November 2001

A decision has been made regarding the site for our Pre-Thanksgiving Feast. As you can see from the enclosed flyer, it will be held at St. Rita’s Church, a block or two south of Brady Street.

Please note that despite the flyer’s invitation to call for reservations, we are again, like last year, requiring that reservations be prepaid, so you have to fill out the tear-off part of the flyer and mail it with your check in order to have your place reserved. If you want to attend our festivities, it’s time to do this now!

It is also time now to go into high gear on our planning for the event, which we can only pull off if lots of people contribute some time and effort. Helpers will be needed to prepare food in the couple of days before the event (call Jody at 414-764-7262 to volunteer for this), and we will need people on Friday afternoon to help set up tables and chairs in the hall. On Saturday we’ll need help to complete set-up prior to opening the doors, and to help serve the dinner, and to clean up afterwards. No one is expected to do all these things, but we do need some volunteers for each task. You do not have to come to the November potluck, at which there will be a volunteer sign-up sheet, in order to participate: you can also call Jody (764-7262) or me (962-2703) to tell us what you’d like to do. And remember: it’s a lot of fun to be part of making this dinner happen!

Also note that in addition to our Pre-Thanksgiving Feast, we do have regular potlucks planned for both November and December, with the now-usual presentation of information on various topics at each.

Sunday, Nov. 4, 6 PM, regular potluck at Sandy and Paul Forgach’s new address: 5005 W. Bradley Rd., (NE side of town) in the building’s community room. Topics are vegetarian children and Feast planning. (414) 355-4089

Saturday, Nov. 17, 5 PM, Pre-Thanksgiving Feast, St. Rita’s Church, 1603 N. Cass St.. See flyer for details and to pre-register.

Sunday, Dec. 2, 6 PM, regular potluck at Jean Groshek’s.

Sunday, Nov. 25, 5 PM, at the Malins’, 6522 W. Wright in Wauwatosa, 453-7326

"Every day in the United States, roughly 200,000 people are sickened by a foodborne disease, 900 are hospitalized, and 14 die. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than a quarter of the American population suffers a bout of food poisoning each year… the lasting health consequences of such illnesses are far more serious than was previously believed…much of the increase can be attributed to recent changes in how American food is produced…" (i.e., it’s caused by such bacteria as e. coli, listeria, salmonella, and campylobacter, which get into food through current meat-raising practices).

-- Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation

So why such a fuss over a relatively very few cases of anthrax? -- your editor

Microbial contaminants in meat continue to be a truly serious problem. The November Prevention had an article comparing people’s levels of fear about various food issues with their experts’ judgement of the realities – and dangerous micro-organisms in food was the one instance where they felt the real danger is much higher than people’s perceptions of it. (Prevention’s experts rated the actual dangers of raw fish and nvCJD, the human version of mad cow disease, as lower than their scariness factors, and the danger of pesticides in food as unknowable). Also, the NY Times reported on 3 studies published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine, which provide evidence that persistent use of antibiotics in farm animals has now, as scientists have warned for years, created a situation where meat and eggs often contain antibiotic-resistant disease- producing bacteria.

Whether or not mad cow disease should concern us, there is now a big problem with the version that affects deer and elk, especially since deer and elk have been bred and shipped to game farms all over the U.S., and it now turns out that some of the transported animals are suffering from deer and elk wasting disease. It’s past time to cross venison off the list of healthy foods – if it was ever on it. In related news, the American Heart Association has finally come out with a statement which clearly denounces high-protein diets as unhealthy for long-term use.

There has also been news recently about men and milk. Apparently, a new study of over 21,000 men found that those who eat a lot of milk, cheese, and ice cream have significantly higher prostate cancer rates than those who don’t, and this finding supports the results of other earlier studies. It does not seem to be quite clear yet whether the actual problem is calcium intake or that milk is an animal food. Men are still advised to meet basic calcium needs, just not to overdo it with too much dairy.

Finally, there was quite a bit of media attention lately regarding adult-onset diabetes, which is being described as an upcoming epidemic that could dwarf even heart disease (currently our number one killer). Preventing it involves maintaining a proper weight, eating whole grains and vegetables and fruits and lean foods like beans rather than the fatty and sugary foods of the standard American diet, and exercising regularly. The problem is that most Americans are overweight and sedentary, and eat lots of fatty animal foods and refined foods and sugar. Vegetarians do have an edge here – but only if we exercise and avoid white flour, sugar, and extra fat as well as giving meat and fatty dairy foods a miss.

On the other hand, vegetarian foods are still good for you. A recent Health Science article pointed out that whole grains are now known to help reduce strokes as well as other heart disease and diabetes and cancers including colon cancer. Tips for getting them include eating oatmeal or another whole grain hot cereal for breakfast, adding barley to soups and stews, eating corn on the cob and popcorn, and trying some of the less familiar grain dishes like kasha (buckwheat), millet, rye, and quinoa. (Also think of corn chips and whole grain pasta instead of potato chips and white flour pasta.)

Health Science also reviewed Dr. Neal Barnard’s latest book, Turn Off the Fat Genes, and listed many foods that the book recommends for enhancing the body’s ability to burn fat; they include (unsurprisingly) many fruits and vegetables, as well as beans and whole grains.

And a CNI newspaper’s health section recently had an article listing foods to eat and avoid. Ones to avoid included Oscar-Meyer lunchables, Haagen-Dazs ice cream, Rice-a-Roni chicken and vegetables, Nissin cup noodles with shrimp, and Campbell’s red-and-white soups, as well as Quaker 100% natural oats and honey granola, Entenmann’s rich frosted donut variety pack, Frito-Lay Wow! Potato chips, and Contadina Alfredo sauce. The culprits in these foods are very high levels of fat (or in the Wow chips the fat-substitute olestra), sodium, sugar, and white flour. The same article also listed nutritional powerhouse foods to be sure to eat, and all are vegetarian whole foods: sweet potatoes, whole-grain bread, broccoli, watermelon, beans, cantaloupe, spinach and kale.

The November Prevention is still boosting ways to satisfy oneself by eating good fat while avoiding bad fat, such as having pecans instead of grated cheese to top a salad, or topping your frozen yogurt with melted peanut butter instead of hot fudge sauce. It also mentions that whole cranberries are a good source of the cancer-fighting substance resveratrol. Another item was that ginger, which is known to ease nausea and other digestive complaints, can also aid circulation including circulation to the generative organs – and so help improve one’s sex life (though it should probably not be used if one is also taking prescription blood thinners or using aspirin regularly as a blood thinner). Another interesting tidbit was that when cold cereals are enriched with vitamins, they are sprayed on and thus dissolve into the milk or soymilk, so if you eat the cereal but leave the milk behind in the bowl, you lose these nutrients – so do drink the liquid in the cereal bowl’s bottom.

Another Prevention item discussed the tendency for the vitamin choline to get used up during pregnancy and lactation, and recommended plenty of eggs to maintain levels since choline is needed for good memory. Vegetarians, however, will be happy to know that wheat germ, whole wheat products, soybeans, and other legumes can also supply this nutrient.

THE VEGGIE TABLE

Chuck and I needed to find a place on the west side of town for a quick supper, and so discovered that Heinemann’s is quite veg-friendly.

Although mostly a mainstream restaurant, Heinemann’s features several vegetarian items on the regular menu, and at least one vegetarian special each day, and several of these items are vegan. We tried the restaurant’s own veggie burger, and were easily able to substitute their partly-whole grain bread for the white-flour roll it would ordinarily come on; it was quite tasty indeed. On another occasion I had the grilled vegetable casear salad, which was made with light lemon butter and creamily dressed but was vegan otherwise, and found it quite delicious. Other regular vegetarian items include the vegan veggie wrap, the hummus dish, and the lacto-vegetarian tortilla cheese grill, while different days’ specials include vegestrone soup, a grilled cheese dish, and a Mediterranean veggie stack. Décor was cheery and comfortable, prices were easy on the wallet, and we found the staff friendly and helpful. Beer and wine are available, as well as Heinemann’s own bakery offerings. We would go back.

There are several Heinemann’s restaurants around town: the one we went to at 18000 W. Bluemound Rd. (792-1500); and at 317 N. 76^th St (258-6800); 412 E. Silver Spring (964-6060); 333 W. Brown Deer Rd (352-2244); 2717 N. Mayfair Rd. (774-5200); and 411 E. Wisconsin Ave., (224-7800).

DIALOG

Although vegetarians do not eat fish, many of us are vegetarian at least in part because we care about the environment and the animals that inhabit it. With this as a connection, readers might want to know about a looming crisis for fish and what action people can take about it.

The problem is that over 35 species of fish are having their genes tinkered with by those who want to fish-farm fishes that will gain weight faster and become bigger than normal fish of their respective species. The problem is not only that these gene-altered fish would be placed into the food supply without labeling or safety-testing, but that all fish-farming is plagued by constant escapes of farmed fish into the wild. And since fish prefer to mate with the largest members of their species they can find, the gene-altered fish – whose offspring have far higher mortality than normal fish – would be the preferred mates. Scientists at Purdue University are warning that licensing gene-altered fish for fish farming would therefore certainly pollute the wild fishes’ gene-pool, and would probably cause the normal species’ extinction in a few generations.

To help prevent this, you need to write now to the FDA Commissioner, asking the FDA to declare an indefinite moratorium on any approval of genetically engineered fish until it can be proved that there is no risk involved. The address is: FDA Commissioner, FDA Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305), Food and Drug Administration, 5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061, Rockville, MD 20852.

BOOK REVIEW

The Food Revolution: how your diet can help save your life and the world, by John Robbins, Berkeley, CA: Conari Press, 2001.

John Robbins’ first and excellent book, Diet for a New America, is now old enough that much has changed and been learned since Robbins was doing that book’s research. It is therefore a welcome development to find a fresh and completely up-to-date revisiting of the subject by this author.