December 2000

We had our PreThanksgiving Feast, and it was good, as many of you readers know because you were there. Welcome to those of you who signed up for this free sample of our newsletter; if you would like to get it each month, subscription information is on page 3.

It was a successful event. We filled our beautiful hall for the second year in a row. There was plenty for everyone to eat, and a wonderful variety, but not too many leftovers. We had a speaker who did a terrific job. There was music and much good fellowship. We made money: MARV's checking account now has a balance, after all expenses, of about $800, of which just under $200 is newsletter subscription money, leaving us about $600 for operating expenses for the coming year – plenty unless we significantly increase our activities over previous years.

This all could not have been done without everyone's help. Special thanks go to Ted and Catherine Kern, Mary Ann Schemenauer, Laura Karel, Jodene and Patrick LeDenmat, Kurt Hildebrand, Barb Eisenberg and Rose Chmielnewski, Jean Groshek, Paul Scheubel, Elissa Castellon and Ric Birch, Pat Courtney, James Schultz, Pat O'Neill, and quite possibly others whose names I didn't get (sorry!) – and extra specially to Jody Johnson for her successful organizing of the food and the kitchen again this year. We had been a little concerned about whether we would have enough helpers, based on people who called ahead of time, but in the event quite a few folks just showed up early and pitched in. We wouldn't have pulled it off without you.

In the warm glow following the Feast, Chuck wondered if maybe MARV is ready to have a table in the Exhibit Hall at the State Fair next year. It would be a very different kind of event than a health fair or a Meat-Out at a health food store, since we'd be meeting a more general public; there would be greater likelihood of confrontation but also a greater chance to meet people who otherwise might never hear our message. Logistical problems would lie in getting enough people to man a table throughout the Fair's hours, though we might be able to have people there through both weekends and just leave literature and sign-up sheets in evidence during the weekdays (which someone would have to go by and replenish). The real problem, however, is that when I called and inquired I was told that the cheapest booth/ table one can get costs $600, plus each person going in to help man it would be charged admission each time (and really ought to be reimbursed), plus we would need lots of informational flyers, which are not free. If anyone out there has a few hundred spare bucks and nothing better to do with it, do let us know....

"The time will come in the world's history, and a movement is setting in that direction even now, when it will be deemed as strange a thing to find a man or woman who eats flesh as food, as it is now to fine a man or woman who refrains from eating it."

-- Ralph Waldo Trine, Every Living Creature, 1899

Sunday, Dec. 10, 6 PM, regular potluck at Jean Groshek's, 2531 N. Dousman St., Riverwest; Dousman is 1 block east of Humboldt. 265-2366

Sunday, Jan. 7, 6 PM, regular potluck at Sandy and Paul Forgach's, 8362 N. 49th St., Brown Deer.

Sunday, Feb. 4, 6 PM, regular potluck – we need a host for this one.

Sunday, Dec, 17, Allen Owen's, 5 PM, 5310 W. Loomis Rd., 421-1725 or 421-1700. Christmas party potluck

Sunday, Jan. 21, 5 PM, Frank and Mary Nager's, 7760 S. 51st St., #44, 423-8176

Mad cow disease in Europe was big news throughout November.

Minor riffs on the theme were the discovery of Spain's first cases of mad cow disease, and the report from Ireland of a farmer who simply buried an infected cow and whose neighbors then dug it up for fear of its contaminating their water supply and dumped the carcass back in the farmer's yard.

Much more exciting was the news from France, where dozens of cases of mad cow disease have cropped up this year, as well as three cases of new variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (the human version of mad cow disease). The big scandal followed the discovery that a farm family in northern France had knowingly sold an infected animal, as we reported last month, and that much of the meat had been sold and consumed before it could be recalled. The farmers, a father and son, were arrested in early November, with the French becoming highly upset over this contamination of their food supply and demanding better testing and tracking of beef animals (although their system is already vastly more stringent than, for example, ours). There were also calls for universal testing in the European Union. Germany's health ministry announced it wants to ban blood donations from people who lived in Britain for over six months between 1980 and 1996, following similar moves by Australia and the U.S., and with Norway considering a similar measure. But the real fun arose when it became known that even though France had embargoed British beef, it had continued to import from Britain thousands of tons of "bone meal" – animal feed made of ground-up animal parts – and that this had continued to be fed to French chickens, pigs, and fish as well as cows; in fact, the British have been exporting this to whoever would buy it all this time, even while banning its use in feed at home. Meanwhile, beef sales have slumped in France, as well as in McDonalds restaurants from Russian to Italy (much of Italy's McD supply comes from French farmers), and the French government has announced plans to bail out that country's cattle industry. At least France has now banned use of animal parts in feed, and is trying to figure out what to do with about a million tons of possibly-contaminated animal parts per year (cement factory inputs? private incinerators?).

Compared to this mess, the call of some European Union scientists to ban Canadian meat because of Canadian use of hormones, antibiotics, and other chemicals is just another minor hint at the unhealthiness of meat-eating.

We also mentioned in last month's Dialog section that bioengineered corn not licensed for human consumption had nonetheless found its way into the human food supply; this scandal has also grown and developed during November, with recalls and attempted recalls of a vast array of corn products. This is not only hitting the U.S. food supply, but also greatly undermining U.S. exports of corn to Japan, South Korea, and other markets, to the extent that demands are growing for compensation to farmers who grew this corn and that the USDA has started testing would-be export loads for it. At the same time, though, our government is looking at temporarily licensing this corn for human consumption just to ease the liability of Aventis, the company that made it. As far as ordinary shoppers are concerned, any food product that isn't 100% organic and has corn syrup or corn oil as an ingredient is at risk for containing this or some other genetically modified corn – though it now looks likely that a lot less GM corn will be planted in '01 than in the year just ending, since farmers took a real bath on this.

Other brief items on the subject of worrisome foods include a Danish report that people eating sea mammals, fish, and seabirds had seriously elevated levels of persistant organic pollutants such as PCBs in their tissues, while the U.S. EPA has confirmed that dioxin is a human carcinogen – and that it gets into people mostly through eating animal products.

In other food news, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine reports on its fight against the milk mustache ad campaign: their attorney filed a 71-page complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that the ads promise strong bones and good health while failing to mention the dangerous load of fat in most milk products and implying that studies show benefits for groups such as African-Americans, Hispanics, and men, none of whom have in fact have been shown to benefit from milk. (On the contrary, there are serious indications that the IGF-1 in milk promotes prostate and possibly other cancers.) And have I reported learning that soymilk and other milk-analogs have indeed been included as acceptable "dairy" servings to satisfy the dairy foods box on the USDA Food Guide Pyramid?

Other good news about vegetarian foods include the healthiness of nuts (just in time for the holiday season). Besides giving us protein and fat, nuts are good sources of several important minerals, such as magnesium, copper, and zinc, as well as the calcium in almonds and brazil nuts. And walnuts contain good amounts of alpha linolenic acid which is being investigated as possibly protective against breast cancer.

Another vegan food is whole grains, and a study done by researchers at Harvard and the University of Minnesota found a strong correlation between eating plenty of whole grains and significantly decreasing one's risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

One good whole grain that is helpful in other ways as well is apparently oatmeal: researchers at Boston Children's Hospital found that teens who ate slow-cooking whole oatmeal for breakfast felt fuller and ate just half the snack calories during the rest of the day than those who started their day with cornflakes or instant oatmeal – and this would certainly help anyone fighting an overweight problem.

Another interesting tidbit is that iron is found in many vegetables – and that cooking them lightly greatly increases the amount of iron that you can absorb from many of them.

DIALOG

Tis the season to meet, everywhere you go, with foods you wouldn't normally touch with a stick. It may be the meat-and-cheese plate at the office party or the cream pie at the family dinner; sometimes there are a few items you can eat in a situation, sometimes there aren't, and sometimes the problem is the temptation of a really good eggnog or well-stocked candy dish. Whichever of these you get hit with, something of the sort seems inevitable.

For the holiday season can't seem to happen without big family gatherings, replete with interpersonal frictions concerning who eats what and who has a right to tell whom what foods should be available where. Then there are office parties, at which many items are served which one would normally avoid, leading to a choice between eating what one doesn't want or eating nothing at all (possibly quite flagrantly). And of course there's always the possibility of receiving food items as gifts, which may or may not be what you would have wished. Chuck once combined two of these dilemnas, when his workplace asked if he'd prefer a ham or a turkey for Christmas. And holiday food always seems to be a blitz of the most fattening delicacies imaginable by humans, especially cheeses, meats, and sugar.

I've previously discussed the social acrobatics involved in dealing with these issues within families, and suggested that if all parties are willing to be loving and flexible, the details can be worked out. Vegetarians may be able to eat

at a table where there's meat, providing that there's also enough good fare for them, or in other cases a family might be willing to eat as vegetarians for the sake of family harmony. Somebody has to adapt, or even everybody, but this can be managed if people want to.

The situation with more casual acquaintances and people one deals with at work can be more of a challenge. Sometimes one can socialize and pick at the few available items present that are acceptable and slide by without eating what one doesn't want. Other times, a person may be willing to make an exception in one's ordinary eating choices so as to avoid upsetting others. Sometimes it's possible to negotiate a change in the situation: when Chuck simply thanked his employer for the kind offer while requesting not to be given any kind of meat, the employer added a tin of nuts to the choices, and has done so ever since.

What is important, I think, is to be clear in your own mind what you think you ought to do. If you're desperately trying to keep your weight down, it really isn't worth it to you to indulge a little in a few-thousand-calorie splurge. And it is very important in this endeavor to not kid yourself. The holiday season issues of Prevention magazine are all about how to feel good about eating holiday foods because, for example, there is calcium in cheesecake and iron and zinc in prime ribs of beef – and then the rest of the issues focus on how to prevent weight gain from holiday eating, and get back on your diet afterwards. Gimme a break! Eat whatever you choose – but choose with honest awareness, so as not to give your conscience cause to keep you up at night.