Mile High on the Cheap (MHOTC) blogs about free stuff and deals happening in the Denver area. They are a good resource for people on a budget. However, this recent post nearly gave me a heart attack. McDonald’s is having a “Back-to-School Sale” tomorrow. You could pay for the cost of one burger and feed the rest of your beloved family members for one literal penny each. I guess that’s how little someone’s well-being is worth.

In addition to being angry at McDonald’s (nothing new there), I’m also ticked off at the way MHOTC is talking about this event: “McDonald’s is starting the school year off right for us, budget minded families…There’s no limit, so grab your change jar and live it up.”

Okay, here’s my government-subsidized beef with this promo:

1. The true cost of a burger is over $200, not 1¢, and that’s a conservative estimate excluding costs of human health and animal welfare. Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, does a great job explaining the externalities here, and advocating for a vegetarian diet as a cheap and healthy alternative.

2. This is really framed as a back-to-school sale? You are advocating “food” for children that has 563 calories per serving, at a time when over one-third of kids are overweight or obese. And let’s not forget about the hearty dose of fat (esp. saturated and trans), cholesterol, and sodium thrown in. Or the fact that kids who are obese are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and a host of other health problems.

3. McDonald’s, great job targeting low and middle-income families! Typical. Since I can’t imagine making a profit off a one-cent burger, I guess the point of this promo is to get more people addicted to your shitty “food.”

Well played, McDonald’s, well played.

Saturday, July 21 (2 p.m. at Central DPL, free): Dr. Joel Fuhrman, family physician, nutritional researcher, and author of Eat to Live will be speaking about ways to better our health, and recharge/strengthen our bodies. He advises that most if not all of our calories should come from plant foods. (I would still like to lop off the top part of his food pyramid, but it’s still far more healthful and compassionate than the USDA pyramid.) Be sure to register for this! This is in the Level B2 Conference Center of the Central Denver Public Library (10 W. Fourteenth Ave. Pkwy.)

Thursday, July 26 (6:30 pm, suggested donation $5): “Urban Edibles Walk” at the delightful Mercury Cafe (2199 California Street) with Boulder herbalist/author/raw food chef Brigitte Mars followed by a screening of the documentary Forks Over Knives. Here’s a link to the film trailer, in case you can’t see the embedded video below.

Saturday, July 28 (8 p.m. starting at the Irish Snug, $20, + the drink specials: The Colfax Critter Crawl is a fundraiser for Maxfund, Denver’s only no-kill animal shelter.

The $20 ticket (buy them here) goes toward Maxfund and gets you cheap drinks at 15 bars. Barnivore will tell you which boozes are vegan. FYI, no non-human-adult critters at this event (children, dogs, hedgehogs, pot bellied pigs, etc.)

I got to see Dr. Michael Greger speak recently at VegFest. It was the highlight of the day for me, and I was really excited to hear that he would soon be launching NutritionFacts.org where he would post a new video every day about the latest studies in health and nutrtion. The site has been launched, and there are already nearly 300 videos up from Greger’s popular lecture series. Now, these videos don’t do him justice, and you should definitely try to see him speak if you can, but it is amazing to see this wealth of information available online.

Here’s what he does. Greger spends his days poring over medical journals to get honest up-to-date information on nutrition studies and discoveries. In his videos, he breaks the latest medical information down into terms that we can all understand. This is great for people who want to know what is new in the medical world, and since the studies are in peer-reviewed medical journals, we can be confident that the info is legit. Each video is just a few minutes, and there are some really surprising ones. My favorite one isn’t up yet. At VegFest he did a section about how larger bowel movements are a sign of health, and vegans have the biggest BMs. Maybe not something to brag about, but… you know how dudes are. But you can watch videos on brain parasites in meat, protein & puberty, and the fecal bacteria survey, among other gems. The video above is about eliminating the #1 cause of death in the U.S., heart disease. It’s good, but man I can’t wait for the one about how vegan moms’ sons have bigger penises. Seriously, he talked about that too.

Hit the jump to learn more about Michael Greger, M.D. Read the rest of this entry →

I had an interesting experience yesterday at work. A female co-worker of mine came up to me and asked if I had a minute. She wanted to talk, it turned out, about transitioning to a vegan diet. That by itself wasn’t all that surprising. After all, it happens relatively often in my life. What surprised me, though, was the reason. It turned out her husband had recently told her that he wanted to become vegan because no other “dieting” strategy was working for him. He wanted to lose weight and live a healthier life, and he saw veganism as a successful path towards his goals.

I realize that most of us adopted the vegan diet (or whatever similar eating pattern we currently have) primarily for the sake of animal welfare. But if we’re interested in helping animals to live happy and healthy lives, it makes sense that we’d be happy when a person chooses to adopt a vegan lifestyle for their own sake too. Knowing that another person is happier and healthier because they’re eating more plant-based foods makes me a happier person too, especially if I can encourage them along the way.

So, it took me a minute to think about what resources exist for people who are mainly interested in plant-based eating as a means to personal health, and here’s what I came up with: Read the rest of this entry →

Former pro-Ironman triathlete and creator of Vega, Bredan Brazier, will be Colorado next week doing a series of seminars about vegan diets for health! He is very knowledgeable and definitely a great advocate for veganism. Try to get out and see him speak and prepare to be schooled!

Here are the dates and locations:

On May 24th in Centennial, Colorado at Whole Foods Market South Glenn, vegan pro-Ironman triathlete Brendan Brazier will be giving a Free Public Wellness Seminar. This seminar will discuss the Plant Based Diet. RSVP @ scott.olson@wholefoods.com

On May 25th in Lakewood, Colorado at Whole Foods Market Belmar at 6pm, Brendan Brazier will be giving a Free Public Wellness Seminar. The seminar will discuss Stress & Nutrition and the untold connection that could be affecting people’s health and energy. RSVP @ 303.935.5000

On May 26th in Boulder, Colorado at Alfalfa’s Market at 6pm, Brendan Brazier will be giving another Free Public Wellness Seminar. The seminar will teach how plant-based nutrition can optimize performance, endurance and speed recovery.

Thrive in 30: 30 days to Optimal Health and Vitality with Brendan Brazier from Brendan Brazier on Vimeo.

The big film we’ve been waiting for is finally here! Forks Over Knives promises to be an important film for the health of our friends and family across the country. It discusses the idea that a plant-based, whole-foods diet can prevent, and even reverse, all kinds of Western diseases. Seriously- there is now a movie out there telling everybody what we’ve been saying for years: go vegan- it’s good for you! Diabetes, heart disease, and several types of cancer tremble at the sight of a plant-strong eater. Maybe you already knew this, but now everybody gets a chance to see the real vegan super powers (impervious to high cholesterol!, heart-attack-proof!) if they see this movie. We want to do everything we can to kick off the Denver run of FOK with a bang, so we’re setting up an event for opening night.

Come see Forks Over Knives with Plants & Animals Denver on Friday, May 20th at Chez Artiste theatre (2800 S. Colorado Blvd). We’ll be going to the showing closest to 7pm. RSVP at our Facebook event to let us know you’ll be there!

The more people who see this movie the better. A strong box office showing may lead to longer runs, more openings across the country, and more media attention for this important issue. Health care costs would plummet if a fraction of our population adopted the lifestyle advised by the experts in FOK. If more people adopt vegan diets as a result of seeing this film, the demand for good vegan food will go up- that means more options for us! The benefits of making this movie a success go on and on, but first we gotta go see it so we can tell everybody how good it is.

Dr. Oz even did a show about the movie. And the TV doc was all about it! Rip and Caldwell Esselstyn were on the show, joined by T. Colin Campbell (The China Study), and Neal Barnard. It was daytime-talk-show-cheesy at times, but just imagine how many millions of people saw it! Well, I thought it was a big deal… Here’s the video:

Aimee Baldwin's creepy/beautiful vegan taxidermy.

So you want to be in the know enough to one-up that obnoxious hipster barista, but you’re too busy/lazy to actually read the news?  Stuff your face full of information with our weekend link-up, then go forth and spew it all over that organic-shade-grown-fair-trade-coffee slinging know-it-all (who is possibly a girl or maybe a boy, which you are totally cool with).

Read the rest of this entry →

Mark Bittman is a food writer for the New York Times. He enjoys corned beef and says he’ll never stop eating animals. But he gets it. We should not be eating as many animals as we do. Meat and junk food are killing us, and their production is needlessly polluting and warming our planet. He may not worry too much about animal cruelty, but even a food writer is begging: eat less meat, eat more plants.

Video from the TED talks series at www.ted.com – a lot of good stuff up there.

Thoughtful explanation on how beef production impacts the environment and human health.

From INFORM – www.informinc.org