Since MikeB is gone, I can get into vegetarianism:



Seriously, the real green thing is to go vegetarian, but I sometimes just have to have meat.

Here puss, puss.

Vegetarians, from the other point of view!

OK, Meat eaters--It's time to gang up on those people who want to make us stop!





And while we're at it:

Virginia is for Meat Lovers

Mike Licht has the sense of humor, that's for sure. But this?

Vegetarian hunters can donate venison to needy meat-eaters at local food banks.

Does such a thing exist? I can't think of two activities more mutually exclusive than vegetarianism and deer hunting. Can you?

Please leave a comment.

Industrial Meat Farming - Who's Responsible

We often talk about whether it's fair to blame lawful gun owners for the problems in America with gun violence. I say those who oppose the restrictions which would help, have to accept some of the responsibility for what happens in the absence of those restrictions. They, naturally, don't see it that way, often making a comparison to cars. I've never been convinced by that comparison and have tried to explain why on numerous occasions.

Finally I have come across a comparison that works, one which to me seems very similar to my position about guns.

People who eat meat are partially responsible for the problems caused by industrial meat farming. Since the old pig has been in the news lately due to the swine flu, the focus is on pig farming.

Tristero has an exhaustive post over at Hullabaloo about industrial farming. I dare you to read it all and continue nonchalantly eating meat.

Daisy wrote about it recently. I have too. Go vegetarian; it's my best advice.

What's your opinion? Can you see that only vegetarians should be completely exonerated from the guilt of damaging the environment and damaging human health that is an inescapable part of industrial meat farming? For this reason, I honestly can't understand how people can chew and swallow animal flesh. Perhaps they do what I used to do: just not think about it, just not examine what they're doing.

The gun issues are different, I realize, but can you see my connection? In a similar way to the omnivore public being responsible for the mess that is meat farming, so the gun owning public is responsible for the mess that is wrought by gun violence. Yes or no? What's your opinion?

Please leave a comment.

Eating Right for Health, Weight Loss or Moral Principles

The International Herald Tribune has an interesting article on nutraceuticals, broadly defined as ingredients that are derived from food, and added to other foods as fortifiers. The ever-increasing trend began in the 1990s with garlic pills and similar products which were taken as supplements.

Now Kraft, Dannon, General Mills and many other companies are adding nutraceuticals to existing foods: "fat-burning waffles" made from a newly developed corn flour, cheese that kills intestinal parasites, even ketchup that regulates digestion, are on the shelves or in the works. New technologies in food processing, and a landmark 1999 court decision giving the makers of supplements broad leeway to advertise their health benefits, have brought this new class of enhanced foods to supermarket shelves.

One problem is that along with this growing trend, there's an increasing awareness that some of these tricks just do not work. Studies have shown recently that some extracted supplements, long used for cardiovascular health such as vitamin E, beta-carotene and folate (all of which fall into the broad category of "antioxidants") surprised everyone by showing no benefits whatsoever. It seems clear that the body's way of benefiting from these substances is more complicated than we thought.

All of this is of particular interest to me since I'm a vegetarian. The reason for that is ethical. I object to the treatment of animals on the mass scale necessary to fill the supermarket shelves. I admit to eating some cheese and eggs, the production of which is guilty of the same abuses, but let's just say I'm not a fanatic about the whole thing, and I certainly don't question or criticize other people's eating habits.

My problem, I'm afraid, is achieving proper nutrition. Perhaps these super-foods are the answer.

What do you think?