October 2002

As you can see from the insert, we have a site for our Pre-Thanksgiving Feast. It turned out that our old home, North Shore Presbyterian Church, has decided not to have outside groups in any more, so a new place had to be found. South Shore Pavilion is part of the county parks system and a bit pricey, but spacious (room for over 200) and really pretty. Its only obvious drawback is a somewhat inadequate kitchen. So this constitutes a call for equipment: anyone with a Nesco, or good hotplate, or salt-and-pepper shakers that we could borrow, should call Jody at (414) 764-7262 to discuss lending them to us for the event. Other volunteer needs will include the usual: people to help prepare food on Friday and Saturday, and people to help set up, serve, and clean up on the day of. Jody coordinates all that as well. Yay, Jody!!!

Also please note that the day for this year’s PTF is Sunday, not Saturday as in the past. This is because Saturday was not available by the time we applied, but Sunday was. One other new wrinkle to note is that the permit to use the pavilion requires NO collection of ad-mission money on site – so ALL registration is pre-registration this year. Therefore, don’t wait until the last minute! Send in your registration right now while you’re thinking of it. And if you’re taking this on the internet, call (414) 962-2703 now to get an announcement/ registration form mailed to you!

I will be doing the press releases shortly, as well as some postering on the East Side and both Outposts. But if you know of any other good places to poster and want some flyers to put up, call Jody and David (764-7262) or me (962-2703).

MARV ACTIVITIES

Sunday, Oct. 6, 5:30 PM, regular potluck at the Friends’ Meeting House, 3224 N. Gordon Pl. (from Humboldt Blvd. in Riverwest, go east on Auer a few blocks to the parking lot). Focus will be vegan pizzas; call Jody if you want to bring one, OR bring something else.

Subsequent potlucks will be at the same place and time on Nov. 3, Dec. 8, Jan. 5, Feb. 2, and March 2

Sunday, Nov. 24, 5 PM, Pre-Thanksgiving Feast, South Shore Park Pavilion, advance registration necessary –use enclosed flyer or phone to be sent one.

Sunday, Oct. 20, 5:30 PM, at Pat Courtney’s, 2177 N. 70^th St., Wauwatosa, (414) 258-0620

"…while diets emphasizing foods rich in certain vitamins correlate with improved cardiovascular and cancer risks [i.e., lower these risks], the pill forms of these same nutrients have proved to be no more effective than placebos."

Dr. Benjamin J. Ansell, in a NY Times Science section, 9/17/02. The "foods rich in certain vitamins" that he refers to are fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

In the Meat Is Still Bad for You topic, there was yet another recall of tainted beef in mid-September, this time about 200,000 pounds of meat contaminated with e. coli from a Pennsylvania beef-packing plant. And in the New York and Pennsylvania areas, ten people died over the summer of listeriosis, which is contracted from uncooked meat and unpasteurized milk and cheese (people with compromised immune systems are at greatest risk). If this doesn’t turn you off meat, perhaps you’ll be convinced by a University of Bristol (England) study, which found that pigs and chickens are much more intelligent and socially sophisticated than most people believe. And chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin deer is still in the news, with applications for deer-hunting licenses down by more than a third compared to last year, and no real remedy in sight.

A different aspect of the unhealthiness of certain foods has to do with the presence of trans-fatty acids in animal foods and also in hydrogenated and partly hydrogenated oils. Since these oils are found in many processed foods and baked goods – which constitute a huge proportion of standard American diets – the FDA plans to add a line to nutrition labels to reveal how much trans-fats are in the products. Perhaps as a result of this development, McDonald’s announced that it will reduce the amount of saturated fat and trans fats in its fried foods (but will make no changes to its meats…)

Trans-fatty acids in vegan baked goods bring up the unpleasant fact that not all vegetarian foods are perfectly healthy. Soda, for example, is vegan, but no more than empty calories and chemicals, and certainly not a healthy staple in the diet, which is the reason that many school districts are moving to ban sales of soft drinks in schools; the Los Angeles school board is the latest to do this. Another questionable vegetarian food is genetically modified (GM) crops: there was a considerable diplomatic flap in September when Zambia, an African nation facing severe food shortages, refused U.S. food aid because it consisted of whole kernels of GM corn, which the Zambian government is not convinced is safe and which it did not want its people using for seed. It took over a week to resolve the impasse with an agreement to provide U.S. wheat, which is not genetically engineered, and non-gene-modified South African corn, instead of American GM corn. It is of course not only Zambia that questions GM corn. September’s Delicious! magazine ran an article about the many excellent nutrients that corn provides (including beta-carotene, vitamin C, potassium, magnesium, protein, and fiber) but also warned that over a third of US corn is bioengineered and that the many processed- food ingredients made from it (such as corn syrup and cornstarch) are therefore also gene-modified, of unknown safety for consumers and certainly unsafe environmentally; the article advised reading labels and phoning companies to find products with non-GM corn.

In a quite different food-news development, the national Institute of Medicine issued a large report with recommendations not only of what kind of nutrients to eat but also advising each of us to get an hour of exercise each day. The nutrient advice is interesting for its flexibility: 45 to 65% of calories from carbohydrates, 20 to 35% of calories from fats, 10 to 35 % of calories from proteins, and no more than 20% of calories from added sugars. There’s also a new recommendation for fiber (38 grams a day for men and 21 for women) which is way higher than most Americans get, unless they’re eating a lot of whole grains and fresh veggies and fruits. And saturated fat – the kind found in animal products – should be kept "as low as possible." The initial critiques by others interested in health suggested only that 20% of calories from added sugars is far too high, while wondering how many of us really would get a full hour of exercise daily.

These recommendations, in fact, would fit almost any diet except the currently popular low-carb ones, and correlates with an emerging consensus among nutritionists that the meat-heavy and popular high protein/ low carb and high fat/ low carb diets just are not healthy. The most recent indication of this understanding was a recent article in the NY Times Science section which explained in full detail how unhealthy the low-carb/ high-fat diets really are, especially when that fat is saturated (i.e., meat and dairy).

Meanwhile, vegetarian foods are still very good for you, even if only applied topically: an experiment with mice found that caffeine from coffee and tea, when rubbed on their skins, pre-vented skin cancers. And the internet provider VegSource published an article, well documented from scientific journals, showing strong evidence that eating meat is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, apparently because meats have much more of the amino acid methionine than other foods, and methionine is digested into homocysteine, the presence of which in the blood correlates strongly with Alzheimer’s risk. At the same time, eating plenty of vegetables, and food sources of vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta-carotene (all from plant foods), all correlated with lower risk for this disease. High blood levels of homocysteine are also a known risk factor for heart disease, and just last year the American Heart Association stated that, "Fresh fruits and vegetables, rather than vitamin supplements, are the best line of defense against raised homocysteine levels."

I’ve been discussing the benefits of dark green leafy vegetables of late, so a letter in Prevention caught my eye. It was notifying people of a study being conducted at Toronto General Hospital, based on a recent finding that women with osteoporosis often have low vitamin K levels. So of course they’re trying to see if Vitamin K supplements can help prevent bone fractures. They don’t appear to have noticed that dark green leafy vegetables are (a) the prime dietary source of vitamin K, and also (b) excellent sources of calcium (except for beet greens, spinach, and Swiss chard). I’d eat greens before I took pills, personally. On the other hand, the same issue of Prevention had a very nice article on why soy is what should be for dinner, citing evidence that eating soy does help control cholesterol, protect the prostate, protect bones from osteoporosis, and maybe even help improve memory. Several soy-based meat analogs were suggested as substitutes for meat foods. A different article in the same issue pointed out that women who ate the most beta-carotene and lycopene had half the risk for breast cancer of those with the lowest levels of consumption; get beta-carotene from carrots, sweet potatoes, and other orange-fleshed fruits and vegetables, and lycopene from tomatoes and tomato sauces. Lycopene is also known for helping protect men from prostate cancer.

Another Prevention article this month focussed on strokes, and listed many foods that can help prevent them. All were vegetarian, inclu-ding high-potassium foods like bananas, baked potato with skin, acorn squash, dried apricots and peaches, orange and prune and tomato juices, spinach, and Swiss chard; another chart listed quite a few meat-analog foods as protec-tive against strokes by reason of being low in saturated fat and high in fiber. Finally, though this is no surprise, garlic is now established as lowering cholesterol, preventing blood clots, reducing blood pressure, and protecting against infections, and possibly even as fighting cancer both by inhibiting tumors and boosting the immune system.

THE VEGGIE TABLE

By Jan Taylor

The Noodle House, at 3422 W. National Ave., features Laotian and Thai food. Although they just opened on August 28^th, already they were listed in the Dining Out section of the September 5 edition of the Shepherd Express.

The atmosphere is bright and clean, having been completely remodeled and redecorated from the George Webb that previously occupied this location. There is a convenient parking lot behind the building. If you sit at one of the rear tables, you can see into the kitchen through a large window and watch the food being prepared.

The entire wait staff is very fluent in English as well as Hmong. Most of the customers were Laotian. (It is always a good sign if an ethnic restaurant has customers of that ethnicity.)

For an appetizer I ordered fresh papaya salad. The waitress asked how many peppers I wanted in it, and I was unsure how to respond. She then asked if I liked spicy food, and when I said "Yes" she suggested two peppers. The resulting salad was, indeed, very spicy.

Although the vegetarian section of the menu has only two items, some of the other entrees can be prepared vegetarian on request. I ordered Pad String Beans, which usually contains chicken, which they left out for me. I received a generous serving of crisp green beans with bamboo shoots in a delicious ginger-garlic sauce, accompanied by a bowl of rice.

I will definitely return to this restaurant. It’s open Sun.-Thurs., 10:30 AM – 9 PM, and Fri. and Sat. 10 AM-11 PM. (414) 672-6693

As alluded to above, some consensus – and even some sanity – is starting to emerge from the welter of various diets recommended by various people, as repeated research begins to develop into a consistent and coherent picture.

Deciding how to eat healthily, when one’s dietary habits are based on a mainstream society whose common diet is not especially heal-thy, would be hard enough even without various diet gurus promoting conflicting and often unhealthy plans. On top of this, Dr. Marion Nestle, in her recent book Food Politics, documents exactly how the food and agriculture industries make it politically impossible for the government – which ought to be giving reliable information to its citizens – to actually come out and say what is in fact known regarding how we should eat.

But despite these obstacles, a consensus has developed among researchers on what makes a healthy diet for humans. It would contain either extremely little meat and none. It might contain some low-fat or no-fat dairy, or it might contain none. It would contain little or no re-fined sugar, and many grain products but all of them (or almost all) would be whole grains, not refined ones. It would contain a rainbow of multiple daily portions of fruits and vegetables, especially including cabbage family vegetables, dark green leafy vegetables, and red, orange, yellow, and pink-fleshed fruits and vegetables, as well as others with strong pigmentation and also onions and garlic. It would contain soy foods but not supplements.