Roundup of Tidbits

• The USDA is paying dead farmers $1.1 billion!
  

  For 1999 through 2005, USDA paid $1.1 billion in farm payments in the names of 172,801 deceased individuals (either as an individual recipient or as a member of an entity). Of this total, 40 percent went to those who had been dead for 3 or more years, and 19 percent to those dead for 7 or more years.

• The Farm Bill is up for House vote today. It will reach the Senate in September.
• This is just strange. And funny. Airport security seized a “dense clay-like substance” – a block of cheese!
• This makes me embarassed to live in California. Obesity is in a never-ending downward spiral.
• Another nutritious bar reaching the market. Vegan, organic, and raw! No wonder it’s named he Raw Organic Food Bar.
• Killer whales are the most poluted European arctic mammal. Just more proof that the animal rights movement and the environmental sustainability movement are interconnected beyond belief.

Learn Something New Every Day: Hugo, Pelosi, and more

Now, I know that I’ve been doing a lot of linking posts lately, and by default not enough original posts. Well, rest assured, I am planning a series of Vegan Nutrition 101 posts. It’s basically going to be the absolute basics of what every vegan (or vegetarian…..or omni) should know. Anywho, these are a few things to keep your mind busy in the meantime.

• While organics are on the rise we all still know how expensive they can be. SmartMoney’s Keli Grant has five ideas for finding cheaper organics. My personal favorite: Local farmers. Who would’a thunk?
• The Farm Bill is up for vote this week, which Nancy Pelosi is “very proud” of. It would send millions to corn, cotton, and a few other major crops. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an expert on the subject, but that just doesn’t sound right. Muchless, something to be “very pround” of. Rep. Ron Kind has promised to ammend (or rather, correct) the bill. All ammendments must be submitted by the 24th, Tuesday.
• A vegetarian restaurant in Brooklyn, Counter, is serving up fruity cocktails for dinner. As one customer said, “I drank my dinner a couple of times. I’m kind of proud of that… [made with] muddled cucumber. That’s a vegetable, right?” The cocktails are full of anioxidants, vegetable purees, and vitamins. And, supposedly, don’t leave you with a hangover. So, go ahead, drink up, just don’t lie to yourself; Cucumber is not a vegetable!
• This makes me sick to my stomach. The sizzle of decaying flesh is just the frosting on the cake.
• Another species saved from extinction! The El Segundo blue butterfly is alive an kicking in Southern California. The species was entered to the endangered species list in 1976.
• Another reason to hate McDonalds. They have been attempting to change their image by cutting out the supersize menu and adding salads, fruit, etc. Their latest addition is the 42 oz “Hugo” drink. Full of regular soda, it contains 410 calories (the equivalent of a small meal.) Drink 5, and you’ve had your share of energy intake for the day. Am I the only one that is reminded of Hugo on Lost?
• Castleberry Food is recalling it’s chili and dog food after finding the meat was contaminated with botulism. What? Humans are eating the same meat as their pets? Not much of a suprize, but at least they are spreading disease evenly throughout the animal kingdom.
• Genetically modified rice has been on our shelves since 2001. Constmerist reports,
  

  Six years ago, Avenits Crop Science introduced Liberty Link, a transgenic rice strain resistant to Liberty, an Aventis weed killer. The Liberty Link experiment ended abruptly when StarLink – a transgenic corn strain made by Aventis that was approved only for use in animal feed, not for human consumption – was found in Kraft taco shells.

  In 2006 Liberty Link was found in Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, Mississippi, and Louisiana in products such ar Budweiser and Uncle Ben’s. Up until this point the mutant rice was not approved by the FDA, but faced with the decision to recall massive amounts of rice, and rice containing products, they instead opted to approve it, without testing.

  Their reasoning? The mutant rice was similar to mutant corn and canola that hadn’t yet harmed American consumers.

Playing Catch-Up

I’ve been gone for the past few day, but this should make up for it.

• Brazilian fishermen illegally net and soffocate 83 dolphins, then proceed to laugh about it – caught on tape. Apperently, dolphin jaws, eyes, and penises are sold for good luck, fortune, and women. Yeah, every time I see a guy eating some ground dolphin penis I can’t help but throw myself at him.
• After a recent flood in China, the country is being overrun by rats. Citizens have been poisoning the burdens, causing unknown harm to the soil and environment. The rat population has grown so extensive they are now being sold as food in live markets.
• Check out this post with 62 uses for vinegar. Granted, not all 62 are veg friendly, but who knew vinegar could relieve jellyfish stings?
• Corn crops and production will cause the largest dead zone ever in the Gulf of Mexico, estimated to reach 8,500 square miles.
• “The National Park Service is cutting down hundreds of acres of trees on the Gettysburg Battlefield to restore historical accuracy.” Since when does accuracy mean destroying nature. Come on now, no one needs to see the exact battlefield that bad.
• Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna was thought to be extinct untill a tribesman told researchers that he just ate one.

More on China

Bitting back at our refusal to import chinese seafood, China has now blocked import of chicken and pork from two of the largest producers in the U.S., Tyson and Cargill. Both of these companies have been supposedly exporting products with chemicals and bacteria.

Dead Gopher for my Veggies?

In and around Swift Current, Sask., gophers are becoming quite a problem. Such a problem in fact that farmers in the southern grainbelt are opening there homes to tourists. These farmers offer free room, board, and even free ammunition. Why? To kill all the gophers, of course. Tourists will come from days away to hunt gopher endlessly. I’ll have to agree with TasteBetter.com, “I smell a new ‘gopher-friendly’ food certification system coming on here…”

Trip to the Farm Sanctuary

What did I do for the 4th of July? I went to the farm sanctuary! The farm is locted just outside of Orland, in northern California. The Independence Day celebration is an annual event at the farm where they give free tours and free food.

My friend and I arrived at about noon and took off on a nearly hour-long tour. The first stop was the “special needs” animals, a pasture with cows, sheep and goats. Some of these animals had arthritis because of their weight. Almost all of them were very friendly, with the exception of a few that would run away if you came too close. We also walked through the pig barn and peered into the chicken barn, duck and goose hatches, turkey barn, and the rabbit barn. It’s such a great experience to see (and touch) an animal that is cared for, loved, and not forced to do anything. After the tour, back at the “People Barn” the staff served up veggie dogs and sausages, chips, popsicles, cookies, lemonade, watermellon, and ice cream bars – all totally vegan. The whole farm is vegan, including all the staff an interns living on it.

The Farm Sanctuary began as a safe haven for animals raised for food. There are two sanctuaries, one in California (300 acres) and the other in New York (150 acres, about.) The animals at the farm have come from a variety of different situations; one piglet jumped off a transportation truck headed to slaughter; the first animal, a sheep named Hilda, was saved from a dead pile; authorities often utilize the sanctuary when there are animal abuse cases in town; or sometimes, animals are simply dropped off out front. In any case, the sanctuary provides a safe place for the animals to live out their lives. Kudos!!

If you are interested in visiting the sanctuary visit http://farmsanctuary.org/ to get more information about their sanctuaries, philosiphies, animals, annual events, and campaigns.

P.S. Pictures from the sanctuary will be coming soon!

Eco-Kosher

In the U.S., there ae about 5.2 million Jews, 15 % of which keep strict kosher. What is becoming more popular though is the eco-kosher diet. According to Grist,

Its followers seek nourishment that not only adheres to traditional Jewish dietary laws, but is also local, organic, sustainable, and humane.

A label will soon be generated to make it easier for those looking to support processors with these ethical values. This segment of the diet will include roughly 100,000 items which may have substantial positive effects on the environment.

Childhood Obesity

Recent studies have shown that government spending on nutrition education, over $1 billion, is having little to no effect on childhood obesity. 57 programs have been reviewed and only four showed any real success.

Since the 1970’s, rates of obesity in children ages 6 to 11 have quintupled while rates of teens and children ages 2 to 5 have tripled.

One thing that is for sure is that the power is held by the parents. Parents not only set examples for their children but also contribute to their kids’ taste buds. Women, while pregnant, will pass on their tastes to their kids. What’s more, unless children are taught healthy habits before puberty those habits can be significantly harder to change. No one listens to a hypocrite, muchless kids, so set an example, be healthy, be happy, and live long.

Welfare in the Mainstream

I’ve been at my parent’s home for the past few days where I happened upon the June 2007 issue of Gourmet Magazine. Normally, I’d avoid this kind of magazine full of grilling recipies for steak and cheese, but enticed by a headline on the cover, I opened it up and found an article entitled, “A View to Kill.”

It began by explaining the industry’s private practices and refusal to allow anyone inside. “Spokesmen at the [big five] refused to show me the farms…refused to show me the slaughterhouses…even refused to talk to me about how they raise and kill chickens.” It when on to detail a few of the victories of the welfarist movement over the past seven years. The bulk of the article, however, consisted of explaining the cruel ways chickens are shipped an slaughtered (which, on the whole, was remarkably accurate, the only part left out was the searing off of the chicken’s beaks.) Eventually it explains new methods of slaughter that would be more “humane,” including the gas technique developed in Britian.

I was actually very impressed by the accuracy and sense of urgancy in the article. The writer mentioned PETA without making them seem completely insane, and even sided with them on the issue of KFC’s refusal to obtain more humane standards of treatment. But a few things seemed at least confsing if not contradicory. The first page of the article has a full-page picture of Peeps (those awful little yellow easter candies) hanging from hooks upside down. Why is this so bad? It made my family and even I laugh. It undercut the seriousness of the issue by making it a joke right off the bat. I caught myself laughing and was horrified by the fact that I could take such a cruel practice and laugh at it.

Secondly, what are the readers of this magazine going to think when they flip a few more pages and see a recipe for chicken? No where in the article did it make any reference to cutting down on meat intake, which is reitterated by the recipes throughout.

In any case, at least the article was there. It may not have been as complete as I would have liked, but at least the messege of compassionate people is reaching the masses.

Learn Something New Every Day

Tid-bits I found interesting from the latest issue of VegNews:

• Spain has developed a new way of attaining foie gras without force feeding ducks. The birds naturally gorge on food before their winter migratory cycle. The foie gras “artisans” as they are called, then kill the ducks at their heaviest point. Since there is no force feeding in this method, the official foie gras ban, which is supposed to take full effect in California in 2012, can be side stepped. Don’t celebrate our victory yet!
• The Humane Society recently discoverd that clothing labed as faux fur may actually be dog fur. Cothing sold by Tommy Hilfiger, Andrew Marc, Michael Kors, and others were mislabeled when made with domestic dog or Asiatic racoon dog fur (use of dog and cat fur is illegal in the U.S.) 25 coats were tested, 24 of which were mislabeled.
• Wolfgang Puck has stopped serving foie gras in all of his restaurants and will, by the end of the year, no longer be using battery-cage eggs, or veal or pork from crated animals. He will also adapt a progressive animal-welfare plan (Happy Meat.) If he cares about the animals, why not try vegan, or even vegetarian restaurants?
• The meat in pet food is there becuase they had no where else to put it. The animal parts unfit for human consumption (esophagus, udders, intestines, cancerous animal parts, etc.) are in your dog’s food. There’s more: euthanized animals, such as dogs, are in there, too. Think, mad dog disease. If it’s not good enough for you, it’s no good enough for your dog.