vegan

By Dan Paden

Most of us — even those of us who eat meat — know that life on a factory farm is no picnic for animals. Chickens are crammed together with thousands of others inside dark sheds that reek of ammonia. Piglets are castrated without being given any painkillers. Terrified calves are torn away from their mothers within hours of birth.

Here’s what you may not know: While for most animals, this life of misery will end with a terrifying death in a slaughterhouse, many will be injured or killed in a traffic accident on their way to slaughter. That’s because the meat industry has a history of hiring drivers with records that read like rap sheets. And until industry officials enact strict safe-driver policies, all of us—humans and animals alike—are at risk.

Just last month, for example, a truck loaded with pigs ran off U.S. 258 in Isle of Wight County, Va. Several pigs were ejected, and 55 were killed. Others were left to suffer in the hours following the crash. PETA discovered that the driver involved in this accident has been charged with at least 15 traffic offenses in North Carolina since 1995, including reckless driving, speeding (five violations) and seeking to evade federal safety regulations.

Also last month, a tractor trailer carrying nearly 1,000 turkeys for a company called Circle S Ranch, Inc., crashed in Henry County, Va., killing hundreds of the birds. And again, PETA found that the driver had an abysmal driving record, including a conviction for driving while impaired and driving while his license was revoked. His past charges also include felony manufacture of a controlled substance.

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By Jeff Mackey

If you’re like most people, you’ll no doubt treat your mom to brunch or dinner on Mother’s Day. But this year, while you are saluting your own mom, please honor all mothers by celebrating with a meal that doesn’t include meat, eggs or dairy products. Some of the best mothers in the world are found in the animal kingdom, yet few animal moms on today’s farms are ever allowed to nurture their babies as nature intended.

For mother cows and their calves, for example, it’s love at first sight. The first minutes after birth are spent developing a bond that will last a lifetime. Their attachment and affection for each other is so deep that both mother and baby become extremely distressed if they are forced apart. Mother cows bellow in vain and their calves wail inconsolably; they cry out for each other for days. Some mother cows have even been known to escape their enclosures and travel for miles searching for their babies.

Sadly, such pitiful scenes are common on dairy farms. Mother cows are allowed to bond with and care for their calves for only a few hours before the babies are torn away so that we can have the milk that was meant to nourish them. Wide-eyed and terrified, the calves are desperate to suckle but instead are given a bottle of milk “replacer” and a short life in a veal crate (for males) or a life just like that of their sad mothers (for females). Meanwhile, the mother cows will soon be impregnated again, only to endure the same heartbreak nine months later.

If allowed, mother hens would turn their eggs as many as five times an hour and cluck softly to the chicks inside, who chirp back from within their shells. Once hatched, the chicks are shielded from predators by their protective mother’s wings. Click to continue »

By Dan Paden

During ancient times, farmers reputedly immobilized ducks and geese in order to more easily force-feed and fatten them by nailing their feet to the floor. You would think that we had progressed beyond such barbarism, but a recent PETA investigation at a foie gras farm in Québec has revealed conditions that are depressingly archaic.

At a farm located outside Montréal and owned by Palmex, Inc., which is part of Rougié, the self-proclaimed “world’s #1 producer of foie gras,” PETA documented ducks lined up in rows of coffin-like cages that encase their bodies like vices. The birds’ heads and necks protrude through small openings, which makes force-feeding easier. The birds can do little more than stand, try to lie down and turn their heads. They cannot so much as spread a single wing.

Ducks are waterfowl. In their natural habitat, they spend almost their entire lives in or near water—swimming, bathing, diving and feeding. On foie gras farms, ducks never go near ponds or streams—ever. In their final weeks, they are confined to cages or pens and several pounds of mush is pumped down their throats through a metal pipe up to three times a day. Click to continue »

By Heather Moore

If you’re suffering from the winter blues—whether you’re dealing with a bout of the flu or digging yourself out from several feet of snow—you might want to make yourself a soothing cup of soy cocoa before reading about the latest health news. Cardiologists with the University of New Mexico and the Heart Institute at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles believe that people are up to 36 percent more likely to have fatal heart attacks and strokes in winter than summer—even if they reside in warmer regions, such as Southern California or Sarasota, Fla., where I live.

The cardiologists—who analyzed around 1.7 million death certificates filed between 2005 and 2008 for people in Arizona, Georgia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and Los Angeles—aren’t entirely sure why health risks go up during the winter, but they note that environmental factors, emotional stress and poor lifestyle choices can trigger heart attacks and strokes. People tend to exercise less and eat heavier, cholesterol-laden meals in winter months.

Winter or not, I’m not too worried: I’m vegan.

Vegans are virtually “heart attack–proof,” according to Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, star of the acclaimed documentary Forks Over Knives. Dr. Esselstyn has cured patients with clogged arteries just by putting them on healthy vegan diets.

If you, too, want to reduce your risk of a heart attack—and give yourself a bit more peace of mind this winter—try eating tasty vegan foods, such as black bean and corn chili, lentil and spinach soup, pasta primavera and faux-chicken pot pie. Click to continue »

By Paula Moore

Move over, bacon-flavored chocolate. If trend trackers—who are predicting an increased interest in mock meats, vegan foods for infants and other animal-free options—are correct, 2013 just might be the year of the vegan. Even the Cooking Channel is getting in on the act. The popular cable channel recently aired the first mainstream vegan cooking show, How to Live to 100.

If your goals for 2013 include improving your health, reducing your carbon footprint or helping animals, then going vegan should be at the top of your resolutions list.

In a recent New York Times column, “Vegan Before 6″ advocate Mark Bittman reminds us, “Nothing affects public health … more than food. Gun violence kills tens of thousands of Americans a year. Heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes kill more than a million people a year—nearly half of all deaths—and diet is a root cause of many of those diseases.”

Few behaviors take such a severe toll on one’s heart as consuming meat, eggs and dairy products, which are loaded with artery-clogging saturated fat and cholesterol. While eating animal products can lead to elevated cholesterol levels and heart attacks, studies have shown that a low-fat, meat-free diet can reverse the effects of heart disease in many patients. Click to continue »

By Ingrid E. Newkirk

When hundreds of millions of people go hungry every day, wasting food is obscene. No one needs to remind us of this. Or perhaps someone does. According to a new report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans toss out nearly every other bite of food. We squander up to 40 percent of the nation’s food supply each year—throwing away, on average, 20 pounds per person per month—while making excuses for our wastefulness. The lettuce had started to wilt. We forgot about the yogurt in the back of the fridge. We simply bought more than we needed. Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs.

This is shameful enough. Now consider the nightmare that billions of animals—who feel anxiety, fear and pain every bit as profoundly as we do—endure on factory farms, in transit to slaughter and at the slaughterhouse itself. Nowadays, they are confined to cages and crates, their babies are taken away from them and they are kicked and prodded and deprived of everything that makes their lives worth living just so that we can take their milk or kill them for their flesh. And then we toss half of it all into the trash. Click to continue »

By Jonny Imerman

This week is Men’s Health Week — a good time for men of all ages to kick-start healthy habits. In my 20s, I survived two bouts of testicular cancer. Since that time, I’ve helped create a one-on-one cancer support organization, Imerman Angels, that connects someone fighting cancer with a person who’s been in the same shoes and survived. It gives me so much joy to give back. However, for years my own body didn’t feel its best. Last year, I went vegan, and I’ve never felt better.

I’m not here to lecture. I ate meat and dairy products for years, so who am I to judge? We cancer survivors should never judge regardless; we’re happy just to be here still. But I hope that by hearing about my experience, you’ll feel a little more empowered to take your health into your own hands.

One of the turning points that helped me decide to go vegan was listening to leukemia researcher Dr. Rosane Oliveira—herself a vegan—from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign speak about how dietary changes can help people lead healthier lives. I learned that research has linked the standard American diet—full of cholesterol and saturated fats—with serious illnesses, including cancer, while vegetarians have been shown to have a much lower cancer risk.

Animal proteins and saturated fats found in meat promote the growth of cancer cells and increase our risk for certain types of cancer. Cornell professor T. Colin Campbell’s China Study concluded that proteins from animal foods are the most cancer-causing substances ingested by humans. The study also found that casein, the primary protein in cow’s milk, “turns on” the growth of cancer cells. A link has even been discovered between dairy products and testicular cancer, which makes me even more confident in my decision to dump dairy.

Vegan foods, in contrast, help fight cancer. A study of men diagnosed with prostate cancer found that a diet rich in plant foods can slow or even halt the progression of the disease. Dark, leafy veggies like spinach and kale and fruits like blueberries are loaded with cancer-fighting antioxidants, and beans, whole grains, and other fiber-rich foods help rid your body of excess hormones that can contribute to cancer growth.

Vegan eating has other benefits, too. Following my treatment, I felt so tired and beaten down—my immune system was rattled. Now, even though I regularly meet and shake the hands of many people, I haven’t been sick once (and for people with cancer, an immune system boost can make all the difference). I feel great, I’m strong in the gym and my energy levels are high.

I also love animals, and it feels good knowing that the food I’m eating doesn’t contribute to their suffering. Another turning point for me was watching the video that Sir Paul McCartney narrated for PETA, “Glass Walls,” which includes undercover video footage showing how animals are slaughtered, suffering and in pain. There seems to be a great synergy between cancer survivors, who value their lives and health so highly because they are lucky to be alive, and people who choose to eat compassionate and healthy vegan foods.

You don’t have to take my word for it about the advantages of eating vegan, though. Try it for yourself. Healthy vegan foods provide all the nutrients that we need, so there’s nothing to lose and plenty to gain.

By Paula Moore

Red meat in the morning, diners take warning. Red meat at night — nope, that’ll kill ya too.

As if anyone needed another reason to eat their veggies, here’s one: According to a new Harvard School of Public Health study, eating red meat increases your risk of early death. OK, here’s one more: Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization, recently warned that antibiotic resistance could bring about “the end of modern medicine as we know it.” In other words, if the hamburgers don’t kill you, the superbugs spawned on factory farms will.

Unless you want to eat yourself into an early grave, maybe it’s time to go vegan.

After analyzing nearly 30 years of data collected from 121,000 participants, the Harvard researchers found that people who regularly eat red meat are significantly more likely to die prematurely from multiple causes, including heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Click to continue »

By Alisa Mullins

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone when Paula Deen announced recently that she has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. After all, this is the lady who took Southern cooking and turned it into an extreme (artery-clogging) sport. Her over-the-top fat- and cholesterol-laden dishes like Paula’s Fried Butter Balls and bacon-wrapped Fried Mac and Cheese have been sent up in a five-part Serious Eats series titled “Paula Deen Is Trying to Kill Us.” Even Anthony Bourdain, who isn’t exactly known as an ascetic, has taken Deen to task for her carotid-clogging fare, calling her “the worst, most dangerous person to America.”

But Deen now has the opportunity to do herself and her fans a great service by following in the footsteps of fellow southerner Bill Clinton and embracing healthy vegan meals.

In her defense, Deen claims that she has “always encouraged moderation” and “portion control.” But obviously, that approach hasn’t worked. Click to continue »

By Heather Moore

Worried that you have a sasquatch-sized carbon footprint? Eat less meat and cheese. That’s the advice of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which recently calculated the ecological impact of 20 conventionally grown foods. The figures show that many animal-based foods have a supersized carbon footprint—in addition to a whopping amount of fat and calories. In fact, according to the EWG, if every American stopped eating meat and cheese for one day a week, it would be the same as if we collectively drove 91 billion fewer miles a year.

Imagine what a difference we could make for animals, our own health and the health of the planet if we stopped eating meat and cheese entirely—or at least for a couple of days a week.

The EWG found that in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, eating a pound of lamb is equivalent to driving about 39 miles. Every pound of beef represents a 27-mile trip, Click to continue »