In 2014, Time Magazine featured a cover photo with a curled pat of butter and the headline, “Eat Butter. Scientist label fat the enemy. Why they were wrong.” First of all, anytime science is called into question I am highly skeptical. Science just doesn’t work that way. One researcher’s findings cannot cancel out the evidence … More Butter Is Not Better: Saturated Fat Is a Danger to Health
A new study, just published in Science Magazine, came to the conclusion that has been obvious since John Robbins first published his book, Diet for a New America, in 1987. The researchers concluded that plant based substitutes for meat and dairy products would significantly lower our impact on the environment. The facts are clear enough. … More A Call for Heroes
It is no longer fresh news that 206 million eggs have been recalled due to a recent Salmonella outbreak. The news came as no surprise, anyway. We all know that eggs carry a high risk of this nasty disease. Eggs do, after all, emerge from a chicken’s cloaca which is the same opening that the … More Not Eggs-actly Safe: Salmonella Threat Is Just the Beginning
Socrates famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Perhaps the greater part of that is because we cannot live mindlessly without inflicting great harm. Most recently, I have become mindful of the impact my consumption of meat has had on my fellow humans. I’ve learned that meat is one of the primary industries … More Killing For A Living: The Traumatic Effects of Slaughterhouse Work on Home and Community
I have always been an animal lover. Yet, for most of my life, I have also been a meat eater. While some people can live with this contradiction, I often felt the stress of my ethical dilemma. Yet, for most of my life I was able to compartmentalize those concerns. I have even been hypocritical … More The Brutal Business of Slaughter: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder As a Hidden Cost of Meat
Like you, I am concerned about the resurgence of slavery in the world today. The globalization of the market has made the practice more lucrative, and made it all the more difficult to know when my purchases might have contributed to this heinous practice. The last thing I want to do is leave a legacy … More Slaves Labor to Feed Our Lust for Meat
People are dying. Nations throughout the world are finding it hard to feed their populations. According to UNICEF, “Every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation. Usually it is a child under the age of 5.” In our modern day world in which food is so plentiful that nearly half of our produce, so called … More Getting Beyond Meat to Save the Hungry Children
Wildlife is dying on our watch. Future generations, assuming anyone survives to judge us, will hold us culpable for the extinction of such iconic creatures as the Siberian Tiger, the Leatherback Sea Turtle, and the Monarch Butterfly. How can we justify to those future generations that we wasted our time on distractions like watching television, … More Curbing the Extinction Crisis
Recent research has confirmed what many gardeners already suspected, that working in the soil makes you happier. A particular bacteria in the soil (Mycobacterium vaccae) triggers the release of serotonin in the brain—a natural anti-depressant. That is just one of the many rewards that we receive from nurturing rich garden loam. Garden loam is composed … More Spoiling Our Soil: Animal Agriculture and Desertification
When we think about conserving our rivers, streams and lakes, we don’t usually think of livestock as a major issue. Surely the reason that our waterways are polluted has to do with industrial waste, and not animal waste. But the truth is that our appetite for meat is the leading cause of damage to our … More Dead Zones: How Animal Agriculture Is Killing Our Waterways
Fires have been raging across the western part of North America. We’ve experienced drought conditions for several years, and the hot dry weather of this last summer caused British Columbia to suffer through the worst fire season they’ve ever seen. According to the Missoulian, the Missouri fires have been the worst in decades. The mayor … More Our Drought Inducing Diet
Soy has been implicated (along with beef, palm oil and the extraction of wood) as one of the four major drivers of deforestation worldwide. That may be a little disheartening to those of us who substitute soy products for meat and dairy in our diet in order to reduce our environmental impact. Do we have … More A Savior in Soy: Environmental Impact of Soy Versus Meat
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