September 2006

GREETINGS

Well, the good news is that enough people at the August potluck volunteered to help with the PreThanksgiving Feast that we felt okay about applying for a date with the Unity Evangelical Lutheran Church (same place as the last two years). The less good news is that all the volunteer slots we need to pull it off have not yet been filled. The jobs that still need to be taken are: line attendant and greetings/ announcement maker, 1 early kitchen crew spot (4:30 to 6:30), 3 second-shift kitchen crew spots (5:30 to 7:30), 3 dishwashers, and 3 dining room clean-up people. In other words, we have preparation prior to the event well in hand, but still can’t pull it off without people to pitch in on the day of. You’ll be there anyway; might as well help out! So come to the September potluck, and/or phone me (Louise) at (414) 962-2703, or Jody at (414) 764-7262 to claim the job of your choice from the list above.

M.A.R.V Activities

Sunday, Oct. 1, 5 PM, regular potluck at the Friends’ Meeting House, 3224 N. Gordon Pl. in Riverwest (from Humboldt Blvd., go east on Auer a few short blocks to the parking lot). Theme will be a discussion of vegan options at fast food and chain restaurants.

Subsequent regular potlucks: Nov. 5.

Other Veg-Friendly Potlucks

I have not heard about a September macrobiotic potluck. Phone Pat O’Neill at (414) 964-9759 for information.

The Urban Ecology Center’s vegetarian potluck will be on Thursday, Sept. 21 at 6:30 PM at 1500 E. Park Pl., just south of Locust St. and east of N. Oakland Ave. Phone (414) 964-8505.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“You eat. Willing or not you participate in the environment of food choice. The choices you make about food are as much about the kind of world you want to live in as they are about what to have for dinner. Food choices are about your future and that of your children. They are about nothing less than democracy in action. I truly believe that one person can make a difference and that food is a great place to begin to make that difference. Yes, you should use personal responsibility – informed personal responsibility – to make food choices you believe in. Exercise your First Amendment rights and speak out. And enjoy your dinner.”

NEWS

Wanna hear some more reasons not to eat meat? A task force of the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology announced that there is no danger to humans from eating animals fed bio-engineered crops (several biotech companies help fund the CAST, but who’s looking?); such feeding practices will therefore undoubtedly continue full throttle. Then there was the report that after spending years breeding meat animals to be less fatty, companies are now injecting meat with water, salt, and chemicals to replace lost taste. Raw oysters from the Pacific Northwest resulted in over 100 cases of food poisoning last month. And Japan is lifting its ban on U.S. beef in spite of everything, while the USDA is easing meat imports from Canada despite mad cow disease there. Also, high cholesterol foods (i.e., animal foods) were found to be linked to prostate cancer in a recent Italian study.

How food animals are raised is a source of concern as well. Chickens are often fed arsenic to improve weight gain and prevent intestinal infection by parasites, but arsenic then turns up in their meat, which is a problem because it is a known carcinogen and is linked to immune, cardiovascular, and neurological problems. And manure runoff from a hog factory farm was blamed recently for killing hundreds of fish in central Iowa. The problem of factory farms’ manure is being addressed by scientists looking to see if floating plant mats can clean the water, while other scientists are looking at whether the odor can be controlled by altering the pigs’ diet. Nonetheless, a plan for a pig factory farm in Missouri that cleverly intends to raise 10 fewer hogs than the number that would require a permit is still running into heated local opposition….

Here’s an interesting tidbit: chronic wasting disease is not being adequately controlled in Wisconsin, according to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report, due to hunters’ ingrained dislike of killing what they won’t be eating.

In the area of food controversies, Chicago has run into restaurant opposition over its ban of foie gras, while the Cornucopia Institute has followed up its public condemnation of Horizon dairy for running what are really pseudo-organic factory farms by filing a complaint with the USDA’s Office of Compliance.

Another liquid in the news is again water: a study was released in August by scientists who analyzed world water use and came to the conclusion that as the population grows, the need for water could double in the next 50 years – but there is not enough fresh water in the world to supply it. On a happier note, however (or maybe not) comes Forbes.com’s listing of the drunkest cities in the U.S. – and Milwaukee is Number One!

Finally, there is still plenty of news about bird flu. China has finally admitted that its first case was recorded two years before it originally alleged. Indonesia recorded its 43d and 44^th deaths from the disease, although seven people hospitalized together turned out to have an illness which was not bird flu. Thailand, however, reported a second bird flu death and expanded its alert for the disease. And two Michigan swans were found to have the flu but not the deadly bird flu strain. One bit of good news is that a new test for the disease will allow diagnosis of bird flu in less than 12 hours, instead of the previous week or more (although diagnosis is not quite the same as prevention).

Meanwhile, here are still plenty of reasons to eat plant foods.

A new study at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine looked at 18 prior studies and concluded that eating soy foods, especially earlier in life, does correlate with lower breast cancer rates.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that moderate coffee drinking – up to 4 to 6 cups per day – can help prevent diabetes, heart disease, and cirrhosis of the liver, but more coffee than that adds no further benefit. It seems to be the coffee rather than the caffeine itself that does the job, since decaf drinkers got the same benefit, which is great news to people like Chuck who are caffeine-sensitive. In fact, a different study, at Pennsylvania State University, which used caffeine pills found that a small dose of caffeine helped subjects concentrate but a larger dosed made them jumpy and interfered with concentration. Meanwhile, a new study found that cocoa which has been made in a not-yet-commercially-available, non-confectionary process significantly improves blood vessel function, especially in people over 50. The flavonols which are usually lost when making chocolate were apparently widening the subjects’ arteries. Stay tuned.

Mothering magazine’s special pregnancy issue recently had an item naming 10 “power foods”, most of which were vegetarian: avocados, berries, beans/ legumes, dark leafy greens, nuts, and sweet potatoes, with vegetarian but not vegan eggs and yogurt being two more; the only meats were the fatty fish and organic or grass- fed lamb or beef – not quite a vegetarian list yet substantially plantfood-leaning despite being in a non-vegetarian publication.

Delicious Living offered tips for adding tasty and nutritious variety to one's produce picks: instead of carrots, consider parsnips, turnips, and rutabagas which are also rich in minerals; besides white potatoes, try more highly colored sweet potatoes or blue potatoes; instead of lettuce, eat more unusual greens such as arugula, chicory, etc.; exchange vitamin- and mineral rich daikon radish for less-nutrient-packed though equally crunchy cucumber; and substitute calcium-rich bok choi for spinach.

Since it’s watermelon season, an interesting tidbit in the NY Times Science section informs us that USDA researchers found that whole watermelon stored at room temperature had higher levels of lycopene (an immune-system helper) than watermelons stored at colder temps. A different USDA study found that the anthocyanins in sweet cherries had an artery-protective effect for people who ate a couple of cups of them each day for 4 weeks.

The German Institute of Human Nutrition gave additional reason to eat your whole grains and fresh vegetables, by finding a significant increase in insulin sensitivity in fat people who were given 31 grams of insoluble fiber daily; fiber is of course found only in plant foods.

Prevention magazine had a long article on anti-aging techniques which included eating lots of bright-colored fruits and vegetables, drinking tea, especially green tea, eating curries containing the yellow-pigmented spice turmeric, and eating plenty of dark green leafy vegetables to protect one’s vision. But white potatoes, which can cause blood sugar rises, were disrecommended (along with sugary drinks).

THE VEGGIE TABLE

By guest columnist Jan Taylor

On a recent trip, at an Interstate rest stop, the only restaurant was McDonald’s. Seeing their signs for New Asian Salad, I asked if it contained meat. They said that it was available with chicken or without. I ordered it without, of course.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a very generous serving which included baby spinach, baby lima beans, pea pods, red peppers, carrots, mandarin oranges, sliced almonds on the side, croutons on the side, a very small amount of iceberg lettuce, and possibly some other things I didn’t notice.

The ginger-sesame dressing was especially good.

CONNECTIONS

Coming soon to our city will be not one but two new promising shopping spots for food.

One is the huge Whole Foods Market which is scheduled to open on Sept. 20 at the corner of North Ave. and Prospect. Whole Foods is reputed to have not only a huge selection of natural and health products, but to also make efforts to use local suppliers for produce and to voluntarily label place of origin for everything.

DIALOG

A recent newsletter article from the Organic Consumers Association crystallized for me a shift in the food situation. A few years ago, buying organic and vegetarian was a simple way to be sure one was eating in the most ecologically sound and humane way possible, and also in a manner that undermined the power of huge corporations. But this is all changing.

For one thing, almost all of the nice little organic and natural foods companies have been gobbled up by the big guys. Boca Burgers is owned by Philip Morris; ConAgra owns Lightlife; Heinz owns Hain Celestial which owns Walnut Acres, Westbrae, Health Valley, and Imagine, among others – and so on. Organic foods are the only kind of food products whose sales are really growing, and the big corporations are desperate to cash in on that, while getting into the big time is not easy for a tiny mom-and-pop company. But it changes the scene. On one hand, any organic food is better for you and the land than pesticide-grown food. Yet our nation’s industrial model for agriculture has been a disaster for the ecology, the animals, and public health.