A collection of the news, updates and links that have been featured on Veggie Thursday, organized according to the motivations that encourage us to eat less meat at least once a week.
General
Three Very Short Videos & Two Documentaries
Various | Rather watch than read? An eclectic mix of inspiration to try Veggie Thursday.
Food Inc now on DVD
Food Inc | Academy Award nominee tells us the cold, hard truth about modern meat production.
Bali Veggie Delights
Natalia Angel | A veggie culinary exploration in Bali.
Starting the Green Path in SG
Natalia Angel | A personal account of the inspiration found in the bountiful of veggie food in Singapore.
Meatless Mondays, a movement that has legs
Jane Black | This article describes how more and more meat eaters are trying to go meatless at least once a week, and what the meat industry is doing to nip this healthy trend in the bud.
Meatless Mondays, a movement that has legs
Barbara Ellen | Sir Paul McCartney talks about how MeatFree Monday is growing, his favourite foods and how he approaches meat eaters.
Ghent goes Meat Free Once A Week
Anonymous | A video about the first city in the world to go meat free once a week.
Health
Why you should get your selenium and zinc from foods, not synthetic vitamins
Natural News | Food is always the best source for your nutrition, and supplements are second.
Meat and Arthritis
Hailu A, Knutsen SF, Fraser GE | Greater meat consumption is associated with a higher prevalence of degenerative arthritis and soft tissue disorders.
Another Study Links Veggies to Heart Health
Crowe FL, Roddam AW, and others | A large observational study suggests a higher intake of fruits and vegetables is associated with a reduced risk of ischaemic heart disease (IHD) mortality.
Can Plant Foods Reduce Menstrual Pain?
Various | This one’s for the ladies – several articles suggest plant foods may reduce menstrual pain.
Meat Eaters Pack on More Pounds Regardless of Calories
Katie Drummond | An impressive study with 370,000 participants that controlled for many variables found that losing weight isn’t as simple as calories in, calories out — at least for those who eat meat.
Eating Fruits and Vegetables for Weight Management
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.A.) | Many good suggestions for substituting plant foods for animal-based foods to maintain a healthy weight.
Filthy Iowa Farms Linked to Contaminated Eggs
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.A.) | A U.S. news video report shows investigators finding salmonella and other unsanitary conditions in two egg farms.
It’s Wonderful To Be Back, Alive
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan | Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan blogs about his shift to a fully plant-based diet.
Antibiotics in Meat
Various | Did you know a majority of antibiotics used in the U.S. go to animals who we raise for meat – and what this means for our health?
McDonald’s Commercial Too Hot for Detroit TV
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine | A smart and provocative commercial links McDonald’s high-fat fare with heart disease.
Former US President Clinton Reduces Meat
CNN | A video of former US President Bill Clinton describes how the work of Cleveland Clinic surgeon Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. led Clinton to move closer to a plant based lifestyle, losing 24 pounds in the process.
Plant Based Ultramarathoner Sets New Record
Various | The story of Scott Jurek, a long-time plant based eater and long-time winner of ultramarathons.
Iron: Dark Chocolate Contains More than Beef?
Jake Richardson | Beef is not the only source of iron, nor the highest source of iron – dark chocolate contains more than 600% as much per gram.
Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food
TED | Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.
Relax Guys: Soy Won’t Make You Grow Breasts
Various | Debunking the myth that soy feminises men.
Study Suggests Veg Diets Reduce Bowel Disease Risk
The American Journal of Gastroenterology | Here’s a study that people with bowel trouble in their family may want to know about.
Brown Rice May Lower Diabetes Risk
Megan Brooks | Research suggests people who eat brown rice or other whole grains, which are commonly found at veg eateries, have a lower risk of developing diabetes than those who eat white rice.
E. Coli, Salmonella and Other Deadly Bacteria and Pathogens in Food: Factory Farms Are the Reason
Kathy Freston | A look at the horrific infection risks that animal-based foods carry.
Environment
Sustainability of Meat-based and Plant-based Diets and the Environment
David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel | Research shows a meat-based food system requires more energy, land, and water resources and is therefore less sustainable than a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet.
8 Reasons To Rock-On With Meat-Free Monday (with Paul McCartney and Gwyneth Paltrow)
Ronnie Citron-Fink | 8 reasons why eating less meat helps the environment.
10 ways vegetarianism can help save the planet
John Vidal | If we really want to reduce the human impact on the environment, the simplest and cheapest thing anyone can do is to eat less meat – a good summary of how meat hurts the planet.
Another Climate Change Expert Minces Meat
Michael Oppenheimer | James Hansen, arguably the world’s most famous climate scientist, talks about meat reduction.
Another Climate Change Expert Minces Meat
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) | WWF releases a study on how greenhouse gases associated with UK food production could be reduced 70 percent by 2050.
Eat less meat to save the planet – UN
Louise Gray | The world needs to change to a more vegetarian diet to stand a chance of tackling climate change, according to a major new United Nations report.
Meat Wastes Water
Water Footprint | A fun presentation of the statistics – for example, did you know it requires 70 litres of water to grow an apple and 80 litres for 2 slices of wheat bread, but 1937 litres for 1/8 kg of beef and 487 litres of water for 1/8 kg of chicken?
The Complexity of the Environment Issue
Various | Two sides of the story – a New Scientist article entitled, ‘Why eating green won’t save the planet’ provokes massive response.
We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change
Al Gore | Recent attacks on the science of global warming have indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it… if only.
Join, Learn and Take Action
StopGlobalWarming.Org | We are all contributors to global warming and we all need to be part of the solution – join the global movement to demand our leaders freeze and reduce carbon dioxide emissions now.
Kindness to Animals
Panda Meat
Panda-meat.com | Have you heard of this?
Animals Have Personalities, Too, Bird Study Suggests
Science Daily | Evidence is mounting that other animals, even birds and fishes, have genuine intelligence and emotions and each animal, like humans, has their own unique personality.
Don’t Forget about Fish
Peter Singer | The forgotten victims – There is no humane slaughter requirement for the staggering number of wild fish caught and killed at sea.
Fish Count
Fish Count | A website to raise awareness about and promote solutions to suffering caused by commercial fishing.
Worse things happen at sea: The welfare of wild caught fish
Fish Count | A summary of the movement to promote humane commercial fishing.
Other Animals Think and Feel Too
Compassion in World Farming | Illuminating webpage that compiles and explains the growing body of research which shows that non-human animals also have emotions and intelligence.
Do fish have feelings too? It’s a slippery question for science
Michael Hanlon | A new book explains that fish, rather than being the “vegetables of the sea”, do indeed feel pain and also experience complex emotional lives.
A Meat Eater’s Dilemma
Anonymous | Animals – friends who will eventually end up on your table?
Understanding the links: child abuse, animal abuse and domestic violence
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children | Research and clinical evidence increasingly suggests there are sometimes inter-relationships between the abuse of children, vulnerable adults and animals.
Conflicted meat-eaters deny that meat-animals have the capacity to suffer
University of Kent | A recent study has provided direct evidence that people who wish to escape the ‘meat paradox’ i.e. simultaneously disliking hurting animals and enjoying eating meat, may do so by denying that the animal they ate had the capacity to suffer.
Animals & Us
BBC Radio | Listen online to a free broadcast of BBC Radio’s “Animals & Us”.
Animal Intelligence: Birds That Use Tools
TIME Video | A 4-minutes long video shows a researcher discussing the intelligence of birds and shows a bird doing things that scientists used to think only humans could do
Computer Game Teaches About Factory Farming
Animal Visuals | A parody of farming games on Facebook educates people about how intensive confinement on factory farms causes animal suffering.