VSS eNewsletter 19 January 2010
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19 January 2010 |
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| VSS NEWS Volunteering with VSS Fund-Raising/Event-Organising Companies Needed VSS CD Helps Start Veg Organisation in Bangladesh The VSS InBox – Coping at Non-Veg Eateries Letter to ST – Unpublished GENERAL NEWS Great Recipes and Much More in the Dec09 and Jan10 Issues of VegVibe Want One More Reason to Stay Away from Meat? Chef Oh Does Strawberries – 22 Jan Ami’s Latest Line-up of Classes Workshop Combines Raw Food and Yoga – 30 Jan Vegetarian Strongman Dies at 104 in Car Accident Meat Eating Will Go the Way of Whaling – A Prediction from Oz ‘Animals & Us’ from BBC Radio Meatless Mondays in ST Vegan Food Relief for Haiti |
Will meat eating one day be frowned upon by society? Philip Wollen, of the Kindness Trust certainly thinks so. But no need to wait, sign up for a veg cookery class today and live a wiser, healthier and kinder life. Dr George M Jacobs If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to drop us a line here. Subscribe to this newsletter here. Unsubscribe here Visit us at www.vss.sg |
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Volunteering with VSS |
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To make it easier for people who would like to volunteer with VSS, we now have a form that you can use: http://www.vegetarian-society.org/node/260?q=contact  Top |
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Fund-Raising/Event-Organising Companies Needed |
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As we don’t have enough volunteers to do all the things we’d like to do, we are look for companies that can, for a fee, help us to organise events and help us raise the funds needed for those events and other projects we do to raise awareness of the great need to move away from meat. If you have had positive experiences with companies in those two spheres, please send their contact info to info@vss.sg Thx Top |
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VSS CD Helps Start Veg Organisation in Bangladesh |
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At the recent Asia for Animals Conference 2010, here in SG, we met the founder of the Vegetarian Club of Bangladesh: Mr Ataur Rahman Miton. Miton is also Country Director for Hunger Free World - www.hfwbd.org Hunger Free World helps 200 organic farmers, gives scholarships for girls, provides food to two primary schools, gives people loans to do small business. Miton became veg about two years ago after seeing VSS’s SEEDS CD, which contains videos by VIVA and PETA, two organisations based in the UK and US, respectively. If you’d like to help: hfw2021@gmail.com |
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The VSS InBox – Coping at Non-Veg Eateries |
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Recently, two readers emailed VSS about the difficulties communicating with staff at non-veg eateries. Here’s one of the emails and our reply. Reader: I wonder if the vegetarian society has any list of non-vegetarian restaurants that has vegetarian options? We are having our section annual lunch and (desperately) looking for a Halal restaurant that serves vegetarian options to cater to Muslims, vegetarians and non-vegetarians...in city area, which is not very easy! Any help would be much appreciated. In my experience, almost every non-veg restaurant has veg options, especially if you call ahead. After all, if they don’t satisfy your request, they don’t get your business. Be sure to specify exactly what you mean by vegetarian, as there are many definitions. Reader replies: I prefer restaurants that with vegetarian options available on the menu, as they are usually more vegetarian friendly and staff have some knowledge on vegetarianism. I have experiences whereby the chefs are totally clueless on how to cook up a nice dish without meat. They just throw in like 4 strands of vegetable in your fried rice and it's so *boring*. I have also found ham and fish cake, among other stuff in the "vegetarian" food even though I have told them no meat, no seafood blah blah :-) Once again, thank you for sharing your tips on dining at non-veg restaurants. VSS replies: I enjoy dialoguing with you. Someone else wrote in with a similar experience. Maybe we should have something in VSS eNewsletter about it. Also, we’ve written to NEA for their advice. |
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Letter to ST – Unpublished |
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A VSS member sent the following letter to The Straits Times, but to date it has not been published. I REFER to “The spectre of a health pandemic” (Jan 6) by Ho Kwon Ping. If we want to breathe easier about the possibility of a major pandemic killing millions of people, as did the bubonic plague and the Spanish flu of previous centuries, we need to look at the causes of 21st century pandemics. Dr Michael Greger, MD, Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture for Humane Society International, is one of many investigators who traces SARS, bird flu and H1N1 (swine flu) to the way that we produce our meat: http://www.hsus.org/farm/news/ournews/ Public health experts have long warned of the risks created by these factory farms. For instance, in 2003, the American Public Health Association, the world’s largest and oldest association of public health professionals, called for a moratorium on new factory farms: www.apha.org/advocacy/policy/policysearch/ To sleep easier during the next ten years, we can reduce the risk of catastrophic pandemics by reducing our meat consumption. Eating less meat will also address two other major worries confronting the planet in the new decade: intensifying global warming, with livestock accounting for 18% of human produced greenhouse gas emissions; and increased rates of cancer, stroke, heart disease and diabetes, all of which are linked to diet. |
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Great Recipes and Much More in the Dec09 and Jan10 Issues of VegVibe |
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The latest issues from our friends at VegVibe, the locally produced online veg magazine, features the usually tasty mix of information and advice, including climate change myths, tips of visiting Manila and insights into the minds of meat eaters. Among the recipes are shepherd’s pie, persimmon and cranberry jelly, roasted cauliflower and leek soup mixed greens salad with citrus dressing and bean patties with lemon tahini sauce. Be careful when reading the mouth watering recipes and looking at the photos of the dishes – slippage from excessive mouth watering can damage your computer! Here are the urls for the Dec09 and Jan10 issues: http://vegvibe.com/VegVibeDec09.pdf |
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Want One More Reason to Stay Away from Meat? |
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Here’s an article that describes in horrific detail some of the infections that animal based food can carry: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/ |
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Chef Oh Does Strawberries – 22 Jan |
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Oh Chong Fah has done many classes and workshops on veg cooking. His latest features strawberries. You might have seen him demonstrating veg dishes last year on Channel 8’s morning news show. I would like to share this event/workshop with all VSS friends, the course fee is "super cheap" (heavily sponso red by the Korean Agro-Trade Centre to promote their strawberry). When: Fri, 22 Jan, 7-9pm Menu: Plus: Free bunnet of Korean strawberry for participants. |
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Ami’s Latest Line-up of Classes |
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Workshop Combines Raw Food and Yoga – 30 Jan |
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On Sat, 30 Jan, 2-4pm, the ancient art of Yoga is combined with Living Foods for an afternoon of Detoxification and Rejuvenation. This unique workshop, led by Linda Loo who has worked with VSS in the past, consists of a specially written set of Asanas (yoga postures)and Pranayams (breathing techniques) designed to flow in a certain pattern to cleanse the body, detoxify impurities and re-start the body's natural metabolism. Details at http://rawfoodlifestyles.com/courses Towards the end of the session, you will learn an easy 10 min set for regular detoxification and maintenance which you can do on your own after the workshop. Included is an organic smoothie meal. This event will jump start as well as regulate the body's internal detoxification process, so that you can brace yourself for the rainstorm of Festive Goodies! |
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Vegetarian Strongman Dies at 104 in Car Accident |
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Another incredible example that we needn’t eat meat to be strong: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/ nyregion/12ironman.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/11/ joe-rollino-dead-104yearo_n_419269.html Top |
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Meat Eating Will Go the Way of Whaling – A Prediction from Oz |
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Philip Wollen, of the Kindness Trust - http://www.kindnesstrust.com – based in Australia, sends the following prediction. Does it make sense to you? Have you seen similar changes in your lifetime or the lifetimes of your parents/grandparents? Times change - Australian meat will soon be as dead as Australian whaling In the 70's, I was called a "communist" (???? huh ??) when I criticized Australia's whaling industry. After all, it was a massive industry at the time. 1. Remember, this was a time when Australia murdered 20 times as many whales as Japan does today? The world changes - sometimes too slowly - but it does change. The same is true about the hideous, filthy meat industry. . . . . and that includes beef, dairy, wool, kangaroos, poultry, fishing and hunting. Have I left anything out? By 2050, meat eating will be considered gauche, unhealthy, cruel and sick. It will be seen in the same way as female genital mutilation, incest, and drug trafficking. (Many of us already do!!) People will be ashamed to be meat eaters and animal abusers. |
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‘Animals & Us’ from BBC Radio |
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BBC Radio recently aired a series of shows entitled ‘Animals & Us’. No worries if you missed it; you can listen online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/ p005k2zy/One_Planet_Animals_and_Us Top |
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Meatless Mondays in ST |
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On Sat, 16 Jan, The Straits Times, p. A34, had an article titled ’16 ways to cut 16 per cent’, referring to how SG can reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One of the 16 suggestions was to go meatless on Mondays. Some useful stats were provided: a. Producing just 1kg of beef leads to the same quantity of GHG emissions as driving a car 250km. There’s also a poll along with the article. Why not take part? Quoting from the article: |
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Vegan Food Relief for Haiti |
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Food for Life Global - www.foodforlife.org - provides vegan food relief for disaster victims, including those in Haiti. They also have regular programmes that make a small dent in the world’s disgraceful hunger problem. Meat production exacerbates this problem by diverting food to the inefficient meat industry. Top |
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