SoulVeggie

Heart Attack Rata-tat-tat...

The Urban Vegan has been a fun blog to read.  Upbeat, diverse, friendly... even so, the latest post promulgates a major urban myth that is literally killing us by the hundred's of thousands every year, be thee carnivore, vegetarian, or vegan.  From Guerrilla Ratatouille suggestions:

"Use best quality olive oil and lots of it. I use at about 3/4 cup. [Please don't be so afraid of healthy fats. When something tastes good and rich, you are likely to eat less of it anyway.]"

Astonishing.  In the first place, 3/4 cup of olive oil is 1431 calories of pure 162 grams of fat.  100 percent fat.  To put this in perspective:  the federal government recommends around 65 grams of fat PER DAY on a 2,000 calorie diet.  That olive oil suggestion is, by itself, around two and half times the total day's worth of fat the government recommends.  That one entree has 3/4 the TOTAL recommended calories per day with just that one ingredient.

Be afraid... be vewy afwaid...

Then there's the idea that "when something tastes good and rich, you are likely to eat less of it anyway."  Yeah, that's the solution to the obesity problem... we need more fatty food!  It's awful to read this assurance made so gleefully, and yet oblivious to the scientifically documented nutritional and health consequences.  But to the blog's defense, a lot of cooks make similiar culinary suggestions, from the barbaric Emeril to many of our favorite vegan chefs.  People just don't get it.  Fat kills.  That's not a theory, not a myth, no joke:  it's scientific fact.

I've written many times about how Drs. Ornish and Esselstyn have successfully reversed heart disease through a very low fat vegan diet.  Dr. Barnard has done the same for diabetes.  Esselstyn makes a compelling scientific and peer reviewed argument (20+ years of research) that you can heart attack proof yourself by depriving your body of the means to develop the plaque that leads to a stroke.  What do the guys who've done what Modern Medicine can't do, reverse heart disease, recommend?

Around 25 grams of fat a day... Urban Vegan's olive oil addition is over SIX times the recommended fat for an ENTIRE DAY... and that's just one entree for one meal.  THIS is what's killing us people.  These delusions that cups of olive oil are healthy, that if it tastes good and rich, you won't eat as much.  Research has shown that even ONE fatty meal affects the integrity of your endothelium.  Going veg'n isn't immunity.  A no added fat diet is.

Educate yourself!  Don't buy into these urban myths.  People following Esselstyn's recommendations lose their taste for fat in around 14 weeks or so.  You literally start protecting yourself from a heart attack in several days, following a NO added fat vegan diet.  I've been on it for over a year and a half... not desire for added fat.

"Guerrilla Ratatouille?"  From Wikipedia:  "Guerrilla warfare is the unconventional warfare and combat with which a small group of combatants use mobile tactics (ambushes, raids, etc.) to combat a larger and less mobile formal army."  I've made Ratatouille many times without oil and people liked it. Change your tactics and win the real war. Go low-fat vegan and live longer, healthier, and save your heart.

Some useful links to learn technics and strategy:

Ornish reccomendations
Esselstyn's website
My interview with Dr. Esselstyn
Fatfree Vegan Blog
Esselstyn Video on Plaque and what causes Heart Attacks

UPDATE:  08/30/08: a reader commented on the issue of Omega 3 and in double-checking my understanding of what Essy recommends, found this great link on olive oil, Ornstein, Esselstyn, Omega, etc:  Medical Librarian's Blog Post.  Check it out.  Vogel discovered that olive oil constricts blood vessels when consumed 31%!  Canola oil: 10%.  Like it or not, them's the fats, er, facts...

UPDATE: 09/03/08:  Kudos to the Chocolate Covered Vegan for posting an excellent NO-FAT Ratatouille recipe.  See!  It can be done...

Give Your Mother a Hug/Call

Mother's Day is sometimes difficult for me.  My bio-mother, a marvelous woman who spoke five languages, taught school and classical piano, died on Mother's Day from breast cancer when I was around 14 years old.  Devastating on so many levels, this event led directly to my becoming vegetarian and, ultimately, vegan.  I spent years researching (no Internet then, kids) cancer and very quickly came to the conclusion that there was a direct connection between cancer and diet (thank you Gary Null for the first clues).  I got ridiculed by some family members and laughed at by so-called experts.

My research led me to experiment on myself:  let's go veg and see what happens to my mind, body, and soul (having read about so many great sages in history being veg).  My first two attempts failed, miserably.  Didn't know how to do it right.  My third, with some guidance from the veg wife of my karate tutor, was a tremendous success.  The increased energy, the lack of getting sick since then (well, two colds in two decades+), and general vitality told me what I needed to know.  It works; it's right.

How wonderful over the years to see now that so many people (and scientists, and nutritionists) have figured it out as well.  Meat is dangerous, unethical, unsustainable, unwise (and, I believe, much more so is dairy)....

GO VEGAN! 

Happy Mother's Day, Mom... I'm sure you'd understand and approve.

Live to Be 100: 9 Healthy Habits

"... For the the last five years, I've been taking teams of scientists to five pockets around the world where people live the longest, healthiest lives. We call these places the Blue Zones... people live 10 years longer, experience a sixth the rate of cardiovascular disease and a fifth the rate of major cancers... How do they do it?...:

1) Move naturally -- be active without thinking about it...

2) Cut calories by 20 percent...

3) Plant-based diet....

4) Drink red wine (in moderation)...

5) Plan de Vida: determine your life purpose. Why do you get up in the morning?...

6) Down shift -- take time to relieve stress. You may have to literally schedule it into your day, but relaxation is key...

7) Belong / participate in a spiritual community...

8) Put loved ones first / make family a priority...

9) Pick the right tribe -- the people surrounding you influence your health more than almost any other factor. Be surrounded by those who share Blue Zone values...

Sound too simple? Remember, simple doesn't mean easy... Research has shown that if you can sustain a behavioral change for six weeks, you should be able to sustain it for the rest of your life..."

[Full article here and below.  "Blue Zones" website here.  Go low-fat vegan!]

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
------------
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

***********************************************
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

"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!]

"Edible Estates" & Growing Your Own

"......By the end of World War II, over 80 percent of American households were growing some of their own food. Within months after Victory Day this activity quickly subsided. With its demise went the widespread knowledge among most Americans of how to grow their own food... the introduction of the leisure weekend, the abundance of fresh water, the production of industrial pesticides, the availability of the lawn mower and cheap gas, and the rise of home ownership with the explosion of new suburban housing developments in the 1940s and '50s all set the stage for the unfurling of the great American lawn as we know it today. Its puritanical aspects seem suited to the Eisenhower years of good manners. Is there a connection between landscape and hairstyles?... [yikes!]

...In the United States we plant more grass than any other crop: currently lawns cover more than thirty million acres. Given the way we lavish precious resources on it and put it everywhere that humans go, aliens landing in any American city today would assume that grass must be the most precious earthly substance of all.  Yet the lawn devours resources while it pollutes. It is maniacally groomed with mowers and trimmers powered by the two-stroke motors that are responsible for much of our greenhouse gas emissions... To eradicate invading plants the lawn is drugged with pesticides and herbicides, which are then washed into our water supply with sprinklers and hoses, dumping our increasingly rare fresh drinking resource down the gutter. [more water and pesticides on our lawns than used by the entire US agricultural industry.]

Meanwhile, at the grocery store we confront our food. Engineered fruits and vegetables wrapped in plastic and Styrofoam are cultivated not for taste but for appearance, uniformity, and ease of transport, then sprayed with chemicals to inhibit the diseases and pests that thrive in an unbalanced ecosystem. The produce in the average American dinner is trucked 1,500 miles to reach our plates. We don't know where our fruits and vegetables came from or who grew them. Perhaps we have even forgotten that plants were responsible for the mass-produced meal we are consuming. This detachment from the source of our food breeds a careless attitude toward our role as custodians of the land that feeds us. Perhaps we would reconsider what we put down the drain, on the ground, and in the air if there was more direct evidence that we will ultimately ingest it...

The Edible Estates project proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn with a highly productive edible landscape. Food grown in our front yards will connect us to the seasons, the organic cycles of the earth, and our neighbors. The banal lifeless space of uniform grass in front of the house will be replaced with the chaotic abundance of biodiversity. In becoming gardeners we will reconsider our connection to the land, what we take from it, and what we put in it. Each yard will be a unique expression of its location and of the inhabitant and his or her desires..."

[The full, spot-on, literate, history-referencing and thought-provoking "excerpt" from the book is here and below. Here's a sub-3min. "TreeHugger Video on 'Edible Estates.'" For me, this all helped conceptually soothe the tight muscles from digging in the veggie garden yesterday. If you're vegan or vegetarian and not growing some of your own food, even on an apartment balcony, you're missing out on something important.  Go grow your own & Go Vegan.]

Which Giant Corporation Owns Your Fav Organic Food Brand?

I saw today at a local grocery store that the previously vegan "Hain's Chicken Gravy Mix" now contains milk.  What a colossal step backwards.  But then, the quality of the ingredients to say, of Boca and Morningstar products have notably declined in the past few years (no doubt from corporate acquisition by Tobacco-related Corporations) and I wondered how pervasive this trend for large corporations to gobble up organic interests might be.  Over at the superb Organic Consumers Association website, a post that contains links to much information about whom now owns what.  Some of the highlights:

- the "All About Organics" webpage with tons of great links

- fascinating PDF chart (smaller copy below, click for larger version) of The Organic Industry in 2007

- which of "the country's largest food producer's are behind your favorite organic snacks" chart

I used to think it was great to be able to buy a meat analog, or faux cheese, despite the generally high sodium and/or fat content.  I used to think it was wonderful to buy a box of organic packets of oatmeal (when I could easily have bought the oatmeal bulk at 1/5th the cost, added some spices, and saved the money).  In general, I've learned over the past two decades, that minimizing that which you consume that comes in cans, boxes, bottles, and plastic, is not only probably healthier in the long run, but cheaper. 

People enthralled by "non-sugar" sweetners and candies, entranced by refined non-whole grains, and emotionally enslaved by the crispness of "fried" foods may not realize you can be an unhealthy veg'n. These attachments WILL catch up with you physically.  Maybe not when you're in your twenties or thirties, but eventually.  I was astounded that one blogger thought he could "agree to disagree" with Esselstyn's and Ornish's research on low-fat vegan diets and heart disease (that's like disagreeing with evolution... "I don't care about the science, my belief-structure won't let me agree with them").  Neanderthal view.  "Sorry Copernicus, I just can't see it.  The sun obviously goes around the Earth.  Now go away... let me guzzle my olive oil dressing, masticate these pretzels, and suck on xylitol mints."

Too many vegans, imho, are "too" dazzled by "Follow Your Heart Cheese" without considering the consequences (wow, it melts!  who cares about the fat and high price?), and say, Boca Burgers (costs as much as 2 lbs. of tofu or 3 lbs. of uncooked legumes).  Too many vegans "buy" into the  satisfaction of spending so much money to buy processed foods that may help them transition to being vegan, but ultimately, might be problematic from a health standpoint.  I noticed on a veg blog today that someone actually wrote "a little processed food occasionally never hurt anyone" as though that broad generalization was (a) a profound statement and (b) a substantiated fact. It's neither.

Maybe it's my age... it took awhile to get through that fake cheese and meat stuff love affair... which left me feeling lethargic and listless... a transitional phase that's like methadone to the heroin addict... more and more, I find that making it from scratch, incorporating a wider variety of grains, legumes, and fresh vegetables in my diet, is not only cheaper, but healthier and, given time, much more satisfactory to the palette.  You can rid yourself of the addiction or desire for that fat and/or sodium, just as you might have from meat, eggs, and dairy.  But, as with any addiction, you have to want to.

Besides... with all the corporate acquisitions of processed organic products, who has the time to keep up with whom owns said company and the quality of what's in their wares?

Megacorporglomerates like ConAgra aren't going to spend effort and money dominating bulk basic product purchases... no profit margin... no yearly increase in sales.  The more processed it is, the greater their profit, and the lesser the nutritive quality.   Ergo, to save money and eat healthier, we should purchase as little processed food products as possible.  "I consumo ergo sum" (I eat therefore I am?)

Whatever... my best advice is:  if you're making the big jump to a plant-based diet, why not go all the way and make it truly healthy?  Costs less, tastes better, live longer.

Doreen the Downer

[Very funny and accurate flash animation of how hamburgers are made "Downer-licious." Click on the screen snapshot to go to the Mark Fiore animation posted at Mother Jones.  Enjoy... and Go Vegan!]

Animal Ingredients A-Z on iPod

"The Animal Ingredients List A-Z for iPod is a [free] handy, portable, quick reference for vegans on-the-go. Using the information provided by HappyCow.net, one can access the details of—and alternatives for—the many obvious, not so obvious, and downright hidden animal-sourced ingredients we encounter in our day-to-day lives… all on one's iPod... New in Version 2: One can additionally browse a list of E numbers—compiled by The Vegan Society—for possible animal-sourced additives within food products in the EU, New Zealand, and Australia.

• The Animal Ingredients List A-Z is easily installed by downloading a directory and moving it to the 'Notes' directory of your iPod
• The List does not programmatically alter your iPod in any way: it is simply a collection of documents organized for easy browsing
• The List occupies only a fraction of the space of a single song"

[I remember kicking around this idea when I first was given an iPod and somehow it got lost in Life's Shuffles. But, at least "dotism" at "thirty5.org" has gotten it done. Kewl...  Go Vegan!]

Flaming Veg: The "Vegan Fire & Spice" Cookbook

One of the most persistent myths about vegan or vegetarian food, aside from perhaps "where do you get your protein?" is that our diet is bland, dull, and unappealing.  Perhaps this attitude may stem from a 60's stereotype that we live on only tofu and brown rice...  Fortunately, Robin Robertson is back.  Having dispelled the illusion that vegans don't have a variety of food options with "Vegan Planet," and crushing the "it takes so long to cook veg food" whine via "Quick-Fix Vegetarian," she's returned to disintegrate yet another urban legend.

In "Vegan Fire & Spice: 200 Sultry and Savory Global Recipes," she blazes a new trail, this one combusting as a series of recipes that, depending upon your internal thermostat, range from promoting a mild flush, to making endorphins flood and toenails sweat.  With such sizzlers as the "Barbados-Style Grilled Kebabs," steamy sauces like "Svikla" (a horseradish and red beet relish from Eastern Europe), a fruity and febrile "Persian Orange Rice with Pistachios," and the thermogenesis-inducing, "Three-Alarm Lo Mein," Robin invites us to explore the world's tastes from sublime to searing.

Extremely well-organized as chapters by broad locale (e.g., Europe, Middle East and so on), then, by areas  (say, Italy or Pan-Asia), the recipes are categorized by type (sauce, stew, etc.), each having a 1 to 3 "heat" rating and commentary.  With a superb index, an excellent intro about spices, suggested kitchen tools, and more, this cookbook stands out a fascinating journey through the taste buds of civilization with an experienced and, ahem, well-seasoned guide to light the way.

As the first book from "Vegan Heritage Press," their new publishing endeavor, the Robertsons show a spirit that promises a great future for their efforts. Witness Robin's dedication from the first page:

"This book is dedicated to compassionate people throughout the world who help each other, the animals, and the environment by eating a heathful plant-based diet."

In my opinion, it's one helluva cookbook... and the fire is not just in the recipes alone.

[Check out some sample recipes, here. Press Release: here.]