Ha! Good one, Thom. It's a no-brainer for the world and the human body. The science is solid.

My dad came out of the depression era as a voracious meat eater, along with lots of milk and cheese -- breakfast, lunch, and supper. As expected, he had high cholesterol, suffered multiple heart attacks, and finally died from a massive coronary at 62, even though he was fairly slim and active most of his life, until near the end when his health began to fail. That was a huge wake-up call for the rest of the family.

I ended up more flexitarian than total vegan, insofar as having egg whites in a veggie omelet now and then (from organic, free-range, vegetarian-fed hens). And while camping out, there's nothing like freshly caught Rocky Mountain cutthroat cooked just right over a fire with lemon, butter, basil, lightly salted and peppered. (You can take my skillet when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.)

The Native American friends I had during my youth were avid hunters but only killed to eat. They taught the sacredness of all things, to take a moment in silent prayer before eating to honor the life that gives us life, including plant life.

That's about it nowadays -- no red meat at all. Even leather shoes, belts, gloves, wallets, furniture, etc. can be replaced with non-animal products that are usually superior in quality and much cheaper. It's just a matter of overcoming one's cultural conditioning. The downside, however, is that it's tough to walk into a regular restaurant, where the smell of burning meat can trigger the gag reflex.

Even as a vegetarian, it's vitally important to select the right kinds of foods. But you're right that everyone is unique; thus, if a human body relies on vegetables, grains, nuts, fruits, etc. for its vitamins and protein (which is usually superior to animal protein -- again, depending on one's selection), then it's equally vital (even more so for meat eaters) to get a thorough physical examination at least once a year. (Cory Booker a former football player, certainly is not anemic, and neither are most smart vegetarians.)

Otherwise, generally speaking, modern medical science absolutely recommends to radically reduce one's red-meat intake from the levels most Americans are used to.

BTW, the many resulting benefits of veganism for this very overcrowded planet is not an ideological stance; it is simply science. Ideology and science are completely unrelated -- except in Republican minds.

Fact:

The larger cause of the epidemic of homelessness in the United States is politics on a national scale during the last several decades, whereby Republicans -- and the corporate Democrats who enable them! -- have handed over our economy, in effect, to the tender mercies of ruthless greedmongers. Their victims, of course, are then kicked to the curb and forgotten, including military veterans by the thousands, while our overly privileged Masters of the Universe incessantly and successfully lobby Congress to radically cut their fair share of taxes. As a direct result of this out-of-control cronyism and sellout, individual states have less help from the Federal Government to deal with the underlying reasons for the homeless plight.

>>>Meanwhile<<< ...back to an even larger problem (also caused by Republican intransigence and corruption in their mad pursuit to please their filthy-rich donor class at the expense of the little people), the looming climate catastrophe is threatening the future of everything, let alone the world's economies.

Go, Boaty McBoatface!

Beloved submarine Boaty McBoatface makes a big scientific find.
The autonomous yellow submarine is making waves in climate science.

The following is an excerpt:

Michael Mann, the Director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC), told Salon via email that Boaty’s findings are important, and point to an important connection, but that many small-scale processes relevant to tidal mixing are not generally represented in ocean general circulation models.

“So the point that the processes in question are missing from current climate models is really a by-product of the fact that many sub-grid scale mixing processes are missing from those models,” Mann said. “With regard to this larger point, this finding is a concern because it points to one of the reasons that the models have underestimated the rate of ice sheet disintegration.”

Mann added that critics often claim that climate scientists are “alarmist and have overstated the risks.”

“But the reality is—and this is a case in point—that if anything, we have underestimated key risks like sea level rise because our models were missing processes that can actually lead to a faster rate of ice loss and sea level rise,” Mann said. “The take-home point is that uncertainty exists—but it is not our friend. As we continue to resolve key uncertainties, we’re learning that bad things can happen faster than we had originally predicted.”

--Nicole Karlis @nicolekarlis

Or at least tell the infestation of humans to shut up and go sit in the corner until they agree to do their homework.

And let's not forget that Exxon Mobile buried their own scientists' dire warnings about global warming back in the 70s.

I like your irony, captbebops, even though we evidently have disagreements about the science of diet and climate change.

Climate change is a fraud. A lie.

Barack Obama just paid $14.8 million for an estate on Martha's Vineyard. It is beachfront property. Why would he or anyone do that if it was going to be wiped out in 10-20 years because of climate change/rising sea levels?

I am waiting for an answer.

Curious where you think your fake petroluem based leather is coming from as compared to a cow that has been killed for food and who's flesh would otherwise be wasted. Do you honestly believe that industrially produced fake/synthetic/plastic materials created in a lab are better for the environment than the materials our ancestors used for 200,000 years that are actually biodegradable? You talk about honoring life too, what about the plant/animal life consumed for your fake-leather products? The ecosystems destroyed for the laboratories, the when I look at my leather hat, or journal, or shoes - I know who to thank. Do you have any idea the cost of those faux leather products? Who are you thanking?

At the scale we're at, basically any consumption is unsustainable - but to think that somehow you're making the planet a better place by buying nonrenewable synthetics kind of boggles the mind. But you said the buzzword here "cheaper". It's all about money at the end of the day, isn't it. It'll be about money until the day we plummet over the cliff edge to extinction.

There's nothing sustainable about a product that will never biodegrade and reintegrate with the system of life. The toxic, carcinegenic chemicals that leech out of these factories harm ecosystems and wildlife, and of course, humans.