the participants were given a cocoa extract supplement containing 500 milligrams of cocoa flavanols, and the other half were given a placebo. Results of the study, called the COSMOS trial, were published in June in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition_._
After following the participants for 3.6 years, the researchers found that while — when compared with the placebo group — the cocoa supplement group was not statistically less likely to have cardiovascular events including heart attacks and strokes, they did have a 27 percent reduction in cardiovascular deaths. Dr. Manson called these results “promising signals for heart protection,” though she emphasized that another trial is needed to confirm the findings before translating them into recommendations for cocoa flavanol intake.
Importantly, the COSMOS trial did not give participants chocolate, but rather concentrated capsules of cocoa extract produced by chocolate-maker Mars, which also partially funded the study. To get the same amount of bioactive cocoa flavanols from chocolate, a person would have to eat close to 4,000 calories of milk chocolate or 600 calories of dark chocolate per day, Dr. Manson said, noting that a large proportion of flavanols can be destroyed during chocolate processing.
Chocolate is “a wonderful treat, but to perceive it as a health food, I think it has its limitations,” Dr. Manson said.

Much of the research, including her own, on the potential health benefits of chocolate and cocoa has been funded by chocolate companies such as Mars, Dr. Manson said. “These trials are expensive,” and government funding for nutrition studies in general is limited, she added. Research suggests that the results from food industry-sponsored studies, including those on chocolate, are more likely to be favorable to the companies funding them, though Dr. Manson said that Mars was not involved with the design or analysis of the COSMOS trial.

For his part, Dr. Mozaffarian is persuaded by the existing research that dark chocolate containing 70 percent or more cocoa is likely beneficial for heart health, even if it contains less flavanols than tested in the COSMOS trial. “Eating a small amount of dark chocolate every day is probably really good for us, and it will make you happy, because it tastes good,” he said.
Dr. Mozaffarian said he does not receive any funding from the chocolate industry, but he did admit one conflict of interest when it comes to this particular food. “My conflict is that I do love dark chocolate,” he said.









Is Chocolate Good for You?


Studies suggest that cocoa might benefit health, but it’s unclear how that may translate to a typical bar of chocolate.




www.nytimes.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

This book sounds like an interesting read. Almost any time we study animals more deeply we realize they are more intelligent and individualistic than we'd given them credit for.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/07/29/bee-cognition-insect-intelligence-research/



"The observation that bees are most likely sentient beings has important ethical implications. It’s well known that many species of bees are threatened by pesticides and wide-scale habitat loss, and that this spells trouble because we need these insects to pollinate our crops. But is the utility of bees the only reason they should be protected? I don’t think so. The insight that bees have a rich inner world and unique perception, and, like humans, are able to think, enjoy and suffer, commands respect for the diversity of minds in nature. "


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

It's worth mentioning that Black and non-white Americans are more likely to be vegetarian or vegan proportionally to the share of the population


> Black Americans are almost three times as likely to be vegan and vegetarian than other Americans
> 
> [...]
> 
> ...


*People in the United States strongly associate vegetarianism with whiteness, study finds*
New research published in the _Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin_ provides evidence that people in the United States hold racial stereotypes about vegetarianism. The findings indicate that vegetarianism is perceived to be a “White” behavior.

“Vegetarian diets offer a lot of benefits — they can improve health, support environmental sustainability, and reduce the amount of suffering experienced by nonhuman animals,” said study author study author Daniel L. Rosenfeld, a PhD candidate at UCLA. “As plant-based foods (like the Impossible Burger and Beyond Burger) become more mainstream and propel cultural shifts toward more vegetarian lifestyles, it’s important to consider how racially inclusive these lifestyles seem.”

“For quite a while before conducting this research, I’d noticed that beliefs about race were intertwined with beliefs about vegetarianism. In many media instances, for instance, it seemed like vegetarians were stereotypically depicted as White people, especially white women who are middle-to-upper class.”

“Consider this: who comes to mind when you imagine the prototypical person who would order kale salad or eat a bowl of quinoa with tofu? Food is a clear marker of identity,” Rosenfeld explained. “And yet, despite these intuitions, there hadn’t been any research delving into the nature of stereotypes about race and vegetarianism. So I was motivated to fill that knowledge gap and see what was going on.”

To better understand racialized perceptions of vegetarianism, the researchers explicitly asked 1,853 adults from the United States how strongly they associated vegetarianism with white people, Black people, Latino people, and Asian people. They found that participants associated vegetarianism most strongly with white people, followed by Asian people, and least strongly with Black and Latino people.

Rosenfield and his colleagues also observed implicit associations between vegetarianism and whiteness. In a second study, which included 192 Black and 194 white adults, the researchers used the Implicit Association Test to demonstrate that participants unconsciously associated vegetarianism with white people.

“We found that people in the United States hold strong stereotypes about race and vegetarianism,” Rosenfield told PsyPost. “Namely, people associate being a vegetarian with being white. It’s worth emphasizing that this is a belief people hold, not necessarily a reflection of reality. There have been many surveys in recent years finding that white people are actually _less_ likely to be vegetarians than are people of color.”

“This disconnect between stereotype and reality is rather striking, and is certainly worthy of deeper consideration. But we ought to keep in mind that stereotypes are powerful beliefs people have — and they’re powerful regardless of whether they reflect any degree of reality or not.”

In a third study, which included 403 Black adults, the researchers found that participants who were randomly assigned to reflect on their racial stereotypes about vegetarianism tended to feel less connected to the vegetarian community compared to those in the control group.

Interestingly, Rosenfield and his research team found evidence that a simple intervention could increase belongingness. Their fourth and final study, which included 592 Black nonvegetarian adults, found a slideshow about vegetarianism that included both Black and white people made vegetarianism more appealing to Black individuals.

But does the association between vegetarianism and whiteness exist outside of the United States? It might, but there’s reason to believe that the findings are culturally constrained — a topic for future research.

“Food and race are two constructs with deep roots in culture,” Rosenfield explained. “The meaning of food varies greatly across different cultures, as does the meaning of race — so we could expect that racial stereotypes about food will vary across cultures. Our research found strong stereotypes linking beliefs about vegetarianism to beliefs about White people, and it’s possible that this association may be the case in other cultures too, but we can’t make that assumption.”

“It’s important to conduct this type of research in other cultures beyond the United States to know for sure,” Rosenfield added. “Also important, within and beyond the United States, is now to find ways of making vegetarianism seem more inclusive to all people.”

“If strong racial stereotypes exist about vegetarianism, and if those stereotypes could deter certain groups of people from eating plant-based foods or if they could make people feel ostracized in certain spaces because of their race, then it’s vital to come up with ways to combat existing stereotypes and to change the narrative surrounding what it means to eat plant-based foods.”









People in the United States strongly associate vegetarianism with whiteness, study finds


New research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin provides evidence that people in the United States hold racial stereotypes about vegetarianism. The findings indicate that vegetarianism is perceived to be a "White" behavior. ...



www.psypost.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Geez, it's a just menu option. They’re not making anyone eat it.

*Is the Cracker Barrel menu getting 'woke'? Meat eaters rage on Facebook over addition of Impossible sausage*

Cracker Barrel is now serving plant-based sausage. Meat eaters aren't having it.

The popular southern restaurant chain is one of the few places where you can have breakfast after sitting on a real-wood rocking chair on the front porch or buying a bejeweled yard chameleon or "Live, Laugh, Love" wall sign. 

But a new menu item comes with a side of controversy. Cracker Barrel is ruffling the feathers of some carnivorous customers by offering Impossible Sausage as a protein option.

"Discover new meat frontiers," the company said in a Facebook post. "Experience the out of this world flavor of Impossible™ Sausage Made From Plants next time you Build Your Own Breakfast."

The company's decision warmed the hearts of some vegetarians.












"Thank you for adding a plant-based fake meat option to the menu," Facebook user Laura Warot Jones said in a comment. "Each year more and more people are going plant-based for the animals, for their health, and/or for the planet."

"I am so grateful for you adding this to your menu," Facebook user Scott Richardson wrote. "I have a reason to return to your restaurant after going vegetarian and now vegan for the benefit of myself and all living things, including our planet. Thank you."

Meat-eating Facebook users had some spicier things to say.

"Bad choice," Brenda K. Mauney commented on Facebook. "Do your research."

"YOU CAN TAKE MY PORK SAUSAGE WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS," Facebook user Mark Vige commented. "DON'T TREAD ON MY PORK!"

User Joe Wicker, who wrote in the comments that he still orders "the double meat breakfast" even though it's gone from the menu, suggested the VP of marketing should be fired, calling the offering "a woke social experiment based on ideology and not business."

The outpouring of negative feedback got some blowback.

"Lone star tick disease is spreading and some of you yayhoos are gonna have to eat some metaphorical crow with your vegan sausages after the ticks make you allergic to meat," Facebook user Folk Breenhin wrote.. "Some childish old folks up in here getting their panties in a wad over other peoples' business."

Cracker Barrel told USA TODAY in a statement: "We're always exploring opportunities to expand how our guests experience breakfast and provide choices to satisfy every taste bud."

Cracker Barrel rolled out the Impossible sausage last year at 50 select stores as it looks to expand its menu to accommodate vegetarian diets.









Is the Cracker Barrel menu getting 'woke'? Meat eaters rage on Facebook over addition of Impossible sausage


Cracker Barrel ruffled the feathers of meat eaters when it put plant-based Impossible sausage on the menu, sparking a culture war of words on Facebook



www.usatoday.com


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## MUSTCLIME (Jan 26, 2004)

I just want to thank all vegan people for being sickly and weak so that I may eat lots of tasty animals. Thanks guys!


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

MUSTCLIME said:


> I just want to thank all vegan people for being sickly and weak so that I may eat lots of tasty animals. Thanks guys!


There's a ton of information in this thread that will help clear up your misconceptions 👍


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## MUSTCLIME (Jan 26, 2004)

squeakymcgillicuddy said:


> There's a ton of information in this thread that will help clear up your misconceptions 👍


Like why people are shaped the way they are ( meaning people are not shaped like chimpanzees…. The real hunter gathers of the primates) or why humans do not have the large intestine of a great apes( twice as long and filled the bacteria that convert cellulose into glucose)….. yea, didn’t see it. I think people treat diet like a religion. I find vegan’s can not really look at their body’s from a design point of view. How did evolution shape us? Why are we shaped the way we are? Questions like…
Why do people not have thick fur?
People have hair but why do they have hair where the have hair?
A good percentage of people enjoy just going out and running…. Why?
Why do people sweat the way they do?
Why do people not see well at night compared to many prey animals?
Why do people stand upright?
Why do people have a crap sense of smell?
Why do so many people have issues with diabetes? 
why do so many people have issues with eating grains?
Why are people so weak and slow compared to other animals?
Why are people smart while most vegan animals dumb as crap?

look at your diet and tell me it answers the questions? Darwin’s finches changed their shape to adjust to diet options in the environment that they lived. Why are people not shaped like a herbivore?


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I'm not interested in making my choices based on what people with no choice did in the past.

There are vegans competing at the highest levels of virtually every sport and enjoying long healthy lives...whatever your health or fitness goals are they are attainable without animal products.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*What to know about vegan diets*


Increasing numbers of people are moving toward vegan diets due to health, animal welfare, or environmental concerns. A 2018 Gallup poll reports that about 3% of people in the United States are fully vegan and notes that sales of plant-based foods are rising.
Vegan diets tend to be rich in nutrients and low in saturated fats. Research suggests that the diet can improve heart health, protect against cancer, and lower the risk of type 2 diabetes.
However, people eating only plant-based foods need to be more aware of how to obtain certain nutrients, including iron, calcium, and vitamin B-12, that usually come from an omnivorous diet.
In this article, we take a close look at the vegan diet, including its health benefits and risks, as well as important things to consider before trying it out. We also provide recipe ideas and tips for following a vegan diet.

*What is a vegan diet?*
A vegan diet involves eating only foods comprising plants. Those who follow this diet avoid all animal products, including meat, dairy, and eggs. Some people also avoid eating honey. For some, being vegan is a dietary choice, while for others, it is a lifestyle choice.

People who choose to live a vegan lifestyle may also avoid clothes, soaps, and other products that use or contain parts of animals, such as leather and animal fur. Some adopt this lifestyle for its environmental benefits as a sustainable diet.

Vegan diets tend to include plenty of fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds. Eating a variety of these foods will provide a wide range of important vitamins, minerals, healthful fats, and protein.

People following this diet should, however, take care to get key nutrients that people usually consume in animal products. These nutrients include iron, protein, calcium, vitamin B-12, and vitamin D.

*Vegan vs. vegetarian*
The main difference between vegetarians and vegans is that although vegetarians do not eat meat (including cows, pigs, chicken, and fish), they consume dairy products, eggs, or both. The vegan diet excludes all products with animal-based ingredients.
The vegan diet is more restrictive, so people will need to think more about where their nutrients are coming from to ensure that they meet their daily dietary requirements.
Read more about vegan vs. vegetarian diets here.

*Benefits*
Vegan diets can provide all of the nutrients that a person needs, and they can eliminate some of the possible risks that research has associated with harmful animal fats. Research has linked the vegan diet with a range of health benefits, including those below.

*Better heart health*
Vegan diets can boost heart health in several ways.
A large scale 2019 studyTrusted Source has linked a higher intake of plant-based foods and lower intake of animal foods with a reduced risk of heart disease and death in adults.
Animal products — including meat, cheese, and butter — are the main dietary sources of saturated fats. According to the American Heart Association (AHA)Trusted Source, eating foods that contain these fats raises cholesterol levels. High levels of cholesterol increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Plant foods are also high in fiber, which the AHATrusted Source link with better heart health. Animal products contain very little or no fiber, while plant-based vegetables and grains are the best sources.
In addition, people on a vegan diet often take in fewer calories than those on a standard Western diet. A moderate calorie intake can lead to a lower body mass index (BMI) and a reduced risk of obesity, a major risk factor for heart disease.

*Lower cancer risk*
According to a 2017 review, eating a vegan diet may reduce a person’s risk of cancer by 15%. This health benefit may be due to the fact that plant foods are high in fiber, vitamins, and phytochemicals — biologically active compounds in plants — that protect against cancers.
Research into the effects of diet on the risk of specific cancers has produced mixed results.
However, the International Agency for Research on Cancer report that red meat is “probably carcinogenic,” noting that research has linked it primarily to colorectal cancer but also to prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer.
The agency also report that processed meat is carcinogenic and may cause colorectal cancer.
Eliminating red and processed meats from the diet removes these possible risks.

*Weight loss*
People on a vegan diet tend to have a lower body mass index (BMI) than those following other diets.
The researchers behind a 2015 study reported that vegan diets were more effective for weight loss than omnivorous, semi-vegetarian, and pesco-vegetarian diets, as well as being better for providing macronutrients.
Many animal foods are high in fat and calories, so replacing these with low calorie plant-based foods can help people manage their weight.
It is important to note, though, that eating lots of processed or high fat plant-based foods — which some people refer to as a junk food vegan diet — can lead to unhealthful weight gain.

*Lower risk of type 2 diabetes*
According to a large 2019 reviewTrusted Source, following a plant-based diet can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. The research linked this effect with eating healthful plant-based foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes.









Vegan diet: Health benefits, foods, and tips


A vegan diet excludes animal products, including meat, eggs, and dairy. Learn more about the health benefits of a vegan diet and the nutritional considerations here.




www.medicalnewstoday.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

What a well written article. It breaks down the emotional response meat eaters have to veganism in clear and succinct terms


*Veganism: Why food choice can spark rage*

Vegetarianism and veganism are growing in popularity. In this Spotlight, we ask why these dietary choices can ignite rage in some meat eaters. The answer, it seems, is complex.

Currently, vegetarianism and veganism only account for 5% and 3% of the United States population, respectively.
However, as the public profiles of these diets increase, negative reactions are becoming more visible.
The question we are asking today is, “why should one person’s dietary choice make anyone else angry?”
This question is complicated, and because it involves human emotions, the answer is likely to be multifaceted and vary wildly from case to case.
On the surface, anti-vegan outbursts are counterintuitive — by deciding to harm as few living creatures as possible, vegans become a focal point of anger.
Although I am a meat eater, I have often wondered why a more gentle approach to food appears to ruffle so many feathers.

*The fault of zealots?*

As with any subsection of humanity, some vegans and vegetarians are outspoken and, sometimes, militant. As the old joke goes: “How do you know if someone is a vegan? They’ll tell you.”
Of course, there are people like this in every section of society. The loudest voices grab a disproportionately large slice of public attention, while the vast majority of vegans simply eat their dinner in silence, not negatively affecting anyone at all.
Although the underbelly of vocal vegans certainly plays a part in some people’s negativity toward vegans at large, this is not the whole story.
Tobias Leenaert, the author of “How to create a vegan world: A pragmatic approach,” writes:


> “Sure, at times we can be a little annoying. […] But, this doesn’t really explain the hostility and ridicule that we may encounter at times.”


In this feature, we will try to unwrap some of the reasons why people may respond to vegans and vegetarians so negatively. Of course, there are no hard and fast answers, but we will cover some leading theories.

*The role of the media*

For better or worse, the media can shape society’s opinions at large. Understanding whether the media is fueling a behavior or whether a behavior is fueling the media is another issue, but knowing how the media responds to vegans is informative.
A 2011 studyTrusted Source looked at how the print media in the United Kingdom reported on veganism. Of the 397 articles that mentioned veganism, the researchers deemed 20.2% to be neutral and 5.5% to be positive, while they considered the remaining 74.3% to be negative.
The negativity in these articles came in a variety of different forms. Most commonly, the stories mocked veganism as being “self-evidently ridiculous” or characterized it as asceticism — a lifestyle practice that involves abstaining from pleasure to pursue spiritual goals.
The authors of the paper believe that this unbalanced representation of veganism demonstrates a “cultural reproduction of speciesism.”
They believe that this unfair attack helps humans justify a subliminal, almost inherent, uncaring attitude toward animals whose destiny it is to become our food.
A 2015 study looked at attitudes toward vegans and vegetarians compared with those toward other groups of people who experience prejudice, such as gay people, immigrants, atheists, and black people. According to the authors:


> “Only drug addicts were evaluated more negatively than vegetarians and vegans.”


They found that across the board, people viewed vegetarians and vegans more negatively, especially those “motivated by animal rights or environmental concerns.” The researchers also showed that individuals with more right-wing leanings had the least favorable opinion of vegans and vegetarians.

*A subliminal attack*

Part of the issue, some argue, is that nonvegans feel that their identity is under attack. When a vegan mentions their dietary choice, a meat eater might infer, perhaps subliminally, that the vegan must consider them a supporter of animal cruelty.
People give up meat for a wide range of reasons, with health and environmental concerns being two significant motivations. However, the primary reason is animal cruelty.
People perceive the act of being a vegan as a moral stance, and often, of course, it is. Vegans and vegetarians are generally against harming animals to provide food. As a meat eater, it is easy to consider that a vegan person — without saying a word — defines you as morally wrong.
In short, we are aware that this group of people has chosen to show more care toward animals and that, by extension, we have chosen to continue not caring for animals. Acknowledging this can feel unpleasant.

*Challenging norms*

Some researchers believe that malice toward people who follow a plant-based diet might hinge on “symbolic threats” to the status quo.
Intergroup threat theory, also called integrated threat theory, attempts to explain how a perceived threat — as opposed to a real threat — can lead to prejudice between social groups.
Proponents of this theory think that meat eaters who respond negatively to vegans believe that a vegan’s dietary choices pose a symbolic threat to their beliefs, attitudes, or morals. The authors of the 2015 study that we mentioned above write:


> “[V]egetarians’ and vegans’ voluntary abstention from meat eating, which conflicts with the omnivore majority’s values, represents a symbolic threat in ways that contribute to negative attitudes toward these targets.”


Also, vegetarians and vegans are resisting cultural norms, which people might subliminally consider to be an existential threat. People may see vegetarians and vegans as undermining the current way of life, even if this current way of life exploits animals.
For instance, _Medical News Today_ spoke with a vegan who grew up in a relatively small community, and they said that “food figures heavily in culture and tradition, so rejecting food comes across as insulting or rebellious.”
A studyTrusted Source from 2018 looked at the attitudes toward vegans and vegetarians in New Zealand. The authors found that “attitudes toward vegans were significantly less positive than attitudes toward vegetarians, and male participants expressed significantly less positive attitudes toward both outgroups than female participants.”

*The authors write that “vegans could be viewed as threatening social stability by challenging social norms regarding dietary practices and also challenging normative moral beliefs about the status of nonhuman animals.”*

The authors believe that society prizes meat for more than its nutritional value, arguing that it has “symbolic associations with human dominance over nature.”
When they dug into the psychological profiles of those who were most prone to have negative feelings toward veganism, the researchers found that these individuals were more likely to view the world as a dangerous place. As a result, they theorize that vegans represent “a perceived symbolic threat to social and cultural norms.”

*Right-wing authoritarians*

The New Zealand study above also found that individuals with more right-wing political leanings had the highest tendency to view vegans unfavorably. This finding crops up in other similar studies.
People who are more left-leaning are more likely to look favorably or neutrally on vegans. At the same time, people who follow a plant-based diet are more likely to be left-leaning.
Vegans and vegetarians are also more likely to be middle-class, atheist or agnostic, white, educated, and female.
A 2018 Gallup poll found that self-proclaimed liberals were more than five times as likely to be vegetarian as those who identified as conservative. Similarly, liberals were more than twice as likely as conservatives to be vegan.
This finding implies that, at least in part, more right-wing people may see veganism as a sign that someone is ideologically different beyond their dietary choices, which could certainly play a role in the generation of negative feelings.
A paper in the journal _Personality and Individual Differences_ used two questionnaires to examine the relationship between right-wing adherents, meat consumption, and the treatment of animals.

*They concluded that “right-wing ideology predicts acceptance of animal exploitation and meat consumption.”*

Negativity toward vegetarians and vegans might extend far beyond dietary choice. Someone’s meal choice paints a picture of their likely political outlook and ideology. As the authors of one paperTrusted Source conclude:


> “Eating animals is not only a gustatory behavior, as widely believed, but also an ideological one.”


*Cognitive dissonance*

Cognitive dissonance describes our ability to hold two conflicting ideas, attitudes, or behaviors in our mind at once. When we encounter information that shines a light on these mismatches, it can cause mental stress and discomfort.
In this case, our love of eating meat nestles deep inside our brain right next to our love of animals and a dislike of killing them._Could cognitive dissonance help explain why veganism attracts aggression?_
Some experts refer to this conflict as the “meat paradox” — people class certain animals as pets, some as wild animals, and others as farmed animals.

*Our whole society has become trapped in a paradox. On the one hand, we kill billions of animals each year, but, on the other, if someone mistreats a dog, they can face jail time.*

To rid ourselves of this mental suffering, we use cognitive tricks that help ease the tension. One way to relieve cognitive dissonance is to change our behavior and stop eating meat. If we cannot do that, we must change how we view animals.
For instance, omnivores downplay the range of thoughts and emotions that certain animals can experience. We may view a cat or dog as intelligent, but see a pig or sheep as little more than a robotic lump of sandwich filling. In reality, some farmyard animals are as sharp as a tack, while some dogs can be as dense as mutton.
As omnivores, when we encounter someone who follows a plant-based diet, we might, subconsciously, sense the pinpricks of cognitive dissonance. There may be an urge to defend the categories that we have built to protect ourselves from the ugly truth.
This subconscious need to defend our cognitive sandcastles can lead to flimsy arguments, such as “plants have feelings too.”
We try to avoid the breakdown using a range of techniques, one of which is an attempt to minimize our involvement.

*For instance, one vegan whom MNT recently spoke with explains, “when it comes up that I’m vegan, people will start telling me how often they eat meat, like a preemptive defense.”*

This example probably sounds familiar to many of us. We feel judged, even though no one is outwardly judging us, and we feel that there is a requirement to justify ourselves. For some of us, deep down, we know that what we are doing is not ideal, and we feel a need to minimize our role — both to ourselves and others.
Meeting a vegan or vegetarian pokes holes in many of our subconscious attempts to keep the negative feelings of cognitive dissonance under wraps. Vegans burst the bubble and remind us that we kill animals to put food on our table. They also show us that we can be responsible and make our own choices, and they remind us that the victim is worthy of saving.
They also force us to question deeply held beliefs that animals do not feel pain or fear. And, by being healthy and very much alive, vegans demonstrate that animal products are not an essential component of the human diet.
As people are not necessarily aware of this breakdown in their usually fail-safe cognitive mechanisms, vegans can invoke a fearful rage in otherwise friendly, well-measured individuals.
Of course, each person who feels negatively toward veganism is likely to have a unique set of drivers behind their emotions. Understanding why veganism attracts these emotions is a complex issue but one worthy of study.
As an increasing number of people decide to follow a more plant-based diet, getting to the bottom of the discontent is more important than ever.
When you consider that the World Health Organization (WHO) class processed meat as a group 1 carcinogenTrusted Source, perhaps it is high time that we all take a stroll down vegan lane.









Why does veganism make people angry?


Veganism is growing in popularity, but the movement faces resistance. Here, we ask why the decision to follow a plant-based diet makes some people angry.




www.medicalnewstoday.com


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## MUSTCLIME (Jan 26, 2004)

Wow, that’s some real nonsense. Let’s start with diabetes….what is diabetes? Well it’s the body’s inability to deal with sugars . Sugars or carbs become poisonous. How does the human body deal with carbohydrates? Say you eat a big bowl of rice, your digestive system brakes the rice into compounds it can absorb….the problem is a lot of that is glucose and other “ose” stuff( sugars). Sugars are poisonous so the body has to crank up the pancreas beta cells to produce a hormone called insulin . Insulin does a bunch of stuff, it tell cells to absorb as much of the sugars that they can. Insulin tells the body to produce more fat cells that can absorb these sugars and it instructs the liver to adsorb as much sugar as it can. Diabetes is a condition where the pancreas beta cells stop producing insulin. Type two diabetes is a condition where the insulin produced is not enough to deal with the sugars. Ether the beta cells are burning out and losing the ability to produce insulin OR the bodies cells become insulin resistant. When the cells become insulin resistant, more and more of the sugars get moved to the fat cells. Soooo what do doctors do? they prescribe extra insulin so you can keep eating rice, bread, beans and grains. The amount of insulin needed to control the sugars in the bloodstream will need to be increased again and again as the cells become more and more resistant…. Finally the body starts pushing the sugars to the extremities and the diabetic starts having fingers and toes die from sugar poisoning.
Modern medicine tells diabetics they can control blood sugars with extra insulin when they should be limiting carbohydrates intake. Diabetics need to convert to a high fat, low carb diet not just get more insulin.
This goes back to the fact that humans are animals that evolved over time with certain limitations and advantages. You need to look at these to understand what the body needs to work correctly. The very existence of diabetes should tell you the the human body has issues with carbohydrates.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

If you're claiming a causal link between veganism and diabetes you're placing a pretty high burden of proof on yourself. But it's worth pointing out veganism isn't a particular diet, it's merely the absence of animal products. In filling that absence you can make it as healthy or as junky as you want, and you can play around with your macro nutrient ratios quite a bit...some people even do vegan keto but we can probably agree that's silly.



I don't care to get into the weeds on diabetes or play whack-a-mole with with every nutritional concern...there's plenty of information in this thread and elsewhere if you're interested.



Anecdotally I can say I've been vegan for 5 years now and recently had comprehensive blood testing. I showed an insufficiency but not clinical deficiency in vitamin D, everything else was within normal range including the much feared protein and testosterone levels. My A1C was well below pre-diabetic.




I've personally spoken with a man whose parents helped found the Vegan Society. He was born of a vegan pregnancy in 1942 and has been vegan his entire life and to my knowledge is still in good health at 80 years old. So arguing veganism isn't healthy just doesn't hold up...certainly there are vegans with health problems, and ways of eating vegan that are unhealthy, but the mere absence of animal products isn't a threat to health.

It took me years to go from arguing with vegans to becoming one, but once I understood that veganism was a healthy, viable option eating animal products never sat quite right with me. I know transitioning can be hard for some but I found it surprisingly easy and extremely rewarding.


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## MUSTCLIME (Jan 26, 2004)

I have to ask….. do you acknowledge people are animals? If so what kind of animals are people? Look at your body, why are we shaped the way we are?
Let me tell you the best theory I have seen on human evolution. People evolved from primates that WERE omnivores until a climate change eliminated the woodlands they lived. These primates learned the hunt in pack in the peak heat of the day where they. Their body’s lost hair so sweat could cool the skin rather than a fur coat. They developed the ability to run upright so they could pant while running and expose as little body mass to the hot sun in the day. Their bodies lost mass and increased the number of tendons(a natural spring) to become more effective runners. Where the wolf and dogs used highly developed sense of smell to track prey, early humans developed larger brains the track and run down prey. People are by far the best mammal at thermal regulation in hot weather. We hair in our armpit’s and between our legs to prevent chafing, we have hair on the tops of our heads to shield our big brains from the sun. We have hair over our eyes to direct sweat away from the eyes. Early humans developed an upright posture to reduce sun exposure and to allow us to take more than one breath per stride ( quadruples can only take one breath per stride). When a pack of humans targeted an animal, they would start chasing it and the animal would run away. The people would continue to chase the animal and it would continue to run away but the prey would get hotter and hotter as the people were chasing it. At some point the animal would be forced into running and falling over dead from over heating or trying to fight off a pack of hungry humans. This is called persistence hunting and wolves and wild dogs do it in cooler climates.
What does all this crap mean? Well, sad to say, people are carnivores. When you look at most of the “modern “ ailments that people face today, they look a heck of a lot like what happens when you try to convert any other carnivore animals to a vegan diet. Feed a tiger veggies and you have a sick, fat tiger. Feed dogs veggies and carbs and your dog gets round and sick. IMO people are designed for high animal fat and low carb diets.


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## Le Duke (Mar 23, 2009)

MUSTCLIME said:


> I have to ask….. do you acknowledge people are animals? If so what kind of animals are people? Look at your body, why are we shaped the way we are?
> Let me tell you the best theory I have seen on human evolution. People evolved from primates that WERE omnivores until a climate change eliminated the woodlands they lived. These primates learned the hunt in pack in the peak heat of the day where they. Their body’s lost hair so sweat could cool the skin rather than a fur coat. They developed the ability to run upright so they could pant while running and expose as little body mass to the hot sun in the day. Their bodies lost mass and increased the number of tendons(a natural spring) to become more effective runners. Where the wolf and dogs used highly developed sense of smell to track prey, early humans developed larger brains the track and run down prey. People are by far the best mammal at thermal regulation in hot weather. We hair in our armpit’s and between our legs to prevent chafing, we have hair on the tops of our heads to shield our big brains from the sun. We have hair over our eyes to direct sweat away from the eyes. Early humans developed an upright posture to reduce sun exposure and to allow us to take more than one breath per stride ( quadruples can only take one breath per stride). When a pack of humans targeted an animal, they would start chasing it and the animal would run away. The people would continue to chase the animal and it would continue to run away but the prey would get hotter and hotter as the people were chasing it. At some point the animal would be forced into running and falling over dead from over heating or trying to fight off a pack of hungry humans. This is called persistence hunting and wolves and wild dogs do it in cooler climates.
> What does all this crap mean? Well, sad to say, people are carnivores. When you look at most of the “modern “ ailments that people face today, they look a heck of a lot like what happens when you try to convert any other carnivore animals to a vegan diet. Feed a tiger veggies and you have a sick, fat tiger. Feed dogs veggies and carbs and your dog gets round and sick. IMO people are designed for high animal fat and low carb diets.



Animal fat is literally the worst fuel for the type of endurance event you are describing. 

Also, if someone is taking more than one breath per stride, they aren’t chasing down any prey animals over any duration, because they are slower than molasses.

Last, countries that consume a lot of rice have low obesity and low diabetes rates. Amazing, eh?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## MUSTCLIME (Jan 26, 2004)

Le Duke said:


> Animal fat is literally the worst fuel for the type of endurance event you are describing.
> 
> Also, if someone is taking more than one breath per stride, they aren’t chasing down any prey animals over any duration, because they are slower than molasses.
> 
> ...


Ok , not true. When you convert your body to high fat/ low carb diet the body becomes very efficient at converting body fat to energy as it was supposed to be. While on endurance events, people on the high fat diets do not need to slam carbs every 15 minutes. You should read “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet” by Nina Teicholz….. great book, half of it is foot notes from reference. Nina goes into how Ancel Keyes created this fear of fat intake in the US. Don’t know Keyes? You remember what they called the boxed meals soldiers were given in WW2. They were called “K rations “…. The K was for Keyes. In the book Nina showed that Keyes cherry picked data that was used show the the Mediterranean diet was best for your hart….. things like doing diet study’s on the island of Create while people were on lent….good read. 

the trick of panting while running in the heat was used by some African tribesmen when practicing persistence hunting to keep cool. If you are doing persistence hunting, you are not running fast , you are running steady, the goal is to limit your preys cooling time. You keep them running till they fall over dead or are forced to stand against a pack of hungry humans.

as for the rice comment….. let me reply with the same argument….. there are lots of people over 80 years old that smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and they don’t have cancer…. So cigarettes are good for you……look, everyone knows someone that can eat the worst crap around all the time and they are skinny and healthy….. it’s genetics. If you can live on a vegan diet and not be sick and weak all the time…. Good on you, congratulations you have the genetics that allows you to live on livestock feed. My genetics do not allow me to eat carbohydrates. I have to eat 50-70% fats and as few carbohydrates as possible.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

MustClime Please start your own thread about your meat passion. I'm sure there are a couple of people that will agree with you and you can all marinate in your own juices. This is a positive forum that was initiated Aug 12, 2011 that is still going strong and will continue.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

MUSTCLIME said:


> I have to ask….. do you acknowledge people are animals? If so what kind of animals are people?


The kind that can enjoy long, happy, healthy and athletic lives without animal products.

The behaviors of our evolutionary ancestors are irrelevant to my present day decision making (as they are to you whenever they conflict with your personal preferences). When I see vegans winning Olympic gold medals in weight lifting, setting world records in endurance events, and living long lives with low levels of chronic illness then I know it's a viable option.

You could become vegan without suffering any health or fitness drawbacks. That's a choice you can make any time you wish. So next time you sit down for a meal think about the individuals whose flesh and excretions went into your food. If you haven't seen undercover footage from factory farms or slaughterhouses you really should. And know that you can choose to stop supporting that violence without giving up any of your health, happiness or fitness.


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## MUSTCLIME (Jan 26, 2004)

It’s cool, like I started above, many people treat diet like a religion, analytical thought is not encouraged.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Damn vegans, refusing to update their moral awareness, proselytizing the "wisdom" of their ancestors, sacrificing animals in service of their beliefs. 

Yeah. It's vegans who do that.

Every religion needs its tome:


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The most damaging farm products? Organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb*










Perhaps the most important of all environmental issues is land use. Every hectare of land we use for extractive industries is a hectare that can’t support wild forests, savannahs, wetlands, natural grasslands and other crucial ecosystems. And farming swallows far more land than any other human activity.

What are the world’s most damaging farm products? You might be amazed by the answer: organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb. I realise this is a shocking claim. Of all the statements in my new book, Regenesis, it has triggered the greatest rage. But I’m not trying to wind people up. I’m trying to represent the facts. Let me explain.


Arable crops, some of which are fed to farm animals, occupy 12% of the planet’s land surface. But far more land (28%) is used for grazing: in other words, for pasture-fed meat and milk. Yet, across this vast area, farm animals that are entirely pasture-fed produce just 1% of the world’s protein.

Livestock farmers often claim that their grazing systems “mimic nature”. If so, the mimicry is a crude caricature. A review of evidence from over 100 studies found that when livestock are removed from the land, the abundance and diversity of almost all groups of wild animals increases. The only category in which numbers fall when grazing by cattle or sheep ceases are those that eat dung. Where there are cattle, there are fewer wild mammals, birds, reptiles and insects on the land, and fewer fish in the rivers. Perhaps most importantly – because of their crucial role in regulating living systems – there tend to be no large predators.

We don’t think about large predators in the UK, because we’ve exterminated them. Efforts to bring back lynx and wolves have so far been thwarted by the objections of livestock farmers. In the United States, where big carnivores still exist, federal and state agencies wage war against them on behalf of cattle and sheep farmers, often with astonishing brutality. A federal body called Wildlife Services uses poisoned baits, snares and leghold traps and shooting from planes and helicopters to kill wolves, coyotes, bears and bobcats. Its agents have incinerated pups in their dens, or dragged them out and clubbed them to death.

Perhaps its most controversial killing tools are cyanide landmines: spring-loaded canisters of sodium cyanide planted in the ground, that spray the poison into the faces of animals that trip them. They’ve killed a wide range of endangered species, dozens of domestic dogs and at least one person. There are very few places – mostly parts of eastern and southern Africa – in which livestock farmers tolerate large predators, generally where tourism revenues are high.

Even if we manage to ignore this crucial ecological issue, there’s still a massive problem. Many livestock farmers now claim to practise “regenerative grazing”. The minimum definition of ecological regeneration is permitting trees to return to formerly wooded lands. In the uplands of Britain, to judge by the experience of deer managers, this means a maximum of about one sheep for every 20 hectares (50 acres). They might as well not be kept at all. In the lowlands, the Knepp rewilding project in Sussex shows how far production has to fall to permit the return of trees and other wildlife: it generates just 54kg of meat a hectare. If, as many chefs and foodies and some environmentalists propose, meat were to come only from regenerative farms, it would be so scarce that only millionaires would eat it.

In reality, the great majority of “regenerative” pasture-fed meat is nothing of the kind. It’s rebranded ranching, arguably the most destructive industry on Earth. In the US, livestock grazing is the primary reason for land degradation. It has caused an invasive species called cheatgrass to sweep across North America, devastating ecosystems. Cattle fencing excludes wild herbivores and stops migration. The supposedly-greener methods some ranchers call “holistic management” or “planned grazing” are just as bad for wildlife as conventional ranching.

In the UK, my estimates suggest that some 4m hectares of hill and mountain are used for sheep farming. Almost all this land, much of which would otherwise support temperate rainforest, is treeless, as tree seedlings are highly nutritious and selectively eaten by sheep. There are more trees for each hectare in some parts of inner London than there are in the “wild” British hills where sheep graze. The remaining vegetation is badly degraded.

Four million hectares is 22% of the entire farmed area. It’s roughly equivalent to all the land used to grow grain in this country , and 23 times the area used for growing fruit and vegetables. But, in terms of calories, lamb and mutton supply just over 1% of the UK’s food.

Pasture-fed meat production, in other words, is the major cause of agricultural sprawl. People rail against urban sprawl: the profligate use of land for housing and infrastructure. But the world’s urban areas occupy just 1% of the planet’s land surface, in comparison with the 28% used for grazing. Agricultural sprawl inflicts a very high ecological opportunity cost: the missing ecosystems that would otherwise exist.

This is matched by the carbon opportunity cost of pasture-fed beef and lamb. Meat production has two kinds of global heating impact: its climate current account, which means the gases released by farming animals; and its climate capital account, which means the carbon dioxide the land could absorb if it were rewilded. The current account is dominated by the powerful greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. Organic beef farms, whose animals take longer to raise and need even more land, lose twice as much nitrogen for each kilo of meat as conventional beef farms. In most cases, their current account emissions are astonishingly high, even in comparison with conventional beef farming, though some organic experiments, such as FAI Farms at Wytham in Oxfordshire, have found ways to reduce the time it takes for cattle to fatten.

Ranching’s capital account is always in debt, because wild ecosystems store more carbon than the fields and pastures that have taken their place. These debts can be enormous. A study of carbon opportunity costs published in Nature found that, while the global average cost of soybeans is 17kg of carbon dioxide for each kilogram of protein, the average carbon opportunity cost of a kilogram of beef protein is an astounding 1,250kg. Another paper calculates that if we all shifted to a plant-based diet, the carbon drawn down from the atmosphere by recovering ecosystems would be equivalent to the world’s fossil fuel emissions from the previous 16 years.

The livestock industry has fought back with a massive public relations campaign, seeking to persuade people that pasture-fed meat helps reduce global heating by storing carbon in the soil. Yet, despite the many claims, there is no empirical evidence that carbon storage in pastures can even compensate for grazing’s current account emissions, let alone address the capital debt. Just as the oil industry tried to convince us that CO2 was good for the planet on the grounds that it’s “plant food”, the ranching industry has sought to sow doubt and confusion about its vast environmental impacts.

We live in a bubble of delusion about where our food comes from and how it is produced. We’ve been dealing in stories when we should be dealing in numbers. Our gastroporn aesthetics, embedded in bucolic fantasy, are among the greatest threats to life on Earth.









The most damaging farm products? Organic, pasture-fed beef and lamb


Analysis: You may be amazed by that answer, but the area of land used for grazing is vast compared with the meat and milk produced




www.theguardian.com


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## MUSTCLIME (Jan 26, 2004)

Or we could limit the number of people…..the right to have as many offspring as a person wants needs to be revisited. 8 billion people is a bit much.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

Great article 👍


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Animated version


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How tomatoes, once thought to be toxic, became a globally beloved food*









It's the base of a fast food staple and typically slathered on pasta, but the humble tomato wasn't always so popular.

When it was introduced to Italy by Spanish conquistadors nearly five centuries ago, few wanted to touch it. Some even considered it poisonous. 

Now, it's among the most widely eaten foods in the world, despite its bad rap.

"The supermarket tomato routinely finishes dead last in food satisfaction surveys. It's even become the avatar for tasteless, corporate food," said William Alexander, author of _Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World_, in an interview on CBC Radio's _The Sunday Magazine_.

The crimson fruit — better known as a vegetable following an 1893 U.S. Supreme Court ruling — is used in dishes around the world and has single handedly defined the cuisine of Italy. And tomato sauce played a crucial role in making pizza a globally loved dish.

But Alexander likens the produce to late comedian Rodney Dangerfield.

"It gets no respect," he said, with a laugh.










Love it or hate it, tomato ketchup has become a staple of fast-food restaurants.

*Ignored for centuries*
Much like the vines the grow on, the tomato's history is full of twists and turns.

As Alexander explains it, tomatoes were originally brought to Italy from the Americas by Spanish colonists sometime around 1530, and they weren't well received.

"We actually have a record of the day that a basket of this strange new fruit arrives at the Pisa palace of no less than Cosimo de Medici, who you'd think would be just a great person to get these," the author said.

Medici, part of the wealthy Italian banking family, founded the botanical gardens in Florence and had already been growing maize, a crop from the new world.

But people in the room turned up their noses. "They were not served for dinner that night, they were not served for dinner the next night, and they were not served for dinner for 300 years," said Alexander.









William Alexander is the author of Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World. His personal favourite? The purple Cherokee heirloom variety.


*From pig lard to marinara*
There are a few theories about why the tomatoes didn't catch on.

First, Alexander says, there was nothing like the tomato in Italian cooking at the time. 

Secondly, botanists correctly identified tomatoes as a nightshade. Some species in the nightshade family, a group of flowering plants, are highly toxic. But given people in the region were already eating eggplant and peppers — also nightshades — Alexander is skeptical of that theory.

The theory he most favours? The work of Galen of Pergamon, a second-century Greek physician who promoted the belief that certain foods influenced the four "humors," had once again gained prominence around the same time. While Galen wouldn't have known about tomatoes, proponents of humoral medicine believed them to be wet and cold, and inherently unhealthy.

As for the beloved combination of pasta and marinara sauce, Alexander says pigs may be to thank.









Before tomato sauce came along, pasta was typically served slathered in pig lard, Alexander explains. 

For a long time, pasta — which originated in Naples — was a street food eaten by hand. Traditionally, it was covered in pig's lard, but it's believed that cooks started topping it with tomato sauce because the preferred swine species for making prosciutto, also known as Parma ham, was changing.

"In the middle 1800s, the black pigs that had been used for Parma ham started to get replaced by three other types of pigs that grew faster [and] made better ham, but the lard was not as good," said Alexander.

"So one theory is that people eating pasta in the streets started to look for a different topping to put on the pasta."

*Thomas Jefferson's tomatoes*
By the 1800s, tomatoes were also beginning to gain popularity in North America. According to legend, New Jersey farmer Col. Robert Gibbon Johnson is largely responsible.

"The story goes that tomatoes were considered inedible until he stood on the courthouse steps … in 1820, I think it was, and ate an entire bucket of the things," said Alexander.

However, it's believed that former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson had been growing and serving his own tomatoes since at least the turn of the 19th century.









Our love of the plump, red tomato has changed over centuries. Alexander's book details its history.


The fruits were also already enjoyed in the southern U.S., likely brought to the country by enslaved cooks who had prepared with them in the Caribbean. 

But despite Johnson's alleged efforts, people in the north didn't get into the trend until doctors of the time began touting the tomato as a health food. Some entrepreneurs even sold tomatoes in pill form, Alexander said.

"This one doctor gave a talk to his medical students that got published in like 200 newspapers talking about all their health properties. And this was the time when the United States was becoming very health-conscious, mainly because cholera was coming," he said. 

*Love for tomatoes continues*
Alexander says that the future looks bright for tomatoes — especially as more people look to grow their own.

"If there was any kind of a faintest silver lining to COVID, it's that many people started growing their own fruits [and] vegetables — and tomatoes were number one," he said.

When asked to name his favourite tomato, Alexander pointed to the purple Cherokee, an heirloom beefsteak variety.

Picked fresh from the garden and served still warm from the sun, he says it's best enjoyed on bread.

"Slice it, cook up some bacon, get out the mayonnaise and make the world's best sandwich: a BLT," he said.

"You cannot beat it."



https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-magazine-for-august-14-2022-1.6548442/how-tomatoes-once-thought-to-be-toxic-became-a-globally-beloved-food-1.6556622


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

There is a cultural shift happening away from milk, cream and dairy with mounting evidence that alternatives have less calories, fat and sugar while having more calcium and vitamin D than cow's milk. I stopped consuming milk when I was in my teens and (finally) eliminated all dairy 9 years ago (2014). Since becoming vegan my overall health, fitness and consciousness is strong and stable. I'm powered by plants 🧡🌱



https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/dairy-to-plant-based-1.6551457


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Vegan Protein: A Simple Guide to Getting What You Need*










“Where do you get your protein?”

It’s question vegans and vegetarians get asked more than any other. We hear it so often, in fact, that we tend to forget that some people really do want to know the answer, and aren’t just asking it with the aim of poking holes in our silly, granola-crunchy plant-based diet plan.

And when it comes to supplements for vegans, protein is the big one people want to know about (even if other nutrients, like Vitamin B12, are far more important).

First, the short answer to the question _Where do you get your protein?_

*You don’t need as much protein as most people think, and it’s easy to get what you do need from beans, nuts, seeds, grains, and even greens.*

*How much protein do vegans need?*
Not as much as people would have you believe. Somehow, everyone got the idea that we need exorbitant amounts of protein, way more than is even recommended. It’s fun to blame government agencies and cry conspiracy, but if you actually look at the recommendations, they’re not that high at all.

*For example, the U.S. recommended daily allowance of protein is .8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight (.36 grams per pound) for the general population.*

Protein for vegan athletes is somewhat more complicated, as greater tissue-repair need require more protein and general, and athletes tend to pay more attention to amino acid balance.

Some successful endurance athletes (see the fruitarian diet) get as little as 5% of their calories from protein — and since a gram of protein contains about four calories, that’s less than 35 grams of protein a day for a 2500-calorie-per-day diet!

At the other extreme are vegan bodybuilders and those new to the plant-based diet who are accustomed to higher amounts of protein and worried about what will happen when they stop eating meat. They aim for higher amounts of protein, often 25 to 30 percent of calories. It’s hard to get this amount from whole plant-foods, so they often turn to vegan protein supplements to get the extra boost they’re looking for.

Several sources I looked at cited a study which concluded that endurance athletes benefit most from 1.2 to 1.4 daily grams per kilogram of bodyweight, while strength athletes do best with 1.4 to 1.8 grams per kilogram. In pounds, that’s .54 to .63 grams per pound for endurance athletes, .63 to .81 grams per pound for strength athletes.

*Example: How to calculate vegan protein needs*
Let’s take a typical No Meat Athlete reader and see what this means for her, let’s a say a 140-pound runner. We’ll split the daily protein range for endurance athletes in the middle and aim for .59 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight:

*140 pounds * .59 grams/pound = 83 grams of protein per day*

Keep in mind that’s for a 140-pound endurance athlete, so you’ll need to plug in your own weight and, if you do a strength sport, use a different protein figure.

_But really, only 83 grams?_

All of this protein fuss — the incessant inquisition about where we get protein — is about 83 grams per day, _even after adjusting for being an athlete_? (And if our 140-pound woman weren’t an athlete, she’d need only 50 grams to hit the RDA number!)

*What the experts say about plant-based protein needs*
Before we move onto good vegan and vegetarian protein sources for getting this amount, let’s take a look at what some well-known and credentialed vegans say about protein.


In the documentary Forks Over Knives, _China Study_ author Dr. T. Colin Campbell says that you need 8 to 10 percent of your calories to come from protein. (Keep in mind he’s not necessarily talking about athletes.)
Vegan Ironman Brendan Brazier, in his appearance on No Meat Athlete radio, says he eats about 15 percent protein when training for short events, and close to 20 percent protein during periods of heavy training (several hours per day) for long endurance events.
Tim Ferriss writes in The 4-Hour Body that ultrarunner Scott Jurek gets 15 to 20 percent of his calories from protein.
Matt Ruscigno, in the post he wrote for No Meat Athlete about protein for vegetarians, says he recommends that his athlete clients get 10 to 15 percent of their calories from protein.
Notice that everybody expresses things in percentage protein instead of grams, in order to more easily account for different body masses.

How does our 83 grams of protein, for a 140-pound female endurance athlete stack up in terms of percentage of total calories?

Well, the first thing to note is that a gram of protein contains four calories. (Yay for paying attention in health class!) So:

*83 grams * 4 calories/gram = 332 calories of protein*

We’ll need to divide this figure by total daily calories to get the percentage we’re after. Plugging an imaginary friend’s stats (5’3″, 140 lbs, female, very active) into this basal metabolic rate calculator to approximate her total daily calories at 2375. Drumroll, please …

*322 calories of protein / 2375 total calories = 13.6% of calories from protein*

Not far off from the 15 percent that most of our experts mentioned! Based on all of this, aiming to get 15 percent of your calories from protein seems like a pretty good rule of thumb.

Using percentages to be a much easier way to evaluate a food’s protein content than grams. protein percentages.

*Where do vegans get their protein?*
There’s no shortage of lists of high-quality vegan protein sources. But as you might expect, they’re often topped by soy products (tempeh is much higher in protein than tofu), seitan, and legumes.

Favorite vegan foods for protein — in rough, descending order of how often I eat them — are:


Lentils (red are my favorites), 18 grams of protein per cup
Chickpeas, 12 grams/cup
Tempeh 41 grams per cup
Black beans, 15 grams per cup
Nuts and nut butters (I eat a good mix, usually without peanuts), varied
Tofu, 11 grams per 4 ounces
Quinoa, 9 grams per cup
Other legumes, varied
Grains, varied
(These protein content numbers come from the Vegetarian Resource Group’s excellent article on vegetarian protein.)

Add vegan protein powder to smoothies each morning — depending on fitness goals at the time. Some, for example, is an athlete trying to gain weight on a vegan diet, so they always includes protein in his smoothie.

Smoothies, in general, are a great way to boost protein intake on a plant-based diet, since you can easily add lots of other high-protein ingredients like walnuts, flaxseeds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, and almond butter, and even beans (yep, people do it!).



*Warning: Don’t ignore amino acids*
All protein is not created equally. Protein is made up of amino acids, and there are certain ones, called “essential,” which your body cannot produce on its own and must get through food.

As long as you’re eating a wide variety of whole foods — a good practice to follow for many reasons — you’re probably getting a nice mix of amino acids. One, though, that’s particularly tough for vegetarians to get, is lysine, as explained in this article on protein from Vegan Health.

Only a few vegan foods contain lysine in large amounts, but fortunately, they’re staples in many of our diets: tempeh, tofu, and legumes. If you don’t eat beans or soy, because of allergies or some other reason, you’ll need to pay special attention to lysine, and it might be worth considering an amino acid supplement.

*The easy way for vegans to get enough protein every day*
As it turns out, I weigh around 122 pounds, so the 43 grams of protein mentioned above is right about what I aim for. 

So how do I get my 43 grams of protein per day?

My approach to getting enough protein is very simple:

*Make sure you include a decent protein source, even if just a little bit, in every meal or snack.*

Mainly, this just keeps you mindful and prevents you from slipping into junk-food-vegan, carbohydrate-only mode.

So what does this mean in terms of actual foods? Try these:


Adding protein powder to your smoothie. (10-15 g protein)
Eating a whole-wheat bagel with peanut or almond butter for a snack. (17 g protein)
Including beans in your pasta dishes (you’ll find plenty at our vegan recipes page). (~15 g protein per cup of beans)
Lots of lentils. (18 g protein per cup)
Hummus on a whole wheat pita for a snack. (10 g protein)
Putting nuts on your salad or eating them alone as a snack. (5-6 g protein per handful)
Eating quinoa as part of the main dish or a side. (11 g protein per cup)
Occasionally eating soy products, like tempeh, (30 g protein per cup) — but don’t forget all the high-protein vegan alternatives to soy!
See? No huge numbers here, but mix in a few of them every day, and it’s no problem at all to get anywhere from 60-100 grams of protein, especially when you count all the other foods you eat that contain smaller amounts of protein. My point here isn’t to get you to start counting protein grams throughout the day — I certainly don’t do that — but you can see just how easy it is to get the protein you need.

A few other favorite, high-protein vegan recipes:


5 Easy Rice and Beans Recipe
The Only Plant-Based Protein Bowl You’ll Ever Need
Split Pea Soup
Chocolate Quinoa Protein Energy Bars
High-Protein Chocolate Pudding
And here’s a protein meal plan that puts it all together.

*So the next time someone asks …*
You won’t have to tell them it’s complicated, or argue to no avail that broccoli would be a good protein source if only you could eat five pounds of it in a sitting. Instead, you can just explain that we don’t need all that much protein, and it’s easy to get what we do need from a half dozen, common foods, eaten just a little bit at a time throughout the day.

No big deal.










Vegan Protein | No Meat Athlete


Getting enough protein on a plant-based diet is easier than you think — use this simple guide to get the protein you need.




www.nomeatathlete.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Processed Meat Linked to Higher Risk of Colorectal Cancer in Men, New Study Finds*









The high consumption of ultra-processed foods comes with an increased risk of colorectal cancer in men, according to new research from Tufts University and Harvard University. Notably, the research found the strongest association between colorectal cancer and ultra-processed foods among men came from meat, poultry, and fish products.

In the study, published in peer-reviewed medical journal _The BMJ_, researchers found that men who consumed high rates of ultra-processed foods were at 29 percent higher risk for developing colorectal cancer—the third most diagnosed cancer in the United States—than men who consumed much smaller amounts. They did not find the same association in women.

“We started out thinking that colorectal cancer could be the cancer most impacted by diet compared to other cancer types,” Lu Wang, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts, said in a statement. “Processed meats, most of which fall into the category of ultra-processed foods, are a strong risk factor for colorectal cancer. Ultra-processed foods are also high in added sugars and low in fiber, which contribute to weight gain and obesity, and obesity is an established risk factor for colorectal cancer.”

The study analyzed responses from more than 200,000 participants—159,907 women and 46,341 men—across three large prospective studies which assessed dietary intake and were conducted over more than 25 years. Each participant was provided with a food frequency questionnaire every four years and asked about the frequency of consumption of roughly 130 foods.










Participants’ intake of ultra-processed foods was then classified into quintiles, ranging in value from the lowest consumption to the highest. Those in the highest quintile were identified as being the most at risk for developing colorectal cancer. Although there was a clear link identified for men, particularly in cases of colorectal cancer in the distal colon, the study did not find an overall increased risk for women who consumed higher amounts of ultra-processed foods.

*Health impacts of processed meat*
The analyses revealed differences in the ways that men and women consume ultra-processed foods and the prospective associated cancer risk. Out of the study participants, the research team documented 1,294 cases of colorectal cancer among men and 1,922 cases among women. The team found the strongest association between colorectal cancer and ultra-processed foods among men came from the meat, poultry, or fish-based, ready-to-eat products. “These products include some processed meats like sausages, bacon, ham, and fish cakes,” Wang said. “This is consistent with our hypothesis.”

The team also found higher consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, like soda, fruit-based beverages, and sugary dairy-based beverages, is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer in men. 

“Further research will need to determine whether there is a true sex difference in the associations, or if null findings in women in this study were merely due to chance or some other uncontrolled confounding factors in women that mitigated the association,” Mingyang Song, co-senior author on the study and assistant professor of clinical epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement. 










Although ultra-processed foods are often associated with poor diet quality, there could be factors beyond the poor diet quality of ultra-processed foods that impact the risk of developing colorectal cancer. The potential role of food additives in altering gut microbiota, promoting inflammation, and contaminants formed during food processing or migrated from food packaging may all promote cancer development, Zhang noted.

*Changing dietary patterns to reduce cancer risk*
Wang and Zhang previously published a study that identified a trend in increased ultra-processed food consumption in US children and adolescents, underscoring the idea that many different groups of people may be dependent on ultra-processed foods in their daily diets. 

“Much of the dependence on these foods can come down to factors like food access and convenience,” Zhang said. “Chemically processing foods can aid in extending shelf life, but many processed foods are less healthy than unprocessed alternatives. We need to make consumers aware of the risks associated with consuming unhealthy foods in quantity and make the healthier options easier to choose instead.”

The researchers hope this study, among others, will contribute to changes in dietary regulations and recommendations. “Long-term change will require a multi-step approach,” Wang said. “Researchers continue to examine how nutrition-related policies, dietary recommendations, and recipe and formula changes, coupled with other healthy lifestyle habits, can improve overall health and reduce cancer burden. It will be important for us to continue to study the link between cancer and diet, as well as the potential interventions to improve outcomes.” 









Processed Meat Linked to Higher Risk of Colorectal Cancer in Men, New Study Finds


A new study from Tufts University and Harvard University finds the strongest association between colorectal cancer and ultra-processed foods come from meat.




vegnews.com


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## GoldenKnightMTB (11 mo ago)

I eat plant based. Most vegetarians are slim, where meat eaters are obese.


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## Jayem (Jul 16, 2005)

Is it wrong to adopt animals to eat?


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## GoldenKnightMTB (11 mo ago)

Jayem said:


> Is it wrong to adopt animals to eat?


In my opinion, yes. If they are cows, chickens, pigs, thats really your decision.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Yes!!!

*Vegans Who Lift Weights Have Better Bone Strength, New Study Finds*










Vegans who do strength training have similar bone strength to omnivores who do strength training, according to new research published in the Endocrine Society’s _Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism_.

Approximately six percent of people in the United States are vegan, and recent research has suggested that a plant-based diet can be associated with lower bone mineral density and increased fracture risk. This new study aimed to find out if resistance training can offset any potential diminished bone strength in vegans compared to omnivores.

The study authors compared data from 43 men and women on a plant-based diet for at least five years and 45 men and women on an omnivore diet for at least five years. The researchers found vegan and omnivore participants who did resistance training exercises such as using machines, free weights, or bodyweight resistance exercises at least once a week had similar bone strength. The study also found that vegans who engaged in resistance training had stronger bones than vegans who did other forms of exercise such as biking or swimming.

“Veganism is a global trend with strongly increasing numbers of people worldwide adhering to a purely plant-based diet,” Christian Muschitz, MD, of St. Vincent Hospital Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna in Vienna, Austria, said in a statement. “Our study showed resistance training offsets diminished bone structure in vegan people when compared to omnivores.”










The study’s results challenge the notion that an exclusively plant-based diet is less efficient than a diet that includes animal products when it comes to health and fitness. Though bone strength is a benefit of strength training, especially as people age, vegans can further promote bone strength by performing strength training regularly. “People who adhere to a vegan lifestyle should perform resistance training on a regular basis to preserve bone strength,” Muschitz said.

*Can you build strength with plant protein?*
Similarly, a plant-based diet has been shown to support muscle-building equally as well as an omnivore diet. Traditionally, whey protein has been considered the optimal choice of protein for muscle-building; however, in recent years researchers have determined that animal-derived protein is not superior to plant-based protein.

A study published earlier this year in the scientific journal_ Sports Medicine_ found that vegans experience the same muscle gains using plant-based protein powder as omnivores using animal-derived whey. The study aimed to identify the effects of dietary protein sources—specifically plant-based versus a mixed omnivore diet—on changes in muscle mass and strength in healthy young men who strength train. 

The study showed that a plant-based diet composed of whole foods and soy protein supplementation is as effective as an omnivorous diet composed of mixed whole foods and whey protein supplementation for supporting muscle-building and strength. The results may encourage those who strength train to consider using plant-based protein supplements instead. 

“A high-protein, exclusively plant-based diet (plant-based whole foods plus soy protein isolate supplementation) is not different than a protein-matched mixed diet (mixed whole foods plus  whey protein supplementation) in supporting muscle strength and mass accrual, suggesting that protein source does not affect resistance training-induced adaptations in untrained young men consuming adequate amounts of protein,” the researchers concluded.











Similarly, a study published in the scientific journal _Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise_ found that potato protein can be as effective as animal-derived milk in building muscle. Conducted by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, the study hypothesized that because potato protein and animal milk protein share a very similar amino acid composition that both might have a similar effect on muscle protein synthesis, or the body’s way of making amino acids into skeletal muscle protein. 

“Ingestion of 30 grams of potato protein concentrate increases muscle protein synthesis rates at rest and during recovery from exercise in healthy, young males,” the study concluded. “Muscle protein synthesis rates following the ingestion of 30 grams of potato protein do not differ from rates observed after ingesting an equivalent amount of milk protein.”

And when it comes to overall musculoskeletal health, a 2017 study published in the _American Journal of Clinical Nutrition_ found that dietary protein derived from plant sources is no different than that from meat sources. Among 3,000 participants with varied dietary habits, higher protein intake led to better overall musculoskeletal health, and the source of dietary protein—plant or animal—was irrelevant.

“We know that dietary protein can improve muscle mass and strength,” lead researcher Kelsey M. Mangano, PhD, RD, said in a statement. “However, until now, we did not know if one protein food source was better than another in accomplishing optimal results.”









Vegans Who Lift Weights Have Better Bone Strength, New Study Finds


New research shows that vegans who lift weights have bone strength similar to meat eaters, and better bone strength than vegans who do other forms of exercise.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The Vegan Guide to Omega-3s*

*Find out how much omega-3s you need to thrive, the best plant-based sources, and why you should avoid fish as a source of the essential fatty acid.*


Whether it’s from an ad on television or your doctor, you’ve likely heard that omega-3 fatty acids provide many health benefits. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), these essential nutrients provide your body with energy, prevent vision loss, support brain health, improve cognitive function, and protect your heart by reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease. However, not getting enough (or too much) omega-3s can have consequences for your health. So, what’s a vegan to do when the most common dietary sources of omega-3s are fish and other seafood, and the vast majority of omega-3 supplements are derived from fish oil? Read on. It is possible to obtain enough omega-3 fatty acids on a vegan diet, but first, you need to understand how much you actually need. Here is how to optimize your omega-3 intake and live your best vegan life.

*What are omega-3s?*
Omega-3s are essential fatty acids, meaning you need to acquire them through food as your body cannot produce them on its own. Omega-3 fatty acids are vital components of the membranes surrounding every cell in your body. They’re also anti-inflammatory and help support communication between cells.










The three types of omega-3s are alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). ALA is the plant-based omega-3, most commonly found in walnuts, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, Brussels sprouts, kidney beans, and other whole plant foods. DHA and EPA are found in marine foods such as algae, seaweed, fish, and other seafood.

Each of the omega-3 fatty acids is necessary for staying healthy, but DHA and EPA are of particular importance. A 2012 article published in _Advances in Nutrition_ reports that DHA and EPA are critical for heart health, brain health, cognitive function, and fetal development. The marine omega-3s have also been found to help reduce heart disease risk, prevent macular degeneration (vision loss), and help treat Alzheimer’s disease. Interestingly, our bodies can convert ALA into DHA and EPA. However, this process is ineffective and the conversion rate varies based on the individual. Generally, our bodies cannot convert sufficient amounts of ALA into DHA and EPA; therefore, we need to seek out these two variations through food or supplements.

“Omega-3 fatty acids are essential fats that we must get from food because we don’t produce them in our bodies. Omega-3s are long-chain polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) typically associated with fish/fish oils, but that’s because of marketing,” Dr. Dana Ellis Hunnes, PhD, MPH, RD, senior dietitian at the UCLA Medical Center and author of _Recipe for Survival_, tells VegNews. 

*The problem with getting omega-3s from fish*
Foods such as sardines, salmon, mackerel, and fish oil supplements have long been touted as the ideal sources of omega-3s. However, you may be surprised to learn this is not the case. DHA and EPA aren’t produced by fish but by algae. Fish are high in omega-3s because algae is a significant part of their diets. Algae are plant-based sources of DHA and EPA that are safe for everyone to consume, including vegans and vegetarians._
_
Besides the ethical and environmental implications of eating fish and using them to produce fish oil supplements, fish are high in mercury—a naturally occurring heavy metal that’s highly toxic and accumulates in the bodies of fish. When you eat fish high in mercury, that mercury can build up in your blood over time and negatively impact your health. In addition, many fish eat microplastics that have chemical residues in them. These microplastics can attach to fatty acids, such as omega-3s. Furthermore, current overfishing practices are a growing environmental and sustainability issue.

“There are a lot of toxins in our environment and many of them often end up in the ocean. For example, eight million metric tons of plastics end up in the ocean each year, and plankton eat them, bigger fish eat them, and so on,” Dr. Ellis Hunnes explains. “These plastics/chemicals get stored in fish fat. In addition, mercury is another toxin in the environment and in larger fish (tunas and sharks). So getting omega-3s from plant-based sources essentially eliminates this risk.”

*How much omega-3 do you need?*
So what can you do to get adequate amounts of DHA and EPA if you don’t consume fish or their oil? Cut out the middleman. Vegans can supplement their omega-3 intake with a plant-based algae oil. Research shows that eating seaweed or taking an algae oil supplement boosts DHA levels more effectively than eating foods rich in ALA.

However, Dr. Ellis Hunnes says supplementing isn’t necessary—if you know what to eat.



> “If people eat enough omega-3s from plant sources such as walnuts, chia seeds, flax seeds, and their oils, there’s no need to supplement omega-3. Moreover, a lot of literature suggests a whole food plant-based diet is far healthier and better for you than an unhealthy standard American diet supplemented with omega-3,” explains Dr. Dana Ellis.


Currently, the recommended daily intake (RDA) for ALA is 1.6 grams for men and 1.1 grams for women. As for DHA and EPA, there’s no official RDA. However, most experts and health organizations agree that 250 to 500 milligrams of combined DHA and EPA is adequate for most adults. According to the NIH, the symptoms of an omega-3 deficiency often appear on the skin as rough, scaly patches or a red, swollen, itchy rash. Conversely, if you overdo it and consume too much omega-3, you could experience some unwanted side effects, such as elevated blood sugar, increased risk of bleeding, low blood pressure, diarrhea, acid reflux, stroke, and insomnia, according to the experts at _Healthline_.

*The bottom line on omega-3s*
At the end of the day, don’t stress over your omega-3 intake. Vegans, vegetarians, and omnivores can get enough omega-3 fatty acids through plant sources such as walnuts, brussels sprouts, seeds, seaweed, and algae. It’s a wise decision to take a plant-based algae oil supplement as an insurance policy to ensure you get enough DHA and EPA to protect your heart and brain health. Be cautious and speak with your healthcare provider before taking any new supplements.









The Vegan Guide to Omega-3s


Find out how much omega-3s you need to thrive, the best plant-based sources, and why you should avoid fish as a source of the essential fatty acid.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Can Microbes Make French Cheese Better than Cows? Startups Raise $14 Million to Find Out. 








*

*French cheeses are regarded as some of the best in the world. These two Parisian startups just raised a combined $14 million to make them even better—and free from animal products—using microbial fermentation.*

France is considered one of the world’s best dairy cheese producers but can microbes help move the country into a modern era, where cheese-making no longer requires cows? Two French startups just raised a combined total of $14 million to prove that delicious, complex, melty vegan French cheese can be made in a new way, one that removes cows from the production cycle, improving animal welfare and environmental impact while preserving all of the things people love about cheese. 

This week, Paris-based startup Standing Ovation closed an oversubscribed $12 million Series A funding round to scale its innovative technology. Founded in 2020, the startup uses microbial fermentation to produce casein proteins that can then be added to bases of vegetal or mineral origin to create true replicas of French cheeses without the use of animal products. 










With the new funding in hand, Standing Ovation will initially focus on scaling production of its soft and fresh French cheeses, continue research and development efforts for new products, and initiate the regulatory approval process for its products. 

“In only two years, we have developed a unique and highly technological process,” Romain Chayot, Scientific Director of Standing Ovation, said in a statement. “We are now in a strong position to build on this momentum and transition towards more logistically intensive stages, especially scaling up.”

*French cheese made vegan*
Casein is a functional protein that makes up 80 percent of the protein in milk and is vital to making it curdle into cheese, giving it its most recognizable properties: melting and stretching. However, dairy production is a process that exploits the reproductive systems of cows while having a negative impact on the environment when it comes to resource use and greenhouse gas emissions. Dairy milk is also filled with cholesterol and triggers allergies for many who are lactose intolerant. 

As Standing Ovation has shown, there is a better way to make this functional protein and the resulting French cheeses. “Standing Ovation’s technology represents a paradigm shift for the animal-free dairy market,” Eric Archambeau, co-founder of Astanor Ventures, which led the startup’s recent funding round, said in a statement. “Casein is the holy grail for the production of alternative options that match conventional products in nutrition, taste and texture yet it has remained notoriously difficult to create.”










And Standing Ovation is not alone. For its part, Paris-based startup Nutropy raised $2 million in a pre-seed round recently to pursue a similar goal as Standing Ovation: using microbial fermentation to take the place of cows in the cheese-making process. 

The female-led startup has also developed animal-free casein that can be used in a variety of dairy applications. The company is now working to replicate dairy fatty acids and cheese cultures to optimize its “cheesable milk solution” that can be turned into premium French cheeses just like its traditionally made counterpart. Nutropy will use the new funding to release its animal-free French cheeses within the next 24 months.
The startup’s pre-seed round was led by Beast, Trellis Road, and Big Idea Ventures—with the latter also participating in Standing Ovation’s Series A funding. The round had participation from VegCapital, FoodHack, Techmind, and, notably, the French government. 

“We are excited about Nutropy’s technology and the quality of the products the team has been able to produce,” Andrew D. Ive, Founder and Managing General Partner of Big Idea Ventures said in a statement. “I tried their premium cheese at one of our events, and the texture and taste were indistinguishable from premium, animal-based cheese. Using bio-identical ingredients is a game changer.” 

*Transforming dairy with microbes*
Outside of France, startups worldwide are reimagining cheese with the help of microbial fermentation. Stateside, California-based New Culture is tackling mozzarella, the country’s most consumed cheese, first as it looks to debut its animal-free cheese at pizzerias next year. And it has a lot of support to get there. 










Last year, New Culture raised $25 million in a Series A round to jumpstart its commercialization. This summer, New Culture announced its partnership with agri-business giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), which will accelerate its scaling process. New Culture will also leverage ADM’s expertise in the agribusiness space to improve product experience for future cheeses. 

And while New Culture can make just about any cheese—including classic French varieties such as brie and camembert—it’s sticking to mozzarella for now to make the greatest impact. 

“When we think about our strategy from a mission-driven perspective, for us to create the most positive impact as quickly as possible, tackling the mozzarella market and converting those consumers—and especially the biggest users of mozzarella, national pizza chains—to animal-free dairy mozzarella will be a big win from a mission point of view but also a revenue point of view. They use and buy a lot of cheese.” Matt Gibson, New Culture’s New Zealand-born co-founder, previously told VegNews. “ In the US, pizza is a beloved food.”









Can Microbes Make French Cheese Better than Cows? Startups Raise $14 Million to Find Out.


French cheeses are regarded as some of the best in the world. These two Parisian startups just raised a combined $14 million to make them even better—and free from animal products—using microbial fermentation.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Should Animal Testing End for Health Studies? 800 Experts Say Yes*
*More than 800 experts say animal testing in health studies is unnecessary, and they are calling on medical journal Nutrients to stop publishing such studies that violate its own ethical guidelines. *










More than 800 physicians, scientists, and health professionals have joined nonprofit organization Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) to call on the medical journal _Nutrients_ to stop publishing animal studies that violate the publication’s own ethical guidelines.

_Nutrients_’ guidelines for authors explicitly require the “replacement of animals by alternatives wherever possible.” Yet, in a letter sent to the journal’s editors in chief, the group points out a number of published studies in which small animals were experimented on even though alternatives were readily available. 

“We wish to notify you that the journal’s repeated publication of articles that violate its ethical guidelines and its refusal to act on reports of these violations have caused us to lose confidence in the journal’s integrity,” the letter states. The letter notes that by publishing these articles, _Nutrients_ is showing young researchers that it’s okay to violate ethical mandates and that the journal will publish their studies anyway.










For example, a March 2021 article published in _Nutrients_ focused on the research of antidepressant-like properties and behavioral effects of saffron. The study used 50 mice, who were force-fed saffron extract by gavage and then thrown into a tank of water. 

PCRM says the test has been denounced by leaders in the scientific community, such as Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, and GlaxoSmithKline, and numerous studies, concluding that it’s not a valid model for depression. Furthermore, McCarthy said, there is little similarity between the clinical symptoms of depression in humans and the behaviors measured in the test. The researcher would have been better off feeding saffron to humans, she said, and having them report their depression. 

“We have found articles in nearly every issue of _Nutrients_ where commercial supplement manufacturers, students, junior faculty members, or others have side-stepped ethical research methods that would have avoided animal testing,” McCarthy said. Instead, those researchers purchased and experimented on small animals, particularly those exempt from welfare requirements, then submitted results to _Nutrients_ for publication.

*Why animal testing is unnecessary*
The PCRM group says that for health studies like these, animal testing is unncessary, unethical, and irrelevant. “When investigators use animals instead of human research methods that could ethically serve their research goals, they drive medical investigation away from the species of interest and toward other species whose biological responses may differ and often use scientifically unsatisfactory methods,” the letter says. “In some cases, the study methods would be considered by objective observers to constitute sadistic behavior inflicted on small animals in the guise of science.”












Nutrients charges authors approximately $2,600 to publish their articles, which means the publication makes more than $13 million annually in authors’ fees. In 2018, the journals’ senior editors quit, citing a lack of commitment to scientific integrity. 

In addition to writing _Nutrients_, the PCRM group also sent a separate letter to MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine’s bibliographic database, asking it to limit or suspend _Nutrients’_ participation in the database until the problem is rectified.

“It is vital that journals uphold their ethical policies,” McCarthy said. “Publishing research of mediocre quality that isn’t contributing to the advancement of public health is detrimental to the scientific community.”

*Conducting scientific research without animals*
PCRM is a medical community made up of 17,000 physicians and 175,000 members working with government and industry to replace the use of animal tests with modern methods. In addition to lobbying, publishing research, training scientists, and attending and conducting scientific meetings, the group also hosts physician-led protests in an effort to make positive change within the medical community, such as one conducted earlier this year calling for an end to the use of live animals in the University of Cincinnati’s surgery training program.

An accompanying petition asked that the school improve medical training by replacing pigs with the same human-relevant methods used by hundreds of other programs. The physicians group also purchased ads on 10 bus benches across the city.










At the University of Cincinnati, trainees practice invasive medical procedures on live pigs before the animals are killed, but PCRM’s survey of surgery residency programs shows that 76 percent of responsive hospitals and universities—including both Cleveland Clinic campuses, Wright State University, University of North Carolina, and John Hopkins University—do not use animals. Instead, these programs use educationally superior methods that accurately replicate human anatomy and physiology. 

“Animal-based medical training is on its way out and for good reason,” John Pippin, MD, FACC, director of academic affairs with PCRM, said in a statement. “The modern training methods used across the country benefit future patients and doctors alike, allowing for repeat practice, an anatomical configuration that replicates that of a human, and more.”









Should Animal Testing End for Health Studies? 800 Experts Say Yes


More than 800 experts say animal testing in health studies is unnecessary, and they are calling on medical journal Nutrients to stop publishing such studies that violate its own ethical guidelines.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Larry should have cut back on the dairy


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

There are some very good vegan soups


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Is Matcha Good for You?*
The brightly colored powdered green tea has become popular among health-conscious consumers. Does it have any nutritional benefits?










*Q: Is matcha healthy?*
Walk into any coffee shop or health food store and you’re almost guaranteed to find this bright jade-colored powdered green tea. It’s mixed into lattes, milkshakes, sodas, hot chocolates, smoothies — and even in desserts like ice creams and brownies. It’s recommended by many as an antioxidant-packed superfood that can prevent cancer, improve memory, and reduce stress and anxiety. That’s enough to persuade almost anyone to drink matcha. But does it actually live up to the hype?

*What is matcha?*
Matcha is a type of powdered green tea that has been traditionally used in tea ceremonies in Japan, and has become popular in the United States and elsewhere. It comes from the same plant (Camellia sinensis) as other caffeinated teas, and is cultivated in an unusual way: The tea plant is shaded from excessive sunlight for much of its growing period so that it can produce more amino acids and biologically active compounds, like chlorophyll and theanine. Once the leaves are harvested, they’re ground into a fine powder.

*Does matcha have health benefits?*
Whereas other green tea leaves are usually steeped whole in hot water, “matcha is much more concentrated in terms of the ingredients because it’s made from ground whole tea leaves,” said Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology and chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
And while the research on its health benefits is not definitive, experts say that matcha does contain high amounts of potentially beneficial compounds.

*Antioxidants. *“As we age or as we’re exposed to things in the environment, like ultraviolet light or carcinogens, we end up with reactive oxygen species and they do harmful things like damage our cellular membranes,” said Jamie Alan, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University.
Antioxidants, which are abundant in matcha, are substances that “neutralize” those harmful molecules, Dr. Alan said, preventing a “whole cascade of damaging downstream events.” The tea therefore may theoretically help protect the body’s cells from damage and reduce the risk of certain health problems like heart disease or cancer, Dr. Hu and Dr. Alan said, though this has not been proven. 

*L-theanine.* This unique amino acid, which can be found in green tea as well as certain mushrooms, is another component of matcha that experts highlight as potentially benefiting health. However, the evidence on how it might do so is weak, Dr. Hu said. Some small, placebo-controlled trials have suggested that L-theanine may improve cognitive performance and reduce stress. But there have been only animal studies and a few small trials in humans, both experts noted.

*Caffeine.* While most people might not think about caffeine’s health effects when drinking their morning cup of coffee, the evidence for its health benefits is fairly strong, Dr. Hu said. Studies have found, for instance, that caffeine can increase cognitive function and alertness and ramp up metabolism. And regular consumption of coffee — the primary source of caffeine for adults in the United States — has been associated with a reduced risk of diabetes, heart disease, liver disease and age-related cognitive decline, Dr. Hu said.

*So is matcha healthy?*
Few studies have focused specifically on how matcha might benefit health, so it’s hard to say for sure. But scientists do have a fairly good understanding of green tea’s benefits. “There is a lot of research on green tea, and the overall evidence indicates that it is a healthy beverage,” Dr. Hu said. “We don’t have similar evidence for matcha, but given that matcha has the same ingredients as green tea, just in much higher concentrations,” he continued, it’s probably safe to infer that it offers the same benefits.
Dr. Alan also stressed that while matcha is generally safe, certain people — including those who must limit their caffeine intake because of a health condition — should probably avoid it. “If you are prone to arrhythmias or if you have heart disease, then matcha could be harmful for you,” she said. People who are sensitive to caffeine may also want to pass on matcha because it could cause anxiety and disrupt sleep.

In general, Dr. Hu said, matcha can be a healthy addition to your diet, as long as you’re mindful of how much sugar and other unhealthful ingredients you’re consuming along with it. The amount of sugar and cream people add to their daily coffee or tea “has become so enormous that it really counteracts the health benefits,” Dr. Hu said. And if you eat a lot of fast food or smoke cigarettes regularly, don’t expect matcha to counteract those unhealthy choices.
“If you develop a habit of regular matcha consumption, in the long run you may get some health benefit,” Dr. Hu said. “But if you just sprinkle some matcha powder on top of chocolate ice cream, then I don’t think it will do much to help.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/27/well/eat/matcha-health-benefits.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20220929&instance_id=73207&nl=updates-from-the-newsroom&regi_id=78430320&segment_id=108494&te=1&user_id=c57a238e515a775a5a2886440eb9cf77


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

cyclelicious said:


> There are some very good vegan soups


Roasted butternut


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is a great interview. Very inspiring.
Especially for people suffering with chronic illnesses


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## JungleBoogie (Oct 6, 2015)

.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thanks to a high fibre diet diet


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Watch it here for free 









Forks Over Knives (2011)


This acclaimed doc explores how a plant-based diet can control or reverse the afflictions of degenerative diseases by rejecting processed foods.




tubitv.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Why the kids don't stop at my home for Hallowe'en


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*6 Reasons Why Sweet Potatoes are an Unsung Superfood *


Superfood” is a word that gets easily tossed around these days, from $15 açaí bowls to $18 batches of granola with goji berries and cacao nibs. But, technically, “superfood” is nothing more than a marketing term. In essence, it’s any nutrient-dense food that comes with health benefits, regardless of price. Now that it’s fall, our attention is on sweet potatoes—the affordable root vegetable that’s packed with health benefits.
Although sweet potatoes are available all year round, they’re most often associated with fall flavors. The cooler months and holiday season inspire us to use it in a variety of dishes, like sweet potato pie, sweet potato casserole, and sweet potato pancakes—all vegan, of course. 

*Sweet potato nutrition*
Sweet potatoes are highly nutritious and packed with a variety of vitamins, minerals, and other beneficial plant compounds. 









They’re a good source of carbohydrates, which provide the body with energy, as well as vitamins A, C, and B6, plus manganese and potassium. Like white potatoes, sweet potatoes are more nutritious when you leave the skin on.










“Sweet potatoes contain multiple health benefits,” Rhyan Geiger, RDN, and founder of Phoenix Vegan Dietitian, tells VegNews. “Including reducing cancer risk due to the pigment called beta-carotene, improving digestion and regularity from the fiber content, maintaining eye health because of the high amounts of vitamin A, and boosting immunity because of its vitamin C content. Overall, it’s a delicious nutrient-dense option.”
*5 health benefits of sweet potatoes*
In the kitchen, sweet potatoes—which are often mistakenly called a yam—are a delicious multi-tasking ingredient that also happen to be very good for you. Even better, they tend to be on the affordable side, ranging from $0.75 to $1.80 per pound on average, according to cost information website, ThePricer. Below, we’ll go through the health benefits of sweet potatoes, plus ways to use them this season.








*1They’re anti-inflammatory*
Beta-carotene, a natural pigment found in orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, all kinds of winter squash, and carrots, is known to help lower inflammation. Chronic inflammation is associated with a higher risk of heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and Crohn’s disease.
The same goes for anthocyanins, a flavonoid that’s responsible for vibrant red and purple colors in fruit and vegetables, like purple sweet potatoes. A study of Taiwanese purple sweet potatoes suggests that the plant’s extracts could even be used in anti-inflammatory and anticancer treatments.
*2Good for your gut*
Sweet potatoes are great sources of dietary fiber, an indigestible carbohydrate that feeds the friendly bacteria in your gut. “Some studies have also shown that sweet potatoes can promote the growth of healthy gut bacteria,” Geiger adds.
These starchy root vegetables actually contain two types of fiber: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber increases healthy gut bacteria, which in turn, help improve digestion. Meanwhile, insoluble fiber helps prevent constipation. Overall, eating enough fiber is associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer. 
Fiber is also known to lower your risk of chronic health conditions, such as heart disease and Type-2 diabetes.








*3They could protect your eyesight*
Sweet potatoes contain a lot of beta-carotene, which the body converts into vitamin A, which is essential for preserving your vision and protecting against night blindness with age. 
A study published in the journal _Clinical Interventions in Aging_ suggests that beta-carotene and vitamin E—which sweet potatoes are also a rich source of—both play a key role in eye health and could help guard against age-related eye disease.
*4Boosts your immune system*
Vitamin A plays a lot of roles in your overall health. This important micronutrient also helps ensure that your body’s natural defense system functions properly, thanks to its anti-inflammatory properties. 
Specifically, vitamin A helps maintain mucous membranes that trap bacteria and other harmful microorganisms. It also helps the body produce white blood cells, which travel your body, protecting it from invading microbes like bacteria, fungi, and parasites.
An analysis of vitamin A’s benefits suggests that it may be beneficial in the treatment of various diseases because of its effect on the immune system. More research is needed, but it predicts that vitamin A will eventually make its way to modern therapies.








*5Improved skin health*
“Sweet potatoes have carotenoids, or the pigments that give them their orange color,” Geiger says. “Our bodies turn these carotenoids into vitamin A, which plays an important role in maintaining healthy skin.”
Topical vitamin A—known as retinol—is commonly used in skincare products to treat acne, improve elasticity, and reduce hyperpigmentation from sun damage. 
Sweet potatoes can also help improve acne, which is an inflammatory skin disorder. A study published in the _Journal of Cutaneous and Ocular Toxicology_ suggests that deficiencies in vitamins A and E can make acne more severe. It recommends eating more whole-foods rich in these nutrients to reduce how bad the flare-up is.
Both orange and purple sweet potatoes (thanks to their anthocyanins) can also help improve psoriasis symptoms. This autoimmune disease is characterized by dry, itchy patches of skin.
*6They contain antioxidants*
As stated above, both orange and purple sweet potato varieties contain different types of antioxidants. 
Antioxidants are compounds found in plant foods that inhibit oxidation, which causes the production of unstable molecules called free radicals. It’s believed that free radicals play a role in cancer, heart disease, and stroke.
Sweet potatoes are proof that superfoods don’t need to come with a high price. “Fall is a perfect time to use sweet potatoes,” Geiger adds. “Not only can they make a dish feel more hearty, they have the perfect color for setting the fall mood.”
Geiger suggests embracing their versatility, too. “Potatoes are so versatile they can be prepared in many ways and transformed into almost any dish,” she adds. Boil them, mash them, air-fry them, roast and stuff them, make fries, add them to chili—if you aren’t already cooking with sweet potatoes, now is the time to.









5 Reasons Why Sweet Potatoes are an Unsung Superfood


Sweet potatoes are packed with health benefits. If you aren’t already cooking with them, fall is the perfect time to start.




vegnews.com


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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

One of my favorite pre-ride meals is black beans, sweet potatoes and spinach. We are talking super fuel here. It is light on the stomach and it gives you tons of energy.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

What does a vegan zombie say?


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Just in case you need a little Halloween costume inspiration.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Preparing the trick for treat


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

November 1st is World Vegan Day! I have been vegan for 9 years. Prior to going vegan I was vegetarian before January 1, 2014. My only regret is that I didn't make the choice sooner. I made the decision considering I love all animals, and I didn't want to be involved in anything that leads to their suffering. Being fit, happy and healthy on the inside starts with the outside. Show compassion. Go vegan


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

A powerful new animated short film from Ed Winters (also known as Earthling Ed) shows the reality of the dairy industry from a mother’s perspective.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This makes me so sad. Eat your own ribs if you’re that desperate


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Today for Remembrance Day, we’d like to take a moment to remember the animals who served alongside the soldiers and also lost their lives. Horses, dogs, pigeons, and countless other animals served and continue to serve in wars around the world. We remember them.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*The 16 Best Vegan Roasts for Your Plant-Based Thanksgiving*









here was once a time when vegan holiday meals were extremely limited. Years ago, when celebrating amongst a mixed company of eaters, vegans had to make their own plant-based feast or scavenge through the few veggie sides that didn’t include butter, cream, or meat drippings. 
The vegan food market has dramatically evolved since then and vegan holiday roasts start hitting mainstream shelves as early as mid-October. We’ve tasted them all and even tried our hand at making our own with the guidance of a few brilliant recipes. Whether you opt for store-bought or don an apron, here is your guide to the vegan holiday roasts everyone will enjoy. 
*What’s wrong with turkey?*
Most people who celebrate Thanksgiving look at a turkey and see it as a symbol of fall, family, and festivity. The glistening gold centerpiece of many Thanksgiving tables is something of joy thanks to generations of tradition and ignorance. Individuals who abstain from eating animals see something else entirely. Factually speaking, there is a dead bird on the table whowas slaughtered around six months old (up to 24 months if they’re a heritage, local, or free-range bird) and is one of 50 million killed just for Thanksgiving alone. 








In regards to the environment, turkey farming presents similar issues to chicken farming. Industrial raising and slaughtering of birds leads to immense water and air pollution due to the collective waste of millions of animals. Those who attempt to make a more sustainable choice by purchasing from small family farms also contribute a significant climate footprint, as these birds are often raised and killed in middle America, packaged, and shipped via planes, trains, and automobiles to homes across the country. 
In short, there is no such thing as an ethically slaughtered turkey, and there is no such thing as sustainable poultry. 
*What are vegan roasts made from?*
The vegan roasts options have largely expanded from the inaugural Tofurky debut in 1997, but the vast majority of them have stuck to the original ingredients. 
Seitan—a “meaty” plant-based food made from vital wheat gluten—and tofu are two of the most heavily used products to create the succulent plant-based roasts that are featured on many a vegan table. Most roasts are seasoned with spices such as thyme, sage, and rosemary, then stuffed with a wild rice or savory stuffing mixture. 
Tofurky
Like turkey, they’re high in protein and often contain fair amounts of calories and fats. For example, a single serving of the original Tofurky contains 300 calories, 10 grams of fat, and 33 grams of plant-based protein. 
*The top 10 vegan roasts you can buy*
We’ve listed several excellent homemade roast recipes farther down, but these are generally for the patient and adventurous cook. Those who prefer a heat-and-eat option should look to any one of these 10 fabulous store-bought vegan roasts. 
Tofurky
*1Tofurky *
Founded in 1979, Tofurky is a veteran in the vegan roast market. The all-natural, plant-based company launched commercial production of its signature Tofurky Holiday Roast in 1995 and built a loyal fanbase throughout the decades. 
The tender, savory roast is made of seasoned seitan and tofu, giving it a meaty chew and satisfying taste. The round is filled with wild rice and breadcrumb stuffing and comes with a side of vegan gravy. Beyond the original, Tofurky fans can opt for the seasonal Ham Roast with Amber Ale Glaze or pick up an entire holiday meal with The Feast. The box is packed with an original Holiday Roast, gravy, and non-dairy chocolate brownie. Tofurky is making it easier than ever to have a very happy holiday.
FIND IT HERE
Gardein
*2Gardein*
Like Tofurky, Gardein is another company that helped to popularize plant-based meat. Come holiday season, Gardein offers two outstanding main meal options. The Savory Stuffed Turk’y includes two individual-sized breaded Turk’y roasts that are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Each is filled with moist, wild rice stuffing studded with tart cranberries. The box also includes a packet of gravy. 
Gardein’s more traditional Holiday Roast is similar; it also includes the cranberry wild rice stuffing and a crispy-breaded exterior, but the package contains one large roast big enough to serve eight (including gravy, of course). Pick up the Turk’y if it’s just for you or choose the Roast to feed a crowd.
FIND IT HERE
The Herbivorous Butcher
*3The Herbivorous Butcher*
Based in Minneapolis, MN, The Herbivorous Butcher has garnered national attention. The growing brother-and-sister-run company was even featured on the Food Network’s hit show, _Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives_. The Turkey-Free Feast ships nationwide and contains an assortment of vegan holiday meats and cheeses including a 2.5-pound Stuffed Turkey, Hickory Bacon, Smoked Gouda, Maple Sage Breakfast Sausage, Chive Cheddar Cheese Sauce, Roads End Organic Quick Gravy, and a bag of Dandies Marshmallows to top your sweet potato casserole. An Unstuffed Turkey Roast, meatloaves, and a wide selection of cheeses are also available to purchase and ship a la carte.
FIND IT HERE
Field Roast
*4Field Roast*
What’s better than a succulent vegan holiday roast? A vegan holiday roast wrapped in puff pastry. Field Roast’s Hazelnut Cranberry Roast En Croute features hazelnut-infused vegan meat stuffed with rosemary, candied ginger, and sausage stuffing, all encased in a layer of buttery, flaky puff pastry. The company’s other options, the Celebration Roast and Sage & Garlic Celebration Roast, are equally appealing, just with different flavor notes. Can’t decide between all three? Get them all. They freeze well.
FIND IT HERE
Native Foods
*5Native Foods*
The beloved Original Native Foods Wellington isn’t a roast—it’s better. The puff pastry-encased main is layered with juicy seitan, sliced sweet potatoes, savory stuffing, tart cranberries, and tender steamed kale. It comes with a side of mushroom gravy, but the Wellington is so moist and flavorful on its own that you really don’t need it. Stock up for Friendsgiving, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and any other winter celebration you can imagine.
FIND IT HERE
The Very Good Butchers
*6The Very Good Butchers*
The Stuffed Beast is for stuffing-lovers. Cut into this succulent seitan-based roast and prepare for an outpour of seasoned stuffing goodness. This vegan butcher is based in Canada, but it ships to the US and UK as well. Place your order sooner than later, as they’re very likely to sell out.
FIND IT HERE
Sol Cuisine
*7Sol Cuisine *
Canadian Thanksgiving has passed, but this limited-edition Stuffed Turk’y Roast with Gravy can certainly be served for the winter holidays. This juicy, breaded seitan centerpiece is packed with cranberry-studded stuffing and is best served in a pool of warm, silky gravy. While some Sol Cuisine products are available in the US, this latest item is only available in Canadian stores.
GET THE RECIPE
VegNews
*8Whole Foods Market*
Chef Chloe Coscarelli extended her partnership with Whole Foods to bring back her curated vegan Thanksgiving favorites. If you missed out last year, don’t make that mistake again. The grocer is offering Coscarelli’s Cremini Mushroom Roast with Mushroom Gravy along with a medley of sides including Green Beans with Roasted Shallots, Coconut Sweet Potato Casserole, and Jalapeño Cornbread Dressing (aka stuffing). 
Decided to throw a last-minute Friendsgiving? Head to the freezer aisle and pick up a 365 by Whole Foods Market Plant-Based Roast. The breaded, seitan-based centerpiece is filled with cranberry-speckled stuffing and includes a packet of vegan gravy. Is it as sumptuous as Coscarelli’s main? Not quite, but it’s certainly satisfying in a pinch.
FIND IT HERE
Trader Joe’s
*9Trader Joe’s*
The sumptuous Breaded Turkey-less Stuffed Roast has returned to our favorite tiki-themed grocery store. This tender, plant-based meat is generously packed with wild rice and cranberry stuffing and served with a side of gravy. While you’re at the store, pick up a few other vegan TJ holiday essentials or learn how to gussy up TJ’s vegan mac and cheese.
FIND IT HERE
Vegetarian Plus
*10Vegetarian Plus*
Expect a few double-takes from your guests as you plant this golden vegan turkey on the table. It’s entirely plant-based, but it looks like a traditional bird right down to the golden crispy “skin.” Carve it up to reveal its juicy interior and serve with a side of tender stuffing and gravy—both included in the box.
FIND IT HERE
*The top 6 vegan roast recipes*
Preparing your own vegan roast is ideal when hosting a potluck—you make the main and ask others to bring the sides. Here are five solid plant-based roast recipes to impress all your guests.
Simon Smith
*1Vegan Stuffed Squash Roast With Cranberry-Orange Sauce*
This vegetable-forward main is not a roast in the traditional sense. No one will take a bite and believe it’s meat. However, it’s a stunning and delicious centerpiece, and it’s roasted, so there you go. Playing off the grotesque yet popular Turducken trend, this more compassionate dish involves a fork-tender butternut squash stuffed with layers of wild rice, sauteed mushrooms, glazed onions, roasted red peppers, and lightly wilted spinach.
GET THE RECIPE
Abbot’s Butcher
*2Classic Holiday “Beef” Wellington*
There’s a lot of umami going on in this mushroom-and-vegan-beef centerpiece. The “meaty” filling is enriched with fragrant herbs such as sage, thyme, and rosemary and married with tender kale for a bit of balance. Wrapped in butter-brushed puff pastry and baked until golden brown, you may want to consider making two, as your guests will surely ask for seconds.
GET THE RECIPE
Avant Garde Vegan
*3The Ultimate Vegan Christmas Roast Wellington*
Sweet or savory, wrap any food in puff pastry for instant curb appeal. Not only is the flaky golden pastry more presentable than a two-pound hunk of brown vegan meat, it also adds textural contrast to an otherwise one-note meal. In regards to the roast itself, we love this recipe for its inclusion of holiday ingredients such as chestnuts, cinnamon, and dried cranberries.
GET THE RECIPE
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt
*4Vegetables Wellington*
More veggie-forward than the typical roast but not quite all veg, this entrée strikes the perfect balance between the two. The pastry-encased center includes a swirl of savory mushroom duxelles, roasted carrots, and a cashew-cannellini bean mixture to impart a varied yet harmonious array of tastes and textures. 
GET THE RECIPE
Gordon Ramsay Restaurants 
*5Vegan Beet Wellington*
For all of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s former ranting at the expense of vegans, he makes a decent vegan roast. This impressive beet centerpiece is encased in golden pastry, truffle-infused mushrooms, and bright blanched spinach. Don’t skip the vegan jus—it’s a necessary flavor element to transform a pastry-wrapped beet into a piece of edible excellence.
GET THE RECIPE
LIke a Vegan
*6Vegan Holiday Roast With Cranberry Walnut Stuffing*
A hearty loaf of seasoned vegan “Beef” gets a sweet and tangy glaze in this do-it-yourself roast recipe. While gorgeous on the outside, the stuffing-stuffed interior is equally as impressive. Speckled with crunchy roasted hazelnuts and tart, chewy cranberries, you may find yourself asking for another slice just for a few more bites of this addictively good stuffing.
GET THE RECIPE










16 Vegan Thanksgiving Roasts for Your Plant-Based Feast


These meaty, vegan roasts are the perfect addition to your Thanksgiving spread. Pick up a plant-based roast at your local grocery store, or try your hand with one of these five recipes.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Veganism is not anti-indigenous. Cattle hegemony is destroying forests, largely in indigenous areas and largely in the global south.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why Brussels Sprouts Taste Better Than They Did When You Were A Kid*









It’s a fact of growing older that Brussels sprouts don’t taste quite as gross as you remember. While maturing tastebuds may have something to do with this change of heart, it’s also apparent that the taste of Brussels sprouts has genuinely changed in recent decades.

Brussels sprouts are a human creation. You won’t find these little leafy things growing anywhere in the wild because they are the product of centuries of selective breeding, just like many of the vegetables you find in today’s supermarkets. 
Ancestors of the sprout are thought to have originated in ancient Rome, but they likely took on the form we recognize today around the late Middle Ages in Belgium (hence the name Brussels sprout). 
However, the cultivation of Brussels sprouts underwent a major revolution around just 60 years ago, which farmers argue was the start of their bad reputation.

“In the late 1960s, our industry switched over to mechanized harvesting, which required a plant that would mature fairly evenly over the entire stem,” Steve Bontadelli, a Brussels sprouts farmer, told MEL Magazine in 2021. 









“The Sakata seed company developed the first plants that would mature evenly, and they were beautiful and green with lots of production, but they were horribly bitter, and we turned off an entire generation,” he added.
In the face of mechanized agriculture, Brussels sprouts picked up that unpleasant tang that so many grew to detest. The once-beloved vegetable fell from grace and became the butt of all jokes around the Christmas dinner table.
By the 1990s, the Big Sprout industrial complex had had enough and started to look into ways to Make Brussels Great Again. A study published in 1999 by scientists from the seed and chemical company Novartis managed to pinpoint the specific compounds that gave Brussel sprouts their undesired bitterness: two glucosinolates called sinigrin and progoitrin.
This helped to prompt a number of seed companies to sift through gene banks to look for old varieties of vegetables that happened to have low levels of the bitter chemicals, according to NPR. These less bitter varieties were then cross-pollinated with modern high-yielding ones, aiming to get the best of both worlds: a better-tasting product that could be cultivated on an industrial scale. After years of patience, they eventually produced a crop that was both tasty and economically viable. 
And just like that, the former glory of Brussels sprouts was restored, shifting this vegetable from a culinary pariah to a prized side dish. 
Despite the valiant efforts of scientists to restore the pleasant flavor of sprouts, however, there’s some evidence to suggest that hatred of the vegetable is hardwired into some people. 
Genetics plays a huge role in your tastes. Taste receptors are produced from instructions encoded in our DNA and there is significant variation in the DNA code between individuals. This includes at least 25 receptors that detect different bitter molecules and can impact the flavor of certain vegetables.
One of these receptors is taste receptor 2 member 38, a protein that’s encoded by the TAS2R38 gene that controls the ability to detect a bitter compound called propylthiouracil. If you have this gene, there’s a higher chance you’ll dislike bitter green vegetables, such as broccoli and Brussels sprouts. 
So, if you think Brussels sprouts have improved in recent decades, it’s not your imagination. However, if you remain a die-hard sprout detester, then there’s a good chance you can blame the DNA passed down from your mom and dad. 










Why Brussels Sprouts Taste Better Than They Did When You Were A Kid


Your tastebuds don’t deceive you: Brussels sprouts actually taste better than they used to.




www.iflscience.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I tried the vegan hotdog a few years ago, as well as the vegan meatless balls... actually, pretty good for the price

*Every Vegan Thing at IKEA’s Food Court and Marketplace*
Atrip to IKEA can be dangerous. The Swedish furniture giant is a source of affordable furniture with sometimes vague, but typically user-friendly instructions for assembly. The retailer has also committed to reducing its impact on the environment by using only renewable and recycled materials by 2030 and by dabbling in the second-hand furniture market.
Another way that IKEA is catering to its more climate-conscious customers is by offering planet-friendly food options. IKEA’s vegan food options range from plant-based hot dogs and meatballs to gelatin-free candies and crispbread. Here’s how to navigate the furniture store’s food court and grocery section.
*Vegan at IKEA’s food court*
IKEA is almost as well-known for its food court as it is for its furniture and housewares. At US stores, there are only a couple of plant-based dishes on the menu (as opposed to Europe, where vegan options include dairy-free soft serve). But, the future could hold more vegan food. In November 2020, the international retailer pledged to make half of its menu plant-based by 2025 as part of its ongoing sustainability efforts. Here’s what’s currently vegan at IKEA’s US restaurants. 







IKEA
*1Vegan hot dogs*
IKEA’s hot dogs are famous. So, when the furniture giant first let loose that it was testing out a vegan version, it was a big deal. The veggie-forward dogs—made from kale, red lentils, carrots, red cabbage, celery, onion, quinoa, and ginger—were a hit with customers and so it quickly became a staple at IKEA food courts around the world. It comes topped with pickled red cabbage, onion crisps, and spicy mustard.







IKEA

*2Vegan meatballs*
IKEA’s veggie meatballs are kind of like an old-fashioned vegan burger in that they’re made out of obvious chunks of vegetables, like chickpeas and carrots, and they aren’t necessarily out to mimic meat. At the food court, you can try them served with tahini romesco sauce, rice mixed with vegetables, and pasta. It’s a bit heartier than the hot dogs, so it’s a good way to fuel up for a trek through the furniture store.
*Vegan at IKEA’s Swedish Food Market*
IKEA US may have only a couple of plant-based entrées on the menu at its restaurants, but its grocery section is worth swinging by for its plentiful vegan options. Not only can you pick up frozen plant-based meats, but you’ll also find gelatin-free sweets, snacks, and crispbread—a light, crunchy rye-based cracker from Sweden. The retailer is constantly updating its options, so remember to read the ingredients of any new products. 







IKEA
*1Vegan hot dogs*
These are the same kind of hot dogs that are on offer at the food court. They come frozen in a one-pound pack and ready to customize with whatever toppings you like, whether that’s ketchup and mustard or onion and relish.







IKEA
*2Vegan minced meat*
Made from pea protein, IKEA’s plant-based minced meat is a versatile ingredient that you can keep stashed in your freezer for making a quick vegan bolognese, ground “beef” tacos, or sautéing with seasonal vegetables in a skillet. It’s also easily shaped into burgers and meatballs for nights when you have more time to spend in the kitchen.







IKEA
*3Vegan meatballs*
This pea protein and potato-based meatball is the meatier cousin of the veggie balls you’ll find on the food court menu. Take home a bag of these babies to use in pasta dishes, meatball subs, as a topping for pizza, and more. 







IKEA
*4Vegetable balls*
These are the vegetable-forward cousin of the Plant Balls, made with obvious pieces of chickpeas, carrots, peppers, corn, and kale. You can use them the same way you would use the meatier vegan meatballs, but they also taste fantastic when served in a grain bowl with roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli. 







IKEA
*5Grain mixes*
Sometimes we don’t have the time or the energy to cook whole grains from scratch, and that’s okay. The “BÄSTISAR” brand of grain mixes, which start with a base of oat, wheat, rye, and barley, make for a convenient base for a healthy, hearty vegetable bowl. 
The grain and mushroom flavor features a mix of oat, wheat, rye, and barley tossed with porcini mushrooms, parsley, and onion. Or, choose the one made with garlic, lemon, jalapeño, and lingonberry. The former is divine with sautéed kale and a squeeze of lemon juice while the latter shines with roasted sweet potato and skillet-browned cabbage.







IKEA
*6Organic pasta*
IKEA doesn’t only have specialty ingredients—the Swedish retailer has budget-friendly pantry staples, too, like these elk-shaped pasta noodles made from organic durum wheat.







IKEA
*7Muesli & porridge*
Need a low-effort breakfast? The muesli with berries is 100-percent vegan. The berry flavor features pumpkin seeds, plus dried cranberries, raspberries, and blueberries while the cocoa flavor contains dried strawberries and raspberries with a base of oatmeal and wheat flakes. The porridge, made from oats, barley, puffed quinoa, and seeds, is also vegan.







IKE
*8Vegan cookies*
Yes, some of the cookies are free from all animal ingredients! Although the ingredients aren’t actually on the website, an IKEA representative confirmed to VegNews that you can choose from ginger thins, ginger thins with almonds, and the cookie with raspberry filling.










Every Vegan Thing at IKEA’s Food Court and Marketplace


IKEA may be known for its furniture, but its food section is worth a visit, too. Here’s what’s vegan at its food court and marketplace.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Thank you Loblaws for the deals


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## urmb (Oct 4, 2005)

Going to a plant based diet brought my blood pressure down below risky levels so I currently do not have to go on blood pressure meds unlike most of my buddies and coworkers. I have been mountain biking since 1987 and have maintained good physical condition and body weight. Systolic blood pressure(the top number) was averaging 130-135 before I changed my eating choices. I now have averaged 120-125 for the last three years. My cholesterol levels went from bad to excellent for both good and bad cholesterol. Dr couldn't believe it. My dad had diabetes. Taking him to a dialysis center was an education. I do not want diabetes. Plant based diets may help prevent it. I like all foods but like normal blood pressure more. This book, which started as a random audio book read, changed my health and my life:. "How not to Die" by Dr. McGeger. Plant based has made my health better and my riding and racing (cross country MTB and cyclocross) better.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*How Figuring Out Vegan Fat Will Make Meat and Dairy Alternatives Better*

Vegan food is no longer defined by the dry veggie patties and brown soy milk of yesteryear. Supermarket shelves are stocked to the brim with vegan products that mimic their animal counterparts on every level. However, to attract more consumers, plant-based foods can still use some improvement and perfecting animal-free fat might be one way to get there. 
Hong Kong-based vegan company OMNIFoods is doing just that with its new OMNINano Vegan Fat, a patented technology that locks flavor into meat while delivering a juiciness and texture that is identical to animal meat but without any of the downsides of eating animal products.










OMNIFoods will use its patented fat technology in new products it plans to launch in 2023: Plant-Based Beef Cut and Tips; Plant-based Chicken Wings; and Plant-Based Pork Cutlet. 

One of the drivers in developing the new vegan fat technology is to help more meat-eaters switch to plant-based meats. “Even for the meat eater, when they try the OMNI plant-based meat products that apply the OMNINano Vegan Fat, they will find that the plant-based meat is very juicy and delicious, similar to real meat,” he says. “It is another step towards meat eaters ditching more animal products.” 

*OMNIFoods improves vegan meat *

OMNIFoods is the food innovation arm of Green Monday, a social enterprise founded in 2012 by Yeung to cultivate awareness around the role of animal agriculture in environmental destruction and to offer plant-based solutions.

OMNIFoods is best known for its OMNIPork, vegan pork products which it offers in Grounds, Strips, and Luncheon (which is similar to SPAM) that target Asia’s most-consumed meat. These products are made from a base of shiitake mushrooms, non-GMO soy, rice, and peas. 











The company also launched an OMNISeafood line in 2021 with vegan fish filets, sticks, burgers, tuna, and crab cakes as alternatives to ocean-daming seafood. OMNIFoods also offers OMNIEat frozen meals that use its plant-based meat products as a base for dumplings, buns, gyoza, and more. 

OMNIFoods turned to perfecting vegan fat as its newest innovation to push the needle even further. Animal meats contain 10 to 30 percent fat, which has an important function in the culinary world. When cooked, meat shrinks and releases juices which fat traps to create a more flavorful, juicy eating experience. That is why meat with a high fat content and marbling, such as Japanese Wagyu, is so highly regarded. 










Plant-based meats typically rely on plant-based fats which do not perform in the same way as animal fat during cooking. OMNIFoods looked to solve this with its new vegan fat technology. 

“For plant-based meats we currently purchase, they usually add in coconut or soy oil to give oiliness and fat to the meat,” Yeung says. “However, the patented technology of OMNINano Vegan Fat emulsifies oil and water, and penetrates into plant-based materials to form a part of plant meat therefore it is similar to the fat layer of plants, creating a protective film function to plant-based meat.”

OMNIFoods operates a research and development facility in Canada and distributes its products in 20 markets, including in the United States where its vegan pork is on the menu at select restaurants, other businesses, and is stocked at a variety of retailers, including nearly 2,000 Walmart stores. 

*Cell-cultured fat technology*

While OMNIFoods focuses on improving plant-based meats with its patented vegan fat technology, the cultivated foods industry is also recreating fat to deliver next-level products.

Israeli food-tech company Wilk works to develop nutritionally equivalent alternatives to human and animal milk through its cell-cultured technology. The startup recently unveiled a first-of-its-kind hybrid yogurt that features cell-cultured milk fat—which it makes in a lab setting without the need to exploit cows. 










“This is a significant milestone, not just for Wilk, but for the Israeli FoodTech space and wider global industry,” Wilk CEO Tomer Aizen said in a statement. “It signifies a major breakthrough in demonstrating our ability to produce functional cell-cultured milk components that can be integrated into a wide array of dairy products and brings us closer to realizing our goal—to produce authentic dairy products in a sustainable and environmentally conscientious manner that will drive the industry forward.”

Wilk will use the knowledge gained about cultivated milk fat in developing this yogurt—which has been approved for public tasting in Israel—to develop infant formula. 
When it comes to meat, fellow Israeli company Steakholder Foods is also working to perfect cell-cultured fat. A publicly traded company on Nasdaq with backing from actor Ashton Kutcher, the company is currently developing a portfolio of cell-cultivated beef, chicken, pork, fish, and more. 

Steakholder Foods uses a 3D-printing technology to give structure to its meat products and in October, filed a provisional patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for its fat differentiation technology. 











“The filing of this provisional patent application represents another step forward in Steakholder Foods’ ongoing mission to reduce the cost and complexity of cultured fat production, and strengthens our fully-owned patent portfolio,” Steakholder CEO Arik Kaufman said in a statement. “We are excited by the potential to use healthier, plant-sourced cell-culturing inputs in our hybrid as well as bioprinted products.”

This month, Steakholder announced that it successfully differentiated porcine fat cells from their induced pluripotent stem cell line, meaning that fatty whole-cut meats such as bacon, pork chops, and more, made without slaughtering pigs, are one step closer to reality. 









How Figuring Out Vegan Fat Will Make Meat and Dairy Alternatives Better


Alternatives to traditionally made animal products are getting better by the day. Can cracking the code for functional fat give them even greater appeal?




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## huckleberry hound (Feb 27, 2015)

cyclelicious said:


> View attachment 2012128


Guilty!


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

This is just interesting


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Damn that’s like $20 worth of cabbage (Toronto)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Lead and Cadmium Could Be in Your Dark Chocolate*
Consumer Reports found dangerous heavy metals in chocolate from Hershey's, Theo, Trader Joe's and other popular brands. Here are the ones that had the most, and some that are safer.










For many of us, chocolate is more than just a tasty treat. It’s a mood lifter, an energy booster, a reward after a tough day, a favorite holiday gift. 
People also choose dark chocolate in particular for its potential health benefits, thanks to studies that suggest its rich supply of antioxidants may improve heart health and other conditions, and for its relatively low levels of sugar. In fact, more than half of people in a recent survey from the National Confectioners Association described dark chocolate as a “better for you” candy.
But there’s a dark side to this “healthier” chocolate. Research has found that some dark chocolate bars contain cadmium and lead—two heavy metals linked to a host of health problems in children and adults. 
The chocolate industry has been grappling with ways to lower those levels. To see how much of a risk these favorite treats pose, Consumer Reports scientists recently measured the amount of heavy metals in 28 dark chocolate bars. They detected cadmium and lead in all of them.

*Heavy Metals in Dark Chocolate*
CR tested a mix of brands, including smaller ones, such as Alter Eco and Mast, and more familiar ones, like Dove and Ghirardelli. 

For 23 of the bars, eating just an ounce a day would put an adult over a level that public health authorities and CR’s experts say may be harmful for at least one of those heavy metals. Five of the bars were above those levels for both cadmium and lead.

That’s risky stuff: Consistent, long-term exposure to even small amounts of heavy metals can lead to a variety of health problems. The danger is greatest for pregnant people and young children because the metals can cause developmental problems, affect brain development, and lead to lower IQ, says Tunde Akinleye, the CR food safety researcher who led this testing project. 

“But there are risks for people of any age,” he says. Frequent exposure to lead in adults, for example, can lead to nervous system problems, hypertension, immune system suppression, kidney damage, and reproductive issues. While most people don’t eat chocolate every day, 15 percent do, according to the market research firm Mintel. Even if you aren’t a frequent consumer of chocolate, lead and cadmium can still be a concern. It can be found in many other foods—such as sweet potatoes, spinach, and carrots—and small amounts from multiple sources can add up to dangerous levels. That’s why it’s important to limit exposure when you can.

Still, you don’t need to swear off chocolate entirely, Akinleye says. He adds that while most of the chocolate bars in CR’s tests had concerning levels of lead, cadmium, or both, five of them were relatively low in both. “That shows it’s possible for companies to make products with lower amounts of heavy metals—and for consumers to find safer products that they enjoy,” he says.

And in addition to choosing your dark chocolates wisely, there are a number of other steps you can take to continue enjoying chocolate safely.

CR's Chocolate Test Results

We tested 28 dark chocolate bars for lead and cadmium. To determine the risk posed by the chocolates in CR’s test, we used California's maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for lead (0.5 micrograms) and cadmium (4.1mcg). Shown are the percentages of the MADL supplied in an ounce of each chocolate. Our results indicate which products had comparatively higher levels and are not assessments of whether a product exceeds a legal standard. We used those levels because there are no federal limits for the amount of lead and cadmium most foods can contain, and CR’s scientists believe that California’s levels are the most protective available. While both cadmium and lead pose serious health risks, products within each category are listed in order of lead level, because that heavy metal poses particular concerns and no amount of it is considered safe.
*
Cacao's Dark Side*
Chocolate is made from the cacao bean, which has two main components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Together, these are called cacao or cocoa. 
Dark chocolate’s reputation as a relatively healthy treat stems mostly from the cocoa solids. These are packed with flavanols, which are antioxidants linked to improved blood vessel function, reduced inflammation, and lower cholesterol. Dark chocolate is also lower in sugar and higher in fiber than milk chocolate, and it has magnesium and potassium. Unfortunately, cocoa solids are also where the heavy metals, especially cadmium, lurk. That makes it tricky to balance dark chocolate’s risks and benefits.
Some of the same concerns may extend to products made with cocoa powder—which is essentially pure cocoa solids—such as hot cocoa, and brownie and cake mixes, though they have varying amounts of cacao and possibly heavy metals. 

Dark chocolate tends to be higher in heavy metals than milk chocolate, probably because of its higher cacao content. There is no official cutoff, but dark chocolates are generally at least 65 percent cacao by weight, says Michael J. DiBartolomeis, PhD, a toxicologist and former official at the California Department of Public Health who has researched heavy metals in chocolate.

Getting the Lead and Cadmium Out
To further complicate the issue, lead and cadmium appear to get into cacao in different ways, which means that each requires a different type of fix, DiBartolomeis says.
Between 2019 and 2022, he and other researchers studied how metals might contaminate cacao, as part of a settlement to a lawsuit against chocolate manufacturers brought by As You Sow, an organization that pushes for corporate accountability. As You Sow had previously found high levels of lead and cadmium in some chocolates. 

The researchers found that cacao plants take up cadmium from the soil, with the metal accumulating in cacao beans as the tree grows. That’s similar to how heavy metals contaminate some other foods. 

But lead seems to get into cacao _after_ beans are harvested. The researchers found that the metal was typically on the outer shell of the cocoa bean, not in the bean itself. Moreover, lead levels were low soon after beans were picked and removed from pods but increased as beans dried in the sun for days. During that time, lead-filled dust and dirt accumulated on the beans. “We collected beans on the ground that were heavily loaded with lead on the outer shell,” DiBartolomeis says. 

Because of the different ways that cadmium and lead get into chocolate, addressing the contamination requires different solutions.

For lead, that will mean changes in harvesting and manufacturing practices, says Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow. Such practices could include minimizing soil contact with beans as they lie in the sun, and drying beans on tables or clean tarps away from roads or with protective covers, so lead-contaminated dust won’t land on them. Another option is finding ways to remove metal contaminants when beans are cleaned at factories, Fugere says.

Solving for cadmium is trickier, though it is possible, DiBartolomeis says. Carefully breeding or genetically engineering plants to take up less of the heavy metal could help, though that could take several years. Other potential options include replacing older cacao trees with younger ones, because cadmium levels tend to increase as the plants get older, and removing or treating soil known to be contaminated with cadmium.

Safer Chocolate
More immediately, DiBartolomeis says, chocolate makers should survey cacao-growing areas to determine cadmium levels, and favor beans from places with lower levels. If necessary, they should blend beans from higher-cadmium areas with beans with lower levels, as some manufacturers do now. Alex Whitmore, CEO at Taza, which makes one of the products with lower levels of both metals in CR’s tests, says that’s what his company does, mixing beans from “different origins to ensure that the final product” has lower levels.

The National Confectioners Association, which funded the research into heavy metals in chocolate as part of the As You Sow settlement, says “lead reductions can be expected within the first year of implementing new handling practices,” though it says lowering cadmium may take longer.

Some manufacturers with higher levels of metals in our tests said their products are below levels set by the settlement. Others said that the metals occur naturally in soil and that they take steps to try to reduce it. Alter Eco, Endangered Species, Theo, and Trader Joe’s did not respond.

Taking steps to reduce heavy metals in cacao can pay off: CR’s test results, after all, show that while contamination with heavy metals is common, it is not inevitable. 
And in addition to choosing products with lower levels of lead and cadmium, other steps can also help reduce the risks. In fact, DiBartolomeis says that while he cautions pregnant people and children from eating dark chocolate, he doesn’t tell most people to give it up, just to know the risks and not overdo it.









Lead and Cadmium Could Be in Your Dark Chocolate - Consumer Reports


Consumer Reports tested 28 dark chocolate bars and found cadmium and lead in all of them. Here's how to limit your heavy metal exposure.




www.consumerreports.org





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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Checking out the specials at No Frills (Toronto)


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Replacing red meat with chickpeas & lentils good for the wallet, climate, and health*


*Summary*
*Background*
What we eat is fundamental to human and planetary health, with the current global dietary transition towards increased red meat intakes and ultra-processed foods likely detrimental.
*Methods*
We modelled five red and processed meat replacement scenarios to consider health, equity, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe), and cost outcomes using an established multistate life table model using data from New Zealand as a case study of a developed, westernised country. Current red and processed meat intakes were replaced with: minimally or ultra-processed plant based meat alternatives, cellular meat, or diets in line with EAT-Lancet or Heart Foundation recommendations on red meat intake. We then conducted a systematic review of literature from database inception to 14 November 2022 to identify implemented population-level meat replacement strategies which could inform evidence-based recommendations to achieve any benefits observed in modelling. PROSPERO CRD42020200023.
*Findings*
When compared with current red and processed meat intakes, all red and processed meat replacement scenarios were nutritionally adequate and improved overall Quality Adjusted Life Years (159–297 per 1000 people over life course for the five scenarios modelled). Age standardised per capita health gain for Māori was 1.6–2.3 times that of non-Māori. Health system cost savings were $2530–$5096 per adult, and GHGe reduced 19–35%. Finally, grocery cost varied (↓7%–↑2%) per modelled scenario when compared with baseline costs. The greatest benefits for all outcomes were achieved by meat replacement with minimally-processed plant-based foods, such as legumes. The systematic review identified only two implemented population-level strategies to reduce meat intakes within the academic literature.
*Interpretation*
All meat replacement scenarios considered indicated appreciable health gains and GHGe reductions. Replacement with minimally-processed plant-based foods appeared consistently superior than other scenarios. Evidence of real-world population strategies to achieve these benefits however is currently lacking.
*Funding*
Healthier Lives National Science Challenge (Grant UOOX1902).









Replacing red meat with chickpeas & lentils good for the wallet, climate, and health


Replacing red meat with chickpeas & lentils good for the wallet, climate, and health New Zealand researchers investigated five diets which replace some or all red meat, finding they all could provide the recommended amount of nutrition, save the health system thousands of dollars per person,




www.scimex.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*There's no such thing as humane meat or eggs. Stop kidding yourself*








Many people think they consume humane meat, but only a tiny fraction actually do. The majority of consumers are totally wrong about what they eat



A few years ago I wanted to visit the best egg farm I could find. I had been inside an egg factory farm. I had seen a dozen sheds, each with a dozen rows of wire cages stacked two high and 150ft deep. Those cages were so small the birds inside couldn’t even spread their wings. They were half-starved, diseased, and undeniably miserable.

Factory farming was clearly wrong, so I wanted to instead find a farm that represented an ethical and humane way to raise animals for food.


Fortunately some small farms, such as those who set up stands at farmers’ markets, are willing to let people visit their facilities. So in March 2016, I drove from my home in San Francisco up California’s northern coast, through towering redwoods and past crashing waves, to one of the best egg farms in the state.

The award-winning farm was nestled in a landscape of bucolic green grass and rolling hills. It looked like it came straight out of an advertisement. I saw a charmingly rundown-yet-functional mobile chicken coop standing in a football-field-sized pasture peppered with free-roaming chickens. I thought to myself, why couldn’t all farms be like this? I had seen what happened behind the locked doors of factory farms, but here I seemed to be witnessing a better way. I would soon learn just how wrong I was. 

Americans care about farmed animal welfare. In fact, last week California passed a ballot measure for cage-free eggs with 61% of the vote, a rare level of agreement in these divided times. In 2016, a similar initiative in Massachusetts succeeded with 78%.

Consumers go out of their way to buy cage-free or pasture-based eggs or buy meat at the local farmers’ market. My colleagues and I ran a survey in 2017 that showed that 75% of US adults believe they usually eat meat, dairy, and eggs “from animals that are treated humanely.” In fact, when vegans ask their friends to stop eating animals, one of the most common responses they hear is, “Don’t worry. I only eat humane meat.”

Are consumers right? It’s impossible for all of them to be. Data on the number of animals per farm in the US suggests that over 99% of US farmed animals live on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, commonly known as “factory farms”. Globally, that figure is probably over 90%.

So 75% of Americans think they consume humane meat, but a tiny fraction actually do. The majority of consumers seem tragically wrong about what they eat.

Take cage-free eggs, for example. Just because the birds aren’t in cages doesn’t mean they’re healthy or happy. Cage-free birds have around the same total space per bird; they just live in a large shed with thousands of other birds.

In this stressful environment, birds frequently peck each other so much that they lose feathers, bleed, and even die from what is effectively cannibalism caused by the birds’ high-density confinement. The air quality on cage-free farms tends to be worse as chickens walking around kick up dust and feces, which threatens food safety.

Raising chickens on pasture avoids some of these issues, but it invites new problems. Pasture-based flocks suffer due to predation and disease from wild animals.

By some measures grass-fed cow farming is potentially worse than grain-fed cow farming. Grass-fed cow farming leads to two to four times more production of methane, a major greenhouse gas, than grain-fed cow farming. It also takes more land, water, and fossil fuels to produce grass-fed beef. Buying “grass-fed” or “pasture-raised” can be seen as a salve for the environmental conscience, but the damage can actually be greater.

Maybe there are some rotational, labor-intensive methods that do reduce environmental impact. However, eco-conscious animal farming does little to mitigate health concerns aside from the overuse of antibiotics. And the animal suffering, especially on chicken farms, is still staggering.

You may be thinking that even if the vast majority of farms still have serious issues, surely at least a few farms have happy animals.

This response is valid, to an extent. Where I grew up in rural Texas, I lived around pasture-raised cattle who seemed perfectly content to chew their cud. I helped raise a handful chickens and goats myself. Yes, their slaughter might be a terrible experience, but it seems plausible that one day of even suffering might not outweigh a few years of happy cud-chewing life.









Pigs are seen in a factory farm in northern Missouri. The pigs are never let out from their confined spaces until they are taken to slaughter.

When people call upon the idea of ethical animal farming – even if that constitutes little or none of their actual consumption – it has dangerous effects as a “psychological refuge” they indirectly use to justify their consumption of factory farmed products.

Most Americans have been exposed to the realities of animal farming from hundreds of undercover investigations over the years and dozens of scientific reports on the industry’s environmental and public health impacts.

But their minds resolve this conflict between their values and their behavior by insisting that they eat a humane kind of meat that doesn’t cause animal suffering or environmental damage. Their other options are to stop eating animal products or to accept that what they’re doing is harmful, and neither of these options are particularly appealing. This is why we see 75% of US adults thinking they eat humane meat, despite fewer than 1% of farmed animals actually living on non-factory farms.

*Ethical farming – nice try*

At the California egg farm I visited, the devil was in the details. Despite the pastoral scenery, I found that the birds were in worse health than those of any other farm I’d been to. I saw many cases of Marek’s, a highly contagious disease that had led to partial blindness in many of them; swollen abdomens, some with over a pound of fluid buildup in their less-than-five-pound body;and lice.

Like the hens in factory farms, many of them suffered and died from cancer, stuck eggs, reproductive tract infections, and other ailments that result from artificial breeding for hyperactive reproductive systems that make them lay unnatural numbers of eggs.

When I visited the farm, I sincerely wanted to believe that these animals had good lives, but the evidence just wasn’t there to support it. It wasn’t as bad as the factory farms I visited, but it still wasn’t the kind of life I’d want to live myself.

Of course, the current scarcity of humane animal farms doesn’t preclude their theoretically possibility. But consider the cost: the eggs at the farm I visited cost over $6 per dozen. Hardly anyone is willing to pay that much for food, and that farm still had serious ethical problems*.*

I was disappointed by the visit to this farm and other farm visits, as well as evidence from hundreds of other visits to “humane” farms by animal protection advocates and investigators. Mercy For Animals, the international non-profit animal protection organisation, says it randomly selects farms to investigate, and other groups have specifically sought out farms with leading humane certifications in order to show that even the animals on those farms still suffer tremendously.

*Time to abolish factory farming*

We would need extensive regulations and enforcement to maintain high animal welfare throughout the industry. This would include the expenses of regular independent inspections and livestreamed security footage at all facilities.

Consumers or taxpayers would also need to pay for direct costs such as more space per animal, an army of veterinarians and medical supplies for sick animals, and a reversion of the artificial breeding that has made animals grow meat and produce milk and eggs at ultra-fast rates. That level of welfare doesn’t exist at the very best farms today, so even the steep price tag of the eggs from the pasture farm I visited is still too low to guarantee that the animals have good lives.

So even if humane animal farming is possible in theory, and maybe even real in a handful of isolated cases, it can’t feasibly feed around 10 billion people by 2050.

The fact is that when we use animals as raw materials or labor in the food system this inevitably leads to mass cruelty because cheap prices and profits will always come before their welfare.

This means we need to take a position against animal farming. Then I think we’ll be on track to end all animal farming.










There's no such thing as humane meat or eggs. Stop kidding yourself


Many people think they consume humane meat, but only a tiny fraction actually do. The majority of consumers are totally wrong about what they eat




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Which Nut Fights Cancer Better? | NutritionFacts.org


Within hours the blood of those fed walnuts is able to suppress the growth of breast cancer cells in a petri dish. Which nut might work best, though—almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, peanuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, or walnuts?




nutritionfacts.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Plant power in 2023 Looks like Santa's also been pumping iron


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

^punk is a big part of why I went vegan









‘I’ll stop saying I don’t eat meat – and tell people I don’t eat animals’: the thing I’ll do differently in 2023


I’ve been a vegan since I was a teenager – not for health or environmental reasons, but because animals are sentient beings. And I want to be honest about that




www.theguardian.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

^ I'm in the company of the straight edge punks 











Dame Vivienne Westwood famously defined the fashion aesthetic of London’s punk movement in the 1970s—think safety pins, studs, and tartan—and helped to create the Sex Pistols’ iconic look. But long after punk’s heyday, the edgy British designer continued to push fashion forward. In 2007, before vegan couture had become mainstream, Westwood banned fur from her lines after meeting with representatives of PETA U.K. and learning about the suffering that animals endure before they’re used for fur coats, collars, and cuffs. The last of Westwood’s fur items were eight rabbit fur handbags, which her company allowed PETA U.K. to donate to a wildlife sanctuary to be used to for orphaned baby animals to snuggle up to.

Westwood’s fur ban went hand in hand with her commitment to environmental issues and her call for true sustainability in the fashion industry. Most animals killed for fur today are raised on factory farms, which produce tens of thousands of tons of waste every year, and fur garments are treated with a stew of toxic chemicals to keep them from decomposing—making fur neither kind nor sustainable.

Westwood’s innovative, animal-friendly accessories—such as the skin-free Derby Bag and Jungle Crocodile Bag—also scored multiple wins in PETA U.K.’s annual Vegan Fashion Awards.

Several years after stripping fur from her collections, Dame Vivienne stripped down to a shower cap for a provocative PETA video about the meat industry’s depletion of world water supplies. “I am an eco-warrior, but I take long showers with a clean conscience because I’m vegetarian,” she said in the spot, which launched in 2014. As a piece in _The New York Times_ pointed out at the time, it takes 4 million gallons of water to produce 1 ton of beef but just 85,000 gallons to produce a ton of vegetables. “By avoiding meat, you do more for the environment than recycling or driving a hybrid car,” Westwood said.

Speaking out against disposable “fast fashion,” Westwood once urged consumers, “_nvest in the world. Don’t invest in fashion, but invest in the world.” Her quintessential, animal-friendly clothing and accessories prove that we can do both.









PETA Says Goodbye to Punk Pioneer Vivienne Westwood | PETA


Vivienne Westwood famously created the look of the punk movement—and she also blazed a trail for animal-friendly fashion.




www.peta.org




_


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Today is my 10th year vegan. 
I was vegetarian my whole adult life. I'm happy with my change.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*New Study Links Plant Protein To Healthy Muscle Mass in Older Adults*
Can consuming plant protein consistently help keep muscles healthy later in life? A new study conducted by researchers in China found some positive results. 

While plant-based foods have recently exploded in popularity in Western countries, people living in Eastern regions such as China have consumed plant-based proteins as part of their cultural diets for centuries. The new study examined how this high intake of plant proteins is affecting China’s older population, particularly when it comes to muscle mass. 

The cross-sectional study was based on 4,826 participants aged 60 and older drawn from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) of 2018. Researchers analyzed self-reported dietary data—collected during three consecutive days over 24-hour periods—and found that the majority (two-thirds) of total protein consumed among participants came from plant-based sources.









In their analysis, researchers found that participants who consumed the total highest amount of protein and the highest amount of plant protein had an association with higher muscle mass. When it came to animal protein consumption, researchers did not find a significant association with muscle mass.

While plant protein has a positive association with muscle mass, researchers noted that the population they studied—which came from 15 provinces across China—consumed just below 20 grams of protein per meal. This is less than the recommended 25 to 40 grams of protein previous studies have established is ideal for muscle synthesis in older adults. 

In the new study, researchers found that higher daily protein intakes, more than 78 grams for males and 68 grams for females, could be ideal for preventing muscle loss but noted that more research is needed here. 

*Plant protein and muscle mass *
When it comes to aging, a major concern is sarcopenia, a condition characterized by muscle loss that leads to decreased function and quality of life. Could consuming higher amounts of plant protein be the key to maintaining muscle mass for healthy aging? The answer is complex.










“The traditional Chinese type of diet is [characterized] by large amounts of cereals and vegetables. Thus, plant protein intake contributed more to the total dietary protein intake than animal protein intake,” the authors explained their findings. “It is possible that the ingestion of greater amounts of vegetable-source proteins may be [able to] achieve the same anabolic response evoked by smaller quantities of animal-source proteins.”

The authors explained that while animal protein provides all essential amino acids, it brings with it high amounts of saturated fat, cholesterol, and calories—which can be avoided with a well-planned diet focused on plant proteins.

Researchers noted that their limitations here lie in the nature of cross-sectional studies which cannot determine causal relationships; the dietary recall design that only measured data from three consecutive days, collected from summer to autumn, which does not take into account seasonal variations of protein consumption; and the inherent bias behind self-reporting dietary data. 

They also noted that their ability to detect a significant association between muscle mass and animal protein might have been limited by the fact that participants consumed a much smaller proportion of animal protein as compared to plant protein. 

While plants continue to be a predominant source of protein for Chinese adults living in rural areas, the researchers explained that people who inhabit cities are shifting their protein intakes toward animal sources—a trend they intend to study in the context of sarcopenia.

*Plant-based diet and healthy aging*
Recent research on Western demographics bolsters the findings in this new study. When it comes to issues with muscle loss in older women specifically, a study published in the _Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia, and Muscle_ in June examined link between protein sources (plant, animal, and dairy) and incidence of frailty, which is characterized by fatigue, slowed walking speed, weak muscle strength, and unintentional weight loss.

Researchers here analyzed data from more than 85,000 women aged 60 and older who participated in the Nurses’ Health Study, one of the largest studies investigating risk factors for major chronic diseases in women.

Their findings? Higher intake of plant protein is linked to reduced risk of frailty while higher intake of animal protein is linked to higher risk of frailty. The researchers also found that replacing animal protein with plant protein might help to avoid the development of frailty.

Research conducted on other demographics has also linked plant-based diets to various health benefits for older adults, including a reduction in medications prescribed; reduced risk of certain types of cancers; and an improvement in menopause symptoms such as hot flashes. 









New Study Links Plant Protein To Healthy Muscle Mass in Older Adults


A new study of nearly 5,000 adults in China over the age of 60 links higher plant protein intake with higher muscle mass.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

Within an hour of drinking hibiscus tea, the antioxidant power of your bloodstream shoots up as your system absorbs the tea’s phytonutrients. This may explain why hibiscus has such a strong effect on blood pressure. 



















Hibiscus Tea vs. Plant-Based Diets for Hypertension | NutritionFacts.org


How do the blood-pressure lowering effects of hibiscus tea compare to the DASH diet, a plant-based diet, and a long-distance endurance exercise?




nutritionfacts.org


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*It’s Not Potatoes That Increase Diabetes Risk. It’s the Butter, New Study Finds *










With low-carbohydrate diets rising in popularity in recent years, potatoes are often overlooked in favor of other vegetables. Previous research has also indicated that potatoes may have detrimental effects on health, such as increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

However, new research published in the medical journal _Diabetes Care_ shows that while potatoes may not have all the same benefits of some other vegetables—such as lowering risk of type 2 diabetes—the health issues associated with potatoes may actually be due to how people are preparing them and what they’re eating them with, such as adding butter and eating them alongside meat.

Conducted by researchers at Edith Cowan University (EDU), the study involved more than 54,000 people reporting their dietary intake for the long-term Danish Diet, Cancer and Health study. An analysis of this study, led by Dr. Nicola Bondonno from ECU’s Nutrition and Health Innovation Research Institute, found people who consumed the most vegetables were 21 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who consumed the least amount of vegetables.










Notably, the study found that, while potatoes didn’t have the same impact on type 2 diabetes as other vegetables, they also didn’t have any negative effect. “In previous studies, potatoes have been positively linked to incidence of diabetes, regardless of how they’re prepared—but we found that’s not true,” EDU researcher Pratik Pokharel said in a statement. “In Denmark, people consume potatoes prepared in many different ways; in our study, we could distinguish between the different preparation methods.” 

“When we separated boiled potatoes from mashed potatoes, fries or crisps, boiled potatoes were no longer associated with a higher risk of diabetes: they had a null effect,” Pokharel said.

*Vegetables lower diabetes risk*
The researcher pointed out that underlying dietary patterns were the key: French fries and mashed potatoes likely have an association with this health risk because they’re eaten with butter and cream. 

The study’s findings indicate that vegetables could play a key role in reducing type 2 diabetes, as people who ate a lot of leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables such as spinach, lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower had a significantly lower risk of developing the condition. 

“The finding that vegetables lower diabetes risk is crucial for public health recommendations, and we shouldn’t ignore it,” Pokharel said. “Regarding potatoes, we can’t say they have a benefit in terms of type 2 diabetes, but they also aren’t bad if prepared in a healthy way.”










Pokharel said people should be advised to increase their vegetable intake—and they could include potatoes as long as they left out some of the unhealthy extras such as butter, cream, and oil. “But just take care how you prepare them: don’t eat fries, or mash with extras in it all the time,” he said. “Just boil them and eat them like other greens or other foods—and you don’t need to have it with red meat all the time.”

*Are potatoes healthy?*
This new study adds to a growing body of research on the health benefits of potatoes. A study published last month in peer-reviewed medical publication _Journal of Medicinal Food_ had similar findings that potatoes do not increase type 2 diabetes risk and are packed with key nutrients and health benefits. This study has found that replacing higher calorie meat with potatoes and beans could promote weight loss.

“The key aspect of our study is that we did not reduce the portion size of meals but lowered their caloric content by including potatoes,” Candida Rebello, PhD, an assistant professor at Pennington Biomedical and co-investigator of the study, said in a statement. “Each participant’s meal was tailored to their personalized caloric needs, yet by replacing some meat content with potato, participants found themselves fuller, quicker, and often did not even finish their meal. In effect, you can lose weight with little effort.”










Another study published earlier this year found additional health benefits beyond weight loss and lowering diabetes risk. The study, published in the scientific journal _Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise,_ found that potato protein can be as effective as animal-derived milk in building muscle, noting that potato protein and animal milk protein share a very similar amino acid composition that both have a similar effect on muscle protein synthesis, or the body’s way of making amino acids into skeletal muscle protein. 

“Muscle protein synthesis rates following the ingestion of 30 grams of potato protein do not differ from rates observed after ingesting an equivalent amount of milk protein,” the study concluded.









It’s Not Potatoes That Increase Diabetes Risk. It’s the Butter, New Study Finds


A new study says potatoes are good for you, provided they are prepared without butter and cream.




vegnews.com


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*5 Plant-Based Chefs Share Their Top Tips This Veganuary *










Doing Veganuary this month? You’re not alone: the campaign, which sees people going vegan for the whole of January, has seen a record sign-up rate in 2023, with more than 600,000 people globally expected to take on the challenge. 

Indeed, the campaign has inspired a growing number of people to go fully plant-based in recent years, amid increasing environmental and ethical concerns around eating meat, fish and dairy. The meat and dairy industry alone is responsible for an estimated 14.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations. Meanwhile, a 2016 study found that food-related emissions could be slashed by up to 70 per cent by 2050 if everyone across the globe went vegan.

Happily, a new wave of plant-based chefs and cooks are now leading the way when it comes to creating delicious vegan meals that are less harmful to the planet. See their top tips for this Veganuary below. 

*Rachel Ama, author of One Pot: Three Ways *
“Veganise your favourite recipes! This helps you get creative and have fun with flavours you already love. For example, with your go-to curry, keep the same spices and base of onions, garlic, maybe ginger, but instead of adding meat, swap it for things like jackfruit, cauliflower, butterbeans or sweet potatoes. There are so many vegetables to pick from and you can even throw in a meat substitute.


“Cook in bulk to save time and take the stress off. There is nothing better than coming home from a long day of work knowing your dinner is already made – and all you have to do is heat it up and add some fresh vibrant sides to it.



“For your daily ‘essentials’ swap cows’ milk for a nut or oat milk. There are lots of vegan-friendly butters in the supermarket, or get a quality extra virgin olive oil. [Choose] agave or maple syrup instead of honey. Tofu, tempeh, edamame, lentils and legumes are great sauces of protein. Swap a dairy yoghurt for soy, cashew, almond or, my favourite, coconut. There are lots of vegan-friendly protein powders available too.” 

*Alexis Gauthier, chef patron of Gauthier Soho*
“I would begin by sticking to meals which are almost vegan anyway. Pasta with tomato and basil, ratatouille, dhal, Mexican bean chilli – things like that. We are lucky enough now to have thousands of products to choose from. I’d try Linda McCartney plant-based sausages or maybe a Beyond Burger as they have been really refined. Really, there has never been a better time to go vegan.” 

*Anna Jones, author of One: Pot, Pan, Planet *
“Treat vegetables like meat: lots are much better when put on the grill, [with] a bit of char and smoke. Season properly – add salt in stages, and keep tasting as you go. Meanwhile, fresh herbs, such as chopped parsley or dill, can enhance plant-based dishes. Remember umami, too – the deep savouriness that you get from things like sundried tomatoes and miso.”

*Sophie Gordon, author of The Whole Vegetable *
“One-pot recipes are always easy to do and usually very nutrient rich. Have a look at what produce is at its best around this time of year: lots of root vegetables, dark leafy greens and citrus. Flick through your favourite cookbooks, or look on Instagram, you’ll find so many recipes out there. My go-tos are things like dhal and curries, stews or pastas. Hearty food for this time of the year and very easy to make. Don’t over-complicate things [at the start], but perhaps have a recipe in mind that might involve a bit more work and make it at the weekend. 
WATCH

https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/vegan-chefs-veganuary-tips


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

*Why Brussels Sprouts Taste Better Than They Did When You Were A Kid*









It’s a fact of growing older that Brussels sprouts don’t taste quite as gross as you remember. While maturing tastebuds may have something to do with this change of heart, it’s also apparent that the taste of Brussels sprouts has genuinely changed in recent decades. 

Brussels sprouts are a human creation. You won’t find these little leafy things growing anywhere in the wild because they are the product of centuries of selective breeding, just like many of the vegetables you find in today’s supermarkets. 

Ancestors of the sprout are thought to have originated in ancient Rome, but they likely took on the form we recognize today around the late Middle Ages in Belgium (hence the name Brussels sprout). 

However, the cultivation of Brussels sprouts underwent a major revolution around just 60 years ago, which farmers argue was the start of their bad reputation.

“In the late 1960s, our industry switched over to mechanized harvesting, which required a plant that would mature fairly evenly over the entire stem,” Steve Bontadelli, a Brussels sprouts farmer, told MEL Magazine in 2021. 










“The Sakata seed company developed the first plants that would mature evenly, and they were beautiful and green with lots of production, but they were horribly bitter, and we turned off an entire generation,” he added.

In the face of mechanized agriculture, Brussels sprouts picked up that unpleasant tang that so many grew to detest. The once-beloved vegetable fell from grace and became the butt of all jokes around the Christmas dinner table.

By the 1990s, the Big Sprout industrial complex had had enough and started to look into ways to Make Brussels Great Again. A study published in 1999 by scientists from the seed and chemical company Novartis managed to pinpoint the specific compounds that gave Brussel sprouts their undesired bitterness: two glucosinolates called sinigrin and progoitrin.

This helped to prompt a number of seed companies to sift through gene banks to look for old varieties of vegetables that happened to have low levels of the bitter chemicals, according to NPR. These less bitter varieties were then cross-pollinated with modern high-yielding ones, aiming to get the best of both worlds: a better-tasting product that could be cultivated on an industrial scale. After years of patience, they eventually produced a crop that was both tasty and economically viable. 

And just like that, the former glory of Brussels sprouts was restored, shifting this vegetable from a culinary pariah to a prized side dish. 

Despite the valiant efforts of scientists to restore the pleasant flavor of sprouts, however, there’s some evidence to suggest that hatred of the vegetable is hardwired into some people. 

Genetics plays a huge role in your tastes. Taste receptors are produced from instructions encoded in our DNA and there is significant variation in the DNA code between individuals. This includes at least 25 receptors that detect different bitter molecules and can impact the flavor of certain vegetables.

One of these receptors is taste receptor 2 member 38, a protein that’s encoded by the TAS2R38 gene that controls the ability to detect a bitter compound called propylthiouracil. If you have this gene, there’s a higher chance you’ll dislike bitter green vegetables, such as broccoli and Brussels sprouts. 

So, if you think Brussels sprouts have improved in recent decades, it’s not your imagination. However, if you remain a die-hard sprout detester, then there’s a good chance you can blame the DNA passed down from your mom and dad. 









Why Brussels Sprouts Taste Better Than They Did When You Were A Kid


Your tastebuds don’t deceive you: Brussels sprouts actually taste better than they used to.




www.iflscience.com


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## Sanchofula (Dec 30, 2007)

cyclelicious said:


> *Why Brussels Sprouts Taste Better Than They Did When You Were A Kid*
> View attachment 2017396
> 
> 
> ...


I don't know, I've been a vegetarian most of my life, and I still find it hard to ea these things 

If they're roasted till crispy, I can eat them with balsamic and Sriracha


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I hated Brussel sprouts as a kid. I found the taste and texture awful 

I like Brussel sprouts once in awhile now : They do taste differently. And I don't know if it's my tastebuds or if the vegetable has improved !


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I sometimes sing little songs in my head too when I'm eating:
Like "Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs," 🍝
"I'm Chiquita Banana and I've come to say, bananas have to ripen in a certain way..." 🍌


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)




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