Nine people in Idaho die from brain wasting disease

State and federal health officials are trying to get to the bottom of nine reported cases of suspected sporadic CJD in Idaho this year. Sporadic, or naturally occurring, CJD differs from the permutation dubbed variant CJD, which is caused by eating mad-cow-tainted beef and has killed at least 180 people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe since the 1990s.
"One thing is very clear in Idaho _ the number seems to be higher than the number reported in previous years," said Dr. Ermias Belay, a CJD expert with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "So far, the investigations have not found any evidence of any exposure that might be common among the cases."
Normally, sporadic CJD only strikes about one person in a million each year, with an average of just 300 cases per year in the United States, or just over one case a year in Idaho. Over the past two decades, the most cases reported in Idaho in a single year has been three.
Until this year...

Paul McCartney's wife now vegan

"SIR PAUL McCARTNEY's wife HEATHER MILLS McCARTNEY is enjoying a fresh change to her diet - she's become a vegan.
The animal rights activist ditched meat from her diet more than a decade ago, but she recently decided she also wanted to throw out all other animal by-products.
She says, 'I've been a vegan for three months. I was a veggie for 12 years. I went vegetarian because I got an infection in my leg in hospital, and, after three months, somebody said, 'I cured myself of breast cancer going veggie,' and I was like, 'Yeah, right, I'm sure.'
'I went to an institute in West Palm Beach... and within three weeks of wheatgrass and garlic and pulses, my whole leg just closed and healed. So I was ruled vegan for about a year and a half. And then I couldn't cope with going to restaurants and all that kind of stuff so then I went to become veggie.'
Since coming across a wider variety of vegan-friendly food, Mills McCartney decided it was time to make another drastic change.
Ironically, McCartney's first wife, LINDA, was also a famous vegan, who launched her own vegetarian food range."

what the hell _does_ a vegan eat anyway?

A simple blog about what a Vegan eats. Every day. For example:

Dinner 10/19

Soy Boy Okara burgers
(guacamole, lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard)

Homefries
(potato, onion, salt, pepper, ketchup)

Bird flu is confirmed in Greece

Bird flu news:

Greece has become the latest country to report a case of bird flu as the virus appears to spread across Europe.

The country's agriculture ministry said a form of the virus had been found in a turkey on a farm on the Aegean Sea island of Oinouses.

Twelve swans have also tested positive for bird flu in a second cluster in Romania.

And the European Commission has ordered urgent tests on dead birds found in Croatia.

Vegan Willy Wonka Launches Magical, Healthy, Sugar Free, Dairy Free Chocolate with Essential Fat Nutrition for World Vegan Day

Vegan Willy Wonka Launches Magical, Healthy, Sugar Free, Dairy Free Chocolate with Essential Fat Nutrition for World Vegan Day:

Plamil Director Adrian Ling is keeping the Willy Wonka-esque innovative traditions burning brightly at the Plamil vegan chocolate factory at Folkestone in Kent, UK. Plamil will focus on health, nutrition and healthy eating for the international vegan awareness day on November 1st by launching new, healthier, chocolate bars.

A tradition of chocolate innovation has always been an integral part of Plamils’ ethical business.

Soya protein, Lupin flour, and other ingredients are utilised to recreate melt in the mouth, golden paper wrapped bars of chocolate that ensure that vegans and those intolerant to dairy can still enjoy a creamy, sweet, smooth chocolate treat.

Regarded by many as eccentric, Plamil’s vegan founder Arthur Ling was the UK pioneer of bio fuel, soya milk and pea protein. He was also the original vegan Willy Wonka of dairy free alternatives for milk chocolate.

American Chronicle: Vegan for Life

American Chronicle: Vegan for Life:

At the heart of being vegan is a kind of compassionate awareness. We share this planet not only with billions of fellow human beings, but also with uncounted billions upon billions of other creatures, with lives, wants, enjoyment and suffering as real as our own. Humans have had and used the power to crowd them out, push them aside, sometimes driving them to extinction, and often, making them into tools for our use, servitors of our desires, food for our tables, clothes for our backs. As vegans, we look, we pay attention, we see the unnecessary suffering imposed on our fellow creatures. We respond in compassion, refusing to pretend that might makes right, refusing to turn away and ignore what we know. The vegan message is ultimately very simple:

Look. Pay attention. See the unnecessary death and suffering. We don’t have to contribute or help to keep it going. We can stop being a part of this. And so, that’s what we try to do.

A vegan manifesto - The Bulletin - it's the arts

I used to ridicule non-meat eaters mercilessly in my younger days. Why, I thought, would one want to sacrifice something as great as meat simply for the sake of some silly animal? In retrospect, my ignorance is somewhat appalling.

While there are an abundance of arguments for vegetarianism based on animal rights and environmental concerns, the clearest reason that one might change one's diet is simply for the radical health benefits associated with alternative diets. Meat eating has been linked to stroke, type II diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers, gallstones, hypertension, constipation, Alzheimer's, asthma, impotence, coronary artery disease, osteoporosis and myriad other ailments.

The American Heart Association agrees that there is a significant risk reduction for heart problems with a vegetarian diet. Heart patients who switch to vegetarian diets find a drastic reduction in heart problems and attacks. In fact, the only successful doctors in reversing heart disease relied heavily on meat-free diets in their patients.

Dairy products are hardly better. Obviously, cow's milk is best suited for the needs of a newborn calf, not a full grown human. A study in England reports that people who were suffering from irregular heartbeats, asthma, headaches, fatigue and digestive problems 'showed marked and often complete improvements in their health after cutting milk from their diets.'

Furthermore, milk is nothing near the source of calcium we are told it is. American women, who drink far more milk than any other nation, face higher rates of osteoporosis than almost any other nation in the world. Many studies actually indicate that milk depletes calcium from your body!

A balanced diet does not have to include any sort of animal product. Nature has provided us with a huge abundance of fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes to care for our every nutritive need. Animal flesh and animal by-products are clearly harmful to your health; so what are you having for dinner tonight?

Vegan Lifestyles - The Daily Cardinal - Features

These berating words can be seen blazoned across the chests of various students across campus: 'Don't eat me, I love you.' Accompanied by a sympathetic picture of a pig, this T-shirt is just one of many examples of the various public promotions for animal rights. A common stance against the mistreatment of animals is vegetarianism, but some have chosen to take their defiance to the next level: veganism.
'Veganism is a form of vegetarianism that eliminates all animal products,' said UW-Madison dietitian and clinical faculty associate Julie Thurlow. Besides eliminating meat from their diets, vegans also exclude all animal products such as eggs and cheese.
Although veganism is often associated with animal rights, people have also chosen this course because meat production 'takes a devastating toll on the earth,' according to http://www.vegan.org.
The idea of veganism as a health advantage, however, is a controversial topic.
'It's a choice that can be made without serious detrimental nutritional outcomes, but it takes work,' said nutritional science professor Dale Schoeller. 'I do not support it. I haven't seen a convincing argument in favor of it.'
Thurlow is more optimistic.
'It is possible to have a very nutritious diet as long as you eat from all of the food groups in adequate amounts,' she said.
Thurlow and Schoeller do agree that veganism should only be attempted after thorough investigation.
'When people decide to become vegans, they don't research it, they just avoid meat and dairy,' Schoeller said.
Thurlow concurred, 'It requires good planning.'