Almond milk: Vegan milk alternative that comes with a heavy environmental cost

[S.O.T.T]: In the past five years, almond milk consumption in the United States has exploded over 250 percent. The lower-calorie, vegan milk alternative is a staple in grocery stores and coffee shops across the country now, but its booming popularity comes at a heavy environmental cost.

According to a new report from the Guardian this week, the titanic and growing demands of the California almond industry are placing a huge strain on the hives of bees used to pollinate their orchards, wiping out billions of honeybees in a matter of months.

"My yard is currently filled with stacks of empty bee boxes that used to contain healthy hives," Dennis Arp, a commercial beekeeper, told the Guardian. Like many of his peers, nearly half of Arp's income comes from renting out his hives to pollinate almonds. But now, he says, he loses 30 percent or more of his bees a year, a number that's on par for many beekeepers in the U.S. One survey of commercial beekeepers found that 50 billion honeybees were wiped out in just a few months during the winter of 2018-19.

The high mortality rate among bees who pollinate almonds, beekeepers believe, is due in part to the enormous quantities of pesticides used on almonds — far more than any other crop in California, whose Central Valley region is responsible for more than 80 percent of the world's almond supply.

What's more, almond pollination is especially demanding for bees, because they need to wake up from their annual period of winter dormancy one to two months earlier than usual to begin. Then, once they start, massive numbers of bees are concentrated in small geographic areas, making it easier for diseases to spread among them...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Going vegan is a pointless form of virtue signaling – it doesn’t help the environment or the planet, analysis reveals

[Natural News]: Think you’re saving the planet from climate change by driving an electric vehicle and switching to a “plant-based” diet? Think again.

In a paper he recently published, Bjørn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, deconstructs the myth that lugging around reusable grocery bags and using paper straws instead of plastic have any meaningful impact on our planet’s climate.

As it turns out, all of the messaging about how to individually fight “global warming” by reducing one’s personal “carbon footprint” is a gaggle of lies and propaganda – and this from a guy who’s a vehement believer in climate change!

Switching from beef to “Impossible Whoppers” will accomplish a whole lot of nothing, as will replacing all your incandescent lightbulbs with mercury-filled compact fluorescents (CFLs). The same goes for recycling and flitting around town in a Tesla – both useless endeavors in terms of “cooling” the planet.

According to Lomborg, these and many other individual actions represent little more than virtue signaling by climate elitists who accomplish nothing beyond simply feeling better about themselves by “going green.” ...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Impossible Burger: Here's what's really in it

[S.O.T.T]: Plant-based meat burst onto the international stage this year, with a dramatic IPO from Beyond Meat and the Impossible Burger making its way into 17,000 restaurants in the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore and Macao, and retail outlets such as Wegmans, Gelson's and Fairway Market.

The product label is a long list of tough-to-pronounce ingredients — which meat advocates have seized on to assert that plant-based meat is highly processed.

This month, the Center for Food Safety, a watchdog group that opposes genetically engineered foods, called on the Food and Drug Administration to recall the Impossible Burger product from grocery stores, citing safety concerns because of its use of genetically engineered heme, an iron-rich molecule found in meat and plants, for use as a color additive.

Impossible Foods' chief communications officer, Rachel Konrad, called the allegations "false and frankly ridiculous." She added: "The FDA has acknowledged multiple times that the Impossible Burger's key ingredient is safe to eat. The FDA has also acknowledged multiple times that Impossible Foods' rigorous safety testing meets or exceeds extensive federal requirements."

There seems to be consensus that a pivot to plant-based meat would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the animal cruelty associated with traditional animal agriculture. But is the Impossible Burger, which is kosher- and halal-certified but not organic, good for you? Here's how it compares to an average same-size beef hamburger that is 80 percent lean beef and 20 percent fat.

Heme: This is the most controversial ingredient. It adds to the flavor and color of the burger and makes it "bleed" like a beef burger. Heme, or soy leghemoglobin, is found most abundantly in animal flesh and is the catalyst for hundreds of chemical reactions that occur while a burger is cooking.

Unlike the heme found in beef, the heme in the Impossible Burger is made by taking the DNA from the roots of soy plants, inserting it into genetically engineered yeast and then fermenting that yeast (much the way Belgian beer is made).

Soy contains estrogen-like compounds called isoflavones that some findings say can promote the growth of some cancer cells, impair female fertility and mess with men's hormones.

The above gives only a sampling of the horrifying ingredients of what the fake meat peddlers are offering. While it tries to give it a positive spin, anyone with a little bit of knowledge on nutrition, and specifically the detrimental effects of processed foods, it's all rather transparent. Fake meats are a total clown show....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>.

Vegan and plant-based diets worsen brain health due to insufficient choline

[S.O.T.T]: The momentum behind a move to plant-based and vegan diets for the good of the planet is commendable, but risks worsening an already low intake of an essential nutrient involved in brain health, warns a nutritionist in the online journal BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health.

To make matters worse, the UK government has failed to recommend or monitor dietary levels of this nutrient — choline — found predominantly in animal foods, says Dr. Emma Derbyshire, of Nutritional Insight, a consultancy specializing in nutrition and biomedical science.

Choline is an essential dietary nutrient, but the amount produced by the liver is not enough to meet the requirements of the human body.

Choline is critical to brain health, particularly during fetal development. It also influences liver function, with shortfalls linked to irregularities in blood fat metabolism as well as excess free radical cellular damage, writes Dr Derbyshire.

The primary sources of dietary choline are found in beef, eggs, dairy products, fish, and chicken, with much lower levels found in nuts, beans, and cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli.

In 1998, recognizing the importance of choline, the US Institute of Medicine recommended minimum daily intakes. These range from 425 mg/day for women to 550 mg/day for men, and 450 mg/day and 550 mg/day for pregnant and breastfeeding women, respectively, because of the critical role the nutrient has in fetal development...read more>>>...

So you're a vegan ... but are you, really?

S.O.T.T: There's a lot to be said for veganism. For the thinking eater, it gets around a whole bunch of ethical grey areas. If you care about what you put in your mouth, it is probably the most black and white way to approach the whole meat thing.

There are no grey areas about so-called "ethical" meat, or questions over exactly how "free range" are the hens when there are 10,000 chickens to the ­hectare. Not eating meat, not buying products that come from animals — surely that means you're doing better not only for those animals directly affected, but also the environment, and your health?

But while veganism is on the rise in Western nations, it's still far from mainstream. Why, then, is it so hard to convince people of its worth if it really is a win all round? The vegan philosophy is, at its heart, quite often about ­reducing suffering.

By not eating ­animals, you — by definition — reduce suffering. It's a lovely idea. And I wish it were that simple.

Let's start with peas. Collydean (not its real name, but a real farm) is a 2700ha mixed farm in northern Tasmania. They grow beef cattle, some sheep, do agroforestry, have barley and some years grow peas. A lot of peas: about 400 tonnes a season.

And to protect the peas, they have some wildlife fences, but also have to shoot a lot of ­animals...read more>>>...