Dr. Neal Barnard:Eating Right for Cancer Survival (part 7)

We are now pleased to show Dr. Barnard’s presentations “Maintaining a Healthy Weight” and “Foods and Prostate Cancer Survival,” two chapters from the “Eating Right for Cancer Survival” DVD.  Maintaining a Healthy Weight from the DVD “Eating Right for Cancer Survival”

One of the most important things that a healthy person can do to avoid getting cancer is to keep their body weight down to normal limits. And one of the most important things that a person who has been diagnosed with cancer can do, is to keep excess weight away as well, because the heavier you are, not only are you more likely to develop cancer, if you have it already, you are more likely to succumb to it.

What is body fat doing to us? Body fat is not just stored energy, body fat is a living organ and body fat actually makes estrogen, you can see this on the beach. If you look at a guy who’s developed a little bit of extra body fat, and he’s now pretty chunky, he has breast development, that’s not just fat, that’s breast tissue that came because his body fat is building estrogens and estrogens is causing the development of breasts in a man, and ultimately it will cause impotence.

And if he loses weight those estrogens diminish and those problems will tend to reverse. Now this happens in women as well, both women and men. And in women the concern is that if there’s more and more estrogen coursing through your blood, all it takes is one cancer cell, and that estrogen causes the cell to grow.

Researchers have long known that Japanese woman are less likely than Western woman to develop breast cancer and if they have breast cancer they are much more likely to survive it. Well the fact that they are generally slimmer than Western people could be a big part of the reason.

Researchers have discovered that indeed their hormones are somewhat lower levels compared to other folks, there’s less fuel for the cancer cells to grow. And it isn’t just a question of, am I massively overweight versus moderately overweight? It even makes a difference when a person is different gradations of normal weight.

There was study in Shanghai (China) that looked at individuals of different body weights and we would consider them all pretty much normal. They were using the BMI. Do you know what I’m talking about, body mass index? The body mass index or BMI is a way of measuring your weight, but adjusting for your height. Because what’s an ideal weight for you depends on how tall you are.

And an optimal body weight, people would say is under 25. If you’re over 25 BMI that’s going to be mildly overweight. If you’re over 30 that would be called obese. Okay, that’s our frame of reference. The study in Shanghai, they looked at women, everybody had breast cancer, but some had a BMI under 23, that means they’re thin women, and their five-year survival rate was about 87%.

But they then looked at those women who were between 23 and 25, they’re still normal weight but they’re just a little bit heavier. Their five-year survival rate wasn’t 87%; it was down to about 84%. Then they looked at those whose body weight was over 25, in the mildly overweight area and their five- year survival rate was down to about 80%. You get the picture?

The heavier you are the greater your likelihood of succumbing to this condition, so you want to stay down to a healthy kind of weight. So when people are overweight what do they do? Often they don’t know what to do, so they stop eating. You skip meals, you starve yourself, and you go on a punishing low calorie diet. And regrettably that’s not going to last.

For any of you who, you know this is true, if you’ve ever been on this kind of diet, “I’m really going to starve it off!” We end up rebounding, hunger takes over and you’re going to end up binging and putting back however much weight you lost and then some. So don’t do that.

Look around the world and eat the way thin people eat. The thinnest people on the planet live in Asia, vegetarians are also thin. And they have different characteristics compared to what we have in Western countries. They’re eating diets that are first of all much lower in fat; they’re not eating lots of meat and cheese and fried foods, they’re eating rice, vegetables. And if they’re eating meat it’s little tiny amounts, used as a flavoring.

Of course this is all changing, as diets are westernizing, meat is coming in, dairy products are coming in to Asian countries, with this unfortunate process of the westernization of the diet.

But, when researchers have put that kind of diet to a test, amongst Western populations, “Let’s eat a plant-based diet,” they find that people lose weight in a healthful kind of way. My research group did a study in women who had moderate to severe weight problems, and we asked them to follow a diet that was vegan, and low in fat.

That was the whole diet, just avoid the animal products, so there’s no animal fat, and keep the vegetable oils low. Now when you take those out of the diet, that makes room for vegetables, fruits, beans and grains that are high in fiber. So the diet’s filling, low in fat. What happened?

As time went by, the women lost weight week after week after week, the average weight loss was about a pound week. Doesn’t sound like much, except, after a year, 52-weeks in a year, you’re talking serious weight loss and that’s exactly what we saw. So the nice thing about this is, you don’t have to starve, you don’t have to exercise necessarily, exercise is good, but if you’re not able to for whatever reason, your joints are bad, your heart is bad, you can still lose weight.

So, to put this all together, what is a weight-loss regiment? A good weight loss diet is the same kind of diet that’s good to keep your cholesterol down, to reduce your cancer risk overall. It’s getting away from the animal products. That means avoiding the meats and the dairy products and the eggs. And in the process, you’re not just avoiding their fat, you’re avoiding their cholesterol, and you’re making room for the high fiber foods.

Keep the oils very low, every gram of oil, every gram of any kind of fat has nine calories. Those calories have your name on them, and if you eat them it will straight to your thighs. Instead, bring in the high fiber foods, the high carbohydrate beans, vegetables and fruits. Carbohydrates have only four calories in a gram. So, that’s a healthful regiment.

And don’t go off on high-protein diets, the low carbohydrate (diets), you know what I’m talking about, they’ve been very popular, they cause short-term weight loss. But over the long run, people tend not to do very well on them, and they have, unfortunately, some rather bad side effects.

Because the diets are so low in carbohydrates, people are avoiding starchy vegetables, they’re avoiding fruits, they’re avoiding breads, they’re avoiding pasta, they’re avoiding rice, and instead, they are eating, meat and eggs and cheese. Some people’s cholesterol will fall, if they’re losing weight on it, but others, their cholesterol is up. About one in three low-carbohydrate dieters, has their cholesterol go up, sometimes it goes right up through the roof. You don’t want to be one of them. And you don’t need that kind of approach.

So, it’s a good idea, to follow a plant-based diet, bring the exercise into it, exercise is good. Exercise, well, for a couple of reasons, it burns calories, it’s also impossible to eat potato chips while you’re out running. So, bring it in, in a good way.

And if you have any kind of health condition, definitely see your doctor first. You want to make sure your heart is up to it, you want to make sure your joints are up to it, and the rest of your body is up to it. But when got your green light, go ahead.

How do you start? I start small. About a half hour walk every day, and I don’t mean a trudge, I mean a brisk walk, and then gradually build up from there. And then, if you want to do more than that, go ahead. If you want to do resistance training, you know what I mean, like weight training, go see a professional and get a good regiment that’s tailored for your own needs.

Put it together, and you’ve got a really good weight loss program, because you’re on foods that are going to work for you, plus an exercise program that works for you as well. And that’s the best prescription for weight control. Thank you very much.

“Food and Prostate Cancer Survival” is the next lecture by Dr. Barnard.

Food and Prostate Cancer Survival from the DVD “Food and Prostate Cancer Survival”

Halo and welcome. Prostate cancer is a leading killer and it doesn’t have to be, because if we take lessons from around the world and people who follow different kinds of diets, we get clues about how we can actually reduce the likelihood that this will happen in our own lives.

And for men who already have prostate cancer, there’s a lot they can do to hold it beyond arm’s length. Let me share with you a couple of things, first of all the good news. There is something in foods that is actually protective against prostate cancer and that is the red coloring in tomatoes. Anybody know what that’s called?

Lycopene.

Very good, lycopene, lycopene, l-y-c-o-p-e-n-e. Lycopene is a cousin of beta-carotene. In the same way as carrots get their orange color from beta-carotene, a tomato gets its red color from lycopene. It’s a powerful antioxidant.

And studies have shown that men who have just two tomato servings per week have about 23% less risk of prostate cancer compared to other men. Men who have 10 or more servings per week, have a 35% reduction in their likelihood of ever developing this disease compared to men who get less.

And the nice thing is, it happens even with spaghetti sauce, salsa, all that you don’t think of these as healthy foods but they’ve got a lot of lycopene in them and it will pass into your bloodstream and it will protect you.

Now there are some things that aren’t so healthful. Milk products surprisingly enough are associated with a higher risk of prostate cancer. And this first came out of studies comparing different countries.

Countries like Thailand, Japan, and China. On a traditional diet there is very little dairy products, very little milk, very little of any kind of dairy products in their diet. You compare that to Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, lots of dairy products and you see a clear pattern the more dairy men eat the more prostate cancer risk they have.

So researches at Harvard (University, USA) said “That’s interesting. But would that be true in this country?” And so they did a study called The Physicians’ Health Study. They took about 21,000 men, everybody is a physician, everybody is healthy, and nobody’s got cancer. They look at their diets.

And what they find is exactly what we find comparing different countries, that those men who had the most dairy products as part of their regular diet two and a half servings or more per day, they had about a 34% increased risk of developing prostate cancer. Well that’s intriguing, seems to confirm the finding.

They did another study called The Health Professionals Follow up Study. These were health professionals who were not physicians, and what they found was exactly the same thing. Among about 48,000 men, those who consumed more than two glasses of milk per day had in this case about 60% higher risk of prostate cancer compared to other men. How can that be?

We’re talking about milk. We grew up with this, our parents wanted us to consume it, you go to the school lunch line, and they want you to have it. It’s heavily promoted. Why is it linked with cancer? Well there are several possible reasons but the one that people have really zeroed in on the most is something called IGF-1, Insulin-like Growth Factor number 1.

What’s IGF-1? This is a bit of a mouthful, they should have invented a shorter name for it, but that’s the name we’re stuck with. Insulin-like, means like insulin. It puts sugar into cells. But it’s a growth factor; that means if I mix IGF-1 with prostate cancer cells in the test tube, they grow like crazy. I think of it as fertilizer on weeds.

So if a man is avoiding milk, where is he going to get his calcium? Well, I like to think of two sources, the greens and the beans. When I say greens, what do I mean? Green vegetables, broccoli, kale, collard greens; just about any of the green vegetables, they’ve got a lot of calcium, one exception spinach. Spinach is a very selfish vegetable. It’s got calcium but it won’t let you have it. It has calcium, it’s just not absorbable.

But the others, they actually have a higher absorption rate, a higher absorption percentage than milk does. Broccoli more than 50% of the calcium in broccoli is absorbed, for milk it’s about 32%. So the greens are good. The beans are good as well. Just about any of the beans. They’ve got lots of calcium in them and the greens and beans are a good source.

But don’t feel that you need to have an enormous amount of calcium. A little bit goes a long way. Researchers have said, if it seems to be the case that a diet rich in vegetables and fruits, bringing you that lycopene, if that’s protective; getting away from dairy products and fatty food that seems to be protective.

What if I test it in men who have prostate cancer already? I want to share with you two important studies. One was by a researcher named Gordon Saxe at the University of Massachusetts (USA). It was a small study. He brought in 10 men, and what he was tracking was called PSA doubling time. What is that? PSA. Prostate Specific Antigen.

All this is, is a protein that’s in the blood and it’s made by prostate cells so if it’s going up and up and up and up and up that means there must be prostate cancer somewhere or something abnormal in the prostate that’s causing it to rise. It’s a good indicator of how we’re doing with prostate health. And they measured doubling time. How long does it take for it to go from two to four? Four to eight? Eight to 16? If it doesn’t take much time, that means the cancer is rapidly progressing. Okay.

They brought the men in, they asked them to follow a very low fat vegan diet, meaning no animal products at all, very low in oils. And what they found was that their doubling time, which started out at about 6.5 months, meaning it took that long for it to double, it was stretched out in the course of this study to about 17. 7 months. Meaning their PSA’s on average were rising but very, very slowly.

And there were several men in this study where the PSA actually started to fall. Well that’s encouraging, it looks like things are going in the right direction. So Dr. Dean Ornish, who became famous for showing that a vegetarian diet could actually reverse heart disease, which is a terrific finding, the arteries open up again. He said what happens about prostate cancer? It ought to be helpful there too.

So he brought in 93 men. Everybody had prostate cancer but they were in this group they call “watchful waiting,” that means you’ve got the cancer but it’s not progressing really aggressively. You can wait before you get treatment. The doctor tracks their PSA and if it’s not shooting up too fast they just wait.

In the control group, this group was not asked to make any diet change; the experimental group went on a vegan diet, no animal products at all, no dairy products, that ought to be good right from the standpoint of prostate cancer. Here is what happened.

In the control group, people that didn’t make diet changes their PSA’s did what PSA does in cancer patients, it was rising. In the course of the study it went up about six percent and out of the 49 men in that group six of them couldn’t wait anymore. Their cancer was progressing so aggressively they had to go and have treatment.

But what about the vegan group, these people who learned how to have oatmeal for breakfast, and how to have vegetables and fruits in their diet; how to top their spaghetti, not with that creamy Alfredo sauce but with a tomato sauce that gets away from the dairy and brings in the lycopene. In that group the PSA wasn’t rising, it wasn’t holding steady, it actually on average fell about four percent, in other words they’re getting better. And not one of the men on the vegan diet needed treatment during this research study.

Don’t get me wrong. Prostate cancer like all cancers is a serious condition. We want to have good methods for detecting it; we want to have good methods for treating it. But if we change our diet we really can tackle this epidemic. Thank you very much.

Dr. Neal Barnard: Eating Right for Cancer Survival (part 4)

We are now pleased to show Dr. Barnard’s presentation “Discovering Dairy Alternatives” a chapter from the “Eating Right for Cancer Survival” DVD.

Discovering Dairy Alternatives from the DVD “Eating Right for Cancer Survival”

Welcome, thanks for joining us. In today’s program we are going to focus on milk. Most of us grew up with the idea that dairy products were healthy but cancer researchers are showing us a side of dairy products that might really surprise you. Starting with, “What’s in milk?”

Well if you take a typical glass of milk and you send it to a lab the first thing you discover is that about 49% of the calories are nothing but fat. And most of this is what we call saturated fat, some people call it “bad fat.” That’s the fat that causes your cholesterol level to rise.

It’s also associated in some studies with a higher risk of developing breast cancer. So that’s why a lot of people are saying well I don’t want to have whole fat milk, I want to skim that away and have skim or non-fat milk, right? Well, let’s say I send that to the lab.

The biggest nutrient in it, the biggest source of its calories about 55%, is sugar, lactose sugar. That’s where most of the calories in skim milk come from. Now if you have lactose intolerance, meaning that you get a real belly ache from consuming milk, you know all about lactose, but for people who don’t, you have no need for this at all and that’s the primary nutrient in it.

In addition to that, there are proteins in milk. And these proteins for some people trigger arthritis pains or allergies, or for some folks, even allergies and diabetes researchers are showing that early exposure to those dairy proteins might be the cause, or at least a contributor to the kind of diabetes that starts in childhood.

Well what about its link to cancer? Researchers have known for a long time, that countries that consume a lot of dairy products, like Switzerland or Sweden, the other Scandinavian countries, European countries; they have a lot more prostate cancer compared to other countries where dairy is not a big part of the diet. I’m talking about China, Japan or Thailand. Dairy is not a big thing in those countries, at least traditionally.

Well, if it’s true that a higher intake of milk could in some way be associated with a higher risk of prostate cancer, then it ought to be true in this country. Let’s say I compare men who drink a lot of milk, compare them to the men who don’t. Is it true? Do they really get more prostate cancer? At Harvard (University), they did exactly that study. It was called the “Physicians Health Study”.

It was about 21,000 men, all of them were physicians, everybody’s healthy, nobody has cancer. They tracked their diet, and then they watched how the men did as time went on. And it turned out, that those men who were the big dairy consumers, I’m talking about a couple of servings per day, which is not out of the range of what people do. Their risk of prostate cancer was 34% higher compared to the men who generally avoided milk.

They did another study called the “Health Professionals Follow-up Study”. It was health professionals, but not physicians. It was pharmacists and other kinds of health professionals. But they found exactly the same thing, that those men who were the big dairy consumers, a couple of servings per day, had in this case, about a 60% higher risk of developing prostate cancer.

Well, what’s this about? Why should milk do this? Well, think about it. What’s milk’s job? What’s, what’s the purpose of milk?

Okay, it’s there to dunk cookies in. It’s there splash on my cereal. No, no. What milk is for, is to help a calf grow big. Right? That’s what it’s for. It’s to help rapid growth. So, the cow makes the milk, the baby cow, the calf consumes it and that calf is going to grow very rapidly.

Now, that’s for two reasons. One reason is there are nutrients in the milk that support growth. There is a lot of fat, there is a lot of sugar, the lactose sugar, there is a lot of protein. But the other thing is, there are hormones in milk, there are growth factors in milk and consuming it causes these things to change inside a man’s body.

And one that cancer researchers are really zeroing in on is called IGF-1. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this, Insulin-like Growth Factor number 1. IGF-1 it’s a mouthful of a name, but all it really means “Insulin-like,” means it’s like insulin, meaning it helps sugar to get into the cells, out of the blood, into the cells. Growth factor means it is a growth factor.

If I take IGF-1 in a test tube, I add cancer cells to it, they grow like crazy. That’s true for breast cancer cells, that’s true for prostate cancer cells. So, let’s say I stick a needle in a man’s arm, and I measure how much IGF-1 he’s got in his blood, and then I start feeding him a couple of glasses of milk every day. Or let’s say it’s a woman, and I feed her a couple of glasses milk every day.

What you find, is over the course of the next several weeks, the amount of IGF-1 in the blood rises. So this is just like a calf, the calf drinks the milk, and this IGF-1 is built in the blood, and it causes the growth of tissues. Now growth is a good thing at certain times, but it’s not such a good thing when you are an adult, and you’ve got a cancer cell waiting somewhere, growth of that cancer cell is a very dangerous thing.

So, in an international comparisons, when we look at who has the highest risk of cancer, it’s those countries that have a high dairy intake with regard to prostate cancer, and a high IGF-1 may be the reason for it. But other forms of cancer seem to be related to this as well. There is some speculation that breast cancer may or may not be linked to milk consumption. And the evidence is as follows.

Some studies show higher risk, some show lower risk, but when people have looked at IGF-1 levels, I mean, I draw a blood sample, and I look at what it is now, and your risk of getting cancer: the higher IGF-1 is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer. Cancer of the ovary has been looked at as well.

And here, I think we need more research, but there is some suggestion that there is a higher risk among milk drinkers; higher risk of ovarian cancers. For colon cancer it’s probably the reverse. Calcium seems to help prevent cancer. So milk drinkers seem to have a little bit lower risk of colon cancer. But the point is, there are plenty of healthy sources of calcium, you don’t need to drink milk for it, so you can get the protection without the risky factors.

Now you might be saying, “Well, wait a minute, so you’re kind of suggesting here that milk is not a really great thing in your diet.” Well, let me be clear about this, I think babies need milk, they need mother’s milk. A baby should have breast milk, and we should do what we can to help kids to be breast fed. After the age of weaning, there is no physical requirement for milk at all. It’s strictly a cultural thing.

But, “Where am I going to get my calcium?” Well, a couple of points. The first is: researchers have looked at the countries where people consume a lot of milk, you think those people are never going to have a hip fracture because of all that milk they’re getting, and bringing calcium into their diet. You know what? It’s just the opposite.

The countries that get the highest milk intake, have the highest risk of hip fracture. The countries with low intake of milk and relatively low calcium intakes, actually do better. They have stronger bones, and have less risk.

Within this country, at Harvard (University), the “Nurses’ Health Study,” have you heard about this study? The “Nurses’ Health Study” has been going on for many, many years, and tracking women over 18 years, they found that those who got the most milk in their diet, had no protection whatsoever from bone breaks. It didn’t seem to makes any difference at all.

So, there are some things that you can do to protect your bones. First is, if you got calcium in your bones now, let’s keep it, let’s not lose it. Well, how do I do that? Well, avoiding animal protein helps. Did you know that? Animal protein causes the body to lose calcium.

Let me say that again! Animal protein, I’m talking about meat, I’m talking about eggs, even the protein in dairy products, animal protein causes your body to lose calcium. Where is it going? It’s in the blood, it’s going out through the kidney and into the urine. It’s leaving the body.

Sodium does the same thing. A high salt diet, potato chips, salt that we add in the kitchen, that does the same thing, you lose calcium. Caffeine does it too, not the occasional cup of coffee, but if you are a big coffee enthusiast, as some of you may be, ah, a high caffeine intake is associated with some loss of calcium as well.

Exercise is, you know, give your bones a reason to live. Exercise is really the best friend of your bones. If you compare a tennis player, you look at their dominant arm, they’ve got better bone density in that arm than the opposite arm. So, exercise really does help strengthen the bones.

And oddly enough, vegetables and fruits do as well. Vegetables and fruits, some of them have calcium, some of them don’t. But the vegetables and fruits seem to help build up the boney matrix and help the bones stay strong.

Sunlight is also important. Sunlight gives you vitamin D, so you’re out in the Sun. Sun hits your skin, vitamin D is made in the skin, and it travels around through the body, and as it’s activated, it helps your intestinal tract, pull calcium in from the foods that you’re eating. So sunlight is going to help you as well.

Well, are there foods, that aren’t from dairy products that have calcium in them, because I’m going to need some calcium. Well, let me give you two words, “greens” and “beans.” The greens means broccoli and all of its cousins, they have lots of calcium in them. Except for spinach, spinach has lots of calcium, but it’s very selfish, it won’t let you have it. The calcium in spinach is not very absorbable.

But the other greens have a lot of calcium in them, and the absorption rate is actually higher than the absorption percentage from milk. And the other group is the bean group. Beans have a lot of calcium in them, you know they have soluble fiber in them. They’ve got iron in them, they’ve got protein in them, they’ve even got some omega-3 fatty acids in them.

Beans don’t have a good lobby group, but they’ve got all kinds of other good things. So the “greens” and the “beans”, remember them. Now, if you really want to have a huge calcium intake, you don’t need this, but you can, have you seen these fortified orange juice products, fortified soymilk, they’re adding calcium to lots of things, breakfast cereals, you don’t need that huge amount of calcium, but it’s there if you want it.

The point I’m making is that researchers are starting to point a finger at dairy products, and teasing out the risks that it might pose us. You don’t need it. There are plenty of good calcium sources, and really good ways to get away from that and to bring the calcium into your body and to keep it there. And as you replace the dairy products with healthier choices, you’ll keep strong bones, and you’ll keep the rest of your body healthy as well. Thank you!

The Vegan Way: Staying Trim and Slim this Holiday Season and Beyond

Do you ever feel increased pressure during the holidays to watch your weight and avoid overeating due to the many tempting, high-calorie foods and drinks available at this time of year? Do you also find yourself seeking dietary options that are healthy, low in calories and still tasty and satisfying?  Now, we’ll discuss nutritious, meat-free alternatives to traditional fare that can help you stay vibrant and at your optimal weight during this season and all year long. Let’s begin by examining the epidemic of obesity and its related diseases, which now affect millions of people worldwide, along with some ways to overcome them through a plant-based diet.

 

In their 2009 study, “Meat Consumption is Associated with Obesity and Central Obesity Among U.S. Adults,” Drs. Youfa Wang and May A. Beydoun of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, USA found that the meat-based diet can significantly increase the risk of becoming obese. Obesity is defined as having a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, with BMI being a measure for human body fat based on a person’s weight and height.

The researchers used survey data representative of the US population to examine the links between meat consumption and body mass, waist size and central obesity (fat deposits around the abdomen). They found that participants who ate large amounts of meat were 33% more likely to suffer from central obesity.

In fact, higher intakes of “all meat” and “other meat” products were associated with a higher overall BMI and waist size, whereas vegan foods such as fruit and vegetables had the opposite effect of reducing BMI.

Besides the obvious physical challenges of being obese, this meat-related condition also increases one’s risk of acquiring many chronic ailments, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, uterine, breast and colon cancer, liver and gall bladder disease, sleep apnea, respiratory problems, and osteoarthritis (degeneration of cartilage and its underlying bone within a joint), all of which are on the rise in the United States and other nations.

The Johns Hopkins researchers state, “Our analysis based on the recent nationally representative data shows a consistent, positive association between meat consumption and [obesity] measures among U.S. adults. This may suggest diets that promote high meat consumption, such as the Atkins diet, might lead to higher BMI, waist circumference and obesity.”

Drs. Wang and Beydoun also note that other studies support their results and affirm the negative impact of meat consumption on human health, weight control and the environment, concluding that the meat-based diet should be avoided for the sake of our health and the well-being of the planet.

Although the study by Drs. Wang and Beydoun specifically addressed adult obesity, in recent decades the issue of childhood obesity in both developed and developing nations has also become serious. As a report on the US Department of Health and Human Services website states, “Overweight and obesity in children are significant public health problems in the United States. The number of adolescents who are overweight has tripled since 1980 and the prevalence among younger children has more than doubled.”

The same report also notes that the detrimental health effects of obesity are causing the need for medical care to rise dramatically: “Hospital costs alone associated with childhood obesity were estimated at $127 million during 1997–1999 (in 2001 constant U.S. dollars), up from $35 million during 1979–1981.” A key factor causing this trend is the longstanding but erroneous view, especially in Western countries, that meat-based protein is needed for adequate growth and development in children.

However, as stated on the website of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), “Many well-meaning parents don’t know that meat can contain dangerous toxins and that feeding meat to their children increases the odds that their kids will become obese and develop life-threatening diseases.”

Support for PETA’s view comes from a study entitled “Prevalence of Obesity in School-Going Children of Karachi” conducted in Pakistan. The study examined a cross section of 284 students in grades six to eight from four different schools in Karachi. A questionnaire was administered, heights and weights were measured, and a modified criterion for Asian populations was used to calculate the children’s BMIs.

Of the participants, 52% were found to be underweight, 34% were of normal weight for their age, 6% were obese and 8% were overweight. Of all the obese children, 70% belonged to the higher socio-economic status (SES) group, while of the underweight children, 63.3% were in the lower SES group.

Among the obese children, 65% ate meat every day, compared to 33% of the normal kids. The researchers concluded that socio-economic factors are important in determining BMI in children since obesity and being overweight increase with rising SES. They recommended that higher SES groups should be the focus for weight-reduction efforts, with meat intake being a key factor to be addressed.

One individual who is taking action on this issue in the US is Terry Mason, MD former Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health in Chicago, Illinois and current System Chief Medical Officer of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System. In 2006 he launched the Restart Program, a now-annual event that encourages Chicago residents to make their diets meat-free for the entire month of January. Dr. Mason expressed his wish that the Program would help people enjoy healthier, happier lives, with weight loss as an added benefit.

‘One of the unintended consequences of going to a more plant-based way of eating, which is not why I tell people to do it, is that you will lose weight, and it’s a natural sort of thing. I’m not saying do this as a weight-loss strategy. You do this because your heart will thank you. Your kidneys will thank you. Your pancreas will thank you. Your colon will thank you. All of these organs that are important for us will thank you for making their jobs a lot easier.‘

Dr. Mason’s motivation is partly based on his concern for the school-aged children of his city, who, like the students in the Karachi, Pakistan study discussed earlier, also suffer from obesity and being overweight, but on a much larger scale.

‘We’re overweight! Twenty-five percent of our children in the city of Chicago start school overweight. We should eat food; I’m not an anti-anything. This is a pro-message so people eat food. There was a great article that was in the New York Times magazine. The name of the author escapes me right now, but basically he said, and I think it’s perfect, “If you can’t pronounce it, you probably shouldn’t eat it.” If you read the label, and you can’t pronounce what’s there, you probably shouldn’t eat it.‘

This advice from Dr. Mason can easily be applied to choosing natural, vegan foods for the holidays and the rest of the year as well.

Another advocate of unprocessed, plant-based foods who is making a difference in the movement toward a healthier world is acclaimed nutrition expert and author Joel Fuhrman, MD of the United States. A member of the Board of Directors for the US National Health Association and the Advisory Panel for The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Dr. Fuhrman works tirelessly to promote plant foods as a means of averting disease and achieving optimal weight and health.

In a 2009 interview with Supreme Master Television, Dr. Fuhrman said the following about the link between processed foods and disease:

‘Right now fast food companies and processed foods are spreading all over the world and people are becoming more overweight, more obese, having more heart attacks, more diabetes, more strokes and even more cancer. The good news is that nutritional science has advanced to the point where we can have people not have heart attacks, we can win the war against cancer, we can stop people from having strokes and as they become more elderly they don’t have to become demented in their later years.

The secrets that we have learned to protect ourselves have to do with nutrients. There are two types of nutrients. There are macronutrients, and the macronutrients contain calories and those are called fat, carbohydrate and protein. And if you eat too many macronutrients, too much fat, too much carbohydrate, and too much protein, we can become overweight and we promote aging, and promote heart attacks and strokes. Now food also contains micronutrients and micronutrients do not contain calories. They are things like vitamins and minerals and phytochemicals.’

So which unprocessed, high-nutrient food alternatives does Dr. Fuhrman suggest we use to lose weight, avoid disease and maintain optimal health?

‘Number one is beans, beans like kidney beans, navy beans, lentils, and split peas. Beans have something in them called “resistant starch.” And resistant starch doesn’t raise the glucose level. It promotes weight loss. It’s broken down by bacteria in the colon. The bacteria in the colon changes the resistant starch into short chain fatty acids, and those fatty acids protect us against colon cancer.’

Switching to nutritionally sound and environmentally friendly organic vegan alternatives can help reduce one’s waistline, maintain the health of one’s family and contribute to a greener planet.

May everyone enjoy a safe, healthy holiday season.

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.