SoulVeggie

Video: "The Price of Nothing" & the "$200 Hamburger"

Intriguing 4 min. clip with author Raj Patel about taking into account the actual cost of a $4 American Hamburger.  Raises a lot of important issues and it's an eye-opener. More about his work and related issues upcoming.

The New "Meatrix" Interactive Website!

"With factory farming threatening to take over the world, the crime fighting superheroes of The Meatrix are off on an extended mission, redoubling their efforts to spread the word.  The new Meatrix site and Meatrix Presentation Kit offer free movies, buttons, stickers, postcards, magnets and lots and lots of informative handouts on issues ranging from food safety to slaughterhouse practices.

“Obviously, we prefer to use diplomacy in our efforts to educate the public,” Moopheus told reporters, at a press conference this morning at United Nations Plaza in New York.  “Yeah, diplomacy is good,” Moopheus’s sidekick Leo added, “but we’ll do whatever it takes to stop these monstrosities.”

The above edited from here.  Check out the New Meatrix website here.  Definitely worth a glom (especially the interactive 360 degree pieces).

Personal Videos (and "My Posse")

I've gotten around to re-vitalizing my YouTube Channel (Vegan stuff along with personal).  Been experimenting with iMovie and it's ability to export directly to YouTube (quite nice) which will be useful for future projects (hint:  cookbook).  Anyway, there are 11 personal videos up now (ducks, ducks, ducks, goose, robin, more runner ducks, some experiments).  Enjoy!  More later...

"My Posse"
(©2010 by Mark Sutton, click on image for larger version: 4000x3000)

Food Revolution: Jamie Oliver Rips Off John Robbins

Jamie Oliver's TED Award and, indirectly, his upcoming TV series, "Food Revolution" are interesting events.  Whether unconsciously or not, he ripped off the title of one of the best books about food, diet, health, factory farming, ever written (particularly because of the copious statistics) by John Robbins.  But then, titles of books can't be copyrighted.

Here's Oliver's TED presentation (he was awarded $100,000).  His issue is helping children to learn how to eat better and cook their own food.  The TED site shows Jamie holding a baby pig (in contrast to his many bacon and pork recipes on his website).  In his emotional talk, he's spot on on citing statistics of diseases in his talk that are killing us that are diet-related, but he misses the real underlying causes.  Lot of admirable frenetic passion, he's serious, he understands some of the key issues regarding obesity and children learning to cook, he's most convincing, but there's a lack of understanding about what we eat beyond avoiding fast & processed food that he seems to be missing.

Jamie, unknowningly with his own recipes, traffics in high fat, high sugar, and a lot of meat/dairy recipes as the "Naked Chef."   He says he's been pushing this issue (of health) for seven years, but his recipes show that he's gone nowhere new.  Six tablespoons of oil for a dressing for a 4 serving salad ("candied bacon green salad.")  Awful.  And check out this one:  "delicious roasted white fish wrapped in smoked bacon with lemon mayonnaise and asparagus."  He's got recipes for pheasant, veal, heavy cream, rabbit, and duck among others.  There are vegetarian recipes that most seem to be high fat and high dairy.

I've no doubt that he means well in attempting to help children conquer obesity by eating better foods, but his solution misses the value of going vegan, low fat, and low sugar.  Obesity and heart disease are still a likely end game if he introduces the same types of recipes as are in his books and on his website in his lofty, worthy goal to help children eat more healthy foods. His TV series hasn't been aired yet, but there's there's the obligatory cookbook:

"For a healthy food revolution, many of the recipes aren't actually so wholesome — like the pasta that calls for an entire block of Camembert cheese"  --- from a review of his "Food Revolution" cookbook

So, was TED misguided in selecting Jamie for their highest award?  I would suggest that there were many others in the arena of trying to get children and people in general to eat healthier, that have been at it much longer, with solid nutritional foundations, and dedicated efforts, that would have deserved the award and done much more productively with the money than he will (PDF: the organizations around his name!). Yes, Jamie deserves credit for lecturing on that which so many others in the Veg Community have for years now, and he's sincere.  He at least trying to effect change.

Yes, he truly believes in what he's doing, and on some levels, I'm resonate.  But there's this underlying inconsistency that he doesn't get, and perhaps that's my vegan bias.  He promotes non-vegan high fat and high sugar FRESH meals.  Sure, a step above Fast Foods and soda machines in schools, but, imho, he needs to go farther.  Instead of "every child should know how to make 10 recipes," I'd rather know that every child "knows 10 nutritional principles of facets of a healthy diet."  Teach a child to read a nutritional label and know why that's important.  Teach a child about the dangers of high fat, high sugar, high sodium, and animal protein.  Teach a child how to live longer, heathier, and happier, through the right diet.

IMHO, those at TED who made the decision weren't as much as misguided as ignorant.  Ignorant of Esselstyn and Ornish (who've reversed heart disease, which kills near half a million US citizens a year) or Barnard (who's reversed Type II Diabetes) through a low-fat vegan diet. Or Dr. T. Colin Campbell on on history's largest study on diet, "The China Study" and how animal protein enables cancer.  Wouldn't having them talk have been fantastic?  Imagine the research Esselstyn could do with that money.  Ironically, Ornish's talk at TED in 2008, imho, was much more important in implications than Oliver's.  In fact, I think Oliver should be teaching what Ornish talked about to children.

Sure, Oliver is helping raise awareness of a serious issue, and may be doing good by emphasizing some serious issues and making heart-felt attempts to deal with them, but he's like a bandaid on a severed artery.  He wails against corporate food, yet his own recipes are surprisingly unhealthy, and unnecessarily so.  Still, he is inspiring, and his efforts to get cooking classes available for people most admirable.

However, I tend to think that in his efforts to help children eat healthier, he's neglecting the reality of what they clearly need to do to live longer and happier.  Sure, it's shocking to see that kids don't know what an eggplant is, but when you get past that knowledge barrier, it's knowing what real food is that matters. Wrapping mecury-infused fish with smoked pig flesh and dosing it with mayonnaise (bovine mammary secretions and added oil), is not real food.  He's got Nora recommending "panini with ham, ham and cheese, or cheese" as a mid-morning snack for his touted "School Dinners/Feed Me Better Campaign."

Jamie may be helping to raise a basic awareness, that's good, however rudimentary.  But, unless he evolves a bit nutrionally, Oliver, imho, is ill-qualified to suggest how people make healthy meals.  He just doesn't get it.  Reduce the added fat, salt, and suger, and better yet, eliminate the meat, dairy, and eggs.  A low fat, low sugar, low salt, and vegan diet is the healthiest diet.  That's proven, fact, and not theory... and if he really knew what's healthy and ethical, naked baby pigs like the one Oliver was holding for the photo op wouldn't need to be slaughtered, abused, and/or fried or baked and eaten.  That's the real food revolution ("from the Latin revolutio, "a turn around") and that's part of the real solution.

Chef Makes Cheese from Wife's Breast Milk

I laughed at the following, especially considering my satirical essay, "The Milk Cellar at Chez Ignorante" written/posted back in 2006.  Here's a link to the article where the following edited excerpt is from:

"This Chelsea restaurant has gone from brasserie to brassiere.  Chef Daniel Angerer is letting diners at Klee Brasserie munch on cheese made from his wife's breast milk.  "It tastes like cow's-milk cheese, kind of sweet," he told The Post.  The flavor depends on what the cheese is served with -- Angerer recommends a Riesling -- and "what the mother eats," said Angerer... Breast milk doesn't curdle well due to its low protein content, so a little moo juice has to be added to round out the texture, Angerer said.  After blogging about his efforts with the human cheese, customers started demanding a sample, he said.  "The phone was ringing off the hook," the chef said. "So I prepared a little canapé of breast-milk cheese with figs and Hungarian pepper."

...Mason is now prodding her husband to make gelato.

After inquiries from The Post, health bigs said yesterday that even though department codes do not explicitly forbid the practice, they have advised Angerer to refrain from sharing his wife's milk with the world.  "The restaurant knows that cheese made from breast milk is not for public consumption, whether sold or given away," a spokeswoman for the city Department of Health said."

[When you think about it, that makes significantly less sense than allowing restaurants to serve goat and cow cheese.  We're born to consume breast milk from a human, not from a bovine or goat.]

Faux Meats & Blow-up Dolls

A very thoughtful article: "Why Eating Meat-Shaped Vegetarian Food Is Like Having Sex with a Blow-up Doll." I can recall many debates online about fake meats versus the "purity" approach of "why try to duplicate meat, food should be on it's own merits."  My take on the matter is essentially that those of us "older" folks who were raised on the stuff still enjoy some of the memories and textures enjoined with eating hot dogs, pepperoni, canadian bacon, hamburgers, etc.  If, as a vegan, I choose to eat "fake" versions of those (but only those being very low fat and low sodium) on a limited basis, I believe it's okay.

But the author of this piece does raise some interesting counter arguments, while summarizing some of the history of such products.

An excerpt of note:

"Shubin says, "I would classify modern humans as 'choosivores.' We have bodies that can handle diverse diets and many of us are fortunate to live in socioeconomic conditions where we can decide what to eat and what not to eat. And we have brains that can look beyond immediate needs to think of the long-term consequences of our choices."

Field Roast products are mentioned with the founder of the company and there's no mention of how high in fat his products are.  That's of some concern.  They are high in fat, regardless of how tasty they might be.

All in all, an intriguing, well-written, and witty essay on the topic. Kudos to the author.  A fine piece of work.  We do have "brains" and the author clearly is using hers.

ADDENDUM:  I e-mailed the author expressing my being impressed by the thoughtfulness and research for her article/thought piece.  Got permission to post part of her reply:

"As for Field Roast's fat content, I didn't cite specific figures because my story was already waaaay too long, but I did provide this parenthetical clue:

(Granted, Field Roast products have a higher fat content than many other brands, which boosts their authenticity and greases hands.)

A seitan maker I met here in the SF area (Steve of Savvy Savories) first mentioned to me that although he tries to keep his products low-fat, others definitely don't -- he didn't name names, but it was obvious which company he meant."

I'm also impressed by the body of her previous work.  FYI, Mark

POM, Privitizing Water, Pesticides, & Animal Activists

This is an addendum to my recent post.  What many people don't know about POM Wonderful and it's billionaire owner.  I didn't know these things when I wrote the previous post, put POM originally force-fed their juices to animals for testing (even deliberately brain-damaging young mice to see if the juice helped).  Peta announced this stopped in 2007 (article is here).  Furthermore, POM, in 2006, filed a lawsuit to keep activists from putting information about and protesting their company on websites (here).  Many activists believe the reason POM went on a recent campaign to give so many VEGAN bloggers free samples, was to counter the bad image in the vegan community.

POM is quite litigious... they've filed lawsuits against many other beverage makers with claims such they are piggybacking off POM nutritional claims or aren't 100% pure pomegrante juice for the full "health benefits."

Also, from this article:

"Resnick  owns Fiji Water, Pom Wonderful, pesticide manufacturer Suterra and Paramount Agribusiness, the largest farming company in America and the largest pistachio and almond producer in the world. Resnick is also the brain behind a little-known water privatization scheme that brought Enron-style deregulation and privatization to California's water market and made him one of the largest, if not the largest, private water brokers in America. He also happens to be friend and major contributor to Feinstein's political career."

It was through Feinstein that Resnick was able to deliver a personal letter to the White House proposing fewer environmental regulations and more water for his farms."

Finally, check out the hypocrisy on the POM Wonderful website ("about us").  Sustainable?  Community?  Their products "essential to the health of all mankind?"  Unbelievable, yet apparently, a lot of bloggers believed otherwise. 

Personally, even if the health claims panned out, Resnick's unethical behavior, policies, and efforts are such that I would consciously try to avoid purchasing any of his company's proudcts, as I would Monsanto, and any other company damaging the environment while claiming to be "green."  I'm voting with my dollar.

Video: Mostly Garbage Pet Food

Considering what's in a lot of the pet foods, it's hard to say if this SNL Commercial is satire or a biting take on reality.  Here's a link to a webpage I put together awhile back about what those "meat by-products" really are.  I haven't tested all the related resources links there, but most should still work.  The descriptions are still accurate.

Here's the "parody(?)"

Oscar-nominated "Food, Inc." documentary interviews

"How much do we really know about the food we buy at the grocery store? Filmmaker Robert Kenner talks about his documentary, Food, Inc., which is up for an Oscar. The film raises questions about the safety of our food." 

From a write-up on the February 23rd interview on "Talk to the Nation" with streaming media links here.  They also reference/make available an earlier interview with both Robert Kenner and Michael Pollan in June of 2009:

"The new documentary Food Inc. takes aim at corporate giants behind the U.S. food supply. As director Robert Kenner and food advocate and author Michael Pollan tell Steve Inskeep, they made the film in order to raise Americans' awareness about where their food really comes from.

Pollan says he wanted to address "the pastoral illusion we're spinning in the way we market food... You would think it comes from farms and that ranches with big hats are producing the meat."

In fact, say Pollan and Kenner, America's food comes primarily from enormous assembly lines, where animals and workers are being abused."

How marvelous that these issues are going mainstream!  An Oscar nomination for a documentary that has a large chunk of it covering the evils of factory farming.  Unbelievable.  Here's a link to the "Food, Inc." website with trailer and more.  Wouldn't it be cool if they won?

Colonel Duck Bucket Fights Turkey Hitler

I'm still trying to figure this one out.  They have some more food-related shorts regarding the food franchise "Duck Bucket," but they are a bit, well, gory.

After slogging through waist-deep snow (in some cases) and shoveling through 5 foot drifts to feed/water the ducks, geese, chickens, and roosters for the past two days, maybe I just appreciate the absurdity of this little clip. Then there's that surrealistic title...  FYI, Mark