December 2004

As many of you know, we have now held our tenth annual Pre-Thanksgiving Feast, and it went very well indeed. The food was wonderful, varied, plentiful but not loads too much. The space at Unity Lutheran Church was bright and welcoming. About 170 people – both old friends and new – joined in. We cleared over $500 after covering our expenses. And a good time seemed to be had by all.

Many warm and heartfelt thanks are due to all who helped, including: Jean Groshek, Cindy Juds, Pat O’Neill, the LeDenmat family, Jean Barnes, Mark Cradler, Sue Cottrel, Barb Eisenberg, Kathleen Mohr, Dustin Paluch, everyone who brought food, all the kids who helped clean up, and especially David Paluch, master printer, and Jody Johnson who once again so magnificently organized food and kitchen.

One comment that has been made repeatedly over the years, and which we heard again at this Feast, was a desire for a publication of our recipes. I could put something of the sort together, and if we did it right it might even be a fundraiser. What I would need would be for people who brought food to send me their recipes, either by snail-mail to me (Louise Quigley) at 2201 E. Jarvis St., Shorewood, WI 53211, or to our email address. We’ve had this request come up so often that it would be really nice – and would benefit everybody – if we could act on it at last. Recipes for the items we supply in bulk can come from Jody and me, but it’s all the nifty potluck side dishes that really give the event its…flavor, and to add these we’ll need participation from all of you who bring them.

M.A.R.V. ACTIVITIES

Sunday, Dec. 5, regular potluck, 5 PM, at the Friends’ Meeting House, 3224 N. Gordon Pl. in Riverwest (from Humboldt Blvd., go east on Auer a few short blocks to the parking lot). Focus will be holiday treats.

(Last month’s brownie contest winner was Wanda Embar. Congratulations. Can we have the recipe?)

Subsequent regular potlucks will be at the same place and time on Jan. 2, Feb. 6, and March 6.

Macrobiotic potluck

The December macro potluck will be Sunday, Dec. 19, at 5 PM, at the home of Allen Owen, 5310 W. Loomis Rd. in Greendale, 421-1725.

QUOTES OF THE MONTH

“Complex carbohydrates are stored in muscles and released as energy when needed. Nutritionists recommend at least half the calories we consume should come from complex carbohydrates” [which is to say, whole grains, beans and peas, and vegetables and fruits]

-- from the web site of the Rice Federation, as quoted in a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article on rice, which also pointed out that rice has no cholesterol) Dieters should “come back to common sense…Eat a balanced diet weighted toward vegetables and fruit, reduce portion sizes, and increase physical activity.”

-- American Institute for Cancer Research

NEWS

Once again, mad cow disease is in the news, with a loud but brief splash about the discovery of a second U.S. cow that tested possibly positive for the disease. Authorities were scram-bling wildly for a few days to prevent a melt-down of the beef industry until they were rescued by a follow-up test which found no mad cow disease in that animal after all. Meanwhile, though, no one seems to notice or care that a deer shot in Portage County last month has tested positive for chronic wasting disease, the deer form of the transmissible brain illness which manifests as mad cow disease in cattle and as Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease in humans. Deer-hunting in Wisconsin rolls merrily along, even despite a survey that found a significant fraction of hunters to be concerned about chronic wasting disease – just not concerned enough to stop hunting, apparently.

Deer are not the only animal food to worry about. PETA’s latest campaign is trying to convince people that fish are too intelligent and sensitive to make food out of, while the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine is busy taking the FDA to task for not adequately warning the citizenry about mercury and other toxins in fish. The government continues to tout fish as a good source of omega-3 fatty acids while downplaying concerns about mercury poisoning; PCRM points out (again!!) that plant foods such as flax seeds and walnuts (and hemp seed oil and dark green leafy vegetables) are also omega-3 sources, as well as being mercury-free. Mercury is not the only problem with fish, however; a new study from the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center found that eating lake fish in-creases one’s risk of breast cancer. But even eggs and dairy came up as suspect in a Connecticut study which found increased risk of non-Hodgkins lymphoma with increased intake of any animal protein, while higher levels of dietary fiber, vegetables and fruits appeared protective. This possibility of problems from dairy adds concern to a report that a new trend is to make milk more saleable – but less nutritious – by jazzing it up into exciting kid-attractive flavors (produced in part by adding sugars and artificial flavorings). We all agree that American kids generally need more calcium than they’re getting, but this hardly seems like the best way to arrange it. And on a very similar note, there was a newspaper report about breakfast cereal becoming a staple college-dorm food for all day; the trouble is that the cereals in question tend not to be very high quality food. I am glad to report in this regard that some General Mills cereals are now, according to their labels, made of whole grains instead of refined ones as in the past – but they also have so much sugar of various sorts as to make their food value extremely questionable.

Other news about bad animal foods comes from the Humane Farming Association. This organization, which started the veal boycott a number of years ago, is happy to report that veal consumption is down 70% since they started, and they’re still working on it. On the other hand, they also report that force-feeding ducks and geese to make foie gras has slipped through an attempt to ban it and actually been, in effect, legitimized.

The Diet Wars continue, with PCRM reporting on a Florida businessman who is suing the Atkins Diet people after his efforts to lose weight on that low-carb, high-animal-protein diet gave him severe artery blockages; there is also the information about serious negative health effects suffered by Morgan Spurlock, the man who made a movie about eating only at McDonald’s for a month – but he regained his health afterwards on a vegan diet. Also in this regard, good news for vegetarians is that a new study from the National Weight Control Regis-try found that after an initial substantial weight loss, a diet low in fat and high in complex carbohydrates keeps weight off much better than a low-carb (and high animal protein) diet. And a huge new study out of the Harvard School of Public Health found that eating lots of fruits and vegetables promotes heart health. It did not find that such a diet gave much can-cer prevention, however, leading the journal of the National Cancer Institute to question its findings, wondering if there were errors in data collection, or whether there was enough variation in the diets of the people studied to allow differences in results to show up. And Chuck and I wonder whether the researchers even looked at differences between eating commercially-grown produce (with its nasty pesticide residues) as opposed to organic, which hasn’t got such residues in it. There’s no doubt, though, that quite a bit of research reported lately all points to the benefits of fiber. As mentioned above, higher intake of dietary fiber is turning out to be protective for the cardiovascular system, and seemed in one recent study to help protect against one sort of cancer; the International Journal of Cancer also reported that a high-fiber diet helped protect men from prostate cancer. Dietary fiber is now credited with decreasing insulin resistance and helping to maintain good blood sugar levels. And the distinction is increasingly being made between bad carbohydrates (the refined ones like white flour and sugar) and good carbs – the whole grains and vegetables, fruits, and legumes, all of which provide fiber as well as vitamins, minerals, and energy. At the same time, one must note that issues of exactly which food choices are healthiest must be of very little concern to the 12 million U.S. families who, according to the Agriculture Department, simply didn’t have enough food last year.

In any case, plant foods are still good for you, in a variety of ways. The FDA is now permit-ting labels to state that eating food containing olive oil may help reduce the risk of heart disease – so long as doing so does not increase one’s daily caloric intake. New research from Harvard Medical School shows that eating fruit helps prevent age-related macular degeneration (perhaps, given the wealth of evidence that eat-ing fruit and dark green leafy vegetables greatly

helps reduce this problem’s incidence, they should stop calling it “age-related” and start calling it “produce-deprived macular degeneration”…). And on the subject of fruit, Prevention magazine’s Dr. Weil, writing about gout, recommends avoiding that disease by eating bright-colored fruits and berries while getting omega-3 fatty acids from other sources than seafood and eating little or no meat. There is now additional research finding that humans can improve their arteries’ stretchability by eating dark chocolate. And a new study found that eating broccoli twice a week helped protect women against breast cancer.

Outpost Exchange sang the praises of seasonal fruits and vegetables, such as apples and squashes. Apples, be it noted, are low in calories yet provide good amounts of fiber, a bit of vitamin C, and the flavonoid quercetin (present in apples’ skin) which has been shown to decrease the risk of several cancers; the best benefit comes from eating the whole apple rather than either peeling it or trying to take quercetin as a supplement. As for squashes, anything with that beautiful orange flesh is full of beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A and hence a powerful immune-system booster, and squash are both pretty and versatile, with the sweetest of them (such as Delicata) being great for direct eating and others being good for pies, soups, and stews.

Combating cancer through diet came up in both Prevention and the PCRM publication. Prevention reported on avoiding cancer by being physically active while eating lots of vegetables and fruits; their list of ten especially cancer-preventive foods named prunes, raisins, blueberries, oranges, strawberries, kale, alfalfa sprouts, spinach, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli. PCRM’s prescription for cancer prevention included eating plenty of fiber, avoiding meat, choosing lower-fat foods over higher-fat ones, eating cabbage-family foods, limiting if not eliminating dairy foods (and getting calcium instead from calcium-fortified milk-analogs derived from rice, soy, or almonds, as well as eating dark green leafies), and eating plenty of vegetables and fruits generally as well as such selenium sources as Brazil nuts and garlic.

This borders on the idea of using food items essentially as complementary to medicines. One example of this would be drinking a glass of carrot juice each day to regulate the digestive process; another would be eating peas regularly because they are reputed to improve circulation and help sufferers of varicose veins and hemorrhoids. Similarly, eating bananas is said to help improve one’s energy, and potatoes, which are full of vitamins, figure in folk remedies for the skin: a grated raw potato with a teaspoon of powdered ginger has been recommended for skin infections, and a footbath of potato-peel water has been tried for easing blisters

CONNECTIONS

We learned at the Pre Thanksgiving Feast of a new Milwaukee vegan on-line group starting up. When we went to their website it appeared that if you join, you can then send and receive e-messages and generally interact with other area vegans.

We regret to report that Cari Amici, the vegan personal-and-household-products store on Oakland Ave., will no longer be operating as a walk-in retail business, but will continue in business as an on-line mail-order operation. Find them here.

We reported in the past that U. S. soldiers can get a reasonable variety of pretty decent vegetarian rations. PCRM now reports that they can also log on to an online education course on the benefits of a plant-based diet by going to here, and in fact anyone can enroll by visiting Vegetarian Course. The next course begins on Jan. 5, 2005.

Something called the Cancer Project is looking for people interested in giving combination lecture/ cooking demonstrations to help attendees learn how (vegan) food can help prevent cancer and promote cancer survival. The project provides videos, recipes, and hand-books. If you’re interested, contact Jennifer Reilly, the project’s managing director, or phone her at (202) 686-2210, ext. 318.