Omnivores Have More Fun

Why eating your greens can give you the blues: Vegetarians are more miserable, have lower self-esteem and enjoy parties less than meat-eaters

Vegetarians may be healthier than meat-eaters – but they are also more miserable, say researchers.

Those who cut meat from their diet experience more negative feelings, have lower self-esteem and see less meaning in life, a study found.

The authors conclude that vegetarians may be less ‘psychologically well-adjusted’, suggesting teasing by omnivores may be to blame.

It comes after food critic William Sitwell quit as editor of Waitrose Food magazine after making a joke about killing vegans.

 Like this?

Researchers asked 400 vegetarians, meat-eaters and ‘semi-vegetarians’ to record their feelings over a fortnight. Of the three groups, vegetarians experienced the most negative feelings and enjoyed social occasions least.

Lead author Dr John Nezlek, from the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Poznan, Poland, said: ‘Sometimes unwittingly, and sometimes intentionally, vegetarians may be excluded from social events or made to feel odd or different because they are vegetarians. Such things tend to happen for members of social minorities.

‘Over time, such experiences can take their toll on a person’s wellbeing. We believe that this study is important because it is the first to show that defining one’s self as a vegetarian has implications for the quality of a person’s daily life.’

You know, we couldn't discriminate against them if they didn't insist on telling us who there were quite so frequently.



This week the Wombat has returned, along with "Late NIght With Rule 5 Sunday: Nurse! Nurse!" (gic) and FMJRA 2.0: Back In The Saddle.

Reason #5421 Trump Was Elected

Epic SJW rant: ‘We need to start killing people’

After opening the rant with, “F**k white supremacy. F**k the U.S. empire” the speaker attacks capitalism. “You know what America thrives off of? Capitalism,” the speaker says, adding, “We use our mother=f**king, f**king black and brown bodies to live and survive while white people own f**king properties after that.” But the speaker has a solution for this problem, “So you know what we need to do? We need to start giving f**king money.” The rant continues, “White people, give your f**king money, your f**king house, your f**king property, we need it f**king all. You need to reparate black and indigenous people right now.”

A minute or so later, the speaker takes it up a notch saying, “And we need to stark killing people. First off, we need to start killing the White House. The White House must die.” After rambling on a bit more the speaker returns to capitalism. “Capitalism is what…is f**king racism.” The speaker then goes on a tangent about organic food and demands that white people grow the organic food and bring it to the “black and brown community so we can have health food s**t too.”

Fucking vegans.  Clearly the lack of protein is inhibiting brain development.

How to Talk Like a Vegan (If You Really Must)

and an actual militant vegan even see's the humor.



UPDATE: edited to add, from the usually sensible Megan McArdle, Dining Out on Empty Virtue

We all love farm-to-table food, don’t we? The freshness, the warm sense of environmental sustainability, the delights of spending your money in the local economy. Of course we all love it.

Or … maybe we just think we love it. An exhaustive investigation by a Tampa Bay Times food critic reveals just how little of the food advertised as organic, locally sourced, non-GMO fare actually fits that description. The article is a slightly painful read, as restaurant after restaurant sheepishly tries to cover for their, um, “menu anomalies” by explaining that they totally used to buy some stuff from a local producer, then they forgot to change the chalkboard when they switched suppliers, and besides, the bus was late and the dog ate their homework. Some of these claims may even be true, but given the ubiquity of these "anomalies," it’s hard to believe that there isn’t considerable calculation behind these unidirectional mistakes.

And it’s not hard to figure out why: Consumers don’t really want to buy farm-to-table food. What they want to buy is the moral satisfaction of farm-to-table food.

Read the whole thing.

Wombat-socho has the grand "Rule 5 Sunday: Women In Limousines"   up at The Other McCain.

Mystery Plant Indentified!

For the last two weeks, the best butterfly action in the area has been on an unidentified bush down at the beach.  I've seen as many as six different species of butterflies at one time, and many other moths, beetles, bees and wasps on it profuse feathery white blossoms. I've tried a number of ways to identify it and come up short. This morning we passed a desiccated twig of it with flowers off to a friend to have SERC's master gardener identify it.  The ID came back by e-mail a little while ago: Japanese Knotweed, a relative of common Pinkweed and Buckwheat. And wouldn't you know it, it turns out to be a dangerous invasive:

It is listed by the World Conservation Union as one of the world's worst invasive species. The invasive root system and strong growth can damage concrete foundations, buildings, flood defenses, roads, paving, retaining walls and architectural sites. It can also reduce the capacity of channels in flood defenses to carry water.

It is a frequent colonizer of temperate riparian ecosystems, roadsides and waste places. It forms thick, dense colonies that completely crowd out any other herbaceous species and is now considered one of the worst invasive exotics in parts of the eastern United States. The success of the species has been partially attributed to its tolerance of a very wide range of soil types, pH and salinity. Its rhizomes can survive temperatures of −35 °C (−31 °F) and can extend 7 metres (23 ft) horizontally and 3 metres (9.8 ft) deep, making removal by excavation extremely difficult.

The plant is also resilient to cutting, vigorously resprouting from the roots. The most effective method of control is by herbicide application close to the flowering stage in late summer or autumn. In some cases it is possible to eradicate Japanese knotweed in one growing season using only herbicides. Trials in the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii) of British Columbia using sea water sprayed on the foliage have demonstrated promising results, which may prove to be a viable option for eradication where concerns over herbicide application are too great.

So, I guess we won't be planting any in our butterfly garden, and I'll just have to monitor the ones I know about in the field (I know of at least two on the beach, and a few on the roadside. On our beach, it clearly lives within the reach of Kudzu, so I suppose the question now it who will win, the Japanese Knotweed, or the (Japanese) Kudzu. My money is on the Kudzu.

But the good news, as Euell Gibbons used to say is that "some parts are edible":

It grows widely throughout Japan and is foraged as a wild edible vegetable (sansai), though not in sufficient quantities to be included in statistics.They are called by such regional names as: tonkiba (Yamagata), itazuiko (Nagano, Mie), itazura (Gifu, Toyama, Nara, Wakayama, Kagawa),gonpachi (Shizuoka, Nara, Mie, Wakayama),sashi (Akita, Yamagata), jajappo (Shimane, Tottori, Okayama), sukanpo (many areas).

Young leaves and shoots, which look like asparagus, are used. They are extremely sour; the fibrous outer skin must be peeled, soaked in water for half a day raw or after parboiling, before being cooked.

Places in Shikoku such as central parts of Kagawa Prefecture pickle the peeled young shoots by weighting them down in salt mixed with 10% nigari (magnesium chloride). Kochi also rub these cleaned shoots with coarse salt-nigari blend. It is said (though no authority is cited) that the magnesium of the nigari binds with the oxalic acid thus mitigating its hazard.

Sounds like a lot of trouble to go through when you can buy bad tasting vegetables at the store.