Vegan Daily News

“What the Olsens lack in creativity, they try to make up for in shock value.  Sadly, it’s the foxes, calves, and alligators…who pay the dearest price.”

The ban was signed into law in 2004, but restaurants and producers were given eight years to adapt!  It finally goes into effect tomorrow, July 1.  The ban forbids the in-state sale and production of products derived from force-fed birds.  Animal welfare advocates have long decried the force feeding of geese and ducks that’s often used to produce it. Known as gavage, the process involves gorging a fowl with grain via a tube pushed down its throat.

1. Women will no longer be denied insurance coverage for gender-related reasons. In today’s insurance market, it is common for insurers to refuse to cover women because of gender-based “pre-existing conditions,” such as having had a Cesarean section or being the victim of domestic violence or sexual assault.

2. Women will no longer be charged more for their insurance coverage just for being women. Under a practice known as “gender rating,” insurers currently charge women higher premiums—up to 150 percent more—than men for identical health benefits.

3. Maternity care will be required in new insurance plans. Coverage for maternity care—health care that only women need—is routinely excluded in the individual insurance market.

4. Women will be guaranteed coverage of preventive services with no cost sharing. More than 50 percent of women have delayed seeking medical care due to cost, but insurers are now required to cover recommended preventive services such as mammograms without cost sharing.

5. Women will gain better access to affordable health insurance. Starting in 2014 women and their families, as well as small businesses, will receive tax credits on an income-based sliding scale to help purchase insurance coverage.

But the key word is moderation, as no benefits were found beyond two cups a day.  Besides possibly reducing heart failure risk, coffee has been found in other studies to protect against type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and liver cancer, among other health benefits.

A gene mutation was deliberately bred into almost all tomatoes because it made them uniformly red when ripe.  Turns out, that gene plays an important role in producing the sugar and aromas that give tomatoes a good tomato-y flavor.  Heirloom tomatoes and many wild species are often more flavorful because they do not have the uniform ripening mutation. 

Woody Harrelson credits a woman on a bus ride 30 years ago telling him his acne would go away if he quit dairy…and he has been vegan ever since!