Doctors from the US National Cancel Institute published a report that show how eating meat leads to higher risk of cancers. After studying 500,000 people aged from 50 to 71 for eight years, they diagnosed 53,396 cases of cancer.

The people in the top 20 per cent of eating processed meat had a 20 per cent higher risk of colorectal cancer - mostly rectal cancer - and a 16 per cent higher risk for lung cancer.

As reported in The Age this research only confirms what have been established in over a hundred epidemiological studies from many countries with
diverse diets.

The good new is that read meat is not proven to cause all cancers, eg gastric or bladder
cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, or melanoma. Is it any consolation?

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Armin Meiwes is a cannibal, at least he’s known as one for eating a man who didn’t have enough excitement in his life and volunteered for dinner.  When the court ordered a psychiatric examination for  Mr Meiwes they found that as a little boy Armin always wanted to eat his school mates. He resisted the urge for quite a while at least long enough to find someone willing to be eaten. Surely enough that last dinner brought Armin to prison. And now according to News.com.au Armin turned “vegetarian”,  

“He finds the idea of factory farming as distasteful as his crime was and now sticks to vegetarian dishes.” 

That’s surely appears more radical than any trasformationof a butcher or a chicken farmer into a vegetarian, but aren’t we jumping to conclusions. The guy is quoted as saying he doesn’t like factory farmed meat. This doesn’t mean he turned vegetarian voluntarily. There’s hardly a choice in jail even other inmates cannot be classified as organic food.

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Animal-derived ingredients are used in production of many alcoholic beverages. Most commonly the ingredients used are gelatine, egg white, milk protein. Until recently blood was added to some wines, however due to the outbreak of mad cow disease its use is now illegal. Alcoholic drinks rarely labelled with a list of ingredients and even if there was one anything that’s used in processing but didn’t make it in to the final products wouldn’t be listed. Many wine producers now realise that it’s not necessary to use animal derived ingredients. Many wines and beers are made cruelty free way and are suitable for vegans.

• List of beers suitable for vegans
• List of wines suitable for vegans
• List of Australian alcoholic beverages suitable for vegans or vegetarians

Technorati Tags: vegan, vegetarian, wine, spirit, alcohol, beer

UK’s Animal Friends Insurance (AFI) offers cheaper life insurance premiums to vegetarians. The insurer is offering this discount based on the assumption that vegetarians are a lot less likely to suffer from a variety of illnesses. The company estimates that “the risk of vegetarians suffering from cancers is reduced by up to 40% and from heart disease by up to 30%”.

If you don’t eat meat, then you could expect to save approximately 10% on your Life Insurance premiums for the entire life of your policy! For example a 30-year-old female non-smoker Non-Meat Eater could pay just over £5 a month for £100,000 worth of cover over 25 years!

By introducing this policy AFI plans to remove the unfairness in the insurance industry when only non-smokers get to pay cheaper premiums whereas vegetarians are not being rewarded in the same way for their healthier lifestyle.

Although there’s no medical test that would confirm that you’re a strict vegetarian, the insurer is confident that meat eaters will not take advantage of this.

AFI is a non-profit insurance company that donates net profits from it’s business to animal charities worldwide.

Technorati Tags: vegetarian, vegan, lifestyle, insurance, AFI, UK

We tried our best to stay away from being another “collection of vegetarian recipes” blog but we couldn’t resist sharing this little secret.

If you’re trying to lose fat or build muscle you probably asked yourself many times if there’s a low carb, high protein snack that you can take with you anywhere. Can we find anything that does not come in a shake or a sweet bar form?

Here it goes - vegetarian jerky.

Ingredients

500g firm tofu (the firmer the better)
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 clove fresh garlic (crushed)
2 tablespoons liquid smoke
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon onion powder

Preparation

Cut the tofu into 1/2 inch think strips. Prepare marinade by thoroughly mixing in all the remaining ingredients in a bowl. Place the strips into the bowl ensuring that every piece is completely covered in the marinade. Let them soak for at least 8 hours, stir occasionally.

Place the strips to dry into a food dehydrator or a conventional oven at 200°F / 90°C. Rotate the strips regularly. The strips should be ready and chewy within 6-8 hours.

Other things you might want to try

• Use gluten instead of tofu.
• Use any other spices you like, eg Italian herb mixes (oregano, basil, rosemary etc) could work well
• The soy sauce, depending on the variety, might already have enough salt. In that case, be careful with adding salt separately.

Need more ideas for cooking healthy vegetarian meals? Check out Vegetarian Cooking Made Easy.