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If flax seeds are, what I think they are (size of sesami seeds - but brown, then do not cook it. Flax seeds (oil) and thistle oil are the 2 most vulnerable oils. They are fragile to heat, light and oxygen (in to big doses that is (ofcoarse)). They will become very unhealthy if used i.e. for frying.

Immanuel

_________________
I was a food geek

On 2002-05-10 14:02, castol wrote:
i bet, i'm likely the only vegan on here

i don't know what's "vegan" means, but i don't eat people, animals and similar too!

same here glad to hear!

Still OT:
It's interesting that vegetarianism and vegans are often associated with a more "civilised" or "advanced" way of regarding life. But ironically enough it was meat-eating which is usually thought to have stimulated brain development and made us "human".

Very briefly:
* A large brain needs huge amounts of energy - something which plants along (in elutionary foraging terms) couldn't provide
* Hunting requires team co-ordination and communication as well as weapons - all very "intellectual" activities.
* Predators need space - you can't have as many tribes in the one area. So this encourages migration: the spread of proto-humans

So exclusively plant-eating humans generally lost the evolutionary battle. We are human because we ate meat.

But that's not to suggest that we should continue that way !

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2002-05-10 16:20 ]</font>

immanuel,

my grandfather who likes to send us stuff he finds found an article divulging the history of canola oil. that was a VERY interesting read. quite shocking really what roots your can - oil really has.

haven't read about flax seed being lethal though . yes, they are very healthy, not at all tasty.

you can't even digest them unless they are ground up. which is what i've read you do. grind them up in a blender with a bit of water to make a sort of flax seed milkshake *yumm*...no actually it is quite disgusting looking.

i've also taken to grinding them up and putting them in cereals, homemade breads...and stuff.

i've recently been turned on to roasting whole seeds, which free the trace oils found within. mostly spice seeds, i'll have to read up on flax seed some more though.

sandrob and atomic.

a vegan is one who chooses not to include meat, dairy, and eggs in the diet ( a stricter vegetarian), honey is also generally excluded (which i have chosen not to). there are varying degrees of veganism, some people choose to take it past just food....to clothing, furniture, hygenic products, animal food....etc. and their lives revolve around vegan practices.

i admire people who can do this, and it is a very just way to live. but for me at this point in my life i couldn't go to those lengths.

however...it is very accpetant in the vegan community to gradually work these things in over the course of your life if you so choose, even applying to food.

there are these "hybrid" vegetarians (ovo, lacto, and a few others....i forget), that eat, dairy, or eggs, or fish (one, or a few), but abstain from what is generally considered "meat".

hope that clears it up.

I thought of this the yesterday. I thought of the relationship between being the last step in the feeding chain (that is, what we call it in Denmark i.e. worm -> bird -> cat -> dog) affects intelligense. What happens, when a flock of zebras sense a lion? They run like mad. Some just run, because the others do - they fear, and it seams to me, their action is almost machinelike (you push a button, and the machine performs a function). The hunter however looks (to me) more tactical. It measures the wind and when to attack. Maybe I am wrong, maybe it does not think about the wind, and maybe it attacks, when it can not hold back any longer. But those are my reflections.

Welcome Paul ! It's fantastic to see CW on Planet Z, it completes the forum.

The initial question of this thread is answered in the best possible way.



<i> And yes, the ProPack offer was an extremely nice move. The "absolute last chance" for those who never realised just how good the ProPack offer really was !</i>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Spirit on 2002-05-10 16:41 ]</font>

Castol

I looked it up in a dictionary. I can not find the word for it, so I will use whatever tools I have. It is about the fatty acids. You have several categories: saturated, unsaturated and poly unsaturated. But that is not the whole story! It is very important, that the bindings between the atoms are the right way: due to the nature of unsaturated fatty acids (they contain doublebindings, wich may be split the one way or the other), you may end with a fatty acid, that contains a trans binding. This is by far more unhealthy than saturated fat. As with most chemical processes, the splitting up of the doublebinding(s) is speeded up with heat - and this one with light and oxygen too. So keep your flax seed oil cool, if you plan on eating it (I take spoonfull most days). And do not eat the one for wood work - it contains poison too

Immanuel
_________________
I was a food geek

The lower / should have been connected to the _ in the trans binding, but codes makes double spacing between teh lines.

Spirit, you're evolution theory makes lots of sense. But now we live in aluxury estate, where we can choose what to have for dinner. As much as we want.

What you said is very true, in wild life. However, we, humans in modern ages, just go to the shop, grab some sterile meat and throw it in a dish.

No one wants to realise, however, where the meat comes form. The animals are fed fat in big factories, they still call it farms I think, in as narrow as possible caves, where they become machines that make our waste, grains and the remains of their family into new meat. To not become too ill, the animals get all sorts of medical products and antibiotics. Then, when they are fat enough, they are dragged to the slaughterhouse, where they are treated, let's say it polite, very bad. Then they die a painfull death, which may be economical but not very responsible.

The grains, the only healty stuff in their food, is bought in 3rd world countries where our farmers' can buy it much cheaper than here ie. in western Europe. The local population in those 3rd world countries cannot afford to pay such high prices which our farmers pay. So they starve to death, while we eat their grains. To make us feel more confortable, we have (mostly non-gouvernmental) organisations that try hard to help those people in 3rd world again. which gives us a pleasing feeling, we're helping them, aren't we?

In Belgium, there's more pigs than there human inhabitants. Animals have become an industry, machines. Is this the evolution we wanted?

Now back to the old days. If every man had to kill his own animal before he ate it, do you think we'd eat this much meat?

I do eat meat sometimes, like when I'm invited to dinner somewhere or in some restaurants. But I do try to think what has gone before. This is not how it was ment to be, the way things are going now in bio-industry.

In no way I condamn people who eat meat, I only want to make sure they know what kind of maffia they support.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: at0mic on 2002-05-10 17:23 ]</font>

spirit, i don't want to get into that evolutionary debating stuff. i had a very bad taste of it when i opened my mouth in the past to some fervant meat eaters.

instead i will share my experience and thoughts.

i found a really good book on the history of vegetarianism and how it fit in the evolutionary chain of events - which cleared up a lot of this stuff for myself, as well as being immensely engaging.

it was called...hmmm lemme go look here. here we go... “The Heretics Feast” by Collin Spence.

basically it made it clear for me that yes....your argument that meat was required for our early development was very true. but also that, we were vegatarian/scavengers prior to developing the skills to outwit these in a lot of cases smarter animals. the proto-humans knew that fresh meat provided a lot of sustinance and relatively little manual labor (rather skill and precision were needed), and so gradually they perfected hunting which eventually led to livestock rearing in their communities...and the vegetarian part of their diet was being more and more replaced by fresh meat and the byproducts of raising livestock (milk, eggs...etc.). they probobly would have just dropped eating veggies alltogether if they could, but their bodies had evolved to needing the sustinence and nutrients provided by a vegetarian diet. so probobly quite a lot got sick thinking this way and died eating too much meat and not enough vegetable matter. the smart ones saw the connections and preached what they had surmised. and so both were ballanced into the diet. or people became ill and died.

during this time of new found meat eating...they were still gathering naturally growing vegetative matter.....it didn't come 'till much later that they made the connection and developed the skill neccessary to farm their own vegetables in their villages. this was no doubt stimmied by the meat eating.

anyhow...just a bit of condensed history.

btw, the bit about vegetarians and vegans viewing themselves or being seen as more evolved or advanced than meat eaters is mostly a misconceptualized stereotype.

but, i do agree that if we are to keep this world around for our childrens, childrens, childrens, children...we have to make changes and learn to live more ecologically harmonious with the world and its inhabitants - and learn to better understand our actions and their consequences.

as with everything, to say EVERYONE has to do this or be a certain way isn't fair or reasonable. plus...there are many ways to do good and contribute to ours and others existance, preservation, and creation in ones own lifetime. its just a matter of finding that, and or joining in if one is so inclined (which is a strong impluse for most everyone).

wow!

see what happens!



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: castol on 2002-05-10 16:59 ]</font>

Castol,

you're maybe the only vegan, but there are not only meat eaters around you here

take care

michu

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Michu on 2002-05-10 16:59 ]</font>

This thread is bussy
Be carefull not to miss any of the very important replies

Immanuel

yes, atomic...you hit it right on the head - which i've come to realize is a big reason to keep being a vegan for myself. choice, and knowing what effect your choice can have.

becoming a vegan also turned me on to organics and free traded foods/products, as well as supporting local businesses over mad oversized conglomerated corrporations. i buy organically grown local produce and foods as much as i can. it can be hard to do, as well as expensive to go entirely so....i'm not very well off financially at this point in time, nor do i drive...so i make compromises. we have one of the BEST! farmers markets in in the us where i live (madison, wisconsin).

its great to see and interact with the people who cultivated what your going to be eating. i've even taken to gardening (which i haven't ever been interested in beforehand). small scale farmers are very neglected folk in our society....its pretty sad what they have to put up with.

again, its about knowing where something came from.

atomic is very true....most people could care less or see it as "inconvienient", convienience is almost a sin imho. and i'm not even religious! i bet my folks pastor would readily agree though.

anyway ....this could get out of hand i imagine.

caleb and his waffles started it all, to think!!!



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: castol on 2002-05-10 17:16 ]</font>

How about this: pure meat grown in space for long missions...
http://www.cosmiverse.com/space03210203.html

Is this OK because no animals have ever actually existed to be killed, or is still "stealing" genes and therefore not acceptable ?

A whole new moral dimension.

growin cows in space...wow thats a first for me!

i don't see anything wrong with that, it is a neccesity if we are to travel the galaxy. they can't just bring everything along. what we need are replicators....hah!

i've read up somewhat on their experiments in growing plant based foods in space. they have been moderatly succesfull i guess, spacey stuff doesn't interest me so much. i like looking at the stars though.

i don't know about the moral issues of clonning, and fiddling with genes. i just stay clear of that. i'll just let others worry about it for now

*deleted a post, as i misunderstood spirits cow post*



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: castol on 2002-05-10 17:49 ]</font>

castol, you aren't alone.

And vegan cheese is good thank you very much (in context).

I hate that fake meat stuff. Vegan food tastes better anyways, why make it taste like dirt, er beef? People always ask me how you make food without meat taste good: stupid question considering that most meat seasonings/sauces come from plants anyways, but the carnivores probably never thought quite that far into it.

Tradition is a bitch sometimes, eh? Follow the leader, and don't look back, march on to your doom, soldier!

Spirit wrote:
Is this OK because no animals have ever actually existed to be killed, or is still "stealing" genes and therefore not acceptable ?
A whole new moral dimension.

Sorry, I just HAVE to get in on this one (being a BioEthics student and all). The first question to ask is, why bother growing meat at all? You already have nutrients for the cellular growth. let the astronaut eat that. because of entropy, why bother converting the food to muscle tissue? It sounds like it is more of a gimmick for austronauts taste buds. only in America . . . [sigh]

Also, there are the ethical issues associated with obtaining the tissue in the first place. I assume that they are using stems cells which (usually) necessitates killing an embryo.

I can see next to no reason for "growing meat" on earth either. inefficient, there are other sources protien, etc.etc.etc.

The usual reply is "taste and texture". If you're used to it, you want it. Why deny yourself meat if it's available and you see no moral difficulty ?

Why for space ? Because meat is an efficient fuel for humans.

And a topical anecdote: My sister worked as a teacher in an outback Australian cattle station area for a few years where the lads are tall, strong and (generally) poorly educated. Their absolute, unshakeable, and almost religiously held conviction was that it was the lack of meat-eating in the cities that lead to drug addiction and homosexuality !

And btw: in Australia we feed our cattle grass - not the diseased brains of other cows