The 1st November is World Vegan Day and marks the start of World Vegan Month.

Tell your family & friends about the benefits of a Peaceful Diet for the planet, for humans, and for all animals – for each and every day of the year!

This article has been reproduced with the kind permission of Peace Is Coming For You.

What Are GMOs? Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs), also called Genetically-Engineered Organisms (GEOs) or Frankenfoods, are novel biological organisms created using recombinant DNA technology. These transgenic chimeras are created by inserting foreign DNA into the existing DNA structures of plants, animals, and other living organisms. GMOs are present in approximately 70% of the food available at retail markets in the U.S. The GMOs approved and offered for human consumption in the U.S. include: Corn and all corn derivatives (corn oil, HFCS, maltodextrin, etc.), Soy and all soy derivatives (soybean oil, soy protein isolate, soy lecithin, etc.), Cotton and all cotton derivatives (oil, fabric), Canola (oil), Sugar Beets (sugar), Papaya (very few), Squash (very few). Upwards of 80% of corn, soy, sugar beets, and canola, grown in North America is genetically-engineered (GE). This means that if a product has corn, soy, cottonseed, canola, or beet sugar in it – and is not organic or labelled non-gmo – it’s probably GE. Potatoes, tomatoes, wheat, rice, sweet potato, cassava, salmon, pigs, goats, trees, mice and numerous other organisms have been or are being engineered. GE salmon is awaiting approval for human consumption right now.

Why Do We Engineer Organisms? There are many purported reasons for developing genetically-engineered food crops. Ending world hunger is one of them. But any semi-informed person knows we grow enough food to feed everyone on the planet and more right now, and the real reasons anyone is starving are political. Other purported reasons for creating franken-foods are to make them more nutritious, to increase crop yields, to reduce the use of pesticides, or to manufacture pharmaceutical drugs. However, none of the GMOs proffered thus far have been developed to do anything but manufacture pesticides, or resist herbicides which are sold by the same companies developing the GMOs. The real reason GMOs exist is to make multi-national corporations – corporations that have been profiting from the destruction of humans’ and other animals’ lives and the ruination of the environment for a hundred years – richer, at the expense of, well, humans and other animals, and the environment.

Who Is Responsible? Most of the GMOs produced come from the same people who brought you Agent Orange and DDT: Monsanto. Monsanto also gave us the GMO rBST, also called rBGH or by the brand name Posilac. rBST is a growth hormone given to dairy cows to raise milk production. In Monsanto’s own words, the “use of Posilac has been associated with increases in cystic ovaries and disorders of the uterus…digestive disorders…enlarged hocks and lesions (lacerations, enlargements, calluses) of the knee…” But biotech is big business and there are many other players. Because of the deep-pockets and heavy-handed lobbying of these corporations, safety testing of GMOs has not been credibly carried-out. Thanks to the revolving doors in government and bribery of congress, GM foods are “generally recognized as safe” through “substantial equivalence” and are not required to be labelled as being different from non-transgenic foods. (Learn about GRAS) Monsanto carried out it’s own studies, without independent peer-approval, and submitted them as evidence of the safety of their product. Convenient.

What Does GMO Corn and Soy Have To Do With Non-Human Animals? Of the little safety testing that has been done on existing GMOs, either by biotech corporations or independently, most has been done on non-human animals. This is problematic for two reasons: 1) non-human animal testing is morally unnacceptable and 2) testing on non-humans to learn about humans is bad science. It tells us nothing about humans. Even scientists advocating for safety-testing GMOs on animals admit it tells us nothing. Just because a mouse or chimp reacts a certain way to a substance doesn’t mean this data can be extrapolated to humans. Most novel biotech products and processes are tested on non-human animals. Often the new product is non-human animals. Remember, these biotech companies aren’t just in the food business. They develop medicines, vaccines, industrial agents, chemical agents, etc. Human DNA has been spliced with non-human animal DNA to try and develop a working non-human animal model for human vaccines, among other things.

Cows, steer, sheep, pigs, and other non-human animals are (ab)used by these companies for cloning research, and now these cloned animals are entering the food supply. Goats have been engineered to produce drugs and spider-silk in their milk. Rabbits, pigs, mice and other non-human animals have been engineered to fluoresce, or glow in the dark. These companies work with a host of toxic chemicals and are required by the FDA to test novel drugs and other products on non-human animals before they are approved. Many of these tests are done by third-party labs, including Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). From Sourcewatch: “HLS is among the world’s largest contract research laboratories. It operates two facilities in England and one in East Millstone, NJ. At any one time there are 70,000 animals imprisoned within these 3 facilities including dogs, cats, monkeys, birds, rabbits, fish, mice and farm animals. HLS kills approximately 180,000 dogs, cats rats, rabbits, pigs, and primates (marmosets, macaques, and wild-caught baboons) every year in tests for household cleaners, pesticides, weedkillers, cosmetics, food additives and industrial chemicals. HLS kills an average 500 animals each day for tests “only reliable 5-25% of the time”, one HLS record contends.” Other tests on non-human animals are done after-the-fact – independent studies conducted using non-human animals – to expose the [human] health risks associated with eating GMOs. While the efforts are laudable, the methods are laughable. Testing on non-human animals will only tell us about non-human animals. If we want to know if GMOs are safe for humans, we need to test on humans. (Note: Although nothing about humans can be gleaned from testing on non-human animals, logic will tell you that if a mouse shows no ill-effect from non-GMO corn, and shows ill-effect from GMO corn, that corn is not “substantially equivalent” and should not be “generally recognized as safe”. Hamsters born sterile and with fur in their mouths after the grandmother and mother eat GMO corn does not bode well for the safety of GMOs, or the safety of the hamsters.)

Even from a pro-non-human-animal-testing welfarist perspective, these biotech companies’ practices are ethically dubious. From PubMed.gov: “The public discussion on the introduction of agro-genetic engineering focuses mainly on economical, ecological and human health aspects. The fact is neglected that laboratory animals must suffer before either humans or the environment are affected. However, numerous animal experiments are conducted for toxicity testing and authorisation of genetically modified plants in the European Union. These are ethically questionable, because death and suffering of the animals [sic] for purely commercial purposes are accepted. Therefore, recent political initiatives to further increase animal testing for GMO crops must be regarded highly critically. Based on concrete examples this article demonstrates that animal experiments, on principle, cannot provide the expected protection of users and consumers despite all efforts to standardise, optimise or extend them.”

Who Else Has Addressed This? The Vegan Society, creators of the word “vegan” and certifiers of Vegan Society-approved non-human animal-free products bearing the Sunflower Logo, have adopted this policy concerning GMOs in light of the use of non-human animals in the production of GMOs: “In keeping with its vegan ethic, the Vegan Society is totally against the use of animal genes or animal substances in the development and production of GMOs. The Vegan Society believes that all foods that contain, may contain, or have involved GMOs should be clearly labelled. In addition any product must also meet the Society’s Criteria for Vegan Food. Products carrying the Society’s trademark can contain GMOs, but must be clearly labelled and comply with the definition above.” Also: “The development and/or manufacture of the product, and where applicable its ingredients, must not involve, or have involved, testing of any sort on animals conducted at the initiative of the manufacturer or on its behalf, or by parties over whom the manufacturer has effective control.” As far as we can tell, the Vegan Society is the only mainstream vegan organization which has stated a policy regarding GMOs publicly.

What Does It All Mean? Many vegans choose to refrain from buying cosmetics or bath products that have been tested on non-human animals. Many of those same vegans regularly choose to support companies which use GMOs, which have been tested on non-human animals, and are developed by the same companies that make the same cosmetic or bath products that many vegans refrain from using. This is logically inconsistent. GMOs are NOT VEGAN! If we choose to abstain from consuming products tested on non-human animals, we must choose to abstain from consuming products containing genetically-engineered organisms.

What Else? Besides the fact that GMOs are about as vegan as Spam, hand in hand with the testing carried out on animals are the resulting safety issues concerning GMOs – issues every eater, not just vegans – should be concerned about. Here is a list demonstrating both points: 1) that existing GMOs have been, and continue to be tested on animals, and 2) that evidence shows that GMOs are extremely hazardous to the animals being tested, including humans! From nongmoproject.org:

•Rats fed GM tomatoes developed stomach ulcerations

•Liver, pancreas and testes function was disturbed in mice fed GM soya

•GM peas caused allergic reactions in mice

•Rats fed GM oilseed rape developed enlarged livers, often a sign of toxicity

•GM potatoes fed to rats caused excessive growth of the lining of the gut similar to a pre-cancerous condition

•Rats fed insecticide-producing GM maize grew more slowly, suffered problems with liver and kidney function, and showed higher levels of certain fats in their blood

•Rats fed GM insecticide-producing maize over three generations suffered damage to liver and kidneys and showed alterations in blood biochemistry

•Old and young mice fed with GM insecticide-producing maize showed a marked disturbance in immune system cell populations and in biochemical activity

•Mice fed GM insecticide-producing maize over four generations showed a buildup of abnormal structural changes in various organs (liver, spleen, pancreas), major changes in the pattern of gene function in the gut, reflecting disturbances in the chemistry of this organ system (e.g. in cholesterol production, protein production and breakdown), and, most significantly, reduced fertility

•Mice fed GM soya over their entire lifetime (24 months) showed more acute signs of ageing in their liver

•Rabbits fed GM soya showed enzyme function disturbances in kidney and heart

• Sheep fed Bt insecticide-producing GM maize over three generations showed disturbances in the functioning of the digestive system of ewes and in the liver and pancreas of their lambs

• GM DNA was found to survive processing and to be detectable in the digestive tract of sheep fed GM feed. This raises the possibility that antibiotic resistance and Bt insecticide genes can move into gut bacteria, a process known as horizontal gene transfer. Horizontal gene transfer can lead to antibiotic resistant disease-causing bacteria (“superbugs”) and may lead to Bt insecticide being produced in the gut with potentially harmful consequences. For years, regulators and the biotech industry claimed that horizontal gene transfer would not occur with GM DNA, but this research challenges this claim

• GM DNA in feed is taken up by the animal’s organs. Small amounts of GM DNA appear in the milk and meat that people eat. The effects on the health of the animals and the people who eat them have not been researched.

•Human volunteers fed a single GM soya bean meal showed that GM DNA can survive processing and is detectable in the digestive tract. There was evidence of horizontal gene transfer to gut bacteria. Horizontal gene transfer of antibiotic resistance and Bt insecticide genes from GM foods into gut bacteria is an extremely serious issue. This is because the modified gut bacteria could become resistant to antibiotics or become factories for Bt insecticide. While Bt in its natural form has been safely used for years as an insecticide in farming, Bt toxin genetically engineered into plant crops has been found to have potential ill health effects on laboratory animals

•In the late 1980s, a food supplement produced using GM bacteria was toxic, initially killing 37 Americans and making more than 5,000 others seriously ill.

Several experimental GM food products (not commercialised) were found to be harmful:

•People allergic to Brazil nuts had allergic reactions to soya beans modified with a Brazil nut gene42

•The GM process itself can cause harmful effects. GM potatoes caused toxic reactions in multiple organ systems. GM peas caused a 2-fold allergic reaction – the GM protein was allergenic and stimulated an allergic reaction to other food components. This raises the question of whether GM foods cause an increase in allergies to other substances.

There are also environmental issues such as cross-contamination, cross-pollination or evolved-tolerance resulting in “superweeds”, increased herbicide use, decreased yield, soil contamination…the list goes on and on. For a full background on the myriad concerns of GMOs go here.

The bottom line is: there is substantial evidence that consuming GMOs supports – and relies on – non-human animal cruelty; that GMOs are hazardous to humans, other animals, and the environment; and that removal of these products from market is necessary to ensure public safety until safety can be assessed using scientifically sound methods, i.e., no non-human animal testing. If we are committed to empowering ourselves to make compassionate and healthful decisions about who and what practices we support, we will avoid GMOs whenever possible.

How do we avoid GMOs?

Go Vegan – If you’re not already, go vegan. GMOs are mainly used as non-human animal feed in the U.S., so refraining from supporting the inherent cruelty involved in using animals as resources is also the best way to avoid supporting GMOs. Two carrots with one chop.

Buy Organic – Buying organic is the easiest way to avoid GMOs. Even non-GMO produce can have GM corn-based wax, such as peppers and apples. Vitamins used to enrich non-organic foods are most likely GM, also. Things we wouldn’t think of like (non-organic white) vinegar, maltodextrin, or vegetable capsules for vitamin supplements are mostly made from GM crops. And that cotton shirt, or those denim jeans? It’s GM unless it’s organic.

Look For Products Labelled “Non-GMO” – Many companies label their products “Non-GMO”. Some aren’t labeled but a quick e-mail, call, or internet search will probably be helpful.

Grow Your Own Food – Growing your own food has numerous individually-and socially-empowering benefits, including knowing where your food comes from and how it was grown. Biotech companies own an increasing share of organic seed companies, though, so source the seeds properly.

GMOs are quite ubiquitous these days, so completely avoiding them is near impossible. But with a little due diligence, most of the GMOs available can be avoided. It’s also important to call or write the companies using GM products and tell them our concerns. If consumer pressure can get the high-fructose corn syrup out of major ketchup brands, we can pressure the companies we support to use products that aren’t tested on animals, harmful to our health, or ecologically destructive.

In a system that puts profits before people, we vote with our dollars, and we need to pay attention to what – and who – we’re voting for.

Our Mothers told us when we were kids, but we need to remember as adults: Don’t take food from strangers!

For More Info:

Watch “The World According To Monsanto”

Read “Seeds Of Deception” By Jeffrey Smith

Go to Non-GMO Shopping Guide and GM Crops -Just The Science (pdf)

Original Article

Peaceful Creativity + Peaceful Diet + Peaceful Economy + Peaceful Interaction + Peaceful Living
The Peaceful Planet
It’s Time For Change

After former US President Bill Clinton recently revealed his new life-saving dietary lifestyle, we take a look at one of the physicians who advised him when he was in office, animal welfarism, and also some non-ethical vegans who appear to be eschewing the vegan way for the wrong reasons.


Our Peaceful Diet principle is based on the belief that a Plant-Based Diet and Abolitionist Veganism are integral in our quest for world peace.  Abolitionist Veganism advocates (such as ourselves, Gary Francione, Gary Yourofsky, etc.) "promote the total abolition of all animal exploitation and rejects the
regulation of any animal exploitation".  Conversely, Animal Welfarists (such as the money-spinning PETA organisation and it’s wealthy President, Ingrid Newkirk) take the position "that it is morally acceptable for humans to use non-human animals, provided that adverse effects on animal welfare are minimized as far as possible, short of not using the animals at all", and they maintain that they aim to reduce animal suffering – before being "humanely" slaughtered! Ms Newkirk, recently stated that "anybody who witnesses the suffering of animals and has a glimmer of hope of reducing that suffering can’t take the position that it’s all or nothing. We have to be pragmatic. Screw the principle.” (more info here). Sorry Ms Newkirk, it is all or nothing and it really saddens us that the likes of PETA have sold their soul, and principles, for the "dollar".

Similarly, it also saddens us that the likes of Angelina Jolie, Lierre Keith, and Denise Minger, have become plant-diet "turncoats".  These former "vegan food faddists", have all recently, and vitriolically, criticised their former "vegan" diets stating that they never felt so ill and being vegan nearly killed them!  Just what were these women eating?  Clearly they had malnourished themselves with not enough of the right foods and/or too much of the wrong foods and have only themselves to blame.  It’s clear to us that people who are vegan for "health" reasons only, are "in it" just for their own welfare and will probably keep hopping from one fad diet to the next.  "Ethical" vegans, we maintain, are in it for the long haul – and not just for the good of themselves but, equally, for the animals and the planet.

It was fascinating therefore, and ironic, to watch former US President Bill Clinton recently reveal that he’s adopted a plant-based diet for to help reverse his coronary heart disease (after undergoing stent procedures earlier this year because one of his coronary arteries had blocked again following quadruple by-pass surgery in 2004) and to actually save his life and yet, Angelina Jolie, Lierre Keith, and Denise Minger, very strangely thought the exact opposite would happen!

It would most probably appear that (and quite commendably) Mr Clinton has decided on a plant-based diet (which is almost 100% animal-free – but he eats small amounts of fish now and again) at the behest of his vegan daughter, Chelsea and also, after doing his own research, "discovering" the work of Dr Dean Ornish and Dr Caldwell B Esselstyn. We’re big fans of Dr Esselstyn, who’s long-term research into the benefits of a 100% animal-free, plant-based diet, are exemplary to say the least.  As for Dr Ornish, we did respect his work but, after watching his interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN recently regarding Bill Clinton’s new dietary regime, is he now a plant-based diet "turncoat"?


Watch the video and then read on…

Dr Ornish was appointed as one of President Clinton’s official physicians as early as 1993 and, in the 1996 revised edition of his New York Times Bestseller "Dr Dean Ornish’s Program For Reversing Heart Disease" (his "Reversal Diet" had no animal products at all except egg whites and nonfat dairy products, and no added oils or other concentrated fats – and NO FISH) , it states that " Since 1993, he (Dr Ornish) has been consulting directly with President and Mrs. Clinton on their diet, nutrition, and lifestyle and with the White House chefs on making food served there more healthful and nutritious".  Also, in 1996, Dr Ornish published a book called "Everyday Cooking with Dr Dean Ornish (150 Easy, Low-Fat, High-Flavor Recipes)" advocating a meatless, plant-based diet – not totally animal-free, the diet was vegetarian and included low-fat/non-fat dairy products and eggs but NO FISH.

Dr Ornish’s "dedication" in this book is as follows: "This book is dedicated to President William Jefferson Clinton and Hilary Rodham Clinton". So, President Clinton already knew of Dr Ornish’s plant-based Reversal Diet from 1993 onwards but clearly took no notice whatsoever of his own physician. Why didn’t Dr Ornish insist, as medical advisor to the most powerful man on the planet, that he follow his dietary guidelines which may have prevented his quadruple by-pass operation in 2004?  Maybe you can lead a horse to water…

On page 11 of his book "Everyday Cooking with Dr Dean Ornish (150 Easy, Low-Fat, High-Flavor Recipes)", Dr Ornish states "In virtually every study that has come out, including ours, the majority of people who have coronary heart disease who follow conventional dietary recommendations – less red meat, more fish and chicken, take the skin off the chicken, four eggs per week, et cetera – get worse.  Their arteries become more clogged over time. They may get clogged more slowly than if they made no changes, but they still worsen."  NO FISH.

On page 316, he writes "Why isn’t fish on the Reversal Diet? Although fish can be low in fat, it is an animal product and does contain cholesterol.  A 3-ounce serving has from 40 to 70 milligrams of cholesterol. (A typical restaurant portion is 6 to 8 ounces.) Three ounces of boiled shrimp have about 166 milligrams of cholesterol. Some are touting the benefits of certain fish because they contain omega-3 fatty acids, but you can get these essential fatty acids from dark leafy greens, soybeans, and soybean products (such as tofu) without the harmful cholesterol". NO FISH.

Fast Forward to Dr Ornish’s interview with Wolf Blitzer. Dr Ornish now clearly states: "I also recommend that people take 3 or 4 grams a day of fish oil because the omega-3 fatty acids can be so protective …studies have shown that just 3 or 4 grams a day of fish oil can reduce your incidence of sudden cardiac death by up to 80%; they can reduce your risk of prostate and breast cancer; if you’re a pregnant woman or breast-feeding, it can raise your child’s IQ"   Maybe so – but this is not a fish benefit issue, this is an omega-3 fatty acids issue – which Dr Ornish clearly stated above in 1996 can be obtained from plant sources. So why has Dr Ornish changed his mind that fish sources of omega-3 fatty acids are now better than plant sources?  Surely, "omega-3 fatty acids" are "omega-3 fatty acids" are "omega-3 fatty acids"!  The source should not make any difference whatsoever. 

Dr Ornish would now appear to be a sort of "welfarist turncoat" – the "Ingrid Newkirk" of the plant-based diet doctors and the likes of Dr Caldwell Esselstyn and Dr John McDougall would appear to be the "abolitionist" champions.

We haven’t read all of Dr Ornish’s books and we don’t know at what stage of his research he decided to put fish back on the menu, we just feel that Dr Ornish’s Spectrum diet is a step backwards and is merely a "personal" welfare diet (which is very important!) – but what about the health of the planet as a whole? 

This is why we truly believe that a Peaceful Diet is the only diet to benefit everyone and everything on planet earth.

Peaceful Creativity + Peaceful Diet + Peaceful Economy + Peaceful Interaction + Peaceful Living
The Peaceful Planet
It’s Time For Change

Victoria Moran promotes a raw vegan diet

I didn’t know it was possible to feel this good.

I woke up not long ago thinking, “This is the craziest thing: I’m well past 50 and I feel sensational.” I knew it was what the eccentric health advocate, Arnold Ehret, 100 years ago called “Paradise Health.” I had it: physically and emotionally.

I’ve been on a pretty good path for a long time. Although I spent the first 30 years of my life bingeing and dieting — always gaining or losing weight, and conversely losing and gaining my flimsy self-esteem — I finally got so tired of that un-merry merry-go-round that I gave up the fight and was open to recovery from the inside out. I chronicle that experience, and how others can do it, too, in my book “The Love-Powered Diet: Eating for Freedom, Health, and Joy.”

Once I wasn’t eating for a fix anymore, I was able to move toward a plant-based diet, ending up at profound, committed veganism. Even though I did it, as Gandhi once said, “for the health of the chickens,” it was a pretty decent diet for my health, too. It was easy to stay thin and avoid the heart disease and diabetes that plague both sides of my family of origin.

But about four years ago, I felt the nudge to go raw. Not 100 percent. Not slavishly or fanatically (as a compulsive overeater with a daily reprieve, I don’t do well with fads and tangents). But my soul or my cells or something deep inside me pressed me to take this turn. I experimented with it for several months and enjoyed it. A cold snap that first spring sent me back to the comfort of hot soup and soy chai lattes. But later, the urge to return to raw came again. I woke up one morning and didn’t want cooked food. I didn’t want it the next day either. And it’s gone on like that for quite some time.

I’m still not 100 percent and I’m not signing any pledges. I like being able to go with my daughter to her favorite Chinese and place have steamed veggies and brown rice, black bean sauce on the side. There will be hot soup in my life this winter. And since I do my best writing in an ever-accommodating Starbucks, I’m not even swearing off those soy chai teas; I’m just having them a lot less often. For days at a time I’m all raw, and on the days that I have something cooked, it’s usually just that: something, one thing—a baked potato, garbanzos in a salad. This isn’t a marriage or a religion; it’s an experiment in incredible vitality.

The first thing I noticed after making the switch was how happy I felt. My default for contentment had gone up a few notches. People used to say, “How are you?” and I’d say, “Okay.” That was accurate. I was perfectly okay. Now I’m more apt to say “Fabulous!” and mean that. The fog has lifted. Happiness came even before energy and strength and clarity, but those have come, too.

I drink juices and eat fruits and salads and smoothies. I have some treats: dried fruit, raw desserts, “bread” and crackers and kale chips made in a dehydrator, but mostly lots and lots (and lots) of greens: green juices, green salads, green smoothies, marinated greens. I use nuts and seeds in recipes and occasionally for eating; I have avocado a couple of times a week; and I often use salad dressing that has some flax or hemp oil in it. I know I’m not overdoing, because I feel balanced and nourished and never have that stuffed, too-much-fat feeling. Besides, after going raw, five pounds left me that I never intended to lose. If some of it comes back, that’s okay.

I also don’t worry about sugar. I eat fresh fruit, put bananas in smoothies and make desserts with dates and a touch here and there of maple syrup. I know I’m not getting too much of that either. Only one time, when I made grape-and-celery juice but the ratio was too much grape to too little celery, did I get the telltale sugar headache. Now I know. It’s all good.

Someone told me when I was first recovering from binge-eating: “You can’t do this with fear.” I feel the same way about raw. It needs to be a joy and an adventure.

Strangers comment on my skin, my “glow.” Although I know we’re talking vegetables, not miracles, I do look quite a bit younger than I am (and younger than I did four years ago). I realize that I’m a mature woman and one of these days, incredible diet or not, I’ll be a little old lady. But that state is being delayed. I don’t know for how long, but today it’s a whole lot of fun when I (occasionally) share my chronological age and see the person do a double-take. Ditto for watching gym people try to figure me out: I’m not young, I eat no animal protein, and yet I’m building muscle. It’s a hoot to defy a worldview.

Although I’m not one to live my life counting on the New Ager’s favorite, “Law of Attraction,” I’m certainly “attracting” fascinating men and women of all ages who want what I have. They’re showing up all over the place, as clients in my holistic life and health coaching practice, as business contacts and as friends. I have no vested interest in converting anybody, but when people want information, I’m thrilled to share it. I mean, why keep anybody out of paradise?

If they’re interested, I take them shopping. And to raw restaurants (we’re lucky in New York to have a delicious handful of them). And into my kitchen to whip up delicacies that surprise the heck out of a novice. And I pass along the advice that helped me:

• Don’t lose too much weight. I realize this can sound like a luxury problem, but on a high-raw diet, you have to eat enough.
• Learn to love those nutrient-packed greens. Eat embarrassingly large salads. Make green lemonade — romaine, kale, apple, lemon– in your juicer. Whiz up green smoothies; put your fruity ingredients in the blender and then fill it with mild greens — romaine, leaf lettuce, spinach, kale — they’ll change the color but not the taste of your shake, and if you put in enough blueberries, your “green smoothie” will be temptingly purple.
• Get a user-friendly raw recipe book that doesn’t intimidate you with exotic ingredients and unfamiliar appliances. I use Jennifer Cornbleet’s “Raw Food Made Easy” for one or two People more than any other cook(less) book.
• Take vitamin B12 regularly. All vegans need to do this. Taking B12 is the price of getting to be vegan, the way wearing a helmet is the price of getting to ride a motorcycle and giving up alcohol for nine months is the price of getting to have a baby. It’s so easy to take a sublingual (under-the-tongue) tablet three or four times a week; you don’t even have to swallow a pill.
• Consider taking vitamin D, especially if you avoid the sun (your doctor can check your levels), and perhaps an algae-based Omega 3 supplement (I use one called V-Pure; it doesn’t have an oceanic aftertaste).
• Eat pumpkins seeds for zinc, Brazil nuts for selennium, seaweed for iodine.
• Read Becoming Raw, by experienced dieticians Brenda Davis, RD, and Vesanto Melina, MS, RD, to learn the solid science extant to date on being a vibrantly healthy high-raw vegan.
• Brush your teeth after eating, especially if you’ve been enjoying sweet or acidic fruits.
• Be nice to everybody. Some people will think you’ve taken leave of your senses. Others will think your “rabbit food” diet makes for a great joke. Love them anyway.

Victoria Moran is an urban vegan, life and health coach, author of Creating a Charmed Life and Fit from Within

Original Article

Peaceful Creativity + Peaceful Diet + Peaceful Economy + Peaceful Interaction + Peaceful Living
The Peaceful Planet
It’s Time For Change

A major study has just been published in the Annals of Internal Medicine from Harvard stating that animal-based protein diets (e.g. Atkins Diet) increase all-cause mortality rates.

Not all proteins are equal when it comes to the health of dieters eating low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets.

Animal-based proteins and fats are associated with increased mortality rates, including increased cardiovascular mortality and increased cancer mortality, a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine concludes. But low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets composed mostly of plant-based proteins and fats were associated with lower mortality rates overall and lower cardiovascular mortality rates.

The study followed more than 85,000 women and 44,500 men for a period of 20 to 26 years. All the study participants were without heart disease, cancer, or diabetes. To reach their conclusion, the study authors accounted for lifestyle factors such as smoking, exercise, multivitamin use, and alcohol intake. The study participants were all health professionals who filled out regular questionnaires about their food intake over the long follow-up period. The study authors acknowledged that while the large sample of participants was a strength of the study, its participant pool of all health care professionals was a limitation because it was not representative of the larger population.

The benefits of eating a low-carbohydrate, plant-based diet.

Results of the study confirmed a “direct association” between animal-based low-carbohydrate food intake in men and increased cancer deaths, particularly from colorectal and lung cancer. That association aligns with previous studies that have confirmed a link between red meat, processed meat, and those two types of cancers. The study also found that men and women who ate diets heavy in animal-based proteins had higher averages BMIs and were more likely to smoke. Yet men and women who ate more plant or vegetable-based proteins and fats ate more whole grains and tended to drink more alcohol.

“The protein you get from combining rice and beans is the same quality as what you get from eggs and steak. You just don’t get all the other stuff that’s bad for you, ” says Dr. Dean Ornish, founder and president, Preventive Medicine Research Institute, who is not affiliated with this study.

“This is the diet that I’ve been advocating for for 30 years.”

The study authors say the low-carb, high-protein diets followed by its participants “were not designed to mimic any particular versions of low-carbohydrate diets available in the popular literature.” Yet when most people think of a high-protein eating plan, they think of the Atkins diet. Atkins says nothing about its eating plans can be deduced by this study. In a statement to CNN, the company says, “Major clinical research has demonstrated the health benefits of low-carb diets,” including several dozen articles on the Atkins protocols that “demonstrate positive results in terms of weight loss, as well as improvements in lipid profiles, reduced inflammation and better blood sugar control.”

Dieters interested in eating more plant and vegetable-based proteins should consider adding tofu, beans, legumes, nuts, and seeds in to their diet. Sunflower oil, olive oil, canola oil, soy oil, and peanut oil are also great sources of plant-based fats.

Original Article

Peaceful Creativity + Peaceful Diet + Peaceful Economy + Peaceful Interaction + Peaceful Living
The Peaceful Planet
It’s Time For Change

Tim Gier, vegan abolitionist and writer argues that Humans did not evolve to eat meat

There is a recurring argument which vegans (and vegetarians, too) constantly hear about how evolution has shaped humankind in terms of what we should eat. Although the specific argument may take different forms, all of them basically come down to this:

Humans have evolved to eat meat, it is unnatural for us not to eat meat, and therefore we should eat meat; it is right for us to do so.

Did humans evolve to eat meat?

Before trying to understand what a study of the fossil record can tell us about evolution, it will be helpful to understand what we mean by evolution in the first place.

Humans have not evolved to do anything. That is, the theory of evolution describes what we can observe as having already happened; it predicts what will most likely happen next and it explains how both those things come to be.

But the theory of evolution does not suggest that there is some goal to the process or that any living thing is evolving to be or to do anything at all. In other words, evolution describes how things are, not why they are.

For instance, sharks have been sharks for a long, long time. Sharks have all the brain size, eyesight, sense of smell, ability to move and all the other qualities of being that they need to live quite well as sharks.

Evolution is not thinking about making them move up the food chain, or pushing them toward some progressive goal. Sharks are highly suited to their environment. They are efficient exploiters of the resources available to them. They have evolved over time, but the ancient sharks in the fossil record are very similar in the most important ways to modern sharks.

What is evolution doing then?

Evolution isn’t doing anything, because evolution isn’t some “thing” that acts upon the world, it is a description of the processes in the world.

Sharks have adapted to the various pressures in their environments which have threatened their survival. Individual sharks have not done so though, “sharks,” as a population of beings, have done so.

Imagine that it is 200 million years ago and that “sharks” live mostly in fresh water and not in the salty oceans. Something happens that threatens the habitat – maybe an ice age freezes huge amounts of water and fresh water lakes and ponds shrink dramatically in size. The population of sharks in endangered. We can imagine that even though the salt water oceans also shrink in size, they are not affected nearly as much as the lakes would be.

Now suppose that some individual sharks have a strange mutation (we might call it a birth defect) that allows them to survive in salt water.

Normally, those sharks would not survive particularly well, but these are not normal times and what was once a hindrance is now a benefit. So, because they are better suited to living in the salt water which is now more abundant than the fresh water, they reproduce successfully while the strictly fresh water sharks become more and more scarce.

The fresh water sharks are stuck in an environment that is shrinking and they are competing for fewer and fewer resources. The salt water mutants have all the water and resources they could possible want.

The mutated sharks survive, and they are the most fit to survive in the new and altered environment they find themselves in. But evolution had no purpose, and the sharks didn’t evolve to live in the salt water, it all happened by chance.

So, did humans evolve to eat meat?

No, because humans haven’t evolved to do anything. We didn’t evolve to build skyscrapers, or read books, or fight wars. We can do all those things but we are not purposely designed to do those things; it is just how we are, and those are among the many, many things we are able to do.

Did humans evolve by eating meat?

That’s a better question, and lots of people want to believe that the answer is yes, but I’d like for you to consider this:

A recent study by Pappenbeimer (1998) on the significance of absorptive mechanisms in relation to scaling of the dimensions of small intestines goes one step farther towards the interpretation of the above allometric relationships.

Transcellular absorption is lower in large species than in small species, whereas paracellular fluid absorption is greater. Paracellular fluid absorption may dominate in large faunivores with a small mucosal area (scaled to L^ in fig. i), whereas in large folivorous species the relatively diluted intestinal fluid and the low rate of transcellular absorption may be compensated for by an increase in the mucosal area (tending towards I’ rather than L^), the frugivores being intermediate.

What? That’s from the paper On Diet and Gut Size in Non-human Primates and Humans: Is There a Relationship to Brain Size? in the journal Current Anthropology and it shows, I think, that trying to understand the relationship between diet and the evolution of our brain power, or anything else that makes us human for that matter, may be more like rocket science than many of us think. This is some highly technical stuff and it would be a mistake to think that there are easy and simple answers to very complicated questions.

It is intuitive to think that eating “high quality” proteins from animals led to our own “high quality” intelligence, but scientists don’t rely on intuition, and even they don’t agree on what the evidence shows.

For every study that purports to show that meat-eating caused us to be who we are today, there’s another (from the same paper, by the way) that reaches a conclusion such as this:

In conclusion, H. sapiens does not seem to be an exception among the primates in terms of diet and gut size. There is no doubt that our species needs a rich diet to cover large energy expenses, but it requires relatively no richer a diet than many Cehidae and Cercopithecidae feeding on sweet fruits, complemented by the protein and fat of a large proportion of insects. The areas of mucosa that have been actually measured in humans do not show any trend towards a reduced intestine that would have allowed a supplement of energy for a large brain.

Whatever archaeology and anthropology can tell us, how far back in time would we like to look?

If we take the conclusion of the article cited above as instructive, then we should all be eating cockroaches for breakfast (and indeed in some cultures we do).

A review of the trajectory of evolution can’t tell us anything definitive about what we ate when and how it affected who we have evolved to be today. In that sense, our appraisals of the history of diet may be more like a Rorschach test revealing not what is true, but only what we already want to believe.

Humans did not evolve to eat meat, because we haven’t evolved to do anything, and although eating meat may have contributed to our success as a species, we cannot use evolution as justification for moral behavior.

After all, we have also survived throughout time with the capacities for greed, violence and hatred. No-one suggests that we should celebrate or encourage those things, even though it may be true that they have contributed to our better chances for survival.

It is no more unnatural to abstain from exploiting all the other animals of the world than it is unnatural to abstain from assaulting others on the street to steal the things they have which we desire.

Just because our ancestors would have done so 250,000 years ago as they fought tooth and nail to survive in a cold cruel world does not mean that we should or that it would be right for us to do so now.

If we have evolved to “do” anything, then we have certainly evolved to think beyond our basest impulses and to act as something more than creatures driven by unthinking instincts.

We have survived on this planet because we have the capacity for rational thought, the imagination to see a better future and the ability to recreate our own environments.

Some people may want to view evolution as an excuse to remain trapped in the violent nature of ancient history. I choose to see it as our best hope to break free of those chains to live in a peaceful tomorrow.

Tim Gier is a vegan abolitionist writer whose former career in automobile sales management spanned 25 years. He writes about business, politics, human behavior and sometimes pop culture at his blog.

Original Article

Peaceful Creativity + Peaceful Diet + Peaceful Economy + Peaceful Interaction + Peaceful Living
The Peaceful Planet
It’s Time For Change