Dietetic associations endorse veg' diets
"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases." Read full report here. Read "A new food guide for North American vegetarians" here.

Veggie diet as powerful as statins
University of Toronto researchers report that a tasty, high-fibre, soy-rich vegetarian diet cuts people's cholesterol by 29% in one month.

B12 for babies, onion power, and more
Our latest Q & A with Brenda Davis, R.D., co-author of Becoming Vegetarian and Becoming Vegan.

All about fat for vegans and vegetarians
"For healthy vegetarians, cutting down too much on wholesome, high-fat plant foods poses several problems," says Brenda Davis.

Are you sure you're getting enough B12?
Forget about tempeh and seaweed, or making it in your own gut, say leading vegan experts. The long-term risks of insidious vitamin B12 deficiency are too dire to stave off with unreliable or nonexistent B12 sources. Use fortified foods or take a supplement.

Most vegans consume enough B12 to avoid anaemia and nervous system damage, but many do not get enough to minimise potential risk of heart disease or pregnancy complications.

The overwhelming consensus in the mainstream nutrition community, as well as among vegan health professionals, is that plant foods do not provide vitamin B12. Despite this, some vegan advocates still believe that "plant foods provide all the nutrients necessary for optimal health" and, therefore, do not address vitamin B12 when promoting the vegan diet.

E/The Environmental Magazine says go veggie!
In a major cover story, the editor of a leading environmental magazine challenges tree huggers to embrace vegetarianism too.

Evidence shows that our meat-based diet is bad for the environment, aggravates global hunger, brutalizes animals and compromises our health. So why aren’t more environmentalists switching to vegetarianism?

The dirty truth about hog farms
Canada's federal government publicly paints a happy face on the exploding hog farming industry while privately pondering the risks.
 

Shredding spent hens
It sounds like a scene out of Fargo, but in California it's perfectly legal to dump thousands of spent hens into a shredder - alive. And with the approval of a  veterinarian who sits on the animal welfare committee of the American Veterinarian Medical Association.

PETA releases new "Meet Your Meat"
Alec Baldwin narrates PETA's new version of a  graphic hidden camera video every meat-eater should see.

Bush speechwriter waxes eloquent on animal welfare
"[Matthew] Scully has written what is surely destined to be a classic defense of mercy," writes Nicols Fox in a review of this Christian conservative's book on humanity's "dominion" over animals.

Why do so many otherwise kindly Christians and compassionate conservatives not only tolerate the widespread abuse of farm, lab and game animals but also routinely label those who attempt to defend and protect these animals as dangerous, misguided radicals, dismissing every argument for mercy? And how precisely did Christianity and conservatism become allied with an agriculture industry that treats food animals as so many production units whose growth and slaughter are to be maximized and accelerated no matter what the cost in pain and suffering?

I have learned in 20 years of being an advocate for animals - and especially in the last five years, in which I have been speaking publicly to congregations primarily in progressive churches - that despite the initial resistance, many people are ready to hear the truth about animal exploitation. We should be wary of watering this down too much with personal health motivations, for in the end, this does not serve the animals, the revolution, or ourselves.more

Eternal Treblinka: Holocaust analogy becomes a book
In a daring and disturbing new book, Holocaust historian Charles Patterson parallels the objectification and abuse of human out groups to society's mass abuse of animals.

Don't sweat the small stuff
When it comes to spreading the message of ethical eating, the devil often is the nitpicky details, say the folks at Vegan Outreach.

Sometimes a potential vegan will say, "I could just never give up ice cream (or cheese, etc.)." Some vegans now reply, "Then give up everything but ice cream." These types of reactions will often surprise the potential vegan and make them realize that veganism is not about making yourself pure, but about doing what you can to stop suffering.

The two fundamental components of animal welfare are what makes animals healthy and what the animals themselves want. The challenge is to embed the two into commercial farming so that good welfare goes hand in hand with viable agricultural systems. press release| website

It takes 25 minutes to turn a live steer into steak at the modern slaughterhouse where Ramon Moreno works. For 20 years, his post was "second-legger," a job that entails cutting hocks off carcasses as they whirl past at a rate of 309 an hour.

The cattle were supposed to be dead before they got to Moreno. But too often they weren't.

"They blink. They make noises," he said softly. "The head moves, the eyes are wide and looking around."

Still Moreno would cut. On bad days, he says, dozens of animals reached his station clearly alive and conscious. Some would survive as far as the tail cutter, the belly ripper, the hide puller. "They die," said Moreno, "piece by piece."

 

GENERAL

So if you’re at a holiday party with meat-eaters and you’re talking about how you can’t eat the bread because you don’t know what’s in it, or you’re at a restaurant and there’s a veggie burger on the menu but you give the server the third degree about the ingredients or about how it was cooked, you are forgetting the essence of being vegan. You’ve just made veganism seem difficult, throwing up barriers to the others at the table who might have otherwise considered the plight of animals.

U.S. daily tears a strip out of factory farms
In an ambitious six-part series, based on a nine-month investigation, Dayton Daily News lays bare the disastrous state of America's factory farm system.

Notes from the 35th World Vegetarian Congress 
From Edinburgh, Journalist Jeffrey M. Freedman chronicles "Food for All Our Futures" in a candid, daily, illustrated journal.

More on the congress, including picture gallery, recipes, cybercafe, and an interactive "ask the speakers" forum.

 

WVA

Details here.

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Environment
• Meat contributes to climate change, UN study confirms
• Sea turtle's epic journey celebrated with commitment to conservation
• U.S. approves overhaul of rules for fisheries

Health
• Diet high in fruits and veggies, low in meat lessens stomach cancer risk
• Bird flu: Thousands of birds culled in S. Korea
• Scientist warns of new 'mad cow' outbreak

 

 
 
 
 
 

Lifestyles and Trends

• Dutch raise animal rights to new level
• Study: Intelligent kids more likely to become vegetarians
• Entertaining vegetarian guests
• U.S. consumers uneasy about biotech food, cloned animal products
• Bioprinters vs. the Meatrix

 

 
 
 
 
 

Animal Issues and Advocacy

• U.S. suit a test case on farm animal cruelty
• Abused turkeys saved from Christmas chop
• Chimp champion fights ape meat, pet trade
• A more humane way to kill lobsters?
• American horse slaughter prevention act: What is the issue?

 

 
 
 
 
 

Books, Movies and Perspectives

• Documentary offers unsettling peek at food industry
• Healing through healthy foods

 

 
 
 
 
 

Are They Serious? Unfortunately Yes

• Of mice and men
• `Zombie chickens' hatch debate over older chickens' fate