Friday, March 12, 2010

The Difference Between Ellen and Oprah

Not being a big fan of either Ellen Degeneres or Oprah Winfrey, I still watched both their shows this week (Ellen on Wednesday, Oprah on Thursday) because both were partially (Ellen) or totally (Oprah) devoted to current food issues. I noted in a Wednesday post how Ellen, a vegan, featured Jonathan Safran Foer and discussed his book, Eating Animals.

Not to be outdone (is this coincidence, or do these daytime divas keep up with each others' productions schedules?), Oprah devoted her entire Thursday show to "food." Her guests were Michael Pollan (omnivore), Alicia Silverstone (vegan), and Steve Ells (omnivore), founder of the 900-location Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant chain.

Pollan took his predictable position atop the political fence by continuing to promote an omnivorous diet (he knows better), along with Ells (not surprising—though he is noted for refusing to buy animal products from factory farms, which is good for the animals right up until their throats are cut, as one observer has noted). Silverstone was funny, winsome, and focused without being preachy—I was impressed with her. (I haven't read her new book, The Kind Diet).

What amazed me the most was Oprah's continuing role of not taking a stand. She dramatized her ongoing fear of the meat industry by refusing to comment on eating meat—a reference to the high-profile suit brought against her several years ago by the cattle industry for saying on her show she would never eat another burger in light of the fear of Mad Cow Disease (in a conversation with guest Howard Lyman), a suit which she won, by the way. She has received the best information on diet and health available through a variety of vegan guests, and even went on a 21-day vegan cleansing regimen vis-a-vis Kathy Freston, but still won't commit to a diet that is best for her, for animals, and the planet. It sort of calls into question her commitment to "live your best life now."

I understand her role as "all things to all people," but that doesn't mean not taking a stand and choosing what is best instead of being afraid to offend. When the apostle Paul declared his desire to "be all things to all people" it was in order "that he might save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22). By contrast, Alicia Silverstone was a good example of a person with a focused, unwavering position who was able to present it in a way that respected others' views without compromising her own.

In this week's face-off, I give the nod to Ellen for her willingness to use her show to encourage her vegan point of view instead of presenting a buffet of views to the audience and telling them to make up their own mind, à la Oprah.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

View from My Desk

My neighbor's large (pin?) oak tree—about 50 feet from my desk—is an on-ramp to the hardwoods canopy where the neighborhood squirrels spend their day in frantic activity. This morning, this little guy stopped for a moment's repose, long enough for me to catch him displaying a contemplative look: "What will I do today? Gather acorns or gather acorns?" My desk faces the window and I get to enjoy the wildlife all day with a simple tilt of my eyes from the computer screen to the natural screen framed by my windows. Nice.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

New Kathy Freston Interview

In the past I've posted the links to the series of excellent interviews author Kathy Freston is conducting with leading plant-based M.D.'s. (You can find the previous links by using the "Search" function on this blog.)

She posted her latest interview today, this time with Dr. Dean Ornish, one of the earliest and most-well known pioneers in applying (plant-based) dietary protocols to cardiac disease. But in this interview he and Freston discuss weight loss. Freston blogs at HuffingtonPost.com, and you can read this interview here.

Vegan Ellen

Ellen Degeneres has become quite the vegan activist since changing her diet two years ago. She's had vegan chefs on the show and today had novelist Jonathan Safran Foer on for the second time to talk about his New York Times bestseller, Eating Animals. Degeneres changed her diet as a result of reading Foer's book as have (apparently) quite a few people. Nice going, Ellen!

Monday, March 8, 2010

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, emeritus professor of bio-nutrition at Cornell University and author of The China Study, has probably done more to establish the scientific credibility of plant-based nutrition than anyone. I was listening to a lecture by him today and he made an amazing point about how the body miraculously (my word) knows how to process the hundreds of thousands or millions of chemicals (he said we have no idea how many chemicals there are in whole foods) that it receives from whole plant foods in just one meal. And why synthetic "nutritional" supplements can never be a substitute for whole plant foods.

Say we take in just one chemical in a bite of food. When it reaches the stomach the body knows which enzymes to act on it to transform it into what the body needs. Then the body knows whether or not to allow that chemical to be absorbed through the stomach's lining into the bloodstream. If it is absorbed, the body knows which cells need or don't need that particular chemical. Within the cell, the body knows how to transform that chemical into what the cell needs.

But then, consider taking in two chemicals in a bite of food. The body then has to take into consideration the impact of those two chemicals on each other as an additional variable before making all the "assignments" I just mentioned. But then consider that there are tens, or hundreds of thousands, of chemicals in whole foods that are going into the body at a meal. I don't know how to do the math that would extrapolate the impact of all those chemicals on each other, plus the body then knowing how to account for those reactions before starting the operational assignments—but it must represent an amazingly complex number of "decisions."

Every micro-second of every day, Dr. Campbell said, the body is making these choices, decisions, and assignments on how to use the countless chemicals that it needs or doesn't need at any given point of time. The idea that scientists could possibly duplicate these chemical processes in a lab and create supplements to duplicate them is beyond reason, especially when we have no idea about the actual number and function of the myriad undiscovered phytonutrients contained in whole foods.

As a scientist, Dr. Campbell sees the body's ability as a result of evolution (I know nothing of his spiritual orientation). For me, what he described calls to mind the "fearfully and wonderfully made" phrase from Psalm 139:14.

Aristotle on Vocation

I can't document it, but this quote attributed to Aristotle makes a lot of sense regarding vocation:

Where your passions intersect with the needs of the public,
therein lies your vocation.