SoulVeggie

Latest Mad Cowboy Newsletter Available

Here's the intro, table of contents, and a direct link to the 64th issue:

Howdy!  Welcome to the 64th issue of the Mad Cowboy Newsletter.

Direct Link:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mad_Cowboy/message/85

We've a special treat in this edition:  a personal letter from the Big Guy himself:  Enjoy!

Reading further, there's the usual Mad Cow Info Round-Up, new studies tying the consumption of eggs to diabetes and meat to pancreatic cancer, a new analysis of the prevalence of corn in our food, and a fine essay by Dr. McDougall about answering the question:  "Why do you avoid adding additional oil/fat in your diet?

There's also a disturbing breakdown of what's really in Downey Fabric Softner (hint: it ain't vegan), the debate over elephant's health in zoos, and an range of interesting facts about animals.  Moving forward, you'll have access to links to some very interesting (and funny) video and audio, as well as read about a body spray with a rather unique odor.

We also have a very cool article about issues of "soil not oil," cutting greenhouse gases through less meat consumption globally, how Coca-Cola is stoking the 'water wars' with propaganda, and some thoughts about the new USDA Secretary Nomineee, Vilsack.  Plus:  don't miss the Vegan Recipe from a new fat-free vegan cookbook (Pudgy-Free Holidays) that's available as a PDF via the Internet.

As always, a tip of the hat to our new subscribers:  y'all can browse past issues at the Mad Cowboy Newsletter Archives:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mad_Cowboy/

...and best wishes for a Happy Vegan Holidaze, keeping warm with family and friends, and a Great New Year!

Mark, MC editor/webmaster

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00: Quote(s) from Howard
01: The Vegan Mind-Bender Contest Winner/Challenge!
02: Vegan Recipe from Online Cookbook:  "Pudgy-Free Holidays"
03: Mad Cow Info Round-up
04: Eggs/Diabetes, Meat/Cancer, Corn in Fast Food, Avoid Fats?
05: Fabric Softener Fat, Elephant Debate, AR Spies, Animal Facts
06: Vegan Digital Theater Showcase
07: Soil Not Oil, Cut Meat/Emissions, Cola Scam, USDA Nominee Vilsack
08: Howard's Schedule
09: Quick Bytes
10: Closing Thoughts

Top 10 Reasons to Go Veg during Veg Week

As usual, another excellent and well-written article by Bruce Friedrich.  Full article is here and below.  Especially of note, are peer-reviewed scientifically proven Reasons #6 and #7:

"6. Heart Disease: Our Number One Killer: Healthy vegetarian diets support a lifetime of good health and provide protection against numerous diseases, including the United States’ three biggest killers: heart disease, cancer, and strokes. Drs. Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn — two doctors with 100 percent success in preventing and reversing heart disease — have used a vegan diet to accomplish it, as chronicled most recently in Dr. Esselstyn’s Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, which documents his 100 percent success rate for unclogging people’s arteries and reversing heart disease.

7. Cancer: Our Number Two Killer: Dr. T. Colin Campbell is one of the world’s foremost epidemiological scientists and the director of what The New York Times called “the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.” Dr. Campbell’s best-selling book, The China Study, is a must-read for anyone who is concerned about cancer. To summarize it, Dr. Campbell states, “No chemical carcinogen is nearly so important in causing human cancer as animal protein.”

[Check out my interview with Esselstyn last year.  Go low fat vegan... live longer, healthier, happier...]

Mad Cowboy Newsletter #62 Available

Here's a direct link, the intro, and the table of contents for the latest free Mad Cowboy e-newsletter.  Enjoy! Mark
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Howdy!  Welcome to the 62nd issue of the Mad Cowboy Newsletter.  We're proud as peacocks to announce a new DVD from Howard:  "A Mad Cowboy Lecture: 2007."  More details below!

Due to all the material about the HSUS investigation/video and meat recall in "Mad Cow Info Round-Up", we've suspended the "Avian Flu News" section for this edition.  But, as you read further, you'll learn about Peak Soil!, Edible Estates, more studies on the disease preventative effects of veggies and fruits, and newly deceased Earl Butz's legacy to our country's food production "system."  Continuing: PETA's announced this year's "Proggy Awards," Bob Barker has made an amazing gift to further studies of animal issues, there's a neat post about recession-proofing your diet, news about Michael Pollen's latest book, and don't miss the recipes from the excellent "Vegan Fire & Spice" as well as the videos of the vegetarian 2007 Nobel Prize winner's speech, Doreen the Downer Cow, the Vegetable Orchestra, and Wayne Pacelle (Pres., HSUS) being interviewed.

... as always, a tip of the hat to our new subscribers.  Y'all can read past issues of the newsletter at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mad_Cowboy/

Happy Spring and get those gardens growing!  Mark, MC editor/webmaster

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00: Quote(s) from Howard
01: New DVD from Howard! Trailers OnLine!
02: The Vegan Mind-Bender Contest Winner/Challenge!
03: Recipes from a New Vegan Cookbook:  "Fire & Spice"
04: Mad Cow Info Round-up
05: Veggies: Reducing 2 Cancers, Heart Disease, Blood Pressure
06: Peak Soil!, Edible Estates, Butz Legacy, Farm Emission Rules
07: Vegan Digital Theater Showcase
08: PETA Awards, Bob's Gift, Recession-proof Diet, Mostly Plants
09: Howard's Schedule
10: Quick Bytes
11: Closing Thoughts"

Direct Link to this Issue:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mad_Cowboy/message/83

Happy Earth Day!

Yeah, I know I usually send out something from satellites viewing the Earth on this day (having done work for NASA and knowing where the data is accessible), but this photo I shot yesterday struck me as something special.

It's a rose... still in it's pot ready to be planted when weather/time permits (click on to see larger version).  Reminded me of the Sun... you can envision the sunspots/core, the trails of coronal flares and the petals as magnetic fields.  An interesting vision and possibly indicative of a very very old saying "as is above, is below."  A fascinating time in the year when nature is kicking in big time and accelerating this far North as fast as it can.  Earth reborn.

Of course, it could also be the drugs are kicking in (yes Dad, I'm kidding).

For the more metaphysical and whimsical out there...

Happy Earth Day to all... let's hope we survive the upcoming year intact.

Best, Mark... Oh, and help save a planet and the life therein:  Go Vegan!

"Mad Cowboy Lecture: 2007" - Excerpts & a Review

[It's finally available... the new "Mad Cowboy DVD." I've also posted two 3 min. segments from the beginning and Robert Cohen, aka the "NotMilkman" has graced us with an exclusive review of the DVD.  Enjoy!

1st 3 minutes:

2nd 3 minutes:

My apologies if the videos aren't as smooth as they could be... I had limited time and notification to pull this off. Actual footage is of high professional quality from a 3-camera shoot. The larger versions of the two segments are here:  PT01, PT02.  Hope to find time in the near future to figure out the compression issues.  Also, you can learn more about the DVD at www.madcowboy.com... and Go Vegan!]

Project BudBurst

[Project BudBurst is not about marijuna... it's a unique program that invites people to help track progress of flowers & vegetation species and Climate Change.  Here's part of the program's description:

"Join us in collecting important climate change data on the timing of leafing and flowering in your area through Project BudBurst! This national field campaign targets native tree and flower species across the country. With your help, we will be compiling valuable environmental and climate change information around the United States. [free]: Register Now - Become a member of the Project BudBurst community! This allows you to save your observation sites and plants that you are monitoring throughout the year and for coming years. Subscribe to the Project BudBurst mailing list to receive updates and announcements about the new features added for 2008. Read about us in the News!"

[Here's a link to the site.  You can click on the picture above to see a larger picture of a little crocus flower coming through frost I took on 2/22/08... about a calendar month ahead of last year's 1st bloom. Mild winter.... Go Vegan!]

Nobel Peace Prize Winning Advice: "Go Veg!"

"...Don't eat meat... the head of the UN's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change said.  The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued last year highlights "the importance of lifestyle changes," chairman Dr Rajendra Pachauri said.

"This is something that the IPCC was afraid to say earlier, but now we have said it."

A vegetarian, the Indian economist made a plea for people around the world to tame their carnivorous impulses." Please eat less meat - meat is a very carbon intensive commodity," he said, adding consuming large quantities was also bad for one's health... He says another lifestyle change that can help was not buying things "simply because they are available..." He urged consumers to only purchase what they really need..."

[I did many projects for both Gore and the IPCC related to Climate Change, and can recall the skepticism I'd get from many scientists explaining the environmental impact of eating meat.  It's great to see somone of Dr. Pachauri's standing acknowledging the issue of meat.  The full article (with stats) is here and below.  Do even better... go vegan.]

Howard at AR2007

[Many thanks to "DoggyTV" for posting this video at YouTube.  Excellent example of Howard Lyman (aka, The Mad Cowboy) at his best, speaking at AR2007 last Friday. Now here's a dynamic, healthy-looking 67 yr. old hardcore vegan breaking some stereotypes.  Pity it's not the whole talk and just the first 16 minutes, but still, it's great.  Enjoy!]

[You can see the original version of the YouTube post (and a fine list of other related videos) here.  I'm still playing catchup on projects and will get to the backlog of cookbook reviews, memes, etc., soon.]

Live Earth & Veganism

I watched a little of "Live Earth," and read the "7 Point Pledge."  No mention of the fact that animal agriculture, supporting meat and dairy consumption by humans, is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world's SUV's, cars, and trucks combined.  Where was the "limit or minimize my consumption of meat and/or dairy" point?  Then, a few minutes ago I read that Moby blogged about this at his website (here):

"...yesterday at the 'live earth' concerts people were eating hamburgers and hot dogs and chicken, which is akin to getting drunk at the funeral for someone who died of alcohol poisoning..."

Full Disclosure:  I've help produce seminars, multimedia, and visualizations of global change data for groups such as NASA, NOAA, Congress, as well as the White House and Al Gore's office.  I've worked with some amazingly dedicated and brilliant people.  But it has always chapped me that pretty much all of them ate meat.  Even while unnerved about the implications of their research and findings, they couldn't wrap their cerebrum's around the "meat=greenhouse gases issue" as being a personal responsibility, too.  We vote with our food dollar (to paraphrase Howard Lyman).

We knew about the contribution of animal agriculture to global warming back in 1995, for gawd's sake.  But really people...  it's not just human health, animal cruelty, excessive petroleum-usage for factory farming, and general dumping of poisonous crud into the ground, air, and water, it's that meat & dairy consumption at the current scale is a major contributor to global warming.  What part of destroying the planetary ecosystem's ability to support life ('cept for lower forms like cockroaches and neo-cons) don't y'all understand?

Yarrrghhh...... I'm probably ranting to the choir... let's hope more people get the message.  Be healthier, live longer, stop animal cruelty, improve our environment, and maybe help save our planet's ability to support life from deteriorating further... go vegan... (and thanks to Moby!)

[Addendum:  see also my previous "Global Warming Diet" and "Study Shows Vegan Diet Better for the Planet" posts.]

The Global Warming Diet

"... if you want to help even more, consider that you have three more opportunities every single day to do something for your planet: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Americans eat more than a billion pounds of food each day... Many of the 100 million acres of land and 17 trillion gallons of irrigation water used to grow animal feed could be put to more productive uses - or not used.  The energy used just to produce fertilizer for feed crops could instead be used to fuel 1 million homes. Reducing the use of fertilizer to grow corn in the Midwest would bring aquatic life back to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, where there is now a New Jersey-size dead zone.  ... methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more conducive to global warming than carbon dioxide. The methane produced by belching cattle and giant lagoons of hog manure has the same impact on global warming as the carbon dioxide produced by 33 million automobiles.

The standard American diet, relatively high in meat and dairy, might as well be called the Global Warming Diet. Making even small changes can add up, as you can see on calculators available at [here]... Replacing one hamburger, one egg and a 1-ounce serving of cheese each day for a year with a mix of vegetables, fruit, beans and whole grains would spare the need for 1.8 acres of cropland, 40 pounds of fertilizer, and 3 ounces of pesticides. It also would mean dumping 11,400 fewer pounds of animal manure into the environment.

... Vegetarians and others who eat more-plant-based diets are healthier than the rest of us. They have much lower rates of obesity, heart attacks, strokes and diabetes. Eliminating all the fats from beef, pork, poultry and dairy foods from Americans' diets would save about 65,000 lives a year. And adding lots of plant foods would make arteries more flexible and reduce rates of cancer... The government gives corn farmers several billion dollars a year to provide cheap feed for livestock and cheap high-fructose corn syrup for soda makers.  Why not direct those billions to putting more fresh fruits and vegetables on the lunch trays of America's school kids?..."

[Very edited from here.  Full article below.  I think the good Dr. is low-balling (65,000 lives a year).  Around 45,000 people a MONTH in this country die from heart-disease related issues.  A low-fat vegan diet has been scientifically proven to arrest and reverse heart disease.  Just going vegetarian isn't enough.  Go vegan.  Better yet, go low-fat vegan.]