Sleckie's Favorite Links on vegetarian from Diigo

Proven: Vegetarians Live Longer : TreeHugger

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:37:18 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Does everyone really want to live forever? I can understand wanting to outlive your spouse and see your kids at least graduate high school, but how long do you need on the planet? Don't forget that just existing costs money and resources.

They can have my turkey leg when they pry it from my cold dead hands. I feel a bit of a chill coming on.

I don't know whether vegetarians live longer or not, but I have read that a veg. diet helps to minimize a lot of the debilitating diseases of old age that westerners suffer (cancers, heart disease, diabetes, et c). So many people live a long time with pain and suffering, in and out of the hospital, taking tons of medication. Eating lower on the food chain can help us live healthier during however much time we have.

Tags: vegetarian health longevity

Posted by: sleckie

Great Vegetarian Quotes # 2 | So Veg dot com

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:59:23 -0000

Tags: blog quotes vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

AlterNet: Health and Wellness: 15 Reasons to Stop Hiding from Vegetarianism

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:58:39 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

3. You'll live longer. If you switch from the standard American diet to a vegetarian diet, you can add about 13 healthy years to your life

10. You'll avoid toxic chemicals. The EPA estimates that nearly 95 percent of the pesticide residue in the typical American diet comes from meat, fish and dairy products. Fish, in particular, contain carcinogens (PCBs, DDT) and heavy metals (mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium) that can't be removed through cooking or freezing. Meat and dairy products can also be laced with steroids and hormones, so be sure to read the labels on the dairy products you purchase.

Tags: fish health vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

Hold the meat; kids can be healthy without it - Monday, 05/28/07 - Tennessean.com

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 10:01:13 -0000

Tags: family vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

Vegetarian Lifestyle, Tight Budget, Savvy Vegetarian Advice

Fri, 25 May 2007 20:52:53 -0000

Tags: budget vegetarian

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How to Eat Vegetarian on the Cheap ∞ Get Rich Slowly

Fri, 25 May 2007 20:52:29 -0000

Tags: budget vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

Vegetarian Cuisine - Vegetarian Food - Vegan Recipes - Vegetarian Cooking - Raw

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 21:19:46 -0000

Tags: blog vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

meal plans and other advice wanted - Vegetarian &Vegan Recipe Exchange - tribe.net

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:37:51 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

How does everyone go about planning out their meals for the week? Do you plan it out? I always feel like i'm missing something in my diet because i'm more of a forager (sp?) in my kitchen when time is tight and i reach for the carbs. I'm working on the total vegitarian conversian and would love some tips or links to meal planning/veg nutrition.

2nd Q = What are some really polite ways to refuse meat products at holiday gatherings when they are thrust in your face by beaming family members who want to feed you?

Tags: diplomacy food mealplans vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

Chatelaine.com : Vegetarian meal plan

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:37:51 -0000

Tags: do food mealplans vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

Compassion Over Killing > Easy Vegetarian Recipes: Delicious, Animal-Friendly

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:26 -0000

Tags: do recipes vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

The PETA Files: I heart Casey Affleck

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

“When people ask me why I don’t eat meat or any other animal products, I say, ‘Because they’re unhealthy, and they’re the product of a violent and inhumane industry,’”

Tags: people vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

TheStar.com - Special - Yoga helps create healthy bodies, peaceful minds

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Tags: do spirit vegetarian

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TheStar.com - News - Atkins diet best for women, study suggests

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Ornish and other critics say the study doesn’t answer concerns about the Atkins diet — whether consistently eating all that fatty food leads to long-term health problems.

The researchers found that none of the health measures was worse for women on the Atkins plan, but said potential long-term problems could not be identified in so short a study.

They all have vastly different distributions of carbs, proteins and fats.”

“What matters are the calories in your food.”

But critics argue that the study — to be published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association — isn’t a fair comparison because by the end, few women were following any of the diets strictly, although those in the Atkins group came closest.

The research “had a good concept and incredibly pathetic execution,” Zone diet creator Barry Sears told The Associated Press.

“It’s a lot easier to follow a diet that tells you to eat bacon and brie than to eat predominantly fruits and vegetables,” added Ornish.

The study found that women on the Atkins diet lost 10.4 pounds on average after 12 months, compared to 5.7 pounds for women on the LEARN diet, 4.8 pounds for Ornish diet followers and 3.5 pounds for those on The Zone weight-loss plan.

The four diets were chosen to represent the full spectrum of low- to high-carbohydrate weight-loss plans and participants were started off with eight hours of instruction from a dietitian.

Tags: vegetarian weight

Posted by: sleckie

p2 The Blog | Kathy Freston: One Bite at a Time: A Beginner's Guide to Conscious Eating | The Huffington Post

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Meat is filthy. It is dead tissue. It has little pieces of animal shit on it. It has colonies of microbes building little cities on it. It is actually the corpse of another creature. It's like walking up to a casket with a knife and fork...and you rednecks want to chew on that and eat it?
Be my guest. But take a look around at the majority of meat-eaters before you do. They actually start to look like the creatures they eat: pigs and cows.

I agree that chickens are the most abused animal...but I personally wish that meat-eaters give up eating cows and pigs first...there is something so heartbreaking about the crying (bellowing) of a mother cow and her calf who lovingly bond at birth and who are usually separated on the 1st or 2nd day after birth...cows are pregnant for nine long months, just like women...and pigs are as smart and friendly and loving as dogs...they even wag their little tails...they are so terrified at the slaughterhouse they have heart attacks...and all animals are so young (still babies/toddlers) when they die...i still care deeply for sweet chickens...God refers to the love of a mother hen for her chicks in the bible...and in tiday;s factory farms, hens never ever even SEE their chicks...there is something ungodly about it all..i am so glad i stopped eating all meat 2 years ago and don't have to decide which animal doesn't deserve life...and it was easier than i ever dreamed...and i feel like a new woman!

Tags: ch tips vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

The Blog | Kathy Freston: One Bite at a Time: A Beginner's Guide to Conscious Eating | The Huffington Post

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Regarding it being National Heart Month and heart disease in general. 1 out of every 2 men, and 1 out of every 3 women will have heart disease issues in the course of their lifetime in this country. Near 1,500,000 people will die this year from heart-related problems.

Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn have both, independently, shown that a very low-fat plant-based diet can arrest and REVERSE heart disease. Their scientific and well-measured, documented studies were peer-reviewed, and Essy's work and data spans 20 years. His patients were, literally, "the walking dead" when it came to heart disease.

Modern medicine is incapable of reversing heart disease. A PBS special, "Hidden Epidemic," which aired on Valentine's Day said that heart disease is incurable. Wrong. It's not inevitably a death sentence.

A healthy and tasty vegan diet will do the job. Besides, you'd be eating the way most people on the planet do already ('cept those in Westernized cultures). It's so bad in the United States that some physicians say that people eating the Traditional American Diet should be automatically considered to have heart disease in their early sixties (and we already see signs of same in children much younger).

Again: a low-fat vegan diet can reverse and prevent heart disease (let alone the impact on hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and a host of other so called "diseases"). Some of Essy's patients couldn't exercise much, yet their symptoms of HD STILL were reversed. What's more radical? Eating a plant-based diet or cutting open a person's chest and replacing a heart artery with a piece of vein from a leg?

If put in these terms, let alone the arguments you presented, it's just amazing more people don't catch on.

Check out Dr. Esselstyn's Research at:
http://www.heartattackproof.com...

FYI, Mark
http://www.soulveggie.com...

And I could not agree more about not sweating the small stuff. I've been a vegan for almost 20 years, and I now strongly feel that my earlier almost "fundamentalist" veganism was counter-productive. I felt great about my "purity," but others just thought I was a nut. So, as Kathy notes, I was hurting animals.

EAT ETHNIC.

The "western" diet is the only one with the focus on MEAT.

Tags: ch tips vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

Vegetarian Times - Substitute ingredients

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Tags: tips vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

Amazon.ca: Reviews for Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats: Books: Sally Fallon

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

On a side note: the recipes in this book are, by and large, a nightmare. I don't know about you, but I personally don't have time to make whey, soak grains 2 days ahead, make stock (by boiling down a whole chicken for hours), and lacto ferment a bunch of veggies for ONE RECIPE!! This book is a GOOD introduction, but a poor practical day to day guide on nutrition.

We are still vegetarian and always will be (Ms. Fallon's assertion that vegetarians are atttempting to take heavan by storm is indicative of her many biases). However, using information from this book, we learned the importance of saturated fats, animal source proteins, lower carb food choices, the benefit of fermented foods, and the "conspiracy" of soy.

All of these things have profoundly affected the way we live and feel. There are several health complaints we had that have disappeared completely simply through the above mentioned changes. Things like mucous (throat and nose), bloating, lethargy, skin irritation, joint pain etc.

Much more informative and reassuring books (in terms of the testing and safety of the recipes) are available regarding naturally fermented (brined and pickled) foods. Also, the advice in the grain section about soaking in whey isn't convincing and is inconvenient to follow. Much more comprehensive as well as clearer and easier to follow advice from is "The Splendid Grain," by R. Wood. Fallon aggressively pushes a certain distributor in her book--whose catalog just happens to recommend her book--which sells products you might think you need if you read no further than NT. Caveat Emptor.

OK, so what's contradictory? We're supposed to eat organic this-and-that, use sea salt, stay away from deadly rice cakes... but we should drink raw milk, because Pasteurization is bad. Just find a good farmer to get it from so you don't get brucellosis. There are reasons why most (if not all) agriculture agencies in the US and Canada warn against drinking raw milk: e. coli, salmonella, campylobacter, and other nasty bugs that can make you very sick. Even the EU, which is looking positively at raw milk in cheese, has a problem with drinking the stuff.

Then there's water. It's bad too. Don't bother trying to find out if the water supply in YOUR community has a problem, water is just not good. So what should you drink if you're thirsty after a hot day working on the Collective? Why a tall glass of a lacto-fermented beverage. Yum!

The authors want to return to a Neverland of old America, where men worked in the fields and came home to eat organ meats like brains, livers, and kidneys with gusto; there was no refrigeration and people ate pickled and fermented produce; and people cooked with goose fat instead of corn oil (another toxin).

The recipes will break your pocketbook if they don't kill you first.

About dairy - if you are gonna use dairy, you must use raw dairy. Turns out for me that raw dairy is just as bad as pasteurized homogenized dairy. I may have an individual allergic/intolerance. But my point is, don't think you can compromise with pasteurized dairy if you can't get raw dairy. Pasteurized dairy is very bad for you, for so many reasons. Probably worse than any processed soy product. I think the emphasis in this book on raw dairy is wrong mainly because most people cannot get it or have easy access to it and may assume a little of the pasteurized stuff is ok - also, raw dairy was actually not consumed by many peoples and if you go a little further back, it wasn't consumed by anyone. Obviously the authors have no problem digesting dairy. Most people in the world cannot digest it and have no history even of trying to digest it - apparently even in raw form.

This book also bases a lot of its traditional methods of food preparation on very recent techniques. 1000 years ago is nothing in human time and there does seem to be evidence that for most of humanities time, we ate nothing like this.

Also, some of the long lived peoples that are referenced apparently have been studied and have been shown to have deficiency diseases and to have partaken in selective breeding where sickly offspring are allowed to die which makes for a very hardy population....

Tags: anti nutrition vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

Amazon.ca: Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats: Books: Sally Fallon

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

- she pans white flour in part because it's 'only' been in existence for about 400 years, yet defends feeding animal products to cows and chickens, referring to it as 'a practice that dates back almost 100 years'.

the presentation she uses is so confusing, and worse, loaded with pseudo-science and poor reasoning, that I don't feel I can take too many of her assertions on faith.

The main thrust of her theory seems to be two-fold - first that pure, natural animal products are a normal part of the human diet and second that any kind of non-traditional food processing (any factory foods) are bad. OK, I can go with that. I know many people would disagree with the first part of her theory, and even if you do agree, it's REALLY hard to find pure pasture-fed animal products, even here in the Midwest. When you can find them, they are so expensive.

Not that I could even try to hit everything she covers in her book, but here are a few specific things that gave me pause -

- she says vegetarians 'Because grains and pulses [that's beans for us Americans] eaten alone cannot supply complete amino acids, vegetarians must take care to balance the two at every meal.' I didn't think ANYONE still believed that.

- she refers often to the nutritional work of a Dr. Weston Price. He's a dentist. OK, that doesn't necessarily mean he DOESN'T know much about nutrition (and keep in mind I wouldn't automatically assume any medical doctor knows anything about nutrition either), but it doesn't mean he DOES know anything either, yet she's clearly using his title of Dr. to try to give his words more weight.

Tags: anti nutrition vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

Amazon.ca: Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats: Books: Sally Fallon

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

A vile mixture of lies, pseudoscience, and fallacy, Jan 19 2004
Reviewer: A customer
This book is completely disgusting. It claims to have scientific support for the most ridiculous claims that I have ever heard. It is a bizarre mixture of Atkins and neanderthal diets and wants us all to live on raw meat and fermented milk. The "scientific" evidence is drawn from extremely poor media sources. Where even fringe science can't be found to support her claims the author discards decades of work by real scientists and makes vague statements that "the evidence supports" her ideas without any citation. Good studies are occasionally used but she is just as likely to discard balanced, well-designed studies in favour of a single unrepeatable finding or the evidence of Kirlian photography. Picking and choosing in this fashion allows you to make whatever sweeping claims you want. This is truly a dangerous book.

Tags: anti nutrition vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie

nina planck New Puritans

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:39:12 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Fat, cholesterol, carbs, red meat - none of these, Planck contends, is the problem. Instead, she lays the blame on chemicals and industrial food, including "new" fats, many of which are often hydrogenated. Industrial food, she says, is to blame for the steep rise in rates of disease, especially heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Planck arrives at this incendiary conclusion via Darwin and research into Stone Age eating habits, which flies in the face of widespread myths and confirms that, contrary to popular assumptions, humans used to be more carnivorous, not less. "I doubt that foods we've eaten for millions of years cause cancer," she writes.

She recommends "traditional" milk - raw, unpasteurized, unhomogenized - from grass-fed cows, as opposed to those fattened on grain.

To those who proscribe dairy products on the premise that milk was designed for newborn calves, not humans (a popular, if somewhat bizarre, argument), she retorts that a tomato was designed to make more tomato plants, not pasta sauce. Cataloging her own history, which spans a series of draconian regimens, including vegan, vegetarian, low fat, low saturated fat and low cholesterol

Tags: anti nutrition vegetarian

Posted by: sleckie