BECOMING A VEGETARIAN - part 2

For me (and my family), going to the grocery store is not an errand; it is an exciting excursion that I anticipate and for which I prepare recipes, shopping lists, and weekly schedules.  Food is an important part of my life.  I am not obsessed with food in an unhealthy manner, rather I enjoy food and feel fulfilled by making healthy choices and by preparing nourishing meals.  It is like going on vacation to walk into Whole Foods or Raley’s or New Seasons (depending on my current location).  There are some grocery stores that just seem to understand and share my joy about food.

Food itself is a bonding agent.  People sit together during meals and, often, end up sharing food.  Along with sharing the food is the sharing of concepts, ideas, and beliefs.  It is a feature of human nature that we tend to share facts (issues, blessings, and progress) of our personal lives best when we share a meal with people we like.  And I, like everyone else, I’m sure, have had my share of meals with people whom I don’t feel comfortable about sharing my personal details. Do you know what I least want to do around them?  Eat.

Yes, food is the most essential aspect of stewarding our bodies.  The important thing to remember about the grocery store is that it doesn’t tell you how to prepare a healthy diet for yourself.  You need to study these things and learn what you need ahead of time.  The most confounding thing about vegetarianism can be that it is an umbrella term for many types of diets.  For ease of transition, you can learn their definitions here:

Pollo-vegetarian:  includes poultry and plants.

Pesco-vegetarian (pescatarian):  Includes fish and plants.

Lacto-ovo-vegetarian:  includes eggs, dairy products and plants.

Lacto-vegetarian:  includes only dairy products and plants.

Ovo-vegetarian: includes eggs and plants.

Vegetable vegetarian (Popularly known as Vegan): omits all animal products from the diet, including honey and gelatin.  Also omits all animal products from every area of life, choosing to use nothing that comes from animals including leather, silk, and wool.

Raw Vegan (Raw Food Diet):  same as Vegan, except foods are not cooked above 115 degrees Fahrenheit/46 degrees Celsius because of the belief that foods lose their nutritional value above this temperature.

Natural Hygeine Diet:  includes minimal meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy products.  Also minimizes the use of added oil, salt, and sugar.  Processed foods are discouraged.  Emphasizes the uncooked, unseasoned, natural state of food products.  Honors the natural balance of vitamins and nutrients found in plants.

Macrobiotic Diet:  includes the vegan diet plus fish.  Excludes sugar and refined oils.  Highly emphasizes the value of vegetables harvested from the sea.

Fruitarian: includes only raw fruit and possibly nuts and grains.  Fruit may be eaten naturally, juiced, or dehydrated.

Juicearian:  includes only raw fruit and vegetable juice.

Sproutarian:  includes only plant sprouts.


The best things about vegetarianism is that there is much personal choice involved in deciding which version of vegetarianism is best for each person, and vegetarianism does not have to be committed to one-hundred percent of the time.  I myself am closest to the natural hygiene diet, but I still eat chicken regularly and indulge in hamburgers and hot dogs a couple of times per summer at the traditional extended family barbecues.

It is important to remember that any amount of change toward sustainability is a positive change for both personal health and the environment.

By Emily Spesert


1.  “The Healthy Vegetarian.” https://www.msu.edu/user/daenzerr/rd491/types.htm
2. Hackett, Jolinda.  “Top 7 Types of Vegetarians.”  http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/tp/TypesofVeg.htm
3. “Natural Hygiene Diet.”  National Health Association and the American Natural Hygiene Society. http://www.healthscience.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=21&Itemid=86
4. “Fruitarian.” http://www.fruitarian.com/
5. “Fruitarian, Juicearian, and Sproutarian.” http://www.naturalhealthbuzz.com/fruitarian-juicearian-sproutarian.html

We are not alone.

I have discovered some interesting resources that have recorded some of the research that other people have done on our topic of vegetarianism versus hybrid technology.

Before I address these though, I would like to describe an article by David Pye.  Although he does not write in length about hybrids, he does address the issue of environmentalists he knows choosing to not also be vegetarians.  It seems that in his experience, the choices vegetarian or hybrid technology are mutually exclusive.  His article is titled: “Why environmentalists are not vegetarians.”  Pye has included some information that is very relevant to our project:

The European parliament has stated that ‘Europe can feed its people but not its animals’. Europe imports 70% of its protein for animal feed this is on top of using large proportions of its own arable land. Much of these imported feedstuffs come from countries suffering from poverty or environmental degradation. 95% of world soyabean production is used for animal feed. In the UK, 39% of our wheat, 51% of our barley and 75% of our total agricultural land is used to feed animals. Worldwide one third of grain production is used for animal feed.

Additionally, I found an article abstract that states “The average animal-based diet in the United States generates about 1.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide more per person per year than a plant-based diet yielding the same amount of calories.”  

These percentages and comparisons are astounding.  This translates into the fact that most of what farmers grow is fed to animals.  Essentially, we are using up most of our resources as humans (land, air, water, labor) on animals.  In the realm of this project, it would seem that vegetarian choices are more sustainable than carnivorous choices simply because there is no “middle man” involved.

Other articles I have found include statements in their abstracts such as “going vegan is 50 percent more effective in decreasing greenhouse gas emissions than using a hybrid car,” and “becoming a vegetarian would save more greenhouse gas emissions a year than switching to a hybrid car.”  Certainly our cohort is not the first to think about this topic, and surely our cohort is validated by these scientific studies in our majority opinion that vegetarianism, in the year 2010, is more environmentally sustainable than hybrid technology.

By Emily Spesert


1. Pye, David.  “Why environmentalists are not vegetarians.”  http://www.ivu.org/congress/2002/texts/david2.html
2. Nierenberg, Danielle.  “Eat Vegetables, Save Energy.” http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=105&sid=34948c0f-ba77-4fdb-aa9d-10550be199b7%40sessionmgr112&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=21169125
3. Redwood, Jill.  “Vegetarians help avert climate change.” http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=105&sid=3f45cf7b-7ffd-4977-a6f6-637f171e75e8%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN =36811302
4. McKIBBEN, BILLI.  “The only way to have a cow.” http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=105&sid=28835a51-fa7b-4358-96de-54a3bd198909%40sessionmgr110&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=hgh&AN=48873156

Why Hybrids over just straight Bio-Fuels?

I have watched a few shows discussing the future of cars and most experts on these shows state that Hybrid cars are not perfected yet and by the time they are other more efficient methods will be used in our automobiles. For example Methane or Hydrogen powered cars will probably be the most cost effective solutions in the future. 


I have always been interested in a Bio-fuel car more than a hybrid mainly based on how much money could be saved with a bio-fuel car, Honda has made a Bio-fuel car that runs on Methane that would cost only 1.25 for each gallon of fuel. Methane is also very friendly to the environment by releasing very little Co2 and can be made from from any organic substance, so the supply would be pretty much limitless.


 It is interesting that all this time and money has been put into hybrid cars, when other methods for fueling cars that are way greener and cost effective have actually been successfully implemented. I guess the reason those have not caught on are probably a mixture of Big oil companies using their influence to downplay the effectiveness of this type of fuel, and also the fact that if you bought one you would probably have to produce the fuel yourself with an at home kit and therefore your range would be limited, that is kind of the reason I stopped researching possibly buying one a few years ago, but I def would look into it again once I owned my own home.


 So I guess the point of this train of though is that if I were to choose to invest in a green car, I wouldnt want to choose to invest in a hybrid which has A not been perfected and B not even up to par with biofuel technologies that have been implemented in cars but not caught on for whatever reason. So while the concept of driving a hybrid is good, and if they were to improve them even more so they eventually could be as beneficial for the environment as going vegetarian, the fact that it is a "hybrid" makes me adverse to investing in it as there is still some portion of the automobile that depends on a finite resource that is not only bad for the environment, but costs a grip.


What do you guys think, why have cars that operate on Methane or other Bio-fuels not been as heavily pushed and marketed as Hybrids?


David Doyle

Portland, Plug-In

By Peter Choi

I was jogging in downtown one afternoon when I came upon the picture above. First I almost ran passed it but when I saw a orange cord like rope coming out of a car my gauge of curiosity spiked. I stood there for about a minute trying to figure out what I was looking at. Then I remembered reading a article on the news about cars being charged and running only on electricity. When I was reading that article I laughed to myself thinking that the day that happens will probably after we've consumed all the fossil fuel on this planet. But it was already happening and of all the cities Portland. So I did a little research to see what was really going on.

According to Kimberly Melton from the Oregonian, Portland contributed to the green movement by opening Portland General Electric's first charging stations for electric vehicles. These charging stations are located in the parking garage of the two World Trade Center in downtown Portland. It is also the first of 2000 planned to be developed and distributed all across Oregon homes and public places.

These charging stations fully charge the car in about 20-30 minutes, which is the projected amount of time where an individual goes to get coffee or lunch. Nissan leaf was the car demonstrated on the charging machines, which is the new plug in hybrid that already has 17,000 reservations of the car. This is a $33,000 car but with a little tax break, it drops the car to $23,000. The Nissan leaf also gets 100 miles to a charge which is more than enough to drive around the city and perhaps longer road trips.

On top of this Portland State University was among one of the 5 cities that received the first plug in hybrid from Toyota in June. Toyota have decided that Portland is a city that has a wide range of weather conditions and the sensitivity to mixed mobility, which Toyota hopes to be in their future.

No longer are the maybes and what ifs the questions we need to dwell upon. The future is here and we have proven that we have the technology to make an impact on our environment. No longer do we need to depend on fossil fuel and gas for transportation but charging stations that free our air of pollutants and low emissions created from these plug-in hybrid cars. Unlike hybrid cars, plug-ins are all electric and do not have a gas powered motor. It is solely powered by electricity and the miles per charge that it receives from a 20-30 minute wait is extraordinary. We change our minds and our perspectives to understand and absorb this new technology. The technology will continue to advance and with the people supporting the change to sustainability, it will only be a matter of time when our reliance on fossil fuel for transportation will be nonexistent.

http://www.kgw.com/news/business/Prius-Plug-in-gets-tested-at-PSU-95649089.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/08/oregon_unveils_its_first_quick.html
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/4215489
http://www.pluginamerica.org/index.shtml

Save a cow, eat a vegetarian

By Peter Choi,

Save a cow, eat a vegetarian. This was a bumper sticker that I saw driving one day that had me laughing for a couple of minutes. But it also made me think. I've been a carnivore all my life and usually don't eat when there is not meat in my dish. To think of breaking this ritual habit and only eating plants all my life was a very difficult decision. Through much contemplation and nights without sleep, I decided to go a week without eating meat. Now this decision was not from a guilt trip of killing cows and all the animals that I have digested, but from what I learned from my class regarding vegetarianism and the benefits to our environment. Here are some as follows

1. It takes a lot more energy to produce meat than to produce plant crops.
2. Producing meat takes a lot more water than producing plant crops.
3. It takes many more units of plant crops to produce one unit of meat.
4. Grazing cattle is a big contributor to loss of topsoil.
5. Tropical rain forest is cut down for meat production.
6. A balanced vegetarian diet is healthier.
7. A vegetarian diet costs less money. (yes when grocery shopping but about the same when eating out.)
8. It can be delicious.(Please note can)


To keep my story short and not to bore the readers of my days in agony, it is possible for an individual to change their diet but requires great patience. It was difficult for me after the first two days. The first day was cake until I reached the third day. I began by researching what my options were on what I can eat and how I can go about substituting my meat heavy diet. Although I like meat I also can't eat a meal without vegetables, so my strategy was to simply substitute the meat with meat like produce (mushrooms, tofu, potato, etc.). 
Tofu and mushrooms were a great substitute because it had the meat like texture and kept met full after a meal. I also begin trying veggie burgers and other products. Boca Burgers offers a full range of vegetarian meals that simple substitute the meat. For example, there are Boca burgers, Boca chik'n burgers, breakfast and entrees all made from soy based products. This gave me hope thinking I would be able to survive my goal. They test great and actually taste like meat. But as time passed by I could not kill my resistance in wanting meat. To simply summarize, I was not able to finish my full 7 days and broke down on the 5th day, on a family dinner when my father just so happened to choose a steak house for dinner. What I believe the important moral behind is this. We don't have to be vegetarian 24/7 to make a impact in our environment. Eating vegetarian meals twice or three times a week will still help our environment with out feeling guilty every time we eat a hamburger. In order to change we need to move. In order to move we need to know. I believe that we know by now that the more we move the more we are able to change. I recommend all to try a vegetarian meal because not everyone can afford a $25,000 hybrid to help the future of our environment. 

The Vegetarian Myth

By, Peter Choi 

Written by Lierre Keith, the Vegetarian Myth is one of the most controversial books regarding vegetarianism written by a ex-vegetarian. A radical environmentalist, Keith takes on vegetarianism with a different perspective that seems to lead her mailbox filled with hate mails. On the other hand it is very refreshing and interesting to here the story of these myths giving the credibility of Keith's past. Keith has been a vegetarian for 20 years before her realization and is given great trust with her background. With all the veggies vs. meat aside, the book goes in depth to reveal more than the issue of vegetarianism but how our food is processed. 

In a nut shell argues 3 basic principles throughout the book: 

1) Vegetarianism will damage your body. It damaged mine. 

2) Our bodies are made to eat meat.

3) Converting to a vegetarian or vegan diet isn’t healing the planet if all you’re doing is eating veggies, fruit, and annual grains grown by large and distant megafarms, as most food is—even the stuff at the “natural” food store.

She also emphasizes how there needs to be balance in our ecosystem. For example, cows were not meant to eat grain but grass while on the other hand our bodies are able to digest grain but not eat grass or other cellulose based materials. There is a balance in natural in where one has to die in order for others to survive. Vegetarians may believe that they are vegetarian but in fact we may all be connected by nature's system and how meat is actually involved in many of plantations and their processes. For example, plants need certain nutrients in order to survive and ironically can only come sustainably from the manure and decomposition of animals at some point. Once again emphasizing the meat presence in our ecosystem. Finally there is another example with the apple and the see. When we eat a apple we consume it and throw away the seed to be decomposed or destroyed. What we do with the apple eaten is, in most cases, digest it naturally decompose the apple and release it. The point here is that there is a purpose behind the apple and why it was eaten. We need to know all the different perspectives before making a decision and this book definitely widens our peripherals for the decisions we need to make to sustain our environment. 

http://www.utne.com/Environment/Are-Vegetarians-Living-a-Lie.aspx

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/blogs/398/The-Vegetarian-Myth.html

Quick Hybrid Cars history

1839: Robert Anderson of Aberdeen, Scotland built the first electric vehicle.

1886: historical records indicate that an electric powered taxicab using a battery with 28 cells and a small motor. It was introduced in England.

1897: The London Electric Cab Company began regular service using cars which has a 40 cell battery with 3 horsepower electric motor. This was designed by Walter Bersey.

1899: The Pope Manufacturing company merged with two smaller electric car companies to from the Electric Vehicle Company. They were the first American automobile industry with $200 million assets.

1900: American car companies made about 1600 steam, 1500 electric and 900 gasoline cars.

1904: The Electric vehicle Company built 2000 taxicabs, trucks, and buses and set up subsidiary cab and car rental companies from New York to Chicago. In the same year, Henry Ford overcome the challenges posed by gasoline powered cars and began assembly line production of low prices, lightweight, gas powered vehicles. In few years, the Electric Vehicle Company failed.

1913: Steam and electric cars were almost completely wiped out. Both of their sales dropped dramaticly while Ford was gaining market share with the gasoline cars.

1920 – 1965: Electric and hybrid cars were used as alternative cars to become the province of backyard tinkerers and small time industrialists.

1966: US Congress introduced first bills recommending the use of electric vehicles as a means of reducing air pollution.

1969: A very light weighted experimental hybrid car called the GM 512 ran entirely on electric power up to 10 miles per hour.

1974: Engineer Victor Wouk and Charlie Rosen created a prototype hybrid gas electric vehicle using a Buick Skylark body as a part of the Federal Clean Car Incentive Program.

1977 – 1979: General Motors spent over $20 million in electric car development and research reporting that electric vehicles could be in production by the mid of 1980s.

1989: Audi unveiled the first generation of the Audi Duo experimental vehicle. The car had 12.6 horsepower electric engine. A nickel cadmium battery supplied the energy.

1991: The United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), a department of energy program, launched a major program to produce a “super battery to get viable electric vehicle on the road as soon as possible.

1992: Toyota motor Corporation announced the ‘earth Charter”, A document outlining goals to develop and market vehicles with the lowest emissions possible.

1997: Toyota Prius was introduced to the Japanese market. The first year sales were nearly 18,000 units.

1997: Audi became the first manufacturer in Europe to take a hybrid vehicle into volume production.

1999: Honda released the two door Insight which is the first hybrid car to hit the mass market in the US.

2000: Toyota released the Toyota Prius which is the first hybrid four door sedan cars available in the United States.

2002: Honda introduced the Honda Civic Hybrid, its second commercially available hybrid gasoline electric car.

2004: Toyota Prius II launched and won 2004 car of the year awards from Motor Trend Magazine and the North American Auto Show.

2004: In September, Ford released the Escape Hybrid, the first American Hybrid and the first SUV hybrid.


http://www.hybridcars.com


Abdulrahman Al-Homaid