Work Fridges - what is reasonable?

[scullion]

symbiosis.

[suffolk]

I'd have thought it was a symbiotic relationship to the beneifit of both parties, whereas tapeworms etc are parasitic.

[StokeySue]

Surely Symbiosis is a two way street, neither side does as well without the other

[KC2]

Talking about gut bacteria, I'm sure I've asked this before but can't remember the answer

Is all yogurt by definition "live"? We usually get the kg pots of (full-fat) Onken which says it has "live cultures inside: lactobacillus acidophilus, streptococcus thermophilus and bifidobacterium lactis"
We bought a similar quantity of (full-fat) "Greek" yogurt at Lidl the other day, and it cost quite a bit less. It makes no claims re. live cultures.

The question is, is the Onken actually better for your gut bacteria or when it comes down to it, is one yogurt the same as another?

I'll try and remember the answer this time

[StokeySue]

Most yogurt other than long life is live, though the vigour of the culture varies, certainly almost all plain and Greek yogurts will start a fresh batch of yogurt

It’s very debatable what the optimum dose of friendly bacteria should be, and how much good it does you, so I’d be inclined to stick with it if you like it. Some people think you can in fact overdo it

[KC2]

That's interesting, Sue, I had no idea you could potentially overdo the friendly bacteria!
Thanks!

[miss mouse]

I think you can overdo anything with enough effort, the people who ate enough carrots to dye themselves for example.

[StokeySue]

The idea has been mooted that overdoing one kind of friendly bacteria, such as Yakult or Actimel or probiotic capsules means the bacteria in the supplement will crowd out all the other kinds, so that you will have a mono culture (like a lawn or a wheat field) where you should have a mixed, varied, biome (like a prairie or a meadow)

As ever, properly tested evidence is missing, but I do find it very plausible

Everything in moderation

[dennispc]

Professor Tim Spector believes in variety is good in terms of our gut bacteria.

Here’s a summary

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... d-your-gut

food for thought (forgive pun) as my daily salad is pretty much the same every day, only the protein varies, and morning muesli the same with some variation with fresh fruit.

Spector has tried most diets, veg, vegan, keto, pescatarian and all the others. His diet is basically plant, fish and occasionally meat, according to his book The Diet Myth.

If you want to know what your gut is like, here’s what to do,

http://britishgut.org/

[dennispc]

Should add, Spector is in favour of red wine and dark chocolate!

[earthmaiden]

Very interesting newspaper article dennispc. Thanks.

[PatsyMFagan]

Nice to know that I am already doing plenty right. I have lots of kefir grains going spare if anyone is interested in growing them to make their own milk kefir

[StokeySue]

Personally I find Tim Spector something of a monomaniac, he is losing support among his peers for brininging everything back to the biome
But there’s no doubt he knows a lot about it, and when he recommends a varied biome, I’d wager he’s right

[northleedsbhoy]

This popped up on my google chrome main page and is one example (if true because it came from the Daily Mail) of vegans taking thing a step to far in my opinion.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/arti ... -meat.html

Cheers
NLB

[earthmaiden]

... and I bet the vegan makes stinky curries ..

[Herbidacious]

Probably true, but if it's representative of anything, it's of a certain sort of (self-entitled) person, not of vegans. Any normal person (and vegans are 'normal' people), if they were that offended, would change their route. They clearly don't think along Utilitarian lines of though (Except they probably do, when they are one of the majority.)

I think publishing this bit of non-news is a bit of vegan bashing on the DM's part, designed to let those who disapprove, have their disapproval condoned and justified. I guess that's what the fridge example is doing too. Generally, vegans' and vegetarians' dietary habits do not infringe upon the behaviour and 'lifestyle' of omnivores', so you have no or few good grounds to disapprove. Giving examples of cases where their diet does have an impact gives grounds for unfettered disapproval.

I have seen a few jubilant articles about how bad for the environment alternative protein sources are too. These may be correct but no need to be so smug about it.

[StokeySue]

She sounds like the sort of person who buys a quaint cottage next to am 800 year old church then complains about the noise of the bells

[scullion]

how daft - why don't they run at a different time of day rather than trying to change a normal behaviour of the masses? - many of the new plant based foods may smell like real meat on a barbecue.
- yeah, sensationalism by a low grade news rag.

and complaining about being woken up by cockerels, sue.

[suffolk]

Because, as I said, part of the issue for some people is about exerting control over others. If they can control the actions of other people, in some folks’ eyes, that validates their own choices.

[StokeySue]

[Grasshopper]

I've read about Ms self-entitled too - just WHO does she think she is?
Anyway, going back to our pets and their diet, dogs CAN be given an omnivorous diet, at a push, altho their wild relatives are mostly carnivores. Cats, however, are obligate carnivores - they MUST eat meat! IMVHO anyone who wishes to feed a veggie/vegan diet to a cat should get a different pet.
Rant over.

Grasshopper

[uschi]

I think Suffolk is right, food, sex and religion are great ways of controlling others.

A friend of ours, while serving us a bake of vegetables and minced meat topped with real cheese , started to pointificate on the evil of milk products for one's health and so on. I kept my mouth shut and enjoyed the meal. If milk is bad for me, so be it, I don't smoke, drink very little and work out, so I must die of something. Milk, for me, is worth it.
Anyway, she had oats milk and almond milk in the fridge and offered us some (tried both before, but don't see the need for me) and while Axel pointed out, what large style almond farming in the US (where most almonds are produced) does to the enviroment, I tried to get the whole thing back to a slightly less serious tone and asked her how she could drink horses out of their main food source (I know, I know, it isn't true, but I thought it would be ridiculous enough to be seen as a joke). It didn't work, she was in crusade mode.

The really important thing is to look at all our food choices and try and work out how they impact on the environment and everything else. Oats, in Europe, should be fine, as they grow well here without too much intervention. Almonds in California use up more water than the area has to offer, so, for me, almond products should not make up a large part of my diet (I still bake with them, but that makes a few packets a year).
I do eat meat, but try to buy local organic when I can afford it. More difficult with fish.

Just a few random thoughts from an omnivore who does not eat meat every day, but loves her milk.

[earthmaiden]

Excellent observations Uschi. Had to smile at your friend's confusing outlook! Very hard to work out the ethically correct choices even if you don't factor in what you LIKE!!

[uschi]

I can only say that what I like is a big consideration for me. If I recon it is bad for the environment or me, then I try to use less of it. But I do like almonds, so I buy them in moderation. I would not mind them coming from places that are better suited to growing them, but so far I have not heard of alternative.
Mind you, one can't factor everything in, just sometimes one should stop and review a few things.
A bit like prejudices. An occasional review helps enormously.

[earthmaiden]

I agree about almonds and the way their use is being promoted with no thought of the consequences. I quite like almond milk but don't use it for the reasons given. Cows milk is more difficult, it is such a staple in most western diets but ethically isn't great for many reasons. I use it quite sparingly anyway and try to buy organic but that still leaves much unresolved!

[uschi]

We buy organic, too. As for the whole health story, there are so many conflicting studies out that I stick to milk products. I come from cow farming stock on my mother's side. That reminds me, time for my smoothie flavoured Kefir.

[PatsyMFagan]

[dennispc]

I'm sure it won't be long before being told, if we didn’t use animal products there'd be no Coronavirus.

[Grasshopper]

[uschi]

[dennispc]

Two thirds of the world’s population is lacto intolerant so don’t get their calcium from dairy. No idea where they do get it from.

Pick and choose health studies and anything is provable. Cheese is as addictive as cocaine (Barnard), a cure for cancer by avoiding certain food groups (Eselstyn) and eating foods that contain any cholesterol above 0 mg is unhealthy. (Campbell). All from published, peer reviewed, scientific papers.

[earthmaiden]

Surely the issue with milk is that it means breeding cows thus having to feed the cows and deal with unwanted male offspring as cheap meat or just 'disposal'. Plus the methane they all give off as well as inhumane conditions in which some are kept. The vegan stance (which has been around since at least the 70s) is that the food is grown and fed directly to humans and cut out the 'middle cow'.

This seems a valid argument - but not if it means concentrating on crops which require copious amounts of water in drought areas or pulling down rainforests (which shouldn't need to happen if less crops are grown to feed cattle). Sounds great on paper, a bit more complicated in reality!

[suffolk]

What about the large areas of grassy hillsides and lowland grazing meadows prone to winter flooding ... unsuitable for growing arable crops other than grass. Also ploughing up grassland releases carbon into the atmosphere just like cutting down rainforest does. Permanent grassland is good for the environment.

And there are other options for producing cows milk https://www.the-calf-at-foot-dairy.co.uk/# , but we’ve got to be prepared to pay for it.

[miss mouse]

[KC2]

[suffolk]

Fortunately there are now alternatives to Ivermectin for treating cattle parasites and these are much better for the environment (and beetles) too
http://llmfarmvets.co.uk/why-are-dung-beetles-so-good/

[earthmaiden]

I have no quibble with any of your comments but query whether the farming methods you all mention could be carried out worldwide with current scale of production. Have you seen those huge cattle 'farms' in the US? My own take on the problem is that people should eat less meat and only buy it properly reared. Usually the argument is that this is an elitist stance and denies poorer people the opportunity to have any. I feel it a poor reason not to do anything about the unsustainable/bad aspects of meat production.

[suffolk]

I think my response to that is that people should eat mainly what can be produced sustainably in their own locality. Not all farming practices are sustainable across the globe. Once upon a time diets were regional
... there was a reason for that ... they had to eat what they could produce, not what could be shipped or flown in from another hemisphere.

[miss mouse]

[dennispc]

The vegan belief, which has been around since the 1940’s, thinks it is immoral to kill animals. Making the same point to a vegan as Suff about grassy hillsides etc., he replied, but that doesn’t mean we have to kill them for our use.

In the UK about 67% of land is suitable for growing edible crops, assuming the weather is suitable for planting, which us why we import so much. Transportation produces carbon gas.

Plants need top soil, which is disappearing fast. Around us water running off the fields is brown - that’s top soil on its way to the sea side.

Ploughing releases green house gases from the soil - grow more plants, produce more gas.

Alongside farmers trying calves staying with mum, others are attempting to experiment with no ploughing techniques but it is small scale.

I’m certain the world can’t feed itself on just plants, even if no-plough farming proves successful, partly because, as I understand it, to absorb the amount of goodies we need only through plants means eating larger quantities. I’m out of my depth here, but I think that’s what Professor Key of Oxford University is saying. He’s a vegan and takes B12 every day.

Neither do I think the world should be consuming industrial scale meat - bad for health, bad for the planet and bad for the animals.

Some research is suggesting that methane, though potentially more powerful than carbon, doesn’t stay in the atmosphere that long.

https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/ ... tants-gwp/

[earthmaiden]

Of course, the real problem is population growth ... but we won't start on that topic .

[suffolk]

(Black humour alert )

That one might be solved before long EM

[PatsyMFagan]

[earthmaiden]

Mother nature has a way ...

[miss mouse]

[earthmaiden]

Thank you Miss Mouse, that's very interesting.

Of course, reduced population due to increased affluence doesn't mean use of resources will go down at the same rate.

I would just ask those who think we should revert to wild land and hunter gatherer lifestyles to look at the increase in population over the past 4000 years and explain how it will work nowadays, unless of course we revert to the same standards of healthcare and comforts. I do agree that taking a few steps back would be no bad thing, but it is so hard to decide how far back the steps should be taken.

I do think that nature will probably decide for us (and that we probably won't be so bothered about work fridges by then )

[uschi]

Keeping animals (for slaughter or for milk, wool, etc.) does produce manure. If handled correctly, this can produce energy (gas) and the leftovers are better for the soil than fresh slurry. I guess if more thought went into that side of the industry things could be much more sustainable than they are now. It used to work well in farming for centuries, and with today's means it might go even further.

[dennispc]

Enjoyed the Hans Rosling video, boy, he talks fast!

Laughed at your last sentence earthmaiden.

Haven’t come across anyone who thinks we should revert to hunter gatherer lifestyles.

[suffolk]

Maybe every cloud, no matter how dark, really does have a silver lining?

https://www.independent.co.uk/environme ... 84346.html