Our Oceans are Under Attack

We are not going to convert to vegan.
I eat more venison than beef, more pork than beef. More rabbit than chicken.
I suggest the laws prohibiting market hunters be repealed to some degree.
Allow selling of some wild game in grocery stores.

And the USA has more trees today than when the first Europeans arrived.
the Indians used to deliberately set forest fires, so the forested land would grow back as brush land, which harbored much game.
Very few game animals live in deep temperate forests.
Many 1600s, 1700s ship's logs reported seeing huge tracks of burned over coastland in America.
Forman and Russell (1983, 5) expand the argument to North America in general: "regular and widespread Indian burning (Day 1953) [is] an unlikely hypothesis that regretfully has been accepted in the popular literature and consciousness." This conclusion, I believe, is unwarranted given reports of the extent of prehistoric human burning in North America and Australia (Lewis 1982), and Europe (Patterson and Sassaman 1988, 130), and by my own and other observations on current Indian and peasant burning in Central America and South America; when unrestrained, people burn frequently and for many reasons. For the Northeast, Patterson and Sassaman (1988 ' 129) found that sedimentary charcoal accumulations were greatest where Indian populations were greatest."
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The Sexy Vegan Lifestyle: Ella Magers

Veganism is for lovers, as the saying goes. Personal trainer and Muay Thai practitioner Ella Magers embodies this fully through her diet choices coming from the heart. “There is something deeply engraved in my being giving me empathy for animals,” says Magers, “When I was seven years old, I connected my love of animals with the food on my plate. That’s all it took to start a life long mission to stop animal suffering.” Later she started Sexy Fit Vegan™ in order to guide others towards compassionate and healthy eating as well as fitness success.
As wonderful a concept as a vegan diet may be, is it enough subsistence for our readers and fighters? Magers not only says yes, but declares it’s the true wellness lifestyle. “An MMA fighter should go vegan for the same reason any athlete, or any other person should go vegan,” she says, “Whole plant food is quality fuel for our bodies. It is a choice that can result in improved performance and physical health. As a bonus, going vegan means living conscientiously, compassionately, and showing you care about life as well as the environment our descendants will inherit. In our modern day society, a vegan lifestyle is simply the healthiest, most compassionate, and ecologically sound way to live.”

 

Where's the compassion for plants?

 

Why are plants being destroyed?

In the past 50 years much of the rainforest in Africa and Asia has been destroyed. Large areas of rainforest are being cut down, often in order to remove just a few logs, and rainforest is being destroyed at double the rate of all previous estimates. Unfortunately this means that there is a very high rate of extinction, as the wildlife depending on the forest dies with it.

Cattle ranching

Many rainforests in Central and South America have been burnt down to make way for cattle farming, which supplies cheap beef to North America, China and Russia. It is estimated that for each pound of beef produced, 200 square feet of rainforest is destroyed. In the past 20 years Costa Rica has lost the majority of its forests to beef cattle ranching. This is known as slash and burn farming and is believed to account for 50% of rainforest destruction. However, the land cannot be used for long: the soil is of poor quality and, without the forest, quickly becomes very dry. The grass often dies after only a few years and the land becomes a crusty desert. The cattle farmers then have to move on and destroy more rainforest to create new cattle pastures.

 

When you hate your own species, how healthy is THAT?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNFfJJBwBjY#t=85

In Mad Sausage we see a hungry young man gets served some serious food for thought when a sausage starts telling his dramatic life story. What he hears will change his life forever.

 

silliness
a talking sausage?

 

This is a very caring thread, imo. Or did I mean wearing ?

 

Immigration is not the problem, per se. Illegal immigration is the problem. We still have a lot of land which is fenced off by the federal government watermelons.

 

Choking the Oceans With Plastic | New York Times

See also the NOAA Marine Debris Program

 

Scientists predict global warming will end Utah’s ski industry | Fox13

 

During Lenten season, those of us who observe the tradition spend the week preparing achoose what we will deny ourselves for the next 40 days. On Friday, some believers also abstain from the consumption of meat from mammals and fowl. However, many of these individuals continue to eat fish, despite the fact that these animals feel pain, that farming them adversely affects the environment, and that ingesting them is actually harmful to humans. For a long time, I myself didn’t understand the terrible repercussions of consuming fish and was a self-proclaimed “pescetarian” for two years before I learned the truth and went vegan.

Indeed, research has shown that fish do feel pain. According to Dr. Donald Bloom, animal welfare advisor to the British government, “Anatomically, physiologically, and biologically, the pain system in fish is virtually the same as in birds and mammals.” Fish have fully developed brains and nervous systems and very sensitive mouths. Fish use their tongues and mouths as humans might use their hands—to catch or gather food, build nests, and even hide their offspring from danger. Fish can also suffer from fear and anticipation of physical pain. An Australian study found that when fish are chased, confined, or otherwise threatened, they react as humans do to stress: with increased heart and breathing rates and a burst of adrenalin. Like any other animal, fish feel pain and have a will to survive.

The consumption of fish flesh is also harmful to humans. Both wild and farmed fish live in increasingly polluted waters, and their flesh rapidly accumulates high levels of dangerous toxins. The most prominent of these are polychlorinated biphenals (PCB) and mercury, which can harm the brain of anyone who eats them. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that fish can accumulate thousands of times the level of cancer-causing PCBs found in the water in which they live. And according to The New England Journal of Medicine, fish “are the main if not the only source of methyl mercury,” a substance that has been linked to cardiovascular disease, fetal brain damage, blindness, deafness, and problems with motor skills, language, and attention span. As if all that weren’t enough to make your stomach turn, remember that seafood is also the number one cause of food poisoning in the United States!

During Lent this year, consider all the dangers associated with the consumption of fish. When you’re deciding what to eat on Fridays, think about the environment, your health, and, of course, fish! As you plan your next meal, ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?” He wouldn’t approve of modern fishing practices. So please extend the same compassion to fish that you would to other animals and forgo the seafood


Read more: http://www.peta.org/living/food/eat-fish/#ixzz3IHqQ1c2r

 

If fish is to be considered as healthy food, then we should assume that the fish are living in a healthy environment. Far from it! All the pollution created on land from industry, farming practices and general waste is gradually carried by streams and rivers into the sea. Strong poisons like mercury, organophosphates, dioxins and PCBs accumulate in the sea and are taken up by the marine life. It was found that up to 40% of some fish products on sale contained pollutants. Decades ago it was found that fish in one bay in Japan were polluted with mercury and causing deaths locally. This was traced to discharges of mercury from a local factory. Today fish all over the world are found to contain mercury, a heavy poison, as well as other pollutants, including radio activity.

A recent survey published in the magazine Science found that Scottish salmon was the most polluted of all farmed fish and contained unacceptable quantities of dioxins and PCBs. They recommended that it should only be eaten 3 or 4 times a year. (Nutritionists want us to eat oily fish 2 or 3 times a week). The Food Standards Agency claim that the stated levels found in Scottish salmon were acceptable by EU regulations, but admitted they themselves had made no tests since the mid 1990s.

Shell fish are heavy on the digestion at the best of times and Moses was wise when he forbade his followers to eat shell fish; but today the shell fish are even more polluted. The popularity of prawns has had other undesirable results.

Farmers in India and South East Asia are encouraged by the high price paid for of prawns to turn the land they use to grow (poorly paid) food crops over to producing prawns. But as production soars, the price falls and some are left without a livelihood and with land no longer suitable for producing crops for their own use.

Shell fish may be even less attractive to us than other fish, but they too are sentient creatures with nervous systems. To plunge them alive into boiling water must certainly be an act of cruelty.

So if we don't get the fatty acids like omega 3 from oily fish, what are vegans to do? The answer is simple: vegan sources of essential fatty acids (EFAs) can be found in plenty in seeds and nuts and oils (see box below).

So live and let live. Leave the fish in the sea to work out their own destinies so that we can again say "there are plenty of fish in the sea."

 

Generally, vegans (and vegetarians too) get too many omega 6 EFAs and not enough omega 3 EFAs. In fact, eating too many omega 6 fatty acids hinders the absorption of the omega 3s. There's a simple way to change this…

Poor choices Sunflower oil is very rich in omega 6s but is very low in omega 3s, so a poor choice. It also has high amounts of polyunsaturated fat, which is not good since it's better to have the bulk of your fat as monounsaturated fat. Soya oil is slightly better than sunflower oil, but is still not optimal.

Good choices Rapeseed oil and olive oil have a much better balance between omega 3s and 6s so are good choices for general cooking. These two oils are also rich in mono-unsaturated fats, which is believed to be the most healthy type of fat. Both are also low in saturated fat. Rapeseed oil is very low priced, so is an excellent choice if you are on a budget.

Optimal amount Just one of the following per day gives good intakes of omega 3 without adding excessive omega 6:
•1 teaspoon flaxseed (also known as linseed) oil
•1½ tablespoons ground flaxseed – it must be ground, e.g. with a pestle and mortar or in a coffee grinder, otherwise the body cannot absorb the oil in the seed. Also, it is best cooked to eliminate cyanogenic glycosides
•1½ tablespoons rapeseed oil (a very economical oil)
•1 tablespoon hempseed oil
•5 tablespoons hempseeds

Note that more than double the above amounts is not a good idea since too much omega 3 is not beneficial.

 

We are already using half of the entire planet’s land surface for food production, yet because much of that is used to graze animals or grow crops to feed animals, hundreds of millions of people starve.