- Details
- Denis Giles
- Hits: 4469
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
To understand how plant-based diets can affect your health, you have to understand how the bacteria in your intestine or gut works. The gut “microbiome” is the totality of microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and fungi present in the gastrointestinal tract.
The gut harbours the greatest density of microorganisms in the body (up to 1.5 kg of bacteria), with Firmicutes, Bacteriodetes and Actinobacteria constituting the dominant category of bacteria.
- Details
- Denis Giles
- Hits: 4533
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
I am hopeful that in my lifetime I am going to see a disruptive change in the eating and wearing of animal flesh. It is coming fast : the largest slaughter companies, and the largest investors in the world, have invested in laboratory created real meat (called clean meat) and milk. These meats are already in the market in countries like Singapore. Perfect Day, which makes milk cells, is on the market with yoghurt (under the label Smitten) that is made of animal free dairy. The Netherlands and Israel are far ahead in meat grown from in-vitro animals’ cell culture, instead of from slaughtered animals. Indeed, if clean meat would replace intensive farming as an industry standard, the benefits for the environment would be immense. As consumers, we would also have “cleaner” meat, meaning a product that doesn’t have the antibiotic residues and bacterial contamination that come with slaughtered meat. We would also save the lives of over 56 billion animals yearly. Yes, that’s the number of animals that are eaten every year by humans.
- Details
- Denis Giles
- Hits: 4701
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
When Britain’s largest bakery, Greggs brought, a vegan sausage roll into the market, it was attacked by a senior reporter as “Stalinist”, and the idea of having a vegan roll as “nauseating”. In India we never have this problem, because almost everyone at the top of society/media/government/sport/films is vegetarian. But all over the world hundreds of vegans/vegetarian can tell you horror stories about the reactions of “conservatives”. One study found that more than half of vegetarians had experienced discrimination, and nearly 10% of vegetarians said that family had severed contact with them because they didn’t eat meat. About the same percentage say they were not hired for jobs because of their diet.
- Details
- Denis Giles
- Hits: 12855
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
This is a controversial subject and I know it will attract allegations of communal bias. What puzzles me is: a Muslim urging his community members to stop killing and eating cows is lauded everywhere. If a non Muslim writes, they are immediately accused of inciting hatred.
But it is not meant in that spirit. Last month my team has raided markets all over Assam and found hundreds of cows and calves being killed in the open and sold by shops, like chickens in wayside shops. The police used the excuse of communal law and order to do almost nothing. Cow killing is banned in Assam and it is a BJP state, but no one takes action because of a fear of riots, and Assam kills as many cows as Kerala.
- Details
- Denis Giles
- Hits: 4217
Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
It's not just what you eat that is killing the earth and all its inhabitants. It is also what you wear.
Every time you buy an article of clothing you make a choice between the biosphere and the lithosphere. The biosphere is an agricultural field where cotton, linen (made from flax), hemp – even silk (mulberry trees) – are grown. Wool, though cruel in another way, is also grown. The lithosphere is the protective crust of the earth. Fossil fuels are extracted from this and turned into synthetic fabrics like polyester.