Even though I’m an avid tea drinker, I still frequently learn something new about tea’s health benefits. For instance, did you know that green tea is a good source of vitamin C? How much? Well, one source says that green tea has more vitamin C than an orange, but another says there’s about 280mg per 100g of loose leaves (3g = 1 teaspoon, meaning about 9g of vitamin C per cup… a medium orange has 70mg). I couldn’t seem to find a definitive answer.

Most of tea’s vitamin C is lost during fermentation, so black and oolong teas have significantly less than green tea.

A vegetarian teen in the UK has reportedly died from the human form of “Mad Cow Disease”:

The family say they can’t understand how Jorawar contracted the disease when he was brought up in a vegetarian household and rarely ate beef. They believe the answer could lie in gelatin—a meat protein used in yoghurts, sweets and other food products.

Death-defying dog

A dog is hit by a car, a cop shoots her in the head to put her out of her misery, and the dog is put into a body bag in a freezer. A few hours later, an animal control worker opens up the freezer and the body bag is standing up… the dog was still alive.

A really amazing story. (via Alex)

A cup of tea may be germs’ new enemy

Some great news for tea drinkers (like me!):

“We worked out the molecular aspects of this tea component in the test tube and then tested it on a small number of people to see if it actually worked in human beings,” said Bukowski. The results, he said, gave clear proof that five cups of tea a day sharpened the body’s defenses against disease.

VegetarianTeen.com has an interview with Gregory Smith, the 13-year-old founder of the International Youth Advocates. Smith’s amazing story starts at age two when he decided to become vegetarian, goes through his high school graduation at age ten, and his back-to-back Nobel Peace Prize nominations at ages 12 and 13. He’s set to graduate college this year and has a grand vision of how children can be the ones to bring peace about in a world full of tension and hate. It’s great to see someone so young and so incredibly intelligent devoting his time and energy towards a goal that would takes a child’s enthusiasm to reach.

(via VP)

White Wave is recalling some of its half-gallon containers of their Silk vanilla soy milk because of possible contamination with sodium hydroxide, an alkaline cleaning solution. If you have one of these products with the following code dates, return it to the store for a refund: Jun 17 03 H CD70, Jun 17 03 J CD-70, Jun 18 03 H CD70 and Jun 18 03 J CD70.

No other Silk or White Wave products are involved in the recall.

If you look at this Reuters report, you might be encouraged to see that incidents of salmonella are down a bit from last year. Of course, if you’ve read any of the modern literature on factory farms, you’ll realize that the statistics are nearly worthless since the meat and poultry industries pretty much self-regulate. The USDA inspectors are generally regarded as just figureheads that have very little power or authority to create any sort of meaningful change in the factories.

Vegan.com pointed out this AP report which is more balanced. For instance, “[The USDA] excluded data on plants where salmonella has been found repeatedly, making it seem as if salmonella is on the decline.” Where was that little tidbit in the Reuters article?

Ever since last August when a friend from college mentioned Community Supported Agriculture to me, it sounded like a great idea: pay a flat rate for stock in a local farm and get a back of freshly grown, organic vegetables, herbs, and such delivered weekly. Not only does it encourage supporting local farmers (local, organic farmers in some cases), it gets you vegetables fresher than you could ever get from the supermarket.

I contacted a local farm with a CSA program, but starting this year, they were no longer delivering to my hometown. Fortunately, she referred me to another local farm (one whom I’ve purchased produce from before) that runs a CSA: the Potomac Vegetable Farms. And, I’m proud to say, that after talking with the owner and getting some literature, my wife and I are now proud members for a 16-week stretch this summer. I’m really looking forward to it and having a fresh influx of fresh veggies each week.

This weekend, I was preparing broccoli as a side dish and wanted to try something a little different. I picked out “Spicy Green Tea Grilled Broccoli,” a simple recipe from Cooking With Green Tea (not a vegetarian cookbook, but worth checking out, especially for fans of green tea). It called for chile peppers (though I used simple pepper flakes) and had a nice little kick. The green tea absorbed well into the broccoli. I was quite pleased with the dish overall.

In looking for similar recipes online, I came across Healthwell’s Green Tea Stir-Fry with Garlic and Ginger that sounds mighty good. Swap out the honey with an alternate sweetener and the recipe’s vegan.

For a good introduction to cooking with tea, visit Cat-Tea Corner’s Cooking with tea and
teatime treats.

According to the Vegan Blog, the Drug Enforcement Agency is continuing its battle against hemp. Not marijuana specifically, but hemp. The same hemp that contains high levels of healthy Omega-3 fatty acids, that can be made into more recyclable paper, and whose fibers are longer, stronger, more absorbent, and more mildew-resistant than cotton. Keep in mind that while hemp contains THC, the levels are so infinitesimally small that it would be nearly impossible to get any sort of “effect” from ingesting them.

It’s an absurd fight with no end result that can’t be obtained in a more logical way. The fight against marijuana (in my opinion, at least) is misdirected, but the fight against mere hemp seeds is akin to trying to ban the use of cameras because child pornography is illegal (though, obviously, child pornography is on a whole different level than marijuana).