The Veg Blog

Vegan.com points out this opinion piece that denounces Paul McCartney, Jason Alexander, and Alec Baldwin for taking an interest in animal rights. The piece ends with the obnoxious statement that “Human children growing up in Soweto, Chechnya and Haiti should have pals like Paul, Jason and Alec, don’t you think?” implying that these celebrities should pay attention to starving children instead of animals.

What is with this inane argument against animal rights? As if we have some sort of limit on compassion and that if we send some love the animals’ way, we’re somehow taking attention away from human suffering? Come on now.

All over the news in recent days is a small study that contends a vegetarian diet can lower cholesterol as well as drugs:

It involved 46 men and women with high cholesterol levels. Sixteen ate the vegetarian diet for one month, 16 consumed a very low-fat diet, and 14 ate the low-fat diet and took 20 milligrams of lovastatin (sold as Mevacor) every day for a month.

The vegetarian group showed an average drop of 28.6 percent in their LDL cholesterol, the “bad cholesterol” that can raise the risk of heart disease. That was about equal to the 30.9 percent reduction seen in the low-fat diet plus statin group. By contrast, the low-fat diet-only group had just an 8 percent drop.

This falls under that “yeah, but we knew that already” category, but it’s still good to see it get such wide coverage, even if some outlets refer to it as the “ape diet.”

Blogger extraordinaire Rebecca Blood has posted a useful chart on her site comparing the nutritional values of different kinds of rice. As you’d expect, brown rice is leads the pack in most values, especially fiber, where it has more than 3.5 times as much as any of the white rice included.

Paul pointed out “The perils of the Atkins diet,” from Texas A&M’s The Battalion which discusses how Atkins isn’t healthy in the long-term and isn’t really all that effective as a weight-loss diet, either. One point the writer makes that’s kind of unique, though it’s probably not news to long-time vegetarians, is that the Atkins diet is more expensive than low-fat, reduced-meat diets. Add this to the years of research that goes against the Atkins hi-fat, hi-protein philosophy and the recent study of more than 90,000 women that links animal fats to breast cancer, and you have pretty much every reason in the world not to follow Atkins. Erik Marcus over at Vegan.com also made a good point a while back when he referred to the Atkins diet as a nightmare for the animals.

Someone said to me the other day, “I want to lose some weight… how can I cut out carbs from my diet?” I said, “Well, first of all, you don’t want to cut carbs from your diet. You want to replace simple carbs with complex carbs… whole wheat bread instead of white, whole wheat or mixed pasta instead of regular pasta, high-fiber cereals, etc. Then you want to cut back on saturated fat and trans fat… avoid the snacks with partially hydrogenated oils… replace your cooking oils with olive oil, canola oil, and high oleic safflower oil (for high-temperature frying)…” And then I realized I was starting to sound like my mom. :)

I think people just have this idea that they want to lose as much weight as they can, quickly, and with little effort. Eat more meat? Sure! Everybody loves their steak, why not eat more of it and lose weight! Really, who needs fiber, anyway? What we need to be thinking is, “How can I be healthier?” Weight loss doesn’t necessarily map one-to-one with health… after all, anorexia can help you shed those pounds fast, but it’s not exactly helping you get your nutrients.

A definite thumbs up to Eat Smart Veggie Crisps, a product of Snyder’s of Hanover available in a number of flavors. The chips are low in saturated fat (1/2 a gram per 21-chip serving) and are made with canola oil rather than a partially-hydrogenated oil. The Sun-Dried Tomato and Pesto flavor was outstanding and I’ve confirmed with Snyder’s that the “natural flavoring” use in the Veggie Crisps is non-animal derived (it’s rosemary). Quite a tasty vegan snack and considerably healthier than the standard bag of potato chips.

Welcome (a few days late) to new visitors coming in via the New York Times article, “Blogs in the Workplace!

(If anyone happens to have still have a print copy, drop me an e-mail.)

A bunch of animal stories in the news this week…

Man pleads guilty in deer’s death… In Asheville, NC, a man admitted to killing a deer that had been “adopted” by a herd of cattle. An officer wrote in a report of the incident: “Two men went into the cows and picked up a deer that was lying in the middle of the cows and were carrying it to the bank where we were standing… During which, all the cows followed the two men carrying the deer.”

Man should get maximum for torturing, killing cat on videotape… “During his trial, Power’s lawyer told court the art student and one-time vegetarian intended the video [of the torturing and killing of a cat] to be an art project showing that it was hypocritical for society to allow the killing of some animals for their meat but not others.”

And, finally, one with a happy ending: Curiosity saved the cat, a 13-year-old saved a cat being tortured by other teenagers and resucitated it with mouth-to-mouth.

The Vegan Spam newsletter (a product of the wonderful Vegan Outreach) pointed out that Turtle Mountain has a load of new Soy Delicious non-dairy ice cream products. The ones that had my mouth watering: the Organic Mint Mania Chocolate Coated Sandwich, the Cookies N’ Cream ice cream, the low-fat Green Tea ice cream, and the fat-free Mint Fudge ice cream. Methinks it’s time to place a special order with the local health food store.

Some good holiday weekend reading: Politics of Eating: Why I Am Vegan, an article in the Jewish Tikkun Magazine. It gives a good religious argument for vegetarianism with ethical points that are pretty hard to argue. (via Vegan.com)