Join us this coming Tuesday night at Mei Ling’s

We will be at Mei Ling’s Vegetarian Chinese Restaurant this coming Tuesday night (November 27th) at 7:15 when we present them with a 2001 Vegetarian Awareness Month Award.

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When President Bush performed the annual pardon of a (a single) turkey, he told a story about how President Lincoln’s son Ted kept a pardoned turkey as a pet.  This year’s pardoned bird will live out its life in a Sanctuary named, ironically, Frying Pan Park.

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Did you know: The original Thanksgiving feast in 1621 occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11. Unlike our modern holiday, it was three days long. The event was based on English harvest festivals, which traditionally occurred around the 29th of September. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941). Abraham Lincoln had previously designated it as the last Thursday in November, which may have correlated it with the November 21, 1621, anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod.

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Thanksgiving gobbling saddens turkey lovers

"Nearly 100 million turkeys are winging their way to Thanksgiving tables, as part of the annual American feast -- but not Florence. "She lives in a Virginia-based sanctuary whose owner, Karen Davis, has spent the past ten years trying to persuade the American public that turkeys are ``more than a meal.''"

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PETA Calls for 'Compassionate' Thanksgiving

"Trading the Thanksgiving turkey for Tofu? That's what representatives from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals were urging Americans to do Tuesday.

""We are asking people to have a compassionate Thanksgiving by substituting turkey for one of the alternatives, like Tofurky, UnTurkey or Tofu Turkey," PETA spokesperson Bruce Friedrich said at Washington's Reagan National Airport."

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More than 200 vegetarians and omnivores [gathered] on Thursday to celebrate a turkey-free Thanksgiving Day and enjoy an all-vegetarian, gourmet meal at the Hyatt Regency Bethesda hotel in Bethesda, MD. Sponsored by the Vegetarian Society of the District of Columbia, the animal-product-free Thanksgiving Celebration [was] the largest such annual event in North America.

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On the 11/18 episode of The Simpson’s, the family ate a "turkey" made from tofu and gluten. New episode? Rerun?

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Animal Welfare, Animal Warfare

"From vegetarianism to sabotage, animal advocates are sending a message you might consider as you slice into that turkey.  The smell of 40 million slaughtered turkeys basted with butter and blood wafts through kitchens across the nation on Thanksgiving Day as American families gather to acknowledge their blessings amid an orgy of excess. "But the scene is different for animal activists:

Thanksgiving is both a day of mourning and an occasion to celebrate a cruelty-free lifestyle. While the pain and suffering endured by animals bred for food is deplored by people committed to changing the way we view other members of the animal kingdom, Thanksgiving also provides an opportunity for like-minded folks to get together and reaffirm their convictions."

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Mayo Clinic: Role of Soy in Promoting Heart Health Is 'Promising' As Research Continues on Benefits

In the latest edition of the "Mayo Clinic Heart Book," physicians and staff at Mayo note that in cultures where soy is the main source of protein, such as the dietary intake of many Asian populations, "rates of cardiovascular disease and some kinds of cancers are low." Increasing evidence shows that isoflavones, which are found in soy, can play a role in promoting health:

"Research shows that eating about an ounce (25 grams) of soy protein a day can reduce three important numbers in your lipid profile by about l0 percent," the book's authors said. The three "important numbers" are total cholesterol, LDL or "bad" cholesterol, and triglycerides. "Eating soy also may help improve your 'good' HDL cholesterol," the Mayo Clinic Heart Book recommends. While researchers aren't yet sure exactly how soy may lower cholesterol and triglycerides, the book says, "it's not difficult to substitute soy foods for animal products that are high in saturated fat and cholesterol."

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Curry may slow Alzheimer's

Turmeric is the crucial ingredient in curry that has this beneficial effect.

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ETERNAL TREBLINKA: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust is scheduled for publication in January, 2002.  If you wish to purchase an advance copy of the book, which will be available several weeks before the official publication date, please make out a check to "Charles Patterson" for $23 (includes postage and sales tax) and send it to:

Charles Patterson
545 West End Avenue--12D
New York, NY 10024

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 Can you pick your diet based on your blood type?
 This article says, "No.":

 http://cbshealthwatch.medscape.com/cx/viewarticle/405118
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 Nutrition and Breast Cancer

 Here is a lay article with a list of references at the end:

http://www.vegsource.com/articles/walsh_milk_cancer.htm#Email%20this%20article%20to
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 A place for "cool vegans" to meet. And share recipes

 http://www.coolvegan.com/index.html
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 "Hi!
 My name is Lucy Watkins. I'm a writer for Vegetarian Baby and Child Magazine. We are looking for the best places in the
 world for vegetarians to live and raise families. If you are interested in participating, please send
 an email to lucy@vegetarianbaby.com. We will send you  a questionnaire!! "
 =======.
 Invitation to the upcoming AVS/IPBN Conference from  "the notmilkman," Robert Cohen

 NOTMILK - - I COULD EAT A HORSE! ...Or so the expression goes. Actually, I could neither eat a horse nor a cow. Neither would I drink the body fluids of  horses or cows.

 Why do I mention the horse? February 12th marks the beginning of the 4699th Chinese New Year, so please make plans to join me in welcoming in the Year of the Horse! The problem with attending a convention based upon the principles of Chinese plant-based nutrition and cuisine is that thirty minutes after the final event, you feel like attending another conference!
 The opportunity has come to attend the most glorious of conferences, guaranteed to cure the doldrums of the winter of 2002. W.C. Fields once proposed that his tombstone be inscribed with this epitaph: "All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." In February, I'll be in Philadelphia! The city of "brotherly (and sisterly) love" will play host to the greatest Chinese nutrition conference in American history.

 We'll visit Chinese food production facilities (learn how tofu, noodles, and fortune cookies are made). We'll dine on the most delicious of vegetarian Chinese foods. We'll visit Chinese grocery stores and pharmacies that sell herbs and roots, seeds, and foods that have a 4,000-year history of providing the Chinese with lower rates of heart disease, cancer, and bone disease than Americans and Europeans. The conference is being organized by the American Vegan Society (Malaga, NJ) and the Institute for Plant Based Nutrition (Bala Cynwyd, PA). It runs from Friday, February 15th through Sunday, February 17th. One can attend any one, two, or all three days. Details will be found at: http://www.chinatownconference.com

 The master of ceremonies for the Saturday lectures will be Howard Lyman, the Mad Cowboy. Listen to the wisdom of T. Colin Campbell, America's greatest nutritionist and author of the China Study (the New York Times called this study the "Grand Prix" of
 nutritional studies). Hear Lawrence Kushi discuss Asian dietary patterns and the virtues of macrobiotic foods. Philosopher Rynn Berry places a historical perspective upon the roots of Chinese cuisine. Joel Fuhrman breaks down the components of those super Chinese foods that pave the way to longevity. Author Charles Chen relates his experiences as one of China's most esteemed "Barefoot Doctors." Some of the great meals that I've enjoyed have been in Buddhist restaurants, where soy bean curds and bean pastes are magically transformed into new foods resembling the tastes and textures of beef and chicken and fish.
 Learn Buddhist cuisine from one of the greatest of Buddhist temple chefs, Sui Kwan Tseng.

 There are many other speakers, myself included. Join me in Philadelphia! Guess what we'll be studying and eating? The cure to what ails you may be found by exploring the following remedy: Got dim sum? Let's compare European/American food, culture, and medicine to the Chinese way. On the so-called cultured European continent, physicians learned 400 years ago that the
 heart was responsible for circulating blood through the human body. For goodness sakes, the Chinese didn't learn this fact of physiology until, er, 2000 BC. Western civilization has taught its children that a "spoonful of sugar" helps the medicine go down. Such advice would make Chinese healers gag. Chinese would heal disease with food, such as wood ear (a tree fungus), and ginseng, whose magical roots grown high atop mountains, and sometimes fetch prices in excess of their weight in gold.

 When I attended America's premiere cooking school as a young man in 1976, students would spend the day learning the popular dishes of various nations and each evening's dinner offered classic dishes from the culture of one's choice. A student could request a meal from the French kitchen, with a Perigordine or Mousseline sauce, or freshly grated truffles on homemade pasta from the Italian kitchen. The most popular kitchen was Chinese, and the most often requested meal came from that overworked kitchen. Given the opportunity, Chinese food is usually my first choice. Even in my own neighborhood, I can count two dozen or more take-out Chinese restaurants within a two mile radius of where I live.

 My favorite Chinese cookbook was written by Joyce Chen, and the introduction to that book was written by the esteemed cardiologist, Paul Dudley White. How appropriate. Dr. White and other learned physicians recognize we are what we eat, and that the human body adores fuel based upon quickly sauteed and easy-to-digest green, red, yellow, and orange vegetables. I'm looking forward to seeing Bryanna Clark Grogan cook a recipe from her new cookbook, Authentic Chinese Cuisine. Maybe she'll autograph my copy -- and yours. For more information go to http://www.chinatownconference.com Also see http://www.americanvegan.org (click on Events) and http://www. plantbased.org If you still have questions about the International Conference on Chinese Plant Based Nutrition and Cuisine, contact Freya Dinshah of the American Vegan Society at
 856-694-2887.

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To join a mailing lists for local AR news and events, contact MFHSAA (Michigan Federation of Humane Societies and Animal Advocates) at harriss@voyager.net.