and ITT readers are in synch with the average working American?

Veganism is about the best thing to ever happen to me.
Eating factory-farmed meat is immoral on many levels.
Support organic farming.  If western societies don’t
clean up our diet, we’re going to be faced with a hopelessly poisoned planet.
It is bad karma to destroy nature to make way for bovine
concentration camps.  Torturing sentient animals for comfort food is obviously wrong.  At least eat cruelty-free
meat.
Try feeling guilty for once; you’ll lose weight in the bargain.

glad vegan works for you.  i do support organic farming. that does not mean that we must condemn people who choose not to be vegan or eat organic as “immoral”.  the self righteousness of the secular/neopagan Left is as boring and obnoxious as the sanctimoniousness of the christian right.

people are animals too. by the way, don’t compare victims of Hitler and Stalin’s concentration camps to pigs and cows. frank perdue is a jerk.  he is not Adolph Eichmann.

Sometimes the choice is economic.  Being a working class skank trying to raise three children, I have not had the luxury of becoming a member of a church (where I would have to pledge 5% to 10% of my salary to become a member) or the luxury of paying more in the grocery store for organic food and “healthier” products.  Many of my friends and coworkers do not possess such luxuries either.  We will go to hell eating our hot dogs because we deal with living day to day.

Actually the choice lies in cost. When I spend four hundred dollars and did not buy meat , the question remains cost. For me it also follows is this organic / free range?

Actually, a true Vegan does not eat or use any animal products regardless of how they are raised. I read a very informative article on vegan beliefs that really set me right. I am determined to break away from the practices that this country endorses. I do not make a lot of money either, but there are so many ways to budget. There are so many things people buy that are totally useless and meaningless. We have so many choices. Why not feed your children good food after doing alittle research about how meat is produced? Just a thought.

I am essentially a vegetarian, I eat very little meat because i know how it is raised and i know what kind of drugs the factory farms put into these animals none of which i want in my body,I spent to many years trying to get all of those toxins out of me .I plant my own garden , avoid fish that is heavily contaminated with mercury and other heavy metals . Free range chicken is readily available on the market here, I guess the main reason I even buy meat is because my husband is not going to give up meat completely even if i have gotten him to admit that he really does enjoy meatless meals which he gets more often than he thinks.

I am finding out that it is not easy to break away from long formed habits! We have been taught to eat meat from infancy. And so many products we love are made from animals, like my leather coat that I bought at the thrift store, and my shoes and boots. I’m not going to get rid of stuff that I have. But, I will be very discerning about what I buy from now on. The articles about animal farming and the horrible conditions are heart wrenching. And the effect on the environment is overwhelming. Do you think bird flu and the chance of a pandemic could have been prevented? I just read that a lot of people have mad cow disease and the gov. knows it!!! Now they want us to buy genetically altered pork, saying it is good for the heart!!! What’s next?

Shelley, due to the fact that pigs don’t sweat there has never been anything healthy about pork. I have long ago removed pork from our diet ifnot because of the fat content and the impact on the heart , then because of all the toxins that accumulate inthe pigs themselves because of their physiology.

I buy whatever is the cheapest to get the calories and nutrients I need, whether it be meat or organic.

I was conscious of what I ate, how I fed my kids, where we lived . . . the whole bit.  This was in the late 60s/early 70s, when we trusted the government a tiny bit for EPA stuff.

Turns out I lived in several superfund waste cleanup sites, ate way more sprayed fruits and veggies than we should have . . .the list goes on.  Now I have breast cancer and my kids are more likely to develop that and other cancers because my mother took DES when she was pregnant and my grandmother sprayed with DDT in the house . . .

What you think is safe may not be so.  Organic foods raised in fairly clean soils may accumulate toxins through wind and water.  Drugs turn out to be deadly; “better living through chemistry” isn’t; and “duck and cover” was worse than useless.  Breast feeding may transfer your toxins to your infant.  It goes on . . .

Do the best you can and work to clean up the world.  Anything less is pissing up the wind!

PS- personal suggestion: all companies should be required to have their air and water intakes below their treated water releases, and executives should be required to drink from water fountains in those buildings.  THAT ought to clean up some water and maybe air really fast!!  :)

Katherine, I am also a breast cancer survivor because of chemicals released into our local enviroment. In my case it is agricultural compounds from the pesticides and herbicides used to spray the crops not to mention the run off that ends up in ground water around here. Thirty years ago M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center said we had significant problem in this area , at that time it was non-hodgkins lymphoma, since ten it has been large numbers of people being diagnosed with breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer and in some case women getting hit with both breast and ovarian at the same time.My next door neighbor along with her sister are the only remaining family members living for the above stated reason, women have died here due to drinking tap water. Alot of people actually have died because of tap water, when a town’s civil engineer says publicly” don’t drink that crap” you would think people would take notice especially the city council. Instead they choose to cover up a problem that has not gone away.When I was diagnosed with breast cancer 7 years ago, no one in my family had ever had this type of cancer, colon cancer runs rampant in my family but not this one. I was given a 5% chance to be alive today at diagnosis, I beat the odds by changing my diet to organic fruits and vegetables and free range meats when i could get them back then, it is abit easier now thankfully but I have become accustomed to a largely vegetarian way of life with organic dairy and eggs added for extra protein. I had a bio-metric assay run between the time of my mastectomy and beginning chemotherapy and found out I was full of xenoestrogens which are part of the break down of pesticides in the human body plus all kinds of other toxins that were way over the limit for body burden. Ayear after Chemo and Radiation I went througha round of chealation therapy to remove all the toxins in my body. As a result , my tumor load is zero, I really am cancer free.

Regarding animal rights folks:  My neighbor was an animal rights supporter, especially the rights of cats.  She took in strays, even took in MY two cats, and wouldn’t give them back until she had “taught” me to feed them the best cat food (9 Lives 100% canned tuna), to entertain them with catnip, etc.  I told the lady, “If these cats were bigger than you, they’d be eating you.”  She didn’t respond.

Regarding cows:  except for those raised shoulder to shoulder in dusty Colorado and Kansas stockyards, cattle lead a beautiful two- or three-year life.  How many times have you driven by green hills dotted with black angus and wished you could live like a cow does?  Unfortunately, they spend a miserable, frightening last few days where they’re rounded up into a truck, shipped to an auction or slaughterhouse, and then killed quickly.  Nonetheless, if it weren’t for steak-eaters, they wouldn’t have been given their two years of pastoral existence.  If you were to ask them if they would have preferred not to be born, what would they say?  I may get cancer one day and suffer a painful death.  Should my mother not have given birth to me?

I don’t find the issue all that easy to take sides on, but I guess you can assume that I am not a vegetarian.

OK, let me amend that sentence, “If you COULD ask them if they would have preferred not to have been born…”  Of course, if you asked them now, their response would be, “Moo.”

I didn’t come this far up the evolutionary food chain to eat tofu !

Hey, tofu isn’t bad when sauteed in a bit of soy sauce so it’s almost crispy on the outside, served with those yummy sauteed green beans! :)

Jeannie, I am so glad that you are tumor free.  It’s unusual but not unheard of.  I hope your lifestyle has contributed to your health and continues to do so.

- and I sure wish I could follow you.  However, on barely $11/hour, it isn’t likely to happen.  Thank goodness for insurance is all I can say.  I wish we had single-payer, but ain’t happening with this administration! 

Living an organic lifestyle requires more money than I have to spare.  It’s a sad commentary when healthy living is for the well to do or those who are able to make the sacrifices to meet the cost.

Regarding animal rights folks: I’d call the collector who swiped your cats a thief who didn’t have a clue what the best cat food is.  Straight tuna over the long term will poison a cat!  Dry food isn’t much better (ever seen a cat willingly snack on grains?? ), either.  They are obligate carnivores and haven’t even got a sweet tooth, unlike us and dogs.  To them, sugar tastes bitter, or so scientists suspect.  Good food for a cat consists of plenty of heart (high in taurine), livers, kidneys, lungs and other guts, as well as some bone and muscle tissue.  Fish is okay only in small amounts, preferably little tuna or salmon.

but don’t get me started on an off-topic subject . . . LOL

Vegan is an admirable lifestyle for those whose tastes have not been corrupted by modern society.  If I could, I would—but I’ve tried and failed more times than I can think.  I’ve encouraged my daughters to live lighter on the earth and may have succeeded with one of them; the other, like me, finds it too hard.

So I will continue the chemotherapy that holds my tumors in check; a mixed blessing for someone who always tried to live lightly and limit my intake of poisons. . . . <wry look>

Kathryn, to be honest I have never really known what contributed to my being completely cancer free, it may have been attitude , it may have been diet, it may have been faith in God and all things greater than the human condition. My surgeon said he had no doubts of my survival because when he asked me when i wanted to schedule my mastectomy , I told him yesteday, which 4/5/99. I guess I was lucky to have a nautropath working with my oncologist who has had a record for saving lives without being wierd about it. Maybe that is because he is an MD practicing as a nautropath with an emphasis on oncology and immunology. I made all my life style changes slowly because chemo is such a gamble no matter what. My oncologist to this day calls me a strong tough woman, I ran the 10K event at local Race for the Cure, 2 days out of chemotherapy. Any way back in those days my diet was high protein and high fiber with alot of supplements and water. I found as time went on that things i missed were being able to eat raw oysters because the risk was too high for pathogens i may not have been able to fight. I also continued to work during chemotherapy which was another big gamble, I scheduled my chemo for the week i had off , and since my first blood draw came at the same time i was due to head back to work, I had to have a duplicate draw at work. I was told the results of that one(at work) because it determined whether I could stay.  Now as to the animal rights people who have problems with Komen and others, due to animal testing…do you want untested and unproven cancer (chemotherapy) used on you before they really know if they can even be considered for human trials? These drugs can kill as well as heal and if a small amount given to an animal kills the animal what would happen if adose meant for a human do? Kathryn, I do have cats, i inheirted them from the previous owners of my house, their feral and all i do is feed them so they will leave the birds alone and I catch them once a year to give them their shots. I did have dogs, one died about 6 weeks ago of pancreatic cancer and one died yesterday because somebody in my neighorhood either poisoned her or fed her ground up glass.My thoughts and prayers are with you as you make your journey, and maybe siome white light energy to help also.  take care.