New from Kathy Freston

Author, lecturer, vegan, and Huffington Post blogger Kathy Freston has two new blog posts, both worth reading.

1. "Top 10 (Recent) Developments on Factory Farming and Vegetarianism."

In this article she highlights 10 recent developments in the world of animal welfare, things like Al Gore finally acknowledging the role of meat consumption on climate change, Martha Stewart promoting a vegetarian Thanksgiving, and others. One she could have left off—or cited as a negative development—was Cargill's new offering of a non-dairy cheese. Just what we need in the grocery store aisles—another collection of processed chemicals and "stuff" resulting in a non-food food product. Cargill's own press release doesn't say what's in it, only that it was produced by their patented "Lygomme ACH Optimum functional system." Sounds delish! Sorry, Kathy -- can't agree with you on this one.

2. "Flue Season: Factory Farming Could Cause A Catastrophic Pandemic."

This article is the transcript of Freston's interview with Dr. Michael Greger about his book Bird Flu—A Virus of Our Own Hatching (available to be read in its entirety online here). I'm a big fan of Dr. Greger who is a committed vegan and Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States. He is a published author in many scientific journals and has lectured widely on health and animal agriculture. He was even called as an expert witness in Oprah Winfrey's defense when she was sued by the "meat industry" for remarks she made about eating meat on her show (a case she won). Every year Dr. Greger surveys thousands of journal articles looking for the best research related to diet and health and presents the results in an annual DVD (three so far). (He comes at the research from a scientists perspective, but the conclusions in the research literature are always the same: a balanced, whole food, plant-based diet is healthiest.) He has a terrific, dry sense of humor and makes these annual DVD's really fun to watch. (Dr. Greger's web site is here.) In this interview with Kathy Freston he talks about how factory farming is a pandemic waiting to happen because of the ideal virus incubation conditions provided by the close confinement of animals.