Interesting Articles and Essays on Vegetarianism, Veganism, and Conservation
This is a fantastic article from the September 11, 2006 issue of The Nation in which
current authors weigh in with a wishlist of how they'd improve people's diets. If you don't have
time to read them all, at least check out
Michael Pollan's portion of the article.
This great article from the New York Times on January 27, 2008 asks: Got vegetables?
Check out the photograph of what a typical feedlot looks like.
This is a PDF version of a wickely good essay by Michael Pollan from NY Times Magazine
that was written by Michael Pollan on January 28, 2007. The subtitle sums up just about
everything we believe when it comes to diet:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Breast Cancer...
- Breast Cancer: The Dark Side of Breast Cancer Awareness Month
talks about the fear instilled by mammography and how we continue to concentrate on the industry's need to raise
money for research and drugs rather than actual prevention. The article states
"Not only is the very ionizing radiation used to discern pathological lesions in breast tissue one of the very risk
factors for the development of breast cancer, but the identification of the word 'prevention' with 'early detection,' is a
disingenuous way of saying that all we can do to prevent breast cancer is to detect its inevitable presence sooner than would be
possible without this technology."
Bottled Water...
- Drink Up, Energy Hogs
- Message in a Bottle
This July 2007 article states that
Americans spent more money last year on bottled water than on iPods or movie tickets:
$15 Billion. A journey into the economics — and psychology — of an
unlikely business boom. And what it says about our culture of indulgence.
Some great quotes from the article:
Fiji Water produces more than a million bottles a day, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have reliable drinking water.
In San Francisco, the municipal water comes from inside Yosemite National Park. It's so good the EPA doesn't require San Francisco to filter it. If you bought and drank a bottle of Evian, you could refill that bottle once a day for 10 years, 5 months, and 21 days with San Francisco tap water before that water would cost $1.35. Put another way, if the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.
Cancer and Diet...
- Animal protein & fat raise endometrial cancer risk
This March 21, 2007 article from Scientific American talks about how a new study provides
more evidence that animal-derived foods increase the risk of endometrial cancer,
while foods from plant sources reduce it.
The results suggest that it's the source of fat or protein, not the macronutrients
themselves, that is related to endometrial cancer risk.
When I read this, I have to think that it has to be more than just this one type of cancer
that is caused by animal protein.
- Cancer & Our Food - A Must Read
The first punch comes in the opening line: "Cancer is a largely preventable disease." Overwhelming evidence blames a third of cancers
on cigarette smoking, the report says. Equally overwhelming evidence puts the combination of poor diet and insufficient exercize
a close second. Without even counting the cancers caused by polluting carcinogens, these conclusive findings reframe cancer as an
"environmental disease" — in medical terms, one that comes from the environment external to the patient's body and genes. [Added April 26, 2009]
- Red Meat Consumption Linked Yet Again to Increased Cancer Risk
This July 2, 2008 article details a study on diet and cancer.
Researchers found that people who consumed the most red meat had a 25 percent higher risk of
developing colorectal cancer in the study period compared with those who ate the least,
and a 20 percent higher risk of developing lung cancer. Yikes! Lung cancer
increase linked to diet. It doesn't say whether these participants also had other
risk factors, such as if they smoked or not.
Mad Cow Disease...
- U.S. can bar mad-cow testing
The U.S. Court of Appeals (District of Columbia Circuit) has
overturned a lower court ruling that allowed Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to
conduct its own tests for mad cow disease. Creekstone Farms wanted to demonstrate
that its beef was free of made cow disease so it could be sold in Asia.
However, that would imply that other meat was not safe and force other
companies to test as well. Apparently, the USDA does not think that would be fair and
the Appeals Court agrees.
Milk, Calcium, and Building Bones...
- How Do Cows Get Calcium in Milk?
This is from a great posting by Robert Cohen on January 20, 2007 to the
NotMilk group.
- Milk in Schools
rbGH has been linked to increased rates of infections in dairy cows, elevated antibiotic use, and
unresolved questions about its links to serious human health risks, including cancer. Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all 25 members of the European Union have banned the use of rbGH, and the Codex Alimentarius, the
United Nations' main food safety body, twice decided that it could not endorse the safety of rbGH for human health. [Added April 26, 2009]
- Parents' Guide to Building Better Bones
- When Friends Ask: Where Do You Get Your Calcium?
Dr. John McDougall's article from the February 2007 edition of his newsletter.
Protein...
Soy...
There seem to be a lot of questions about soy, especially given that vegetarians rely on it
quite a bit. Below is a sampling of short but informative articles on the topic.
Judaism and Vegetarianism...
[Added January 9, 2010]
- Judaism and Vegetarianism by Richard Schwartz was
published in hard copy in 2001, but this book is now available free online! Even though the book has a slant towards
Judaism, it mostly makes references to the Old Testament and as such, it can be appreciated by more than just Jews.
Beyond that, even, it's really just an overall great collection of facts on vegetarianism, including a great
summary of The China Study as well as a couple of other texts.
- What's Jewish about a Vegan Diet?
Rabbi Adam Frank answers the question "Rabbi, why are you vegan (abstinence from eating foods that contain animal products)?"
This inspiring Newsweek article by George Will appeared July 10, 2005, and asks "why is cruelty
to a puppy appalling and cruelty to livestock by the billions a matter of social indifference?"
This short article asks "Why is HFCS so much cheaper than cane sugar?" and responds that
"We inflate the cost of sugar, lower the cost of corn, and Archer Daniels Midlands buys an excessive amount of corn at excessively low costs in order to make HFCS."
