Vegan family opens up about being bullied over choice of lifestyle

Agencies
September 15, 2019

Washington D.C., Sept 15: The argument about consuming less meat and more plant-based foods has been going on for ages now. But what happens if that argument takes an ugly shape leading to you being bullied for your choice of lifestyle?
A family of five recently opened up about losing friends and being bullied because they are vegan, reported Fox News.

Jacqui, Ryan Robins and their three children Skye (15), Skipp (14), and Cadan (5) are vegan and hog on a range of lip-smacking dishes without meat or dairy.

However, the family from Probus, Cornwall, England, admitted that the transition to a vegan lifestyle has not been an easy one. The family revealed that they have lost friends due to it, and are often met with aggression and bitterness.

Jacqui, who was 8-years-old when she decided to give up meat, shared that other parents hold back from speaking to her when she goes to her children's schools.

"Passion is misunderstood to be aggression or hatred. I have been to parent's evenings and had people turn their backs to me. They would rather do that than engage in a conversation that will make them feel uncomfortable," she said.

Meanwhile, Ryan has been a victim of online trolling for his choice of lifestyle. According to the online trolls, his dietary choices are disrespectful to his late father, who was a "highly-respected" butcher.

Whereas, Skipp confessed that he is targeted at school over his vegan lifestyle, and frequently has meat waved in his face.

However, despite all the ups and downs, the family defends their dietary choices and hopes to put an end to the misconception that vegans are "crazy".

Jacqui, a nutritionist, said that they are just "trying to raise awareness about practices" people should be aware of, noting that many "good and kind people" won't make the same choices if they "knew the reality".

"There seems to be some kind of divide where people meet vegans with aggression and resistance, when you are just trying to raise awareness about practices that people should know about," she said.

"I know there are so many good, kind people making choices that they wouldn't make if they knew the reality," she added.

Jacqui decided to turn vegetarian at the age of 8 after realising that animals were used in the preparation of her shepherd's pie. But two years ago, after watching "horrifying" documentaries and researching about dairy-farming processes, the nutritionist decided to ditch dairy, too.

"I saw a video that went into the reality of the dairy industry. I was horrified and straight away I didn't want anything to do with the dairy products," she said.

"I thought, if I couldn't cope with watching it happen, but I was buying the product, I was inadvertently funding it," she added.

Jacqui's son Skipp soon followed her footsteps, after watching the 2017 documentary 'The Land of Hope and Glory' with his mother, which showcases the UK's farming practices.

"All of the kids have made their own decisions and have recognized why they are vegan. Some parents say 'you're not having that and that', but we wanted the kids to understand why we do it, take on the information and decide for themselves," Jacqui said of her kids' lifestyle choices.

However, for Skye, the dietary transition took a little longer because she was afraid to watch the documentaries featuring the farming practices.

"Once I watched them it was easy. I now want to know where my food has come from and how," Skye said.

The youngest child Cadan was switched to vegan milk alternatives after he suffered a variety of digestive issues from consuming dairy milk.

"Even Cadan understands exactly - he knows that the baby animals suffer and are taken from their mommies and he doesn't believe in that," Jacqui said.

However, for Ryan, the journey to veganism has been very different from his family since his father was a butcher. He grew up surrounded by the farming industry and used to frequently visit slaughterhouses.

"Dad was a highly respected butcher and worked part-time on a farm and neighbours would bring animals around to be skinned and plucked. It wasn't abnormal for me to be around dead animals for much of my life," he said.

"I would help put animals on trailers and get the animals into the slaughterhouses and it was all normal to me. I witnessed chickens being killed on the farm, I worked on the turkey line just before Christmas and I always just thought 'we need animals to be healthy and strong'," Ryan added.

He initially opted for veganism due to health reasons, after his father passed away, and Jacqui's mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

"I wanted us and our family to live a life as healthy and as nutritiously as possible so that we could live as long as possible," Ryan noted.

The family said that a very common misconception about vegans is that they are "militant" and "crazy".

However, they claimed that they have no problem with other people's decision to eat meat, but their refusal to understand the processes behind the meat and dairy processes.

Jacqui said that she doesn't want vegans to be called crazy, but she wants to make people aware by explaining them the processes. And the family often practices this through social media but this has taken an ugly shape leading to losing friends and family.

Jacqui noted that it is "corrupt" to sell a product without "transparency".

"A lot of people don't realize, and I think we are manipulated by the industry to think everything is happy and everything is great. I think that it is corrupt to sell a product without transparency," she said.

"So when I started posting about it and raising awareness, I lost a lot of my friendships - because they were telling me to be quiet about it," the nutritionist added.

Jacqui said that she lost many friends because they wanted "to inform people" about the processes.

"If I had just gone vegan and kept quiet about it, my friends would have probably left me alone. But the breaking of friendships was mostly because we wanted to inform people," she said.

Living in Cornwall, the family is faced with increased pressure for being vegan as they are surrounded by agricultural farming. Many of the kids' classmates are from farming families.

However, the parents noted that they are not anti-farmers, but are against the "process and lack of transparency".

"We are not against farmers, they are intelligent people that we need in this world - it's the process we are against and the lack of transparency. If we are moving towards a vegan world we will need farmers and we want to work with them - because we need them," Ryan said.

Jacqui and Ryan stated that veganism is all about replacing meat and dairy options with healthier alternatives. According to the couple, it is as easy as replacing meat with chickpeas, lentils and beans now that vegan alternatives are so readily available.

"The main thing we do is swap meat for beans, lentils, and chickpeas. We eat lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. We then replace meat with legumes and swap dairy milk and cheese to plant-based alternatives," the parents said.

They also said that they don't feel like they are missing out on something due to their choice of lifestyle.

"As long as we do that we seem to be thriving. Everywhere we go to eat out we can have pretty much anything. We don't feel like we are missing out," the couple said.

The family's lifestyle choice has also encouraged Jacqui's father John and his wife Sarah to follow suit.

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Agencies
July 8,2020

Probiotics that broaden the mix of helpful bacteria in the gut may help to ease depression, say researchers.

Foods that broaden the profile of helpful bacteria in the gut are collectively known as probiotics. These "good bacteria" can be taken as supplements, or found naturally in yoghurts or fermented foods.

For the findings, the research team from the University of Brighton in the UK searched for relevant studies published in English between 2003 and 2019, which looked at the potential therapeutic contribution of pre-and probiotics in adults with depression and/or anxiety disorders.

Out of an initial haul of 71 studies, just seven met all the criteria for inclusion. All 7 investigated at least one probiotic strain; four looked at the effect of combinations of multiple strains.In all, 12 probiotic strains featured in the selected studies, primarily Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei, and Bifidobacterium bifidium.

One study looked at combined pre-probiotic treatment, while one looked at prebiotic therapy by itself. The studies varied considerably in their design, methods used, and clinical considerations, but all of them concluded that probiotic supplements either alone or in combination with prebiotics may be linked to measurable reductions in depression.

And every study showed a significant fall or improvement in anxiety symptoms and clinically relevant changes in biochemical measures of anxiety or depression with probiotic or combined pre-probiotic use.

Of the 12 different probiotics investigated, 11 were potentially useful, the findings showed.'Probiotics may help reduce the production of inflammatory chemicals, such as cytokines, as is the case in inflammatory bowel disease, the researchers suggested.

"They may help direct the action of tryptophan, a chemical thought to be important in the gut-brain axis in psychiatric disorders," they added.

In this way, with a better understanding of the mechanisms, probiotics may prove to be a useful tool across a wide range of conditions," the authors wrote.

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Agencies
January 26,2020

High-protein diets may help people lose weight and build muscle, but there is a downside to it --a greater heart attack risk. Researchers now report that high-protein diets boost artery-clogging plaque.

The research in mice showed that high-protein diets spur unstable plaque -- the kind most prone to rupturing and causing blocked arteries.

More plaque buildup in the arteries, particularly if it's unstable, increases the risk of heart attack.

"There are clear weight-loss benefits to high-protein diets, which has boosted their popularity in recent years," said senior author Babak Razani, associate professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.

"But animal studies and some large epidemiological studies in people have linked high dietary protein to cardiovascular problems. We decided to take a look at whether there is truly a causal link between high dietary protein and poorer cardiovascular health," Razani added.

The researchers studied mice who were fed a high-fat diet to deliberately induce atherosclerosis, or plaque buildup in the arteries.

Some of the mice received a high-fat diet that was also high in protein. And others were fed a high-fat, low-protein diet for comparison.

The mice on the high-fat, high-protein diet developed worse atherosclerosis -- about 30 per cent more plaque in the arteries -- than mice on the high-fat, normal-protein diet, despite the fact that the mice eating more protein did not gain weight, unlike the mice on the high-fat, normal-protein diet.

"A couple of a scoop of protein powder in a milkshake or smoothie adds something like 40 grams of protein -- almost equivalent to the daily recommended intake," Razani said.

"To see if protein has an effect on cardiovascular health, we tripled the amount of protein that the mice receive in the high-fat, high-protein diet -- keeping the fat constant. Protein went from 15 per cent to 46 per cent of calories for these mice".

Plaque contains a mix of fat, cholesterol, calcium deposits and dead cells. Past work by Razani's team and other groups has shown that immune cells called macrophages work to clean up plaque in the arteries.

But the environment inside plaque can overwhelm these cells, and when such cells die, they make the problem worse, contributing to plaque buildup and increasing plaque complexity.

"In mice on the high-protein diet, their plaques were a macrophage graveyard," Razani informed.

To understand how high dietary protein might increase plaque complexity, Razani and his colleagues also studied the path protein takes after it has been digested -- broken down into its original building blocks, called amino acids.

"This study is not the first to show a telltale increase in plaque with high-protein diets, but it offers a deeper understanding of the impact of high protein with the detailed analysis of the plaques," said Razani.

"This work not only defines the critical processes underlying the cardiovascular risks of dietary protein but also lays the groundwork for targeting these pathways in treating heart disease," he added.

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International New York Times
July 7,2020

The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests.

This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain superspreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants.

It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech.

Follow latest updates on the Covid-19 pandemic here

Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.

What is clear, they said, is that people should consider minimizing time indoors with people outside their families. Schools, nursing homes and businesses should consider adding powerful new air filters and ultraviolet lights that can kill airborne viruses.

What does it mean for a virus to be airborne?

For a virus to be airborne means that it can be carried through the air in a viable form. For most pathogens, this is a yes-no scenario. HIV, too delicate to survive outside the body, is not airborne. Measles is airborne, and dangerously so: It can survive in the air for up to two hours.

For the coronavirus, the definition has been more complicated. Experts agree that the virus does not travel long distances or remain viable outdoors. But evidence suggests it can traverse the length of a room and, in one set of experimental conditions, remain viable for perhaps three hours.

How are aerosols different from droplets?

Aerosols are droplets, droplets are aerosols — they do not differ except in size. Scientists sometimes refer to droplets fewer than 5 microns in diameter as aerosols. (By comparison, a red blood cell is about 5 microns in diameter; a human hair is about 50 microns wide.)

From the start of the pandemic, the WHO and other public health organizations have focused on the virus’s ability to spread through large droplets that are expelled when a symptomatic person coughs or sneezes.

These droplets are heavy, relatively speaking, and fall quickly to the floor or onto a surface that others might touch. This is why public health agencies have recommended maintaining a distance of at least 6 feet from others, and frequent hand washing.

But some experts have said for months that infected people also are releasing aerosols when they cough and sneeze. More important, they expel aerosols even when they breathe, talk or sing, especially with some exertion.

Scientists know now that people can spread the virus even in the absence of symptoms — without coughing or sneezing — and aerosols might explain that phenomenon.

Because aerosols are smaller, they contain much less virus than droplets do. But because they are lighter, they can linger in the air for hours, especially in the absence of fresh air. In a crowded indoor space, a single infected person can release enough aerosolized virus over time to infect many people, perhaps seeding a superspreader event.

For droplets to be responsible for that kind of spread, a single person would have to be within a few feet of all the other people, or to have contaminated an object that everyone else touched. All that seems unlikely to many experts: “I have to do too many mental gymnastics to explain those other routes of transmission compared to aerosol transmission, which is much simpler,” Marr said.

Can I stop worrying about physical distancing and washing my hands?

Physical distancing is still very important. The closer you are to an infected person, the more aerosols and droplets you may be exposed to. Washing your hands often is still a good idea.

What’s new is that those two things may not be enough. “We should be placing as much emphasis on masks and ventilation as we do with hand washing,” Marr said. “As far as we can tell, this is equally important, if not more important.”

Should I begin wearing a hospital-grade mask indoors? And how long is too long to stay indoors?

Health care workers may all need to wear N95 masks, which filter out most aerosols. At the moment, they are advised to do so only when engaged in certain medical procedures that are thought to produce aerosols.

For the rest of us, cloth face masks will still greatly reduce risk, as long as most people wear them. At home, when you’re with your own family or with roommates you know to be careful, masks are still not necessary. But it is a good idea to wear them in other indoor spaces, experts said.

As for how long is safe, that is frustratingly tough to answer. A lot depends on whether the room is too crowded to allow for a safe distance from others and whether there is fresh air circulating through the room.

What does airborne transmission mean for reopening schools and colleges?

This is a matter of intense debate. Many schools are poorly ventilated and are too poorly funded to invest in new filtration systems. “There is a huge vulnerability to infection transmission via aerosols in schools,” said Don Milton, an aerosol expert at the University of Maryland.

Most children younger than 12 seem to have only mild symptoms, if any, so elementary schools may get by. “So far, we don’t have evidence that elementary schools will be a problem, but the upper grades, I think, would be more likely to be a problem,” Milton said.

College dorms and classrooms are also cause for concern.

Milton said the government should think of long-term solutions for these problems. Having public schools closed “clogs up the whole economy, and it’s a major vulnerability,” he said.

“Until we understand how this is part of our national defense, and fund it appropriately, we’re going to remain extremely vulnerable to these kinds of biological threats.”

What are some things I can do to minimize the risks?

Do as much as you can outdoors. Despite the many photos of people at beaches, even a somewhat crowded beach, especially on a breezy day, is likely to be safer than a pub or an indoor restaurant with recycled air.

But even outdoors, wear a mask if you are likely to be close to others for an extended period.

When indoors, one simple thing people can do is to “open their windows and doors whenever possible,” Marr said. You can also upgrade the filters in your home air-conditioning systems, or adjust the settings to use more outdoor air rather than recirculated air.

Public buildings and businesses may want to invest in air purifiers and ultraviolet lights that can kill the virus. Despite their reputation, elevators may not be a big risk, Milton said, compared with public bathrooms or offices with stagnant air where you may spend a long time.

If none of those things are possible, try to minimize the time you spend in an indoor space, especially without a mask. The longer you spend inside, the greater the dose of virus you might inhale.

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