One World Cuisine

A Successful Tea Party before Opening

2010-01-13T19:29:00.012+08:00

Our New Branch in the North Is Opening Soon

2009-12-19T15:24:00.004+08:00

One World Cuisine is pleased to open its third Pay as You Feel international cuisine restaurant in Tuart Hill on January 14, 2010. Our buffet style restaurants have been featured in newspaper, television and rated highly by visiting chefs. Try our Sweet and Sour Vegan Chicken, Vegan Lamb Curry, Pork, Fish and even Garlic King Prawn dishes.

Main Shop:
Shop 7, 23 South Street, Kardinya (Next to Super IGA) WA 6163
Lunch 11:30am - 2:00 pm / Dinner 5:45 pm - 9:00 pm
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Phone: (08) 9331 6677

One World Cuisine in Conjunction with PAWS:
120 Beaufort Street, Perth WA 6000
Wednesday to Friday
Lunch 11:30am - 2:00 pm
Phone: (08) 9228 2435

Branch in the North:
249 North Beach Drive, Tuart Hill WA 6060
Lunch 11:30am - 2:00 pm / Dinner 5:45 pm - 9:00 pm
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Phone: (08) 9207 1668

Save Copenhagen: Real Deal Now!

2009-12-18T10:27:00.004+08:00

from Avaaz

With only 2 days left, the crucial Copenhagen climate summit is failing.

World leaders have arrived and begun 60 hours of final negotiations. Each one will have to decide whether to step forward as heroes, or fail us all. But they will only act if we do. Around the world a global movement has been building towards this moment. Now it's time for one last, massive push -- with a global public outcry for a real deal that will stop catastrophic climate change. In the next 48 hours we can build the largest petition in history. The names of petition signers are actually being read out inside the summit.

Please sign the petition, and tell everyone:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_copenhagen/97.php?cl_tta_sign=c56897e38ad419280418bb335a6aeb0b

Global Warming Hearing with Sir Paul McCartney and Dr Rajenda K. Pachauri

2009-11-11T22:55:00.001+08:00

The European Parliament will host a major event on global warming and food policy on 3 December where Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri and environmental activist Sir Paul McCartney will urge legislators and experts to focus on what an individual can do to fight climate change, for example by eating less meat.

The "Global Warming and Food Policy: Less Meat = Less Heat" hearing takes place on 3 December, in Parliament's plenary chamber, in Brussels, from 10.00 to 12.30, chaired by Vice-President Edward McMillan-Scott. The opening speech is to be delivered by Parliament's President Jerzy Buzek. It will be followed by a press conference.

Read the whole article

You didn't know, did you?

2009-11-10T21:39:00.000+08:00

Help End Factory-Farming at AnimalsAustralia.org

ANIMAL AGRICULTURE: THE FACTS

2009-11-09T16:04:00.000+08:00

ANIMAL AGRICULTURE: THE FACTS @ Yahoo! Video

Climate Change and Meat Consumption

2009-11-09T15:39:00.002+08:00

A recent authoritative report published by the World Watch institute, authors Goodland and Anhang concluded that over 51% of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions come from Livestock.

In the run up to the Copenhagen climate change summit, it is vital the following information be disseminated to the public as well as to our political leaders.

A widely cited 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestock"s Long Shadow, estimates that 18 percent of annual worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributable to livestock....however recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang co-authors of "Livestock and Climate Change" in the latest issue of World Watch magazine found that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions!

Read the whole article

Al Gore Admits Meat Eating Dangers

2009-11-08T22:07:00.002+08:00

Al Gore has finally come clean about his thoughts on meat consumption and the environment.

"I'm not a vegetarian, but I have cut back sharply on the meat that I eat," Gore told ABC Television from New York.

Gore had been criticized in the past for claiming to be an environmentalist, but not discussing the effects of the meat industry and global warming, especially in his narrated documentary on the environment, An Inconvenient Truth.

"It's absolutely correct that the growing meat intensity of diets around the world is one of the issues connected to this global crisis – not only because of the CO2 involved, but also because of the water consumed in the process."

Read the whole article

Walnut and Almond Pie

2009-11-04T21:53:00.002+08:00

Ingredients:
Pie crust:

150g margarine
4 Tbsp raw sugar
220g plain flour
50g almond meal
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp soy milk

Filling:
300g lightly roasted walnuts
120g margarine
200g raw sugar
3 Tbsp No Egg (egg replacer)
1/2 cup soy milk
100g almond meal
50g plain flour
Some almond flakes

Directions:
To make pie crust: Preheat oven to 180℃. In a medium mixing bowl, cream margarine and sugar. Add plain flour, almond meal and salt, and mix well. Add soy milk and mix together to form a dough. Press evenly into a greased pie pan. With a fork, pierce bottom of the crust all over. Bake in oven at 180℃ for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

In a small mixing bowl, mix No Egg and soy milk. In a large mixing bowl, mix margarine, sugar, almond meal and plain flour. Add No Egg mixture, and mix well. Add walnuts, and mix well. Pour the mixture into pie crust and sprinkle some almond flakes on top. Bake at 170℃ for 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Mung Bean Pastries

2009-11-04T20:26:00.008+08:00

Ingredients:
Filling:
600 g peeled split mung beans
1000 g cold water
500 g raw sugar
120 g margarine
100 g coconut cream powder*

Pastry:
Inner layer:
210 g cake flour
140 g margarine
Mix together to form a dough. Divide into 25 portions, 14 g each.

Outer layer:
110 g bread flour
90 g cake flour
75 g margarine
65 g raw sugar
60 g water
Mix together and knead for 5 minutes until very smooth. Divide into 25 portions, 16 g each.

To Finish:
1 Tbsp No Egg (egg replacer)
3 Tbsp soy milk
1 Tbsp caster sugar
2 tablespoon white sesame seeds, for sprinkling as topping
Mix No Egg, soy milk and caster sugar for brushing.

Directions:
Rinse the peeled split mung beans, and soak in 1000 g cold water for 2 hours. Cook in a rice cooker until soft. Crush with a wooden spoon to form a paste. Add sugar, margarine and coconut cream powder, and mix well. Turn this mixture into a non-stick pan and stir constantly over low heat until all the moisture is gone. Set aside to cool. Take 750 g of mung bean paste and refrigerate the rest for future use. Divide into 25 portions, 30 g each, and shape them into small balls. This will be the filling.

Take one portion of inner layer pastry and wrap it inside a portion of outer layer pastry. Press lightly, roll it out into a thin flat sheet using a rolling pin. With your hand, roll the thin sheet up into a cylinder. Turn 90° so that one of the round ends faces you. With the rolling pin, roll it out into a flat sheet again. Then roll it up into a cylinder again. Repeat with the rest of the pastry portions. This is the pastry crust.

Roll each pastry crust into a flat disk, place filling in the centre, and gather the edges of the circle, to seal. Place the pastries, pleated side down, on a baking sheet. Brush with soy milk mixture and sprinkle a pinch of sesame seeds on top. Bake in a preheated oven at 180℃ for about 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

*Coconut cream powder is available at Asian shops.

Scientists say curry compound kills cancer cells

2009-11-02T16:08:00.002+08:00

Wed Oct 28

LONDON (Reuters) – A molecule found in a curry ingredient can kill esophageal cancer cells in the laboratory, suggesting it might be developed as an anti-cancer treatment, scientists said on Wednesday.

Researchers at the Cork Cancer Research Center in Ireland treated esophageal cancer cells with curcumin -- a chemical found in the spice turmeric, which gives curries a distinctive yellow color -- and found it started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.

Read the whole article

Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet

2009-10-28T14:06:00.004+08:00

From The Times
October 27, 2009
Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas

by Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor

People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: "Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world's resources. A vegetarian diet is better."

Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

Read the whole article

World Go Vegan Week

2009-10-27T10:58:00.004+08:00

"I chose to be vegan initially as an energetic pursuit, as meat and dairy slowed me down, but have since become convinced that it is not only the most healthy way to live, but also the most compassionate and ecologically responsible way."
-Woody Harrelson, World Go Vegan Week Supporter

World GO VEGAN Week

Celebrate Compassion...

The 4th annual World GO VEGAN Week is taking place this year from October 25 through 31. This week is a celebration of compassion and a time to take action for animals, the environment and everyone's well-being. We encourage people to use this week to use this week to educate their community about the vegan lifestyle as a compassionate, sustainable, and healthy way of eating and living. Promoting veganism through outreach events and the media, we know that our annual World GO VEGAN Week is helping make the word "vegan" a household word, universally recognized as meaning love and compassion for all living beings.

World GO VEGAN Week is also about celebrating what it means to be vegan. Veganism enables people to live in balance with all of Earth's creatures and promote freedom from exploitation for animals as part of their everyday lives. Modern animal agriculture is cruel and violent toward the chickens, cows, pigs and other creatures used to make meat, milk and eggs. During World GO VEGAN Week, we encourage people to become conscious of what - and who - they are eating, the effect it has on the world, and that a non-violent alternative exists.

We urge people to recognize the effects their actions have on the world, and our ability to actually avert some impending disasters such as global warming.

For the health of people, the environment, and farmed animals, veganism is the best choice. World GO VEGAN Week embodies this idea. As an international campaign, it encourages people around the world to experience the benefits and joys of a more compassionate way of life.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.worldgoveganweek.com/

Climate benefits of changing diet

2009-10-23T09:16:00.002+08:00

Article from Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency

Reducing global meat consumption would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cut the costs of climate policy substantially. This is the result of a PBL study published in Climatic Change. Apart from a reduction in methane and N2O emissions, vast agricultural areas would become unused, mostly as a result of reduced cattle grazing, and could take up large amounts of carbon. Shifting worldwide to a healthy low-meat diet would reduce the costs of stabilising greenhouse gases at 450 ppm CO2 eq. by more than 50%.

Abstract

Climate change mitigation policies tend to focus on the energy sector, while the livestock sector receives surprisingly little attention, despite the fact that it accounts for 18% of the greenhouse gas emissions and for 80% of total anthropogenic land use. From a dietary perspective, new insights in the adverse health effects of beef and pork have lead to a revision of meat consumption recommendations. Here, we explored the potential impact of dietary changes on achieving ambitious climate stabilization levels. By using an integrated assessment model, we found a global food transition to less meat, or even a complete switch to plant-based protein food to have a dramatic effect on land use.

Organic Farming Could Help Stop Global Climate Change

2009-10-11T23:02:00.003+08:00

Organic soils such as those seen here could sequester 40% of global carbon emissions.

Article from Treehugger

by Timothy J. LaSalle, Rodale Institue, Kutztown

Global Climate Change Chaos

We've overshot sustainability. Three hundred fifty parts per million (350 ppm) is the recommended safe threshold for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Today, at 386 ppm, we're over the limit. There is evidence that we will see ice-free summer Arctic a hundred years before IPCC estimates and we have already seen flooding in Iowa's city that would never flood and massive fires in the American west. An ice-free Arctic full of dark water will absorb more heat and change global climate patterns. Burning forests emit massive amounts of carbon dioxide, producing a deeper greenhouse effect. To avoid further expensive climate chaos we must deploy the most creative and innovative technology in the world to rapidly pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And regenerative farming is it.

Hope in Organic Farming: Agricultural Carbon Capture and Sequestration

Even if we acted sustainably by stopping carbon emissions today, we would not be living on a healthy planet-- we need agriculture to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. The US Congress is considering a law to cap emissions of greenhouse gases, and to award credits for technologies that capture carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it safely. Write your representatives to tell them you support the most sophisticated carbon capture and sequestration method around: organic farming. Or better yet, call them up, and tell them that organic farming could pull fortypercent of global greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere -- each year.

Let's Hold Agriculture Accountable

The Senate's new climate bill caps our nation's greenhouse gas emissions, and begins rewarding people and organizations that reduce our impact on the climate system. Farmers can store atmospheric carbon dioxide in their soils as soil organic carbon, which is why the Senate climate bill must support farmers with carbon credits. Unfortunately, the current bill does not limit the amount of greenhouse gases that farmers can emit, even though agriculture is responsible for 15% of our national emissions. Agricultural greenhouse gas emissions are mainly produced when chemical companies burn fossil fuels to produce synthetic fertilizers, and when distributors fly food around the world. Why should we give farmers credit for storing carbon in soil and not hold them accountable for their greenhouse gas emissions? You can help create this accountability when you tell your Senator to cap agricultural emissions.

The Real Farmers of the Future Will Build Soils

The most cutting edge forms of climate-friendly agriculture -- organic, regenerative, local, biodynamic -- don't produce greenhouse emissions the way industrial chemical farming's toxic inputs do. Rather, the real farmers of the future nurture their soils with innovative techniques such as advanced crop rotations, intercropping, soil amendments, and even animal grazing. These healthier soils are more resistant to dry and wet years, the frequencies of which are increasing as our climate transforms. The cutting-edge techniques these farmers use are continuously being improved and developed by farmer experience and supported by scientific research. Rather than giving carbon credits based on specific practices (which may become outdated or disproved) farmers should get credits based on the measured amounts of carbon they sequester in soil. A bill that rewards farmers for measured sequestration means farmers can work to increase soil carbon, rather than be limited by a specific law.

Nature Makes Us Nicer People, New Study Says

2009-10-05T23:40:00.002+08:00

Article from Treehugger

by Jaymi Heimbuch

Don't disregard those wall calendars showing far-off nature scenes quite yet. It just might make you a more caring, community-oriented, and generous person. A new study by the University of Rochester found that after looking at nature scenes, people feel closer to their community, are willing to give more money to a charitable cause, and care more about social outcomes than they are after looking at man-made scenes. The reason, the researchers state, it communing with nature helps people also commune with their basic values.

The University of Rochester reports what we all have been savvy to for awhile now, that seeing naturescapes helps reduces stress, and even having a window in a hospital room helps people recover more quickly. "While the salubrious effects of nature are well documented... this study shows that the benefits extend to a person's values and actions. Exposure to natural as opposed to man-made environments leads people to value community and close relationships and to be more generous with money, find [Richard] Ryan and his team of researchers at the University of Rochester.

From experiments including 370 participants, the results show that after viewing urban settings or natural settings, people exposed to natural settings rated close relationships and community higher than they had before seeing the scenes, whereas after viewing urban settings, people placed more value on wealth and fame. Additionally, those who viewed nature scenes were more likely to give higher amounts of money to a good cause.

"Lead author Netta Weinstein says that the findings highlight the importance of creating green spaces in cities and have implication for planners and architects. Incorporating parks and other representations of nature into urban environments may help build a stronger sense of community among residents, she explains. By contrast, "to the extent that our links with nature are disrupted, we may also lose some connection with each other," the authors warn."

If it is the case that being around and seeing nature makes us more people-oriented and generous, perhaps we should flood the offices of Copenhagen delegates with plants, scenes from natural settings, and earthy furniture so that they're really ready to negotiate with the future of the planet front and center.

Need to see some nature now? Check out this slideshow of 20 Wild Spaces for Getting Back to Nature - It'll make you a nicer person.

Save The Human! "Don't Eat The Planet"

2009-10-03T19:21:00.004+08:00

SAVE THE HUMAN STOP GLOBAL WARMING!!
GO VEGGIE NOW!!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32068839545

DO YOU KNOW... "18% of all global Green Houses Gases are from the consumption of MEAT and DAIRY?"

Recently we came across some statistical facts that shocked us. Alarm bells began to ring loudly inside our being! There was nothing I could do to stop them ringing.

Out of this an idea to launch a graphic and visual campaign to raise public awareness to save the human came to me.

We have been increasingly hearing about saving the whales and saving the tigers and saving the Amazon rain forests for over 20 years now...

This is all good and noble and necessary, but to most people it is too far detached from their busy lifestyles and immediate bubble of existence...

However to save the human implies something far more serious and urgent, it forces one's mind to stop, think and connect the dots. It shocks us into awareness.

Humanity needs to wake up now in large numbers if we are to survive at all.

According to Dr. James Hansen, leading climate scientist with NASA: "we have passed tipping points. We have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back, but it is going to require a quick turn in direction."

Some of the recent facts* that we came across:

-- Livestock production is responsible for 18% of global GHG emissions from all human activities.

-- 70% of previously forested land in South America is used for livestock production.

-- At present there are nearly 60 billion animals a year used to produce meat & dairy. The human population is 6.7 billion.

The UN FAO predicts that between 2001 & 2050 the above figure could double.
-- A vegetarian driving a gas guzzling SUV car is more eco friendly than a carnivore riding a bicycle.

**OUR MISSION STATEMENT**
Save the Human campaign is to raise public awareness about these alarming facts in a funky graphic way that appeals to young & older people in an inspirational way that empowers them to not only change their lifestyles but also to pro-actively be part of the solution.

The team with which to manifest this campaign at this moment in time is made up of designers, directors, producers and sponsors all acting selflessly & voluntarily with a strong passion and full-hearted support to see this change happen.

This is an idea whose time has come and therefore it will receive popular support.
It is the time to save us, go vegetarian, go organic now and today.
- Bobsy Gaia, Chairman of ABLE Charity

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the
world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead-

Pug uses pushchair to walk puppies

2009-09-27T23:49:00.003+08:00

Jenny the pug has taken puppy love to a whole new level, after taking to pushing toy dogs around in a pushchair.

Jenny's owner, Ellen Zessin, a children's book artist from Portland, Oregon, US, explains: "Jenny loved the little stuffed pugs we got for her right from the beginning and was forever picking them up in her mouth and mothering them.

FAMOUS AUSSIES PLEDGE TO TRY VEG TO HELP SAVE THE BARRIER REEF

2009-09-27T21:53:00.002+08:00

National Vegetarian Week, 28 September - 4 October 2009

An impressive line-up of celebrities are supporting the third annual National Vegetarian Week by making a 'Pledge to Try Veg' to boost awareness of the effect of meat consumption on our health and the environment, and to raise vital funds to help save the Great Barrier Reef from destruction due to climate change.

Cricket legend Brett Lee, world surfing champion Stephanie Gilmore and head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra Pachauri are among those who have made a pledge to support National Vegetarian Week, with television and radio personality Sami Lukis leading the charge as this year's campaign ambassador.

Pledge to Try Veg is the theme of this year's National Vegetarian Week (28 September - 4 October 2009) and Australians are encouraged to make a pledge either to try a plant-based meal, increase their plant based meals or commit to eating vegetarian for the week by visiting www.vegetarianweek.com.au. For every pledge, one dollar will be donated to the Great Barrier Reef Foundationi to help fund research into protecting the national icon and tourism drawcard from environmental threats such as rising water temperatures and water acidification. If left unchecked, such issues could cause major problems such as coral bleaching and damage to reef ecosystems.

Sami Lukis, a vegetarian since the age of nine, said the purpose of National Vegetarian Week is to demonstrate that eating too much meat may have an impact on our health and a very real impact on the environment, and to inspire people to make small adjustments to their diet.
"We are not asking people to make a complete switch to a meat-free diet. Rather, we are encouraging them to consider how they can make a difference globally and within the skin they're in, by eating more vegetarian meals. We need as many people as possible to make a pledge so we can help save our Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world and improve everyone's health," said Ms Lukis.

According to new Newspoll research commissioned by Sanitarium Health Food Company, seven out of 10 Australians are now eating plant-based meals. The national survey of 1200 adults also showed a continuing trend in the belief that eating less meat and more plant-based foods improves overall health.

Sanitarium Accredited Practising Dietitian, Angela Saunders, said, "Including more plant based foods provides a number of health benefits including protection from common lifestyle diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and some cancers."

"People on plant-based diets eat more fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes which are naturally low in fat, and so manage their weight more easily. These foods also contribute more fibre, helping us feel full and reducing the need for snacking," she added.

Part of National Vegetarian Week this year is to also raise awareness of how meat production negatively impacts the environment.

Livestock activity such as agriculture involving cattle and sheep is responsible for more than a third of all human-produced methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. While methane breaks down in less than 20 years, carbon dioxide stays around for 100 years or more. Cutting carbon dioxide emissions will have no effect on global warming for decades, but reducing methane by restricting our meat intake will make a difference very quickly.

For more information visit: www.vegetarianweek.com.au

Beef-Dairy Fat May Fool Brain's Appetite Signals

2009-09-26T19:36:00.002+08:00

Article from Vital Choices Newsletter

Saturated fat abundant in butter, cheese, milk and beef is seen to block fullness signals sent from rats' brains via appetite hormones

by Craig Weatherby

While the basic physiology of rodents and humans is very similar, the two species can differ significantly when it comes to weight control.

So it's smart to take weight control experiments in rodents with a grain of salt, so to speak.

But the results of a recent rat study seem to dovetail with a very human experience... that is, bingeing on burgers and ice cream seems to beget more burger-and-ice cream bingeing.

The findings from Texas suggest that we may be able to blame our bodies' reaction to a particular saturated fat - palmitic acid, which abounds in beef and dairy - for sabotaging efforts to get back on track after enjoying its major food sources ... such as beef burgers and ice cream.

Scientists from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center suggest that the specific saturated fat called palmitic acid causes rats' cells to ignore any appetite-suppressing signals received via the key weight-regulation hormones called leptin and insulin (Benoit SC et al. 2009).

UN International Day of Peace on September 21st

2009-09-16T20:38:00.002+08:00

Peace begins on our Plate

For more information, please visit:
http://meatfreemovement.org/peace-day

Pizza with Tempeh

2009-09-14T12:48:00.007+08:00

Total servings: 4

Ingredients:
2 Tbs vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 red bell pepper, chopped
300g tomato puree
2 cups broccoli, cut in small pieces
150 g mushrooms, cut in slices
1/2 tsp dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbs vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 tsp baking powder
250 g tempeh*, cut in small cubes
2 Tbs soy sauce
4 Tbs vegetable oil
2 fresh tomatoes

Directions:

In a saucepan heat the oil over a medium flame. Add the onions, garlic, and peppers. Sauté until the onions are tender. Add the tomato pulp, broccoli, herbs, salt and pepper. Simmer 10 minutes or until the broccoli is almost soft. Add the mushrooms and continue to heat for 5 minutes.

Preheat oven to 420° F (210°C). In a large bowl combine flour, salt and baking powder. Add the oil and mix. Add water, while mixing, until the dough holds together, but is not sticky. Put the dough on pizza pan and form the pizza. Bake for 20 minutes.

Pour the soy sauce over the tempeh until most of the sauce is absorbed. Drain tempeh. Bake the tempeh in a frying pan in the oil, turning often, until all sides are golden brown. Turn off the heat.

Take the pizza crust out of the oven and spread it with sauce. Arrange the tempeh and tomato slices (and optionally grated vegan cheese or olives) on top and return to the oven for 10 minutes. Serve the tempeh pizza immediately.

Vegan: Yes

Vegetarian: Yes

More tempeh recipes

* What is tempeh? See here.

* Thanks to Mr. C.T. Cheong's loving contribution One World Cuisine is able to provide delicious organic tempeh dishes for customers. In addition, various high- quality tempeh products and other new soy products are available at One World Cuisine now.

Colorful Couscous Salad with Vegan Tuna

2009-09-09T19:36:00.011+08:00

Couscous is nutritious, low in fat and cheap, and can be cooked in many ways.

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups organic couscous
3 cups water
1/2 red capsicum, diced
1/2 green capsicum, diced

1/2 cup chopped red cabbage
1 small bunch fresh dill, chopped
1/2 package (150g) vegan tuna*
1 medium cucumber, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 avocado, diced

15 pitted black olives, diced
1/2 cup currants (optional)

Dressing:
6 Tbsp lemon juice
5 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp curry powder
Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
Bring 3 cups of water and 1 Tbsp oil to a boil. Then stir in couscous. Cover and remove from heat. Allow all liquid to absorb (usually about 6 minutes) then fluff with fork.

Mix the dressing ingredients well. Pour the dressing over the salad and stir to combine. Serve right away or chill first.

* Vegan tuna is available at One World Cuisine.

'Whale Wars' Capt. Paul Watson's vegan vessel -- with recipes!

2009-08-27T22:31:00.002+08:00

Article from Los Angeles Times

Here's a tasty tidbit for fans of activist/conservationist Capt. Paul Watson and his acclaimed Animal Planet series "Whale Wars."

The exciting new season (airs at 9 p.m. Fridays) just started last week.

But we found out from Paul that everyone on board the Sea Shepherd, eats vegan. No fish. Ever.

DR: Tell me what you and the crew of the Sea Shepherd eat?

PW: I run my ship as a vegan vessel. It's not for animal rights reasons but to set an example and to try and get people to think about the connection between what they eat and what we're doing to the oceans, because it's quite simple, really. I personally feel that it's the most important cause on the planet; more important than anything else for the simple reason as this – if the oceans die then we all die. And we've removed 90% of the fish from the oceans. Marine ecosystems are in serious situation and it could collapse. Two weeks ago the world's experts on coral reefs met at an international conference. The conclusion of that conference is that coral reef ecosystems will be gone, worldwide, in 20 years, and it's irreversible. Nothing can be done now to stop that. That's the first major collapse of a large ecosystem on the planet and that's the first of many. This is something people have got to be very concerned and involved with because if too many ecosystems collapse, the whole structure comes down. That is going to bode very ill for all of us."

Beluga whale carries struggling diver to surface

2009-08-27T22:19:00.006+08:00

A DROWNING diver has a beluga whale to thank for helping to save her life after her legs were paralysed by cramps.

Yang Yun was taking part in a free-diving contest at Polar Land in Harbin, north-east China, in which participants were required to sink seven metres to the bottom of a pool and stay there for as long as possible without the aid of breathing equipment.

Ms Yun, 26, thought she was going to die amid the beluga whales she shared the arctic pool with, after struggling to move her legs while trying to kick her way to the surface.

"I began to choke and sank even lower and I thought that was it for me - I was dead," she told The Sun.

"Until I felt this incredible force under me driving me to the surface."

That "incredible force" was Mila, a beluga whale which had noticed her distress and clamped its jaws around her leg.

Soymilk Mayonnaise

2009-08-24T22:46:00.001+08:00

Ingredients:

1 cup soymilk
1 cup sugar
3 tsp salt
1 2/3 cups sunflower oil
3 tsp vinegar (adjust the degree of sourness, according to taste)

Directions:

Mix soymilk, sugar and salt and blend in a completely dry blender. A very important tip for making mayonnaise is to blend the ingredients at high speed. Then slowly stir in oil, and continue to blend at high speed. When oil is blended thoroughly, the mixture will become very thick. Finally, stir in vinegar and mix well.

Tofu Tuna Salad

2009-08-24T22:11:00.005+08:00

Created by admin

This recipe really brings back memories of childhood. Do make sure to freeze and the thaw the tofu before preparing this recipe. It gives it a more chewy texture.

Ingredients:

* 1 block firm or extra firm tofu, frozen, then thawed and pressed
* 2 stalks celery, diced
* 1 tbsp pickle relish
* 2/3 cup vegan mayonnaise
* 1 tbsp lemon juice
* 1/2 tsp kelp powder
*1/2 tsp sea salt or more to taste
*1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Preparation:

In a small bowl, crumble or mash the tofu with a fork until it reaches the desired consistency. Add the celery and relish.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and kelp. Gently add this mixture to the tofu and stir to combine.

Serve chilled on toast with lettuce and pickle on the side.

Tesco criticised by vegetarians for using waste meat to generate electricity

2009-08-19T23:35:00.002+08:00

Article from Telegraph.co.uk

The Vegetarians International Voice for Animals (Viva) claims that consumers should be informed if any of their home electricity is being generated by what it described as the "macabre" recycling process.

Tesco now sends 5,000 tonnes of meat that has passed its sell-by date to be turned into enough National Grid electricity to power 600 homes for a year.

It has hailed the scheme as part of a "green" drive which has enabled it to stop sending any of the waste it produces to environmentally damaging landfill sites.

But Viva said many vegetarians would be "horrified" that their houses were being powered partly by out-of-date meat.

They said any environmental benefits of recycling the meat were far outweighed by the greenhouse gases produced by rearing more meat than was needed in the first place.

Read more

21-Day Vegan Kickstart

2009-08-11T20:57:00.002+08:00

By Eccentric Vegan on August 9th, 2009

PCRM launches a new program to help people go vegan.

Here's their description of the program:

Whether you're drawn to chocolate, cookies, potato chips, cheese, or burgers and fries, we all have foods we can't seem to resist-foods that sabotage our best efforts to lose weight and improve our health. But PCRM's Vegan Kickstart will help you win the food fight.

Based on research by Neal Barnard, M.D., PCRM president and one of America's leading health advocates, this 21-day program is designed for anyone who wants to explore and experience the health benefits of a vegan diet.

During these three weeks you will have an all-access pass to:

*Daily e-tips that will put you on the path to weight loss, better health, and greater well-being
*Delicious, easy, and satisfying recipes that will help you break your cravings for unhealthy foods *Weekly motivational nutrition webcasts featuring Dr. Barnard
*Social support of other Kickstart participants through a message board where nutrition
*Professionals answer your health and diet questions

Curious? Sign up here >>

The Low-Carbon Diet

2009-07-27T13:02:00.007+08:00

Change your lightbulbs? Or your car? If you want to fight global warming, it's time to consider a different diet.

Article from Audubonmagazine.org

By Mike Tidwell

Full disclosure: I love to eat meat. I was born in Memphis, the barbecue capital of the Milky Way Galaxy. I worship slow-cooked, hickory-smoked pig meat served on a bun with extra sauce and coleslaw spooned on top.

My carnivore's lust goes beyond the DNA level. It's in my soul. Even the cruelty of factory farming doesn't temper my desire, I'll admit. Like most Americans, I can somehow keep at bay all thoughts of what happened to the meat prior to the plate.

So why in the world am I a dedicated vegetarian? Why is meat, including sumptuous pork, a complete stranger to my fork at home and away? The answer is simple: I have an 11-year-old son whose future-like yours and mine-is rapidly unraveling due to global warming. And what we put on our plates can directly accelerate or decelerate the heating trend.

That giant chunk of an Antarctic ice sheet, the one that disintegrated in a matter of hours, the one the size of seven Manhattans-did you hear about it? It shattered barely a year ago "like a hammer on glass," scientists say, and is now melting away in the Southern Ocean. This is just a preview, of course, of the sort of ecological collapse coming everywhere on earth, experts say, unless we hit the brakes soon on climate change. If the entire West Antarctic ice sheet melts, for example, global sea-level rise could reach 20 feet.

Since the twin phenomena of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Gore, most Americans have a basic literacy on the issue of climate change. It's getting worse, we know, and greenhouse gases-emitted when we burn fossil fuels-are driving it. Less accepted, it seems, is the role food-specifically our consumption of meat-is playing in this matter. The typical American diet now weighs in at more than 3,700 calories per day, reports the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, and is dominated by meat and animal products. As a result, what we put in our mouths now ranks up there with our driving habits and our use of coal-fired electricity in terms of how it affects climate change.

Simply put, raising beef, pigs, sheep, chicken, and eggs is very, very energy intensive. More than half of all the grains grown in America actually go to feed animals, not people, says the World Resources Institute. That means a huge fraction of the petroleum-based herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers applied to grains, plus staggering percentages of all agricultural land and water use, are put in the service of livestock. Stop eating animals and you use dramatically less fossil fuels, as much as 250 gallons less oil per year for vegans, says Cornell University's David Pimentel, and 160 gallons less for egg-and-cheese-eating vegetarians.

But fossil fuel combustion is just part of the climate–diet equation. Ruminants-cows and sheep-generate a powerful greenhouse gas through their normal digestive processes (think burping and emissions at the other end). What comes out is methane (23 times more powerful at trapping heat than CO2) and nitrous oxide (296 times more powerful).

Indeed, accounting for all factors, livestock production worldwide is responsible for a whopping 18 percent of the world's total greenhouse gases, reports the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. That's more than the emissions of all the world's cars, buses, planes, and trains combined.

So why do we so rarely talk about meat consumption when discussing global warming in America? Compact fluorescent bulbs? Biking to work? Buying wind power? We hear it nonstop. But even the super-liberal, Prius-driving, Green Party activist in America typically eats chicken wings and morning bacon like everyone else. While the climate impacts of meat consumption might be new to many people, the knowledge of meat's general ecological harm is not at all novel. So what gives?

Roughly three percent of all Americans are vegetarians, according to the Vegetarian Resource Group, a nonprofit that educates people on the benefits of a meat-free diet. Part of the reason, I know, is the unfortunate belief that vegetarianism is a really tough lifestyle change, much harder than simply changing bulbs or buying a better car. But as a meat lover at heart, I've been a vegetarian (no fish, minimal eggs and cheese) for seven years, and trust me: It's easy, satisfying, and of course super healthy. With the advent of savory tofu, faux meats, and the explosion of local farmers' markets, a life without meat is many times easier today than when Ovid and Thoreau and Gandhi and Einstein did it. True, many meat substitutes are made from soybeans, a monocrop with its own environmental issues. But most soy production today is actually devoted to livestock feed. Only 1 percent of U.S. soybeans become tofu, for example.

Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, is the author of The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities (Free Press).

MELTING MOMENTS

2009-07-25T22:30:00.004+08:00

1½ cup self-raising flour
2 tablespoons corn flour
6 ounces or 187 gm vegan margarine eg. Eta margarine
2 tablespoons icing sugar
1 small teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 170ºC. Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Mix margarine, vanilla and icing sugar together and add flours. Mix until smooth but not too soft. Adjust with extra flour or margarine if too soft or too floury. Form into balls and flatten on trays using floured fork.

Bake for 15 minutes or until light golden brown. Join together with jam while still a little warm.

Vegan Chocolate Whipped Cream

2009-07-25T18:44:00.003+08:00

Ingredients:
1 cup plain soymilk
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 Tbsp cocoa powder, sifted
3 Tbsp Nuttelex margarine
1 2/3 cups sunflower oil

Directions:
Mix soymilk, sugar, vanilla extract, cocoa powder and margarine and blend in a blender. Then slowly add in sunflower oil, and continue to blend at high speed. When the oil is blended thoroughly, the mixture will become thick.

Vegan Chocolate Cheesecake

2009-07-16T21:08:00.025+08:00

Ingredients:
Crust:
3/4 cup Nuttelex margarine
1 1/3 cups plain flour
3 Tbsp caster sugar
2 Tbsp soy milk
1/3 tsp salt
(20cm spring form pan is recommended)

Filling:
3 tubs plain Tofutti Cream Cheese
1 cup caster sugar
100g bar dark vegan chocolate
2 Tbsp cocoa powder, sifted
1/2 cup soy milk
4 tsp heap No Egg (egg replacer)

Directions:
To make the crust: Preheat oven to 180 C. Cream margarine and caster sugar. Add in flour and salt. With both hands, work the margarine into the flour until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add soy milk and salt, and mix gently to make a dough. Press evenly onto the base of a lined pan (see picture below) and bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. In a mixing bowl, whisk No Egg and soy milk until foamy.

In another bowl, mix vegan cream cheese, sugar and cocoa powder. Fold in melted chocolate and No Egg mixture, and mix until smooth.

Pour onto the cooled crust. Place the pan in a tray and fill with cold water up to 2cm deep. Bake in oven at 170C for 60-80 minutes.

When the cake is almost done, remove the tray and water first, and then bake for 5 -10 more minutes in case the water moistens the crust. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight before serving.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup vegan margarine
100 g Tofutti cream cheese
3 teaspoon cocoa powder, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla

Whip all ingredients until smooth. Add more icing sugar or a bit of soy milk to reach desired consistency.

Vegan Chocolate Cheese Biscuits

2009-07-15T22:57:00.020+08:00

There are two recipes for pastry. If you like crispy pastry, try the first one. To make muffin pastry, try the second.

Makes 60 - 65 biscuits

Ingredients:
Pastry 1:
240g Nuttelex margarine
200g caster sugar
460g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp soy milk
Pastry 2:

240g Nuttelex margarine

200g caster sugar

420g self-raising flour

2/3 cup almond meal

1/2 tsp salt

3 Tbsp soy milk

Filling:
1 1/2 packages plain Tofutti Cream Cheese
160g caster sugar
1 bar dark vegan chocolate (100g)
2 tsp cocoa powder, sifted

Directions:
Preheat oven to 170C.

Melt vegan chocolate in a double boiler. Whip Tofutti Cream Cheese with caster sugar. Add in chocolate and cocoa powder, and mix well. Put the mixture into a plastic bag, seal with an elastic band, and cut a tiny hole in one corner. This is for the filling.

Cream margarine and caster sugar. Add in flour and salt, along with almond meal if you are making the pastry 2. With both hands, work the margarine into the flour until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add soy milk and mix gently to make a dough. Add more soy milk if it's too dry.

Divide the dough into small portions, and evenly press each portion into muffin pan. Use a bottle cap to make a small well in each pastry's centre.

Put into oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove and fill each well with filling. Return to oven, reduce heat to 150C, and bake for 6-7 minutes.

* You can vary the filling with green tea powder or strawberry extract.

Lose a Pound a Week With a Vegan Diet

2009-07-13T11:28:00.001+08:00

No calorie-counting or exercise necessary.

Article from planet green

You may be thinking about going vegan/vegetarian because you believe animals should be treated ethically or because you want to reduce pollution. Quitting the meat habit can cut your carbon footprint by more than 5,000 pounds a year. Pounds of carbon won't be the only thing that you'll be shedding.

According to a recent study, you can shed about one pound a week without diet or exercise simply by sticking to a low-fat vegan diet. Only 0%-6% of vegetarians are obese.

Dr. Berkow: Lead Author of the Study
Our research reveals that people can enjoy unlimited portions of high-fiber foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to achieve or maintain a healthy body weight without feeling hungry. There is evidence that a vegan diet causes an increased calorie burn after meals, meaning plant-based foods are being used more efficiently as fuel for the body, as opposed to being stored as fat.

A different study, which focused on obese middle-aged women, found that the women on a low-fat vegan diet were able to lose, on average, 13 pounds in 14 weeks. While the women in the control group who were on a low-cholesterol diet only lost 8 pounds in 14 weeks.

read more

Try a Weekday Vegetarian Diet: Eat Green Food without Taking the Plunge

2009-07-12T23:46:00.005+08:00

Article from Treehugger

To most people, meat tastes great. To ask them to go cold turkey (har, har) is a huge ask. The vegetarian movement has focused on pushing a binary decision. A "Either you're with us, or you're against us" approach. A result of this is that meat-eaters either immediately reject the concept or promise themselves that they'll go vegetarian later. And that "later" rarely comes.

Meat Ain't What it Used to Be
Over the last fifty-odd years, the meat on our plate has gone from being the garnish to being the main feature. In short, It has switched places with the vegetables. Over the same period, the manner in which we "grow" meat has gotten more and more unsustainable (via factory farming, antibiotic use, more food miles, and overall inefficient use of resources). The result is that the volume of meat and the negative ramifications of it reinforce each other and therefore meat has become a huge issue for us.

A Proposal: A Weekday Vegetarian Diet
Paul McCartney's recent proclamation that we should all practice "Meat-Free Mondays" is a fine idea, and a fun meme, but it's impact really pales in comparison; weekday vegetarianism has five times the impact, and that can be a big boost to your footprint-cutting endeavors. If you're serious about reducing your footprint, once a week won't get the job done.
Instead, follow this one simple rule: Save your meat-eating for the weekend.
It's easy to follow.It's non-binary.It's significant (reduces impact by 70%).It's not too restrictive.It'll save you money.It's good for your health.You can start today.

"But, I need meat to be healthy!"
a) Check out these vegetarian athletes and then re-think that.
b) You can still eat some meat on the weekends.
c) There is a ton of data to suggest that most meat is actually not good for your health.

"But, I love the taste of meat!"
a) It takes a bit more work as our culinary culture has been built around meat but tasty vegetarian food does exist -- here are seven tasty recipes to get you started. Still skeptical? Check out these tasty meat alternatives.
b) You still get to look forward to the weekends.
c) By cutting it during the week, you do gain in health, helping the environment out and fattening your wallet.

Considering all this, it can really be a no brainer; here are some links to help get you started.

More on the delights of a vegetarian diet:
Vegetarian Diet Could Cut Climate Change Mitigation Costs by 70%, If Enough Of Us Make the Switch
7 Cheap and Easy Vegetarian Meals
Proven: Vegetarians Live Longer
Reduce the Meat in Your Diet: Become a Weekday Vegetarian
Vegetable Recipes on Planet Green

Australian town bans bottled water

2009-07-10T13:39:00.002+08:00

Bottled water is often criticised as an environmental menace.

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 July 2009 12.03 BST

Residents of a rural Australian town have voted to ban the sale of bottled water. They are possibly the first community in the world to take such a step.

Residents of Bundanoon cheered after their near-unanimous approval of the measure at a town meeting on Wednesday. It was the second blow to Australia's beverage industry in one day. Hours earlier, the New South Wales state premier banned all state departments and agencies from buying bottled water, calling it a waste of money and natural resources.

"I have never seen 350 Australians in the same room all agreeing to something," said Jon Dee, who helped spearhead the "Bundy on Tap" campaign in Bundanoon, a town of 2,500 about 100 miles south of Sydney. "It's time for people to realise they're being conned by the bottled water industry."

First popularised in the 1980s as a convenient, healthy alternative to sugary drinks, bottled water today is often criticised as an environmental menace, with bottles cluttering landfills and requiring large amounts of energy to produce and transport.

Over the past few years, at least 60 cities in the United States and a handful of others in Canada and the United Kingdom have agreed to stop spending taxpayer money on bottled water, which is often consumed during city meetings, said Deborah Lapidus, organiser of Corporate Accountability International's "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign in the US.

But the Boston-based nonprofit corporate watchdog has never heard of a community banning the sale of bottled water, she said.

Veggie Queen Is Planning to Open a Worldwide Chain of Vegetarian Restaurants

2009-07-08T20:44:00.004+08:00

Devout vegetarian Radhika Oswal doesn't squirm at the thought of meat - in fact, she still remembers how tasty chicken legs are.

But the wife of fertiliser billionaire Pankaj Oswal has vowed not to eat meat again because of the damage it does to the environment.

Mrs Oswal hit back at criticisms this week after she made a 40-minute presentation on the benefits of vegetarianism on global sustainability at the Oswals' annual ball last weekend.

She told The West Australian that she had nothing against meat-eaters but believed we could help reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by going vegetarian one day a week.

"I don't have a problem with people eating meat," she said. "I think people don't understand the impact of eating meat. I have learnt that vegetarianism is one of the most important and absolutely most ignored concepts relevant to the sustainability of our species, to this planet's ecosystems and to humanity.

"I'm just putting my views out there because I want to show my face to my great-grandchildren and my grandchildren and be able to tell them that I did try. Vegetarianism is something you can do at your own home. All I ever quoted and all I say today, and I say it today again, is try one vegetarian day a week. I've never said stop eating meat."

Mrs Oswal stood by her comments that "we are covering the world in s..." because of the livestock excrement that was clogging the world's rivers and forests. But she had tried meat, having rebelled from her vegetarian family in her teens and eating meat at boarding school.

"Here when you rebel you become vegetarian, but in India it's the opposite. So I rebelled and my friends were all eating these chicken legs and I have to say, it's really sad but they were tasty," she said.

"I started realising the benefits of vegetarianism when someone told me about these benefits less from the angle of religion and more from the angle of sustainability and environmental impact and kindness towards animals. That's when I really understood the importance."

Mrs Oswal is busy with plans to open a worldwide chain of vegetarian restaurants called Otarian. Flagship stores are due to open in Britain and the US this year.

read more

Super-size Deposits Of Frozen Carbon In Arctic Could Worsen Climate Change

2009-07-07T10:37:00.008+08:00

ScienceDaily (July 6, 2009) - The vast amount of carbon stored in the arctic and boreal regions of the world is more than double that previously estimated, according to a study published this week.

The amount of carbon in frozen soils, sediments and river deltas (permafrost) raises new concerns over the role of the northern regions as future sources of greenhouse gases.

"We now estimate the deposits contain over 1.5 trillion tons of frozen carbon, about twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere", said Dr. Charles Tarnocai, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, and lead author.

Dr. Pep Canadell, Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project at CSIRO, Australia, and co-author of the study says that the existence of these super-sized deposits of frozen carbon means that any thawing of permafrost due to global warming may lead to significant emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.

Carbon deposits frozen thousands of years ago can easily break down when permafrost thaws releasing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, according to another recent study by some of the same authors.

"Radioactive carbon dating shows that most of the carbon dioxide currently emitted by thawing soils in Alaska was formed and frozen thousands of years ago. The carbon dating demonstrates how easily carbon decomposes when soils thaw under warmer conditions," said Professor Ted Schuur, University of Florida and co-author of the paper.

The authors point out the large uncertainties surrounding the extent to which permafrost carbon thawing could further accelerate climate change.

"Permafrost carbon is a bit of a wildcard in the efforts to predict future climate change," said Dr Canadell. "All evidence to date shows that carbon in permafrost is likely to play a significant role in the 21st century climate given the large carbon deposits, the readiness of its organic matter to release greenhouse gases when thawed, and the fact that high latitudes will experience the largest increase in air temperature of all regions."

Vegetarian Diets Can Help Prevent Chronic Diseases, American Dietetic Association Says

2009-07-05T18:31:00.005+08:00

Vegetarian meal of chickpea or garbanzo beans salad. Appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases, according to the ADA. (Credit: iStockphoto/Elena Elisseeva)

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2009) - The American Dietetic Association has released an updated position paper on vegetarian diets that concludes such diets, if well-planned, are healthful and nutritious for adults, infants, children and adolescents and can help prevent and treat chronic diseases including heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes.

ADA's position, published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, represents the Association's official stance on vegetarian diets:

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life-cycle including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence and for athletes."

ADA's position and accompanying paper were written by Winston Craig, PhD, MPH, RD, professor and chair of the department of nutrition and wellness at Andrews University; and Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, nutrition advisor at the Vegetarian Resource Group, Baltimore, Md.

The revised position paper incorporates new topics and additional information on key nutrients for vegetarians, vegetarian diets in the life cycle and the use of vegetarian diets in prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. "Vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle," according to ADA's position. "There are many reasons for the rising interest in vegetarian diets. The number of vegetarians in the United States is expected to increase over the next decade."

Vegetarian diets are often associated with health advantages including lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure levels and lower risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes, according to ADA's position. "Vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates. Vegetarian diets tend to be lower in saturated fat and cholesterol and have higher levels of dietary fiber, magnesium and potassium, vitamins C and E, folate, carotenoids, flavonoids and other phytochemicals. These nutritional differences may explain some of the health advantages of those following a varied, balanced vegetarian diet."

The position paper draws on results from ADA's evidence analysis process and information from the ADA Evidence Analysis Library to show vegetarian diets can be nutritionally adequate in pregnancy and result in positive maternal and infant health outcomes. Additionally, an evidence-based review showed a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease.

Puttanesca Scramble

2009-07-05T11:45:00.005+08:00

Recipe from Post Punk Kitchen

Serves 4

Inspired by the classic Italian dish, pasta puttanesca, this scramble is screaming with flavor. Olives, capers and plenty of fresh herbs make for an easy to throw together scramble that tastes like a Mediterranean feast you've been slaving over for hours.

2 tablespoons olive oil

6 - 8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 lb extra firm tofu, diced

4 roma tomatoes, diced

2 tablespoons fresh thyme

2 tablespoons fresh oregano

1/2 cup mixed olives, roughly chopped

1 tablespoons capers

1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Preheat a large heavy bottomed pan over medium heat. Saute the garlic in the olive oil until lightly browned, but be careful not to burn. 3 minutes ought to do it. Add the red pepper flakes and the tofu and saute for about 10 minutes, until tofu is browned. Add a little extra oil if necessary.

Mix in tomatoes, thyme and oregano and cook for about 5 minutes, until tomatoes are a bit broken down but still whole. Add olives, capers and salt to taste. Cook just until heated through.

Prevent Bone Loss: Eat Fruits!

2009-06-28T21:10:00.002+08:00

By Eccentric Vegan on June 27th, 2009

A new study points to potassium in fruits as a bone-saver, not calcium in dairy or supplements:
"a group of 176 post-menopausal women was randomized to one of four diets based on a different protein source: animal, dairy, soy, or vegetarian. All diets were equal in calories as well as in total amounts of protein, calcium, and salt. Dietitians bought the food, weighed and measured it, and prepared it. Study participants picked up their meals every day for eight weeks."

"We used actual food that real people could buy in the store to see what kind of impact we could have", Sellmeyer [the first director of the new metabolic bone center at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center] says.

"Although she is still analyzing the data, her initial findings show that diets based on meat and other animal and dairy-based proteins cause more calcium loss because they increase the amount of acid in the body. On the other hand, low-acid vegetable and soy-based diets reduce the excretion of calcium."

Vegan Cashew Cheese

2009-06-26T17:21:00.002+08:00

By David R Brooks

Ingredients:
2/3 cup cashews (raw is best, roasted is still great, and try flavored cashews too)
1/2 cup water (or slightly more)
1/4 cup red capsicum (raw or roasted)
1/4 small red onion (if you're cooking for a date, or more otherwise!)
1/4 cup yeast flakes
2 garlic cloves (see "red onion")
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp lite soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp sea salt (optional) if the cashews are unsalted

Put everything in a food processor and blend it until it's creamy. If it's too thick, add more water. If it's too watery, add more cashews. It should have a cream of wheat-like consistency, or just a bit thicker. For a pizza, spread it thinly over pizza sauce (it's very rich, so a little bit goes a long way), top it off with your favorite vegetables, and pop it in the oven. If the cashew cheese becomes golden-brown more than a few minutes before the pizza crust is done, cover the top of the pizza with foil. This recipe is plenty for a medium-sized pizza. I like making larger batches and keeping leftovers in the fridge.

Farmed fish may pose risk for mad cow disease

2009-06-19T10:30:00.002+08:00

June 16th, 2009

University of Louisville neurologist Robert P. Friedland, M.D., questions the safety of eating farmed fish in the June issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, adding a new worry to concerns about the nation's food supply.

Friedland and his co-authors suggest farmed fish could transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease--commonly known as mad cow disease--if they are fed byproducts rendered from cows. The scientists urge government regulators to ban feeding cow meat or bone meal to fish until the safety of this common practice can be confirmed.

"We have not proven that it's possible for fish to transmit the disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be prohibited," Friedland said. "Fish do very well in the seas without eating cows," he added.

Creutzfeldt Jakob disease is an untreatable, universally-fatal disease that can be contracted by eating parts of an animal infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease). An outbreak in England attributed to infected beef prompted most countries to outlaw feeding rendered cow material to other cattle because the disease is so easily spread within the same species.

The risk of transmission of BSE to humans who eat farmed fish would appear to be low because of perceived barriers between species. But, according to the authors, it is possible for a disease to be spread by eating a carrier that is not infected itself. It's also possible that eating diseased cow parts could cause fish to experience a pathological change that allows the infection to be passed between the two species.

"The fact that no cases of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease have been linked to eating farmed fish does not assure that feeding rendered cow parts to fish is safe. The incubation period of these diseases may last for decades, which makes the association between feeding practices and infection difficult. Enhanced safeguards need to be put in place to protect the public," Friedland said.

There have been 163 deaths from Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in the United Kingdom attributed to eating infected beef. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy has been identified in nine Canadian and three U.S. cattle.

Source: IOS Press (news : web)

Vegan Macaroni and Cheese

2009-06-15T21:37:00.004+08:00

By eHow Food & Drink Editor

Things You'll Need:
Large pot
400g dry macaroni
250g tofu
1 cup plain soy milk (or other vegan milk)
½ cup tahini
6 tbsps. nutritional yeast
1 tbsp. turmeric
Blender
Large bowl
Onion and garlic powder to taste, optional
Salt to taste
Oil
Baking dish
2 tbsps. margarine
Paprika

Directions:
Bring a large pot of water to boil and add the macaroni. Cover, remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes. This method saves energy, but you can make the macaroni however you like.

Place tofu, soy milk, tahini, nutritional yeast and turmeric in the blender and blend until creamy. Pour the tofu mixture into a large bowl.

Add optional seasonings, such as garlic or onion powder, or any herbs and spices you like in your macaroni and cheese. Add salt to taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.

Drain the macaroni and add the noodles to the sauce. Stir gently until the macaroni and sauce are fully incorporated.

Lightly oil a baking dish and pour the macaroni into the dish. Dot the top with 2 tbsps. margarine. Dust with paprika and garlic powder if desired.

Bake in a 180-degree oven for approximately 20 minutes, or until a golden-brown crust forms on the top of your vegan macaroni and cheese.

Tofu Cream Cheese

2009-06-15T20:44:00.003+08:00

recipe from VegCooking

Spread this on your bagel or roti for a quick snack. Tofu cream cheese is friendlier to cows than traditional cheese. With half the fat, it 's also friendlier to your waistline!

350 g extra firm silken tofu
3 1/2 Tbsp. cashew butter or 5 Tbsp. raw cashews, finely ground
4 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. liquid sweetener (optional)

• Place the tofu in a clean tea towel, gather the end up and twist and squeeze for a couple of minutes to extract most of the water.
• Crumble into a food processor with the remaining ingredients and process for several minutes until the mixture is very smooth. You may have to stop the machine and loosen the mixture with a spatula once or twice.
• Use right away or scrape into a covered container and refrigerate. It firms up with refrigeration.

Makes 2 cups

Broccoli slashes cancer risk, WA research reveals

2009-06-11T11:37:00.004+08:00

10th June 2009

WA researchers have made a major breakthrough into preventing a common cancer, finding that leafy green vegetables such as spinach and broccoli can slash the risk of bowel cancer in many people.

Scientists from the University of WA and the WA Institute of Medical Research found that a common version of the gene MTHFR - already linked to an increased risk of migraines and stroke - was carried by about half the population and increased their risk of cancer.

But lead researcher Professor Barry Iacopetta, from UWA's school of surgery, said the gene variation increased the risk of cancer only in the right side of the large bowel, suggesting that tumours that developed in different parts of the bowel had different risk factors.

This led them to look at different factors, including folate, which might reduce those risks, and their findings have been reported in the International Journal of Cancer.

Fellow researcher Lyn Fritschi from WAIMR said the study found that the risk of cancer in the right side of the bowel jumped to 70 per cent if a person did not eat enough folate - a vitamin found in a range of foods, particularly green leafy vegetables such as spinach, broccoli and brussel sprouts.

"But in a fascinating discovery we've also found that by boosting their folate intake, people with the high-risk version of the MTHFR gene might be able to lower that 70 per cent risk down to an average risk," Professor Fritschi said."

"Folate is found in many everyday foods, including spinach, brussel sprouts, lentils and peanuts, and eating the right daily amount is as simple as eating an orange, a cup of cooked broccoli and a cup of baked beans. "

"And because alcohol tends to block the absorption of folate, it is also recommended that people drink it in moderation if they want to boost their levels of the vitamin."

The researchers said it was not necessary for people to find out if they had the gene version that increased the risk of bowel cancer but instead everyone should boost their folate intake, preferably through their diet rather than by supplements.

Junk food, red meat, lollies linked to mental illness in teens

2009-06-11T11:12:00.003+08:00

A WA study has found a link between Western-style diets and increased mental health problems in teenagers.

The study, completed at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, was led by Dr Wendy Oddy who said the results were based on the detailed analysis of diet records and behaviour checklists collected from more than 1600 West Australian 14-year-olds in the Raine Cohort Study.

The Raine Study started 20 years ago when 2,900 pregnant women were recruited into a research study at King Edward Memorial Hospital to examine ultrasound imaging.

The mothers to be were assessed at 18 weeks of pregnancy, then again at 24, 28, 34 and 38 weeks of pregnancy. During this time information was collected on the mother and the father, relating to diet, exercise, work and health.

Further information was collected during the child's teenage years.

"Our analysis found that higher levels of behaviour and emotional problems were associated with a more Western-style way of eating, namely a diet high in takeaway foods, red meat, confectionary, soft drinks, white bread and unrefined cereals," Dr Oddy said.

"We also showed that these problems were less among teens with a healthier style of eating, specifically those who ate more fruit and vegetables.

“This suggests that if we want to reduce the high rates of mental health problems among young people, then improving their overall diet could be a good place to start."

Dr Oddy said the study found there has been an increase in depression, anxiety and aggressive disorders among children.

She said previous studies had shown one in five children were expected to develop some form of mental health problem by the time they reached adulthood, and that 50 per cent of all adult mental health problems developed during adolescence.

"We know that since 1985, children and teenagers have been increasing their energy intake by consuming more soft drinks and processed foods," Dr Oddy said.

"The number of overweight adolescents has doubled and obesity has tripled in that age group."

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Vegan Ricotta Ravioli with Basil Pine Nut Pesto

2009-06-06T22:53:00.004+08:00

SupremeMasterTV.com

Ingredients:
Pine Nut Basil Pesto
2 cups basil
⅓ cup pine nuts
3 cloves garlic
¾ teaspoon salt
Fresh ground black pepper
½ cup olive oil

Ravioli Pasta Dough
1⅔ cups flour
½ cup chickpea flour
½ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup water

Tofu Cashew Ricotta
1 pound firm tofu
½ cup cashews
Fresh parsley, chopped
Fresh basil, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
⅓ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh ground black pepper
2 tablespoon olive oil
Agave (to taste)

Home a film by Yann Arthus Bertrand

2009-06-06T22:42:00.003+08:00

by sidonie June 5, 2009

Walking in the footsteps of Al Gore, Yann Arthus-Bertrand sign a film Home with artistic and activist who has a global distribution to warn about the threat climate.

Unable to ignore Home, the new documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. On the occasion of World Environment Day and to reach as many people as possible, his fate Friday SOS together in a film, on France 2 television on big screens (the Champ de Mars Paris, London and New York), on the Internet (YouToube) and DVD. A general mobilization to save the planet, supported by Nicolas Sarkozy: "This is a beautiful film with great images, a French production which we can be proud because it will be distributed free of charge."

Produced by Luc Besson (producer of the trilogy Taxi) and EuropaCorp, Home was funded by François-Henri Pinault, the owner of the global luxury group PPR, which has disbursed 12 million euros. It required more than two and a half years of filming with a helicopter in over 50 countries and resulted in 500 hours of rush, which decreased to 2 hours to film and 90 minutes for television.

"The beauty is food for thought"

Distributed in 126 countries (Glenn Close provides the comments in English and Spanish with Salma Hayek), the advocacy retrace the history of the planet and humanity by playing on the contrast between the beauty of the footage of the sky high definition and severity of threats to the Earth. On the one hand, a mother bear that comes out of crunchy water, followed by his two grandchildren on the other, melting the ice that promises to lead to disruptions in supply chain.

Even the images of polluted sites is a magnificent breathtaking. "The beauty creates emotion and thinking," says Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The message carried by this film is extremely important because it highlights the question of survival. Without realizing it, molecule after molecule, we have upset the balance of the earth climate. "And to emphasize the urgency of the situation:" There are more than ten years for humanity to reverse the trend .

Sponsors famous, including Al Gore, Nobel Peace Prize and author of "An Inconvenient Truth, have provided scientific caution to the film. But Yann Arthus-Bertrand has encountered hostility from some countries, disturbed by his probing camera. Syria and Dubai did not wish to open their borders. India has retained half of its film and China has lifted its censorship in extremis. Argentina has adopted a weeks under a false pretext. Evidence that the photographer is often green finger where it hurts.

The movie "Home", showing the planet in distress, tumbling in a free distribution in 126 countries in film, television and internet. The French Yann Arthus-Bertrand, photographer hit the Earth from the sky, hopes to convene consciences at the bedside of the planet.

Drought, urbanization, water shortages, pollution, competition for oil and fossil fuels, climate change, each subject was filmed from the sky, the shooting mode preferred by the author. The commentary is scientifically impeccable. It was submitted to Al Gore, former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and Lester Brown, pope of ecology in the United States.

"In 20 years the world will be completely different: how will there be a world without oil, with a completely different climate? We must get out of denial." "To contemplate what else should we help them to respond" assène photographer-filmmaker, who hopes "aware of a massive, hard and brutal."

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To watch the movie click here

One World

2009-06-04T11:50:00.003+08:00

Environmentally friendly Vegetarian Dining Which Also Presents A Sustainable Financial Message.

Article from UWA Green-e-News

Recently a friend asked me to accompany her to a vegetarian restaurant. Knowing that I was Environmental Officer at UWA, she exclaimed that the proprietors of this restaurant were interested in sustainability. Ok then I thought, and told her "I would love to go."

I arrived at One World Cuisine early, thinking it will be nice to chat to some of the staff about their views on sustainability and this would make for some stimulating dinner conversation.

It wasn't long before I realised that these perceptions were limiting. In fact, upon entering One World Cuisine, I knew I had entered into a different world. A large screen at the front of the restaurant played shows on vegetarian cooking, sustainable eating, holistic living and environmental issues. Beside the screen there was a library containing, an assortment of literature on the benefits of vegetarianism, sustainability and animal ethics. I indulged in the viewing and literature as I waited for my friend.

She arrived, we greeted, sat and she explained how the food was served. The buffet style vegetarian meal is not only meat free, but GMO and MSG also. To top this, the cost of the food is 'pay as you feel.' The more I learned about this restaurant, the more I saw that this was a business operating on a foundation and ethos of sustainability.

Can you imagine the feeling of eating food that is great for your body while feeling a freedom about what you pay for it? It was very liberating indeed.

We ate, talked, and I marveled at the many creative foods and individual flavors that I was enjoying. While I had been a vegetarian at one time in my life, I had never managed to create such a variety and taste in my cooking.

It was about then that I thought to write an article on the place. I communicated this to my friend, who said "I know the Manager, I will call her over" Bonus, this was all too good and too easy.

I met Manager Lee-Lin, and introduced myself. She was impressed with my role as Environmental Officer, and really excited about my desire to write an article on One World Cuisine. Lee-Lin showered me with pamphlets which explained and supported the One World Cuisine philosophy of vegetarianism and sustainability.

For social sustainability, the pay what you feel concept was introduced to encourage trust, generosity and respect. Further, this is used as a strategy to draw customers and highlight the urgency of sustainable eating. One World Cuisine operates on the belief that the vegetarian diet is more environmentally friendly because it uses fewer resources and promotes respect for life. Specifically, they are concerned about the high use of water and emission of methane that results from animal husbandry practices.

One World Cuisine staff will gladly present you with a variety of literature that presents scientific and philosophical arguments for vegetarianism. Plus, they are more than happy to provide you with vegetarian cooking support.

I I thoroughly recommend a visit to One World Cuisine. The staff are friendly, the food gorgeous, the atmosphere inspiring, and the sentiment infectious. A meal at One world Cuisine is memorable on a variety of levels.

One World Cuisine
Where: Shop 7, 23 South St, Kardinya
Opening hours: Lunch 11:30 - 2:00,
Dinner 5:45 - 9:00pm
Closed Mon and Tue
How much: pay as you feel
Phone: 9331 6677
Web: http://www.oneworldcuisine.com.au/

Climate Change responsible for 300,000 deaths a year

2009-05-30T20:01:00.003+08:00

Article from Global Humanitarian Forum

First ever report exclusively focused on the global human impact of climate change calculates more than 300 million people are seriously affected by climate change at a total economic cost of $125 billion per year

> Report projects that by 2030, worldwide deaths will reach almost 500,000 per year; people affected by climate change annually expected to rise to over 600 million and the total annual economic cost increase to around $300 billion

> To avert worst possible outcomes, climate change adaptation efforts need to be scaled up by a factor of 100 in developing countries, which account for 99% of casualties due to climate change

London 29 May – Kofi A. Annan, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, today introduced a major new report into the human impact of climate change. The 'Human Impact Report: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis' is the first ever comprehensive report looking at the human impact of climate change.

The report was issued immediately prior to official preparatory talks in Bonn for a new UN international climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. These talks will culminate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The report was reviewed by leading international experts, including Rajendra Pachauri of the IPCC, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, and Barbara Stocking of Oxfam.

The report estimates that climate change today accounts for over 300,000 deaths throughout the world each year, the equivalent of an Indian Ocean Tsunami every single year. By 2030, the annual death toll from climate change will reach half a million people a year.

It also indicates that climate change today seriously impacts on the lives of 325 million people. In twenty years time that number will more than double to an estimated 660 million, making it the biggest emerging humanitarian challenge in the world, impacting on the lives of 10% of the world's population.

Economic losses due to climate change already today amount to over $125 billion per year. This is more than the individual GDP of 73% of the world's countries, and is greater than the total amount of aid that currently flows from industrialised countries to developing nations each year. By 2030, the economic losses due to climate change will have almost trebled to $340 billion annually.

The Global Humanitarian Forum commissioned Dalberg Global Development Advisers to develop thereport in December 2008 by collating all relevant information and current statistics relating to the human impact of climate change. Within the limitations of existing research, the report presents the most plausible estimate of the impact of climate change on human society today.

Mr Annan said: "Climate change is a silent human crisis. Yet it is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time. Already today, it causes suffering to hundreds of millions of people most of whom are not even aware that they are victims of climate change. We need an international agreement to contain climate change and reduce its widespread suffering.

"Despite its dangerous impact, climate change is a neglected area of research since much of the debate has focused on the long term physical effects. The point of this report is to focus on today and on the human face climate change.

"Just six months before the Copenhagen summit, the world finds itself at a crossroads. We can no longer afford to ignore the human impact of climate change. Put simply, the report is a clarion call for negotiators at Copenhagen to come to the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated, or continue to accept mass starvation, mass sickness and mass migration on an ever growing scale."

According to the report, a majority of the world's population does not have the capacity to cope with the impact of climate change without suffering a potentially irreversible loss of wellbeing and risk of loss of life. The populations most gravely at risk are over half a billion people in some of the poorest areas that are also highly prone to climate change – in particular, the semi-arid dry land belt countries from the Sahara to the Middle East and Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, South and South East Asia, and small island developing states.

Mr Annan was joined at the launch by report review panellist Barbara Stocking, chief executive of Oxfam GB and Global Humanitarian Forum Board Member. She said:

"Climate change is a human crisis which threatens to overwhelm the humanitarian system and turn back the clock on development. It is also a gross injustice - poor people in developing countries bear over 90% of the burden - through death, disease, destitution and financial loss - yet are least responsible for creating the problem. Despite this, funding from rich countries to help the poor and vulnerable adapt to climate change is not even 1 percent of what is needed. This glaring injustice must be addressed at Copenhagen in December"

Can vegetarians save the world?

2009-05-25T14:31:00.003+08:00

A small town in Belgium has gone meat-free one day a week. A sign of things to come, says one food historian

By Tristram Stuart

For decades, environmental arguments against eating meat have been largely the preserve of vegetarian websites and magazines. Just two years ago it seemed inconceivable that significant numbers of western Europeans would be ready to down their steak knives and graze on vegetation for the sake of the planet. The rapidity with which this situation has changed is astonishing.

The breakthrough came in 2006 when the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published a study, Livestock's Long Shadow, showing that the livestock industry is responsible for a staggering 18% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. This is only the beginning of the story. In 2008, Brazil announced that in the 12 months to July it had lost 12,000 sq km (3m acres) of the Amazon rainforest, mainly to cattle ranchers and soy producers supplying European markets with animal feed. There is water scarcity in large parts of the world, yet livestock-rearing can use up to 200 times more water a kilogram (2.2lbs) of meat produced than is used in growing wheat. Given the volatile global food prices, it seems foolhardy to divert 1.2bn tonnes of fodder – including cereals – to fuel global meat consumption, which has increased by more than two and half times since 1970.

Vegetarians have been around for a very long time – Pythagoreans forbade eating animals more than 2,500 years ago – but even as the environmental evidence mounted, they didn't appear to be winning the argument. Today in Britain just 2% of the population is vegetarian.

Thankfully, a more pragmatic alternative to total abstinence now seems to be emerging. In September 2008, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a vegetarian himself, called on people to take personal responsibility for the impacts of their consumption.

"Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there," he said. "In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity." This week the Belgian city of Ghent met his demands by declaring Thursday a meat-free day. Restaurants, canteens and schools will now opt to make vegetarianism the default for one day a week, and promote meat-free meals on other days as well.

This is not the first institutional backing for such a move. In Britain, the NHS now aims to reduce its impact on the environment partly by "increasing the use of sustainably sourced fish and reducing our reliance on eggs, meat and dairy". Last year, Camden council in London announced that it would be issuing a report calling for schools, care homes and canteens on council premises to cut meat from menus and encourage staff to become vegetarian. (In the end the initiative was shot down by Conservative councillors who insisted that people should not be deprived of choice.) While in Germany the federal environment agency in January called on Germans to follow a more Mediterranean diet by reserving meat only for special occasions.

These initiatives may sound novel, but in fact they reinstate what was for centuries an obligatory practice across Europe. The fasting laws of the Catholic church stipulated that on Fridays, fast days, and Lent, no one could eat meat or wine; on some days, dairy products and fish were also banned. Even after the Reformation Elizabeth I upheld the Lenten fast, insisting that while there was no religious basis for fasting, there were sound utilitarian motives: to protect the country's livestock from over-exploitation and to promote the fishing industry (which had the ancillary benefit of increasing the number of ships available for the navy).

Towards the end of the 18th century, two consecutive bad harvests in Europe created shortages. There was a huge public clamour for the wealthy to cut down on their meat consumption in order to leave more grain for the poor. The idea that meat was a cruel profligacy became current, and led Percy Bysshe Shelley to declare that the carnivorous rich literally monopolised land and food by taking more of it than they needed. "The use of animal flesh," he said, "directly militates with this equality of the rights of man."

In the wake of last year's food crisis and with mounting concern over global warming, we appear to have reached a similar crisis moment.

The vegetarian argument is complicated, however, by the fact that in terms of environmental impact, no two pieces of meat are the same. A hunk of beef raised on Scottish moorland has a very different ecological footprint from one created in an intensive feedlot using concentrated cereal feed, and a wild venison or rabbit casserole is arguably greener than a vegetable curry. Likewise, countries have very different animal husbandry methods. For example, in the US, for each calorie of meat or dairy food produced, farm animals consume on average more than 5 calories of feed. In India the rate is a less than 1.5 calories. In Kenya, where there isn't the luxury of feeding grains to animals, livestock yield more calories than they consume because they are fattened on grass and agricultural by-products inedible to humans.

In a paper published last month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, food ecologist Annika Carlsson-Kanyama showed that kilo for kilo, beef and pork could produce 30 times more CO² emissions than other protein rich foods such as beans. On the other hand, the paper also indicated that poultry and eggs had much lower emissions than cheese, which was among the highest polluters. So do meat-free days, and arguments for vegetarianism in general, take adequate consideration of these subtleties, or should we all be chucking out the cheese and going vegan?

"A vegetarian day is a simple message that people can understand," says Carlsson-Kanyama, "though probably what we ultimately need to do is eat less animal products overall."

Alex Evans, fellow at the Centre on International Cooperation at New York University, points out that more and more people – including Sir Nicholas Stern, the author of a 2006 review on the economics of global warming – accept that the only equitable way of achieving an international agreement on climate change is for rich and poor nations to converge on an equal per capita "fair share" of carbon emissions. "The same ought to apply to food," Evans says, "but currently there is no agreed method for calculating what is my 'fair share' of the world's food supply – in particular how much meat."

Based on the global food production figures published by the FAO, I did a few preliminary calculations. Global average consumption of meat and dairy products including milk was 152kg a person in 2003. Average EU and US consumption, by contrast, was over 400kg, while Uganda's was 45kg. In order to reach the equitable fair share of global production, rich western countries would have to cut their consumption by 2.7 times – and this doesn't include the fact that the butter will have to be spread even more thinly if the global population really does increase by another 2.3 billion by 2050.

However, still further reductions would be necessary because global meat production is already at unsustainable levels. The IPCC among other bodies, has called for an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Since high levels of meat and dairy consumption are luxuries, it seems reasonable to expect livestock production to take its share of the hit. For rich western countries this would mean decreasing meat and dairy consumption to significantly less than one tenth of current levels, the sooner the better.

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Are We So Addicted to Meat That We Can't See Where the Swine Flu Came From?

2009-05-25T14:08:00.003+08:00

By Kathy Freston

A virus like swine flu is a completely predictable outcome of our cruel and appallingly filthy factory farming systems.

Are we killing ourselves?

There has been a lot of talk in recent days about how factory farmed animals are the cause of the deadly hybrid virus that is eerily mutating, and some are calling it cosmic retribution, a sort of "chickens coming home to roost" scenario. I don't know about that, but an animal virus like swine flu is a completely predictable (and was a widely predicted) response to our modern horribly cruel and appallingly filthy factory farming systems.

Undoubtedly, some animal welfare people are hoping that swine flu will serve as a wake-up call for humanity, that the "groupthink" in support of intensive farming might move toward thoughtfulness about the health hazards and cruelty of intensively confining animals, and that governments will pass laws to make these "confined animal feeding operations" (CAFOs, the industry term for "factory farm") smaller, cleaner, less cruel, and less dependent on drugs--which are used to keep the animals alive through the filthy and stressful conditions that would otherwise kill them in much greater numbers.

I must admit that this does feel like a wake-up call: Are we really so addicted to eating meat (even as we demand that meat be inexpensive, meat processors want to make more money, which means faster, meaner ways of raising and slaughtering animals for food) that we're willing to risk the millions who could die from such mutating viruses? Has our desire for gustatory pleasure at any cost pushed us into terrible consequences as we creep toward an ugly future? The "big one" may not be this particular version of the flu, but scientists say we have not seen the last of H1N1; not by a long shot.

When the swine flu hit, I was already wondering and talking with friends about whether the economic crisis might inspire a paradigm shift in how we live our lives, especially after reading a remarkable column by generally sober and hyper-realistic Thomas Friedman in the New York Times. Writes Friedman, "What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it's telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically...?"
Friedman concludes that "Often in the middle of something momentous, we can't see its significance. But for me there is no doubt: 2008 will be the marker--the year when 'The Great Disruption' began."

Of course, the economic meltdown is already forcing us to rethink our priorities and what we value, so there is a process of letting go of a lot of things we considered important. People have cut back on buying non-essential items; we're eating out less, using the library more, and generally becoming more reasonable in our consumption and more civic-minded in our overall way of being--the economic crunch is, as Friedman predicted, causing a reevaluation of our priorities.

But will the changes be as massive as Friedman predicts? President Obama certainly hopes so. I recently saw a quote by the president: "History reminds us that, at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas." Yes, we have; and we can again, of course.

In the past, America has faced and overcome enormous difficulties again and again, from the Revolutionary War to World War II to the obstacles of racism and sexism. These challenges, and our ability as a people to address them--with both individual and societal change--should inspire us to optimism in the face of current challenges.

What can we do, as individuals, to create a sea change, to halt the mutation of deadly viruses, to say no to out-of-control business practices, to stop creating environmental havoc, and to bring our health up to a better level? All of this can be covered, incredibly, by thinking very seriously about the foods we choose to eat, and then changing our habits if we find that our choices are generating problems. And as we change as individuals, society and governments will change with us.

Here's a home run solution that I can't help coming back to: eat less (and eventually no) animal protein. A diet high in animal protein bloats us physically by clogging our bodies with saturated fat, growth hormones, and antibiotics; it has been proven conclusively to cause cancer, heart disease, and obesity.

And the meat industry poisons and depletes our clean air, potable water, and fertile topsoil almost more than any other sector of business. As just one example, the meat industry is responsible for about 18 percent of all global warming--that's almost half again as much as all cars, planes, and trucks combined. And now it's become all too clear that factory farms are breeding grounds for viruses to mutate and become deadly.

Basically, our current food choices (the average American eats about 200 pounds of meat annually) are killing us on a host of different levels. Perhaps now more than ever, it's time to clear out old, tired, uninformed ways of eating and opt instead for food that nourishes us, is easy on the planet, and gives the animals some breathing room.

Oh, and especially useful in these exceedingly difficult economic times: Eating a plant-based diet is cheap relative to eating meat. Compare the price of grains and beans with that of chicken and cheese. And growing grains and vegetables is by no means the filthy business that animal agriculture has become.

I realize it's not painless to give up what we are used to, what we like the taste and tradition of, in favor of a diet that we know is better for us and the planet. But if we lean into the shift of eating consciously by giving up one animal at a time (give up chickens first, as I discuss here), or eating only vegetarian for two out of three meals, we will find our way and get used to new tastes. We will grow to love different foods that are kinder to our bodies, the environment, and the animals.

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*Kathy Freston is a health and wellness expert and a New York Times best-selling author. Her latest book is The Quantum Wellness Cleanse: A 21 Day Essential Guide to Healing Your Body, Mind and Spirit. Freston promotes a body/mind/spirit approach to health and happiness that includes a concentration on healthy diet, emotional introspection, spiritual practice, and loving relationships. Kathy's recent television appearances include The Oprah Winfrey Show, Ellen, The View and Good Morning America. www.kathyfreston.com

Maybe J.C. (was a vegetarian)

2009-05-25T14:03:00.001+08:00

Song and video by songwriter Paul Seymour, about how some of the greatest people throughout history have been ethical vegetarians, maybe even Jesus?!

Belgian City First In World To Go Vegetarian At Least Once A Week

2009-05-14T23:44:00.003+08:00

Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.

Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment.

Read the whole story: BBC

Vegan Food Coming to Murdoch University

2009-05-12T21:07:00.003+08:00

One World Cuisine restaurant has started to provide delicious vegan meals in the canteen of Murdoch University since May 11.

Thanks to Laura Williams, the sustainability representative of Murdoch Guild of Students, we had the chance to meet Cheryl, the manager of Walters Café in Murdoch University, and provide vegan meals to the students. It turned out that the vegan meals such as sweet & sour veggie pork with fried rice, curry and Vietnamese rice rolls were so popular that they were sold out in no time.

We deeply appreciate Laura's help and Cheryl's support for promoting and providing eco-friendly meals at the café.

Climate Change to Cause "Cultural Genocide" for Australia's Aborigines

2009-05-12T15:53:00.002+08:00

by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn on 05.11.09

Just as a band of Carteret Islanders are abandoning their homes due to the effects of climate change--becoming the world's first climate change refugees--word has come that rising sea levels and more severe weather patterns may claim an even greater victim: the entire cultural legacy of Australia's native Aborigines. It would be the world's first case of climate change-caused "cultural genocide". Could climate change really wipe an entire, culturally rich people off the map?

A recent report says that it's not only possible, but probable-yet how would this happen?

According to AFP,

Climate change would force Australia's Aborigines off their traditional lands, resulting in "cultural genocide" and environmental degradation, a human rights watchdog warned on Monday.

The culture is thousands of years old, but is nonetheless delicate enough to be wiped entirely away by climate change-that's the consensus of a report recently completed by the Human Rights Commission. How would it happen?

Rising sea levels and soaring temperatures would make their homelands uninhabitable, severing spiritual links and laying waste to the environment, according to the commission's annual Native Title Report.

And the problems would be many:

"Problems that indigenous Australians will encounter include people being forced to leave their lands, particularly in coastal areas. Dispossession and a loss of access to traditional lands, waters, and natural resources may be described as cultural genocide; a loss of ancestral, spiritual, totemic and language connections to lands and associated areas."

As if all that wasn't enough, the Aborigines food security will be threatened, they'll be much more susceptible to diseases like malaria and dengue fever. 80% of Aborigines rely on the natural environment for their livelihood—all of which become endangered as climate change grows more severe.

Tofu and Eggplant Lemak

2009-05-03T23:30:00.003+08:00

Ingredients:
1 box Tofu (600g), cut into chunks and lightly pan fried
1 eggplant, cut into thick strips and lightly pan fried
8 dried red chilli, soaked in hot water and removed seeds
2 onions, chopped
1 Tbsp chopped garlic
1 stalk lemon grass
1 Tbsp turmeric powder
10 pieces candle nuts
1/3 Tbsp salt
Pinch of sugar
1 cup water
1 can coconut milk
Several lime or bay leaves

Directions:
Blend red chilli, onions, garlic, lemon grass, turmeric powder and candle nuts in a blender.

Heat oil and fry blended ingredients until fragrant and a little dry. Then add water and let it boil. Add in coconut milk, lime or bay leaves, salt and sugar. Reduce fire and simmer until gravy thickens. Add in tofu and eggplant and mix well. Remove and serve with rice.

*Candle nuts are available in Asian shops.

Colorful Cuisine with Chef Cary Brown: Barbequed Vegan Ribs

2009-05-02T21:14:00.001+08:00

Part 1:

Part 2:

Swine Flu: Factory Farming at the Root of the Cause?

2009-05-02T14:06:00.002+08:00

Interview with One World Cuisine by Fremantle Radio

2009-04-30T16:30:00.006+08:00

Fremantle Radio (107.9 FM) interviewed the manager of One World Cuisine about our concept of running the restaurant yesterday morning. To listen online, please go to: http://www.radiofremantle.com/contentid=165.htm

After log on, click Wednesday/ Breakfast Show/ 08:00 time slot. It starts from 45:15.
Since their programs are presented on a weekly basis, this audio will be removed after one week.

James Hansen: Reduce CO2 in Atmosphere or Face Catastrophe

2009-04-27T22:51:00.002+08:00

Top climate scientist Dr. James Hansen speaks of our planetary emergency. Presenting the 2009 Walter Orr Roberts Distinguished Lecture during the Conference on World Affairs held at the University of Colorado, USA, Dr. James Hansen, respected climatologist and Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, spoke of the urgency of addressing climate change. Regarding the current state of atmospheric greenhouse gases, he noted, "We have already passed into the dangerous zone." Dr. Hansen went on to say that if such gas emissions are not reduced immediately, "We would be sending the planet toward an ice free state. We would ... be creating a very different planet, and chaos for our children."

In an interview with Supreme Master Television on March 19, Dr. Hansen offered two key preventative actions.

Dr. James Hansen – World leading climatologist, Chief of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, USA (M): On a personal basis, perhaps the most important thing you can do is change your diet to a more vegetarian diet, because that is a major contributor to carbon, to not only carbon dioxide, but also methane and other greenhouse gases. You also have to put pressure on the politicians to address the coal issue. If we could do those two things, then the planet would be on much safer grounds.

SupremeMasterTV.com

U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu

2009-04-27T14:09:00.004+08:00

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: April 26, 2009

Responding to what some health officials feared could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in this country, including eight in New York City.

Other nations imposed travel bans or made plans to quarantine air travelers as confirmed cases also appeared in Mexico and Canada and suspect cases emerged elsewhere.

Top global flu experts struggled to predict how dangerous the new A (H1N1) swine flu strain would be as it became clear that they had too little information about Mexico's outbreak - in particular how many cases had occurred in what is thought to be a month before the outbreak was detected, and whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or less.

"We're in a period in which the picture is evolving," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, deputy director general of the World Health Organization. "We need to know the extent to which it causes mild and serious infections."

Without that knowledge - which is unlikely to emerge soon because only two laboratories, in Atlanta and Winnipeg, Canada, can confirm a case - his agency's panel of experts was unwilling to raise the global pandemic alert level, even though it officially saw the outbreak as a public health emergency and opened its emergency response center.

As a news conference in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called the emergency declaration "standard operating procedure," and said she would rather call it a "declaration of emergency preparedness."

"It's like declaring one for a hurricane," she said. "It means we can release funds and take other measures. The hurricane may not actually hit."

American investigators said they expected more cases here, but noted that virtually all so far had been mild and urged Americans not to panic.

The speed and the scope of the world's response showed the value of preparations made because of the avian flu and SARS scares, public health experts said.

The emergency declaration in the United States lets the government free more money for antiviral drugs and give some previously unapproved tests and drugs to children. One-quarter of the national stockpile of 50 million courses of antiflu drugs will be released.

Border patrols and airport security officers are to begin asking travelers if they have had the flu or a fever; those who appear ill will be stopped, taken aside and given masks while they arrange for medical care.

"This is moving fast and we expect to see more cases," Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the news conference with Ms. Napolitano. "But we view this as a marathon."

He advised Americans to wash their hands frequently, to cover coughs and sneezes and to stay home if they felt ill; but he stopped short of advice now given in Mexico to wear masks and not kiss or touch anyone. He praised decisions to close individual schools in New York and Texas but did not call for more widespread closings.

Besides the eight New York cases, officials said they had confirmed seven in California, two in Kansas, two in Texas and one in Ohio. The virus looked identical to the one in Mexico believed to have killed 103 people - including 22 people whose deaths were confirmed to be from swine flu - and sickened about 1,600. As of Sunday night, there were no swine flu deaths in the United States, and one hospitalization.

Other governments tried to contain the infection amid reports of potential new cases including in New Zealand and Spain.

Dr. Fukuda of the W.H.O. said his agency would decide Tuesday whether to raise the pandemic alert level to 4. Such a move would prompt more travel bans, and the agency has been reluctant historically to take actions that hurt member nations.

Canada confirmed six cases, at opposite ends of the country: four in Nova Scotia and two in British Columbia. Canadian health officials said the victims had only mild symptoms and had either recently traveled to Mexico or been in contact with someone who had.

Other governments issued advisories urging citizens not to visit Mexico. China, Japan, Hong Kong and others set up quarantines for anyone possibly infected. Russia and other countries banned pork imports from Mexico, though people cannot get the flu from eating pork.

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Chinese Fried Rice

2009-04-26T23:35:00.001+08:00

Ingredients:
3 slices vegan ham, diced
1/2 cup diced carrot
1/2 cup snow peas
4 shiitake mushrooms, soaked until soft and diced
1/3 cup pine nuts
4 cups cooked rice, white or brown
Pinch of natural seasoning
2 Tbsp soy sauce
Pinch of black pepper

Directions:

In a wok or large skillet, heat oil until hot. Add shiitake mushrooms and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add vegan ham and carrots and continue stirring over medium heat for 2-3 minutes. Add snow peas and cook for 2 minutes. Add rice, natural seasoning and soy sauce, and continue to stir-fry until rice is heated through. Sprinkle some black pepper and serve.

*You can add anything you like to this fried rice, according to your taste or the ingredients you have on hand.

Fried Noodles

2009-04-26T23:12:00.004+08:00

Ingredients:
I pkt Japanese Noodles (the yellow one)
2 slices vegan ham, cut into stripes
Shredded cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli florets and baby corns
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon natural seasoning
Pepper to taste
Extra soy sauce, salt or sugar for seasoning, as desired

Directions:
In a wok, heat 2 tablespoons oil, add mushrooms and ham, and stir-fry for about 3 minutes. Remove from wok.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil, add cabbage, carrot, baby corns and broccoli. Stir-fry for about 3 minutes. Season with a bit of soy sauce, salt and natural seasoning while stir-frying. Remove from wok.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons oil in the wok, add noodles. Stir-fry quickly, stirring to coat the noodles in the oil and make sure they don't stick to the pan. Add salt, soy sauce, and natural seasoning, and mix well. Add the cooked mushroom mixture and cabbage mixture, and mix well. Serve hot.

*Vegan ham can be replaced by veggie prawn. Both are available in One World Cuisine.
* Japanese Noodles are available in Asian shops.

Chana Masala

2009-04-26T23:00:00.006+08:00

Ingredients:
500g chickpeas
3 big onions, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
4 stalks spring onion, chopped
1 bunch coriander, chopped
1/2 tbsp ginger powder
3 potatoes, cut into small cubes
1/2 tbsp turmeric powder
1/4 tbsp chili powder
4 heaps tbsp curry powder
Salt to taste

Directions:
Soak chickpeas in water with a pinch of salt overnight. Wash and boil with half tbsp of salt until chickpeas are soft, about 1/2 hour. Blend onions, tomatoes, spring onion, coriander and ginger powder with water (add water until lower end of handle of blender).

Heat up pan with half cup of oil. Add in blended ingredients and fry until fragrant. Add 1/2 tbsp of salt, turmeric powder, chili powder and curry powder, and cook until thicken. Then add potatoes and 1/2 cup water, and cook until potatoes are soft. Add chickpeas. Taste and garnish with coriander leaves. Serve with rice.

Go Meatless On Monday: Even Just One Day a Week Makes a Difference

2009-04-25T21:21:00.004+08:00

Article from Treehugger
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 04.24.09

Diet is really one of the most commonly overlooked things you can do to reduce your carbon footprint. That's a message I never tire of getting out there; and while I'd recommend a completely vegetarian diet (for the planet, your health and for the cultivation of compassion), even just one day a week really can make a difference. That's the message Meatless Monday is sending:

If we all just commit to one day a week without eating meat, the effect will be great over the course of the year:

*Our greenhouse gas emission reductions equal US switching from a car with average fuel efficiency (that's about 22 mpg for the entire fleet) to a high efficiency car such as the Toyota Prius (50 mpg).
*We will save about 1 ton of water, enough to fill up the bathtub 22 times per week.
*If everyone in the US did this, we'd collectively save about 12 billion gallons of gasoline.

Climate Change Mitigation Costs Slashed by Vegetarian Diet
Though the exact figures vary depending on which study you look at, according to a recent study done in the Netherlands, if the majority of the population adopted a completely vegetarian diet the costs of climate change mitigation could drop by 70%. And even if people just cut back their meat consumption to more reasonable levels—particularly in the US where meat consumption is well out of line with the recommendations of doctors and nutritionists—the costs of climate change mitigation can drop by 50%.

More: Meatless Monday

Vegetarianism
Vegetarian Diet Could Cut Climate Change Mitigation Costs by 70%, If Enough Of Us Make the Switch
Study Finds Meat and Dairy Create More Emissions Than Miles
Reduce the Meat in Your Diet: Become a Weekday Vegetarian

Green Planet Awards launches eco-eating and eco-activity competitions

2009-04-23T23:25:00.004+08:00

A new non-profit green initiative, Green Planet Awards, is inviting the world to exciting competitions that are all about going green to cool the planet. Based in Europe, the Green Planet Award founders stated that they were originally inspired by watching Supreme Master Television to raise awareness especially toward how human eating habits are affecting the planet. In particular, their concern upon realizing that the meat industry adds more greenhouse gases to global warming than all transportation combined led to their theme of "Eco-Eating" for the 2009 Green Planet Awards competitions. In this premiere event, which is taking place throughout Ireland, university students are being asked to design the best awareness campaign on the environmental and health impacts of excessive meat consumption. Students displaying the most creative and diligent efforts through such media as flyers, songs, conferences, and other marketing techniques, will receive prizes, with the top award being an electric car.

Green Planet Awards is also hosting a second competition that is online and worldwide, called Green2Cool. This event's first prize of €1,500* will go to the most active member of the social networking website at http://www.green2cool.org/, meaning the person who is most influential in spreading the veg eco-eating trend and making the social space a success. Both the Green2Cool.org and GreenPlanetAwards.org websites provide media resources for those seeking up-to-date facts on climate change urgency and its relation to diet.

For more activity information, please visit http://www.greenplanetawards.org/ or http://www.green2cool.org/ for English, and http://www.green2cool.org.tw/ for Chinese

*The first prize has been risen to €3,000.

This Earth Day, Do Something for the Planet and Go Vegetarian

2009-04-20T12:48:00.002+08:00

Friday, April 17, 2009
By Lisa Acho Remorenko

You may not associate vegetarianism with environmentalism, but studies prove there is a correlation. The Sierra Club reports that compared with a burger, having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich saves as much as 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide, 280 gallons of water, and 50-square-feet of land. It should be a no-brainer that eating from the bottom of the food chain is more environmentally efficient than eating from the top. Unfortunately, even some of the most outspoken environmental advocates don't seem to grasp this concept. As much as I respect Al Gore for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, I find the hypocrisy of his meat-eating habits to be totally inconsistent with his eco-philosophy.

Even if you don't agree with the message, you can't argue with the facts. The United Nations has even published a report stating: "The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." Countless studies show that raising animals for food contributes to global warming, causes air pollution, water pollution, and land degradation.

Global Warming

According to the environmental group Earth Save, methane emissions cause 50 percent of the planet's human-induced global warming. Most of this methane - 100 million tons of it - is produced by animal agriculture every year. By reducing your consumption of meat, one of the major sources of methane emissions can be minimized. The good news is that methane reduction results in a cooler earth in a shorter time frame. Experts say that methane cycles out of the atmosphere in just eight years, as opposed to carbon dioxide, which can take more than 100 years. Plus, methane is 21 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2, so it makes sense to put our efforts toward methane reduction.

In addition to methane, the United Nations reports that the livestock sector generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Studies have shown that eating one pound of meat emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving an SUV 40 miles!

Last year, researchers at the University of Chicago reported that the average American does more to reduce global warming by switching to a vegetarian diet than by switching to a Prius. The study showed that it takes 10 times as many fossil fuels to produce a calorie of meat protein than it does to produce a calorie of plant protein.

Air and Water Pollution

Factory farms produce massive amounts of contamination that pollute the air and water; five million tons of manure is churned out by modern American farms each day. That's more than 100 times our human population and way more than our planet can possibly absorb over a long period.

According to the Environmental News Network, chicken, hog, and cattle excrement have polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states. The EPA reports that roughly 80 percent of ammonia emissions in the United States come from animal waste; the main contributor to acid rain.

Land Degradation

Scientists at the Smithsonian Institute reported that on a global basis, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals. According to the UN, this is a major contributor to deforestation, especially in Latin America where 70 percent of the Amazon has been turned over to grazing.

Not only is land being cleared to raise livestock, even more land is needed to grow the millions of tons of grain to feed the livestock. Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, states: "People go hungry because much of arable land is used to grow feed grain for animals rather than food for people. In the U.S., 157 million tons of cereals, legumes, and vegetable protein - all suitable for human consumption - is fed to livestock to produce just 28 million tons of animal protein in the form of meat."

Aside from saving the environment, going vegetarian will spare the lives of animals. According to the organization Choose Veg, the average vegetarian saves more than 50 animals each year. That helps put a dent in the 50 billion animals that are slaughtered yearly for food consumption.

Try Going Vegetarian One Meal Per Week

Just substituting one meat meal a week for a vegetarian meal can make a difference to the environment. The Environmental Defense Fund states that if every American had one meat-free meal per week, it would have the same environmental impact as taking more than five million cars off our roads.

Many environmental organizations believe that government policy should promote vegetarian diets. I've read extreme ideas, such as taxing meat, to simpler options, like including more vegetarian foods in government-sponsored programs such as school lunches and food stamps. At the very least, the government should consider imposing strict environmental fines on animal agriculture polluters. If these fines could somehow subsidize vegetarian-friendly foods, that would be a bonus. It is my belief that the easier (and cheaper) it is for Americans to become vegetarian, the more likely they will be to convert.

The good news is, these days it is easier than ever to be a vegetarian. When I first converted, more than 20 years ago, there weren't many products on the market. Now there are countless options. Morning Star Farms makes vegetarian buffalo wings, BBQ ribs, and meatless meatballs. Boca makes vegetarian breakfast patties, chicken nuggets, and Italian sausages that are great on the grill. These meatless products are high in protein, low in fat, and, more importantly, they taste good! I have an uncle who will leave the dinner table if there isn't meat on his plate. Yet this same uncle sat through my entire vegetarian wedding without a complaint. If he can do it for one meal, so can you.

There are countless vegetarian Web sites for recipe ideas; my favorites include: vegcooking.com and bocaburger.com/recipes.aspx. Get a free vegetarian starter kit by going to goveg.com/order.asp.

Even though Al Gore continues to eat meat, the Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook he helped promote states: "Refusing to eat meat is the single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint." Now if only Gore would follow the book's advice and put down his prime rib and grab a Boca burger.

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Authentic Tomato Curry from Pune, India

2009-04-19T22:16:00.001+08:00

Ingredients:
Okra
Cauliflower
Potato
Eggplant
Green peas
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
Fenugreek seeds
Crushed ginger
3–4 tablespoons gram flour (chickpea flour)
10–12 tomatoes, puréed
1 teaspoon cumin powder
Green chilies
1–2 cloves
3–4 tablespoons oil
Ground black pepper (or red chili powder)
Salt
Water
Served with rice

Curry Potato Balls

2009-04-19T21:47:00.002+08:00

Ingredients:
6 potatoes
300g self-raising flour
1 onion, chopped
200g vegan ham, diced
1 red capsicum, diced
6 mushrooms, diced
100g green peas
150g sweet corn
150g bread crumbs
2 tablespoon curry powder
Pinch of salt
Pinch of natural seasoning

Batter:
Mix 2 1/2 cups plain flour, 2 cup water and salt to taste

Directions:
Boil peeled potatoes and mash while hot, then mix well with self-raising flour and 2 teaspoon salt, and knead into smooth dough. If the mixture is too dry, add some water.

Heat oil in pan, add onion and stir-fry until fragrant. Add vegan ham, capsicum, mushrooms, green peas and sweet corn, and stir-fry until done, then add curry powder, salt and natural seasoning and mix well. Remove and set aside.

Divide the potato dough into small portions. Wrap filling inside each portion of potato dough. Roll into a cone shape and coat evenly with a layer of batter first and another layer of bread crumbs next. Deep-fry over medium heat until golden on the surface. Remove and drain well. Serve.

* Vegan ham is available in One World Cuisine.

Vietnamese Rice Rolls

2009-04-19T21:40:00.003+08:00

Ingredients:
200g vegetarian ham, finely cut into thin strips approx 4 to 5 cm
50g alfalfa sprouts
50g snow pea sprouts
Small lettuce, finely cut into strips
1 small carrot, shredded
1 cucumber, shredded
Herbs: coriander, basils, mints etc
Half a package of rice noodles, cooked according to package instruction (optional)
1 package of Vietnamese rice paper

Sauce:
4 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
300 ml hot water
1 Tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice
2 Tablespoon light soy sauce
3 Tablespoon sweet chili sauce

Directions:
Rolls:
Dip rice paper in hot water evenly and set aside until soft (approx 20 - 30 seconds). Put desired amount of vegetarian ham, cooked rice noodle and vegetables on rice paper. Wrap as tightly as possible.

Sauce:
Dissolve sugar and salt in hot water; then add the rest of the sauce ingredients and mix together.

*Vegetarian tuna can be used to substitute vegetarian ham. Both are available in One World Cuisine.
*Rice paper and rice noodles are available in Coles and Asian shops.

Meat Is Not Green

2009-04-17T14:50:00.001+08:00

Sweet and Sour Veggie Chicken

2009-04-15T22:03:00.005+08:00

INGREDIENTS:
200g veggie chicken chunks*
1/2 carrot
1 red capsicum
1 green capsicum
1/2 cup pineapple pieces

Sauce:
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoon ketchup (tomato sauce)
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon starch

Batter:
1 cup self - raising flour
2 tablespoon corn flour
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon cooking oil
Some water

Directions:
In a small bowl, combine the sauce ingredients. Set aside.

Peel the carrot and cut into 1-inch square pieces. Cut capsicums into square pieces.

For the batter, combine the ingredients to form a batter that is neither too dry nor too moist. (The batter should not be runny, but should drop off the back of a spoon).

Heat oil for deep-frying to 160 C degrees. Dip the veggie chicken chunks in the batter, and deep-fry in batches, taking care not to be crowded. Deep-fry until lightly golden brown. Remove and drain.

Stir-fry carrot and capsicums. Finally add pineapple and stir-fry for a while. Remove.

Bring the sauce ingredients to a boil over medium heat. Add the carrot, capsicums, pineapple and chicken chunks, and stir evenly. Serve hot with rice.

*Veggie chicken is available in One World Cuisine.

One World Cuisine Restaurant

2009-04-14T10:45:00.004+08:00

Article from: Sunday Times

Sandra Peterson, in STM Entertainment
April 10, 2009 10:00pm

Food for thought

Crispy bacon was my ultimate comfort food until I saw the movie Babe. Since then, shamed by that cute piglet and cajoled by a militant vegetarian friend – one who handcuffs herself to live-sheep transports – I've given a lot of thought to animal welfare. And, animal rights aside, many vegetarians claim that their diets are also more eco-friendly than those of meat-munchers.

Warm fuzzies

The folk who run One World Cuisine put their money where your mouth is in the hope of saving the planet. They also aim to change your heart and enhance your health by offering vegan meals on a pay-as-you-feel basis. Their philosophy is driven home by place-mats covered in pictures of cute critters mouthing messages such as "Save our lives! We love you" and "Thank you for your compassion".

Well buffeted

Bookings for the dinner buffet are essential. I was relieved my companion had reserved seats when we stepped inside to discover a line of people from all walks of life waiting to pile up their plates. I salivated as soon as I spied the mix of Indian, Japanese and other Asian delights and began making mental notes about how many platefuls of food I could shovel in before I'd have to unzip my pants. That was until I noticed a sign that read "One serve please. Let's share the love" and swiftly stifled my gluttonous impulses. My hunger was sated with a generous serve of stir-fried Chinese vegetables on a bed of noodles, and a delicately-spiced curry puff. Dinner diners can also help themselves to chilled, filtered water, instant coffee and tea. Green tea is available for the lunch crowd. Those who still fancy something extra can buy a slice of vegan cake for $3 or a soy cappuccino or latte at $3 a cup.

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Autotrophs: new kind of humans appears who neither drink nor eat

2009-04-07T21:10:00.003+08:00

It is not ruled out that they will replace us at a new evolution stage

People all around the world were storming supermarkets and grocery stores on Christmas and New Year's Eve. There was a small group of people, though, who did not even think about eating anything for Christmas. In fact, they do not think about food at all. Such people call themselves autothrophs - they do not eat at all. The term designates an organism that makes its own food. Autotrophs can go on hunger strikes for years and even decades.

Irina Novozhilova, the president of the center for protection of animals' rights, expressed her opinion about phenomenal individuals, who can live without food and water.

"The idea to turn down food as it is appeared long ago. Russian philosophers, particularly Vernadsky, were thinking about a possibility for a human being to live on something non-material. Vernadsky was certain that man is an energetic creature that can nourish himself from the energy of space. Some people can prove it today that it is possible to live a normal life without physical food.

"All living beings on our planet can be divided into two categories - autotrophs and heterotrophs. The majority of plants constitute the first category - they receive energy from non-organic substances - sunshine or air - and process it during the photosynthesis. Humans and animals make the second category: they nourish themselves with other living beings. Therefore, the people, who can live on the solar and space power, are closer to plants than to other humans. There is a group of autotrophs in Moscow. They gather in the Konstantin Vasiliev Museum, where they share experience with others. If a woman breastfeeds her child until it turns seven years old, for example, a child will be able to become an autotroph already by eight - simply and painlessly. A mother neither drinks nor eats, but she has enough milk to feed the baby. There are such women in Moscow. I often interact with people, who reject food completely. At first they become vegans - they exclude all products of animalistic origin from their menu in other words. After that they gradually turn down the vegetal food too. When people stop eating physical food, they also stop consuming any kind of liquid. They drink nothing.

"I would not say that scanty nourishment exerts a negative influence on their state of health. They are rather vigorous and cheerful people. However, I would like to warn everyone that it is impossible to quit drinking water and eating food in a moment. It should be done slowly, step by step, with short-term temporary starvation. A lethal outcome would be inevitable otherwise. A person will be killed either with starvation or their own wastes. The 70-year-old Indian yogi Pralad Djani is one of the most renowned contemporary autotrophs. This man has not been eating or drinking anything for 62 years, since the age of six. Indian doctors examined and tested him: they placed the man in a special room, outfitted the room with surveillance cameras and sealed the bathroom. As it turned out, Pralad Djani´s body was functioning absolutely normally. The body was producing urine, although it was being absorbed into the urinary bladder. The yogi said that he was receiving water from air. He also said that there was a tiny hole in the palate, from which drops of "heavenly" water penetrated into his mouth.

"Russian most famous autotroph´s name is Zinaida Baranova. The old lady from the city of Krasnodar is 67 years old. She was approaching her new existence very slowly. At first she gave up meat, then she turned vegetables down. She has been living without food and water for 4.5 years already. Scientists of the Bauman Institute examined her organism and were very surprised to find out that the woman´s biological age corresponded to 20 years. Professor Spiridonov came to conclusion that the pensioner was a perfectly healthy lady; all her systems and organs, except for the stomach, were functioning normally. Indeed, she is a very energetic and bubbly person. She got rid of all diseases, even chronic ones. She said, however, that it was rather hard for her to get used to the new lifestyle. She was suffering from cramps, exhaustion, dry mouth, etc. There were moments, when she thought she was dying. The woman´s health improved in 1.5 months.

"Doctors say that autotrophs make a fundamentally new type of self-sufficient human beings. It is not ruled out that they will replace us at a new evolution stage. Modern science has already confirmed the ability of a human being to maintain itself. Dietitians were recently saying that the B12 vitamin was naturally contained only in animal foods. Vegans, therefore, were supposed to die, since they could not receive the vitamin. However, doctors found out that the concentration of the B12 vitamin was fine with vegans. The situation became clear, when scientists discovered the synthesis process in the intestines. It became known that human beings could live on their own microflora. Medics have already discovered that the human intestines produce microorganisms that can synthesize amino acids.

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message69771/pg1

SOLUTIONS for the PLANET from Supreme Master Ching Hai

2009-04-04T11:05:00.003+08:00

SupremeMasterTV.com

SIMPLE STEPS FOR SAVING THE WORLD
It's very easy to change the climate warming, and to save the world.
Just Be Veg, Go Green and do good deeds.
Telephone interview with Supreme Master Master Ching Hai by James Bean of Spiritual Awakening Radio July 29, 2008 – USA

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Smart children "more likely to become vegetarians"

2009-04-04T10:59:00.004+08:00

The British Medical Journal reports that the more smart you are, the more likely you'd be vegetarian
(vegan)!

In a research that followed 8,000 people from birth, scientists discovered that those with an IQ five points above the average had become vegetarian (vegan) by the time they were 30 years old.

Trish Kennett, chief executive of the international high-IQ society Mensa explains: "Smart people consider all aspects of their life very, very carefully.
People who think about the ethics of killing animals will naturally choose vegetarianism(veganism) more often."

BE A VEGETARIAN (VEGAN): BECAUSE IT IS SMART

Smart children "more likely to become vegetarians"

Vegetarian and Vegan Elite of the World :
Philosophers, Spiritual Leaders
Paramahansa Yogananda (Indian Spiritual Teacher), Socrates (Greek philosopher), Jesus Christ & early Christians, Confucius (Chinese philosopher), Shakyamuni Buddha, Lao Tzu (Chinese Philosopher), St. Francis of Assisi (Italian Christian Saint), Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist monk\writer), Yogi Maharishi Mahesh (Indian writer, philosopher, leader of Transcendental Meditation), Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian philosopher), Pythagoras (Greek mathematician/philosopher), Zoroaster (Iranian - Founder of Zoroastrianism), Muhammad Al-Ghazali (Iranian Islamic scholar and Sufi Saint), Muhammad Rahiim Bawa Muhaiyadeen (Sri Lankan Islamic author and Sufi Saint), Bulleh Shah (Muslim Sufi Saint), Etc.

Writers, Artists & Painters
Leonardo Da Vinci (Italian painter), Ralph Waldo Emerson (US essayist, and poet), George Bernard Shaw (Irish writer), John Robbins (US writer), Mark Twain (US writer), Albert Schweitzer (German philosopher, physician, musician), Plutarch (Greek writer), Voltaire (French writer), Sadegh Hedayat (Iranian novelist), Etc.

Scientists, Inventors & Engineers
Charles Darwin (British naturalist), Albert Einstein (German Scientist), Thomas Edison (US scientist/inventor), Sir Isaac Newton (British scientist), Nikola Tesla (Serbian-American scientist/inventor), Henry Ford (US Founder of Ford Motors), Etc.

Politicians, Statespersons and Activists
Susan B. Anthony (US leader of Woman's Suffrage movement), Mahatma Gandhi (Indian Civil Rights leader), Coretta Scott King (American Civil Rights activist and leader, wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), Dr. Janez Drnovsek (2nd President of Slovenia), Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (President of India), Dr. Manmohan Singh (Prime Minister of India), Dennis J. Kucinich (US Congressman), Etc.

Actors, Film stars & TV Stars
Pamela Anderson (US actress), Ashley Judd (US actress), Brigitte Bardot (French actress), John Cleese (British actor), David Duchovny (US actor), Danny Devito (US actor), Cameron Diaz (US actress), Richard Gere (US actor), Daryl Hannah (US actress), Dustin Hoffman (US actor), Katie Holmes (US actress), Steve Martin (US actor), Demi Moore (US actress), Ian McKellen (British actor), Tobey Maguire (US actor), Paul Newman (US actor), Gwyneth Paltrow (US actress), Joaquin Phoenix (US actor), Steven Seagal (US actor), Brooke Shields (US model/actress), Jerry Seinfeld (US actor), Naomi Watts (US actress), Kate Winslet (British actress), Etc.

Pop stars & Musicians
Joan Baez (US folk singer), George Harrison (British musician, member of the Beatles), Paul McCartney (British musician, member of the Beatles), Ringo Starr (British musician, member of the Beatles), Bob Dylan (US musician), Michael Jackson (US pop star), Morrissey (British singer), Olivia Newton John (British-Australian singer), Sinead O'Connor (Irish singer), Pink (US singer), Prince (US pop star),Justin Timberlake (US pop singer), Tina Turner (US pop star), Shania Twain (Canadian singer),Vanessa Williams (US pop singer), Etc.

Sports Personalities
Billie Jean King (US Tennis champion), Bill Walton (US Basketball player), Carl Lewis (US 9-time Olympic Gold-Medalist in Track & Field), Edwin C. Moses (US 2-time Gold-Medalist in Track & Field), Elena Walendzik (German Boxing champion), Alexander Dargatz (German Athlete, Body-building champion, physician), Etc.

Models
Christie Brinkley (US supermodel), Christy Turlington (US supermodel), Etc.

And the list goes on…http://AL.Godsdirectcontact.org.tw/vg-vip

Vegetarians Live Longer

2009-04-04T10:48:00.002+08:00

SupremeMasterTV.com

Vegetarian men
early death risk
reduction:50%
source: The German Cancer Research Center

Vegetarian women
early death risk
reduction:30%
source: The German Cancer Research Center

LIVE LONG!
LIVE HEALTHY
LIVE VEG!

"Just one ounce of processed meat per day increases your risk of stomach cancer by 15 percent to 38 percent."
Source: Larsson SC, Orsini N, Wolk A. Processed meat consumption and stomach cancer risk: a meta-analysis. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2006 Aug 2;98(15):1078-1087.

Every 1.7 ounces of processed meat consumed per day raises colorectal cancer risk 21 percent.
Source: World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research. Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective. Washington, DC: AICR, 2007.

A Harvard study of more than 40,000 health professionals showed that those who ate hot dogs, salami, bacon, or sausages two to four times per week increased their risk of diabetes by 35 percent. Those who ate these products five or more times per week experienced 50 percent increased risk.
Source: Van Dam RM, Willett WC, Rimm EB, Stampfer MJ, Hu FB. Dietary fat and meat intake in relation to risk of type 2 diabetes in men.

Australian New "Cruelty Free" Food Policy

2009-03-27T12:02:00.005+09:00

SYDNEY (AFP) – Red meat, eggs and Australia's favourite biscuit have been banned from Sydney council events under a new "cruelty free" food policy, a spokesman said Wednesday.

"The first sign of this crazy policy came to my attention when the Tim Tams disappeared from the council meeting," said conservative councillor Shayne Mallard.

"When I made inquiries the staff said 'oh no, we've taken Tim Tams out of council because the chocolate comes from the Ivory Coast where there's child labour issues'," he told AFP.

Under the new "sustainable, healthy and cruelty free" catering policy, Mallard said eggs and red meat were forbidden, threatening the great Australian tradition of the barbeque.

Fish was still on the menu, he said, but only species considered "appropriate for catching and consumption" by marine conservationists, while produce had to be grown in the Sydney area.
read more

Global warming may trigger carbon 'time bomb', scientist warns

2009-03-26T22:57:00.002+09:00

Billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane

David Adam in Copenhagen

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 March 2009 18.26 GMT

Even modest amounts of global warming could trigger a carbon "time bomb" and release massive amounts of greenhouse gases from frozen Arctic soils, a new study has warned.

Philippe Ciais, a researcher with the Laboratory for Climate Sciences and the Environment in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, told the Copenhagen Climate Congress that billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane could be freed by just a 2C average rise.

He said such a release of greenhouse gases could trigger an "explosive" reaction in the soil, with bacteria able to start decomposing giant stocks of frozen carbon. "You can call it a bacterial heat production effect if you are a pretentious scientist, or you can call it composting," he said.

Using computer models and measurements from Siberia, Ciais and his colleagues predicted a fifth of the carbon could be released by 2200, once soil temperatures reached about 8C higher than today's levels. A global average increase in air temperatures of 2C would mean significantly higher temperatures in the Arctic, and Ciais warned that a few unusually hot years could see soil temperatures reach the 8C threshhold.

He called for a global observation network to monitor permafrost, and said it was a "scandal" that there are only about 20 people measuring it worldwide.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/10/climate-change-copenhagen

Vote Earth for Earth Hour 2009

2009-03-24T10:06:00.000+09:00

This year, the world's first global election is taking place, an election between earth and global warming. It's not about what country you are from, but what planet you are from. Your light switch is your vote. We need one billion votes for earth, because our planet is worth saving. Vote Earth by simply switching off your lights for one hour and join the world for Earth Hour. Saturday march 28th, 8:30-9:30pm.

Mushrooms, green tea cuts breast cancer risk

2009-03-23T20:06:00.005+09:00

Mushrooms and green tea could be the simplest way for women to reduce their risk of breast cancer.

An Australian study has sought to determine the protective qualities of the traditional diet in China, where the incidence of the cancer is up to five times lower than in western countries.

Dr Min Zhang, of the University of Western Australia, looked at differences across the diets of more than 2000 Chinese women, half of whom had the cancer.

He found mushrooms were the key and eating as little as 10 grams, or less than one button mushroom, daily could protect against breast cancer.

Women who consumed the most fresh mushrooms were around two-thirds less likely to develop breast cancer, in comparison to those who did not consume mushrooms.

There was also reduced incidence of the cancer among women who drank green tea, according to the research published in the International Journal of Cancer.

Commenting on the research, WA-based dietician and healthy eating specialist Glenn Cardwell said it supported earlier studies which showed how natural compounds in mushrooms could inhibit breast cancer growth.

"While the researchers have stressed that this study does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship, the study has shown that it is biologically plausible for mushrooms and green tea to play a significant dietary role in reducing the risk of breast cancer," Mr Cardwell said.

(read more)

Veggie Garden Coming to White House Lawn

2009-03-19T11:25:00.002+09:00

by George Spyros, New York City, USA on 03.18.09

Food writer Eddie Gehman Kohan has the scoop (or shall we say shovel) on the April issue of Oprah's Magazine interview featuring a cover-story interview with Michelle Obama revealing the exciting plans for a White House vegetable garden. But will this newest shovel-ready project from the Obama administration be an organic undertaking?

The First Lady, now The First Locavore, chats with Oprah:

Michelle Obama: We're also working on a wonderful new garden project.

Oprah: Will kids get to visit the garden?

Michelle Obama: We want to use it as a point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet. You know, the tomato that's from your garden tastes very different from one that isn't. And peas - what is it like to eat peas in season? So we want the White House to be a place of education and awareness. And hopefully kids will be interested because there are kids living here.
(read more)

Submerged Islands - Climate Refugees Fleeing

2009-03-17T12:59:00.002+09:00

25 Million People Uprooted In 2007 Due To The Rising Seas . . .

As the climate continues to warm, entire islands are sinking below rising waters caused from melting glaciers. Mr. Achim Steiner - United Nations Under Secretary General & U.N. Environment Programme Executive Director. Indeed there are many island nations who are doomed already now, condemned if you want to disappear. Therefore there is no question that we have to act. And that is just the beginning of the visible impact of climate change. The invisible part, the bits that we have not necessarily understood that are happening around us are also on their way.

At Least 18 Islands Submerged Around The World:

• Lohachara, India 10,000 residents
• Bedford, Kabasgadi and Suparibhanga islands near India 6,000 families
• Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, USA 13 islands
• Kiribati 3 atolls
• Half of Bangladeshs Bhola Island permanently flooded 500,000

Islands Sinking Or At Risk From Rising Sea Levels - Over 40 Nations

There may be more islands, either uninhabited and/or not reported, that have submerged or are sinking due to climate change:

* Tuvalu 12,000 residents with no more fresh drinking water and vegetable plots have washed away
* Ghoramara near India 2/3 submerged as of 2006 with 7,000 residents already relocated
* Neighboring island of Sagar 250,000 residents also threatened
* Some 50 other islands jeopardized in the India-Bangladesh Sundarbans, with a population of 2 million
* Kutubdia in southeastern Bangladesh lost over 200,000 residents, with remaining 150,000 likely soon to depart
* Maldives 369,000 residents in the Indian Ocean, whose president wants to relocate the entire country
* Marshall Islands 60,000 residents
* Kiribati 107,800 residents, approximately 30 islands submerging
* Tonga 116,900 residents
* Vanuatu 212,000 residents, some of whom have already been evacuated and coastal villages relocated
* Solomon Islands 566,800 residents
* Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea 2,500 residents whose land no longer supports agriculture
* Shishmaref in Alaska, USA 600 residents
* Kivalini in Alaska, USA 400 residents
* Over 2,000 other islands in Indonesia
* Dubai 1.2 million residents in the United Arab Emirates considered at risk

http://forum.stopthespray.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2543

The Vegan Food Pyramid

2009-03-14T21:11:00.005+09:00

Click the picture to enlarge it.

The Age of Stupid

2009-03-14T13:49:00.002+09:00

The Age of Stupid is a 90-minute film about climate change, set in the future, which will have its world premiere in London on March 15th 2009 and then be released in UK cinemas on March 20th 2009, followed by other countries.Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name of the Father, Brassed Off) stars as a man living alone in the devasted world of 2055, looking back at "archive" footage from 2007 and asking: why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?

Indonesia Risks Losing Islands Due to Climate Change

2009-03-07T15:04:00.003+09:00

With global warming accelerating, Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) researcher Dewi Fortuna Anwar has stated that the outermost islands of the nation are in great danger of being submerged due to rising sea levels. With a total of 17,504 islands, some of which are thought to have already been lost to the sea, it is anticipated that a one-meter rise in sea level would cause 2,000 islands to completely sink along with the disappearance of 405,000 hectares of coastal land.

Our sincere sympathies for those whose lives are impacted by the encroaching coastal waters of climate change. We pray that measures for sustainable living are adopted in nations worldwide for the renewed stability of all lives.

In December 2008, Supreme Master Ching Hai spoke with our Association members about the international threat of sinking islands and other calamities linked to global warming.
Supreme Master Ching Hai: We have already at least 18 islands already sink under the sea. Six meters under the sea already. And another 2000 are sinking or at risk of sinking. It's more or less like that. It will be many places. Earthquakes are everywhere now. Storm, flood everywhere, more than ever before. Every day you see on Supreme Master TV always something.People begin vegetarian a lot because they want to save the planet. And saving the planet means saving lives.

http://suprememastertv.com/blog/

2009 Food Trend: Flexitarianism

2009-03-06T16:14:00.004+09:00

By: Jessica Vandelay
According to a recent study by the American Dietetic Association, already a quarter of Americans fit the description of a flexitarian, eating meatless meals at least four days a week. A flexitarian diet is exactly what doctors, nutritionists, dieticians and public health advocates have been recommending for many years because the emphasis of the eating trend is on produce rather than protein consumption. Most flexitarians meet the recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables, whereas meat-eaters do not.

There are many reasons why people choose to be flexitarians rather than vegetarians. Some of the most popular reasons are social, pragmatic, cultural ore nutritional. Like most diets, there is a wide range in the circumstances of flexitarian dietary practices.

Futhermore, studies show that people who follow the flexitarian approach to eating generally weigh less and have lower rates of hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and prostate and colon cancer.

Flexitarian diets, just like vegetarian diets can meet all the recommendations for nutrients. The key, as in any diet, is to consume a variety of foods and the right amount of those foods to meet your calorie needs. Nutrients that flexatarians may need to focus on include protein, iron, calcium, zinc, and vitamin B12. You should consult the food pyramid for the correct amount of calories for your age group, height and weight.

Flexetarians can get enough protein as long as the variety and amounts of foods selected are adequate. Protein sources from the Meat and Beans group for vegetarians include beans, nuts, nut butters, peas, and soy products like tofu, tempeh and veggie burgers.

There are many resources for people considering vegetarian or flexitarian lifestyles, especially in cooking and food magazines. Among the top food magazines is Vegetarian Times magazine. Vegetarian Times magazine is published nine times a year and provides readers with information, news and trends on the forefront of the vegetarian-eating movement. The magazine also provides delicious recipes, wellness tips, environmentally-friendly lifestyle solutions and health and nutrition advice from nutritionists and doctors.

Other food magazine with plenty of vegetarian and flexitarian recipes and meal-planning ideas are Cooking Light, Gourmet, Cook's Illustrated, Bon Appetit and Food and Wine. These magazines also offer advice and lists on which chain and local restaurants best accommodate vegetarian diners and modifications to menu items by providing meatless alternatives. The magazines also provide readers with which cuisines, like Indian and Chinese, are most vegetarian-friendly. (read more)

Australia's Great Barrier Reef - Dealing with Climate Change

2009-03-05T13:13:00.005+09:00

Australia's Great Barrier Reef, listed as a World Heritage Area in 1981 for its exceptional natural beauty and qualities, extends for over 2,000 km along the northeast coast of the continent and covers 35 million hectares; about the size of Italy. It is also the largest protected marine ecosystem in the world.

Internationally renowned for its size, beauty and biodiversity, the Great Barrier Reef is comprised of a network of almost 3,000 reefs formed from over 360 species of hard coral. Home to thousands of species, they provide complex habitats that support a great variety of reef-associated flora and fauna.

The impact of climate change on coral reefs is a major concern from both the Australian and international perspectives. Two of the reef's main research, protection and management bodies: the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority are implementing strategies to deal with the global warming effects. However, they realize if key issues are not immediately addressed, the consequences for Australia's coral reefs could be devastating despite their safeguarding efforts.

Scientifically documented data from all around the world directly link the rise of sea water temperatures to the bleaching of coral reefs, known as "coral bleaching events." Although the well-managed and protected networks of reefs can endure much of the localized human pressures, they are not protected against global warming or changes in the ocean's chemistry. As global temperatures continue to escalate, the frequency of these bleaching events also increases.

Dr. Janice Lough, Principal Research Scientist and leader of the Responding to Climate Change Team at AIMS, has been studying the impacts of climate change on coral reef systems for several years. In a recent interview, Dr. Lough explained how the corals form special symbiosis relationships with little algae, from which massive calcium carbonate skeletons are created, forming the backbone of the reef. "And it's actually these algae, the photosynthetic pigments in those little plants, that give corals their colors." However, the corals are very sensitive and when they become stressed, for instance, through rising water temperatures, they throw out the algae and the tissue layers become transparent so the corals lose their beautiful coloring. It's referred to as bleaching because instead of the colorful corals, all that's left are the white skeletons. Dr. Lough further explained that, "As a consequence of coral bleaching, there are various outcomes. The coral might recover once the stress has disappeared, it might partially die, or it can die completely."

In recent years, the Great Barrier Reef has experienced major bleaching events. In 1998 and in 2002, about 50% of the reef was affected, and again in the southern part of the reef in 2006. Fortunately, the reef is a well-protected system; so the chances of corals recovering from bleaching events are very high. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority Park monitors, controls and insures good usage of the reef. However, in order to protect it from further bleaching events, we need to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the sea water temperatures from increasing any further.

The Great Barrier Reef is also at the mercy of changes in ocean chemistry, where the oceans are becoming more acidic due to their absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide. These changes are also detrimental to our coral reefs because ocean acidification weakens their structures, creating more problems for the reef ecosystem. Many marine organisms use calcium and carbonate ions from seawater to produce calcium carbonate, which is how the corals form their skeletons. Increased carbon dioxide in the oceans decreases the availability of carbonate ions, thus reducing the ability of marine organisms to form skeletons and shells – the very backbone of a coral reef. This is a very serious threat because weaker reef structures means slower growth and reduced resilience to the natural forces of erosion, leading to a slower recovery of coral, if at all, after a bleaching event.

Allowing the Great Barrier Reef to disintegrate due to human-induced climate change would be a terrible loss because the world would be losing something incredibly beautiful. Actually, the coral reef is not just a bunch of corals; it's comprised of a whole stream of other organisms that depend on the coral, including fish and turtles and other marine life. Furthermore, coastal areas such as mangroves, wetlands, estuaries and sea grass beds are intimately linked to the reef, so we would be losing an entire ecosystem!

Under the current global climatic changes, coral reefs may not entirely disappear. However, their appearance, structure and community make-up have been changing drastically; so if we continue to allow our greenhouse gas emissions to rise without conscience, we humans will be the source of destruction of such an astounding ecological unit. This is why urgent greenhouse gas mitigation strategies are necessary to prevent any further damage and alterations to the coral reef environment. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is encouraging the general public to: plant more trees, use sustainable energy, choose energy efficient products, drive less, car pool, use public transport, walk or cycle, spread the word to others, and offset or neutralize our greenhouse gas emissions any way we can. Further to these, by adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet we will considerably reduce our emissions, helping to save one of the most beautiful and unique marine ecosystems in the world – the Great Barrier Reef.

Vegetarianism in Religion

2009-02-28T17:33:00.000+09:00

French Get a Sober Warning to Give Up Wine for Their Health

2009-02-28T12:45:00.004+09:00

From The Times
February 20, 2009

Charles Bremner in Paris
With gloom all around, President Sarkozy's Government might have chosen another moment for its latest campaign. This one tells the French people to stop drinking wine.

To the anger of the drinks industry and disbelief of many patriots, the Ministry of Health has made alcohol one of the chief villains in a drive against cancer.

"The consumption of alcohol, and especially wine, is discouraged," say guidelines that are drawn from the findings of the National Cancer Institute (INCA). A single glass of wine per day will raise the chance of contracting cancer by up to 168 per cent, claims the ministry's brochure.

Forget those 1980s findings that antioxidants in wine were good for health, said the French experts. "Small daily doses of alcohol are the most harmful. There is no amount, however small, which is good for you," said Dominique Maraninchi, INCA's president.

Authorities elsewhere have been telling people in recent years to go dry if they want to stay healthy. But the advice was especially sobering, coming from the Government of France, a country where wine is part of life and the national heritage.

The pleasantly illustrated ministry brochure makes grim reading. The INCA collated hundreds of international studies and summarised the relation between types of cancer with food, drink and lifestyle. Apart from wine, the dangerous stuff is red meat, charcuterie and salt. A pavé de rum-steakmight not sound so mouth-watering after reading: "The risk of colon-rectal cancer rises by 29 per cent per 100-gramme portion of red meat per day and 21 per cent per 50-gramme portion of charcuterie."

Alcohol facilitates cancers of the mouth, larynx, oesophagus, colon-rec-tum and breast, say the guidelines.

The wine producers are crying foul, accusing the health lobby of trying to kill one of the glories of the nation. They note the suspicious coincidence that France now has its first teetotal President. Mr Sarkozy sips mineral water and orange juice when all around him are knocking back the champagne and burgundy.

"This persecution of wine has to stop," said the General Association of Wine Producers. The growers say that the scientific evidence is contradictory and they point to a World Health Organisation study which found that moderate consumption helped to prevent cancer.

Xavier de Volontat, president of the wine producers' assocation in the southwestern Languedoc region, said: "The extremists must not be allowed to take consumers hostage... Wine consumption has dropped by 50 per cent over the last 20 years in France but cancer has increased. You have to admit, that's a paradox." (read more)

European Parliament Conference Addresses the Meat Impact on Climate Change

2009-02-28T11:33:00.004+09:00

European Parliament conference addresses the meat impact on climate change, world hunger and animal rights.

European Parliament conference addresses the meat impact on climate change, world hunger and animal rights. "Feeding the World under the Climate Threat?" was the question posed in the forum on November 12 to 13 that was hosted by Swedish Member of the European Parliament and vegetarian Jens Holm. International experts discussed the harmful impact of mass-producing livestock on the environment and vulnerable populations.

Jens Holm - Swedish Member of European Parliament, Vegetarian: The greatest impact you actually could do, that would be to reduce your meat consumption or stop eating meat totally. You would create a surplus of crops that could be used to feed the people who are starving today.
The conference addressed potential measures from the European Union to tackle the animal agriculture sector's increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Jens Holm: Today, European subsidies going directly to advertisement campaigns for meat consumption. It should be the other way around. We should have awareness campaigns for vegetarian consumption, because that is the solution.

It's the solution not only for solving hunger and climate change, but according to Parliament member Holm, who is also a staunch animal advocate, vegetarianism protects countless animal lives.

Jens Holm: My hope for the children of the future is that they can live in a world which is in accordance to nature; also in accordance with the animals so that we don't breed animals; we don't transport animals, of course we don't kill the animals.

European Parliament Leads the Way: Reduce Meat Consumption to Stop Climate Change

2009-02-28T11:23:00.004+09:00

European Parliament's Temporary Committee on Climate Change: '...reduce meat consumption'
Brussels, 02/12/2008

A report voted today by the European Parliament's Temporary Committee on Climate Change, drawn up by Conservative MEP Karl Heinz Florenz, concludes the work of this committee by putting forward a series of recommendations for a future EU integrated policy on climate change.

Speaking after the vote, Roberto Musacchio (GUE/NGL, Italy), Vice-Chair of the Committee, said he was satisfied with the report which he said stresses the importance of adopting sectoral targets on energy efficiency as well as using public procurement to support renewable energies.
"I am particularly satisfied that nuclear energy is not considered as an alternative or renewable energy contributing to the reduction of CO2 emissions," he said.

Expressing his satisfaction that the Committee had approved a reduction in meat consumption, particularly in the industrialised world, Jens Holm (GUE/NGL, Sweden), shadow rapporteur for GUE/NGL, said that the meat industry was one of the "world's greatest climate villains. It's almost historical to get such a wide support for the demand to reduce meat consumption".

http://www.evana.org/index.php?id=40260

Aussies advised to eat less red meat, dairy to help the environment

2009-02-28T10:21:00.002+09:00

Melbourne, February 2 (ANI): A leading public health group has advised Australians to have less red meat and dairy for their own good and that of the environment as well.

According to the Public Health Association of Australia, a more integrated approach was required towards dietary guidelines, in place of sole concentration on nutrients.

The Association's Chief, Michael Moore suggested cutting down on red meat and dairy products to help reduce carbon emissions.

"A small reduction in eating red meat and dairy would be a positive step for the environment and generally a positive step for health," News.com.au quoted him as saying.

"Reducing the amount of food that comes from cattle would actually have a greater impact on the environment than sourcing (food) locally."

"Australians tend to eat more red meat than is necessary," he added.

He further handed out advice that eating in groups, such as with family and friends, further eggs on healthier eating habits than dining alone. (ANI)

http://skytimes.co.uk/aussies-advised-to-eat-less-red-meat-dairy-to-help-the-environment/

A Delicate Balance - The Truth

2009-02-21T12:02:00.013+09:00

A Delicate Balance - The Truth is a 2008 documentary created by Aaron Scheibner, outlining the disastrous effects of our diet on health and the environment. A Delicate Balance documents the latest discoveries by some of the most prominent experts on nutrition in the world. Over 50 years of research is skilfully woven into what may be considered as much needed revelation into what has struck affluent countries with an almost ill health epidemic: disease has been escalating over the last 50 years resulting in 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women being diagnosed with cancer.

Three years in the making, A Delicate Balance is a succinct production featuring candid, heartfelt interviews with some of the world's leading experts. It gives you answers to the questions you never thought to ask, and sets you on the path to asking the questions the animal products corporations hoped you never would... Most importantly, it proves that life is a delicate balance - and we can all tip the scales. Watching this film will help you make informed choices about your health and the environment around you and how to reduce your personal impact. A Delicate Balance debunks the myths surrounding the production and consumption of animal products and exposes the harsh realities ...

* Why are you three times more likely to die of colon cancer if you eat meat?

* How is meat production causing water shortage, starvation and poverty?

* Are you inflicting Type 1 diabetes on your children by feeding them milk?

* Why don't our medical schools teach doctors about nutrition?

* Can becoming a vegan really lead to worldwide social equity?

Available to stream online at http://www.adelicatebalance.tv/. DVD purchase is also available online with NTSC formatting available for USA and Canada and PAL for elsewhere.

The young filmmaker Aaron Scheibner

In 2009 A Delicate Balance is going on a University Tour, offering free screenings to students and the community. For the moment this tour includes USA and Australia. Please go to http://www.adelicatebalance.com.au/screenings.php to express interest in screenings and http://www.adelicatebalance.com.au/streetteam.html to join the street team.

The following is some of the comments from people who have watched the preview:

Lori: awesome!!! more and more of these films need to come out..I think that were really are all crying out for this type of film.i no longer am entertained by violence and sex..i want to be educated and make changes..i am one but i can do much..if we all think this way we can turn things around..it has to start somewhere..Let it be with you!! Peace and Love

Cheri: I too got goose bumps just from the preview! This is obviously a film that needs to be revealed to all humans on this planet. All other sentient beings know full well there is a Delicate Balance because they are loosing. I agree we need solutions, not just the message but I meet so many folks that still don't want to hear that message. This might just be powerful enough to turn more heads and stimulate more thinking towards solutions.

Marie: Yes Lori, I agree with your thoughts. if we all pull together and do our bit to spread the word surely we can educate those who are ignorant of the facts or too deeply entrenched in their everyday routines to even consider the truth... For too long there has been brainwashing through the media, consumerism dictates our lifestyle rather than conscience... It's a case of 'The Emperors New Clothes' and if one speaks out then more will follow!we have to open our eyes and save the planet before it's too late.
read more...

View the interview with the filmmaker Aaron Scheibner by Supreme Master TV:
A Delicate Balance -the Truth" with Filmmaker Aaron Scheibner Part 1 http://suprememastertelevision.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=featured&wr_id=238&goto_url=&url=link2_0
A Delicate Balance -the Truth" with Filmmaker Aaron Scheibner Part 2 http://suprememastertelevision.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=featured&wr_id=238&url=link2_1#v

2 Minutes To Change

2009-02-20T15:16:00.003+09:00

2 Minutes To Change-the Single Most Significant Thing You Can Do To Halt Global Warming.
Come to find out the single most significant thing you can do to halt global warming. It is more effective than changing to a fuel efficient car, changing to energy efficient light bulbs, all forms of transport & recycling put together.

PRLog (Press Release) – Feb 11, 2009 – Through on-going concern for the well being of our planet, the members of the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association Australia will be gathering together peacefully for a public utility event with worldwide repercussions in various places on the 22nd February at 12pm to raise awareness of the vegetarian diet and the effect of the non-vegetarian diet on climate change.
Join us to find out the single most significant thing you can do as an individual to halt global warming. Full colour vegetarian recipe books filled with delicious vegetarian dishes will be given out for free and there will be a question and answer session for any pressing questions.
We will be joined by local vegetarian and environmental groups making a unified stand for the Earth, so make a date and please join us! Visit http://www.feb22event.com/for more information or contact:
Northern Rivers Centre
Natalie Dougherty
(02) 66899422 or 0402500342
annai.smtv@gmail.com
# # #

About The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association: The Association comprises hundreds of thousands of people in over 300 centres on all continents. It is a non-profit and humanitarian spiritual organization promoting world peace through meditation and a vegetarian lifestyle based on compassion for all beings. For more than two decades, the Association has devoted considerable efforts towards providing humanitarian relief to disaster victims and the less fortunate. Some of their activities include disaster relief, helping the homeless, destitute, poor and vulnerable, visiting old age homes, cleaning the environment, reforestation within local communities and promoting a nobler, healthier way of life.

The Bottom Line on Climate Change: It's What's For Dinner!

2009-02-19T13:00:00.002+09:00

The Bottom Line on Climate Change: It's What's For Dinner!

Let's Act Now tells the public the other inconvenient truth - our meat eating habit is a principal cause of global warming and a meatless diet can stop runaway climate change

February 2nd, 2009, New York /PRNewswire/- Let's Act Now launched today a nationwide Public Service Announcement campaign stressing the urgency of climate change and its connection to our food choices. The campaign urges the public to understand their own personal responsibility in stopping global warming. According to a special report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, animal farming produces more greenhouse gases than all global transportation combined. A switch to a plant based diet is the single most effective action a person can take to mitigate the effects of accelerating climate change.

According to the chief climate scientist at NASA, Dr. James Hansen, "There are many things people can do to reduce their carbon emissions, but changing a light bulb and other things are much less effective than changing your diet. Because if you eat further down on the food chain rather than animals which have produced many greenhouse gases, and used much energy in the process of growing that meat, you can actually make a bigger contribution in that way than just about anything. So in terms of individual actions, it is the best thing you can do."

Animal agriculture, including"sustainable," locally-raised animals, is a huge cause of global warming, creating nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. It also uses up most of our water, is responsible for the majority of rainforest destruction in the Amazon, and is a direct cause of global hunger. Changing our diet to a meat-free, dairy-free, egg-free vegan diet can significantly and rapidly reverse global warming, lower emissions, reduce deforestation, avoid drought, and help feed the hungry.

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and winner of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Al Gore, has this to say about the matter: "If you were to take into account the entire chain of meat production and consumption, it is hugely intensive in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore I always say that if you eat less meat, you will be healthier and so would the planet. We consume far too much meat in this world! It would help the global community enormously if we ate less meat, the entire meat cycle is very, very intensive in terms of carbon dioxide emissions…more than anything else, it is a win-win solution if we eat less meat."

The Let's Act Now website (http://letsactnow.org) stresses that the simple act of reducing meat consumption in our daily diets would have a major impact on global warming. As a coalition of concerned groups and citizens, the Let's Act Now website includes extensive data published in "Livestock's Long Shadow," a study of factory farming produced by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in 2006. Also on the website are analyses of the impact a plant based diet has on food and water resources, and public health, as well as discussions of ethical and moral considerations. Moreover, it has links to many other data-rich sources, such as CNN, the New York Times and Supreme Master Television.

All lives on earth are interconnected. Just imagine the power we have when we make our simple daily decisions. We can determine our own well-being and the well-being of others; we can choose to protect or threaten the welfare of animals; and most of all, we can choose to help save or destroy the planet we all live on. We have come to the critical moment when we have to decide which direction we want to go.... Let's Act Now!

PSA Directed by Award Winning Producer Lionel Friedberg
The Let's Act Now PSA was produced by the multi-award winning producer/director/writer/cinematographer Mr. Lionel Friedberg. His film,"A Sacred Duty," is a stark reminder of the cruel and unsustainable practices of factory farming. According to Mr. Friedberg, "It may sound outrageous or far-fetched, but the only way to avoid an irreversible ecological catastrophe from destroying our world is to switch to a plant-based diet. From studies undertaken by dozens of organizations, including the United Nations, meat-eating is undermining our planet in so many ways. Beyond that there are the proven health benefits that are derived from a vegetarian lifestyle. And let us not forget that we are so distanced, detached and divorced from our food sources that people who eat the flesh of other beings pile not only toxic, tarnished and unhealthy commodities on their plates, but also heaps of unmitigated misery. The suffering endured by creatures destined for human consumption is beyond comprehension."

Climate Change Puts Human Health at Risk

2009-02-13T14:19:00.003+09:00

UN: Climate Change Puts Human Health at Risk
GENEVA, Switzerland, April 8, 2008 (ENS)

Bringing a rise in air and sea temperatures and extreme weather patterns, global warming endangers not only the planet but also threatens human health, top United Nations officials warned on Monday - World Health Day - which marks the founding of the UN World Health Organization on April 7, 1948.

"The core concern is succinctly stated - climate change endangers human health," said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, WHO.

"The warming of the planet will be gradual," she said, "but the effects of extreme weather events - more storms, floods, droughts and heat waves - will be abrupt and acutely felt."

She noted that human beings are already exposed to the effects of climate-sensitive diseases, including malnutrition, which causes over 3.5 million deaths per year, diarrheal diseases, which kill over 1.8 million people a year, and malaria, which kills almost one million people every year.

"Although climate change is a global phenomenon, its consequences will not be evenly distributed," said Dr. Chan. "In short, climate change can affect problems that are already huge, largely concentrated in the developing world, and difficult to control."

Recent events such as the European heat wave in 2003; Hurricane Katrina, which struck the United States in 2005; and cholera epidemics in Bangladesh are just a few examples of what can be expected in the future.

"These trends and events cannot be attributed solely to climate change but they are the types of challenges we expect to become more frequent and intense with climate changes," Chan said. "They will further strain health resources which, in many regions, are already under severe stress."

To address the health effects of climate change, WHO is coordinating and supporting research and assessment on the most effective measures to protect health, particularly for the most vulnerable such as women and children in developing countries.

WHO is advising member states on the changes they must make to their health systems to protect their peoples, and will work with them in the future to develop effective means of adapting to a changing climate and reducing its effects on human health.

"Nearly 10 million children under age five die every year of largely preventable diseases," said Ann Veneman executive director of the UN Children's Fund, or UNICEF. "Many of the main global killers of children - including malaria and diarrhoea - are sensitive to changes in temperature and rainfall, and could become more common if weather patterns change."

Women and children tend to be most affected by hurricanes and flooding, which climate change experts say will increase in intensity and frequency in coming years. The destruction of homes, schools and health centers resulting from natural disasters reduce services available to families.

"The voices of women and children must be heard and their needs assessed as part of the international response to prospective changes to the environment, and they must have access to the knowledge and tools necessary to protect themselves and their communities," UNICEF said.
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