Meat is on the defensive

Today I ate and much enjoyed a hamburger for lunch (it was grass-fed beef, the restaurant said).   I eat burgers about once every two weeks, and I eat chicken quite often. Once in a while someone will offer me a processed meat like hot dogs or bacon, and eat that sort of food about once a month.  I don't buy pork or order it at a restaurant, but if it is offered to me by a host, though, I will gladly eat it. Two years ago I decided that pork would be a meat that I didn't eat, after seeing and hearing a truck full of squealing pigs being taken to slaughter in the middle of Springfield, Illinois.  I eat fake meat about once per week: I typically use the popular brands of veggie burgers and fake sausage sold at the grocery story (such as Morningstar's "burger" patties and "sausage" links).  If you haven't seen these products cooked up, here are some photos. At bottom, I enjoy eating meat, but I'm an ambivalent meat eater, and that ambivalence has been made all the worse with two recent articles I've recently read. One of the articles is by Neal Barnard, M.D., who brings this bad news:

At least 58 scientific studies have looked at the issue, and the jury has rendered its verdict, which is now beyond reasonable doubt. The more hot dogs people eat, the higher their risk of colorectal cancer. And it's not just hot dogs. Any sort of processed meat -- bacon, sausage, ham, deli slices -- is in this group. And here are the numbers: Every 50 grams of processed meat you eat on a daily basis (that's about one hot dog) increases your risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent. And just as there is no safe level of smoking, no amount of hot dogs, bacon, sausage, ham or other processed meats comes out clean in scientific studies.
I'd like to know more about this study, but if this is accurate, it gives me serious pause about eating hot dogs and other processed food. The other bad news comes from the Environmental Working Group, which warns of the harsh environmental impact of eating meat. Check out the damage caused by meat-eating in the at-a-glance brochure. There is a lot more information here. These brochures also mention studies indicating that high rates of meat eating are associated with high rates of cancer and heart disease. If you'd like to take the first step to cut back on meat eating for yourself and for the planet, here's an easy way to start: Meatless Mondays.

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Is sugar a poison?

An article by Robert Lustig about the dangers of sugar is drawing a lot of traffic at the NYT. Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. Lustig repeatedly charaterizes sugar as

a “toxin” or a “poison,” terms he uses together 13 times through the course of the lecture, in addition to the five references to sugar as merely “evil.” And by “sugar,” Lustig means not only the white granulated stuff that we put in coffee and sprinkle on cereal — technically known as sucrose — but also high-fructose corn syrup, which has already become without Lustig’s help what he calls “the most demonized additive known to man.”

. . .

Sugar is not just an empty calorie, he says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.” If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them.

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From animal to food

I eat meat. Not as often as most people, but I eat meat at least several times a week, mostly chicken, but occasionally a hamburger. I rarely eat pork. Over the years, It has sometimes occurred to me that in order to eat meat I had an obligation to fully understand how a live animal is turned into food. With that as the background, this was the perfect video for me. As the creator of this video states, this is "a good story about a proud butcher open to teaching his trade, and a story I felt compelled to share with many others, like me, who didn’t want to be disconnected to their food any longer." This is a story narrated by "Larry Althiser, the owner and head meat cutter for Larry’s Custom Meats in Hartwick, NY, a small farming community in the Northern Catskills." This is not a video about factory farming. The video is direct and graphic, but it is also honest and informative.

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Farmers preemptively sue Monsanto

Monsanto is notorious for suing farmers whose fields have been contaminated by patented Monsanto seed blowing over onto their fields. This infuriating issue was discussed in the documentary, Food, Inc. Now a group of farmers is collectively fighting back, suing Monsanto to protect themselves from being sued by Monsanto. The issue has been reported by the Cornucopia Institute:

This case asks whether Monsanto has the right to sue organic farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto’s transgenic seed or pollen should land on their property,” said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT’s [Public Patent Foundation]. Executive Director. “It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement, so we had to act to protect the interests of our clients.
What is the Cornucopia Institute?
The Cornucopia Institute will engage in educational activities supporting the ecological principles and economic wisdom underlying sustainable and organic agriculture. Through research and investigations on agricultural issues, The Cornucopia Institute will provide needed information to consumers, family farmers, and the media.

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