Archive for January, 2009

Flu vaccine cultivated in eggs

January 21, 2009 at 1:36 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , ,

Did you know the flu vaccine is cultivated in eggs? Being that I’m just recovering from 2 weeks of a flu/virus kind of thing, my friend suggested getting a flu vaccine. I have had them in the past. When I worked at a hospital we were required to get them. Little did I know that the vaccine was causing unnecessary harm to poor little chickens!

Yep, it’s true. The flu vaccine is cultivated in chicken eggs. Not just any chicken eggs, 11-day-old fertilized chicken eggs. “Companies inject the eggs with flu strains. The eggs become tiny incubators, brewing viruses that are then killed and bottled in vials.”1 Does this bother anybody else or just me?

Now the flu vaccine companies don’t like making flu vaccines this way … not because of the cruelty caused to the chicken embryos but because it takes time … several days for the vaccine to be ready. They have a bright idea of moving on to something else called cell culture vaccines. “Instead of injecting viruses in eggs, scientists infect cells — drawn from insects, African green monkeys, dogs, or human fetal retinas — with flu strains or their components.”2 Then they cultivate them in big vats. This would stop shortages of the flu vaccine in peak seasons but … ahem … cause more cruelty to animals! Why can’t they think of a solution that doesn’t use animal cells?

After all this suffering is caused, there are no reports (that I could find) detailing the effectiveness of the vaccine. Even the Center for Disease Control says “The ability of flu vaccine to protect a person depends on the age and health status of the person getting the vaccine, and the similarity or “match” between the virus strains in the vaccine and those in circulation.”3 So even people who get the flu vaccine can still come down with the flu and (gasp) perhaps even die. Then the chicken’s suffering would have been for not.

Everybody knows that it’s not fun to be sick. The flu can cause vomiting, fever, lethargy, and body aches that linger for days or weeks. So what’s a vegan to do? Now I am not a doctor nor am I giving medical advice but here’s what I decided. I’m a healthy 31 year old woman and the likelihood that I’ll survive even the worst flu is high. So I opt not to get a flu vaccine and suffer a few days or weeks of inconvenience during the winter if I get sick.

Elderly folks, pregnant women, or young kids are at higher risk of becoming gravely ill or worse, death, from the flu. But lets be rational, the flu kills 36,000 people in the US every year. It causes 200,000 people to be hospitalized. In the United States, there are 34,000 gun-related deaths each year. Even more people, 42,636, are killed in car accidents in the United States ever year.

If you like to play the odds as I do, you are more likely of dying in a car accident than you are of dying from the flu. Does that mean you’ll stop driving? Probably not. Does that mean you may consider not being vaccinated for the flu? That’s up to you. I’m just giving you vegan food for thought :)

1. Michael S. Rosenwald, Washington Post, 11/27/2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15336-2004Nov26.html

2. Michael S. Rosenwald, Washington Post, 11/27/2004, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15336-2004Nov26.html

3. CDC – Influenza, 12/10/08, http://www.cdc.gov/FLU/protect/keyfacts.htm

Leave a Comment

Peanut Butter Contaminated with Salmonella

January 13, 2009 at 2:42 am · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

What the heck you may be asking yourself! How can peanut butter be contaminated with salmonella. Well of course because it’s produced in a facility that also creates products with uncooked eggs and meat.

When illnesses caused by animal-based food products contaminate vegan diet sources of food, I get down right mad. I mean, come on. Even if we choose to eat a healthy, plant-based vegan diet, we can not escape the effects of the masses who eat animal-based foods.

Today the Minnesota Department of Health confirmed that a lot of King Nut creamy peanut butter tested positive for salmonella. To scare you even more, this has been going on since last fall and they are just now recalling 1,000 cases of the peanut butter. Over 400 people have fallen ill from this salmonella contamination in 42 states! To make it worse, 18% of the people complaining of sickness were hospitalized.

Is the CDC asleep? Did they take too much time off over the holidays? Why does it take so long for them to recognize this threat to our health?

Steven Reinberg from HealthDay reports, “The strain of salmonella has been identified as Salmonella Typhimurium, the most common of the more than 2,500 types of salmonella bacteria in the United States. It’s often found in uncooked eggs and meats, said officials with the CDC, who have been investigating the outbreak for several weeks.”

The final straw that broke the camel’s back or rather infectiously caused havoc in elderly intestines, was King Nut peanut butter found in a Minnesota nursing home. Now that is sad.

For the full article, visit
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/health_news_detail.asp?health_day=623035

Leave a Comment

Vegan Pancakes

January 8, 2009 at 6:34 pm · Filed under vegan recipes ·Tagged , , ,

Many thanks to the compassionate cook, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau for allowing me to post her fabulous vegan pancake recipe!

Makes 8-10 pancakes | Vegan | 30 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 cup (125 g) unbleadched all-purpose flour (or use 1/2 cup [65 g] all-purpose and 1/2 cup [65 g] whole wheat flour)
  • 1 tablespoon (4.6 g) baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (235 ml) nondairy milk
  • 2 tablespoons (30 ml) canola oil or non-hydrogenated, nondairy butter, melted
  • 3 tablespoons (45 ml) liquid sweetener, such as pure maple syrup, apple juice concentrate, or orange juice
  • Additional oil or butter for cooking (optional)

Directions

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In  a separate bowl, combine the milk, oil, and sweetener.

Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and mix just until moistened; a few lumps are okay. (Don’t overmix, or the pancakes will be tough.)

Heat a nonstick griddle or saute pan over a medium-high flame. (You may add some oil to the griddle/saute pan and heat until hot, but with a nonstick pan, you don’t even need it.)

Pour the batter onto the griddle to form circles about 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter. Cook the pancakes for a couple of minutes on one side until bubbles appear on the surface. Slide a spatula under the pancake and flip it over. Cook the pancakes on the other side for another 2 minutes or so. Continue until golden brown on each side, about 4 minutes in all.

Colleen is an amazing vegan chef. For more of her recipes, check out her book The Joy of Vegan Baking and her Web site, www.compassionatecooks.com, with many vegan diet resources including an awesome podcast.

Leave a Comment

Saturated Fats Come From Animals

January 7, 2009 at 5:01 am · Filed under vegan meanderings ·Tagged , , ,

I have to admit, I never gave much thought to saturated fats. I guess I knew in the back of my mind that they were no good but I didn’t really know why. Now I know … most saturated fats come from animals.

Saturated fats also raise total blood cholesterol as well as LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol). Here’s the kicker, saturated fats are correlated with an increased incidence of heart disease, blocked arteries and stroke. As you probably know, heart disease is the number one killer of men and women in the United States. The American Heart Association even goes as far to claim that “saturated fat is the main dietary cause of high blood cholesterol.”1

What does this tell us? Relying on a diet that comes from animal products eventually leads to our own demise.

Mostly found in animal products, saturated fats stem from beef, poultry, pork, lamb, milk, butter, eggs, seafood, suet, tallow, lard and prepared foods. These are not the only animal products containing saturated fats. Most foods from animals contain saturated fats.

Often saturated fats will also be used in packaged goods to prolong shelf life. Some packaged products with saturated fats that you might mistake for vegan include: popcorn, granola bars, cookies, french fries, potato chips, and I could go on and on.

Saturated fat can also be found in some truly vegan foods like coconut oil, soybean oil, palm oil and cashews. When you look at a food label, you can tell if a product has saturated fat by looking at the nutritional label. If a product has saturated fat, it will be listed directly below “total fat” towards the top.

The lesson here is that if you’re vegan, make sure to dig a little deeper into a product’s ingredient list if the nutritional label discloses saturated fat. As a vegan, relying on coconut oil, soybean oil and cashews as the main staples of your diet, is not the best idea for your health. I don’t think this is a problem for most vegans since we rely mostly on leafy greens, grains and beans as diet staples. Yet people that rely on an animal-based diet likely eat large amounts of saturated fats on a daily basis and they may not even know it.

Sometimes it can seem disheartening to discover that funny little words on packaging at the grocery store can be incognito labels for animal by-products. But the more we know, the better advocates we become for ourselves and the animals.

1. American Heart Association, http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=532

Comments (2)