Veganism or Plant Strong

Forks over Knives  looks at plant based diets and their very positive effects over health.  One of the folks pictured in the clip is Rip Esselstyn  and his Engine 2 Diet.  Saw this book all over Whole Foods the other day.  A very strong link between the two.
"Plant Strong" is another word for veganism.  If the name has to change to get more people to switch to plant=based diets - great.
With this movie and diet - if people will only adopt plant-based diets for health reasons rather than environmental reasons - Fine.  As long as the switch is made.

The Gateway Drug

Why Bacon Evokes a Carnivorous Moment for Vegetarians

To start, this isn't the first time I've heard this. I'm mostly a vegetarian, minus a piece of fish once in a while, but my friend is an austere vegetarian who admits that even she can't resist stealing a piece of bacon once in a while. Last week NPR explored bacon as a gateway drug. Why is this the meat that even hardcore meat haters find pleasure in? Scientifically speaking, it may be more our noses than anything else.


According to SHOTS, NPR's health blog, the sizzling, salty, and downright decadent smell of bacon arouses our predatory instincts. Hardcore vegetarians even admit to carnivorous cravings for bacon.


Johan Lundstrom, a scientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center says it's more than just the taste that arouses a vegetarian:


There's an intimate connection between odor and emotion, and odor and memory. When you pair that with the social atmosphere of weekend breakfast and hunger, bacon is in the perfect position to take advantage of how the brain is wired.


Lundstrom says that it's bacon's protein makeup and high fat content that swoon us as well. And the intoxicating smell of bacon is what in the end temps our taste buds because 90 percent of what we taste is a food's smell.

Totally agree. The smell does drive me crazy and close to consuming that little small piece of pork.  Damn that smell!.

Lessons to be learned

A Buddhist Monk's Vegetarian Diet to Minimize Chemical Exposure

Weekday vegetarians ready to ramp up their meatless-ness may find inspiration in this recently released study in Environmental Health News. For five days, 25 study participants dwelled in a Buddhist temple and adopted a monk's lifestyle--including their oftentimes veggie-based diet.

Prior to their temple stay participants were asked to reveal what they had eaten during the previous 48 hours (consumables included beef, pork and dairy) and give urine samples. The results...

Though none of the participants had taken any antibiotics or pharmaceutical drugs in the previous month, levels of both antibiotics and phthalates were detected in their urine.

Unsurprisingly, after the five-day retreat, they found dramatic antibiotic and phthalate reductions in their post-urinalysis.

From ammonia to food?

Otarian Opens - Vegetarian Fast Food, Carbon Labeled

I was a "hungry vegetarian" Otarian founder Radhika Oswal tells me when I ask why, with no restaurant or food service background at all, she wanted to start a chain of fast food restaurants.

"When I was traveling with my husband I couldn't find anything but french fries and pizza," she goes on to say. "I said to my husband, 'we should start a chain.' Obviously he didn't know I was serious, because he said yes."

And when that yes comes from billionaire Pankaj Oswal, chairman of Burrup Holdings Ltd. in Australia, operator of one of the world's largest ammonia production facilities, you know the financial side of things just got a bit easier.

That all was three years ago, when Radhika began what she now describes as her thesis. "Otarian is my PhD is vegetarianism and sustainability," she jokes.

The product of that research: Two restaurants in New York City (a Bleecker Street location opening April 19th and one near Columbus Circle at 8th Ave and 56th St, opening on the 23rd)...

The menu is lacto-vegetarian with a number of vegan dishes, but Radhika describes the restaurants as going beyond that. This isn't a chain of vegetarian restaurants, but a chain of sustainable restaurants...

I'll be in the city in a few weeks and will have to try this place. Might just try the Tex-Mex "burger." As long as it doesn't smell like ammonia.