Eating to starve cancer

The connection between diet and cancer is hardly a new one. But some truly eye-opening and life-changing research is taking that idea to a whole new level. Basically the idea is this: cancer (and a slew of other diseases) are linked in an important way: they all involve excessive or otherwise defective angiogenesis (the process of forming new blood vessels). Thus, "curing" or preventing a number of these diseases--including many cancers--may require little more than "correcting" or controlling angiogenesis, something that has been accomplished not only through synthetic drugs, but also by including specific foods in our normal diets (see slide) (note also the connection with the discussion of "antioxidant" foods).

Listen to pioneer researcher in this field William Li as he lays out the theory and some of its implications--all in about 20 minutes!:


Another connection I'd like to see made--but that I haven't found much info on--is a possible relationship between animal protein (meat and dairy) to angiogenesis. More than a few folks (e.g. Colin Campbell in The China Study) have made pretty convincing cases connecting higher levels of animal protein consumption with the prevalence of many "diseases of civilization," including cancer. He and others go so far as to characterize animal protein as a "carcinogen" (focusing largely on aflatoxin and lab studies on the animal protein cassein). But aside from Campbell and a few others, I've been able to find little on this animal protein/cancer connection, leading me to be a bit suspicious on jumping to this conclusion.

Rather, it may well be that the connection between dietary animal protein and disease/cancer is more indirect; the more animal protein in your diet, the less "room" for anti-angiogenic foods (most of which come from plants rather than animals). This might imply that at least from a health perspective (obviously ethical/animal welfare and environmental impact issues still loom large), animal protein need not be entirely avoided to avoid the "diseases of civilization" so long as plenty of anti-angiogenic foods are consumed in the daily diet. Thus Michael Pollan's recent credo of "Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much" would be right on target.

Beyond binary meat-no meat thinking

Treehugger.com's Graham Hill gives a TED 6-minute speech on "Weekday Vegging," an attempt to move us beyond the "no meat" or "all meat" either/or thinking that often dominates discussions/thoughts on food choices.

Foer: Eating Animals...a decent read

Jonathan Safran Foer is getting plenty of attention with his recent book Eating Animals. It's definitely worth reading, although the well-read veg*n will find few new earth-shattering facts in this non-fiction foray for Foer. He is a writer writing about animal agriculture (AA), which leads to a better-reading product than an AA activist who happens to write. Extensively well-researched and using the most conservative statistics, he makes the strong and obvious indictment against AA, arguing among other things that if animal welfare is one's key concern over AA is animal welfare/suffering/cruelty, the most important AA product to give up is eggs based on the treatment of battery hens (making his "vegan-in-transition" position even more perplexing to his more strident vegan critics).

Critics of Foer's moderation score their points in terms of logical/intellectual consistency. But Foer responds (rightly) that improvement and change come in many ways for many people, and berating people for lack of 100% purity/consistency does little to make a dent in the AA Leviathon if it drives away folks who might otherwise make moderate (but meaningful) changes in their pattern of AA support/consumption.

And this is a point worth emphasizing. As supporters of the Meatless Monday campaign point out, the effect of Americans giving up meat for one day a week would be the equivalent (in terms of greenhouse gases reduced) of every American driving hybrid. I'll say that again. Every American driving a hybrid. That's fantasy-territory for green energy advocates (transitioning the entire US auto fleet to hybrid), but that could be accomplished overnight by simply foregoing meat one day a week. Of course there are other significant savings as well, including water use, gasoline consumption, etc. But the hybrid car correlation is striking. Foer gets that getting the average American to become veg*n is a stretch, but giving up meat one day a week? That's hardly revolutionary or radical.

By the way, here's an engaging reading/Q&A session with Foer in which he addresses topics from hunting to storytelling to why AA facilities are "petri dishes" for tomorrow's deadly diseases. Check it out.

A horse is a cow is a pig is a boy

So Jason Meduna has been found guilty of multiple counts of animal cruelty for his “care” of unwanted horses. From what I’ve seen this is a good result. ‘Not because he is a malicious or evil man. Meduna appears to be a well-intentioned but generally ignorant and stubborn man with a surplus of fantastic theories—character traits that if anything qualify him for a leadership post in the GOP and/or the Religious Right.

But the exhaustive (at least by the standard of “news” coverage here in Wyobraska) coverage of the “horse neglect trial” has been interesting. Is this some watershed event in Wyobraska consciousness about the treatment of non-human animals? Perhaps. But I suspect it has much more to say about the ongoing power of cowboy mythology and “culture” around here.

Cruelty from neglect does seem to legitimately pull at the public heartstrings. But with the exception of extraordinary cases like animal blood sport, other much more common and routine forms of animal cruelty are routinely ignored. Indeed they are sanctioned and trumpeted as part of our industrial food system.

Non-human animals do indeed suffer from our neglect far too often. But the majority of non-human animal suffering comes not from our neglect, but from our well-intentioned but misguided attention. Had Meduna focused his energies on meat/dairy animals raised in CAFOs, where animal treatment of virtually any kind is hidden from prying outside eyes, he would have been much better off. Cruelty from overcrowding, sickness and horrific conditions generally would have had him toasted by the local chambers of commerce (particularly in “livestock-friendly” counties like Morrill) rather than sweating over jury deliberations.

But it’s John Wayne and not Peter Singer who call the shots around here. Meduna’s conviction and sentence will be a small strike against animal cruelty. But the big picture—a picture undeniably one of large-scale non-human animal suffering—will change little.