The Challenge of Going Vegan

[groovedaddy]

From Bill Clinton to Ellen DeGeneres, celebrities are singing the benefits of a vegan diet. Books that advocate plant-based eating are best sellers. But is eliminating meat and dairy as simple as it sounds?

As countless aspiring vegans are discovering, the switch from omnivore to herbivore is fraught with physical, social and economic challenges — at least, for those who don’t have a personal chef. The struggle to give up favorite foods like cheese and butter can be made all the harder by harsh words and eye-rolling from unsympathetic friends and family members. Substitutes like almond milk and rice milk can shock the taste buds, and vegan specialty and convenience foods can cost two to three times what their meat and dairy equivalents do. And new vegans quickly discover that many foods in grocery stores and on restaurant menus have hidden animal ingredients.

“The dominant social-cultural norm in the West is meat consumption,” said Hanna Schösler, a researcher in the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije University in Amsterdam, who has studied consumer acceptance of meat substitutes. “The people who want to shift to a more vegetarian diet find they face physical constraints and mental constraints. It’s not very accepted in our society not to eat meat.”

Still, the numbers are substantial, according to according to a 2008 report in Vegetarian Times. Three percent of American adults, 7.3 million people, follow a vegetarian diet, and one million of them are vegans, who eat no animal products at all — no meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, even honey. (And 23 million say they rarely eat meat.)

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/the-challenge-of-going-vegan/

[adigal]

1. I don't understand the reasons for going vegan

I agree with eating vegetarian, with milk and cheeses, etc., but I think it is very hard to eat healthy when you eliminate all dairy and eggs from your diet, also. And I also don't get the benefit to animals if you eat free range eggs and drink milk from a local farm that treats its cows well.

[veganlush]

3. I agree with you IF

you get your dairy from sources that treat animals well. I have thought about getting a couple of chickens myself! A small amount of dairy in your diet is not that bad, but remember, there is NO dietary cholesterol in plant-based foods, ALL dietary cholesterol comes from animal products such as meat and dairy and eggs. Conversely, there is NO fiber in animal products, all dietary fiber comes from vegetable sources.

The problem is that in our system, is all about the buck and animals have become machines in huge factory farming operations. Compassion for these "machines" simply doesn't add to the bottom line and that all that counts to these big agribusiness corporations.

[unblock]

4. not sure why you think dairy and eggs are all that important to a diet.

protein? rice & beans, soy, quinoa.
calcium? leafy greens, certain beans, fruits, nuts, seeds.

we're pescatarians, but fish is maybe once a week (don't want too much mercury).
we do have dairy pretty much every day but i don't see it as a nutritional imperative. there are easy alternatives, at least at home.

travel/restaurants are harder, especially if you want to avoid even the tiniest non-vegan ingredient.

[adigal]

8. If you can be sure to get enough protein, they you are right

but I know for myself, I am smart, educated, have some money to spend on food, but don't have the time and energy to go to all of the places I would have to go to get the diet I would need if I were vegan. I live in the country - the nearest health food store is 50 minutes away, I can't grow many beans in my cold climate, the closest supermarkets don't have a selection of beans/etc., the closest place that has them is 1 1/2 hours away. So it is not practical for me, and a lot of other people to get enough protein without animal products.

[unblock]

9. wow, not even canned beans?

i can understand some rural markets not having a big fresh veggie selection, but damn, how ya supposed to make chili without a can o' beans?

i just spent a couple weeks with relatives who lives in the middle of nowhere, and they had easy access to plenty of good vegetarian fare at the local grocer (though hardly the selection i see in more urban/suburban areas up here in the northeast, and restaurant choices were quite limited). this was in texas, though, where the middle of nowhere is still rather more populated than the middle of nowhere, say, in montana.

[adigal]

11. Yes, I can get canned beans!!

But growing up in an Italian family, where food is very important and generally all made from scratch, I would use canned beans in chili, but wouldn't want to eat them every day. Yeech. I think another issue is that I don't really love beans, the skin in/on my teeth bothers me. That is, in all honesty, my biggest issue with going vegan. Too many beans!!!

[Geoff R. Casavant]

14. Most protein needs are overestimated.

The figure I heard was 1 gram of protein per day, per kilogram of lean body weight. But a lot depends on how much is absorbed, and I have heard that plant proteins are absorbed more fully than animal proteins.

It's a pity that your local markets don't have a wide selection of beans. I would recommend buying several bags of dried beans when you make your trips to the further markets. They are easy to cook with a pressure cooker, and much less sodium too.

[Warpy]

10. The problem is B-12

While there are a few plant sources, one has to eat a lot of these foods to get the RDA. Fortunately, the human body loses B-12 slowly and most vegans will take a lifetime to get sick, but they will get sick eventually.

My own philosophy was to eat eggs and dairy infrequently. I wasn't a morality vegetarian, just someone who felt better when meat wasn't a part of the diet.

Factory farmed animals are treated brutally. I'd prefer to get my eggs from locals who treat their chickens well, but that's not always possible. I do get organically farmed meat when I eat it because I really don't want the hormones and antibiotics.

Besides, free range chicken, even the ones who only go out to scratch an hour a day, is completely different from chickens raised pack together in barns.

[adigal]

12. Yes, I agree with all that you said

Especially the factory animals, raised and killed brutally. Ugh. Cannot do it anymore.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

13. B-12 is pretty easy to get.

Most soy milks are supplemented with B-12. And nutritional yeast, though an acquired taste, is loaded with it.

Or, if you do your own organic gardening, just leave some soil on the veggies when you harvest.

[tinrobot]

25. Soy Milk is very highly processed

Contains all sorts of additives, including wax. Plus 90% of soybeans are from Monsanto, meaning they're genetically modified and doused in Round Up.

I'd much rather have organic milk from a well-treated cow.

[bemildred]

16. And fats. Our brains need a lot of certain lipids.

Which can be hard to come by with a fully vegetarian diet.

[Warpy]

20. That generally isn't a problem

because cholesterol (animal fat) is generated in the human liver.

[bemildred]

23. In a modern industrial food culture it's no problem at all.

If you try to live solely on unprocessed plant foods, you will find it is, like salt and carbs. There is a reason we like certain things that we consider to be bad for us now - when we can get as much as we like - and the reason is that they are necessary to our health and hard to come by in the natural world.

You are right about cholesterol, but I'm not talking about cholesterol:

Brain lipids
They have two principal functions in the body: as repositories of chemical energy in storage fat, primarily triglycerides, and as structural components of cell membranes. The brain contains virtually no triglyceride, so it is in their role as membrane components that brain lipids initially commanded the attention of biochemists. Later, some bio messenger functions of non membrane lipids, such as steroid hormones and expands, became evident. Some membrane lipids, such as phosphatidylcholine, which were previously believed to have only a structural role, also have important functions in signal transduction across biological membranes. In addition, lipids covalently coupled to proteins play a major role in anchoring marker proteins within biomembranes. These discoveries established that lipids participate in both the fnction and the structure of neural membranes.

Lipids account for approximately 60% of the brain's dry weight. These lipids are important for normal brain function. Increasing amount of data demonstrate abnormal lipid content in common brain disorders like Alzheimer's Dementia (AD) and mental depression. The lipids of the brain are integrated in so called phospholipid membranes enveloping brain cells in the gray matter and the neurons of the white matter. Phospholipids contain two fatty acids (FA). In the brain one FA is saturated and the other is polyunsaturated. Saturated fatty acids are stiff molecules while the polyunsaturates containing several double bonds forming spiral structures. The polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) provide the brain cells with a unique degree of elasticity and fluid binding capacity.

DHA and ARA are the most common fatty acids in the brain. These fatty acids are involved in the fine-tuning of mood, sleep/alertness, memory and emotions. The most important PUFAs of the brain are docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (ARA). These are the fatty acids of the omega-3 and omega-6 series with the highest number of double bonds.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080909062741AAjecVT

I just picked that off the web. Think about people long in the past sitting around the campfire gobbling down all the raw fat they can get their hands on from some fresh killed carcass, that's what I'm talking about, that fat-hunger which most of us know nothing about.

[Warpy]

27. Well, likely the only raw stuff they ate was the liver

Our dentition is inadequate to do much good with muscle meats.

We have to denature the protein by cooking it or mechanically grind the raw meat before we can get it down.

[bemildred]

28. Right, I'm talking about fat.

Cooking goes back a long ways. They are thinking now it much predates Homo Sap., possibly necessary for our evolution to modern form. And probably it was important for meat from the beginning. But I'm talking about fat, livers are full of fat, among other things. Cooking may have been necessary for the evolution of our large brains, which are biologically and nutritionally very expensive to operate.

Meat's a lot easier to get down if you let it "age" a bit, and if you are hungry enough that will start to look good to you. Insects are a great mix of fats and protein too, and I expect we once relied on them a lot at times.

Humanoids have been able to make stone tools for millions of years, and one of their primary uses was the disassembly of carcasses into convenient size pieces for consumption, which is why we no longer need those big canines (but we still have the big roots for those teeth, put your finger up there and see, we haven't lost those yet.)

[bemildred]

58. Eating meat helped early humans reproduce, spread around the globe

If early humans had been vegans we might all still be living in caves, Swedish researchers suggested in an article Thursday.

When a mother eats meat, her breast-fed child's brain grows faster and she is able to wean the child at an earlier age, allowing her to have more children faster, the article explains. That provided a distinct competitive advantage for early humans when limited resources and a small population made it difficult for them to thrive. "Eating meat enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births to be shortened," said psychologist Elia Psouni of Lund University in Sweden. "This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution."

Women generally do not have a second child until they have finished breast-feeding their first. Humans typically suckle their children for a little over two years, a relatively short time compared with their maximum 120-year lifespan. Female chimpanzees, in contrast, suckle their young for four to five years out of their maximum lifespan of only 60 years. Chimp populations are thus much smaller than human populations.

Previous researchers have speculated that the short breast-feeding period is based on cultural norms. But Psouni and her colleagues looked at a variety of species and concluded that mothers of any species stop suckling when the child's brain reaches a certain developmental stage and that this stage is reached earlier for carnivores, who have a higher quality diet.

The team reported in the journal PLoS One that they studied 67 mammalian species, including humans, apes, mice and killer whales. They concluded that there is a direct correlation between the amount of meat consumed in the diet and how early weaning occurs. Thus chimps, with their four-to-five-year suckling period, are among the longest for mammalian species primarily because their diet consists largely of nuts and berries.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-meat-eating-reproduction-20120420,0,2388092.story

[veganlush]

2. I stopped eating meat

in 1987, raised two kids without it, (one is now vegan , the other still lacto-ovo vegetarian) and since 2006 I've been vegan (no animal products). One thing I missed sometimes was a good mayonnaise, but I found a great substitute called "veganaise" which really is good. the social aspects of it are the most challenging I would say, and my kids have experienced it too of course.

Some people are so compartmentalized in their minds about these things, when you tell them you're vegan some people just don't know what you mean, it just doesn't not compute, even self-proclaimed animal lovers sometimes can't understand how you could have a problem taking out a contract to torture and kill a pig for your bacon.

Others just feel so threatened by it, even if you only discuss it out of necessity (public eating) that it seeps into any conversation you may have with them. Those people that feel threaten have decided that you are proclaiming superiority to them, because you choose not to be part of the demand that necessitates a supply derived from the suffering of animals.

As for substitutes, if you feel the need for any, as mentioned Veganaise is great, as is EarthBalance as a margarine/butter substitute. One thing I have found having been a meat eater at one time, and a vegan now is that vegans eat a much more varied diet. Sometimes people will say to me, upon finding out my choice, "what do you eat now, grass?" they think that if you don't eat meat, there's just nothing left to choose from! I have found that I enjoy many things that I never even heard of before I made the switch, such as Swiss chard and kale.

The bottom line is that a vegan can eat all the same things as anybody else if you choose to use substitutes and if not, you can explore tons of new recipes made from a huge variety of vegetables and fruits, grains, nuts and seeds.

[unblock]

6. one thing i found after giving up meat is that you can actually taste everything else better

i used to have a subway sandwich with turkey, cheese, and some veggies.
but mostly it just tasted like a turkey sandwich.

now i have the same thing but without the turkey.
just cheese, spinach, onions green peppers, tomatoes, etc.

i can really taste all the ingredients, and they're good!

meat really overpowers the taste buds and anything else you're eating is a mere complement to the meat.
eliminate the meat and you can taste everything.

i think this is why, while you're eating meat, the idea of giving it up seems like food would then be boring.
but it's not, it actually become much more interesting and tasty!

[HuckleB]

22. That would be your opinion.

It's not true in any meaningful way, however.

[unblock]

24. lol any chef or sommelier will confirm this

you need stronger flavors and more full-bodied wines to stand up to meat than for most vegetarian fare.

i'm not saying this is a hard and fast rule as there are exceptions, but this is a pretty basic culinary principle.

[HuckleB]

29. No, they won't.

Why can't you just go with your opinion? Why do you think you can pretend you have some special knowledge when you clearly do not?

Sheesh.

[unblock]

32. oooooooo-kay fine. just my opinion.

and my wife's opinion.

and my brother-in-law's opinion.

and his wife's as well.

and the opinion of the chef at our favorite restaurant.

and the opinion a friend who used to own and run a restaurant.

[HuckleB]

40. Thank you for confirming that you have nothing to offer but the usual Internet BS.

WOW!

[handmade34]

35. there is much study and writings that show

how our taste buds and cravings and taste change as we change our diet... personally, after I eliminated all added sugar and processed food, I lost all unhealthy cravings and I taste food much differently... I believe it is well past opinion and nearer to a well grounded theory

"In this study, we've found one potential reason for individual variability in how people sense fat. It may be, as was shown recently, that as people consume more fat, they become less sensitive to it, requiring more intake for the same satisfaction..."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120112134336.htm

"...According to the "Daily News Record," certain foods diminish taste buds. If you are on a diet to reset your taste buds, limit or avoid foods that affect the acuity of your senses. Examples include spicy dishes, sweets, bitter-tasting foods and beverages, and food with large amounts of fat..."
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/344478-diet-to-reset-taste-buds/#ixzz1sRCSF97d

"...Processed food is made tastier artificially. Adding chemicals increases pleasure reactions in our taste buds. Artificially high fat, high sugar and high salt increases food's enjoyability but by consuming highly stimulating foods on a routine basis we become immune to taste. To reset your taste buds..."

http://www.healthykitchen.co.nz/webapps/i/72855/189422/325823

[HuckleB]

39. Those "studies" are preliminary at best.

One can pick and choose from such studies at will, thus, we see the proliferation of the quackery known as naturopathy, among other things.

Try again.

[bemildred]

5. Is bacon meat?

I'm not sure I can give up meat, if bacon is meat. I'm pretty sure hotdogs are not meat anymore.

[unblock]

7. lol! the fact that it's hard to tell is one of the main reasons we don't eat meat anymore!

[HuckleB]

30. Your response does not make sense in any way, shape or form.

[unblock]

33. we don't eat meat anymore in large part because we're grossed out by how it's processed

to the point where as the previous poster said, hot dogs, e.g., don't even seem to be meat at all anymore.

[bemildred]

34. Formed, textured, and seasoned all-purpose food paste is how I think of them.

Just make sure it's completely dead before you eat it.

[HuckleB]

42. Please don't feed the illogical among us?

Thanks.

[unblock]

44. wow, we've really touched a nerve here, haven't we.

so far in this thread you've denied my experience (#22), my knowledge (#29), my the anecdotal evidence (#40) and my logic (#41).

you've thrown cold water on handmade34's research and links (#35), brushing them aside as "preliminary" and accusing handmade34 of picking and choosing and something something about quackery and neuropathy, i didn't follow the logic there -- are you upset that handmade34 didn't provide ALL the links the internet has to offer on the topic?

and now, in addition to calling me illogical again (#42) you apparently think bemildred shouldn't post in his own sub-thread?



what gives?

[HuckleB]

52. That is the funniest post I've ever read.

I've noted that you are offering nothing but the usual anecdotal nonsense. You just made a long post admitting that that is all you can offer.

Thank you!

[HuckleB]

41. Got logical fallacy?

You're trying to compare bacon to hot dogs?

Hello? Look up logical fallacies and get back to us.

[unblock]

43. i see the problem. you don't actually read the posts before you jump to a dismissive conclusion.

post #5 clearly mentioned hot dogs, but as it was deviously hiding in the actual body of the post, it evidently escaped your attention.

[bemildred]

47. He seems to think logic is some substitute for divine writ or something.

Something you can beat people over the head with when you disagree with them.

But fundamentally, I think there are people who think the world is funny, and people who don't. And the people who don't tend to get annoyed with the people who do.

[HuckleB]

51. Logic is important.

I think you know that. You also know that the response to your post made no sense, but you're bashing the person who pointed that out.

Your posts was funny. The poster who responded didn't get that. So you're bashing me?

Hello?

[bemildred]

53. My post was illogical, not to say facetious, to start with.

That was no accident. A joke is a joke, not a logical argument. Logic won't get your far without a rigorous beginning.

I figured he was trying to find out WTF I was going on about, a sensible attitude, and he made a pretty good guess at it.

[HuckleB]

54. You were making a joke.

It was quite obvious.

The response to it was clueless. If his guess was good, however, then your post is nothing short of bizarre.

[bemildred]

55. Quite.

The response was not clueless, whatever you might think, so "logically" I suppose that means my post was bizarre.

[bemildred]

56. Look, I have no desire to get in an argument with you.

Far from it.

You know me well enough to know that if I want to write a reasoned exposition about something, I can. So if I didn't it's safe to infer I didn't want to. And it makes no sense to try to make much sense of something which was not intended to make much sense in the first place.

Now I'm done with this, I hope that is sufficient.

[HuckleB]

57. All of that is why I'm a bit surprised by your responses here.

[HuckleB]

50. Somehow you fail to see that your response made no sense in context.

But you keep telling yourself otherwise.

[handmade34]

15. nah...

the biggest challenge is, unfortunately, social... many people not accepting of how others eat

I am not dogmatic about it but find that my diet is primarily vegan... I don't have a private chef (in fact most of the time don't have a kitchen...work 'on the road') usually shop at regular corner grocery stores and spend less money on food than I did years ago.

Anyone who says it is too difficult to eat healthy (vegetarian/vegan) is not informed, motivated or lack self-discipline (I admit- the toughest) ...I was mostly vegetarian and at the end of last year(because I want to buy a cheap life ins policy) gave up all processed food -esp. all added sugars- my diet consists of fruit, vegetables, grains, sometimes nuts... I have lost 25lbs... I just gave blood Sat. and my vitals were: BP: 100/69, pulse: 68, hemoglobin: 14+

I carry a slow cooker with me, also olive oil, braggs, a water filter pitcher... and cloth shopping bags!

my partner wasn't so careful about food and ate lots of meat, processed food, etc... until... an eye exam a month ago showed serious problems. He got into a doc... lab results were pretty bad and he immediately took on my way of eating for his own and in just a couple of weeks has lost 8 lbs... blood sugar level went from 300 to a fasting reading of 110 yesterday...

all it takes is the right motivation to want to do it... maybe just caring about the earth and our life blood- the source of our very life -collectively- (the environment) should be enough!!

[bemildred]

17. +1.

Yeah, it's like your are insulting them if you don't want to eat what they do.

I am pretty much where you are, diet-wise, and I like to fix my own too.

The very act of giving up fast/processed food will save you bundles of money and improve your health.

[laconicsax]

18. Don't forget to look at the whole thing from both sides...

[handmade34]

19. ...

[HuckleB]

31. +1

[trotsky]

21. I know some vegans will deny this...

but the human body DID evolve to eat meat. Not as the primary source of nourishment, but definitely a normal and regular one. Can a vegan diet be done? Yes, with some effort. And I congratulate those who pull it off and improve their health.

But a diet containing meat and animal products can be healthy too, and again with some effort, can be done with minimal to no suffering for the animals involved. And certainly far less suffering for the animal than they would find in an undomesticated life.

[tinrobot]

26. Exactly. We didn't develop stone axes to pick broccoli.

The B12 in the meat that we ate made our brains larger, communal hunting made us more social, and the tools we created to better process meat made us more inventive.

We evolved both to eat meat and because we ate meat. Yes, we currently eat too much of it, but it's still a vital part of our heritage and diet.

[handmade34]

36. "...no suffering for the animals involved..."

sorry... just made me really laugh (understand your point though...)



must edit to add that by far the vast majority of "domesticated" animals (factory farms) live obscenely unhealthy horrendous lives...

our production of meat for human consumtion is disgusting in this country...

[trotsky]

37. Which is why the words "with some effort" are key, of course.

I think efforts of groups like PETA are misguided, trying to shame everyone into becoming vegans. Far better to focus on humane treatment of animals and reducing, not eliminating, meat consumption.

[bemildred]

38. I like the way Alan Watts put it:

If you do not care for that chicken, take good care of it, love that chicken, it will not nourish you. Abused animals provide crappy food. We make really, really lots of crappy food, and it shows.

[Tumbulu]

45. There are so many good organic livestock producers these days

I just had my CCOF organic inspection this morning. The inspector had just spent 4 days inspecting an organic dairy/pasture chicken operation north of me.

The pasture rotations of the dairy cows are followed by the crews of chickens who clean up the pastures after the cows. They sleep in mobile coops at night and are guarded (from predators) by livestock guardian dogs during the day.

The inspector says that there are so many really wonderful operations like this that she is working all year now inspecting them. There has been a tremendous growth in the humane and organic operations.

There are big changes happening and to me they really matter.

[bemildred]

46. Yes, I'm related to some.

Although their opinions about it vary.

And good for you. We need lots more farmers who love their farms and everything that lives there, including themselves.

[NickB79]

48. Mentioning chickens brought back some fond memories of my last flock

When we purchased our house 3 years ago, the previous owners gave us their flock of 6 chickens. They were a mix of Buff Orphingtons and Barred Rocks, with one rooster and 5 hens, all looking ratty and underweight. The previous owner told me they were only good for the stew pot because they'd stopped laying eggs for him. I go out to see what he was feeding them, and it's just the cheapest commercial chicken feed you can find, with a bit of grit and oyster shell. So, I start giving them leftovers from the kitchen, vegetable scraps, grass clippings, cracked corn, oats, etc. They start looking better, plumper, nice plumage. Their personality also improved, to the point I could pick a few of the friendlier ones up and pet them. I start bringing home waste cottage cheese curd and lowfat yogurt (I work in a dairy plant) and incorporate that into their diet as well. And all the while, they start laying eggs again. Within a few months, I'm collecting 2-3 dozen of the prettiest fresh brown eggs you can imagine. And the yolk in them! Huge, yellow, rich and creamy, mmmmm. I had to start giving eggs away to anyone who wanted them, I had so many. When we went to the county fair the next spring, my family kept pointing out how my chickens could easily rival the blue ribbon winners there, they were so healthy looking.

I finally butchered them last fall, when their egg production truly declined for good, but I'm definitely going to try another flock next spring. This time, I'm going to expand their outdoor area so they'll have more grass to roam on, possibly incorporating a rotational system so they don't over-graze the pasture to dirt.

If you treat your animals right, they'll treat you right.

[bemildred]

49. +1. Very apropos. nt

[SheilaT]

59. Personally, I am a happy ominvore. What I don't get about the whole

vegan/vegetarian thing is the obsession with informing everyone else what your food choices are. Okay, so if you're going to a friend's house, and that friend is me, you need to let me know and I'll actually try to accommodate you. But otherwise, it seems to me that you simply can eat what you will, and not announce to the whole world what you're eating -- or not eating -- and why.

Oh, and what I REALLY don't get is the vegans/vegetarians who seem to desperately need a meat substitute. Yuck. There's plenty of wonderful food out there that doesn't involve animals. Just eat that stuff.

And for the glucose intolerant, I want to say that I have NEVER tasted anything more awful than pasta substitute. Quite frankly, if I couldn't eat gluten stuff, I'd simply do without. Again, there's wonderful food out there that doesn't include whatever you can't or choose not to eat. Meanwhile, don't get all sanctimonious on the rest of us.

Oh, and while you're at it, keep in mind that we evolved, yes evolved, to our present state eating omnivorously, and cooked foods at that.

[bemildred]

60. Babies don't want vegan mommies?

Additional input ...

The vegan lifestyle isn't mainstream yet, but it's surely on its way thanks to the whole food movement inspired by the likes of "Forks Over Knives" and "Food Inc." Trendy vegan cookbooks, blogs and personalities continue to multiply as we all get "vegucated," as do the vegan options served at restaurants. I don't remember the last time I was in a restaurant that didn't serve kale or some sort of braised greens. Then again, this is L.A.

But is pushing veganism onto children taking things too far? Ruby Roth's children’s book, "Vegan is Love," which comes out April 24, has already ruffled some feathers. The colorful book is meant to serve as an introduction to, as the author puts it, "veganism as a lifestyle of compassion and action."

Critics say that the book oversimplifies things. "While a vegan diet can be nutritious if properly planned," reports ABC News’ Mikaela Conley, "parents may have trouble getting children to eat the proper amounts of all the necessary food groups when kids can be finicky with food already."

Of the backlash, Roth says, "[Veganism is the] embodiment of the philosophies our country was founded on: independence, rugged individualism and self-reliance."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-babies-dont-want-vegan-mommies-20120420,0,1776111.story

[bemildred]

61. Were Early Humans Cooking Their Food a Million Years Ago?

Early humans harnessed fire as early as a million years ago, much earlier than previously thought, suggests evidence unearthed in a cave in South Africa.

Charred bones and ash discovered in South Africa's Wonderwerk Cave indicate the presence of frequent, controlled fires at the site one million years ago, writes an international team of scientists in a study published Monday in the Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences. If these findings are correct, they will overtake the earliest widely accepted evidence of early human use of fire, which was discovered in northern China and dates to 400,000 years ago.

Those fires, as well as the fires in Wonderwerk Cave, were probably burned by Homo erectus, a species thought to be a human ancestor or a relative of one. The cave itself is one of the oldest known sites of human habitation, with signs of early human settlement dating back two million years.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/early-humans-cooking-food-million-years-ago/story?id=16080804