Also, check out http://www.compassion-in-the-kitchen.org.uk which I’m working on with my Buddhist friend, Achintya. We hope to run more ethical, hands-on vegan cooking retreat in 2010, so watch that space, as they say. The site is still being written and edited, but we’ve got a fair bit of stuff on there already.

Is either a myth or a mistake. It’s a myth if you believe we are facing a scarcity of water, or it’s a mistake if you forgot to classify it as potable water.

Water is not scarce on this planet, potable water is becoming scarce in certain areas of this planet.

If you want to get into the semantics of food myths make certain that you don’t make water myths.

I’m radically cutting down on the amount of meat products I buy and I’m not experienced enough as a cook to be able to just whip something up.

I’ve not been able to find anything about any result or progress in the lawsuit linking chicken to cancer, but any risk seems to come from the method of ccoking

“PhIP and other HCAs do not exist naturally in chicken; they form when animal muscle is cooked to high temperatures. The National Toxicology Program administered by the National Institutes of Health has identified PhIP as carcinogenic, as have the state of California and the International Agency for Research on Cancer”

…and trans fats (the worst fat, and the only type of fat that the body doesn’t need any amount of) aren’t found in chicken, they generally come from partially hydrogenating unsaturated PLANT fats.

In my opinion lumping all the different types of chicken, and the different ways it can be cooked will simply confuse the general public due to the mixed messages. This will mean that the majority of people will lose interest and wont pay any attention to what they’re putting into their bodies.

Not everybody is ready to become vegan, vegetarian or even pescotarian so changing their diet to become healthier is a big step (and a vital one for many)… the main problem is that there are people out there that will fool themselves into thinking that chicken nuggets and KFC count.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/try-weekday-vegetarian-diet-eat-green-food-without-taking-the-plunge.php

Rgds

Damon

May I suggest you read White Meat Myths? (the link is given in the 10 myths pdf) but here it is again for you: http://www.vegetarian.org.uk/guides/White-Meat/

This guide explains exactly why white meat is not the healthy option it was promoted as in the 1970s. This myth pervades despite the growing body of evidence liking white meat to a wide range of illnesses and diseases. Eating less, or no meat at all, is the healthier option. For those who want more evidence – watch our website as we will soon be publishing a fully-referenced report on white meat.

Hope that helps!

Veg*n can mean vegetarian or vegan (I picked that up off Jane!)

I think this debate is very healthy as we clearly rely too heavily on animal produce. I’m sure however if more people moved to white meats (as well as eating less meat overall), we’d be much healthier and also live in a much cleaner environment. I’m sure somewhere I read that cattle account for 3/4 of all agricultural methane, and that methane has 21 times the greenhouse effect of CO2.

I can help with the latter….

http://www.viva.org.uk/guides/martinguide.htm#chilli

As someone mentioned early on it’d be good if the sources of the info in the Food Myths were published.

For more information see White Meat Myths available online at http://www.vegetarian.org.uk/guides/White-Meat/

Your GM quote is unarguable – I agree with you! It also chimes with the quote in the image at the top of the “Good (Energy) Lies – part two” thread. However, it also begs the questions: “Does this mean that everything I believe in is false?” and “Does this mean that every new bit of information / opinion / wild conjecture that I disagree with is actually true?” Patently both of these are illogical extrapolations.

I used “apartheid” partly because I enjoyed the intentional use of such a loaded word. Mea culpa! But I also used it because this discussion is characterised for me as being between one group who seem to consider themselves exclusive and in some senses “better than the rest” and another group who think it is more constructive for a wider section of society to feel able (and invited) to join the gang – in this case the wider green movement.

Honestly, I was not referring to you personally in using the words “puritanical absolutism”. I was in fact referring to some of the pretty ill-tempered and unpleasant posts that appeared early in “part 1” before you became a regular contributor. Nevertheless, I note the fact that promoting veganism is your “life’s mission”. What is your attitude to friends, family and others if – having had the benefit of your teaching – they decide to continue eating some meat?

Please do not misunderstand me. I love vegetarian and vegan food, eat it more often than you might think and have many vegetablist friends. If I have any favourite hobby it is growing vegetables. However, not only do I use animal manure (as well as green manure and home produced compost), more importantly for this discussion I till the earth. During this process, innumerable worms, beetles and other smaller animals give up their lives for the supposedly higher purpose of satisfying my family’s appetite. If others, like me, indulge in these practices yet claim vegan credentials (on animal welfare grounds), are they not also guilty of “unconscious speciesism”? Does morality stop at the vertebrate / invertebrate boundary? If so, why?

Unless you have found a way of growing food that gets around this ethical problem, I think I can reasonably ask of you “Why is it so wrong NOT to call for the end to death of one species but to make that call of another?”

“Nothing you’ve said so far has answered this question or anything similar.”

I do take your comments in the spirit in which they are meant. Truly, you are a worthy adversary!

Best regards,

Jonny.

How can you make such an absolute statement?… on behalf of everyone else too.
As Damon has said that statement is easily proved false.

In my earlier comment I mentioned that I believe the general standards are too low, but that doesn’t mean that all farmer’s are deliberately malicious or that they’re out to make a quick quid.

I’m not claiming conversely that all farmers are angels.

But mixing up the emotional and ethical and factual and making categorical statements which are patently wrong however heartfelt is at best a distraction.

I’ve shoveled sh*t on a farm, etc.

Rgds

Damon

Equally, I don’t think there’s any commercial Throium reaction though I may be wrong.

However, breeder technology is AFAIK doable now and if done right reduces the nasty waste enormously (to much less stuff with a shorter half-life). But I am no expert: I spend too much time readinf TheOilDrum.com!

Rgds

Damon

But Damon, “some kind of fusion”? We haven’t yet achieved that on a potentially-commercial scale yet have we? How far away is that exactly?

A nuclear plant costs several £billions and typically have a 10 year lead time, this make them very unattractive to private capital and as such are nearly always funded or supported by the state. Renewables are in a similar position due to the high upfront costs and low runnung costs, but the lead times are much shorter and the projects to tend to be smaller and modular reducing the risk. No doubt nuclear has a big role to play in the future, and I would much rather see nuclear plant built rather than coal.

With efficiency, cogen, reneawbles, nuclear and long distance HVDC grids the world never needs to build another centralised coal fired power station.

A ‘breeder’ style will give ~60x more energy per unit of input fuel and the tech does already work.

And of course Thorium fission or some kind of fusion would avoid Peak Nuclear almost entirely, indeed we might have an embarrassment of energy riches at that point! B^>

Rgds

Damon

From my experience, it depends on what you go for. In my search for protein, I’ve found it in pasta, brown rice, and pulses (beans, lentils, peas etc.) though perhaps not in as much quantity as in meat. These we either eat already or are cheaper than meat.

However, nuts (and seeds) seem to have not only a large amount of protein (and fat), but also vitamins and minerals not found in other plant products. These are expensive if you eat these in large quantities. But you can shop around, market stalls are cheaper than supermarkets for things like this.

All nutritional information is google-able. For cost, you’ll just have to walk around supermarkets and markets and look at prices.

Soil fertility is an interesting question, which Jonny, I and others discussed at some length in the first blog. The vegan camp will say there is plenty of fertility from green manure (I imagine), but I’m waiting for real anecdotal evidence from someone or data or some “back-of-envelope” calculations from someone.

And I’m an advocate of reducing meat/dairy, rather than of complete abstention, so at least try to get your partner to look at reducing meat portions, or the occasional vegan/veggie meal etc. I believe even dairy has a lower carbon cost, portion for portion, than meat, though admittedly still high.

Those are my thoughts anyway.