Texas Mayor Shares Secrets Of His ‘Vegan Town’ With Oklahoma

By Kelly Ogle

Marshall, Texas – Diseases of the dinner table continue to drag Oklahoma down. We’re a national leader for heart disease, high-blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol, stroke, cancer and diabetes.

Being one of the country’s most unhealthy states is costly in sickness, medical and insurance costs, a lower quality-of-life, and early death. However, one Texas town is working to turn the tide on chronic disease.

Marshall, Texas has a population of 25,000. It’s cattle country, with a food culture, like the rest of the south, centered on meat, sugar, processed and fatty fried foods. Like Oklahoma, it’s known as America’s “stroke belt.” But to sit at dinner with Marshall’s Mayor Ed Smith and his wife, Amanda, you’ll hear a different tale.

“If somebody wants to get control of their health, and turn things around, your body will heal itself very quickly,” said Mayor Ed Smith.

Six years ago, Mayor Smith was 40 pounds heavier and diagnosed with prostate cancer. Knowing they needed to make a change, the Smiths Began eating a plant-based, whole foods diet of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes and whole grains. Amazingly, his prostate cancer disappeared.

“Most of these chronic diseases we have in the United States, for the most part, and even a lot of our cancers are driven by what we’re eating.” Mayor Smith said.

Buoyed by his success, the mayor and his wife offered to share what they had learned.

“We’ve had so many people come up to us that we’ve not even met that tell us their success stories, that is so rewarding,” said Amanda Smith.

In fact, once a month, crowding in a room at the fire house, they share home-cooked healthy foods, exchange recipes and tell their success stories.

“I was 60 pounds heavier, so because of a plant-based diet, this is where I am today,” said Bill Dinsmore of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Sharon Clark of Nacogdoches, Texas also saw success.

“I wasn’t even conscious at first that I was losing weight ’til people started saying ‘are you on a diet?’ and I’m thinking, ‘no, I’ve changed my lifestyle is what I’ve done, I’ve gotten healthy,” she said.

Marshall’s Fire Chief Reggie Cooper was 50 pounds heavier and taking medicine every day for Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol. Then he too switched to a plant-based diet.

“In 28 days, what I couldn’t do in five years, I was able to get off all the medications,” Cooper said. “I haven’t been on medication since.”

All because in a world where arterial-stents and open-heart surgeries are considered “normal,” a man in Texas draws headlines for eating his vegetables.

“The end result is it’s been a success in people’s lives that we’ve seen,” Mayor Smith said. “We’ve seen phenomenal changes in people’s health.”

From http://www.news9.com/story/25960139/texas-mayor-shares-secrets-of-his-vegan-town-with-oklahoma

Vivienne Westwood Credits Veg Diet as Cure for Rheumatism

British fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood declares herself living proof that a vegetarian diet can help to cure rheumatism.
Speaking at the launch of a new campaign for the American animal rights organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the seventy-two year old Westwood said “I used to have rheumatism – and I have a crocked finger. But now I don’t have any rheumatic pain anymore,” she added.
Vegetarian diets are often associated with health advantages including lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure levels and lower risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes,” says a report by the American Dietetic Association (ADA). “Vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates,” according to ADA’s position.
“Vegetarian-style eating patterns have been associated with improved health outcomes – lower levels of obesity, a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, and lower total mortality. Several clinical trials have documented that vegetarian eating patterns lower blood pressure,” claims the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in its dietary guidelines that highlight the benefits of a plant-based diet.
“It does cure all kinds of things if you have a vegetarian diet,” said Westwood. “I believe that we are an endangered species and we need to think about what we are doing. We’re probably killing ourselves through eating meat,” the fashion designer added.
Westwood says that a vegetarian diet not only benefits humans, but the animals and planet as well. “I’m a person who’s got enough money to make choices and this is my choice. We don’t need to eat animals, there’s too many of us anyway and eating animals is destroying the world,” she said.
Westwood has been working with PETA on their new campaign, in order to raise awareness of how the meat industry is poisoning the world’s water supply.

http://www.ecorazzi.com

An Interview with Mr. John Robbins – part 4

Interviewer:  I agree with you. The members in our Association all over the world have been doing a campaign on Alternative Living, trying to bring the word to people to associate compassion with our diet choices.

John:  People today are very removed from animals and if they have images, they are of family farms and animals running around on the farm. Modern meat production has become something totally institutionalized and utterly dominated by the profit motive and a true violation of the human heart’s need to live in integrity with the well-being of other forms of life.

Interviewer: So one last question to you on that note is in terms of your own spiritual motivation in life. We all meditate in our Association but a lot of people have different forms of practice. What is your secret to success in spiritual harmony?

John:  Well, I meditate also. I do everything I can to quiet my mind, open my heart, and to be fully present and tuned to the higher wisdom of life and to the instinct for goodness and wellness in everyone. I want to respond to it, I want to welcome it, I want to honor it. I think that there is some good in everybody and if I can look for that, then I can be a place in which their own spirit, their own joy, their own sense of contribution and gifts can come forward. Then I am happy.

Interviewer: John you walked away from a very large empire, the Baskin Robins kingdom. For the viewers that may not know Baskin Robins, it is the largest ice-cream chain in the world, more than 5,000 stores worldwide, promoting 31 flavors of ice-cream. Your father and uncle began this business and you were not a fan of ice-cream.

John:  Well I was. I grew up as a child being groomed to succeed my father. I’m an only son and I don’t have brothers so it was expected that I would one day follow in his footsteps. He owned and ran the world’s largest ice-cream company, a multibillion dollar company. He owned it along with my uncle. My uncle died of a heart attack in his early 50’s. A very large man, he ate a lot of ice-cream as we all did. When he died, I asked my dad if there could be any connection between my uncle’s fatal heart attack and the amount of ice-cream that he would eat. My dad froze, looked at me, and said: “His ticker just got tired and stopped working.” I saw the denial in my dad’s face and I realized why he would need to block that, because he had by this time manufactured and sold more ice-cream than any other human being that’s ever lived on this planet. He did not want to think that, that product was hurting anybody, much less that it might have played a role in his beloved brother-in-law and partner’s death.

But the reality is that the more ice-cream you eat, the more likely you are to have a heart attack, also the more likely you are to get diabetes; and my father developed very serious diabetes. And it’s not just Baskin Robins. In the United States another very large ice-cream chain is “Ben and Jerry’s.” Ben Cohen was the co-founder and co-owner for years and he had a quintuple bypass procedure at the age of 49. That’s how ill his cardiovascular system had become, that’s the level of cardiac distress he was in; and he also is a heavy set fellow who ate a lot of ice-cream.

I am not saying an ice-cream cone is going to kill anybody. But I did not want to be selling a product that the more you ate of it, the more you consumed of it, the wealthier I would be and the sicker you would be. I didn’t want that on my conscience. I wanted instead to shape my life such that I could be a vehicle for a more healing and a more compassionate world. Although I was offered the opportunity to be as extraordinarily wealthy as my father is, I walked away from that entirely and I told him, “I don’t want a trust fund, I don’t want an inheritance, I don’t want to live off of your fortune, because I want to seek my own values and I want to live completely congruent with that. I want to find my own powers and my own path in life and I want to follow the inner, the divine call that I feel. I don’t know where it will lead.”

I was a young man. I couldn’t say to him, “Oh, I’m going to write books that are going to be nominated for Pulitzer Prizes and become best sellers. Who knew that would ever occur. I only knew that I had a commitment within myself, a conviction, and that I had to be part of making the world a better place for all of life; and selling ice-cream just didn’t fit with that. So I walked away from it and I made a choice for integrity. It was not a choice my parents felt real happy about. There was an alienation as a result of it, although a lot of that’s been healed in subsequent years. The reality is that although I don’t have anything like the financial wealth that I would have had, you know if I had stayed with Baskin Robbins, I have an inner wealth, that comes from knowing that my life is in alignment with my heart, and I think that’s priceless.

Interviewer: Thank you so much for your work.

For more information please visit  http://www.johnrobbins.info/

Lowering Healthcare Costs and Promoting Wellness Through the Vegan Lifestyle (part 2)

Mounting scientific research is revealing the direct relationship between eating animal-based foods and rapidly climbing healthcare costs. In 1995, Dr. Neal Barnard and colleagues conducted an extensive study comparing the prevalence of hypertension, cancer, diabetes, gallbladder disease, obesity-related musculoskeletal disorders and food-borne diseases in meat eaters and vegetarians in the US. The researchers then calculated the medical costs, including needed physician and hospital services and prescription drugs, due to meat consumption.

“When we compare people who eat meat and those who don’t eat meat, the people who eat meat have a higher risk of certain diseases, heart disease, certain forms of cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and some others. And when we look at the frequency of those diseases, and we associate the added healthcare costs that come with them, we could determine the proportion that’s attributable to meat consumption.

And the result is shocking: Meat consumption increases healthcare costs in the billions of dollars every year. In the US we’re in the trillions of dollars in medical costs. And a very substantial portion of that is related to the fact that the Americans follow a very unhealthy diet. And unfortunately it’s getting worse year by year.

In the 1990s, we calculated that US$30- to US$60-billion of medical costs were directly attributable to meat consumption, just for a very few health conditions. We were being very conservative. Since that time, it’s been 15 or more years, those costs have escalated dramatically.

 If the entire US population could somehow all adopt a healthy vegan diet, we would easily save US$150 billion, every single year, this year, next year, and next year. That will be a big burden off of the taxpayers, but also off of the government and the state and local governments as well.

That figure that I just gave doesn’t include the cost of disability, lost income and when a person can’t work, and they can’t pay taxes anymore, or they need long-term nursing care. The cost I gave was just for the doctors’ bills, and the hospital bills and the prescription costs alone. It is many times higher when we include those extra indirect costs. There are so many cases where a person already has a disease or a health condition, when they change their diet, everything does get better.

So, for example, a person has got extra weight or diabetes, hypertension, or even artery blockages that lead to heart disease. When they change their diet, all of those things improve. And then all the medical costs that they’re using for treating them, whether that’s for medications or doctor visits, that all drops as well, and it can drop dramatically.

That’s now pretty clear that if a person follows a healthy, plant-based diet, it will really promote health in a good way. The next step, though, is how to implement it practically. So we have a couple of models that I think are useful.

One is in the business setting. You can offer healthy, vegan meals right in the company cafeteria. And you can offer a little bit of assistance to people who want to make a diet change. It’s easy to do, and the business saves money. We’ve tested it at one of America’s biggest auto insurance companies, and they loved it.

The second model is in office practices. Instead of doctors just treating one patient at a time, in addition to that, the patients can come into the waiting room all as a group. And you do a cooking class. And you do it once a week. So they may see the doctor here and there, but if you give them extra support in changing their diet, it makes the doctor’s life a whole lot easier.

We’ve tested that out and it works really well. So if we give people the tools at work, at the doctor’s office, in schools where people are, to help them change their diet, I think that’s going to really be the answer.”

In the US, one can purchase a hamburger at a fast-food outlet for 99 cents. A study by the Center for Science and Environment estimated that the true cost of a hamburger in the US, including government subsidies to the livestock industry, the harm to public health from consuming beef and environmental damage caused by producing it is US$200.  Given its wide-ranging health and financial benefits, Dr. Barnard believes that the plant-based lifestyle should also be highly encouraged by the US government.

“Right now, our government in the United States really needs to change its focus. It’s very much focused on promoting agricultural products, increasing cheese consumption, and promoting high prices for meat. And to do that, it buys up meat and cheese and puts it in schools, for example. And the dietary guidelines are not very progressive.

All of those things need to change so that children are getting lots of the vegetables and fruits that they need, beans and whole grains that don’t have the animal fat in them. We’d have a healthier population, and we save some money in the bargain.”

Dr. Neal Barnard  www.PCRM.org

Lowering Healthcare Costs and Promoting Wellness Through the Vegan Lifestyle (part -1)

This time we examine how the vegan lifestyle can significantly lower the cost of food, health insurance and healthcare while promoting wellness.

We’ll hear the views of three individuals in the US who’ve made important contributions to the field of public health: Dr. Pamela Popper, a vegan nutrition expert, naturopath, and founder and Executive Director of the Wellness Forum;  Dr. Neal Barnard, a vegan physician, researcher, bestselling author and President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and Ellen Jaffe Jones, a vegan former Emmy-winning TV investigative reporter and anchor, certified personal-fitness trainer and author of “Eat Vegan on $4 a Day.”

We hear first from Ms. Jaffe Jones, who shares how a plant-based diet, free from meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, can substantially reduce our grocery bills.

I wrote, “Eat Vegan on $4 a Day” because I saw so many stories on the news that said you can’t eat well on a budget. I just felt like reporters need more resources than that very biased opinion that, in order to eat healthy, it has to cost a lot of money. I have eaten this way most of the last 30 years. So I knew personally that it wasn’t true.

And I also knew that it costs so much money when you don’t eat this way, not only at the grocery store, but then when you start getting the diseases of affluence like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. You know, a bypass surgery in the United States can cost upwards of US$100,000 to US$200,000.

So if you really average out, as we liked to do when I was a financial consultant, the cost of that bypass surgery into the cost of a US$5 burger, that US$5 burger may actually cost like US$100 or US$1,000, depending on how many years you live and how many burgers you eat.

So it’s not just as simple as what you save at the grocery store. It’s the amount of money you have to pay when you get sick or when you have to go to the hospital or when you have to hire people to help you when you are so debilitated.

How is it possible to eat on just US$4 a day? It is simpler than one might think.

The big secret to eating well on US$4 a day is buying foods in bulk, and buying them when they’re on sale. For example, a big bag of beans at a big box store is about 10 cents for a four-ounce serving of cooked beans, with high fiber, and is a great source of protein. You compare that at the same big box store to the cheapest form of hamburger meat.

Now that’s going to be 30% fat. I don’t know what else is in the other 70%, stuff you wouldn’t want to eat anyway. But that is going to cost about 60 cents. So burger meat is six times more expensive than bean protein. And if you start going to more expensive cuts of meat like tenderloin, for example, it’s going to be even more expensive. And if you go to a restaurant, it’s going to be even more expensive.

So, you really save a lot of money by eating bean protein. And even if you don’t buy the biggest bag of beans, canned beans are only twice as expensive as cooking beans from scratch. And it’s just not a big deal to cook beans from scratch. My book has a lot of tips on how to do that in a quick way, in an easy way. I give all the proportions of water to beans. So if people have never cooked beans from scratch, it’s not a big deal.

Ms. Jaffe Jones has several recommendations regarding shopping for groceries. First, make sure you eat before going shopping, as we tend to buy “impulse foods” when we’re hungry. Second, purchase fruits and vegetables when they’re in season or on sale. Third, if the price of some of the fruits or veggies is exceptionally good, buy extra quantities and freeze or dehydrate them for use in the winter months when prices are much higher.

There’s a great deal of variety in a plant-based diet, even eating on US$4 a day. The big secret to eating on US$4 a day, is, “beans, greens, and grains.” The more extended answer is to cook foods in their natural states. Stay away from the frozen processed food aisles. Shop the perimeter of the store.

But it’s very easy to have beans be the source of your protein, whether it’s lunch or dinner. You can combine it with a wholegrain, and even grains are only about 5 cents to 10 cents more expensive per ounce than beans. So when you combine those two, you get all your calories.

And then you have plenty of money left over to go buy the vegetables and the fruits that might be a little more expensive. But even a banana costs only 22 cents. So it is nature’s perfect “fast food.” You just don’t need to buy Twinkies.

For the price of one Twinkie, you can have three servings of bean protein. So you really can save your health so much by looking at different options in the plant kingdom. People say, “Well, isn’t that kind of a boring diet?” And I go, “Excuse me? There are 90 different fruits and vegetables out there. So if you don’t like one or two fruits or vegetables, try another one.”

Produce comes in a wide range of colors, and for good reason.

Nature gave us these beautiful colors and foods. Why? So we would eat them; so we would be attracted to them. And I like to say, “Eat the colors of the rainbow, because nature did a great job in putting almost every color with an associated anti-oxidant or nutrient or vitamin that makes you just want to crave that purple cabbage or the eggplant or a red apple or a yellow squash.” There are just so many different colors out there. They’re great and they’re cheap.

Many meat-based recipes can easily be converted into delicious, money-saving vegan dishes.

An example of a specific recipe would be if you’re used to making chili with hamburger meat. Given the example of beans costing 10 cents versus the same quantity serving of hamburger meat costing 60 cents, just in that meal alone, if you’re cooking for your family, you can see how this would multiply out not only over that meal but over that day, the course of a week, the course of a year and a lifetime.

The savings are really phenomenal when you start multiplying this out. And that’s just the food that costs money at the grocery store. When you figure out that you don’t need the US$100,000 bypass surgery, the savings are tremendous.

One of the best ways to save money and improve one’s health is to avoid purchasing processed foods.

Cookies and crackers are probably some of the worst kinds of processed foods that you can buy, in part because they’re so addictive, but they’re also very expensive. So if you are eating rice as a whole grain by itself, that’s going to cost you maybe 10 cents to 15 cents for a quarter-cup serving (45 grams), and that’s going to fill you up for that meal, as opposed to a package of cookies, which costs maybe US$3-US$4.

Another big one would be cereals that are very processed and very expensive, in the big boxes. Then when you look inside the box there’s not quite so much inside, and a whole a lot of sugar, a lot of high fructose corn syrup in many products, a lot of added sugar in different forms. What I like to eat in the morning is a quarter cup of oats, and that cooks into a half-cup serving.

And I add some fruit to that and that costs me maybe 20-25 cents; verses 50 cents to a dollar for a grocery store serving of the same quantity. And that doesn’t even include the fruit.

Once people experience how wonderful they feel and how much money they save on a plant-based diet, they become enthusiastic advocates of the vegan way.

My book has only been out four months and already I’m getting a tremendous response from people on Facebook. I have close to 4,000 followers, and the response really has been amazing. People are getting the book and within a week of reading it saying, “I’m already seeing a difference.” And some of the people are already vegan. Some of them are not.

So especially, when they’re not vegan and they trade out a few meat meals a week for bean protein, for example, they really start to see some significant savings. And if it’s more than just them, say they have a family of four, it’s really quite noticeable. And I give a lot of tips in the book about how to save money at the grocery store.

And it’s important to understand that it’s not just looking for beans in quantity but there are other ways to save money, like understanding that products, especially the more expensive products, are placed right in front of your eyes, at eye level, so you will be sure to buy those things. And understanding what the stores are doing to try to get us to buy is important, too.

But saving money on grocery bills is only the beginning. Consuming animal products leads to many serious, life-threatening illnesses which are entirely preventable.

It is really important that you understand you will save not only money in the choices of the food that you buy, but by avoiding the diseases and illnesses that making poor food selections will cause. Many people tell me, and I certainly have had this experience, that once they adopt a vegan diet, they don’t get sick. Every time when I was younger and I used to run a great distance like six miles, I would get sick like clockwork.

And since I have adopted a plant-based diet, I just never get sick. When most people make this change, they never go back. They are amazed how delicious the food tastes, how colorful and vibrant it is, how energized they feel by it. And then, when they start saving money on their medical bills, they’re going like, “Well, why didn’t I start this 20 years ago?”

And how much time is lost because they didn’t start it sooner. So my advice would be: “Do it now. Don’t waste another minute.” You’re going to have so much energy. You’re going to save so much money, and I think it’s something that you will never regret.

Consumption of animal products is the primary cause of heart attacks and strokes which, according to the World Health Organization, are the world’s most common diseases, and account for about 23% of all annual deaths globally.

We know that in the United States, the cost of a (coronary) bypass surgery, just one bypass can be between US$100,000 and US$200,000. So if you are able to avoid that surgery, whether you pay for it, the insurance company pays for it or the government pays for it, that is just for one person. If you multiply that by all the heart procedures that could be avoided, I think billions of dollars could be saved, billions.

And the bottom line is preventable diseases are just not sustainable. It doesn’t matter who pays for them. It’s not only the medicine that is used to treat cancer, but the caregiver expenses that must be maintained. Again, billions of dollars will be saved if we can avoid just one of these diseases.

So many people, especially in the United States are going bankrupt because they can’t afford either insurance or the diseases that they’re getting, that insurance companies won’t pay for, or can’t pay for.

So I think this is really, at least in my mind, very much a solution, that if everybody went vegan, we would save so much money in insurance and medical costs.

And I’m amazed at how many women probably could have avoided a hysterectomy if they’d had a doctor who said, “Why don’t try a plant-based (diet).” And I am also astounded at the amount of money that could be saved with women who are seeking answers in the medical community for menopause treatments. If they could just try a plant-based diet. Food really is powerful medicine.

Ellen Jaffe Jones http://www.VegCoach.com

Spirited Actress & Dancer Tonya Kay: Connecting with Oneself through Raw Veganism

It is our pleasure to introduce to you actress and dancer, the lovely Ms. Tonya Kay.

Today, we will spend some time with the multi-faceted artist and find out how a simple change in diet that started three decades ago have helped transform her life and livelihood.

Multi-talented only begins to describe Tonya Kay. She is an award-winning actress and writer; professional dancer, model, vocalist, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Aside from her starring roles in movie and television, Tonya is also well recognized for her athletic abilities, especially her unique combination of stunt and dance.

Her talents have led to invitations to appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, American Idol with multi-Grammy winning singer Rihanna, and America’s Got Talent, among others. As a professional dancer and stage performer, she has toured with STOMP, De La Guarda, Panic at the Disco, and Kenny Rogers.

I just really believe you can change the world if you change what you eat.

When people feel good, they make different choices, too. So I’m really into that, just helping individuals feel their best so that they can get to that childish place where they can create and love and play again.

The next couple of months, I’ve got some appearances on some TV shows. I just won best supporting actress in the 2011 Los Angeles Movie Awards, for my portrayal of Kielle in a series called “Silver Lake.” I’m going to be dancing in the Muppets movie. That comes out this Thanksgiving, and I got to work with the Muppets. And I’m going to be in an episode of “Friends with Benefits”; it’s a new series on NBC. And I’m filming a music video this week. Oh, and I’m on a car show; I restore classic cars. And I’ll be on Speed TV on a show called “My Ride Rules.”

A couple other projects that I’m in that you should definitely check out are “Bold Native.” “Bold Native” is the first fictional film about the Animal Liberation Front. Everyone on the production team was vegan or went vegan for the duration. And that was about the coolest set I’ve ever been on.

Also, I am the voice of Green Girl in an animated series called “Raw Man and Green Girl,” and it’s about raw super heroes who fight the nasty, the beekeeper and Franken food and things like that; it’s super cool for kids.

I’ve gotten to work with some really great, notable other vegetarian and vegan celebrities. I did a modeling shoot with Russell Brand. I filmed a music video with Rob Zombie. I worked with Ellen DeGeneres in Las Vegas, she’s a famous vegan.  And it’s really cool to connect with these people in the workplace. Hollywood really grabs onto the next fashion, the next fad. They’re really open to change; California’s progressive.

Like raw food and raw vegan food are a super popular movement. There are 12 restaurants in the area that I can go to that are raw vegan, and there are tons more that are raw-friendly. And the great thing about the raw vegan movement is that just because it’s popular, people latch onto it. But they stick with it because it works. There’s not a human being that doesn’t feel the positive change that happens to them. It’s definitely experiential. You don’t need to read the books – you need to do it.

Being on a raw vegan diet for the last 10 years, Tonya accredits her achievements and strength to her plant-based diet. With a strong belief that this is the best diet for maximum health and for protecting the environment, she strives to convey this message through different activities such as writing books and television appearances. She writes weekly columns in the EcoHearth Magazine, volunteers for the preservation of endangered species, and donates to animal protection projects.

I went vegetarian for animal compassion reasons, unconscious animal compassion reasons. I went vegan to break the system; it was an act of rebellion.

I went vegan when I was on tour with Kenny Rogers. And it was 5 AM, we stopped at this truck stop and I wanted food. And when I went in there to the truck stop, I looked at this with all neon packaging and cartoon characters, and none of it looked like a food to me. And I saw instead how the system is really set up against us. And I went raw vegan as a desire to really find out what healthy was.

And I had been taking care of the other animals for so long that I was kind of doing a reverse specie-ism. So going raw was really an act of self-love where I considered myself one of the animals and now we’re all one. And I have extraordinary health. The health benefits going from cooked vegan to raw vegan have been extraordinary, nothing less than miraculous in my life.

Can you talk a little about how being a raw vegan impacts your life as an actor?

There are so many ways that being a raw vegan impacts my life as a professional actress and a professional dancer. Athletically, being a raw vegan has helped my athleticism just skyrocket. Now I get injured far less.

My connection to my body has become so crystal clear, that I can hear the movements that are causing injury long before I ever was used to. And then if I do get injured – cuts, bruises, contusions whatever, accidents happen – then my healing rate is so much faster. It’s also mental. It’s the knowledge that I’ve gathered being a raw vegan that has made me a better athlete. I have the tools to eat, make choices that help me sustain my energy over a long period of time, where before I just didn’t even know.

And I get a little bit sad when an adult asks me questions about diet and how sugar is processed in the body. And why do they have diabetes or why are they depressed. And I get a little bit sad that in the school systems we’re giving kids diplomas but they don’t even know how their own body works. We have not prepared them for life if they don’t know how diabetes is caused. Adults are turning to me and asking “I want these tools now.” So I feel like having these tools, this education, and then acting upon it, has made me a better athlete.

And in the acting world, my ability to tap into my emotions is so clean. I’m not afraid to connect with people. That’s a really great asset for an actor to have because I really believe that acting is one of the most noble art forms that one can undertake.

It’s a fascination with humanity and psychology and wanting so badly to know what the experience of another person is like that we would forfeit all of our own experiences in order to understand them better. So being a raw vegan has just cleaned up that space where that happens. Where I can just really get into another person and share the thing that helps me understand what it’s like to be them. That’s called compassion.

Tonya Kay was born in Michigan in a small farming community, and at a very young age was concerned by the inhumane treatment of animals. Intuitively, she refused to eat her friends, the animals.

I’ve been a vegetarian for almost 30 years. I have been vegan for 20 of those years. And I’ve been a raw vegan for the last 10. And each progression was a distinct and separate experience unto itself. Obviously I went vegetarian very young. And that was probably based on an unconscious knowledge of the suffering that animals go through.

My grandparents had a slaughterhouse and I got to see firsthand what was going on and really I didn’t know I was making this decision. My mom was the one who told me at the dinner table. She says, “Do you know what they call people like you,” and she says, “Vegetarian.”

We asked Tonya to share with us her own experience in transitioning from vegan to raw veganism, in hopes that her story will help us who aspire to the same way of eating and living.

I never want to feel restricted at all. So I just made a list of all of my favorite cooked foods, because I was already a vegan. and which ones were my favorite, I decided I would always have on hand, in my kitchen. Anything that was not on that list, I just got rid of that stuff, and replaced that with more raw food. So in the end, I was just eating huge amounts of raw food and always also had my favorite cooked foods on hand.

And then over time, just being patient with yourself, I noticed that my tastes changed. And my taste buds now, they’re super receptive to the life taste. And brown foods and oily foods and whatever, they just don’t rank very high anymore.

Ms. Kay strongly believes that creating the world in which we wish to live in starts with ourselves.

I’m in for the health. I’m in for the compassion, but the environmental aspect is what really moves me right now at this point, a decade into my raw veganness. I just really believe you can change the world if you change what you eat.

By changing our diet, really we would be changing the environment. We would be changing the way we interact in the community. If we had a mass movement of people going vegetarian, vegan, raw vegan – if a mass movement went to that direction, it would be a more peaceful society, a more utopian society, be like living on a paradise island. And that’s where I want to live. I want everybody to join, join this party over here because this party is good.

Our admiration, Ms. Tonya Kay, for your will power, idealism, and appreciation for life. Wishing you success in all your endeavors of bringing much kindness and beauty to our world.

My name is Tonya Kay.
Be Veg,
Go Green
2 Save the Planet!

For more on the multi-talented Tonya Kay and her work, please visit http://www.TonyaKay.com

May the songs of Nature lift your heart to dance and your soul to sing.

Trade Your Milk and Butter for Plant-Based Versions

   by Kathy Freston
Bestselling Author, “Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World”

 

 

Today we’re going to switch up milk and butter for their nondairy counterparts. And I’m going to point you to the yummiest ones.

Why this switch? Well, for starters, a lot of milk has added hormones in it — and these additives are no good for our waistlines. In fact, they’re not good for the cows that produce the milk, let alone the humans who drink it! These hormones are injected into cows to make them produce more milk (which creates more profit). But even organic, grass-fed, and chemical-free milk is full of naturally-occurring cow hormones that aren’t necessarily good for people, whether the milk is whole, 2 percent, or skim.

Think of how milk happens: It’s created by a lactating cow in order to feed her little calf so it will get really big, really quickly. By nature’s brilliant design, this milk contains naturally-occurring growth hormones in order to make a little one grow.

But we don’t want to be fat, docile, and slow like cows. No sir. We want to be slim and quick on our feet. By the time we are in kindergarten, we’re not drinking our mama’s milk to make us bigger anymore, and we definitely don’t need it from a cow, whose milk is designed to put a hefty 1,000 pounds on her baby!

Cow’s milk is the perfect nutrition for building a calf into a cow, but definitely not for a human — especially a human who would like to be slim. And to go even further, casein — the main protein in milk — is serious trouble for the human body. Casein is good for a nursing calf, because it helps her grow fast, and it’s designed by nature to keep her bonded to mama. But when humans take in casein from the cow… oh, not good.

The casein in dairy is downright addictive. During the process of dairy digestion, the casein breaks apart into a host of opioids called casomorphins. Note the “morphin(e)” in there? Well, sure enough, when you ingest dairy, you get sort of addicted, as you might to morphine. Why so? Because nature designed cow’s milk to have a drug-like effect on the calf’s brain, to ensure that the little one stays bonded to the mom. It’s nature’s way of making sure the little one continues to get all the nutrients he or she needs. And by the way, just as opiates tend to be constipating, so can dairy products constipate you (especially cheese). So just know it’s not for nothing that people say they are addicted to dairy — there’s a reason! But that’s why we are switching you to something better in such a way that you’ll hardly miss a beat.

Let’s get back to the nutritional issues. Might I mention that most of the fat in milk is saturated butterfat, which clogs your arteries and is bad for your heart? And according to T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University and author of the groundbreaking book The China Study, that casein we were just talking about actually promotes cancer. In fact, he says casein is one of the most significant cancer promoters ever discovered. In layperson’s terms: Milk protein can fertilize cancer cells. (You can read more on this in my bookVeganist.)

Trade your milk for nondairy versions and your stomach is likely to settle down real quickly. Not only that, the pounds will drop, too.

Putting the problem of casein aside for a moment, let’s talk about skim milk.

In a fascinating twist on expectation, a 2011 Harvard study of 12,829 children showed that skim milk may make you fatter than whole milk. That wouldn’t surprise farmers; when they want to fatten up a pig, they feed it skim milk.

The reason? Milk sugar.

When you remove the fat from milk, what’s left is lactose — milk sugar. The end product is an unbalanced, sugary-like drink that leads to weight gain.

So skip the nonfat and low-fat stuff and go for a yummy nondairy milk instead — preferably one that is unsweetened (although there are some nondairy milks that are sweetened with stevia; more on stevia in a couple of days).

I prefer the unsweetened nondairy milks so I can sweeten them, if I need to, to my own taste. Usually all it takes is a smidge of agave or stevia, but it’s always better to see how much sugary stuff you’re using and try to cool it wherever possible.

These days there are so many wonderful milk alternatives. You can find soy, almond, rice, hemp, or coconut milk just about anywhere, even at your favorite coffee place.

You’ll feel extra good about making this switch when I tell you that the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services just released their Dietary Guidelines for Americans in January 2011, in which they provide advice on how good dietary habits can promote health and reduce risk for major chronic diseases. The guidelines emphasize a plant-based diet! Most people think that plant-based foods are just fruits and vegetables, but they include whole grains, nuts, legumes, and soy foods like soy milk, almond milk, and coconut milk.

Plant-based foods are associated with lower rates of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes because they tend to be high in nutrients and low in calories and saturated fat. Research has also shown that plant-based foods can help reduce the risk of chronic disease. For example, most plant-based foods are much lower in saturated fat than animal foods, making them a better choice for maintaining heart health. Also, since plant-based foods contain no cholesterol, using them to replace animal foods can be an effective way to lower overall cholesterol intake.

One “nutrient of concern” noted by the new Dietary Guidelines is calcium. Since consumers do not get enough of this vital nutrient, many makers of soy, almond, and coconut milks have recently increased the calcium level in their products to equal that of conventional dairy milk, or they even surpass it by 50 percent! Fifty percent more calcium than milk — well, you can’t beat that!

Butter

Now to everyone’s favorite fat: butter. Butter makes everything taste better. Okay, agreed. But butter is nearly all fat — much of it saturated fat — and it’s calorie-dense. One tablespoon of butter has 102 calories. Compare that to hummus, which has only 25 calories for the same tablespoon. If you’re looking for a spread for your toast or cracker, try using hummus or some other bean spread. You can even smear a little avocado where you would have used butter. If you are sautéing something, try using a little spray olive oil, and when I say a little, I mean like a super-quick spritz.

And if you consider the taste of butter an absolute must-have every once in a while, try Earth Balance buttery spread. It’s delicious and substitutes perfectly anywhere you’d use butter.

If you’ve heard nasty things about margarine — and they’re likely true — don’t worry: Earth Balance is not margarine.

source>www.huffingtonpost.com

Nutritionist Jeff Novick on Eating Right

This is an insightful interview with award-winning vegan dietician and nutritionist Mr. Jeff Novick conducted during the October 2011 Healthy Lifestyle Expo held in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Mr. Novick is based in the US and currently serves as vice president for Executive Health Exams International and is the Director of Nutrition for the Meals for Health community project that helps “empower low-income families to achieve optimal health.”

He is also a lecturer for two programs which assist people in transitioning to a vegan diet: the McDougall Program run by famed vegan physician Dr. John McDougall as well as the Engine 2 Immersion program started by vegan fireman Rip Esselstyn, the bestselling author of “The Engine 2 Diet.” He has also produced a line of DVDs on wellness including “Jeff Novick’s Fast Food,” “Should I Eat That? How To Choose The Healthiest Foods,” and “Calorie Density: How To Eat More, Weigh Less and Live Longer!”

Mr. Novick received the Indiana State Public Health Excellence in Health Science Award from the governor of Indiana, and Indiana State University, USA awarded him the Graduate-of- the-Last-Decade Award. He’s been interviewed by national media outlets such as Fox News and appeared in the American documentary “Processed People.”

When I went on a really healthy plant-based diet I noticed a lot of different changes. I didn’t have heart disease, diabetes or any of those problems that drives a lot of people. I was just exploring ways to optimize my life and lifestyle. I had been plagued on and off with allergies over the years and those seemed to go away, most all of them, so now, it’s really an occasional thing that might happen. But the biggest change was my energy levels. I was always an active, energetic person, but it really changed when I cleaned up my diet and changed the way I live. And getting up was a joy now and I just felt so much better.

Animal products are the prime cause of many dangerous health conditions from diabetes and cancer to heart disease. Current research conducted by esteemed nutrition experts such as Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Dr. John McDougall and Dr. Dean Ornish among others, has shown that not only are these diseases preventable but they are reversible too. Eating a whole foods plant-based diet, meaning a diet free from processed foods and any animal products conveys huge health benefits.

I’ve been fortunate to work with many, what we call “immersion-style programs” over the last two decades. And so, I get to see the power of a plant-based diet in a controlled setting where we really get to implement it in a person’s life for anywhere from three to five days to several weeks or more even in some of the places I’ve worked, where we’ve kept people in a residential setting for weeks and months at a time.

And, diabetes goes away, heart disease goes away; high blood pressure goes away; metabolic syndrome goes away; weight loss is, you don’t have to count calories. They get to eat whenever they are hungry till they’re comfortably full. So a lot of the struggles that people have with food and health, just seem to start going away the more they do that. Of course there is valid physical scientific reasons why that happens, but in the big picture, that’s what happens. And in addition, we see things, allergies go away or auto-immune conditions get better; lupus and arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis.

And currently I’m involved with Dr. McDougall, and we’re running a study, on the effects of a whole foods plant-based diet on multiple sclerosis. And so, we are doing that now, it’s been about two years we’re running a study.

Many people who have made the switch to a vegan diet have noticed improvements in their mental and emotional state.

Some of the mental benefits are, sometimes maybe not something that you can directly measure, but I know personally and from working with people over the years, a much clearer mind, ability to think and focus and attention really becomes much sharper. Also, in general, (you experience a) better mood, you feel better, (and experience) less depression and anxiety, especially when you couple it with an active lifestyle. Eating well and exercising and being active have shown to be very effective in reducing mild to moderate depression. So people having anxiety or mental issues, it can also really help.

There is an unfounded concern that by adopting a vegan diet one will not consume enough protein. However this is completely untrue as plant-based proteins are vastly superior to those derived from animals which are detrimental to health. Dr. Neal D. Barnard, founder and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine noted that “A healthy diet of beans, grains, vegetables, and fruits provides all the protein you need. In fact you are better off getting protein from plant sources. While animal protein can be hard on the delicate tissues of the kidneys, plant proteins appear to be free of this problem. They are also free of the risks of calcium loss and kidney stones associated with animal protein.”

Another one of the myths of a vegan or plant-based diet is not getting enough protein and to be honest, it’s amazing that this one has actually lasted the decades that it has, because it’s virtually impossible not to get in enough protein. If you consume enough calories from whole plant foods, you’re getting enough calories to maintain a healthy weight and you eat a variety of foods, then getting in enough protein it’d be impossible not to do it. So it really isn’t a problem. So again vegetables, you eat a lot of vegetables, you eat a lot of whole grains, and you eat a lot of beans.

Beans are probably one of the best sources of protein there is. What people don’t realize is when you use animal foods for protein, you’re also getting in saturated fat and cholesterol and you’re not getting in any fiber. Yet when you eat beans, not only are you getting in lots of good protein, you’re also getting in lots of fiber, you’re getting in virtually no saturated fat, you’re getting no cholesterol. So when you look at it as a total package, there’s no comparison.

With so much information available today on what foods we should eat as well as the various diets and fads, knowing what is good for us in terms of nutrition can be challenging. Thankfully Mr. Novick has the following useful advice.

And what we look at is the overriding body of evidence and we look at that, it really hasn’t changed that much in 50 years. Fruits and vegetables are still good for you and junk food is still bad for you. And a lot of these peripherals that they argue about aren’t really the health issue.

The basics are really simple, your diet should predominantly be based on fruits, vegetables, starchy vegetables, intact whole grains, legumes with a little bit of nuts and seeds. And those foods can make up all of your diet, all of your calories, and it would be the healthiest diet. It’d be the least processed, it would be nutrient adequate, more than nutrient adequate and that would be the best.

Apart from what we eat, our lifestyles and thoughts have a big effect on our lives. Exercise, clean air and fresh water, all enhance our well-being.

So physical fitness is part of it. In addition, getting in pure air and getting in pure water. A lot of the water is polluted, and the air, most Americans don’t smoke anymore. But for the 20% or so that still do, they put out second-hand smoke and what’s now called third-hand smoke. So, even though I’ve never smoked, I’m exposed to smoke. So it’s important for me to make sure I have fresh air and clean water. I also need to make sure I get adequate sleep, rest and relaxation, and an emotional poise so we’re not too stressed out. And that may be through meditation.

Mr. Jeff Novick also recommends “vitamin S” or sunshine to enjoy the best mental and physical health.

Sun and sunshine is important to us. And again, on an emotional level, we all know it, because we know how good we feel when we get out to the sunshine. And look where people go on vacation and everything. They don’t go to dark caves. They go to the sunny areas of the world and they spend their time out in the sunshine because it makes them feel so good. And we know there’s a Seasonal Affective Disorder where, when the sun isn’t around as much, people get depressed.

Clearly the way to optimize health, wellness and happiness is through the adoption of a whole foods organic vegan diet. This compassionate lifestyle choice not only benefits us and our loved ones but also holds the key to reversing climate change and many of the other urgent environmental problems we face. Our appreciation Jeff Novick, for taking time from your busy schedule to speak about wellness issues and your benevolent health promotion work over the years. Let many more people hear your wonderful message of vegan health in the future.

For more information on Jeff Novick, please visit http://www.JeffNovick.com
Mr. Novick’s DVDs are available at the same website

May all people soon adopt the organic vegan diet, for prime health and a kinder, more caring world.

Why Do Vegetarians Live Longer?

by Kathy Freston  Health and Wellness Activist, Author    www.huffingtonpost.com

 

 

Nearly a decade of extra life — that’s what you get when you move away from eating animal foods and toward a plant-based diet. This is really exciting science for anyone seeking healthy longevity (and who isn’t?)!

According to a recent report on the largest study of vegetarians and vegans to date, those eating plant-based diets appear to have a significantly longer life expectancy. Vegetarians live on average almost eight years longer than the general population, which is similar to the gap between smokers and nonsmokers. This is not surprising, given the reasons most of us are dying. In an online video, “Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death,” Michael Greger, M.D. explores the role a healthy diet can play in preventing, treating, and even reversing the top 15 killers in the United States. Let’s take a closer look at what the good doctor has pulled together…

Heart disease is our leading cause of death. The 35-year follow-up of the Harvard Nurses Health Study was recently published, now the most definitive long-term study on older women’s health. Dietary cholesterol intake — only found in animal foods — was associated with living a significantly shorter life and fiber intake — only found in plant foods — was associated with living a significantly longer life. Consuming the amount of cholesterol found in just a single egg a day may cut a woman’s life short as much as smoking five cigarettes daily for 15 years, whereas eating a daily cup of oatmeal’s worth of fiber appears to extend a woman’s life as much as four hours of jogging a week. (But there’s no reason we can’t do both!)

What if your cholesterol’s normal, though? I hear that a lot. But here’s the thing: having a “normal” cholesterol in a society where it’s “normal” to drop dead of a heart attack is not necessarily a good thing. According to the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology, “For the build-up of plaque in our arteries to cease, it appears that the serum total cholesterol needs to be lowered to the 150 area. In other words the serum total cholesterol must be lowered to that of the average pure vegetarian.”

More than 20 years ago, Dr. Dean Ornish showed that heart disease could not just be stopped but actually reversed with a vegan diet, arteries opened up without drugs or surgery. Since this lifestyle cure was discovered, hundreds of thousands have died unnecessary deaths. What more does one have to know about a diet that reverses our deadliest disease?

Cancer is killer number two. Ah, the dreaded “C” word — but look at this hopeful science. According to the largest forward-looking study on diet and cancer so far performed, “the incidence of all cancers combined is lower among vegetarians.” The link between meat and cancer is such that even a paper published in the journal Meat Science recently asked, “Should we become vegetarians, or can we make meat safer?” There are a bunch of additives under investigation to suppress the toxic effects the blood-based “heme” iron, for example, which could provide what they called an “acceptable” way to prevent cancer. Why not just reduce meat consumption? The meat science researchers noted that if such public health guidance were adhered to, “Cancer incidence may be reduced, but farmers and [the] meat industry would suffer important economical problems…” Hmmm, so Big Ag chooses profit over health; what a surprise.

After Dr. Ornish’s team showed that the bloodstreams of men eating vegan for a year had nearly eight times the cancer-stopping power, a series of elegant experiments showed that women could boost their defenses against breast cancer after just two weeks on a plant-based diet. See the before and after here (nutritionfacts.org/video). If you or anyone you know has ever had a cancer scare, this research will make your heart soar. Because there is real, true hope — something you can do to stave off “the big C.”

So, the top three leading causes of death used to be heart disease, cancer, then stroke, but the latest CDC stats place COPD third — lung diseases such as emphysema. Surprisingly, COPD can be prevented with the help of a plant-based diet, and can even be treated with plants. Of course, the tobacco industry viewed these landmark findings a little differently. Instead of adding plants to one’s diet to prevent emphysema, wouldn’t it be simpler to just add them to the cigarettes? Hence the study “Addition of Açaí [Berries] to Cigarettes Has a Protective Effect Against Emphysema in [Smoking] Mice.” Seriously.

The meat industry tried the same tack. Putting fruit extracts in burgers was not without its glitches, though. The blackberries “literally dyed burger patties with a distinct purplish color,” and though it was possible to improve the nutritional profile of frankfurters with powdered grape seeds, there were complaints that the grape seed “particles became visible” in the final product. And if there’s one thing we know about hot dog eaters, it’s that they’re picky about what goes in their food!

Onward to strokes: The key to preventing strokes may be to eat potassium-rich foods. Though Chiquita may have had a good PR firm, bananas don’t even make the top 50 sources. The leading whole food sources include dark green leafy vegetables, beans, and dates. We eat so few plants that 98 percent of Americans don’t even reach the recommended minimum daily intake of potassium. And if you look at killer number five — accidents — bananas (and their peels) could be downright dangerous!

Alzheimer’s disease is now our sixth leading killer. We’ve known for nearly 20 years now that those who eat meat — including chicken and fish — appear three times more likely to become demented compared to long-term vegetarians. Exciting new research suggests one can treat Alzheimer’s using natural plant products such as the spice saffron, which beat out placebo and worked as well as a leading Alzheimer’s drug.

Diabetes is next on the kick-the-bucket list. Plant-based diets help prevent, treat, and even reverse Type 2 diabetes. Since vegans are, on average, about 30 pounds skinnier than meat-eaters, this comes as no surprise; but researchers found that vegans appear to have just a fraction of the diabetes risk, even after controlling for their slimmer figures.

Kidney failure, our eighth leading cause of death, may also be prevented and treated with a plant-based diet. The three dietary risk factors Harvard researchers found for declining kidney function were animal protein, animal fat, and cholesterol, all of which are only found in animal products.

Leading killer number nine is respiratory infections. With flu shot season upon us, it’s good to know that fruit and vegetable consumption can significantly boost one’s protective immune response to vaccination. Check out the short video “Kale and the Immune System,” and you’ll see there’s not much kale can’t do.

Suicide is number 10. Oh yes, vegan food even has something good to offer on this one! Cross-sectional studies have shown that the moods of those on plant-based diets tend to be superior, but taken in just a snapshot in time one can’t tease out cause-and-effect. Maybe happier people end up eating healthier and not the other way around. But this year an interventional trial was published in which all meat, poultry, fish, and eggs were removed from people’s diets and a significant improvement in mood scores was found after just two weeks. It can take drugs like Prozac a month or more to take effect. So you may be able to get happier faster by cutting out animal foods than by using drugs.

Drugs can help with the other conditions as well, but instead of taking one drug for cholesterol every day for the rest of your life, maybe a few for high blood pressure or diabetes, the same diet appears to work across the board without the risk of drug side-effects. One study found that prescription medications kill an estimated 106,000 Americans every year. That’s not from errors or overdose, but from adverse drug reactions, arguably making doctors the sixth leading cause of death.

Based on a study of 15,000 American vegetarians, those that eat meat have about twice the odds of being on antacids, aspirin, blood pressure medications, insulin, laxatives, painkillers, sleeping pills, and tranquilizers. So plant-based diets are great for those that don’t like taking drugs, paying for drugs, or risking adverse side effects.

Imagine if, like President Clinton, our nation embraced a plant-based diet. Imagine if we just significantly cut back on animal products. There is one country that tried. After World War II, Finland joined us in packing on the meat, eggs, and dairy. By the 1970s, the mortality rate from heart disease of Finnish men was the highest in the world, and so they initiated a country-wide program to decrease their saturated fat intake. Farmers were encouraged to switch from dairies to berries. Towns were pitted against each other in friendly cholesterol-lowering competitions. Their efforts resulted in an 80 percent drop in cardiac mortality across the entire country.

Conflicts of interest on the U.S. dietary guidelines committee may have prevented similar action from our own government, but with our health-care crisis deepening, our obesity epidemic widening, and the health of our nation’s children in decline, we may need to take it upon ourselves, families, and communities to embrace Food Day ideals of healthy, affordable, sustainable foods by moving towards a more plant-centered diet. If we do, we may be afforded added years to enjoy the harvest.

The Emotional Lives of Animals

by Marc Bekoff

Grief, friendship, gratitude, wonder, and other things we animals experience.

Scientific research shows that many animals are very intelligent and have sensory and motor abilities that dwarf ours. Dogs are able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes and warn humans of impending heart attacks and strokes. Elephants, whales, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and alligators use low-frequency sounds to communicate over long distances, often miles; and bats, dolphins, whales, frogs, and various rodents use high-frequency sounds to find food, communicate with others, and navigate.

Many animals also display wide-ranging emotions, including joy, happiness, empathy, compassion, grief, and even resentment and embarrassment. It’s not surprising that animals—especially, but not only, mammals—share many emotions with us because we also share brain structures—located in the limbic system—that are the seat of our emotions. In many ways, human emotions are the gifts of our animal ancestors.

Grief in magpies and red foxes: Saying goodbye to a friend

Many animals display profound grief at the loss or absence of a relative or companion. Sea lion mothers wail when watching their babies being eaten by killer whales. People have reported dolphins struggling to save a dead calf by pushing its body to the surface of the water. Chimpanzees and elephants grieve the loss of family and friends, and gorillas hold wakes for the dead. Donna Fernandes, president of the Buffalo Zoo, witnessed a wake for a female gorilla, Babs, who had died of cancer at Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo. She says the gorilla’s longtime mate howled and banged his chest; picked up a piece of celery, Babs’ favorite food; put it in her hand; and tried to get her to wake up.

I once happened upon what seemed to be a magpie funeral service. A magpie had been hit by a car. Four of his flock mates stood around him silently and pecked gently at his body. One, then another, flew off and brought back pine needles and twigs and laid them by his body. They all stood vigil for a time, nodded their heads, and flew off.

I also watched a red fox bury her mate after a cougar had killed him. She gently laid dirt and twigs over his body, stopped, looked to make sure he was all covered, patted down the dirt and twigs with her forepaws, stood silently for a moment, then trotted off, tail down and ears laid back against her head. After publishing my stories I got emails from people all over the world who had seen similar behavior in various birds and mammals.

Empathy Among Elephants

A few years ago while I was watching elephants in the Samburu National Reserve in Northern Kenya with elephant researcher Iain Douglas-Hamilton, I noticed a teenaged female, Babyl, who walked very slowly and had difficulty taking each step. I learned she’d been crippled for years, but the other members of her herd never left her behind. They’d walk a while, then stop and look around to see where she was. If Babyl lagged, some would wait for her. If she’d been left alone, she would have fallen prey to a lion or other predator. Sometimes the matriarch would even feed Babyl. Babyl’s friends had nothing to gain by helping her, as she could do nothing for them. Nonetheless, they adjusted their behavior to allow Babyl to remain with the group.

Waterfall Dances: Do animals have spiritual experiences?

Do animals marvel at their surroundings, have a sense of awe when they see a rainbow, or wonder where lightning comes from? Sometimes a chimpanzee, usually an adult male, will dance at a waterfall with total abandon. Jane Goodall describes a chimpanzee approaching a waterfall with slightly bristled hair, a sign of heightened arousal. “As he gets closer, and the roar of the falling water gets louder, his pace quickens, his hair becomes fully erect, and upon reaching the stream he may perform a magnificent display close to the foot of the falls. Standing upright, he sways rhythmically from foot to foot, stamping in the shallow, rushing water, picking up and hurling great rocks. Sometimes he climbs up the slender vines that hang down from the trees high above and swings out into the spray of the falling water. This ‘waterfall dance’ may last 10 or 15 minutes.” After a waterfall display the performer may sit on a rock, his eyes following the falling water. Chimpanzees also dance at the onset of heavy rains and during violent gusts of wind.

In June 2006, Jane and I visited a chimpanzee sanctuary near Girona, Spain. We were told that Marco, one of the rescued chimpanzees, does a dance during thunderstorms during which he looks like he’s in a trance.

Shirley and Jenny: Remembering Friends

Elephants have strong feelings. They also have great memory. They live in matriarchal societies in which strong social bonds among individuals endure for decades. Shirley and Jenny, two female elephants, were reunited after living apart for 22 years. They were brought separately to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tenn., to live out their lives in peace, absent the abuse they had suffered in the entertainment industry. When Shirley was introduced to Jenny, there was an urgency in Jenny’s behavior. She wanted to get into the same stall with Shirley. They roared at each other, the traditional elephant greeting among friends when they reunite. Rather than being cautious and uncertain about one another, they touched through the bars separating them and remained in close contact. Their keepers were intrigued by how outgoing the elephants were. A search of records showed that Shirley and Jenny had lived together in a circus 22 years before, when Jenny was a calf and Shirley was in her 20s. They still remembered one another when they were inadvertently reunited.

A Grateful Whale

In December 2005 a 50-foot, 50-ton, female humpback whale got tangled in crab lines and was in danger of drowning. After a team of divers freed her, she nuzzled each of her rescuers in turn and flapped around in what one whale expert said was “a rare and remarkable encounter.” James Moskito, one of the rescuers, recalled that, “It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing it was free and that we had helped it.” He said the whale “stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun.” Mike Menigoz, another of the divers, was also deeply touched by the encounter: “The whale was doing little dives, and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it … . I don’t know for sure what it was thinking, but it’s something I will always remember.”

Busy Bees As Mathematicians

We now know that bees are able to solve complex mathematical problems more rapidly than computers—specifically, what’s called “the traveling salesman problem”—despite having a brain about the size of a grass seed. They save time and energy by finding the most efficient route between flowers. They do this daily, while it can take a computer days to solve the same problem.

Dogs Sniffing Out Disease

As we know, dogs have a keen sense of smell. They sniff here and there trying to figure who’s been around and also are notorious for sticking their noses in places they shouldn’t. Compared to humans, dogs have about 25 times the area of nasal olfactory epithelium (which carries receptor cells) and many thousands more cells in the olfactory region of their brain. Dogs can differentiate dilutions of 1 part per billion, follow faint odor trails, and are 10,000 times more sensitive than humans to certain odors.

Dogs appear to be able to detect different cancers—ovarian, lung, bladder, prostate, and breast—and diabetes, perhaps by assessing a person’s breath. Consider a collie named Tinker and his human companion, Paul Jackson, who has Type 2 diabetes. Paul’s family noticed that whenever he was about to have an attack, Tinker would get agitated. Paul says, “He would lick my face, or cry gently, or bark even. And then we noticed that this behavior was happening while I was having a hypoglycemic attack so we just put two and two together.” More research is needed, but initial studies by the Pine Street Foundation and others on using dogs for diagnosis are promising.

It’s Okay To Be A Birdbrain

Crows from the remote Pacific island of New Caledonia show incredibly high-level skills when they make and use tools. They get much of their food using tools, and they do this better than chimpanzees. With no prior training they can make hooks from straight pieces of wire to obtain out-of-reach food. They can add features to improve a tool, a skill supposedly unique to humans. For example, they make three different types of tools from the long, barbed leaves of the screw pine tree. They also modify tools for the situation at hand, a type of invention not seen in other animals. These birds can learn to pull a string to retrieve a short stick, use the stick to pull out a longer one, then use the long stick to draw out a piece of meat. One crow, named Sam, spent less than two minutes inspecting the task and solved it without error.

Caledonian crows live in small family groups and youngsters learn to fashion and use tools by watching adults. Researchers from the University of Auckland discovered that parents actually take their young to specific sites called “tool schools” where they can practice these skills.

Love Dogs

As we all know, dogs are “man’s best friend.” They can also be best friends to one another. Tika and her longtime mate, Kobuk, had raised eight litters of puppies together and were enjoying their retirement years in the home of my friend, Anne. Even as longtime mates, Kobuk often bossed Tika around, taking her favorite sleeping spot or toy.

Late in life, Tika developed a malignant tumor and had to have her leg amputated. She had trouble getting around and, as she was recovering from the surgery, Kobuk wouldn’t leave Tika’s side. Kobuk stopped shoving her aside or minding if she was allowed to get on the bed without him. About two weeks after Tika’s surgery, Kobuk woke Anne in the middle of the night. He ran over to Tika. Anne got Tika up and took both dogs outside, but they just lay down on the grass. Tika was whining softly, and Anne saw that Tika’s belly was badly swollen. Anne rushed her to the emergency animal clinic in Boulder, where she had life-saving surgery.

If Kobuk hadn’t fetched Anne, Tika almost certainly would have died. Tika recovered, and as her health improved after the amputation and operation, Kobuk became the bossy dog he’d always been, even as Tika walked around on three legs. But Anne had witnessed their true relationship. Kobuk and Tika, like a true old married couple, would always be there for each other, even if their personalities would never change.

Jethro and the Bunny

After I picked Jethro from the Boulder Humane Society and brought him to my mountain home, I knew he was a very special dog. He never chased the rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, or deer who regularly visited. He often tried to approach them as if they were friends.

One day Jethro came to my front door, stared into my eyes, belched, and dropped a small, furry, saliva-covered ball out of his mouth. I wondered what in the world he’d brought back and discovered the wet ball of fur was a very young bunny.

Jethro continued to make direct eye contact with me as if he were saying, “Do something.” I picked up the bunny, placed her in a box, gave her water and celery, and figured she wouldn’t survive the night, despite our efforts to keep her alive.

I was wrong. Jethro remained by her side and refused walks and meals until I pulled him away so he could heed nature’s call. When I eventually released the bunny, Jethro followed her trail and continued to do so for months.

Over the years Jethro approached rabbits as if they should be his friends, but they usually fled. He also rescued birds who flew into our windows and, on one occasion, a bird who’d been caught and dropped in front of my office by a local red fox.

Dog and Fish: Improbable Friends

Fish are often difficult to identify with or feel for. They don’t have expressive faces and don’t seem to tell us much behaviorally. Nonetheless, Chino, a golden retriever who lived with Mary and Dan Heath in Medford, Oregon, and Falstaff, a 15-inch koi, had regular meetings for six years at the edge of the pond where Falstaff lived. Each day when Chino arrived, Falstaff swam to the surface, greeted him, and nibbled on Chino’s paws. Falstaff did this repeatedly as Chino stared down with a curious and puzzled look on her face. Their close friendship was extraordinary and charming. When the Heaths moved, they went as far as to build a new fishpond so that Falstaff could join them.

An Embarrassed Chimpanzee: I didn’t do that!            

Embarrassment is difficult to observe. By definition, it’s a feeling that one tries to hide. But world famous primatologist Jane Goodall believes she has observed what could be called embarrassment in chimpanzees.

Fifi was a female chimpanzee whom Jane knew for more than 40 years. When Fifi’s oldest child, Freud, was five and a half years old, his uncle, Fifi’s brother Figan, was the alpha male of their chimpanzee community. Freud always followed Figan as if he worshiped the big male.

Once, as Fifi groomed Figan, Freud climbed up the thin stem of a wild plantain. When he reached the leafy crown, he began swaying wildly back and forth. Had he been a human child, we would have said he was showing off. Suddenly the stem broke and Freud tumbled into the long grass. He was not hurt. He landed close to Jane, and as his head emerged from the grass she saw him look over at Figan. Had he noticed? If he had, he paid no attention but went on being groomed. Freud very quietly climbed another tree and began to feed.

Harvard University psychologist Marc Hauser observed what could be called embarrassment in a male rhesus monkey. After mating with a female, the male strutted away and accidentally fell into a ditch. He stood up and quickly looked around. After sensing that no other monkeys saw him tumble, he marched off, back high, head and tail up, as if nothing had happened.

Animal Rescues: Feeling Compassion for Those in Need

Stories about animals rescuing members of their own and other species, including humans, abound. They show how individuals of different species display compassion and empathy for those in need.

In Torquay, Australia, after a mother kangaroo was struck by a car, a dog discovered a baby joey in her pouch and took it to his owner who cared for the youngster. The 10-year-old dog and 4-month-old joey eventually became best friends.

On a beach in New Zealand, a dolphin came to the rescue of two pygmy sperm whales stranded behind a sand bar. After people tried in vain to get the whales into deeper water, the dolphin appeared and the two whales followed it back into the ocean.

Dogs are also known for helping those in need. A lost pit bull mutt broke up an attempted mugging of a woman leaving a playground with her son in Port Charlotte, Florida. An animal control officer said it was clear the dog was trying to defend the woman, whom he didn’t know. And outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina, a dog rescued an abandoned baby by placing him safely among her own newborn puppies. Amazingly, the dog carried the baby about 150 feet to where her puppies lay after discovering the baby covered by a rag in a field.

Raven Justice?

In his book, Mind of the Raven, biologist and raven expert Bernd Heinrich observed that ravens remember an individual who consistently raids their caches if they catch him in the act. Sometimes a raven will join in an attack on an intruder even if he didn’t see the cache being raided.

Is this moral? Heinrich seems to think it is. He says of this behavior, “It was a moral raven seeking the human equivalent of justice, because it defended the group’s interest at a potential cost to itself.”

In subsequent experiments, Heinrich confirmed that group interests could drive what an individual raven decides to do. Ravens and many other animals live by social norms that favor fairness and justice.