10 reasons to go veggie [or ignore rubbish]

First post, w00t, etc.

This first caught my attention in the Sunday Times of 1 June 2008, but was evidently sourced from here.

Well, let me declare that I do agree with some of the content of the article, I also believe that large sections of it are based on FUD. I have also added some of the 20 Common Logical Fallacies to my comments.

Let’s go over each of the topics:

1. Helping animals also helps the global poor

Confusing association with causation – This has little to do with vegetarianism. It’s a call to reduce our dependency on oil.

2. Eating meat supports cruelty to animals

Fair enough. Humans are cruel, and we try not to think about where our tasty steak came from.

3. Eating meat is bad for the environment

Inconsistency – Please quote the source of this information, or was this just a thumb-suck?

If we are to agree that this figure is incorrect, let’s look at how many people on this earth eat meat and how many people have vehicles?

Animals, volcanoes, mother nature have been around longer than cars for a start. Additionally, how many people consume fossil fuels directly vs those that eat meat? Can you imagine the CO2 emissions if all people [including vegetarians] drove vehicles?

4. Avoid bird flu

Fear – wow, three different diseases are mentioned in two sentences. Let’s break this up a little:

a. Bird flu: comes from…birds, alto ugh the greatest chance of contagion comes from migratory birds, although primary transmission to humans is via domestic poultry. Solution: Kill all birds!

b. Foot & mouth: this affects all animals and humans. Solution: Kill all animals and humans [with the added bonus of reducing CO2 emissions!]

c. SARS: are the authors clutching at straws here? Why not add AIDS while you’re at it? Solution: kill all humans!

The second and third diseases have absolutely nothing to do with eating animals and unless you are rearing the domestic poultry, proper cooking ensure that nasty avian flu gets toasted in the super-hot oil of your KFC deep fryer.

5. If you wouldn’t eat a dog, you shouldn’t eat a chicken

False Continuum – you’re coparing a chicken with a PET. I probably have eaten something which did not match the ingredients listed on the packaging. I guess I can argue ignorance: that which we do know, won’t hurt us. Vegetarians have probably eaten a worm, does this mean they might eat Fido?

6. Heart disease and cancer are big killers

False Dichotomy – they quote a single source, whose OPINION states that he believes that animal protein causes cancer. No doubt, heart disease is primarily cased by poor diet, however, very little definitive proof exists on the causes of cancer. There are just too many variables, however, I’ll leave it to the scientists to try and locate the primary causes of cancer. A decent diet will reduce your chances of both of these diseases, and hereditary traits are beyond your control, vegetarian or not.

PS: falling coconuts kill more people than flying chickens do.

7. Fitting into that tiny bikini

Non-Sequitur – thanks for just ignoring 51% of the world population. I certainly have no aspirations to fit into a tiny bikini.

It’s a matter of diet, silly.

8. Global peace

Argument from final Consequences – How about we remove greed, race and religion while we’re at it? The authors are arguing from a hypothetical point of view. If you really removed meat from our diet, would we live peacefully? Unlikely.

9. The joy of veggies

Argument from Personal Incredulity – I agree, I find much joy in eating veggies, but I find the same amount of joy in cooking and eating meat.

10. Sir Paul McCartney says so…

Argument from authority – I don’t care what Paul, Paris or Precious tell me to do. I will consider your arguments and make my own personal choices based on my experience, scientific evidence and an element of personal risk taking.

Good night.

Cancer Update

The Claims

Cancer Update from John Hopkins

This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well.

Please circulate to all you know; Cancer update

John Hopkins – Cancer News from John Hopkins

No plastic containers in micro.

No water bottles in freezer.

No plastic wrap in microwave.

A dioxin chemical causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don’t freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.

Recently, Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital, was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.

Paper isn’t bad but you don’t know what is in the paper. It’s just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons. Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

This is an article that should be sent to anyone important in your life!

The Rational Response

I would like to start off with the villain in this story, the dioxins. Dioxins are one of the most toxic chemicals know to science and in 2001 the most toxic compound, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or PCDD, was classified by the US National Toxicology Program as a compound “known to be a human carcinogen”. A study published in Environmental Health Perspectives volume 110, number 7, July 2002 entitled Serum Dioxin Concentrations and Breast Cancer Risk in the Seveso Women’s Health Study examined the incidence of breast cancer in the region of Seveso, Italy, the site of an industrial explosion in 1976 which resulted in the highest know population exposure to PCDD. The researchers who conducted this study showed strong evidence for the carcinogenic effect of PCDD.

According to the most recent US EPA data, the major sources of dioxins are:

· Coal fired utilities

· Municipal waste incinerators

· Metal smelting

· Diesel trucks

· Land application of sewage sludge

· Burning treated wood

· Trash burn barrels

These sources together account for nearly 80% of dioxin emissions. Dioxins are also generated in reactions that do not involve burning — such as bleaching fibers for paper or textiles, and in the manufacture of chlorinated phenols, particularly when reaction temperature is not well controlled.

Exposure to dioxins can have numerous side effects including birth and developmental defects and damage to the immune and hormone systems. For a detailed discussion of dioxins please see the entries on Wikipedia.

Alright, now that we have a basic grasp of what a dioxin is, how it is produced and the potential effects dioxins may have on your health, we are ready to take a second look at the “John Hopkins Cancer Update”.

Can freezing plastic bottles with water in them release dioxins into the water? NO! We have established how dioxins are released into our environment and freezing is not going to release dioxin into your water, or any other product contained in the bottle.

The argument from authority is the logical fallacy whereby a claim is accepted as true because a person of authority says it is true. We more easily accept a claim made by a person with the correct education and background, when the claim should be able to stand on the strength of its logic and evidence.

The “doctor” in this piece is Edward Fujimoto. I can find no evidence of anyone with that name working at Castle Hospital.

The “doctor’s” first warning is that we should not be heating food in the microwave in plastic containers, more especially “foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food”.

Why are foods that contain fat supposedly more dangerous? Dioxin is lipophilic, that is, it accumulates in the fat cells in the body. That is the only fact in the whole sentence. Microwaves do not cook food by burning at high temperatures. Microwaves actually cause the water molecules in our food to boil. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at sea level. This is not nearly hot enough to release PCDD from a compound. Furthermore, there is no substantial evidence that plastic food containers even contain dioxin at all!

A major contradiction follows as the author points out that paper products are not entirely safe, because we don’t know what is in them. This may be a tenuous reference to the bleaching of paper which does release PCDD into the environment. Although it may at first appear that the author has hit on the only link between dioxin and your dinner, he contradicts himself superbly by telling us in the final paragraph that fast food chains have moved away from using foam packaging and are using paper instead. He then finishes off by advising that we cover our food with a paper towel when microwaving.

The next time you see something like this in your inbox, just delete it before sending it on to your friends and family. You will be doing the international community a huge favor by removing one more piece of junk from the internet.