evanvoo’s Recent Comments

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  Don't forget about the workers

  While I applaud Ikea's wonderful environmental initiatives, please remember the human cost of keeping prices so low. Over half of Ikea's products are manufactured in developing countries, where workers are not (or barely) paid a livable wage, are required to work overtime for little or no extra pay, and are prevented from engaging in collective bargaining.

  http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14272

  ErinOn An interview with IKEA sustainability director Thomas Bergmark posted 2 years, 9 months ago 9 Responses

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  Yay!!!

  Such great news! I am thoroughly impressed with your and your wife's resolutions (especially with #3, which is very important, albeit initially difficult).

  My favorite cookbooks are:

  1. The Post Punk Kitchen by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
     
  2. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison
     
  3. Cooking With Peta by Peta
     
  4. The Garden of Vegan by T. Barnard and S. Kramer
     
  5. World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey

  I would also highly recommend Becoming Vegan by Brenda Davis.

  As far as eating out, you'll usually find the most options (other than at all-vegan or all-veggie restaurants, of course) at ethnic restaurants, such as Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, Chinese, Korean, etc.

  This is so great! I hope you find, as I did, that you gain so much more than you lose by choosing a more humane and environmentally friendly diet. Nothing tastes as good as a clear conscience feels.

  ErinOn That's it for me and industrial meat posted 2 years, 9 months ago 46 Responses

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  I'm shooting for 200 comments

  Biodiversivist: To limit your calculations to CO2 doesn't make logical or scientific sense. You would have to factor in the fact that livestock uses much more of the earth's entire land surface than plant based agriculture (and thus is a major cause of deforestation); it creates a large amount  of methane (37 per cent of all human-induced methane); and it generates a large amount of nitrous oxide (65 per cent of all human-related nitrous oxide), which has 296 times the global warming potential than that of CO2. And the list goes on...

  So I say you're full of bologna.
  :)

  I have to agree with Kevcon about what seems to be a majority of my fellow environmentalists. I guess what really irks me is the fixation on fossil fueled transportion (which is, inarguably, bad for the environment and should be avoided when possible), when scientific evidence points to the fact that animal agriculture is the environment's #1 enemy. If you count the number of times Grist writers advocate people getting rid of their car, versus eliminating their consumption of animal products, it's hugely biased towards the former. If I wasn't familiar with all the scientific research that supports that the consumption of animal products is worse than all transportation combined--as, I would think, the large majority of the public isn't--then based on Grist's and other environmental organizations' priorities I would be really surprised to find that out.

  So I think maybe we should ask ourselves this: Are we using our time, energy, money, and educational outreach power in the best possible way, to help the environment as much as possible? I would say no, and I tend to think that the self-interests of many environmentalists--i.e., their reluctance to forgo certain gustatory pleasures--is responsible.

  I don't mean to imply that it's an either/or proposition, or that people who aren't perfect environmentalists should not be allowed to dole out advice. I'm just advocating for as much focus on and recognition of the implications of a non-vegan diet as environmentalists give issues involved with car driving and other forms of transportation.

  ErinOn Why the vegetarian critique of meat-eating should make meat-eaters squirm posted 2 years, 9 months ago 103 Responses

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  I completely agree with Tom and Bart.

  It is difficult to observe the billions of dollars spent towards marketing the crap companies pawn off as healthful "food," and essentially bribe those who are supposed authorities on health and nutrition (i.e., USDA, ADA, scientists, nutritionists and dietitians), and then feel that the culpability lies, in most part, with the consumer. When politics and huge corporate interests come into play, science--and all of us--lose out.

  As Michael Pollan describes in the essay Bart referenced above:

  "Epidemiologists also had observed that in America during the war years, when meat and dairy products were strictly rationed, the rate of heart disease temporarily plummeted.
  Naïvely putting two and two together, the committee drafted a straightforward set of dietary guidelines calling on Americans to cut down on red meat and dairy products. Within weeks a firestorm, emanating from the red-meat and dairy industries, engulfed the committee, and Senator McGovern (who had a great many cattle ranchers among his South Dakota constituents) was forced to beat a retreat. The committee's recommendations were hastily rewritten. Plain talk about food -- the committee had advised Americans to actually "reduce consumption of meat" -- was replaced by artful compromise: "Choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated-fat intake."

  Similar instances of this sort of corporate and political corruption abound, and have understandably led to increasing cynicism with the government, doctors, and dietitians who dole out "scientific" advice on nutrition.

  And to "Dietitian not Dietician:" FYI, per the American Heritage Dictionary, "dietician" is, indeed, a correct spelling.

  -Erin
  On There's nothing healthy about the American Dietary Association's addiction to corporate cash. posted 2 years, 9 months ago 60 Responses

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  TVP, Non-GMO soy, meat vs. soy

  Wow, I had no idea about TVP. I remember hearing rumblings a couple years ago about something being "bad" about TVP, but apparently I forgot to look into it. Well, that's certainly one product I will not be buying or eating again. Thanks for sharing that info.

  I would like to note for those who might not know, if the soy or soy product is labeled organic, it is not GMO. Relatedly, a frighteningly high percentage of corn and corn derived products--which seem to be as ubiquitous as soy products in processed foods--are also GMO (unless, again, they are labeled organic). Luckily, such a large proportion of vegan foods--such as many varieties of veggie burgers--are organic, so it's really quite easy to avoid GMO soy. Of course, I completely agree that it is almost always best to stick to whole foods, and to keep consumption of processed foods to a minimum.

  I do, however, still tend to believe that, if deciding between local meat and highly processed vegan food, the latter is preferable from an environmental point of view. I have yet to read the UCS book, though, so perhaps I'm wrong. I was a little confused with Umbra's post, as after laying out all of the science and numbers that demonstrate meat's enormous toll on the environment, she asserts (with no science or numbers) that:

  "There is some indication in these studies that sustainably raised, locally procured meat-based diets can hold their own, environmentally, against heavily processed, far-shipped veggie diets. So I prefer to believe that eating my local bacon is better than eating frozen veggie burgers, not just gastronomically but ecologically."

  Perhaps this would be more convincing if I knew what "some indication" is, and what the phrase "can hold their own" means. But if the facts to which these phrases refer are less than compelling, then it would seem the "I prefer to believe" part sums up the basis of her claim. But, again, I still have yet to read the report.

  --Erin
  On Why the vegetarian critique of meat-eating should make meat-eaters squirm posted 2 years, 9 months ago 103 Responses