Hello! And welcome to the first post in a little series about gluten-free, vegan living. This is for everyone, and most especialiest vegans, going gluten-free for the first time and all those who could possibly benefit from reading about my experience of doing the same in the last three years.

I’ve learned from desperate private browsing sessions that there is verrry little information out there for people who might have celiac disease or, more amorphously, a gluten intolerance, or, even more amorphously, unexplained “stomach issues.” At the risk of sharing too much information with people who know me and read this blog, I will describe — in the least disgusting way possible! — my experience of discovering that gluten doesn’t agree with me (it’s a long story, actually! and interesting, I swear.), how I removed gluten from my already vegan diet, and what the consequences and rewards have been. Less in spite and more because of how embarrassing it is to talk about some of this stuff, I hope I can answer questions people only want to ask their very close friend, the internet.

Know that I’m using the Q-and-A format so that people can easily find this; I am not actually conducting sad, lonely interviews with myself.

How did you find out you have celiac disease?

Let me begin by saying I haven’t officially earned my celiac disease badge, and I’m just now sewing my gluten-intolerant patch on my vest (which is otherwise occupied by a great big vegan! patch). But more on the official status of my relationship to wheat later.

Early in the summer of 2009 — May, I think — I started to notice I was bloated, all the time, even when I woke up, having eaten a very early dinner the previous day. My high-waisted skirts suffocated me at the diaphragm, most of all after eating, when the bloating was quite visible, like a high-seated pregnancy in its fifth month. As proof, I wore a lot of tops from Anthropologie that summer. Following the bloating were other GI problems — food moving through my system at an uncomfortably slow pace, a constant feeling of fullness and hunger at the same time, frequent nausea — and general exhaustion (which could have been a result of feeling sick or more directly a result of the gluten itself). That Melissa McCarthy quote kind of sums up my GI state at the time at its worst.

To avoid doctors and invasive tests for as long as possible, I decided to try an elimination diet, removing foods from my meal plan for two weeks at a time to see if I felt better. Already vegan, I knew that several common allergens — lactose, dairy, and eggs — were not the problem. So I began with the foods I was most willing to give up: nuts and yeast. First I excluded nuts. No difference. Then yeast. This was harder because yeast is in bread, and I loved bread. I loved it so much I wrote blog posts about me dreaming of bagels. But there are a few good yeast-free breads out there, as it turns out, so I survived. I was especially hopeful about the yeast because I thought it might help eliminate some really uncomfortable yeast infections. (See, I told you this was embarrassing! Hi, Mom!) Two weeks later, no improvement stomach-wise or yeast-wise.

I had to move on to the foods that I was less willing to give up: legumes, fructose, sucrose, and (AHHH!) gluten. No change with legumes. The sugars were really, really hard to exclude; I can only compare it to becoming vegan and not even knowing what I shouldn’t be eating. Plus, no fruit, man! Sucrose was a little easier as I have lived without cookies for most of the days of my life. But neither exclusion made a difference.

And then, bread! One very large, Jewish part of me (my nose?) hoped I’d feel no change by avoiding bread so that I might continue to enjoy my morning bagel until I could no longer chew solid food. But the other part of me, a small 51 percent majority, wanted me to feel good again and, frankly, was starting to forget what it felt like to be anything other than stuffed up and tired. Losing bread was tough even so: emotionally because I was worn down from having tried every other potential allergen I could think of, and technically because I didn’t have a replacement for my main food group. I didn’t know that bread could exist without gluten. This was before gluten-free really took off as the fad allergy/cult it is today, before there was an entire section in Whole Foods or a full aisle (!!) in Fairway devoted to gluten-free foods.

In short, I did it — I lived a whole two weeks without my friends at The Bagel Store. This is already July ’09. And at the end of those two weeks, I observed a few changes: food was moving through my system a little better, and my painful cystic acne was lessening, a huge unexpected perk. I know, I know — you can’t remember me having bad acne, if you’ve known me for a few years. My skin never looked too affected because cystic acne isn’t all that visible; it’s mostly beneath the skin’s surface. But it’s painful and hot to the touch and often leaves scars regular zits don’t. My still-reddened chin bears evidence of this.

So this is how I began to learn that my body revolts against wheat proteins. Stay tuned to find out how I make it better, and then worse, and then better again.

On Feb. 8, I went to the Tribeca Grand for the first screening of Chow Down, a documentary that shows the turnaround that two men with heart disease achieved by switching to a plant-based diet. (By turnaround I mean that they didn’t die.) If you’re looking for an outreach tool that comes from a health perspective, this is it. Doctors like Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., Neal Barnard and Joel Fuhrman, as well as T. Colin Campbell, lay the facts out on the table, including the discovery that nutrition controls the expression of certain genes, including those that govern disease. The movie also addresses the government’s complicity in Americans’ nutrition-poor diet and the hold big-money interests like the meat and dairy industries have over what we’re told we should eat.

The editing was a little choppy in places—for example, there were supposed to be three participants, but the third, a woman, dropped out, and no other explanation was given except that she just couldn’t do it right then. But overall the movie delivered its message with simplicity, humor and truth.

Because it doesn’t address the cruelty issue, it was followed by a screening of Glass Walls, narrated by Paul McCartney. It was at this point that a lot of people left the room, while the rest of us covered our eyes and tried to plug up our ears. Make no mistake: This seven-minute film pulls no punches and is extremely explicit about what happens to the animals we use for food. I’d recommend this as an outreach tool, but most vegans aren’t able to sit through it, so I can’t imagine any guilty omnivores sticking it out.

The panel afterward included vegan (and one nonvegan) authors, activists and foodies: Gene Baur, Victoria Moran, Bart Potenza, Simone Reyes, Michael Parrish Dudell, Alex Jamieson and Annemarie Colbin. Responses to audience questions ranged from impassioned to no-holds-barred. Gene responded to one query in a very diplomatic yet matter-of-fact way: When he was asked that age-old question—What about humane meat and eggs?—he told it like it is: At the end of the day, no matter how much respect the farmer says he has for his animals, he slaughters them, it’s a violent and tragic end, and he does it simply because he makes money from it. The end.

The only cringe-worthy moments of the evening (well, aside from the screening of Glass Walls) were provided by Colbin, who seemed to be pushing to include meat in our diet and actually uttered the confounding statement I thought only ignorant omnis sometimes pulled out of their back pocket: Plants have a consciousness too, so if you care about them, being vegan isn’t the answer. What all of these people forget is that the majority of the grain we grow is used to feed the animals we slaughter for meat, rather than feeding the many, many hungry people in this country.

For the panel following the Feb. 19 screening, two new speakers have been added: Julie Grayer and Gage Johnston, the producers and directors of the film. And if it’s organized like last time, there will be drink tickets available for the cocktail hour in the lobby bar following the Q&A, at which point you can ask any questions and make any comments there wasn’t enough time for during the panel.

If you’d like to attend the screening, RSVP here—but do it quickly, because it’s a small screening room, and the last showing had a waiting list four times over. If you can’t get in this time, you can always subscribe to the mailing list. And if you do go, let us know what you think in the comments!

Every year, Dr. Michael Greger, the director of public health and animal agriculture for The Humane Society of the United States, peruses untold numbers of medical journals for the newsiest of food news. He then presents the most notable findings in a quiz show format DVD. I dropped the good doctor a line and asked him to explain some of the more curious revelations from his newest releases, the 2009 and 2010 Latest in Clinical Nutrition.

Roseann Marulli: Hey, Dr. G! Long time no speak. Thanks for chatting with SuperVegan.

There’s a lot of information jam-packed into your nutrition DVDs. Some of it’s a no-brainer, like the fact that artifical colors are harmful and that having a cat or a dog is protective against cancer. (Well, we all knew companion animals make us happier, anyway.) But there were a few surprises, too. What was the most shocking thing you learned from the medical literature in the last two years? The most yawn-inducing?

Dr. Michael Greger: I continue to be amazed by our bodies’ ability for self-repair. Like, if you bang your shin on something it gets better—unless you keep banging it in the same place day after day. That’s what smoking does, daily lung injury. But when people stop smoking, their lung cancer risk after enough years approaches that of a nonsmoker! Isn’t that amazing? Our body can get all the crap out of there and heal. Same thing with the lining of our arteries getting injured day after day from unhealthy diets. All you have to do is stop it and your body will heal. Our bodies want to be healthy, if we would just let them. That’s what these new research articles are showing: Even after years of beating yourself up with a horrible diet, your body can reverse the damage, open back up the arteries—even reverse the progression of some cancers. Amazing! So it’s never too late to start exercising, never too late to stop smoking and never too late to start eating healthier.

The yawns come mostly from the cascade of studies touting the benefits of foods like berries and greens. I don’t even cover them anymore in my DVDs. Been there, done that.

Roseann: You’re always reminding vegans to take their vitamin B12. Now it turns out that a B12 deficiency can lead to schizophrenia. Does it make you nuts when you find out we’re not taking our supplements? Ba-dum-bum!

Dr. G: No, B12 deficiency can give you paranoid psychoses, which can be misdiagnosed as schizophrenia (though thankfully it may be reversible). But either way, take your damn B12.

Roseann: I’m all for natural alternatives, but they often don’t seem to work. As the research has borne out, homeopathy doesn’t do us a damn bit of good. On the flip side, though, coconut-derived shampoo kills lice better than pesticides. (Thanks for making me itchy, by the way.) Why is that? What other remedies were tested?

Dr. G: For the lice thing, it was just a study of that particular shampoo, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with diet. I just find myself debunking the claims of the multibillion-dollar natural-supplements industry, so I like to give props when I run across something that actually works!

Roseann: Those of us who like to eat our weight in food will be saddened to learn that caloric restriction improves memory. Equally dismaying for the sedentary among us is the fact that 30 minutes of exercise a day can reverse minor cognitive impairment. On the positive side, though, soy not only protects memory but also inhibits fat uptake. Skip the exercise, pound the soy?

Dr. G: Do both! Well, actually, eating soy while jogging might present a choking hazard, so maybe not. :)

Roseann: New products boasting health benefits come out all the time, but many of them end up being bunk (like mangosteen juice—which is also ridiculously expensive bunk). So while green and black teas are health-promoting, studies have shown that yerba maté can actually increase your cancer risk. How could a little old beverage be so dangerous?

Dr. G: One word: carcinogens.

Roseann: And unfortunately for a lot of our readers, there was no change to the findings that kombucha, spirulina and chlorella are harmful. What else is at the top of your “Get this out of your pantry now!” list?

Dr. G: I also talk about a bunch of things you can overdo, like natural licorice. In fact, the safety window is so small, it may be better to just stay away from regular consumption altogether.

Roseann: Another bummer: Not only are white potatoes less nutrient-rich than even Iceberg lettuce, they increase our risk of kidney cancer by 50%. Um, that’s a lot. White potatoes cooked using any method? Why?

Dr. G: Yeah, it wasn’t just fried taters. I can see why they wouldn’t be particularly health-promoting, but actually increasing disease risk? That was a surprise. Same thing with refined grains. I would have expected things like white rice, bagels, etc., to be just useless, but they can actually increase disease risk. Choose the grain, the whole grain, and nothing but the whole grain.

Roseann: Oh boy…

The vegetarians among us will be dismayed to learn that half an egg a day increases the risk of cancer. And members of the 420 club will be saddened to learn that smoking just one joint is the equivalent of smoking 20 cigarettes—an entire pack!—when it comes to lung cancer. But what I found really shocking was that just a spoonful a day of kimchi can increase your breast cancer risk twofold and your risk of prostate cancer 10 times. Cancer, cancer everywhere. Why?

Dr. G: Because people are ingesting, inhaling and generally being exposed to carcinogenic substances. We live in a pretty toxic world. Let’s not make it worse by going out of our way to add to our bodily burden.

Roseann: Other fun facts: Farmed fish are fed cow brains, beef is injected with ammonia to kill bacteria, and arsenic is added to chicken feed. Why would anyone in their right mind continue to eat animals?

Dr. G: Uh, have you seen McDonald’s advertising budget lately?

Roseann: Speaking of fun, your DVDs are peppered with corny jokes, cute animal photos and plentiful poop references. The Bristol Stool Scale actually illustrates what healthy feces should look and feel like, with vegetarians and vegans coming out (ahem) ahead of omnivores. When you go to cocktail parties, do you ask people to rate their stool as based on the Bristol Scale?

Dr. G: Let’s just say “Would you look at my mole?” is one of the more benign things I’m dragged behind closed doors to inspect at parties.

Roseann: On the positive side, just two teaspoons of vinegar with food lessens the blood sugar spike we feel after eating—and it’s calorie-free. And date sugar topped out as the healthiest sweetener on the planet. I love dates! Why are Hallawi dates in particular so healthy?

Dr. G: The healthiest date is the one you’ll eat the most of! But if I remember correctly, Hallawi just had a particularly high antioxidant density in the study I presented.

Roseann: More good news: Eating nuts can help us lose weight by increasing our resting energy expenditure. Not only that, it decreases inflammation and helps suppress cancer. Any old nuts, or some more so than others? The evidence in support of an inert lifestyle seems to be stacking up, yes?

Dr. G: Basically I’m talking about all nuts, except coconuts, chestnuts and betel nuts. Even peanuts, which, although they’re not technically nuts, can be considered part of the pack nutritionally.

Roseann: We also learned that what we eat can turn gene expression on and off, actually changing us on a genetic level, and that a healthy, plant-based diet can be as powerful as drugs and surgery, even better in many cases. So why are doctors and nutritionists still pushing animal products?

Dr. G: Mostly ignorance. Buy your doc my DVDs.

Roseann: Finally, in your DVD Flu Factories, we learn that the three primary threats to humanity are the global food crisis, climate change and pandemic influenza—all of which can be linked to industrial animal agriculture. Are we destined to eat ourselves to extinction, or is there hope?

Dr. G: I never thought I’d live to see a year where the number of animals killed for food would actually drop. Well, guess what? That happened in 2008, and again in 2009, with all the attendant nutritional, food safety, public, environmental and animal health benefits. We’re all part of a tremendous movement for change—it’s a very exciting time to be alive!

Roseann: I had no idea! That’s great news. Up with vegans, down with animal agriculture!

Thanks again for sharing your brain with us, Dr. G. Looking forward to next year’s installment!

Dr. Greger’s nutrition DVDs pack in more information than any mere mortal could possibly retain. Get them here, and 100% of the proceeds will go to The Humane Society of the United States. Or donate $30 or more to Mercy for Animals through
Nov. 30 and get the 2010 DVDs for free. You can also watch and/or purchase Dr. Greger’s presentation on swine flu and read and/or buy Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, with all proceeds going to charity.

This is one of Supervegan’s posts for Vegan MoFo 2010.

During his acceptance speech for the award for best comedic performance, Jim Carrey told 5.3 million viewers what caused factory farm flu:

Is Carrey vegetarian? Is this his partner, Jenny McCarthy, rubbing off on him? Is there any experience quite like watching Pet Detective for the eleventh time?

I don’t really have any answers here.

Doreen the Downer by Mark Fiore

By this point, everybody’s seen the video of downer cows being abused by Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing employees. And everyone’s read about the massive beef recall that the HSUS video prompted. The upshot is that nonveg*ns everywhere are finally getting to see what we already knew happens to scores of animals in this country every day.

Well, if any of your omni friends won’t watch the video because it’s too depressing, they have another option: Doreen the Downer by animator Mark Fiore. It does for beef production what The Meatrix did for factory farming, except it’s short and whimsical, like so many of those misguided “educational” videos from the ’50s and ’60s.

Me, Dennis, and background goof Jonathan Shapiro.

I was lucky enough to meet Congressman and Democratic Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich in Washington D.C. over the July 4th weekend. The Congressman and I had a brief chat about his veganism (and his frustration at always being labeled vegan first and politician second): apparently it allows him to stay clearer and “more focused” than he’s been in twenty years–he’s able to work 18 hour days and snag hot young ladies. And he swears by hummus. Perhaps a bad batch was what struck him down with food poisoning this week. Hopefully he’ll recover quickly to hit the trail and do a little shoe pleather campaigning.

I know political progressives are torn over support for Kucinich–he’s part of the two-party system, yet he’s more progressive than Nader–and, oh yeah, he doesn’t have a chance in hell. But a girl can dream.

Looking for yet another reason to convince your friends to go veggie? A recent study suggests that cured meat, such as hamburgers and bacon, can negatively affect lung function, leading to emphysema and even lung disease or cancer.

Cured meats are high in nitrites, a kind of preservative, that’s been implicated as the cancer-causer. Past research has also linked nitrites to other diseases such as pancreatic, bladder, stomach, gastric and breast cancers. Most veggie burgers and other mock-meats, on the other hand, do not contain any nitrites, and various studies have shown that vegetarians may not only have a lower risk of getting many cancers, but may actually be warding off certain cancers by avoiding nitrites and other meat-related carcinogens.

So meat has officially been linked to nearly every kind of cancer known to man. I wonder how much more it’s going to take to convince people that smoked sausage and bacon at 8 a.m. isn’t a smart way to start the day.

It may sound sci-fi, but scientists now theorize that mobile phones could be to blame for Colony Collapse Disorder that’s struck bees across the U.S. and Europe. Scientists say the radiation given off by mobile phones and other high-tech gadgets may be interfering with the bees’ navigation systems, preventing them from finding their way back to their hives.

Although sufficient hard proof of this theory is still lacking, research already suggests that cell phone radiation may have serious adverse effects on human health, causing brain tumors, reduced sperm counts and loss of brain cells. If cell radiation can do this to people, imagine what it could do to bees…

Given the backlash in Chicago, it’s no surprise that the fight to ban foie gras in NYC is getting foodies’ panties in a twist. But this is a new low, especially during the holidays. Fairway has declared itself “Foie Gras Central” and is promoting the hell out of its foie gras products.

Declaring foie gras utterly humane and “one of life’s gustatory pleasures,” the sign basically panders to one of the lowest human impulses—spite—and dares people to buy the product, slinging a loud “Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah” along with their blood money.

Help set the record straight—that includes the fact that we can indeed spell “foie gras” correctly—and join Farm Sanctuary as they leaflet outside Fairway markets in New York this weekend. For more information on how to get involved, e-mail Carol Moon at nyc@farmsanctuary.org.

Let me begin by saying – you must read this book, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching (Lantern Books, 2006). If not the whole book, which I recommend, then at least read some parts of the book. There is no excuse not to do so as it is offered in its entirety online for free in an easily readable format. Dr. Michael Greger, has written an incredibly well researched (roughly 100 of the 465 pages are references) book. The book consists of five sections, Storm Gathering, When Animal Viruses Attack, Pandemic Preparedness, Surviving the Pandemic and Preventing Future Pandemics with a Forward by Professor Emeritus Kennedy Shortridge, who is credited with discovering the H5N1 (bird flu) virus in Asia.

While I consider myself fairly well versed in the horrors of factory farming, having read much of the prominent literature regarding animal rights and veganism, I found myself underlining informative sentences and gasping paragraph after paragraph with some of the information spilling off the pages. Certainly the description of the zoonotic diseases introduced to humans through the domestication of animals – including Lymes disease, rabies, AIDS and Ebola – was a particularly insightful example of one of the many reasons factory farming is problematic. Obviously bird flu is another example, historically shown to be dangerous to humanity and believed to be on the verge of a pandemic world-wide.

Not only is this book fantastically informative regarding bird flu, but Greger spares no expense in speaking about factory farming methods worldwide, in particular to poultry, but at large as well. Additionally, while Greger never writes, “GO VEGAN!” he most definitely points to those in the health field who have argued against eating meat. Reading extensively about food-borne illnesses in modern meat should certainly opens readers eyes and minds to what other options might be considered.

Greger’s book points to problems in America’s health care system, the pharmaceutical companies, cock-fighting, and live poultry slaughter all in relation to a bird flu outbreak. Time and time again Greger points to the inevitable bird flu pandemic that is going to plague humanity, citing source after source, academic after academic, health official after health official. Though at times the repetition of the inevitable horrors to come, and our own fault in this, becomes exhausting, one can hardly blame Greger with the paltry efforts currently underway to do anything about the beast at our door. Perhaps the author feels that with over one hundred pages of references more people might actually begin to take the threat seriously as apparently the World Health Organization (google World Health Organization and Avian Influenza is the second link you’ll find) and Starbucks (already stockpiling Tamiflu for employees), among other entities, are already doing.

Note: Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching was discussed in an earlier post regarding a lecture by Dr. Micheal Greger.

I prefer the view from behind a monitor, but if you talk a good vegan game, you might want to apply to PCRM’s new Heart Health program. The health-conscious org is looking for a few good veggies to spread the word that a vegan diet can help prevent, treat, and reverse heart disease.

PCRM will provide the training, then send you off to talk to members of organizations like the Rotary club. To apply, you need to fill out an application and make a five-minute video of yourself giving a presentation (ideas for the chat can be found here.) Then send it all off to:

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Human Resources Department
Re: Heart Health Presentation
5100 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20016

For more information, e-mail HeartHealth@pcrm.org or call 202-686-2210.

It’s not news anymore that the introduction of the bill banning the sale of foie gras in NYC was postponed due to pressure from the bill’s opponents. As the foodies continue to torture animals in the name of a delicacy, all the while bitching and moaning that the government has no right to tell people what they can or can’t eat, the Big Apple banned the use of trans fats in restaurants, and plenty of people would like to see more regulation and oversight when it comes to food thanks to the recent outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli.

I can’t help but think that all this activity surrounding food and fat and health and safety will lend credence to the foie gras ban, since foie gras is literally fatty, diseased organs, produced by force-feeding ducks and geese a third or fourth of their body weight every day, resulting in livers that are 10 times normal size, not to mention a host of diseases, paralysis, and premature deaths that predate even slaughter.

We need to make sure this legislation is introduced, and you, your friends, and family can help. Following is an exhaustive guide to getting involved.

1. Contacting Speaker Christine Quinn is top priority. Let her know that we expect her to support the ban on foie gras in NYC and that many New Yorkers feel very strongly about the issue. Write to her at: The Honorable Christine Quinn, Speaker of the City Council, City Hall, New York, NY 10007. (At the bottom of this post are talking points that you can refer to when drafting your letter.)

2. Thank Council Member Alan Gerson for considering introducing the legislation, and tell him you trust that he’ll make the right decision and introduce it, and that you support his efforts. He can be reached at: The Honorable Alan Gerson, Council Member, 1st District, 51 Chambers Street, Suite 429, New York, NY 10007. (Again, talking points at the bottom.)

3. If you can also make phone calls, Christine Quinn can be reached at 212-788-5615 (her staff checks this comments line; say you want to leave her a message) and Alan Gerson at 212-788-7722 (ask for Paul Nagle). If you can do only one thing, snail mail is always best, but if you have the time and gumption to follow up your letters with phone calls, it would help a lot. (More talking points at bottom.)

4. You can contact your own council member, too. Find out who he or she is by typing in your address and borough on the home page of the League of Humane Voters of New York City’s website, then shoot off another letter.

5. A new press conference date will be announced soon (it will likely be at 1pm so that people can go on their lunch hour). Please plan to attend and ask some friends to go with you—they don’t have to be activists, just warm bodies! The more people turn up at City Hall, the better.

6. If you’d like to respond to some of the coverage the issue is getting, start by setting up a Google alert for foie gras, which you can do here (set it to Comprehensive and you’ll be notified about news items as well as blog entries). If you’d like to receive alerts through the campaign and Farm Sanctuary, letting you know which articles and blogs to focus on, drop me a line with “Foie Gras Campaign” in the subject line. And of course, if you have a blog of your own, please let people know what’s happening and encourage them to get involved.

7. For general information and updates on the campaign, check out the New York City Say No to Foie Gras Campaign, About Foie Gras, and the campaign’s MySpace page. While you’re there, you can check out video footage, or go to YouTube and watch Discover French Foie Gras and Delicacy of Despair. And please friend us on MySpace!

8. Feel free to add an automatic signature at the bottom of your e-mails leading people to the campaign’s pages. You’d be surprised how many people have no idea what foie gras is and how it’s made. That said, let me know if you’d like to receive an e-mailer containing text, photos, and video and Internet links; it’s a comprehensive summary of foie gras facts and information on how people can get involved, and it’s proved pretty successful so far.

9. Finally, if you’d like to help out in a more hands-on way, say, by contacting area restaurants and persuading them to take foie gras off the menu, doing college outreach, or helping with PR, e-mail volunteer coordinator Wendy Berner or call 646-369-6212. If you’d like to help out via the Internet, you can e-mail me directly.

Thanks to everyone who read this all the way through! The more people who work on the campaign to ban foie gras in NYC, the better our chances for success.

Below are the talking points for your calls and letters. Thanks again.

Talking points for letters to Speaker Quinn:

1. I am part of a coalition of 110,000 New York City voters who are associated with the Humane Society of the United States, the League of Humane Voters of New York City, and Farm Sanctuary.

2. As a New York City voter, I am concerned and disappointed that you are not in support of legislation to have foie gras banned in NYC.

3. Scientific evidence supports that foie gras production is cruel and inhumane. (See Evidence of Suffering for details you can add.)

4. Over a dozen nations worldwide, including Israel, Germany, Italy, and the UK, either have banned foie gras or have legislation in place to prohibit the force-feeding of ducks and geese. The state of California and the city of Chicago also have legislation in place to ban foie gras. Connecticut, New Jersey, and Philadelphia are considering similar legislation.

5. The general public is aware of this issue. A March 2005 Zogby poll reported that four out of five New Yorkers are in favor of a ban of foie gras. A May 2006 Zogby poll reported that 77% of New York voters support a ban on force-feeding birds for foie gras.

6. Banning the sale of foie gras will not jeopardize the economy of New York City since it is consumed by only a small percentage of New Yorkers.

7. The compassion/moral/ethical issues.

8. Please support the legislation to have the sale of foie gras banned in New York City.

Talking points for letters to Council Member Gerson:

1. I am part of a coalition of 110,000 New York City voters who make up the Humane Society of the United States, the League of Humane Voters of New York City, and Farm Sanctuary.

2. I want to thank you for your support of animal welfare causes. As a New York City voter, I am very excited that you are considering legislation that would ban the sale of foie gras in NYC.

3. As you know, the force-feeding of ducks to produce foie gras is cruel and inhumane. Scientific evidence supports this. (See Evidence of Suffering for details you can add.)

4. Over a dozen nations worldwide, including Israel, Germany, Italy, and the UK, either have banned foie gras or have legislation in place to outlaw the force-feeding of ducks.

5. The general public is aware of this issue. A March 2005 Zogby poll reported that four out of five New Yorkers are in favor of having foie gras banned. A May 2006 Zogby poll reported that 77% of New York voters support a ban on the force-feeding of birds for foie gras.

6. Thank you for considering introducing legislation to have the sale of foie gras banned in New York City.

Calling tips for Speaker Quinn:

1. As a New York City voter, I am concerned and disappointed that you are not in support of legislation to have the sale of foie gras banned in NYC.

2. I am part of a coalition of 110,000 New York City voters who are associated with the Humane Society of the United States, the League of Humane Voters of New York City, and Farm Sanctuary.

3. Volumes of scientific evidence prove that foie gras production is a cruel and barbaric practice.

4. Over a dozen nations worldwide, including Israel, Germany, Italy, and the UK, either have banned foie gras or have legislation in place to prohibit the force-feeding of ducks and geese. The state of California and the city of Chicago also have legislation in place to ban foie gras. Connecticut, New Jersey, and Philadelphia are also considering enacting similar legislation.

5. Please support legislation to have the sale of foie gras banned in New York City.

Calling tips for Council Member Alan Gerson:

1. I want to thank you for your support of animal welfare causes. As a New York City voter, I am very excited that you are considering legislation that would ban the sale of foie gras in NYC.

2. I am part of a coalition of 110,000 New York City voters who make up the Humane Society of the United States, the League of Humane Voters of New York City, and Farm Sanctuary.

3. As you know, the force-feeding of ducks to produce foie gras is cruel and inhumane. Scientific evidence supports this.

4. Over a dozen nations worldwide, including Israel, Germany, Italy, and the UK, either have banned foie gras or have legislation in place to outlaw the force-feeding of ducks.

5. Thank you for your time, and thank you for considering introducing legislation to have the sale of foie gras banned in New York City.

On Thursday, I went to Stand-up NY (kind of an unlikely venue) for a lecture by Dr. Michael Greger, for a presentation based on his new book, Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching.

The talk was both fascinating and terrifying. Did you know, for example, that all human infectious diseases are thought to have originated from animals—the flu from sheep, colds from horses—and that infectious diseases did not exist before humans started to domesticate animals? (In populations that hunt and eat wild animals, there are no such diseases.) Hence, a virus of our own hatching.

Some facts from the book:

“In 1918, half the world became infected and 25% of all Americans fell ill. Unlike the regular seasonal flu, which tends to kill only the elderly and infirm, the flu virus of 1918 killed those in the prime of life. Public health specialists at the time noted that most influenza victims were those who ‘had been in the best of physical condition and freest from previous disease.’

…The 1918 influenza pandemic killed more people in a single year than the bubonic plague (‘black death’) in the Middle Ages killed in a century. The 1918 virus killed more people in 25 weeks than AIDS has killed in 25 years. According to one academic reviewer, this ‘single, brief epidemic generated more fatalities, more suffering, and more demographic change in the United States than all the wars of the Twentieth Century.’ ”

The problem is, bird flu is going to be worse. And according to Dr. Greger and other experts, it’s a matter of when, not if:

“Because it’s happened before. Because an influenza pandemic in 1918 became the deadliest plague in human history, killing up to 100 million people around the world. Because the 1918 flu virus was likely a bird flu virus. Because that virus made more than a quarter of all Americans ill and killed more people in 25 weeks than AIDS has killed in 25 years—yet in 1918, the case mortality rate was less than 5%. H5N1, on the other hand, has officially killed half of its human victims.”

Thankfully, Dr. Greger didn’t hurl the ugly truth at us without also telling us what we could do to try to protect ourselves. You can find information on general preparedness here, as well as a checklist of supplies to have on hand.

Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching is due out later this month, but you can order it online now (the cost is $30, but all proceeds go to charity, though which one[s] Dr. Greger didn’t say). You can also download the book for free, and start stocking up on food, water, and medicine now.

The pot calling the not-quite-kettle black

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine came under fire recently for suing fast food chains like McDonald’s and Burger King for serving grilled chicken containing carcinogens. The slam came from the Center for Consumer Freedom, which calls PCRM a “phony ‘physicians’ group” who would “rather save lab rats than cure cancer and AIDS.”

In its pursuit of “truth,” the CCF has created websites like PhysicianScam.com, as well as FishScam.com and Trans-fat Facts.com, where it refutes information about the dangers of eating fish and trans-fats-containing foods—information it says has been fabricated by the “food police”—and promotes their consumption instead.

The group calls PCRM “animal rights zealots” and “radical animal rights activists.” And CCF’s director of research, David Martosko, used the lawsuits as an opportunity to scare people away from a plant-based diet: “The federal government and the American Cancer Society agree that there’s nothing dangerous about eating a chicken sandwich. But letting animal rights activists slowly force us into vegetarianism could be hazardous to everyone’s health. The last time I checked, Americans were getting sick from spinach, not grilled chicken.”

Right. While we’re all concerned about the E. coli contamination of spinach and lettuce, let’s not forget the source of that contamination: the manure of farmed cattle. (Now it’s thought that wild pigs could have spread the bacteria in the cow’s manure. A sensible conclusion since it does less harm to profits to cull wild animals than farmed ones…though now even wild boar are finding their way into someone’s wallet.)

As for the group’s claim that PCRM is not what it appears to be and that it has an ulterior motive for advocating vegetarianism and veganism, how about this: Richard Berman, who runs the Center for Consumer Freedom through his PR firm, Berman & Co., has served as a lobbyist for Steak & Ale Restaurants, and his company has ties to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Sutter Home Winery, Philip Morris (which owns Kraft Foods and Oscar Meyer), and, oh yeah, National Steak & Poultry. So it’s not surprising that CCF advocates eating chicken despite PCRM’s carcinogen-revealing tests. (Let’s not even discuss the fact that the 53rd death from bird flu just occurred in Indonesia, bringing the total to 148 deaths and 253 cases of bird flu worldwide.)

CCF’s motives for advocating a poultry- and meat-based diet are pretty clear. So what does PCRM gain from promoting a plant-based diet—apart from the health and welfare of humans and animals, of course? If the CCF is worried about conflicts of interest, it should focus instead on people like former FDA chief Lester M. Crawford, who, in addition to owning shares of Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, Medtronic, and Boston Scientific, had stock in Embrex, “an F.D.A.-regulated poultry biotechnology company where he formerly served as a director.” Crawford also had a stake in Pepsico, while he was chairman of an FDA “Obesity Working Group that among other tasks was reviewing calorie content labeling for soft drinks. At the time, prosecutors said, [he and his wife] held 1,400 shares of Pepsico worth at least $62,000, as well as 2,500 shares of Sysco, which specializes in supplying food to restaurants and institutions, worth at least $78,000.”

And what about our government, whose Beef Checkoff Program “was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.” Thanks to this program, beef sales are promoted at, for example, the restaurants of the TravelCenters of America chain—and this marketing actually qualifies as “government speech.” No blurring of boundaries there.

I’ve always found it mind-boggling that when organizations like PCRM work to protect human health and alleviate the suffering of other species, some group comes out of the woodwork to attribute nefarious motives to their actions. I guess that’s to be expected when you’re putting public health and interspecies welfare above profits. But then again, it’s not just profits they’re up against; it’s ignorance, too. A PETA campaign that equates feeding meat to kids with child abuse is getting a lot of flak (admittedly, the use of the term “child abuse” is pretty inflammatory). But here it’s doctors who are speaking out against the campaign, citing, among other reasons: “Meat is part of a healthy diet for growing children,” and “…it is irresponsible to—without qualification—discourage them from eating meat.”

Never mind beef’s fat content, and all those hormones and antibiotics. Or that there are other, healthier ways to get the necessary iron and protein. Or that a vegan diet may more effectively treat type 2 diabetes than even oral medications. I admit, there is one thing eating a plant-based diet won’t provide us with: mad cow disease. (And I’ll bet that the U.S.’s decision to run fewer tests for mad cow had nothing to do with the fact that Japan was preparing to resume importing beef from us.) And lest our salads get all the attention, more than 5,000 pounds of beef were recalled due to E. coli recently, following an earlier recall of several thousand pounds of meat as recently as August.

So to Berman and his CCF cohorts, I say, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Especially not carcinogen-laden ones, aimed at people who are working to promote the health of people and the planet instead of lining the meat and poultry industries’ pockets.

About 1 in 133 people has celiac disease, an inherited illness in which the lining of the small intestine is damaged upon consumption of wheat, barley, or rye (whether oats are also off limits is up for debate). But because the symptoms are so common (stomachaches, constipation, diarrhea, and fatigue, among others), celiac can be difficult to diagnose. In an effort to raise awareness, October has been designated Celiac Awareness Month.

Of course, having celiac or even just being gluten-intolerant can be that much more complicated if you’re also vegan—goodbye, seitan and wheat protein! Even if you’d be willing to suffer the intestinal upset for some mock meat every once in a while, consider this: Researchers are now tying celiac to dementia and other forms of cognitive decline. (McDonald’s was sued for not disclosing all the ingredients in its french fries, which were found to contain gluten as well as casein, which exacerbated the condition of an autistic boy.) The good news is, tests at the Mayo Clinic have shown that following a gluten-free diet may help counteract these consequences. The bad news is, following a gluten-free vegan diet can be a real pain in the ass. But it can be done.

For the lazy or time-pressed among us, there are actually burgers we can keep in the freezer: three varieties of Sunshine Burgers, to be exact. (They’re soy-free, too, for those of us who also can’t tolerate soy.) Enjoy Life products are free of the common allergens, and all of the Road’s End Organics products are vegan, and many are wheat- or gluten-free—their Mac & Chreese, for example, is made from brown rice, and you can use rice milk to make the sauce. The new Dippy Chick Company, started by a woman who is gluten-intolerant, as are her children, sells only gluten-free dip mixes, many of which are vegan. And if you’re feeling Betty Crockery, you can make yourself some yummy Brownie Bites, though I prefer to let someone else do the baking and stock up whenever I’m in the vicinity of Babycakes or grab some gluten-free Nana’s No’s from the health food store.

If you need more ideas, you can find gluten-free vegan recipes online, or try out the cookbooks A Taste of Vitality and Desserts of Vitality, both of which are completely vegan and contain almost entirely gluten-free recipes. Oh, and if you discover any amazing new gluten-free vegan resources or know of any I’ve neglected to mention, please let me know!

Total Cholesterol at 128 = Awesome!

I’m fresh out of my doc’s office with a steaming copy of my health report. My doc had this to say:

Your cholesterol levels are amazing. Wow, it’s impressive. Just great! Everything’s great! Wow!

Now, I should mention that she repeated the “Your cholesterol levels are amazing, wow” part about 3 times.

The Mayo Clinic says it is “desirable” for total cholesterol levels to be below 200 mg/dL – mine is 128; LDL (bad) cholesterol levels are “optimal” when under 70 mg/dL – I scored 59; HDL (good) cholesterol levels are “best” at 60 – I scored exactly 60; and triglycerides are “desirable” when under 150 mg/dL, mine is 43.

How come they don’t have “awesome” as a category? I’d totally rawk that! These numbers show that I have a super duper low risk of heart disease – all thanks to all the yummy vegan goodies I eat that no one had to suffer for!!

I propose that folks with total cholesterol levels of less than 160 mg/dL should be granted a “You’re Like Vegan Awesome” honor and anything more than that should be categorized as “Isn’t It Time You Go Vegan?” and the folks should be given this handy heart disease and cholesterol fact sheet from PCRM.

Now, how do I go about campaigning for that?

Does this image upset you? It should.

The southwestern Chinese county of Mouding massacred at least 54,429 dogs this week, ostensably to prevent the spread of rabies.

Roadblocks were set up to prevent anyone leaving with dogs. People were offered about 63¢ to kill their dogs, or they could wait for the authorities to come and beat them to death on the spot. I guess I can see why some people opted to electrocute their own animals and take the money.

Even China’s famously fascist official news sources think this was a bad thing:

The official newspaper Legal Daily blasted the killings as an “extraordinarily crude, cold-blooded and lazy way for the government to deal with epidemic disease.”

“Wiping out the dogs shows these government officials didn’t do their jobs right in protecting people from rabies in the first place,” the newspaper, published by the central government’s Politics and Law Committee, said in an editorial in its online edition.

PETA has called for a boycott of Chinese goods, and has cancelled $300,000 worth of orders.

You can (and should) contact China’s Ambassador to the U.S. to register your disgust and to advocate for sensible rabies prevention:
His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong
Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
Tel: (202) 328-2574
Fax: (202) 328-2582

For the full story, here’s a long version from the AP or a shorter recap from the BBC. (Thanks to reader Fran Savarick for letting us know about this.)

A recent story covered by CBS News (as well as many other mainstream outlets) reveals that a vegan diet may be better than currently prescribed medications at treating diabetes. The study compared the American Diabetes Association recommended diet to a low-fat vegan diet.

From the study:

Researchers found 43 percent of people with type 2 diabetes who followed a low-fat vegan diet for 22 weeks reduced their need to take medications to manage their disease compared with 26 percent of those who followed the diet recommended by the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

Not surprisingly, the vegan diet also reduced cholesterol and led to greater weight loss than the ADA diet. Many SuperVegan readers are probably already familiar with the work of Neal D. Barnard, MD who is the president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the group behind the study.

Commenting on the study, Dr. Barnard said, “I hope this study will rekindle interest in using diet changes first, rather than prescription drugs.”

Sarah’s got a gun

Speaking of BSE, a new indie film called Mad Cowgirl is now playing at Two Boots’ Pioneer Theater in the East Village tonight and Monday, July 31 at 9pm. Check the website to see when it comes to your city.

Seeing films at the Pioneer is always fun because you can bring Two Boots vegan pizza from their parlor with you, but perhaps you’d like to read the synopsis before you bring in that slice. (Taken from the SF IndieFest program notes):

Sarah Lassez (NOWHERE, THE BLACKOUT, UNTIL THE NIGHT) delivers a star-making performance as Therese, an ass-kicking health inspector with a failed marriage, an on-going affair with a creepy televangelist, nymphomania, and an obsession with old kung-fu movies. Further complicating her life is a very questionable relationship with her brother Thierry (James Duval from THE DOOM GENERATION and DONNIE DARKO), a meat importer who may (or may not) have infected her with mad cow disease.

MAD COWGIRL is practically impossible to describe, but it’s a Narrative – Experimental – Art – Comedy – Horror – Tragedy – Kung Fu epic that features multiple languages, a little hardcore porn, a flying guillotine, the old ultraviolence and Walter Koenig (Cmdr. Pavel Chekov) as a slimy sex-addicted preacher. Great Scott!

It could also be described as a film about a woman who is dying of a brain disorder, and her surreal journey which descends into violence; or perhaps, it’s about a woman who hates her job, and the men in her life, so she is driven to kill the Ten Tigers From Kwangtung.

Sounds fun, huh? I haven’t seen it yet, but the reviews are great. NY Times writes, “Wickedly funny…Be warned: This movie is likely to turn even the most devoted meat eater into a vegetarian.” And San Francisco Bay Guardian hails the film as “a truly unusual kind of chaos even vegans can appreciate.” (I’ll assume they mean that tenderly.)

In a brilliant move, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided to decrease the number of cows being tested for BSE by about 90%. This after new cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy were discovered here this year and last.

Currently, only about 1% of the cattle that are killed each year so that our fellow Americans can nosh on cheeseburgers are tested. That’s about 1,000 tests a day. Once the reduction is in place—and only 10% of the cattle being raised for food are being tested—that number will come down to 110. But why worry? According to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, “Because of progressive steps taken by the U.S. government over the past 15 years, all U.S. beef is safe from BSE.”

By contrast, the Consumers Union says that the “USDA is playing Russian roulette with public health.” Maybe that’s because the U.S. continues to import cows from Canada, where the seventh case of BSE has been discovered. (The poor cow was young, pregnant, and a downer.) And maybe because once cows have been slaughtered and their flesh sold, the remains are used in feed—for pigs and chickens.

Downers were banned from human consumption in the U.S. after the first case of mad cow was discovered, in December 2003. Cows that are sick or injured could have BSE, so the reduction in testing, coupled with the fact that new secretary of agriculture Mike Johanns is also considering allowing some downed cattle back into the human food supply, is bad news for everyone.

Even more outrageous, the government wants to prohibit Creekstone Farms from voluntarily testing its cows for BSE. You’d think the fact that Japan is ready to reopen its doors to U.S. beef (lifting a 2003 ban that resulted from the first mad cow discovery) would make the USDA rethink its recent brainstorms.

Tell the USDA not to reduce the number of cows being tested for BSE and not to allow downed cattle back into the food supply. If they’re going to continue to slaughter animals just because people like the way they taste, they should protect downed cows from further injury and pain, and they can make at least a meager attempt to protect public health.

The Humane Society of the United States has taken a novel approach to getting foie gras banned in New York State: It has asked the Department of Agriculture and Markets to apply a section of the law that forbids the sale of diseased animals or organs intended for human consumption.

The law is usually applied to rotten or mislabeled beef, but how could the agriculture commissioner not find livers that balloon up to 10 times their normal size and no longer function as they should free from disease? Not to mention that many of the ducks and geese who are force-fed with pipes two to three times a day to create this “delicacy” bleed to death as a result of puncture wounds.

While France is the largest producer of foie gras in the world, New York State produces the greatest amount in North America, so the ban would be a huge blow to the industry and a huge victory for the birds. And we’d be in good company. In September 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill banning the production and sale of foie gras in California starting in 2012. And in April, Chicago became the first city to ban the sale of foie gras.

If you’re a New Yorker, ask your state legislators to ban the force-feeding of birds for foie gras. (Check out pending legislation in other states here.) And tell Governor Pataki to stop using taxpayer dollars to subsidize factory farmers like Hudson Valley Foie Gras—who have also taken it upon themselves to commit hundreds of environmental violations.

How now, brown cow?

On Saturday, artist Zoe Birrell’s newest work debuted at the Glasgow School of Art’s “Degree Show.” Inspired by the horrendous lot of dairy cows—who are kept continuously pregnant and have their calves taken from them almost immediately—as well as by society’s treatment of women, the vegan artist took her body weight in chocolate and used it to create 420 cows. According to Birrell, “The fact that I am creating an entirely female herd is not a coincidence, as this herd is the result of the exploitation of another animal’s sexuality.”

Of course, the chocolate is vegan (using fair trade cacao from a company that supports women’s rights), donated by Plamil Foods. Three hundred of the cows will be sold to the public, with the money going to rescue and care for a dairy cow and to fund similar projects in the future.

Birrell’s work is being shown on the heels of reports of new cases of mad cow disease in the U.S., which officials are saying may have “spontaneously” appeared. Haven’t they figured out yet that when you keep pushing nature, eventually nature pushes back?

Albert Einstein told us, “The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Until we learn that animals are not commodities for us to do with as we please, until we learn that that they are unique, precious, sentient beings with a right to live as nature, not man, intended, we will suffer the consequences. And unfortunately, so will the animals.

Until then, do what you can to help: Continue to eat vegan, tell the people around you why they should avoid dairy products and veal, and lay off the leather.

A lab in Iowa recently opened its normally locked doors to reporters for a tour of the “only internationally recognized bird flu testing program.”

While it may be comforting to think that public health and safety is being monitored, has animal testing become so acceptable that we no longer need to hide it? That, not only is it okay to mention such practices in an article—and to include a picture of the test-subjects-to-be—but to discuss it in the lede?

Maybe I’m reading what I want to here, but I sense that the writer of the piece is disturbed by what he or she saw and feels compassion for the poor sacrificial birds. One can only hope.

With a bird flu pandemic looming, the rush to find ways to contain the H5N1 virus and to develop treatments and vaccines is on. In more ways than one, animals are paying the price.

To prevent the spread of the disease, infected birds are summarily destroyed. I hate to think about animals being put down for any reason, but gassing, which renders animals unconscious first, appears to be one of the more humane methods. In the event of a true pandemic, however, it’s considered too time-consuming and, particularly on farms housing larger numbers of birds, to require too much manpower.

An unfortunate alternative is suffocation. Though it has stated that suffocation would be used only under exigent circumstances, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the U.K. has passed an amendment to the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995 that would allow the air supply in poultry houses to be cut, causing birds to perish due to “lack of oxygen, overheating and the effects of the disease.” According to Philip Lymbery, chief executive of Compassion in World Farming, “…death through ventilation shutdown is likely to be protracted and cause terrible suffering. We believe that this method is potentially so inhumane that it should not be used even as a last resort.”

On the prevention front, a promising vaccine, developed by Vical Inc., is being tested on mice and ferrets. I find it hard to be happy about a preventive for humans that comes with a price tag of suffering and death for animals, especially when animal testing hasn’t been shown to accurately predict human reactions. And you have to assume that drug manufacturers know this is the case when they say their findings “suggest” efficacy in humans—and that’s when taken in conjunction with the results of other studies.

As a treatment, the antiviral Tamiflu is proving to be effective. Unfortunately, these results are also being borne out in tests on ferrets. And yet the question at the heart of the study—the amount and length of treatment needed should the virus mutate so that it can be transmitted from person to person—remains unanswered.

As far as I’m concerned, the only question that needs answering when it comes to animal testing is: How many animals have to suffer and die so that we don’t?