Vegetarian Star

John Salley was recently interview by fellow vegan and journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell about his trip with New York city students to see Avatar, where he later discussed the benefits of a vegetarian diet on the Earth and ate a vegetarian meal with the children.

Jane and John talked about his mission to get America’s kids healthier and to combat obesity.

Maybe the answer is to feed children what they need and not what they want.

“They put vegetarian food in front of them when they were hungry. Some of them booed. Some of them awed. But at the end of it, they all were fed well,” Salley said.

John gets into the number of animals killed for food and makes a statement about how despite these millions, there is still poverty worldwide–indicating protein may not be the best way to feed the people.

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Animal Factory by David Kirby

Journalist David Kirby recalls the night he slept near a pig farm during his investigations of factory farms.

Kirby wasn’t able to fall asleep that night, as all he heard were pigs fighting, screaming and squealing at each other, a sound he described as “kids being tourtured.”

Those three years of experiences that led to his book, Animal Factory, are just a few that he shared in a recent Time magazine interview, “The Problem With Factory Farms.”

What Exactly is a Factory Farm?
We collectively refer to these facilities as factory farms, but that’s not an official name. The government designation is CAFO, which stands for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation. Basically it’s any farm that has 1,000 “animal units” or more. A beef cow is an animal unit. These animals are kept in pens their entire lives. They’re never outside. They never breathe fresh air. They never see the sun.

What happens to the wastes from factory farms?
The manure is liquefied. It gets flushed out into an open lagoon, where it is stored until farmers can use it on what few crops they do grow. There’s just so much of it, though. I’ve seen it sprayed into waterways and creeks. These “lagoons” filled with waste have been known to seep, leak, rupture, and overtop. This stuff is untreated, by the way. We would never allow big open cesspools of untreated human waste to just sit out on the ground near people’s homes and schools. And yet because it’s agriculture, the rules are different.

Read the entire interview with Kirby at Time.

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Animal Factory by David Kirby

David Kirby, investigative journalist and author of Animal Factory, has just skimmed over a report on the USDA’s “National Residue Program for Cattle.”

According to Kirby’s summary in the Huffington Post, this report would have received an “F” from 100% of teachers.

Not only has the program not established tolerant levels for substances in meat, it has failed to recall meat after the product has been confirmed with an excess of some of these substances.

A few highlights from Kirby’s summary:

• The five main substances found were Flunixin, Penicillin, Arsenic, Copper and Ivermectin and effects of ingesting these range from as mild as diarrhea to renal dysfunction to neurotoxicity.
• In 2008, a shipment of US beef was rejected by Mexican inspectors because it tested above the Mexican tolerance level for copper in beef. The food was sold and consumed in the US, where no levels are set.
• Over 90 percent of all residues detected were in dairy cows and veal calves. Dairy cows are routinely ground into hamburger and veal calves are often fed antibiotic-laden, unmarketable “waste milk” from dairy cows undergoing treatment for infections.
• Cooking meat destroys pathogens, but not residues, which heat may actually break down “into components that are more harmful to consumers.

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Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently touched on the new study that suggested eating five servings of fruits and vegetables a day isn’t as beneficial in preventing cancer as once thought.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, followed thousands of Europeans in 10 different countries over nine years and only found a weak association between cancer and produce intake.

Specifically, the study found those who got an extra 2 servings of fruits and vegetables a day reduced their cancer risk by 4%, versus the 20% or 30% found in previous studies that launched the famous “Five a Day” campaign.

It’s thought this exaggeration was found because previous studies used healthier populations who were less likely to get cancer and more likely to demonstrate other health conscious practices to begin with.

Does that mean you should toss your daily apple to the birds?

Not exactly, unless you enjoy feeding them.

“Experts do agree still, of course, that you should eat your carrots, your tomatoes, your spinach, et cetera, it’s good for your heart,” Dr. Gupta said on a recent segment on CNN. “It’s good for your waistline as well. And, by the way, keeping the fat off is also a good thing because the estrogen in fat can fuel some cancers.”

Fruits and vegetables contain fiber, which keep you fuller, causing you to eat less, which is a proven way to keep fat off.

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Animal Factory by David Kirby

Investigative journalist David Kirby has published a book on the effects of factory farming on communities, Animal Factory.

Kirby details the lives of three individuals, using their experiences to illustrate how big business in the food system affects small people: a North Carolina fisherman who’s river is polluted by a nearby pig farm, a mother in Illinois affected by a dairy farm, and a grandmother who’s home is covered in soot and water supply is compromised from cattle waste runoff.

The book is gaining praise from reviewers across the nation. Here are just a few comments.

“Good journalists know that the key to hooking their audience on a complex social problem is to put a human face on it. And David Kirby is a good journalist. In his new book Animal Factory Kirby puts a human face on the threat of industrial meat production to humans and environmental health.” —-FRANK STASIO, WUNC-FM, NPR Affiliate, North Carolina

“Animal Factory is a valuable addition to the growing number of works like Food Inc. and The Omnivore’s Dilemma exposing the ills of mass-produced meat and dairy. Kirby uses the stories of the three families, as they move from their local fights to the national scene, to draw readers into the morass of government regulations and lawsuits that surround the CAFO issue.”
–EUGENE WEEKLY

“If you want to know about the worst practices of our food system, David Kirby is your man. Kirby has the inside track on all things factory farm, which is why Washington Post’s “On Leadership” column recently invited him to write a guest post about President Obama’s record on reform in this area.”–Change.org

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Besides Boo Boo Stewart‘s raving about his mom’s Japanese style tofu, the Vegetarian Times was able to catch a few other celebrities at the Genesis Awards to find out what their favorite dish was.

Moby loves the vegan tacos at Real Food Daily as well as the vegan sushi at Souen in New York.

Nicole Lapin sounded as if she’s a fan of old fashioned comfort food, as she had plenty to say about the meals that were prepared during a “Fabulous faux” dinner party she hosted, featuring “you wouldn’t believe it’s vegan” versions of American dishes.

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Lisa Ling has been reporting on animal welfare issues for years.

In 2008, she worked as a correspondent for Oprah to uncover the story of mistreatment in a Pennsylvania puppy mill.

Although she’s not a vegetarian (yet), her investigative work conducted while visiting factory farms and free range farms has made her think more about the food that does arrive on her plate.

A few highlights from her interview with TailsInc.:

You also exposed the reality of factory farming on Oprah. Has it affected you and the way you eat meat in your own life?

“It absolutely has. These animals we consume never even get to mate. They never for their entire lives come out of these factory-like conditions, and it’s horrifying. I can’t even imagine what is going into them and then what’s going into us. Has it made me stop [eating meat]? No, but I’m just more conscious about it.”

Did the animals seem happier on the free-range farm?

“Absolutely. They’re still animals we would consume, but at least for their short lives they are able to actually just live. The man who had the grass-fed chickens said, “I believe that people should feel OK about consuming animals, but we just don’t want to torture them.” I just found that really interesting because he was really religious. And there are certainly people who say we shouldn’t kill anything. During Jesus’ time they were consuming animals, but they weren’t torturing the animals. They weren’t injecting the animals and pumping the animals with who knows what foreign substances.”

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Jane Velez-Mitchell has used her position as a well known journalist on HLN to spotlight animal issues on several occasions.

Recently Jane and Nancy Grace had the opportunity to interview Jack Hanna, host of Jack Hanna Into The Wild–along with some of his animal friends.

After recounting a story about a dog who helped solve a crime by urinating on a tire, Jane discussed the pigs she met at a farm animal rescue center.

Some highlights from the transcript:

GRACE: You`ve had encounters with pigs? Is there anything you need to share with us?

(LAUGHTER)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, actually, because I`m an animal activist and I go to rescue organizations…

GRACE: Oh, there she goes! I was wondering how long it would take! Go ahead, Miss PETA!

(LAUGHTER)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I go to a group, like Animal Acres here in Los Angeles, where they rescue farm animals that have been abused and they allow them to live the way animals should live. Pigs are incredibly intelligent animals, as intelligent as dogs. They have an incredible sense of smell. As you`ve just been seeing there, they are sentient creatures with feelings. They are being used by some in some test cases to sniff out drugs and as…

GRACE: Oh, drug pigs!

Are narcotic pigs the future of the police department in your hometown?

Learn what vegetarian animal Hanna introduced later on the show from the full transcript.

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