http://tastebetter.com Tips for great green living. en Copyright 2007 Taste Better jason@thrustlabs.com This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/VTLT7b-AqcA/Let-s-find-the-awesome-together

A thousand pardons for the lack of posts (and newsletters) over the past little while! Partly I've been crazy busy, but I've also been thinking about the format of the site and I want to make some changes.

You already know that factory farming is ridiculously wrong, that meat consumption has been linked to a ton of diseases, and that some people do horrible things to animals from time to time. Being reminded of that on a recurring basis might help maintain your commitment to a plant-based diet, but it'll also bum you out, and let's face it, as an individual you're not going to be able to change most of this stuff. As a group, that's a different story, and I'm working that part out still, but on the whole, the kinds of posts I've tended to write have come across as whining. Brilliantly witty whining, yes, but this isn't a competition to see who can find the most things that are wrong with the universe. The major media outlets do a fine job at that already.

I'm still working out how this will affect the site, but I want to focus on the awesome, so I can help you be awesome. Now, you may have noticed that news outlets focus on the negative as well, so this might prove to be a bit of a challenge, but I guess we'll have to make our own news if it comes to that.

Stay tuned, more posts coming soon...]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Let-s-find-the-awesome-together http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/MlHGRCfNiDw/Well-that-s-it--only-vegans-can-have-dogs-now a mid sized dog is being compared to an SUV. According to researchers, the dog will go through 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereals in a year, which is the carbonastical equivalent of driving a big-ass car for 10,000 kilometres.

Now, it should be mentioned that I've seen dogs thrive on a plant-based diet, but on the whole I'm not a fan of these metrics. Sure, it's great to be proud of the reduced environmental impact of your diet, but now some nut just has to point at your dog and somehow that becomes an excuse for their meat-eating ways. In some ways it's an extension of the "animal rights activists need to focus on 'real issues' like child labour" (or whatever Big Issue doesn't require an immediate lifestyle change) nonsense, but how many of you have ever thought that you diet gives you "credit" to "spend" on other indulgences, like, OK, a dog?

Put another way, while environmental footprint calculations can be useful to put impact in terms relative to things we're familiar with, they shouldn't be seen as budget line-items in your life. What do you think about these calculations? Do they actually help, or do they give everyone something that they can use as a credit/excuse against something really nasty, like eating meat?]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Well-that-s-it--only-vegans-can-have-dogs-now http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/k5eMskg_wpU/Your-quickie-morning-WTF Linkylink.]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Your-quickie-morning-WTF http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/t3bw5ITXpV0/Oysters-to-undergo-treatment-to-make-them-more-dead-but-less-deadly ban the sale of untreated oysters, at least in the hot summer months.

Whatever. Check out the lead: "Lovers of oysters on the half shell may want to indulge now, while they can. A new Food and Drug Administration plan to cut deaths from one of the deadliest types of food poisoning means that soon, live U.S.-grown oysters will become much harder to find from May to October."

That's right, if you want to risk your life over a piece of food (because eating animals is essentially entertainment anyway,) you'd better hurry!]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Oysters-to-undergo-treatment-to-make-them-more-dead-but-less-deadly http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/tMlhTkRoumk/Swine-flu-still-holds-some-ground-from-H1N1
I think we'll make Fridays into Swine Flu Watch days, where we don't track deaths or any real news other than the number of instances of Swine Flu versus H1N1 in the news. At the moment, according to Google News, the score is 42045 for swine flu (10019 without mention of H1N1) and 106630 for H1N1 (78049 without mention of swine flu.)

Anyone want to make this into an automated widget?]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Swine-flu-still-holds-some-ground-from-H1N1 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/_k8Vs9mJFBY/The-beef-recall-system-is-either-working-or-lucky this version, nobody's gotten sick and the company involved says that their own tests didn't find anything.

So why the recall? Well, as per this version, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service found it.

You make the call: multi-layered safety system at work, or damned lucky break?]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/The-beef-recall-system-is-either-working-or-lucky http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/J1Me94LDhIc/Business-Time--pig-farming-is-crazy-expensive Business Time?

A: Jason is NEVER going to stop making jokes about Wednesday being Business Time!

Seriously, everyone has to do a little work to understand the economics of animal agriculture, because frankly, the farmers aren't doing their share. Take this recent report from a Canadian Pork Industry publication: according to some dude on the Manitoba Pork Council, pig farmers have been losing money for two and a half years and don't see anything getting better for at least the next 12 months. Amazingly, banks have been reluctant to give them more money, and while the government is introducing new support programs, there seems to be growing interest in using these programs to get out of the industry altogether.

Unfortunately, this is probably bad news for animals. Despite farmers' hard times, people still eat pork. Fewer farmers is going to mean increased industry consolidation and growing reliance of imports from other countries where animal care standards are going to be harder to monitor and enforce.

It's almost looking like the best way you can support your local farmer is to encourage people to eat more crops. Huh.]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Business-Time--pig-farming-is-crazy-expensive http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/nyPThS4xfGA/Pigs-is-wicked-smart-and-can-probably-type-gooder-than-me-too
In fact, I'll even make both stories about pigs. No, this isn't a magic trick; I just have two pig stories I want to talk about, is all. They both involve how frigging smart pigs are, especially when it comes to getting food. I realize that seems to be what most pig intelligence stories are about, but despite having killed baziliions of them, humans really haven't figured out much of their motivations other than they like to eat. If we're not careful, we might even realize they hate getting slaughtered.

Anyway, in story the first, we learn that pigs are able to understand how mirrors work. Pigs are so smart I can barely explain the setup, but apparently if you see food in a mirror and don't automatically look behind it like it's a piece of glass, you've got an awareness level at least as good as a pig's, and it's something that hasn't been observed in that many animals. It's one of those "signs of complex cognitive processing" that someday might mean something. For now it'll likely get discussed over ham sandwiches by people who think they're clever but don't understand terms like cognitive dissonance.

In story the second, we get to watch a movie! Be warned, it starts playing automatically. Pigs would know better than to do that. Anyway. Some farms have some kind of RFID tagging system for their pigs where the food gets dished out once per day in a certain amount per pig, as per the tag on their collar. The pigs have figured out that the collar's the key, and some have taken to bringing extra collars into the feed chute so they can get seconds. They get the collars from pigs who haven't figured out the food trick but have figured out the "remove a collar" trick, which means they go hungry, which means the farmer is dumber than his or her cleverest pig and needs to find a new vocation.

I think we're going to see more and more stories about pig intelligence, simply because it's not hard for researchers to get pigs. Great apes are getting rare, and they look more like people, so research is tricker. I'm really wondering how far along the research has to get before people figure out that these animals deserve a little more respect than they get from being turned into a pile of bacon for the breakfast buffet.]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Pigs-is-wicked-smart-and-can-probably-type-gooder-than-me-too http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/7IyLEb72Oxg/They-forgot-to-remind-you-to-update-your-will
Still, with all the turkey talk going on, there's also a slew of safety tips, and I can't find a better example of what's wrong with eating meat than these helpful tips from the CBC (warning, many dead bird photos.) It's an exhaustive list and I kept expecting to see "do not taunt Happy Fun Ball" in there somewhere.

The steps required to safely consume meat resemble laboratory clean room instructions, and as we've seen recently, the meat industry seems to be trying to spin things so their product is perfectly safe as long as you follow a safety checklist of a complexity that rivals the sequence of steps to launch a shuttle into orbit. Meanwhile, the food industry thinks consumers can do all this while at the same time needing to be told that Froot Loops are healthier for breakfast than donuts.

Want to know what I'm thankful for? Not needing an advanced degree to be able to make a sandwich.]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/They-forgot-to-remind-you-to-update-your-will http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/Jp0PvK5JutU/Ground-beef--same-as-it-ever-was a follow up on the state of the industry two years after a recall of over 800,000 pounds of hamburger patties. Despite the recall, almost a thousand people got sick, and in at least one case, that's sick as in "may never walk again."

The article's really long, and you can probably just skim the front page to get the idea. We've been hearing about stuff like this ever since the press learned to spell E. coli, and despite new system implementations and spin and promises, things like this keep happening. Thanks to this article, and our Business Time Wednesday leanings, we've got a bit more insight now into why this isn't getting better.

There are two types of companies involved in hamburger production. There's the slaughterhouse, which does what you think, and then there are the grinders, who source various cuts of meat from all over the world and blend them together.

One company that grinds a million pounds of meat each day doesn't test the raw materials for E. coli, and they're not alone: “[the slaughterhouses] would not sell to us... If I test and it’s positive, I put them in a regulatory situation. One, I have to tell the government, and two, the government will trace it back to them. So we don’t do that.”

On the bright side, they will use metal detectors to look for nails and hooks, because those things can damage the equipment. It's probably bad for people too. Enough iron to seriously harm a child and all that.

As put forth in the Fast Food Nation movie, "there's shit in the meat" and it's unlikely to go away. With all the finger pointing in the industry along with recent trends in spin, I'm waiting for a company to blame an undercover activist for pooping on the assembly line.]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Ground-beef--same-as-it-ever-was http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/tfGt38HG0Fg/This-is-what-you-re-up-against
Briefly, in "The Vegetarian Delusion," Michael sets up some straw man arguments and somehow makes it OK that he eats meat because some protesters weren't trying to stop the seal hunt.

Then he goes on to "discover" the same old tired fact that animals are killed during the production of crops (lots of little critters get caught in the thresher etc.) He leaves out the fact that animals eat way more crops than vegans do, which would mean a plant-based diet would make for a reduction in net crop consumption which would then be a Good Thing for animals everywhere, but I suppose it doesn't matter to him, because vegans need to maintain an absolute standard of purity before he'll pay any attention to them and even consider changing his ways. You'll note that he makes it even easier to do this by talking about vegetarians; veganism isn't mentioned once.

Believe it or not, I'm not trying to rant at yet another misguided college kid's amateur scrawlings. I was this guy once, in a lot of ways, and you probably were too. In modern society, I pick up an overall sentiment of "if you can't save all the animals you might as well kill a whole lot of them," and we all know that this would be lunacy if we were talking about, say, human babies, but that's just it: we're not, and each and every omnivore knows on some level that what they're doing can be avoided to a huge extent, but I suspect it's Too Big.

So how do we get the Michaels of the world to stop being, well, themselves?]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/This-is-what-you-re-up-against http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/8SzoqoQGl-U/Calgary-Zoo-sees-even-more-bad-news
This isn't going to be one of those stories.

It started out like it was going to be one, though. I mean, with a headline like Man hurt by tiger after entering Calgary Zoo, how could it not be a story about how survival of the fittest tends to rank tigers ahead of idiots? I mean, it couldn't be possible that the man simply entered the zoo and BAM! Just steps past the entrance he's like, the equivalent of popcorn at movies, but for tigers, so this had to be a typical story where we can make fun of the poor doofus who found his way into a tiger cage.

And sure enough, the man entered the zoo in the early hours of the morning, which to some of us means "before noon" but generally means after midnight when things are typically closed to the public, and he went and climbed the safety fence, which I'll grant might be the safest type of fence to climb but one must beware of what's on the other side, vis a vis, ipso facto, in this case, a tiger.

It sounds like he'll be OK, but I'm a little more worried for the tiger and every other animal in the Calgary zoo. Check out the "related stories" for this one:



Wow, we've got gorillas armed with knives, 2 dead stingrays to add to the body count of 41 that died the year before, and then there's the exotic goat who died a bizarre death, which sounds like a lot of adjectives but with this many deaths in one facility I guess you need to make it clear which one you're talking about.

With the exception of the 41 stingrays, that stuff all happened in the past year, which leads me to wonder if members of the public hopping fences would actually fall into the zoo director's best case scenario list of reasons to make the news.]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Calgary-Zoo-sees-even-more-bad-news http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/sKqBeIbFqe0/Science-might-have-beaten-activism-for-MVP
Erik Frigging Marcus. How that guy keeps focus like he does, I'll never know. Vegan Cheese. He mentions it in the title and then manages to keep the whole post on his bigger message that this could devastate the dairy industry without once slipping into a list of things he would melt it on. (Post your own list, of things you'd melt it on or of things that Erik would melt it on, in the comments. Be specific.)

He was so on point that I spent some time thinking up all the reasons that the final product wouldn't even be vegan. I wouldn't let myself believe, but there it is in the press release: "It offers... a unique opportunity for vegans to enjoy a product that has the characteristics and taste of cheese but without any animal-derived ingredients."

Oh, and while I'm talking about the press release I should point out the cost differential between real cheese is 200%. If you can conceive of a new efficiency that could be introduced to the factory (or otherwise) farming infrastructure that could cut their operating costs in half, just hop onto a jet to Sweden for your Nobel Prize, because I think it would involve reversing the polarity of farming. It's all going to come down to marketing and perception now, and if the average family of 4 have to choose between real cheese and, say, a big screen TV, I'm thinking the dairy farmer's going to have some real competition.

While everyone was going on about vat meat and would you or wouldn't you eat it, science goes and springs this on us. Huh.]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Science-might-have-beaten-activism-for-MVP http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/E7rWFx4hQ6w/Business-Time--Smart-Choices-for-the-companies-anyway
And since grocery stores are a business, and it's Wednesday, conditions are perfect for Business Time. Business Time sneak attack!

OK, so at this year's Food Fair I was referred to the work of Marion Nestle, and while I haven't read any of her books yet so I can't say for sure what she's about, I've been enjoying her blog quite a bit, particularly her posts on the Smart Choices program.

I don't know if I just avoid these aisles, or maybe it hasn't come out here yet, but Smart Choices is basically a food tagging system where supposedly "smart choices" for foods get a fancy logo. It's like a stamp of approval, administered by a nonprofit organization, yadda yadda yadda.

So how do you get one of these logos on your products? Well... There are 14 companies who've funded the program to the tune of at least 1.47 million dollars. They're on the list. What does 1.47 million buy you? A bit of leeway, apparently. At least enough for Kellogg's to get the approval for... wait for it... Froot Loops cereal. But it's not about the money, nosiree. According to one board member of the program, Froot Loops are a smarter choice than donuts.

I don't know how/if companies who didn't contribute lots of cash get into the program, but considering your potential peers, would you really want in?]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Business-Time--Smart-Choices-for-the-companies-anyway http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VeganPorn/~3/J7YWdkIYrVA/Pennsylvania-says-oral-sex-with-cows-not-cruelty stick your penis into the mouth of a calf. Not even five calves. According to the judge who dismissed the case, he couldn't figure out if the cows were being tormented, confused, or simply irritated about being duped out of a meal.

Here's the money quote: "'If the cow had the cognitive ability to form thought and speak, would it say, "Where's the milk? I'm not getting any milk," ' Judge James J. Morley asked." and we are not going there, no indeed.

Of course, while that might be legal in Pennsylvania, it's also a sign that something might not be right in the mind of the perpetrator, and sure enough, Robert Melia and his ex-girlfriend are also being charged with sexually assaulting three young girls. Child pornography was also involved.

Believe it or not, this is all just a prelude to what I actually want to talk about: the owner of the calves is reportedly "very upset" about all of this. It's not clear if this was a dairy farm or a meat farm, but, assuming that this wasn't a sanctuary, this owner is someone who makes a living by killing animals on a regular basis, but stuff like, well, like what we talked about earlier? Yeah, that's the upsetting part. (and yes, they're both upsetting acts.)

The thing of it is, this farmer probably does care for his (I'm assuming it's a he) animals. He probably enjoys having them around, notices little personality quirks, and treats them, well, up to industry standards, anyway. It's that weird transition to "OK, time to die" that I can never figure out. Farmers embody it best, but most of the population has this thing going on where animals are awesome and cute, but not only have a lower status than humans but are clearly on this planet so that they can be killed and put to all kinds of uses that, from a certain perspective, are all way more perverted and upsetting than what Melia did to them.]]> http://tastebetter.com/story/Pennsylvania-says-oral-sex-with-cows-not-cruelty