Opinions on the topic of Vegetarianism - Part 1

Part 1 of 8 parts, of a file of postings by Ideoform.

Hello. A while ago, I participated in an extended discussion on various aspects of vegetarianism on a free public forum. I have seen some indications that this forum will be withdrawn soon, so I am transferring a lot of my own writings to this blog.

There are many more postings by other people on the thread that I will not be copying here. Its not to make my arguments sound stronger, but mainly for lack of time and because its not my writing and I can't identify the other posters to get their permission to copy their words. I might copy a few just to clarify why I wrote what I wrote because most of the time I am responding to other people, not creating a new discussion thread.

To see the entire thread, you can go to:

http://forums.plentyoffish.com/datingPosts11606996.aspx

Subject: Science/philosophy
Thread Title: Hypothetical dilemma for Vegans/PETA...
This thread spans the dates 1/13/2009 -- 12/5/2009.

The debate on this thread became quite intense at times, which made it interesting to read, and I didn't participate that often. I was suprised to find so many intense feelings surrounding the topic considering it is just about food and what people eat or don't eat...

I really appreciated reading and reasoning with all the people on the thread who took the time to make a thoughtful or empassioned post. It helped me to clarify my thoughts, which I had never had the chance, the inclination, or the audience to express them to. Personal beliefs are so important, that to leave them un-considered, un-conscious, un-examined, and un-expressed, is to live life half asleep.

Note: I have changed my views on vegetarianism over time with experience and input from discussion with others and information I have learned, and from new research. I explain some of this in my postings.

Currently, I follow a similar diet to that recommended by Dr. Mercola, but I began this style of nutrition years before I found his site.

For an interesting take on health and nutrition go to Dr. Mercola's site:
http://www.mercola.com/

Question Topic:

"Here is a hypothetical situation for those who prescribe to the somewhat extreme
vegan and PETA philosophy concerning the use of animals.

If you were stranded on a desert island, that had nothing but water supply, inedible trees and nothing to to eat but fish and seals, would you eat the animals or
strave to death.

The reason I ask is that I have some friends that are into the PETA
and vegan philosopy, and I have wondered how deep their conviction is.
From what I can understand it is based on the assertion that animals have the same
inherent rights as humans, and therefore it is immoral to eat or exploit them just as it would be to do the same to a human.

If I were in a situation where the only option for survival was to eat another human, I wouldnt do it. I would rather die than cross that line. A civilized man I have lived, and I would prefer to die as one.

So how about it PETAN's and vegans, honestly, what would you do?"

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NOTE: Italics indicate postings by other people.

Ideoform's (Me) Postings:

Hi, I am not a member of PETA. And I am not a vegetarian currently. But I can answer your hypothetical question from the position of a vegetarian because I was one for 15 years, (ovo-lacto) and vegan (no dairy or eggs) for a year.

I currently eat fish, (but not seals.) Fish aren't really considered animals, but seals are. Some vegetarians, like Mr. Roger's, say they won't eat anything with eyes, so fish end up in that category.

Vegetarians live longer (Seventh Day Adventists live about 9 years longer than average, I think.) So if you are a person who became vegetarian for your health, you would live longer if you switched to eating fish (seals, being mamals would be a last resort, then) on the island while you are waiting to be rescued, and then you could go back to being a vegetarian again. (I have heard that people can survive quite well on just coconuts for a very long time, though, and most (desert = tropical) islands have them, since coconuts float to almost any location.)

I became a vegetarian after taking a philosophy class where we were required to read the book "Animal Liberation" by philosopher Peter Singer, which had just been published back then and was causing a lot of discussion among ethicists. This is the book that later became the foundation for the creation of the animal rights movement, even though Peter Singer doesn't say that animals have rights per say, but that they can and do suffer, and that morally it is important to minimise suffering. His position was the greatest good for the greatest number (Utilitarianism.)

Most food animals are not caught in the wild, and in the process of domesticating animals for food and in their upkeep, many animals suffer greatly from the conditions in which they are required to live until they are used for food.

There are several other arguments for not eating animals, including fish, and one is that it is a very inefficient way of producing food for humans. A lot food that could be consumed by humans is wasted in the process of feeding it to the animals while they are being raised. You could feed many more starving people with the food and water we use to produce one cow, for instance, which would feed a limited number of people--and usually those are not starving, since the starving can seldom afford to eat meat.

For me, the main idea behind refusing to eat animals for so many years was NOT that I wasn't prepared to go out and hunt, kill, dress, cook and eat an animal myself, since I had never had to do that in my life, anyway. It was to prevent unnecessary suffering in a creature that I felt, could feel pain and experience suffering. If I could survive just fine on food that cattle, pigs and fish eat, then why shouldn't I spare them the problem of processing my food for me?

If an elephant, whale or rhinocerous can grow and thrive and be extremely strong and vital without eating meat or eggs, or drinking another mammal's milk, then why couldn't I?

Humans evolved so well because we are adaptable. We originally seem to have existed mainly on fruit grown high up in trees (where we were safe from other predators) and on vegetables we could forage, with a few insects thrown in for protein. When times got tough and the fruit was gone, we ventured out of the trees and were able to also eat and digest some meat. However, too much meat--in the sense that cats, dogs, (Cheetas and Wolves) sharks and crocodiles eat meat--is not good for our long-term health. Eating meat is a good way to get vital nutrients in a concentrated form for survival. I do not exist at a survival level, so I have many more choices that I can make, and my brain allows me to even make moral choices about how I prepare, kill and eat my food.

Even carnivores don't usually kill food for sport or over-kill a species. That would remove the source of their food, and they are less adaptable than an omnivore is.


Quote from earlier discussion:

"The reason I ask is that I have some friends that are into the PETA
and vegan philosopy, and I have wondered how deep their conviction is."

If you are interested in how deep your friend's conviction is so that you can try to change it, then you have to consider what their individual reasoning is in becoming vegetarian in the first place, and if in doing so, they have benefited from it in some way.

If they have benefited from being vegetarian, by feeling better, having better health, having something in common with other people in the nature of a club, or feel more passion in their lives for having a higher purpose beyond their own survival, then it would be ethically wrong of you to try to convince them to give up their convictions simply for your own comfort level.

If they are battering you over the head with their belief system, and are trying to change you/convert you against your will, then you can read this book and try to use some of their arguments against them. Perhaps by suggesting that it is unethical of them to cause you undo suffering because you don't share their personal convictions.
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Posted by another member:

Ideoform, you say: "If they have benefited from being vegetarian, by feeling better, having better health, having something in common with other people in the nature of a club, or feel more passion in their lives for having a higher purpose beyond satisfying cravings, then it would be ethically wrong of you to try to convince them to give up their convictions simply for your own comfort level"

I changed one tiny part of your post. I know 2 vegans and there take on it all, is that animals are more a necessity to each other and the environment, than they are to civilized humanity now.
They also said they would eat meat during any situation where it became a necessity to survive.
I suppose there are many reasons people choose not to eat meat.
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Ideoform's Post:
Eating meat is more than satisfying a craving. Men, in particular and many older people need more protein in their diets. Meat is an efficient way to get more protein, and sometimes this feels like a CRAVING, but it might also be a signal your body is sending you that you are missing key nutrients you need for your health.

A vegan diet, one that eliminates dairy and eggs, does not supply a vital nutrient, vitamin B12. B12 is stored in the liver, and you can survive for many years without a source of it. But a B12 deficiency is serious, looks like anemia, and can cause dementia and memory loss, among other things. A diet of junk food can cause this, too.

When a person is able to live at a level where physical survival is not a daily concern, then eating meat is generally available to almost anyone on the planet unless you are in a religious group that prohibits it for religious reasons, like many people in India. There is the feeling that if you have the money you can eat meat, then. This is what I mean by having the luxury of being able to choose to have a higher purpose with regard to what you eat. If you are starving on a desert island, then you don't have this luxury.

Ethics/morality might be something that is a luxury, too. And the OP's question goes to that...

A more extreme question might be, if everyone on the planet who didn't eat meat now for whatever reason, began to eat meat, would it put a huge strain on the food supply? People in poor countries survive on vegetable food sources because it is more economical and more of their country's population can survive on less total food. These people survive amazingly in very difficult circumstances, and often when they have adopted a Western diet, which is very meat-based, they also get diseases they didn't get before, like colon cancer, and sometimes live shorter lives.

I think it is morally unethical of us to disregard the need for very tiny additions to a person's diet that can make a huge difference in their health, like the problem of vitamin A deficiency in children in developing countries. A very tiny amount of vitamin A can prevent blindness in children, (the dose required costs two cents) yet we somehow don't have the resources to provide the single dose required to prevent blindness. Perhaps if we all gave up (a nutritionally unnecessary, but more expensive serving) of meat on a few Thursday's, we could afford to prevent the blindness of 250,000 to 500,000 children each year.
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Original Poster's Response:
"I will have to ask them where they get their B12 from then, as they look healthier than I do.
But then my diet is savoury pies, double stacked subs, and pizza.

I think the reason one of them does it is spiritual. She is a very conscious, and caring person.
As for my other friend, he is a pompous **** So I think part of the incentive is it is something he can feel proud about.
And he brags about it/pushes it on everyone too."
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Ideoform's Post:
Maybe he has some dementia and memory loss, then. :)

There is a big difference between how some people adopt a vegetarian lifestyle and how others do. If you just take the typical American diet and eliminate all meat, you have a sub-standard, unhealthy diet, that can leave you feeling depleted and irritable from a lack of nutrients for your brain. B12 is a brain nutrient.

If you are going to eliminate an entire food group, you have to eat more consciously, and the remaining food you eat needs to be even more nutritious. (That usually means, fresher, less processed, and well-rounded.)

Many vegans know about B12 and take a supplement for this. But any person can benefit from taking B12 for their health and brain functioning. Just be sure to tell your Doctor about it if you are feeling unwell, because taking B12 can mask anemia that is caused by other diseases.

B12 is being used to treat memory loss, dementia, autism, ADD and is in supplements for people trying to enhance their intelligence.

The religious/spiritual reason for being vegetarian is based on observations by spiritual people for centuries. I think it has a lot to do with the hormones in the meat at the time the animal is killed for food. If the animal is unduly stressed at the time of death, or is unhealthy (and thus has inflammation, or immune system activity) then these hormones are in its body tissues when they are removed to become food.

The adrenaline (the fight or flight hormone) that is in the fearful animal is in the food you eat. We can produce all our own hormones ourselves, in our own bodies. We don't need them from animals. So if you are eating animal flesh, the hormones from the animal (and also any hormones that are given to the animal by the farmer, such as bovine growth hormone) are going to enter your body, and your body will have to adjust its hormones to that. If you are trying to meditate or are trying to hear "that still, small voice" they call the conscience, any hormones you have injested might interfere with that process of going within to seek a quiet source, or of seeing the subtle mysteries of life.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with trying to find a purpose in life beyond your own self-interest. Paradoxically, our species' ability to do this has helped us to survive because of our ability to cooperate with others in the same survival group. And expanding this to include those in the entire ecosystem could also help our species to survive long term. But trying to gain moral superiority by just claiming to be vegetarian is annoying, not spiritual.
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Posted by another member (Jiperly)
>>>Vegetarians live longer

They don't live longer because of their diet, but rather because they observe their diet better than the average person- that they eat certain plants because it helps them balance their nutrients, as opposed to the average person who simply eats.

>>>I have heard that people can survive quite well on just coconuts for a very long time, though, and most (desert = tropical) islands have them, since coconuts float to almost any location.)

Don't twist the hypothetical to suit your needs. It wasn't a question of "would you survive on coconuts rather than eating meat"- it was "would you die for your ideals, or would you eat meat"

>>>I became a vegetarian after taking a philosophy class where we were required to read the book "Animal Liberation" by philosopher Peter Singer

I think thats horrible that your professor, in order for you to pass your philosophy class, forced you to be exposed to their politics. I think, in the effort to expose you to some ethics, your professor acted unethically.

>>>in the process of domesticating animals for food and in their upkeep, many animals suffer greatly from the conditions in which they are required to live until they are used for food.

And I believe that that is a message not against animal domestication, but rather a message against animal abuse. And alot has changed in the 35 years since that book has been written, too.

>>>A lot food that could be consumed by humans is wasted in the process of feeding it to the animals while they are being raised.

Thats a misconception spread by animal liberationists in an attempt to gain support by essentially maniplulating people- for instance, alot of the food fed to animals are completely inedible by humans.

Also, this concept assumes WAY too much- like in order for the feed to be given to the starving, that everyone would have to have equal ownership of the food to decide such a thing- otherwise, it would be left up to the farmer- and the farmer would offset the cost of feeding the animals to the increased profit they would make. Equally, alot of the land used for livestock isn't able to handle crops, and to convert these farms would costs hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars- and if the world rejects meat on that same day, the farmer would have no way to regain their losses. So what you are arguing would, in fact, create more starvation and malnuitrition, since both meat would become a rare commedity and less food would be able to be produced.

>>>We originally seem to have existed mainly on fruit grown high up in trees (where we were safe from other predators) and on vegetables we could forage, with a few insects thrown in for protein.

If what you're stating is our ancestors didn't eat meat, you're wrong. We are onmivores, and evolved from onmivores.

>>>Even carnivores don't usually kill food for sport or over-kill a species. That would remove the source of their food, and they are less adaptable than an omnivore is.

Neither morality nor concious thought has anything to do with that- they don't spare some animals and eat others to ensure there will be food next year- they do it because they are full, and content. Some animals, though, still hunt for sport- esspeically in their youth. And if given the chance, yes, animals will hunt other animals to extinction. This is nothing humanity is unique in doing. Hell, even herbivores will eat their plantlife to extinction if the opportunity arrises- thats why we have hunts, to keep the herbivore population in check with the plantlife population

>>>If they have benefited from being vegetarian, by feeling better, having better health, having something in common with other people in the nature of a club, or feel more passion in their lives for having a higher purpose beyond their own survival, then it would be ethically wrong of you to try to convince them to give up their convictions simply for your own comfort level.

Except for the health, couldn't the same results be achieved if they take up Heroin?

>>>In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with trying to find a purpose in life beyond your own self-interest.

I agree- but equally, I find nothing wrong with trying to living a life with your own interests in mind. Hell, I imagine that living for your own happiness rather than living through the happiness of others is a far greater moral action.





Also, I didn't post this earlier although someone mentioned it, but what the hell- this has already diverged into a general "Vegans suck" thread, so here is the Bullshit video that someone mentioned earlier;

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=0exLa6saV9o
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=ENAJ6-X7zvY&feature=related
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=3gpEyHWXqQ4&feature=related
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Ideoform's Response:
Re: Post 28 Jiperly

Vegetarians outlast the general population by perhaps as much as ten healthy years."
--Michael Greger M.D.

The most data arises from a study of 1904 vegetarians over 21 years by the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsche Krebsforschungszentrum). The study's results:
Vegetarian men reduced their risk of early death by 50%
Women vegetarians benefit from a 30% reduction in mortality.

Research a Vegetarian diet
Medical research demonstrates that a Vegetarian diet provides protection against several diseases and the top three fatal problems in the United States; heart disease, strokes, and cancer. Those who follow a Vegetarian diet have fewer instances of death from heart disease. According to the latest medical research, Vegetarians run a risk that is 50% lower than that of meat eaters of developing heart disease. Generally Vegetarians have healthy cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and are less at risk for developing hypertension, diabetes (type 2), and colon and prostate cancer. Similarly, Vegetarians are at a 40% lower risk of developing cancer. Meat eaters are also 9 times more likely to have weight or obesity problems as compared to Vegetarians.

I put the reference to coconuts into parenthesis because it was intended a side-comment, not a twist.

Peter Singer's book was used in our Philosophy class as an up-to-date issue in ethics, not a way to promote politics---because at the time, PETA did not exist. PETA was founded in 1980. So I became a vegetarian before PETA existed, and so I was also not doing it for political reasons.

It simply wasn't a political issue at the time, it was more of a "lets adopt Eastern practices" kind of thing at the time. The health benefits had been well-known for decades before that in America because of the Seventh Day Adventists. And it had been promoted as a cure for mental illnesses in Sweden and Denmark before that, and was a spiritual-based practice in India for long before that.

Peter Singer is a Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne. He specializes in applied ethics, approaching ethical issues from a secular preference utilitarian perspective.

In an article for the online publication chinadialogue Singer called Western-style meat production cruel, unhealthy and damaging to the ecology. He rejects the idea that the method was necessary to meet the population’s increasing demand, explaining that animals in factory farms have to eat food grown explicitly for them, and they burn up most of the food’s energy just to breathe and keep their bodies warm. That loss of total energy has been verified in multiple studies, and the Nov. 2006 UN FAO Report states as much.

If cows were still fed grass and hay then your "inedible by humans" would be true, but cows are given a lot of corn and grain--human food--because it makes them grow faster, and get to market quicker--so they don't have to be fed and watered as long, which is expensive.

We did evolve from omnivores (if you believe in evolution) that ate mostly fruit and vegetables. Apes were considered omnivores because they ate a small amount of insects. Not much meat.

You say animals will eat other animals to extinction. Well, they don't. They would have all killed each other off long ago, then, way before we even got here. Animal predators don't generally kill any more than they can eat in one session. If you mess with their ecosystem, like say, a volcano erupts and their hunting grounds shrink to almost nothing, well then, yes they might.

Heroin will not improve your health. Trust me.
And generally heroin will not be a valid higher purpose for someone. Unless you call addiction a higher purpose. Or you call selling addicting illegal drugs a higher purpose.

"Hell, I imagine that living for your own happiness rather than living through the happiness of others is a far greater moral action."

Living for your own happiness--by itself-- is not a moral action. It is usually just called survival. Morality generally implies at least the consciousness of other's existence and well-being. Living for your own happiness, is however, an economic principle of capitalism based on the concept of greed being used for the common good. Greed is generally considered a bad thing, morally, but is being utilized by a political system for its own purposes.

It is interesting to note that you started your sentence about living for your own happiness with the word "Hell."
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Ideoform:

(After much debate by other posters that veered off-track...)

The OP's question is whether vegetarians are willing to let themselves go extinct to allow for fish and seals to survive.

If every vegetarian were to be faced with this dillema, and they were the type of vegetarian that became that way for moral reasons, (not just health reasons) then this philosophy--or rather--constraint, would succeed in doing what you want to be done to PETA. Vegetarians would go extinct. It is a non-survival based strategy. That only a human can or would do.

A scientist would say that any strategy that does not have survival as its most basic tenet is an un-truth. The mere existence of even one human who would give up their life for an animal is antithetical to that. And yet, in our city, someone just died last month going back into their burning home to rescue their cat.
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Ideoform:
Msg.68
Ok. I think that the OP's question was a good one for people to get started on the ethics of what people eat. But it seems as if many subsequent posters are really interested in debating with/refuting claims of PETA members. No one posting has so far admitted to being a PETA member, so I decided to represent their case, just for fun. I have to say though, that I am currently not a vegetarian or a member of PETA. But I suppose I could join and infiltrate their camp and get some inside information...then again, no.

I think the reason so many vegetarians don't organize to try to get PETA to be more mainstream-friendly, is that it is already accomplishing something for vegetarians. It is getting them publicity, perhaps some recognition, and even some information about what they are doing. It makes it a little easier to be a vegetarian when you aren't always having to explain what a vegetarian is to everyone.

There is a reason you have only heard of PETA and not much about the many other vegetarian organizations. They seem to be organized specifically to get media attention to their concerns. They take a reasonable issue, which admittedly is rather bland--i.e, not eating something--and push the edges out until it looks a little extreme, and then take some outrageous action or make some outrageous claim or create some way-out advertisement to get attention. This works.

In the dating scene, this is called "drama." And if drama didn't work for people, then no one would do it. In the newsroom they have a saying; "If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead."

When I first became a vegetarian 25 years ago, I was worried about looking too weird so I didn't talk about it to other people much, unless they asked me. And people did react funny to me at times, (remember PETA didn't exist yet, there was this "Anti-Vivisection Society" at my University), but the main reactions were religious in nature. Which is funny to me, because a lot of vegetarians are so because of ethical reasons.

I will share with you an interesting story from 25 years ago about what it was like back then to be a vegetarian. I was hired to work for our local utility company to be their "Executive Waitress" which included planning menus and cooking and creating a big buffet for the top exec.'s every week, as well as personally serving them in a special dining room on Wegewood china every lunchtime.

This worked out fine for a while, until when I was eating, the woman who hired me made a comment that she had noticed I never ate any meat when I was eating my own lunch. She wanted to know why (I guess perhaps she thought I didn't think the meat was good enough or something like that) and she sort of challenged me to tell me why in a confrontational kind of way--like I was making some kind of passive-aggressive statement or something. Maybe since I had very long hair she thought I was a hippie or something (I wasn't.)

And I told her I was a vegetarian. She then got very preachy with me and even got a little angry about it, even though I was trying to minimise my personal investment and interest in vegetarianism (I wanted to stay working there!) She acted like I had given her a personal affront. She said God had put meat on the planet for us to consume and it was a slap in the face to God that I was throwing His food back in His face by rejecting it!

I had no idea people felt that strongly about what I chose to eat or did not choose to eat. I had never mentioned it to anyone at work. I had no idea people were actually interested enough to WATCH what I was eating or not eating during my own personal lunch time and break time. And also to take so much interest as to even lecture me about it....I thought that it was none of her business.

So, I guess, I kind of like PETA for throwing it back in their faces a bit. That intolerance. That meddlesomness in people's private lives. That "I know best what is good for you" kind of attitude.

If you do anything against the norm, you are asking for people to push you back to the middle again. Perhaps if all of you non-vegetarians were to become vegetarian for a while (come on, it won't kill you) then you would see what we are talking about. You would get what we get from people and you would know why we aren't stopping PETA, even though we would individually never go that far or be that outrageous.

Now, if I were organizing a vegetarian group, I would run it differently myself. And this is not a frivolous statement coming from me because I already am a trained political grassroots organizer, and have done organizing for many years. I just haven't organized around the issue of what I eat. I feel there are many other more important issues to organize around than that.

My favorite methods of organizing people are those promoted by Martin Luther King, who advocated a policy of non-violent political action. This is what inspired me to post this today, on his birthday. Dr. King was a student of the political action style of Ghandi, Leo Tolstoy, and in America Henry David Thoreau's essay on Civil Disobedience (Thoreau was mainly a vegetarian.)

Boycotting is one of the non-violent methods of changing things. So perhaps some people think of vegetarians as people who are boycotting meat. I used to work for an Economist at my University. He told me that people in capitalist countries "vote with their dollars." In other words, whatever you pay for you get more of, and whatever you don't spend money on goes away--or there is less of it produced. Its "the invisible hand" of economics.

If you don't like Coke, you buy Pepsi. It isn't passive-aggressive, it isn't a boycott of Coke. Its the American Way.

If you don't like Coke because they get all their high fructose corn syrup from a communist country, then that's a political statement (if you TELL someone.) If you don't buy Coke because you like the taste of Pepsi better, then that is a personal preference. But the economy doesn't know WHY you aren't buying Coke unless you tell someone, or organize/influence others around your choice. If you personally want to vote with your dollars for whatever you like or don't like and never tell a soul, then the economy still works just as well as before. They just sell a little less of one thing and a little more of something else.

So I guess there will be a lot fewer cows around if a lot of vegetarians organized to try to influence other people to stop eating meat. This would be sad for the cows, if you think that living to only be one year old is living much. Is this better for the cow? If he/she/it is never born because it isn't being bred, then I guess there just will be fewer cows, but those that are still around won't have much of a change, unless people who EAT MEAT organize to make their year-long stay here more pleasant, or longer. It is people who pay for meat that will have the say in that.

This is what I currently do. I buy meat from farms that raise cattle differently. I like that my food is treated well before I eat it. (Is it too silly to say I like to eat only happy food?)

Well, actually, the energy I get is from the sun. This energy gets captured by very industrious plants and converted into chemical energy. Then a hard-working farmer feeds it to the hopefully happy cow, or buffalo, that kindly processes my plant food for me, by digesting it really well through two stomachs, creating muscles that I can get really good concentrated protein from. Hopefully, its death is quick and relatively painless, so I don't injest tons of andrenaline from the terrified dying animal.

I hear that if you buy Kosher products, there is some religious person who periodically inspects slaughter houses to make sure the animals are killed relatively humanely.

I have no reason to stop eating to save the earth. To live here on Earth, something must die, be it a plant or an animal. The only question is if we have the luxury of deciding how the food is produced, cared for and dispatched. I don't even get to decide when I will die.

Have you noticed that carnivores don't make good eating? That is because you are eating too high on the food chain. The solar energy degrades too much, the contaminants get more concentrated after being condenced by an animal. So almost no carnivores are eaten on a regular basis. I know people say crocodile and bear taste good, though. So, this means that I will make a bad food choice for a predator. Vegetarians, on the other hand, are what every carnivore usually eats.

Food is a good topic for a discussion of ethics and economics because A. Everybody eats, and B. A large part of most people's spending is on food. So your food budget influences people around the world.
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"THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE" -- Marion Sayle Taylor

Marion Sayle Taylor

August 16, 1888 -- Feb. 1, 1942

Photo credit: Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

http://www.radcliffe.edu/schles/

Welcome to my first bio.

I found a set of very old copies of pamphlets published by the mysterious "Voice of Experience" while going through my collection of books given to me by my Grandmother Ethel. They are obviously something well-treasured, and were carefully kept. I admired my Grandmother's life as a good example for my own.

She lived a very long, healthy life (94 years) and I always wondered what inspired her lifestyle. I think that perhaps she or her family listened to the radio show and then purchased the pamphlets, which emphasize healthy living. In reading them, I was struck by how much of the advice still applies today; fresh air, lots of sunshine, deep breathing, eating more vegetables, and raw foods, and avoiding sugars and fats.

The other thing that struck me was the anonymous nature of the pamphlets. The author was simply attributed to "The Voice of Experience." So I became curious, who was the author? Was it a group of advisors? Why not list their names? Who would collect and save for 50 years such pamphlets from someone who was anonymous?

Normally, that would be that, and I wouldn't go any further, but thanks to Google, I was able to satisfy my curiosity (somewhat) and found out the following information. Including a really good blog entry about one of his books:

http://www.squidoo.com/the-voice-of-experience

After reading many of the pamphlets, I am quite impressed. I wish I could hear the original recordings of the radio show that had so many listeners (seven million.)

He reminds me of Benjamin Franklin, who was a publisher and founding father of our country.

Here's a bit about Benjamin:

When Benjamin was 15 his brother started The New England Courant the first "newspaper" in Boston.

Benjamin wanted to write for the paper too, but he knew that James would never let him. After all, Benjamin was just a lowly apprentice. So Ben began writing letters at night and signing them with the name of a fictional widow, Silence Dogood. Dogood was filled with advice and very critical of the world around her, particularly concerning the issue of how women were treated. Ben would sneak the letters under the print shop door at night so no one knew who was writing the pieces. They were a smash hit, and everyone wanted to know who was the real "Silence Dogood."

(I loved reading Poor Richard's Almanack, written/edited by Benjamin Franklin.)

"Almanacs of the era were printed annually, and contained things like weather reports, recipes, predictions and homilies. Franklin published his almanac under the guise of a man named Richard Saunders, a poor man who needed money to take care of his carping wife. What distinguished Franklin's almanac were his witty aphorisms and lively writing. Many of the famous phrases associated with Franklin, such as, "A penny saved is a penny earned" come from Poor Richard."

Franklin also was a very civic-minded person, starting the first subscription Library, the Philadelphia Fire Department, Environmental cleanup of his city, and fire insurance.

Source: http://www.ushistory.org

As the parent of children with disabilities, I am interested when I hear of people who have overcome a physical or other type of disability to achieve an independent, fulfilling life.

According to what I have read, Mr. Sayle survived the loss of his livelihood due to a car crash which crushed his hands. He was a musician (organist) who had gone to school to learn to become a surgeon before his injury. It is even more impressive to have done this during the 1930's when the economy was crashing, as it has done again recently, and during a time before there were any programs of assistance for people with injuries and disabilities to help them survive and to rehabilitate into the working world. His radio name of 'experience' reflects his real life experience in overcoming difficult challenges.

After reading the advice attributed to "The Voice of Experience", I really think that often each generation has to re-invent the wheel...there is so much of learning from experience that we could get from previous generations, but the books go out of print, and we separate ourselves from the previous generation by being too busy, living too independently and with the use of nursing homes instead of living in multi-generational settings where children, who have the time, can listen to their grandparents, who also have the time, and valuable information and experience can be passed on despite the busyness of the sandwich generation (like me) who have to keep all the balls in the air.

So here is a man who has had an influence on my life through my Grandmother, since she very obviously followed much of his health advice. She exercised daily well before it became "fashionable" to. Ate very healthy, kept a garden and grew her own vegetables and fruit trees. She seemed to also follow his example through her helping others anonymously (which I found out only after going through her saved letters from people who had thanked her for her generosity.)

Anyway, I don't know if his stuff is copywrited anymore. So can I reprint the articles here? I don't have a lawyer, so I will have to say, that my humble judgement indicates that since the pamphlets were considered anonymous, they can be quoted. If there are any living relatives that would benefit from them, I would certainly defer to their wishes and of course honor their rights to the information. Perhaps I should paraphrase them, but the writing is very good and I think part of what makes the reading so pleasurable.

Here is the biographical information for Marion Sayle Taylor I have gathered so far. If anyone has any more information about the man, the radio show and if there are reprints of the articles he wrote, or copies of his speeches, I would love to know.

Marion Sayle Taylor

died at 53, famous radio personality known as the "Voice of Experience," (1932-1939) 1 February 1942.

Marion Sayle Taylor, born August 16, 1888 (Louisville, Ky?) and died Feb. 1, 1942 in Hollywood, Ca. During his career he was, in the 1930s, radio's famous "Voice of Experience." Wrote books and had a magazine, earlier, in the 1920s, he produced hygiene pamphlets and was an educator on Coos Bay, Oregon.

Books by Marion Sayle Taylor:

“Stranger than Fiction” The Voice of Experience, New York, Dodd, Mead & Co. 1934.

Making Molehills of Mountains

by [TAYLOR, Marion Sayle]. "THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE"

"THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE"

Book Description: Dodd, Mead and Company, New York: 1934., 1934. Hardcover. pp. xv, 367. 12mo. Hardbound. Seventh printing. "The Voice of Experience," AKA Marion Sayle Taylor was a radio show host whose program "The Voice of Experience" ran from approximately 1926 to 1934. Long before Ann Landers, "The Voice" was out there providing common sense advice to his audience. "The Voice of Experience," was the radio name of Marion Sayle Taylor. His radio program "The Voice of Experience" ran from approximately 1926 to 1934, and was full of common sense advice and thoughts for the audience.

“The Voice of Experience” [Marion Sayle Taylor] Bantam Books, April 5, 1941

Magazines by Marion Sayle Taylor:

“Voice of Experience Monthly”

*****************************************************

TIME articles referring to Mr. (“Dr.”) Taylor:

==============================

Radio: V. O. E.

Monday, Jan. 02, 1939

"Every community has its doctor, lawyer, priest or local wise man to whom his neighbors take their troubles. But people who want their problems to go to headquarters write to the Voice of Experience. Last week the "Voice," Dr. Marion Sayle Taylor, got his six-millionth letter and began another year of broadcasting MBS stations under a renewed contract with Lydia Pinkham.

Although he has been the Voice of Experience for only ten years, Dr. Taylor was in the advice business long before he took and registered his air name. Both the voice and the experience he traces back 49 years to his cradle on the Old Taylor Plantation in Kentucky. The son of a Baptist preacher, his preparation for the pulpit started early.

But a minister's son sees organs as well as pulpits. In 1904, as the Boy Organist at the St. Louis World's Fair, young Sayle was a lace-collared child prodigy. Music paid his way through William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., carried him into a medical course at Pacific University. He preferred surgery to both preaching and music, but a traffic accident left his hands minus coordination of muscles and nerves.

With both surgery and music out of his reach, he got jobs in public-health departments, began his intensive collection of experience. In Seattle and San Francisco, he helped many prostitutes who wanted to go home and resume respectability. Samaritan Taylor had a friendly department-store owner write each girl's family that she had been employed in his store, was ill, needed rest. Families sent fares, brought their wayward daughters home, learned no distasteful truth.

In 1915 the Voice took to the Chautauqua circuit as a lecturer on human behavior, has been a steady broadcaster since 1926. His radio salary of $2,000 a week is augmented by lectures, sales of his books and pamphlets. That he is stumped by few human problems is evident from the titles of his 300 pamphlets. Some of them: Love and How to Express It, Acidosis (and how to overcome it), Promiscuous Kissing, The Care of the Skin, Disciplining Your Child, Insomnia, War of the Sexes, Feminine Shapeliness, Have You Been Jilted? Although the pamphlets cost 3¢ each, a listener whose troubles run a wide enough gamut to require 50 pamphlets can get them at a bargain price — $1.

An average of more than 6,000 people write to the Voice of Experience each day, ask for help and advice. They write to the station on which they hear him or to a Manhattan Post Office box address. The location of his home and his office he keeps secret. His passion for anonymity goes so deep that he claims that even members of his family heard the Voice on the air for years before they knew his identity. His business acquaintances call him the Voice. That is the way he signs most of the letters he writes, and his briefcase is initialed in gold, "V. O. E."

Small and stocky, the most arresting thing about him is his speech. He never uses a plain word when there is a fancy one handy. A knife he calls a dirk. Besides giving advice on the air and by mail, the Voice spends about $45,000 a year to provide operations for babies born with harelip or cleft palate, spectacles for myopic children, etc. He also sends boys & girls through college without revealing to them the source of their scholarships, helps unmarried mothers through childbirth."

Art: Radio Plugs

Monday, Mar. 18, 1935

"Twice last week national radio hookups were used to plug Manhattan art shows.

Five days before the opening of the National Academy of Design's noth annual exhibition President Jonas Lie gave an elaborately rehearsed interview over a coast-to-coast network, in which he announced the winners of the $4,400 worth of assorted prizes that the N. A. has assembled through the years. Nobody could see the pictures last week, but from the names and reputations of the winners all the U. S. art world knew that the long-awaited rejuvenation of the National Academy was under way. Except for elderly, conservative Frederick Judd Waugh of Provincetown, Mass, who won, as he has before, the $500 Edwin Palmer memorial prize for marine painting (TIME, Dec. 17), other prize-winners were artists who would have been considered rank radicals by academicians of 25 years ago. Among them were:

Leon Kroll, who took the $1,000 Altman prize for landscapes. His canvas entitled Cape Ann was an excellent picture of three young people in bathing trunks, sweaters, bathrobes, done with all the artist's flair for the human figure.

Jean MacLane, who won the $1,000 Altman prize for the best genre painting with her canvas Tennis Days. In it were to be seen two athletic-looking girls wearing bandannas and two tanned, crop-headed boys in tennis garb.

Childe Hassam, to whom went the Saltus Medal of Merit, only N. A. prize to be awarded regardless of nationality, age, sex, or subject matter, for that old post-impressionist's landscape Evening, Point Alien.

Maurice Sterne, art theorist and Brooklyn expatriate (TIME, Feb. 27, 1933) who won the $100 Thomas B. Clarke prize for the best U. S. figure composition painted in the U. S. or its territorial possessions, with his Plum Girl.

Jerry Farnsworth, able Cape Cod portraitist, whose Jan de Groot took the $150 Thomas R. Proctor Prize for the best portrait in the show.

Two days before the N. A. prize-winners were blindly announced over the air, a national radio audience was urgently invited to visit another Manhattan art show and inspect, at the Arthur U. Newton Galleries, a set of portraits by a small, kinetic, kinky-haired Pole named Stanislav Rembski. Most of those who accepted the invitation, however, went less to see a slick icy canvas of Dr. Frank Damrosch or a promising self-portrait of the artist than to have a good long look at a brand new picture of a smiling, self-confident, wispy-haired man of 45 in a blue serge suit. For the past two and a half years that man has solaced thousands of uncertain minds by broadcasting homely advice as THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE. His sponsors over the Columbia network: Wasey Products (Musterole, Kreml Hair Tonic, and a brace of nostrums known as Zemo and Haley's CTC, for stomach acidity). Last week it was the Voice of Experience who turned his first discussion of Art into neat plug for the Rembski show in general and his own portrait in particular.

The Voice of Experience is actually the voice of "Doctor" Marion Sayle Taylor, son of a retired evangelist who was born on the Louisville plantation whence came Old Taylor Whiskey. After a false start toward the ministry, young Taylor went to Pacific University but decided not to get the medical degree he wanted. The title of "Doctor" was applied to him years later at the suggestion of William Jennings Bryan when he was already well known as an adviser to the lovelorn. Orator Bryan suggested that Taylor call himself "Doctor of Matrimony." Scrupulously ethical in his radio addresses, Taylor is careful never to give any medical advice— except to endorse the patent medicines which sponsor his programs.

Before adopting the career of mass confessor, Taylor was a proficient organist. He was guest organist at the St. Louis Fair of 1904. An automobile accident that crushed his hands in 32 places took him from the manual.

The name "Voice of Experience" Taylor adopted about seven years ago when he was already well known as a broadcaster on marriage problems. So successful was his booming voice, his "clean handling of sex problems that he now employs 29 private secretaries, all male, to answer his intimate correspondence. In addition to 5,000 broadcasts, Taylor has had time to write 120 pamphlets on such miscellaneous subjects as "Facts About Fruits" (A-19), "Why Be Unique? (B-11), "Insomnia" (C-8), "Why Take Your Own Life?" (C-10), "The Nudist Fad" (E-8), "Feminine Shapeliness" (F-14), "War of the Sexes" (D-5), "Square Pegs in Round Holes" (C-17), "Promiscuous Kissing" (B-10), "The In-Law Problem" (A-13), "Are You Afraid of Insanity?" (B-10). He also has a wife and a daughter, lives on Manhattan's Park Avenue, has a private gymnasium in his apartment to keep himself fit.

The practical private charity that Mr. Taylor does is enormous. From his own pocket he has paid for innumerable funerals, bought wooden legs and glass eyes, met rent bills. In 1934 alone The Voice paid for 413 blood transfusions and the hospital bills of 583 unwed mothers.

The language of Broadcaster Taylor's little homilies often becomes elaborately homespun, to suit the simple tastes of his following. Calling his public's attention to his new portrait last week, he declared:

"In the last ten years I guess I have sat for a dozen or more artists, to have a painting done of me—all but one of these by request of the artists themselves. If I were able to line up all of these paintings side by side, you would find that each one of them had a different expression. . . . That is the reason that a connoisseur of art can immediately say what great artist did such and such a painting, because he sees the artist's earmarks on the canvas. ... I want you to do something practical for me. A number of men, outstanding individuals in the world . . . are now on display at the Newton Galleries. There is no charge for admission, so you go down there and study these canvases. ... It will be a fine object lesson to you."

Purchase the New Yorker, November 2, 1935 Article page 24.

VOICE

by Margaret Case Harriman November 2, 1935

Margaret Case Harriman, Profiles, “VOICE,” The New Yorker, November 2, 1935, p. 24

ABSTRACT: PROFILE of Marion Sayle Taylor, "The Voice of Experience." The Voice has four sponsors: "Haley's CTC (a citro carbonate which sets out to restore the system of alkaline balance and is in popular use as a remedy for hangovers). Musterole, Zemo, and Kreml Hair Tonic. All of those products are owned to a large extent by Louis R. Wasey and publicized through the advertising agency of Erwin, Wasey & Co.

Broadcast History:

Role: Advisor

Announcer: John Gambling

Dates: 1937 -
Network: NBC Red
Sponsor: Wasey Products Co. (Musterol-Kreml)

Dates: 1940 - 1941
Network: NBC
Sponsor: Albers Brothers Milling Co.

Articles from OTRR Magazine Collection:

OTRR maintains a collection of Old Time Radio Magazines which has been indexed by Terry Caswell. The following is a listing of articles from this index which refer to this person.

• Radio Guide 360718, page 6

• Radio Guide 360725, page 5

• Radio Guide 360801, page 7

• Radio Guide 360808, page 10

• Radio Guide 360815, page 8

References from Printed Sources:

Other Books:

• Buxton, Frank and Owen, Bill, Big Broadcast 1920-1950, The, Second Edition, Scarecrow Press, 1997

• Delong, Thomas A., Radio Stars: An Illustrated Biographical Dictionary Of 953 Performers 1920-1960, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1996

• Poindexter, Ray, Golden Throats and Silver Tongues - The Radio Announcers, River Road Press, 1978

TIME Magazine:

• V. O. E., TIME Magazine Jan. 2, 1939

From Harvard's "The Crimson"

"Airs Academic Sanctity"

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

Published: Thursday, April 16, 1936

"FROM experience, Dr. Dexter Merriam Keezer, president of Reed College (Portland, Ore.) has learned that heavy academic robes are stifling. Amherst A. B., Cornell M. A., Brookings Institute Ph. D., Dr. Keezer taught variously and brilliantly at Dartmouth, Cornell, and the Universities of California and North Carolina, but he was a fish that leapt occasionally from the dry bank into the stream to get into the swim of things again. He worked on the Denver Times and edited the Baltimore Sun, Reed College found him a year ago working on the NRA Consumers' Advisory Board.

At Reed there are no intercollegiate athletics, no fraternities, and student self-government is important. The intellectual freedom Reed attempts readily persuades some august citizens of Portland that Reed is a bed of radicalism. President Keezer is known to have worn bright red duck pants on the campus, but to the calmer observer the president seems merely to be airing out academic sanctity. He prods bookworms into skiing trips, but makes no effort to attract or hold playboys to Reed."

Loudspeaker Solace

FOUR years ago the Voice of Experience began, accents somewhat harsh, to dole out solace to believers in loudspeaker comfort. Today The Voice an audience of millions, and it is generally known that their adviser is Marion Sayle Taylor. Mr. Taylor, an LL.D., made so a year ago by William Jewell College (Liberty, Mo.) on a June day pproclaimed Liberty's mayor as “Voice of Experience Day.” For three years “The Voice” studied at William Jewell, he took his A.B. At Pacific University in 1911.

Anent "experience," Dr. Taylor looks back along 47 years on a poverty stricken youth, postgraduate work at Oregon Agricultural College and the University of Oregon, the accident which crushed his hands and ruined his hope of becoming a professional organist, a superintendency of schools in Oregon, and nation-wide wandering as a Chautauqua lecturer. Out of this he has the formula for successfully throwing oil on trouble human waters. Remembering his youth, he gives charity the sizable contributions he recieves from well-wishers."

Radio: Crossley Looks at 1940

Monday, Jan. 27, 1941

“… As the Voice of Experience, Marion Sayle Taylor has advised all kinds of people how to get out of marital trouble. Last week he was taking legal advice himself: his second wife demanded in Los Angeles Superior Court that her Mexican divorce be set aside, claimed that before he married Wife No. 3, Taylor had promised her remarriage, 15% of his $150,000 annual income.”

Comments from the web:

Marion Sayle Taylor, the Voice of Experience, was superintendent of schools in North Bend (on Coos Bay) Oregon 1923-26. A husband & wife research team there are beginning the exploration of his life for a biography. They have some corrective facts to the fictions that exist about his life. Actually born in Arkansas, not Kentucky, is one.

Don't know exactly how this system works to solicit assistance in the research - especially in the Ohio (Akron & Steubenville) & Michigan (Chicago) areas where he was circa 1927-1930.

You can acquire some Voice of Experience recordings from Jerry Haendiges of www.OTRSite.com - he has four 1938 broadcasts, plus one 1941 Eddie Cantor show with M.S. Taylor as guest. For research purposes, coud 4U2C please provide the newspaper and exact 1934 date with his photo? thanks, Dick W.

Autism Topic -- Main Posting

I am the parent of a child with Autism.

For practice with keeping a blog, I created another website called "Webster's Musings" at Blogspot to put a lot of the information I have collected about Autism in one place, so that I can give the URL to other parents and teachers interested in Autism treatments I have tried.

If you scroll down on this site, you can click on it in my listing of blogs at the lower right of your screen.

My son went through a treatment program funded through research. At one point I was asked to write down other treatments I had tried, and things I was doing to help his Autism symptoms. This is the original source of that information.

I have used quotes in IEP meetings, and articles on various things I think will help someone working with an Autistic person to teach them and relate to them.

I am linking this blog with that one, instead of moving all the posts to this site because I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Eventually I am only going to maintain this site and will combine the two.

So this site has only a few of my more recent items, but the bulk of the Autism topic postings are at:

http://webstersmusings.blogspot.com/

Vaccinations

In my opinion, here are the main problems with routine, global vaccination of the very young and very elderly:

Corruption
Corruption can occur in any area that deals with vaccination, in the financing, the research, the ethics of the company, the practices of the company, the production of the product, and in the distribution of the product, and in the marketing of the product. Any area can become corrupted by the pressures of stockholders, traders, and people just getting greedy or just trying to make a living and looking the other way to do it. Or there are people who tend to think that everything must be OK because everyone else is doing it.

Where ever there is a lot of money to be made, corruption is a possibility, and some might say that because it is a part of human nature to focus on money -- a probability, -- which is why in all functioning social systems we have a form of checks and balances, and several forms of accountability and consequences.

Contamination
Where are the products made? Who is making them? What laws are in effect to control these processes and people? Are the standards enough to prevent most mistakes?

Unforseen Side-effects
Until you test the product on a group of people for an entire life-cycle, you really don't know the long-term implications. Until you test an entire population of people, you won't know how the effect of changing their immunity will affect the group. This is impractical and so isn't done.

Limits to Research in Real Life
You can test the product given individually, but seldom is a product tested with other products that people are given or are taking at the same time. I think the MMR is a problem because the three viruses are given together, and then often other vaccinations are given with this one, so that a child can get 6 or more diseases injected into them all in one day...causing their immune systems to over-react. My son got a mild case of lead poisoning during the time he was vaccinated, which I think is why he got Autism and I didn't. However, lead poisoning is extremely difficult to prevent in certain situations, and very dangerous in children under age three because of how the body develops.

Auto-immunity
Auto-immunity is when the immune system becomes unable to distinguish between "self" and "not-self."
Auto-immunity is a real problem when there are dietary deficiencies that prevent the immune system from calming itself down after exposure to a disease.

"Non-active" Ingredients
Immunizations need preservation to keep from spoiling. Refrigeration isn't toxic, but isn't reliable enough and too expensive, and so toxic preservatives are added (almost all preservatives have toxicity, since they are designed to kill bacteria, its just a matter to what degree they are toxic.)

Many immunizations are made by injecting a contagious disease into a living, developing egg. This makes all immunizations made this way a possible trigger for the person immunized to become allergic to the proteins in eggs or egg whites. This is an inexpensive, healthy, staple food for many people, and its really unfortunate if you have to eliminate eggs from people's diets. By stimulating the immune system at the same time as injecting eggs into a person, the similar proteins in eggs to living human tissue can cause auto-immunity to develop.

Mode of Delivery
Getting exposed to a disease by having it injected is not the normal way a human gets exposed to certain diseases. And so our immune system can become confused by encountering a disease which is already in the bloodstream when it usually presents itself at the usual 8 "entrances" to the human body (the eyes, nose, mouth, vagina, ect.) These entrances are all covered with a specially-designed protective surface called mucous membrane. This surface has special ways to react to contagion that the bloodstream doesn't have. It produces phlem, (mucous,) and other excretions to stick to, contain or wash away the bulk of the disease organisms, and has easy access to the bloodstream where immune cells can grab the invaders without being overwhelmed. This normal immune reaction is bypassed with an injection, causing the immunity to this disease to be unnatural. It tells the body to look inward for disease, instead of outward. It causes the immune military to be harassing the natives instead of the invaders.

It is this reason that many newer immunizations are now being developed to be given by spraying into the nose, to better mimic the typical exposure to contagions.

Age of Delivery
The human immune system is not fully developed and functioning the way an adult's is for many years. This is the advantage of breast feeding and the reason people take colostrum (bovine immune cells made right after birth of a calf.) The infant inherits some of the mother's immunity to diseases she has been exposed to through the initial breast milk. He can sometimes inherit a faulty immunity to certain allergenic foods this way, too.

So if you are trying to get the same immune reaction an adult gets to happen in an infant, it just isn't going to happen. So you have to re-immunise several times as the child develops. This can be a waste of resources if the child wouldn't normally need full immunity for many years (such as immunizing against diseases that primarily affect adults, like sexually transmitted diseases.)

Infants and the elderly react differently to almost all medications because of how their livers clear the blood and for other reasons. They are a more vulnerable population and should be given special consideration with medications, dosages, and other issues.

For instance, there is the Tylenol issue -- you used to have to give a different dose to babies than adults, not just because of the size, but because it was less diluted so that the baby would have to swallow less of the drug. This lead to confusion about doses and many children got overdosed causing liver damage. There is Rye's Syndrome, which is caused by giving a child aspirin during an illness. Drugs that act as stimulants to adults, when given to children have the opposite effect -- to calm them down. Because of aging, the elderly metabolize drugs differently and at different rates than other adults, their livers just aren't as effective at removing them, and so they stay in circulation in the bloodstream longer, sometimes leading to a build-up of the drug in the body and thus to overdoses. And there are a lot of other differences in very young children, and the elderly.

The main issue here is that you can't experiment on children, so all the vaccinations are researched on adults. Every time a child takes a medication right after it is released to the market, takes a risk, because they are the true Guniea Pigs.

And because female adults often can be pregnant and not know it, most research is done on adult men. So almost all the knowledge we have is based on adult men's bodies. This completely ignores the changes in hormones and other functions between adults and children, and fertile and menopausal women.

Of course, all this is balanced by the true concern that we need some kind of defense against a true epidemic of a deadly disease, like Polio. However, once a disease is very unlikely, such as when the disease is gone from all but a few remote locations in other countries, the vaccination is not removed from the schedule. They keep them up and the list of vaccinations keeps getting longer. No normal person would come into contact with every deadly disease known to man. So why put so many people at risk of side-effects and complications, and mistakes, if the disease is unlikely?

Eradication
I think that in the past we could look to eradicate diseases. But now we know they mutate, and evolve, just like we do. So we can't completely rely on vaccinations to solve all of our contagion issues. Besides the fact that almost all deadly diseases still exist in labs around the world waiting to use in case someone "needs" them for weaponization. We have to have a multiple-level strategy for dealing with disease, and if we only rely on immunization, we will not fund research to find other ways to deal with health, wellness and disease.

Disclaimer: I am not a Doctor or Researcher.

Gout

It happens that I have accumulated some information about treating gout...but I haven't had gout personally.

I think this might be because I was a vegetarian for over 15 years, and still don't eat very much red meat.

I also never drank alcohol for over 30 years, although now I have an occasional glass of wine, but I try to find wine that has no sulfites in it, because the sulfites give me a headache. Which leads me to think that maybe its the sulfites that cause some hangovers?

I have an interest in health and nutrition, regular allopathic and alternative medicine, and so I sometimes recommend things to others. I posted these recommendations a while back on Gout in another forum which I think is about to be closed down.

So I am using this blog to consolidate my writings on various things, since I spent so much time composing them in the first place.

First, a little background about my philosophy regarding health and wellness:

I believe that a lot of health care is really about prevention.
And a lot of treatments can be done or assisted with changes in lifestyle.
I believe in using the least invasive treatments first, and only using the most invasive, expensive things as a last resort, (unless of course, time is of the essence.)

And I believe that with so many people not having health care insurance, I think that we all need to share our good ideas and experiences about treating diseases and staying healthy so that we can build up our collective knowledge of wellness, particularly in these economic times when it seems that everyone has so little to spend on traditional medical cares and pharmaceuticals.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should stop going to the Doctor, or should stop using prescriptions. I'm saying we should have more choices and options available to us, and some of this isn't rocket science, either. More like common sense, combined with common experiences, and trial and error over hundreds of years.

Doctors don't have a lot of incentive to promote this kind of stuff, because its not patented and you can't make money promoting it. Anyway, its not their job. They leave it up to us to stay as healthy as we can, and then we go to them to fix stuff we can't.

In the case of gout, it is a disease of lifestyle, like type 2 diabetes. So it develops rather slowly and is seldom a dire emergency, until it gets severe in its later stages, where someone's feet swell up and make walking impossible, with sometimes extreme pain and discomfort.

So here are my postings:

Disclaimer: >>> I'm not a doctor.

Uric acid is the primary cause of Gout. Uric acid is produced in the body primarily from the digestion of meat. Red meat, white meat, chicken, fish, any flesh foods force the body to make uric acid as a toxic by-product of digestion. Any excess floating in your bloodstream can crystalize and these sharp-edged crystals settle low in the body and can cause extreme pain.

You dissolve it like sugar--drink a lot of water (not alcohol) to dilute it. Raise your feet up. Eliminate the original source--meat proteins.

Increase your urine output any way you can, even try a bowel cleanse to increase all forms of elimination to get the concentration of uric acid down and out of your system.

Urea is a by-product of the yeast that is used in making wine, so there is always some urea in wines. This is why people with gout--which is pain caused by crystalized urea concentrated in the feet--need to avoid wine for a while to allow the crystals to dissolve.

Here's an interesting article on urea in wine:

New Methods to limit urea: genetically enhanced yeasts reduce probable carcinogen.
By Patterson, Tim
Publication: Wines & Vines
Date: Sunday, February 1 2009

"The issues of urea and ethyl carbamate have been hovering over the wine industry like a little cloud for several years now. Urea, a minor byproduct of yeast metabolism, can combine with ethanol to form urethane--also known as ethyl carbamate or EC--a known carcinogen in animals and a likely carcinogenic danger for humans as well. The stubborn part of this problem--the reason it won't go away quietly--is that some urea is produced in every fermentation. Some of that urea always transforms itself into EC, and once it's there, it's devilishly hard to get rid of.

Slowly but steadily, national and international regulatory bodies are taking a hard look at EC and upping the standards--that is, lowering the acceptable concentrations. In 2006, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) in Canada, which has for years had one of the world's most rigorous testing programs for commercial wines and spirits, rejected several thousand cases of four different sherries because of elevated EC. In the past year, the European Food Safety Authority has raised EC from a "possible" human carcinogen to "probable," putting it in some pretty toxic company, and making the possibility of formal standards more likely. The United States' wine industry currently operates on a voluntary standard, but the chances of the Food and Drug Administration issuing stricter regulations in the near future are fairly good, and the chances that the export market will become EC-restrictive are higher yet.

Several viticultural and cellar practices, dos and don'ts, have been identified for urea/EC control, and products exist that can help in removing it. The newest weapon is the commercial release of two yeast strains from Phyterra Yeast (phyterra.com) that are genetically enhanced to greatly reduce residual urea--potentially limiting the problem before it starts."

Urea in the human body:
Urea is highly soluble in water. Urea is, in essence, a waste product. It is found in and extracted from urine. It is dissolved in blood and excreted by the kidney as a component of urine. In addition, a small amount of urea is excreted in sweat.

This means that drinking lots of water will help to dissolve the crystals.

You should tell your physician about any herbs you are taking, and be sure to learn about any herbs you are taking before you use them.

Some herbs have side-effects, and some herbs should never be taken by pregnant women (chamomile, for instance.) Some herbs are better for women, and others better for men. For example Panax Ginseng (Korean Ginseng Root) is better for men, and Siberian Ginseng (Eleutherococus senticosus) is better for women. Some herbs react with other medications you might be taking.

I'm not a herbalist. I am a caregiver of disabled people. I did study pre-med in college, and my father was a doctor, and I have a lot of nursing experience.

I hope that each person who has symptoms of gout have already been to a Doctor--because, for one thing, it is an extremely painful condition and renders the person lame...and often unable to work. I know someone who recently had a big toe joint removed because of it.

Some of the medications the doctors give are toxic themselves, and the treatments are often only temporary if diet and lifestyle are not changed. Consider that one of the things both doctors and herbalists recommend is to avoid drinking red wine--hardly a harmful recommendation.

I suggest that a person first try changing their diet and lifestyle, and if that doesn't work, go to their doctor and try what he/she suggests, and if that doesn't work, try these home remedies...as a last resort. However, some of the suggestions are really non-toxic, like drinking cherry juice, ginger, sarsaparilla (Similax officinalis), and couldn't hurt anybody, no matter when you tried it.

"Mainly vegetarian" can mean a lot of things.

Some vegetarians eliminate red meat and chicken, but fill up on junk foods to replace them. Try eating whole foods only--foods that haven't been prepared by other people first, because then they add preservatives, food colorings, and artificial flavourings -- more stuff your kidneys and liver have to filter out.

If you have an attack of gout, I would recommend eating no flesh foods whatsoever. This includes fish, chicken, eggs--anything that was once alive. Drink lots of water, not soda, not coffee, no alcohol, just water. Do this for about two weeks.

Gout is caused by improper elimination of too much waste products from protein foods. Gout is a disease of excess. If you are over-eating--that is, eating more than is necessary to maintain your health and at a normal weight--then the excess must be eliminated by your kidneys and liver. Gout used to be called the "disease of Kings" and "the rheumatism of the rich" because only people who had access to an excess of rich foods seemed to get it.

If you are overweight, loose weight. But don't go on a crash diet or do fasting, because this could make you temporarily worse. Going on a "cleanse" to help your liver or kidneys will help your body to eliminate the uric acid better. If you have any kind of kidney damage or liver damage, this could be the reason for a build-up of protein metabolites (urea.)

Gout is caused by an excess of uric acid in the body, called hyperuricemia. Uric acid results from the breakdown of purines. Excess purines can be caused by either an over-production of uric acid by the body or the under-elimination of uric acid by the kidneys. Eating foods high in purines can raise uric acid levels in the blood and precipitate gout attacks.

The way our bodies digest proteins that are high in purines is what causes gout. Even lentils, Garbanzo beans (chickpeas), spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cauliflower are high in purines and can cause kidney stones, too. But these vegetarian foods have not been shown to be a problem for people getting gout.

Foods high in purines:

hearts
herring
mussels
yeast
smelt
sardines
sweetbreads
Beer, other alcoholic beverages.
Anchovies, fish roes
Organ meat (liver, kidneys, sweetbreads)
Meat extracts, consomme, gravies.
Legumes (dried beans, peas)
Mushrooms, spinach, asparagus, cauliflower.

Foods moderately high in purines include:

anchovies
grouse
mutton
veal
bacon
liver
salmon
turkey
kidneys
partridge
trout
goose
haddock
pheasant
scallops

There is a new study that shows some protective effect from eating/drinking low-fat dairy products.

If you haven't had any attacks recently, then the changes to your diet since then might be all you need. I would say that too much of anything isn't a good thing...so eating so that you don't gain weight and eating a variety of healthy foods is probably all you need.

Gout is partly hereditary. If you have kidney problems or liver problems or are missing or deficient in enzymes you need to digest proteins, then you might have to be more careful than the average person. Be careful not to take too many pain relievers and over the counter medications...any thing that can put a strain on your kidneys and liver.

The thing with meats is...there is urea in the meat because the animals have metabolites in their bodies when they are slaughtered. So if you are on the borderline of having a gout attack, any meat could push you over the edge into having too much uric acid, and having that precipitate into painful crystals at that point.

So, don't eat very large meals...more than your body can digest easily in a few hours. Don't binge, don't strain your digestive/elimination system on a regular basis.

You can eliminate eating the red meat completely without really missing much on nutrition. You could improve the meats you eat by selecting organic, free range meats. The main thing red meat has that you need and can't get in a vegan diet is vitamin B12. You can take a B12 supplement for that. The other thing you need is iron. You can get enough iron by cooking some of your food in cast iron pots.

Years ago, people ate much less meat, and it wasn't a daily thing and they did just fine (even better, in many cases.) You could go to one meal of chicken a week, and add low-fat dairy products instead. Or an organic tofu. Or just be sure to keep your serving of meat to no more than the size of a deck of cards (about 3 oz) at any meal you eat meat.

Try eating brown rice pasta, or whole grain pasta some of the time. Refined carbohydrates (white flours) are something that just raises your insulin levels too fast and can cause hypoglycemia, insulin resistance, or pre-diabetes.

Try adding more fiber to your diet. This will absorb some of the waste products in your colon before they get a chance to cause too much trouble.

If you were drinking red wine once a week, you meant that you drank more than two glasses at that sitting, then this might be a sign that your kidneys couldn't deal with that amount at one time. You could try just having one glass at a time, and wait a few days before having the next glass. And always drink a glass of water for each glass of wine you drink to help your kidneys flush out the toxins. By toxins, I mean, the yeast they use to make the wine creates its own urea....and that ends up in the wine.

You get lots of brownie points for cooking from scratch.

I like cooking from scratch. I love going to a farmer's market and bringing home food that I cook right away. You get more vitamins that way, since many vitamins evaporate in the refrigerator before you get to eat them.

There's nothing wrong with fat. Unfortunately, you only need two tablespoons of fat per day.

But may I suggest trying different types of fat? Try a blend of flax oil with safflower oil on salads and switch to using real lemon juice instead of vinegar. Vinegar is made the same way as wine--it has the same metabolites in it from the yeasts.

Go for fats like olive oil, but be sure they don't use solvents to extract it because many oils have hexane in them from the type of extraction process that uses chemicals. That is why "expeller pressed" is better. Also, really try to avoid fats that have gone rancid. Rancidity is very toxic to the nervous system. Any oil that smells rancid, or has a solvent smell is bad for you.

Fats high in omega 3 are good for you, but they spoil easily. You can buy small amounts and use them quickly, keep them in the refrigerator or even the freezer.

If you like the taste and/or smell of the fats you use, blend them with these others and you will still have some of the taste you like.

Nuts like cashews, walnuts and almonds are good for you, as well as avacado, which all are high in fats, but the good kind. Just keep it to a handful a day of nuts, or 1/4 of an avacado. Be sure they are fresh and not rancid. Nuts go rancid just like other fats do.

Nuts are also a good source of protein, in moderation.

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The following is from the excellent source:

"Back To Eden" by Jethro Kloss

These herbs are all natural home remedies that are good for Gout:

Blue violet,
birch,
burdock,
genitian root,
mungwort,
rue,
sarsaparilla,
broom,
buckthorn bark,
ginger,
pennyroal,
plantain,
wood betony,
balm of Gilead.

Recipe:

Take equal parts of granulated (finely chopped) skullcap, yarrow, and valerian, and mix thoroughly together. Use a heaping teaspoon to a cup of boiling water. Steep and drink a cupful an hour before meals and one before bed.

Any of the herbs that were listed by my previous posting can be taken singly or in any combination. Use a spoonful to a cup of boiling water, and steep for 20 minutes. Drink about 4 cups per day.

Try each one individually to see which works best for you.

Note: do not use aluminum cookware when making these recipes. Don't combine regular drugs with herbal medicines during the same treatment period.

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This recipe is for rubbing on to the swollen areas to help reduce the pain and swelling:

(not for drinking!)

Combine:

Two ounces of powdered myrrh,
One ounce of powdered goldenseal,
One-half ounce cayenne pepper
One quart alcohol (pure vodka, 70% alcohol)*

* Rubbing alcohol was the ingredient in the original recipe, but has been implicated in some cancers, so this is a substitution.

Mix together and let stand for seven days; shake well every day. Decant off and bottle in corked bottles. This recipe can work without the golden seal.

You can apply this every few minutes for an hour or two.
(It can be applied to the face, but don't get it into the eyes.)

NOTE: This is not for drinking. This recipe is toxic if you drink it.
It is good for pain, swelling, bruises, pimples and any skin eruptions.

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Drinking cherry juice

is good, but look for the juice that doesn't have lots of High Fructose Corn Syrup in it. HFCS is highly processed and not good for you. Also try to avoid Aspartame (Nutrasweet) sweetener. You could get the 100% juice and add plain sugar or other sweetener, like stevia to it. Or just eat a lot of cherries when they are in season.