The "news and views" discussed here are those of the participating users, and do not necessarily represent or have the endorsement of the San Francisco Vegetarian Society.
Talk by Don Forrester (MD) on May 19, 2012 in San Francisco California. Sponsored by San Francisco Vegetarian Society and Unitarian Universalist Animal Ministry.
As vegetarians and animal rights people, we are often posed hypothetical questions, such as, if you could choose between your dog or your child who would you save? Totally bizarre. Yet, one such question had me wondering. If I was left out in the wilderness, how would i survive? Many plants are poisonous and I'm a city guy! So I googled it, and I found some answers...
The first official recommendations for a diet that is both healthy and good for the environment are published today, and they are likely to be seen as an assault on the UK's current food system...
The report – which will dismay many in the livestock and processed food industries – will feed into all government departments and procurement agencies. Well-placed sources say it has created tension between Whitehall departments and advisers over its potential impact.
Just in time for Thanksgiving, the American Dietetic Association has some advice on turkey alternatives for vegetarians.
The bottom line is, watch the salt content and read the label, because some varieties may contain animal products such as milk or eggs...
This is pretty much true with any of the fake meats on the market (and generally true of any processed foods). Watch the sodium content - it usually tends to be high. Eating it once in a while in small portions should be fine.
I received this article regarding broccoli and it seems that eating broccoli raw is better than cooked.
We all know to eat our veggies — but what does cooking do in the nutrients?
Broccoli frequently earns a top spot on "superfoods" lists. This is partly because it delivers a healthy dose of sulforaphane, a compound thought to thwart cancer by helping to stimulate the body's detoxifying enzymes.
According to recent research in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, raw broccoli provides significantly more of this beneficial nutrient than cooked. (Cooking locks sulforaphane in, making it unavailable to your body.) In the small study, men were given about 1 cup of broccoli, raw or cooked. Those who ate the raw broccoli absorbed sulforaphane faster and in higher amounts compared to those who ate it cooked. The findings add to growing evidence that links diets rich in cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, kale and cauliflower, to lower rates of cancer.
Bottom line: If you like broccoli, eat it raw: it's more nutritious. Or, if you prefer it cooked, Martijn Vermeulen, Ph.D., the study's lead researcher, suggests steaming it until it's cooked but still crunchy. Some research suggests this method may keep sulforaphane available.
After combing through 7,000 studies that date back 40 years, a five year long scientific panel has reached some conclusions...
* Limit body fat. Your body mass index should be between 18.5 to 24.9. Weight around the waist is most dangerous.
* Limit red meat to 2.5 ounces a day. An additional 1.7 ounces a day increases cancer risk by 15 percent. That means an 8 ounce steak or a quarter-pound hamburger would be the limit for a week.
* Limit alcohol to two drinks a day for men, one drink a day for women.
* Limit salt intake to 2 grams a day. That's about a teaspoon a day, instead of the teaspoon and a half that most people eat. To give you an idea of how much salt is in food — just one cup of cottage cheese has half the salt you should eat in a day: half a teaspoon. Processed foods are almost always higher in salt.
If meat is now considered that dangerous, why would anyone want to eat something so poisonous?
Consumption of beef by women during pregnancy may alter a male's in utero testicular development and compromise his future reproductive capacity, researchers here reported.
The reason could be residual anabolic steroids in the meat, Shanna Swan, Ph.D., of the University of Rochester (N.Y.), and colleagues, reported online in the March 28 issue of Human Reproduction.
In a study of 387 fertile partners of pregnant women, men whose mothers reported eating more than seven beef meals a week while pregnant, had a sperm concentration more than 24% lower than that of men whose mothers ate less beef, they found.
In addition, three times more sons of high-beef consumers had a sperm concentration that would be classified as subfertile according to World Health Organization standards, compared with men whose mothers ate less beef, said Dr. Swan and colleagues.
Vegetarians (and the 'vegetarian inclined') have higher I.Q. Mr Spock, being from the planet Vulcan might have stated these words: "Vegetarians are Logical". Now he can say 'Vegetarians are Smarter'.
A scientific study by a Southampton University team in the British Medical Journal reports that the average vegetarian tend to have five IQ points more than the average person.
However, the report seems to indicate it isn't the exclusion of meat that makes one smarter because "there was no difference in IQ score between strict vegetarians and those who said they were vegetarian but who reported eating fish or chicken."
In other words, there are really two groups here. The vegetarians, and the ones who perceive themselves to be vegetarian.
This may suggest that intelligent people tend to eat healthier and because of this they are more likely to gravitate towards a vegetarian diet. And because Brits tend to become vegetarian more out of ethics than for health reasons (the exact polar opposite to their American counterparts in my estimation), maybe there is a correlation between intelligence and empathy. I guess we'll have to wait for that study.
Global warming could be controlled if we all became vegetarians and stopped eating meat. That's the view of British physicist Alan Calverd, who thinks that giving up pork chops, lamb cutlets and chicken burgers would do more for the environment than burning less oil and gas.
"Writing in this month's Physics World, Calvert calculates that the animals we eat emit 21% of all the carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity. We could therefore slash man-made emissions of carbon dioxide simply by abolishing all livestock.
Moreover, there would be no adverse effects to health and it would be an experiment that we could abandon at any stage. 'Worldwide reduction of meat production in the pursuit of the targets set in the Kyoto treaty seems to carry fewer political unknowns than cutting our consumption of fossil fuels,' he says.
Physics World is the international monthly magazine published by the Institute of Physics."
Not mentioned is the amount of ammonia that would be cut. Excessive ammonia is suppose to contribute to the greenhouse effect, so the end result could be much more beneficial than the article suggests. Calvert writes that he is not a vegetarian, but believes this is the easiest way to solve the Global warming issue.
A British researcher says a plant chemical found in soya, tofu and legumes could potentially damage sperm and affect male fertility.
Professor Lynn Fraser of King's College London says genistein can mimic the effect of the female hormone oestrogen, and she has found it affects sperm in mice, but she says it seems to have an even stronger impact on human sperm.
Professor Fraser says she found small amounts of the chemical can cause human sperm to burn out and lose fertility.
She also says if women eat soya and other foods high in genistein, it might have a bigger impact on male fertility because the chemical is likely to affect sperm when it is preparing to fertilise an egg.
Professor Fraser has acknowledged her research is in a very preliminary stage.
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