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http://www.cynical-c.com/archives/cat_food.html
http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2007/04/26/what_do_300_calorie_meals_look_like.php
Death by Veganism
http://supervegan.com/blog/entry.php?id=864
nothing as pathetic as true believers of inteligent design
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Schmevolution
My son is in his second year of college. One of the courses he’s currently studying is Biology with the focus on evolution from anatomical, developmental, geological, mathematical, and molecular perspectives. Just out of curiosity, I asked him the other day whether he’d ever heard anything about “Intelligent Design.” He looked at me with a puzzled expression. “Uh… No. What’s that?” he asked. So I gave him a brief overview of the so-called alternative theory. “That’s insane,” he said.
“Hey, that’s nothing,” I told him. “Would you believe that 40 percent of Americans believe in Creationism and think the world is only 6,000 years old?” He looked completely baffled. “You’re shitting me” was his incredulous reaction, before angrily sputtering off a series of contradictory facts about the fossil record, dinosaurs, geological strata and so on. “I know, I know…” I said. Then I pointed out that these folks actually believed that the Grand Canyon was the result of the Great Flood described in the Bible. “Ugh,” he sighed, “you can’t be serious.” And his final reaction really cracked me up, “Really…? Where the hell do they learn that stupid shit? They don’t teach that in school down there do they? Do they…? What a bunch of idiots!”
Update: Thanks Rich for the cartoon
http://redtory.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html
http://yaozhang.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html
http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/2005_08_16-31_archives.html
A:
Pornography.. (hehe... I wasn't about to put a naked woman..)
b:
Monday, November 06, 2006
Rootsie
Did you know singlish is has its variants?
Check this out from wikipedia:
The English language in Singapore is a sociolect continuum. The continuum runs through the following varieties:
Acrolectal: This is the "highest-class" form of speech, used by the well-educated in formal situations. Acrolectal Singaporean English is roughly the same as formal British English, with the exception of some pronunciation differences that occur due to the influence of Singlish pronunciation. Acrolectal Singaporean English does exhibit, however, a much smaller degree of Singlish pronunciation features than do Mesolectal, Basilectal, and pidgin variants of Singlish. For example, speakers of acrolectal Singaporean English attempt to restore the phonemes /θ/ and /ð/ (as in thin and then).
Mesolectal: This is more "middle-class", and is used in formal and semi-formal situations. At this level, features not found in other forms of English begin to emerge.
Basilectal: This is the colloquial speech used by almost everyone, educated or not, in informal settings, and is the speech usually referred to as "Singlish". Here can be found all of the unique phonological, lexical, and grammatical features of Singlish. Many of these features can be attributed to Asian languages such as the Chinese languages, Malay, or Indian languages such as Tamil, though some cannot.
Pidgin: This is the "pidgin" level of Singlish, which is probably a good representative of an earlier stage of Singlish, before creolization took place and solidified Singlish as a fully formed creole. Like all pidgins, speakers at the pidgin level speak another language as a first language, and Singlish as a second language. However, since many people today learn Singlish natively, the number of speakers at the "pidgin" level of Singlish is dwindling. This is because by definition, a pidgin is not learned natively.
Anyway, You've gotta watch this:
Ruby Pan was featured in a Talking Cock session in Parliment and I immediately warmed to her humor and demeanour.What impresses me most is people who can switch accents - I'm just as good with that as a
cloth umbrella repelling rain..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCsZdbfBuSY
(note: Winston, did you meet her? she's also in MOE)
1
Death By Veganism From the NY Times Op Ed:
I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant,
I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible.
You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on
foods from plants. Indigenous cuisines offer clues
about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive,
reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in
India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete
protein, essential fats and vitamins.
There are no vegan societies for a simple reason:
a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run.
Protein deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies.
Nutritionists used to speak of proteins as â first class
(from meat, fish, eggs and milk) and second class (from plants),
but today this is considered denigrating to vegetarians. The fact remains,
though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals and tubers,
because they contain all the essential amino acids needed for life in the
right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which are inferior in
quantity and quality even soy.
Posted by Chris at 2:08 PM Comments (13)
1.
Death by Veganism
http://images.google.com/images?q=Death+by+Veganism+&btnG=Search+Images&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en
2
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/opinion/21planck.html?ex=1337400000&en=
37878847a13bd4bc&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
Op-Ed Contributor
Death by Veganism
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By NINA PLANCK
Published: May 21, 2007
Correction Appended
WHEN Crown Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds. His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty.
Skip to next paragraph
Jacob Magraw-Mickelson
This particular calamity — at least the third such conviction of vegan parents in four years — may be largely due to ignorance. But it should prompt frank discussion about nutrition.
I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.
Indigenous cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run.
Protein deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies. Nutritionists used to speak of proteins as “first class” (from meat, fish, eggs and milk) and “second class” (from plants), but today this is considered denigrating to vegetarians.
The fact remains, though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals and tubers, because they contain all the essential amino acids needed for life in the right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which are inferior in quantity and quality — even soy.
A vegan diet may lack vitamin B12, found only in animal foods; usable vitamins A and D, found in meat, fish, eggs and butter; and necessary minerals like calcium and zinc. When babies are deprived of all these nutrients, they will suffer from retarded growth, rickets and nerve damage.
Responsible vegan parents know that breast milk is ideal. It contains many necessary components, including cholesterol (which babies use to make nerve cells) and countless immune and growth factors. When breastfeeding isn’t possible, soy milk and fruit juice, even in seemingly sufficient quantities, are not safe substitutes for a quality infant formula.
Yet even a breast-fed baby is at risk. Studies show that vegan breast milk lacks enough docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, the omega-3 fat found in fatty fish. It is difficult to overstate the importance of DHA, vital as it is for eye and brain development.
A vegan diet is equally dangerous for weaned babies and toddlers, who need plenty of protein and calcium. Too often, vegans turn to soy, which actually inhibits growth and reduces absorption of protein and minerals. That’s why health officials in Britain, Canada and other countries express caution about soy for babies. (Not here, though — perhaps because our farm policy is so soy-friendly.)
Historically, diet honored tradition: we ate the foods that our mothers, and their mothers, ate. Now, your neighbor or sibling may be a meat-eater or vegetarian, may ferment his foods or eat them raw. This fragmentation of the American menu reflects admirable diversity and tolerance, but food is more important than fashion. Though it’s not politically correct to say so, all diets are not created equal.
An adult who was well-nourished in utero and in infancy may choose to get by on a vegan diet, but babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol and fish oil. Children fed only plants will not get the precious things they need to live and grow.
Nina Planck is the author of “Real Food: What to Eat and Why.”
Correction: June 8, 2007
An Op-Ed article on May 21, about veganism, mischaracterized an aspect of traditional vegetarian Indian diets. Generally, these diets are lacto-vegetarian; they do not include eggs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/opinion/21planck.html?ex=1337400000&en=37878847a13bd4bc&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
Death by Veganism http://supervegan.com/blog/entry.php?id=864
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http://gl.wordpress.com/tag/vegetarianism/
« Promoting Democracy: A Literature ReviewScott Wells on Good Food (Food Post II) »Over at Trivium: More on Ethical Eating (Food Post I)
Posted by Elizabeth on May 25th, 2007
Over at Trivium, Jaime Goodwin writes about how annoying he finds it that most of the food at church events is dull - that is, vegetarian or vegan, and that he feels like those who make this food are saying that they are better somehow better. He notes that “he has a hard time with the ethical eating concept.” It was interesting for me to read, given that I am working on a post that responds to the New York Times op-ed piece irresponsibly titled “Death By Veganism” and I’ve been thinking a lot about these questions lately. (More on the NYTimes article very soon.)
I appreciated Jaime’s post - it gives me pause to reflect on the way I go about my life and how I can most lovingly and gently share my excitement about the potential for veganism in terms of compassion for animals and environmental friendliness, while at the same time bend over backward to be non-judgmental and empathetic to the choices and trade-offs we all make in doing our best to live out a life that balances high ethical standards with the realities of life in today’s world.
A few thoughts:
Jaimie writes:
Again.. my respect for another’s beliefs is why I have such a hard time with Ethical Eating as a concept. To me the concept is this… I made a choice to eat a certain way, I like my choice, now I am going to point out that everyone else who has not yet made this choice that they are not as good of a Unitarian Universalist as I am. I care more about Health and the environment than they do, and my life has become much better than theirs because of this choice.
What? You say… you do not mean to send this message? I believe you. I know that you do not MEAN to send this message, but you are sending it… to me. I would imagine to others as well.
This relates to a dilemma for vegans and vegetarians. Granted, there are some that are over-zealous and who literally do say, “I care more about health and the environment than [meat-eaters], and my life has become much better than theirs because of this choice.” But I think most don’t say this or think this. It seems to me that the very fact of being vegetarian or vegan is often understood to send the message that other ways of eating are not adequate or good enough. But, when I foster kittens, no one understand this to mean that they should foster kittens or are bad because they don’t help stray animals. Or when I drive a fuel efficient car and tell people how much I like it, this isn’t interpreted as meaning that they should drive a Scion or feel bad about the car they drive. Yet, these are the exact reasons that I am vegan (or, more honestly, an almost-vegan) - the desire for animals not to suffer and the environment. As I have asked before, is there no way to share my excitement about veganism or the benefits I see to it (like I do with kitten rescuing or fuel-efficient car-driving) without it being interpreted as judgemental? I ask this just to point out that it is a difficult balance, and that all of us on every side should be understanding about the difficulty in balancing this and how food and food choices go very deep, no matter what our choices are.
As I have noted before, to me, my vegetarianism/veganism is one way that I try to live out the values that are important to me - care for the environment, love of animals and the desire that they not suffer. BUT, I do SO MANY not good things or not good enough things. I drive too much. I fly too much (especially bad). I use a hair-dryer too much. A clothes dryer too much. Too many paper towels. Don’t buy enough local food. Could foster more cats. Could volunteer more. The list goes on. To me, vegetarianism/veganism is where I feel like I am able to make a difference. But it is just one way to make the world a better place. It is the way I do it. Others do it their own way. I think we need to both call each other to be our best selves - to do our best - and yet understand that we are all struggling along in this world together, doing the best we can. It is a hard balance. We don’t always all get it right. I guess what I hope is that I can do my part in sharing vegetarianism/veganism as one option, while also making clear that it is just one option and that we need to all support each other in a range of choices we make, particularly as a faith community.
Jaime also writes, “personally I think vegan eating is dangerous and unhealthy.” I will address this in my post on the NYTimes Op-Ed piece on veganism, but I just hate it when people don’t want me to judge their food choices, and then go and judge mine. A well-planned vegan diet is neither dangerous or unhealthy. There are many studies that confirm this. Many examples of healthy vegans. Just like any diet, vegan diets need to be well-planned. There is quite a bit of evidence that meat-heavy diets can be very unhealthy. If you eat all steak and eggs and bacon and whole milk and fried potatoes, you are going to be in trouble. Just like if you drink only soy milk, eat potato chips, drink pepsi, eat cashews, and cucumbers for your vegan diet.
But more on all this later.
In short, thanks for your honest post, Trivium. Vegetarians and vegans out there! Try to be FRIENDLY, LOVING and EMPATHETIC. Maybe I’ll start a FLEUNJVV movement - friendly, loving, empatheic, understanding, non-judgemental vegetarians and vegans…
This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2007 at 11:27 pm and is filed under commenting on another blog, food, veganism, vegetarianism. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
11 Responses to “Over at Trivium: More on Ethical Eating (Food Post I)”
juffie Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 12:06 am
I respect your post and your position. But to get the feeling your correspondent was trying to get across … you foster kittens, but do not mean to imply nor demand that others foster kittens too. Fine. But many UU congregations I know intimately (having served them as minister) insist that all food at potlucks and church meals be vegetarian (at least), and even mainly vegan. No meat, fish, eggs or cheese, at least. On the grounds that “everyone can eat this” (which actually is not strictly true, or at least ideal, for those of us who need protein and are allergic to nuts and beans). It comes across sort of like saying all are welcome at this church, we’ll provide you a kitten while you’re here, if you’re not already fostering one. If you see what I mean.
Foster Children » Over at Trivium: More on Ethical Eating Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 1:58 am
[…] post by elizabeth199 Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and […]
jsbogh Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 8:22 am
elizabeth199,
You explained very well the dilemma many veg*ns feel. Great post!
lydia Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 8:44 am
E, I, as you know, have no problem with what anyone wants to eat, anywhere, short of people wanting to eat people. One thing that bothers me is the title, “Ethical Eating.” Ethics are today’s version of “family values” in the ’90s. Everyone has their own personal set. To imply that one person or group’s ethics are above another person or group’s is easy to do, but it’s ridiculous, to me. Little “e” ethics are a personal thing. Codified, big E, Ethics are something else entirely. A company’s Ethics Standard is an example. Then, really, those Ethics change from ethics to rules.
I know this sounds clear as mud, and I’ve gone round and round with some people trying to explain what I mean. But, it comes down to the idea that I eat according to my ethics, which are questionable, at best! You eat according to your ethics. People in non-western countries that feast on delicacies like hissing cockroaches and animal penises that most Americans find disgusting are eating according to their ethics. No one is right and no one is wrong, in my opinion, but there are definite things that I’m not willing to eat or refrain from eating.
Just for further argument’s sake, you say:
As I have noted before, to me, my vegetarianism/veganism is one way that I try to live out the values that are important to me - care for the environment, love of animals and the desire that they not suffer.
Does this not suggest, whether you mean it to or not (and I’m sure you don’t), that care for the environment and love for animals must not be important to those that eat meat? I think maybe that’s where some people get their hackles up.
I’m sure that it’s difficult to balance your excitement so as not to appear judgmental, but I think it has to start with truly caring only about what you can control…how you eat.
Does any of this make sense? It’s Saturday and I don’t think so clearly on Saturdays.
elizabeth199 Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Hi everyone. Thanks for the comments. Juffie, I completely see your point about “It comes across sort of like saying all are welcome at this church, we’ll provide you a kitten while you’re here, if you’re not already fostering one. If you see what I mean.” In fact, you have in fact convinced me that churches should not make a “vegetarian only” rule unless there is 100% support of the church body. I do think it is fine to encourage vegetarian food, just like we encourage people to drink fairly traded coffee (and serve it at church). Increasingly, I am convinced that vegetarians/vegans have done more harm to the movement (with really the best of intentions) by being over zealous. Like I tell people, no matter how right you think you are and might even be, if it pisses people off and makes them think vegetarians/vegans are crazy, it is of no good to animals, or the environment.
Lydia, again, thanks for your response. I hear what you are saying. I think it should be ethical eating with a little e. And I agree, when I say “As I have noted before, to me, my vegetarianism/veganism is one way that I try to live out the values that are important to me - care for the environment, love of animals and the desire that they not suffer” it does imply the animal based diets are more harmful for the environment and cause more animals to suffer. Just like when I drive my car, it is more harmful to the environment than when I walk. It is not a judgment on other people, but just the reality of how things work. It takes more energy and causes more pollution for a car than a bike. For a hamburger than a tomato. There is less animal suffering with a cucumber than a chicken sandwich. But, that said, it is just my way of addressing the things I am concerned about. Other people have other ways of doing it. It is not a judgment on people’s personhood at all. That said, I do wish more people would do more of a range of environmentally responsible things. Vegetarianism is one option. Or buying locally. Or recycling. Or driving smaller cars or driving less. Vegetarianism isn’t the mecca of all things good. But more people in the world do need to be more gentle on our earth or else we are going to be in trouble. So I guess that is where my judgment might come in - in thinking people should be making some sort of effort, even if it means driving the SUV less.
elizabeth199 Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Lydia, I did mean to say of course that you make wonderful sense! Looking forward to seeing you next weekend. E
Scott Wells (Boy in the Bands) Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Thanks for following up on the NY Times piece: I thought it was a lop-sided hatchet job.
Ms. Theologian Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I keep wondering where these vegetarian food UU church potlucks are….
elizabeth199 Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 11:21 am
I hear that, Ms. Theo. I’ve heard about this through the grapevine, but never actually encountered one! Would be
great (at least for someone always worried about “can i eat this” or “can i eat that”. :)
Jamie Goodwin Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Hi Elizabeth, thanks for the link!
Actually… I really don’t think Veganism is dangerous unless taken to an extreme, no more dangerous than a lot of other diets that is.
My point in that sentence was if I think that, it would be wrong of my to start a movement within UUism,
lets say I called in “Intelligent Eating” that implied that only people who ate a diet consisting of meat were intelligent.
lydia Says:
May 26th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
I do wish more people would do more of a range of environmentally responsible things.
A-[expletive]-men.
http://gl.wordpress.com/tag/vegetarianism/
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http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Jiangsu/Taizhou/Taizhou-Teachers-College/blog-158965.html
chicken head soup
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=chicken+head+soup&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
Giuliani Gets Exposed As Fraud by Firefighters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaCYEEO-58I&eurl=
http%3A%2F%2Fcharlesmingus%2Eprojektvermittler%
2Ede%2Fenter%2D%2D%5F399%2Ehtml%3FPHPSESS
ID%3D284d3c48a8179ab68b8e99f0d59d274d
http://www.chineseartshow.com
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070715065942AAH8Spd
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