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We live in a world of infinite “-isms.” Some are widely familiar – capitalism, communism, nationalism, Catholicism – while others are poorly understood. I always hesitate to categorize veganism among such systems of belief, because it is neither a religion nor an economic or political ideology. It is grounded in fact and does not seek to serve the interests of its proponents. It’s really less complicated than people seem to think. Despite its simplicity, many people have flawed perceptions of veganism. Either they view vegans as eccentric, self-righteous and elitist, or they admire them for their “extreme willpower” and level...

But wasn't Hitler a veggie? and other things not to say to a vegetarian(Can't be posted per FR rules)

Copenhagen - Police in Denmark arrested a suspected possible suicide bomber Friday following a small explosion at a hotel in central Copenhagen, media reports said. Danish daily Extra Bladet showed on its website a photo of the suspect, who had reportedly attempted to blow himself up. Police did not immediately confirm the report. No one was injured in the explosion at the Jorgensen Hotel. Police handcuffed the man after he was seen running away from the hotel and into the nearby Orstedsparken park. The park was evacuated and the surrounding streets were cordoned off as explosive experts were called in....

Soy does not lower cholesterol, does not prevent heart disease, and does not deserve an FDA-approved soy heart-health claim. This amazing announcement comes from none other than the American Heart Association (AHA) published in the Jan. 17, 2006, issue of its journal Circulation. Athletes at Risk Not long before this announcement, University of Colorado researchers reported in the January issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation that soy worsens cardiomyopathy, a form of heart disease that is very much on the rise, afflicting 1 in 500 Americans. Cardiomyopathy, defined as a weakening of the heart muscle or change in structure...

Do you think that eating a diet of fruits and vegetables will enable you to fit into your skinny jeans? What about shellfish, will that help you lose weight? Let’s go to the zoos and aquariums to see the results of animals that eat these diets exclusively. Hippopotamus diets consist primarily of flood plain grasses with an occasional garnish of fallen fruit depending on the area. In the wild, hippopotamuses spend their day wallowing in the water at their favorite riverside beach waiting to overturn small boats. Hippopotamuses are an extremely fat animal, with a round body, short, stocky legs,...

In another legislative moment that feels oh-so-very San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors voted yesterday on a resolution to declare Mondays in San Francisco as "Vegetarian Day." A call to the Board this morning confirms the resolution was, in fact, approved yesterday by majority vote and will now sit on The Gav's desk for ten days, awaiting "official approval by the mayor." Resolution No. 28 was brought to the table by Sophie Maxwell, who has been a vegetarian for 35 years. If you care to read it, do click here. While the wording sites many good reasons to "go green,"...

It is Canada’s annual seal cull again, and the animal rights protesters are preparing their traditional response. Yet they are strangely silent about the rat genocide in South Georgia, where millions of non-indigenous rodents will be killed over the next five years. If you prick a rat, does it not bleed? The EU has banned the import of seal produce, much to the fury of some Canadians. Why ban seal skins and not fur? How can the home of foie gras and veal crates complain about smoked seal loin? Our relationship with animals and food in this era of plenty...

Adopting a vegetarian diet based around meat substitutes such as tofu can cause more damage to the environment, according to a new study. It has often been claimed that avoiding red meat is beneficial to the environment, because it lowers emissions and less land is used to produce alternatives.But a study by Cranfield University, commissioned by WWF, the environmental group, found a substantial number of meat substitutes – such as soy, chickpeas and lentils – were more harmful to the environment because they were imported into Britain from overseas.The study concluded: "A switch from beef and milk to highly refined...

Window cleaning chemical injected into fast food hamburger meat Mike Adams Natural News Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 If you’re in the beef business, what do you do with all the extra cow parts and trimmings that have traditionally been sold off for use in pet food? You scrape them together into a pink mass, inject them with a chemical to kill the e.coli, and sell them to fast food restaurants to make into hamburgers. That’s what’s been happening all across the USA with beef sold to McDonald’s, Burger King, school lunches and other fast food restaurants, according to a New...

The head of the UN's climate change panel - Dr Rajendra Pachauri - is accused of making a fortune from his links with 'carbon trading' companies, Christopher Booker and Richard North write. No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading up to the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007. Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was even once described by the BBC as “the world’s top climate scientist”), as a former...

PETA is not the most popular kid on the block. Between antagonizing meat-eaters and radicalizing the use of naked ad campaigns, the animal rights group has made more than a couple enemies. This is the first time, however, that the lawful, nonviolent organization has been officially classified as a “terrorist threat.” In a new security form circulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the federal department asks animal experimentation facilities whether they’ve been confronted by a handful of “terrorist” groups, including the Earth Liberation Front, known for their use of arson and explosives; the Animal Liberation Front, which popularized property...

FLESH OF YOUR FLESH

Al Gore wants us to eat our greens Thursday, November 05, 2009 » 09:32am Climate change campaigner Al Gore wants us to turn vegetarian to help combat global warming. We've always been told to eat our greens, but now there's another incentive, saving the planet. Climate change campaigner Al Gore believes turning vegetarian could aid the battle against global warming. But he's stopped short of asking everyone to turn their back on meat, acknowledging getting a global agreement on fighting climate change is already hard enough. The former US vice-president turned environmental campaigner said on Wednesday he agreed with the...

Spiders deserve their reputation as bloodthirsty critters. Up until now, all 40,000 species known to science seemed to eat by sucking the juices out of insects and other prey. But researchers have come across a spider that is a vegetarian, and is apparently the first example of a plant-eating spider. Two scientists, working independently in Costa Rica and Mexico, noticed that the neotropical jumping spider feeds on acacia leaf tips. These yummy leaf tips are primarily eaten by ants, which in turn defend the plants from predators. But the spider, known as Bagheera kiplingi, has developed a taste for the...

The number of animals and plants protected by the federal Endangered Species Act is about to increase dramatically. For Cass Sunstein, radical animal-rights activist and nominee for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator job, that means he will be better positioned than ever to make livestock farming a thing of the past.How are the two things connected? Our director of research appeared on the Fox News Channel yesterday to explain to Glenn Beck’s audience how much influence Sunstein may soon have over what we eat: Cattlemen in this country own and manage most of the lands...

The mother of a sixth-grade Malden girl, whose “mean sign” question to President Obama at his Portsmouth, N.H., health care forum was a softball that he slugged out of the park, insisted yesterday the child was not “a plant.” “I thought it was great,” Kathleen Manning Hall said of Obama’s answer to the question posed by her daughter Julia. The girl became a target of conservative critics such as Michelle Malkin yesterday, who alleged that the poised and eloquent 11-year-old was “a plant” after the revelation that her mother served as an organizer for Obama’s campaign.

The granddaughter of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary leader, is at the forefront of a campaign for a vegetarian revolution.

Tomorrow, public officials in the Flemish city of Ghent will observe a new weekly “holiday” that’s been making international headlines: “Veggiedag.” Civil servants and elected politicians will eat meatless meals, and the streets will be littered with city-sponsored anti-meat ads. Now that the people of Ghent have two Veggie Days under their belt, we’ve been curious to know how the weekly anti-meat parade is catching on. And according to this TIME magazine report, the answer is “very slowly.” Eben Harrell describes the scene in Ghent last Thursday: While most restaurants owners and residents I spoke to had heard of Veggie Day, few had any...

WASHINTON: Consuming red or white meat does not raise the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women, says a new study. The large study, conducted by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, has been published in the International Journal of Cancer. A number of previous studies have found that eating red meat or meat cooked at high temperatures increases the risk of breast cancer. (High temperatures, caused by grilling, barbecuing or pan-frying, produce high amounts of heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in meat; HCAs and PAHs are mutagens (chemicals capable of causing mutations...

Predation Did Not Come from Evolution by Daniel Criswell, Ph.D.* Although the origin of predation is poorly understood, it is incorrect to attribute to young-earth creation the assertion that predatory animals quickly and recently evolved the physical features necessary for predation. It is a common fallacy that carnivores evolved from a change in form and function. No physical evolution was required to change herbivores to predators--it was merely a change in behavior. The view that an alteration of genomes and phenotypes, such as sharp teeth and claws, would have been required to supply the physical features for predation from herbivorous...