BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!

Subject: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Jun 18 - 01:55 PM

I sympathise with folks with medical problems, but I have No sympathy for vegans.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Jun 18 - 02:15 PM

Why do you have 'no sympathy for vegans' bonzo and why do you feel they need sympathy?

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Jun 18 - 02:34 PM

they don't need sympathy, they need protein and essential vitamins & minerals...

It's dogs and cat's owned by vegans, I'd be more inclined to have sympathy for...

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Iains
Date: 09 Jun 18 - 02:40 PM

As yet merely allegations. To be investigated by the The Food Standards Agency.
It does seem rather stupid to give such products confusing labels however. e.g. Meat Free Meatballs, Wicked Kitchen BBQ Butternut Mac.
France, in a rare display of common sense is to ban the use of meat terms to describe vegetable-based products.
Surprisingly the BBC alleges More than a quarter of all evening meals in the UK are vegan or vegetarian. That still leaves breakfast, lunch and supper to glut on meat so the BBC statistic is rather meaningless.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jun 18 - 02:45 PM

I think people have every right to eschew meat if they so wish. And food labels should be accurate.
It's a matter of wrongly-labelled products, which anyone would object to.
My niece is a vegan, and she's as fit as a flea.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Jun 18 - 02:58 PM

The body builder champion who owned the gym I trained in 20 years ago insisted vegans could never build muscle bulk...

Competitive vegan body builders might disagree...

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jun 18 - 02:59 PM

Cor, my niece has muscles like Morgan the Mighty! She does self-defence classes and weight-lifting. She's quite a scary lassie!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jun 18 - 07:37 PM

I'm up for people eating or not eating whatever they like. What I'm not up for is anyone crusading to tell me what I shouldn't be eating. If everyone on the planet went vegan, agriculture would collapse in third world countries and huge areas of marginal land suitable only for grazing would go to waste. There would also be a massive demand created for artificial chemical dietary supplements. Well whoop-de-bloody-do. If you want to be vegan, good for you. But for the planet it's an insane philosophy.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Jun 18 - 08:25 PM

Fraudulent or inaccurate labeling is no surprise to those of us who've gotten sick from unlabeled wheat in "gluten free " meals. :-0 Food production by robots and machines-- what could go wrong?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 12:35 AM

An ayurvedic physician saved my gallbladder, for which I am very grateful.
He is a devout Hindu and may not eat meat.
He doesn't proselytize, either.

In fact, at a seminar he gave on ayurvedic medicine,
which was open to the general public,
he explained that there are patient cases
when he tells a patient that they MUST have meat in their diet.
Not for religious or economic reasons either.
That kind of discernment has value for me.

He lives and teaches in the United States, in fact in the American Southwest where I am visiting now.
He used to enjoy ordering vegetarian dishes at a good Mexican restaurant
until he discovered that the salsa was prepared with beef broth . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 12:53 AM

We have these nice, conservative people in our Catholic parish who prepare terrific minestrone for all comers to our Ash Wednesday celebration. And of course, Catholics aren't supposed to eat meat on Ash Wednesday. The soup tasted a little too good, though, so I asked what kind of stock they used - chicken stock. I didn't have the gall to question their choice.
I've never been one to be too fussy about anything, so it's hard for me to understand why people get upset about chicken stock on Ash Wednesday, or vegans getting small traces of meat in their food, or any of that stuff.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 07:01 AM

"An ayurvedic physician saved my gallbladder"

Three years ago I saved my own gallbladder. I'd had a ultrasound scan in hospital that had revealed that my gallbladder and bile duct were clear of stones. that evening the consultant came round the ward and told me not to worry, he'd whip out my problematic gallbladder the very next morning. After a lot of puzzled exchanges and head-scratching he and I discovered that he'd mixed my notes up with somebody else's. Good job I was on the ball, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 02:14 PM

Last week I cured my back pain - I stopped gardening!!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 02:22 PM

Good heavens Steve! Just as well he didn't have you down for an orchiectomy!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 02:43 PM

I know. I didn't show it but I was mad with him. I'd had a severe pain that had been put down to pancreatitis and which had pitched me into hospital, but I recovered within a few hours (which doesn't happen with pancreatitis). When I was discharged I asked the guy if he had any advice for me, about alcohol for example. He just shrugged, smiled and told me to enjoy life. A month later my GP told me that he'd had a letter from him which said he'd told me to avoid alcohol. The lying bugger! Needless to say, I've been taking the "enjoy life" option ever since!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 03:00 PM

I had an ultrasound scan of my abdomen fairly recently, and I must say I didn't much like the young lady that performed it. She said she saw a small gallstone, but it wasn't blocking the duct. Then she sneered a bit and said, "Your ovaries are completely withered though!"
Cheeky mare! At my age, I should blooming think they are!

Scanners are strange folk. I also had an MRI scan on my head, as I have a large blind spot in one eye. The young lad was very reassuring as they fed me into the machine, but he said "You've got a kinky blood vessel which is pressing on the optic nerve. Not a problem really, and we can see you DO have a brain, so that's good isn't it?"
(Husband laughed and said he'd had some doubts!)

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 04:27 PM

What with the ongoing debate over plant consciousness,
over sensitive vegans may soon find they are in a philosophical quandary
and completely buggered for anything left to eat...

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 11 Jun 18 - 02:24 AM

I did hear that traces of meat were once found in a Greggs sausage roll.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Jun 18 - 03:21 AM

But surely the cure for these medical problems is regular treacle pudding and custard!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jun 18 - 03:22 AM

Buttered crumpets, twice daily Bonzo!

ave Hanson, that's a mere rumour. It may have been traces of horsemeat though..

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Jun 18 - 03:27 AM

There was a capital D in there somewhere, but it's vanished!
Dave Hanson.
ave sounds a bit Roman Empire doesn't it!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 11 Jun 18 - 02:56 PM

Yup.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 Jun 18 - 05:54 PM

If vegans are too lazy to make their own meals, they deserve what they get!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 02:36 AM

I must agree with you there Bonzo.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 02:42 AM

Likewise we meatarians!!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 04:18 AM

Reduce your carbon footprint. Give up meat!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 05:13 AM

Growing crops to the exclusion of animal husbandry increases demand for chemical inputs. Those chemicals are not only polluting but are hard-won only by the massive expenditure of fossil fuel energy. Additionally, you'd be removing a vital contributor to soil structure, animal manures. That's particularly vital in third-world countries, where subsistence farmers can't afford to buy chemical fertilisers in any case and where seasonal drought is a big factor in the erosion of soils which lack good structure (dust bowls, anyone?) Then there's irrigation. Look up how many gallons of water it takes to produce each nut on an almond tree in California (I'll save you the bother: it's around ten). In certain parts of Chile environmental devastation is going on in areas where avocados are grown for export because so much water has to be diverted in order to water the trees. You can't grow useful crops on thin, dry soils on steep rocky slopes or at high altitude, but you can rear animals which you can move around as the seasons progress.

Mixed agriculture allows us to select the most appropriate ways of using land. Just because we're not very good at it isn't an argument for abandoning animal husbandry. Simplistic sloganising from vegans or vegetarians should always be challenged. They've made their choice, good for them, but there are perfectly valid and moral other choices. Eating less meat, eating local meat and always insisting on the highest welfare standards is a good start.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 05:15 AM

Ruminants account for up to one-third of the anthropogenic methane emissions worldwide according to the IPCC. While carbon dioxide is typically painted as the bad boy of greenhouse gases, methane is roughly 30 times more potent as a heat-trapping gas.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 05:25 AM

Maybe there is a futures market in shipping sh*t!
From the lefty gruniard no less.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/16/dutch-cow-poo-overload-causes-an-environmental-stink

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 05:31 AM

Anthropogenic methane is produced by producing and burning petroleum and natural gas, from landfill, from coal mining and from avoidable, poor management of agricultural waste. Just a quarter of it comes from farting ruminants or farting humans. EPA figures. Not only that, methane has a short life in the atmosphere, being oxidised to carbon dioxide in around a decade. Carbon dioxide is still far and away the bad boy.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 05:42 AM

33.330% IPCC. 25%EPA.
Who cares?

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 06:04 AM

And to be pedantic it must be remembered that in a warming world vast reserves of methane in the permafrost and ocean floor clathrates may no longer be stable.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 08:23 AM

The obstinate fact remains that far and away the greatest threat to our climate is anthropogenic carbon dioxide. Rising temperatures have kept almost perfectly in step with rising atmospheric carbon dioxide for many decades. Cow farts have stabilised or declined for the last several decades. The perceived threat from methane release from permafrost hasn't got past being interesting speculation as yet, still less seabed methane. The persistent worry is rising carbon dioxide emissions.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 09:54 AM

Slightly related.....

There is an interesting and entertaining reality show currently available on BBC Wales [english language]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b3g8zw/the-family-farm-series-1-episode-1


"The Family Farm

Three families with no experience of farming volunteer for the adventure of a lifetime as they agree to spend their summer living and working on a north Wales hill farm in the shadow of Snowdonia. Moving into a purpose-built yurt village, complete with chicken coop, vegetable plot and pigpen, they will learn what it takes to run a farm and feed a nation. Their mentors are the farm's owner Gareth Wyn Jones and presenter Kate Humble (who also has her own Welsh farm), both of whom will be on hand to help them in all aspects of hill farming, from gathering sheep to shear them, through to training sheepdogs and selling ewes at market. They have been thrown in the deep end, it is hard work in all weathers with early mornings and long hours - but will the reality of country living live up to their dreams of rural life?

This is a good balanced insight for townies and city folk,
and amply demonstrates how much of a farmers daily life revolves around rank stinking sloppy shit...

Watching how the middle class vegetarian and her vegan daughter cope
with the care and slaughter of cute cuddly farm animals,
is of some relevance to this thread...

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 11:19 AM

The inventiveness of the food biz in making the inedible profitable sometimes boggles the mind...

two-year-old tuna treated with carbon monoxide

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 12 Jun 18 - 12:41 PM

We can hear the pitiful bellowing of the dairy cows from the farm in our village for days after the stockmen take their calves away. I always get a lump in my throat. Yet, hypocrite that I am, I adore milk and drink lots of it.

I do think it's vitally important that food products are correctly and accurately labelled. Many people nowadays seem to have serious allergies, and something like nut traces can cause anaphylactic shock, which can kill.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Iains
Date: 13 Jun 18 - 02:51 AM

Is it really so green to be a vegan?


https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/food-miles-the-true-cost-of-putting-imported-food-on-your-plate-5333264.html


https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/may/10/foodanddrink.shopping6

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 13 Jun 18 - 02:58 AM

I've nothing against being a vegan, provided that they keep it to themselves, but they don't, some of the worst pontificators about!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jun 18 - 06:18 AM

Most Vegetarian pizza is made with beef lard for the crust for the last 60 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 18 - 06:59 AM

No Parmesan cheese is ever vegetarian. Not sure about mozzarella.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Jos
Date: 13 Jun 18 - 07:33 AM

A pizza dough is usually made with a version of bread dough, not pastry, so there is little if any fat in it except for a small amount of olive oil or similar.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Roughyed
Date: 13 Jun 18 - 07:57 PM

I was with my wife looking at the board in a Chinese chip shop searching the vegetarian options when a man leaning against the counter, obviously steaming drunk said loudly "Oy, are you vegetarian?"
"Here we go," I thought expecting some hassle. "Yes we are" I said. "Well have a meat and potato pie," he said "I've never found any meat in 'em."

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 03:03 AM

The carbon footprint story may not be the way you think.

Monbiot on hill farming

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Iains
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 03:28 AM

Monbiot on hill farming.
The man has no idea what he is talking about. One example below.
"The figures are so high because this form of husbandry is so unproductive. To produce one lamb, you need to keep a large area of land bare and fertilised. The animal must roam the hills to find its food, burning more fat and producing more methane than a stalled beast would."
What on earth is he on about?

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 05:48 AM

Well I'm a great admirer of George, a valiant environmental crusader. But he does occasionally argue from a cockeyed angle. Most upland in Britain up to 3000 feet was at one time under oak/birch/pine forest. Nearly all that has long gone, a process that started long before Jesus was a lad. If all upland farming was abandoned, the forest would not return to its former condition. We'd end up with poor-quality scrub with scattered trees, largely the non-native sycamore and rhododendron, with low biodiversity. Upland grazing regimes are by far the best option for maintaining a variety of habitats and the maximum diversity of species, and stocking the hillsides at appropriate densities would avoid the soil erosion that can lead to flooding and would maintain the pasture indefinitely. Problems are caused by bad practice, not by the fact that there are grazing animals present. Ok, those grazing animals produce a lot of carbon dioxide and methane, but so did the wild animals that preceded them, the cattle, boar and deer, etc., and so would those that would naturally replace them. Ecosystems depend on all manner of beasts, large and small, and they all fart at will. And I don't know where he gets the idea that hill farmers chuck fertiliser around the mountainsides. They may use some on the low-ground paddocks they use for finishing their animals but that would be as nothing compared to the vast inputs required on arable land. Pigs do churn up land but if they are used in sensible rotations on non-sloping land they can be used to clean the land of deep-rooted weeds then moved on, and pigshit is a superb fertiliser. He forgot to mention that. The runoff into rivers he mentions is avoidable, and what he should be arguing for is responsible, good practice, as he should in all the cases he refers to. Instead, he seems to be on an anti-meat crusade.

Those people who would like to see an end of animal husbandry should consider the vastly increased amount of nitrogen fertiliser that would be needed to replace the animal manure. In fact, in Africa very little artificial nitrogenous fertiliser is used in any case, so let's hear what they'd say to those farmers who can't afford to buy it and who currently depend on manure. While they're at it, they could contemplate the vast amounts of fossil fuel energy needed to feed the highly-polluting Haber process, without which we wouldn't have the ammonia needed to manufacture those fertilisers in the first place. The production of nitrogenous fertiliser is one of the leading generators of greenhouse gases. The trouble with George, sometimes, is that he isn't very good at balancing equations.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 06:10 AM

I've read your last post with enormous interest Steve.
I have grave doubts about our over-use of nitrogenous fertilisers (and insecticides, fungicides etc) being 'safe' for our health.

And you're right about Africa (well, the West, which is all I have experience of) not using these chemicals due being unable to afford them. Animal manure (goats, sheep, cattle, donkeys) is used almost exclusively, and no insecticides, except on crops of cotton (according to my husband) way up in the North of his country.

The reason I'm very interested personally in all this is that my husband has started to be very ill with what we thought was sudden hay fever, and I have been wondering if it isn't actually a reaction to the crop- spraying which has been going on all around us during the past week. He never had any contact with these things as a young man in his own country, and could be severely allergic to something they've added to the 'brew' here lately.
There have been tractors pulling tankers of all sorts of chemicals going up and down the fields, and my poor husband has red eyes, can hardly breathe and feels very ill. I might persuade him to go to the doctor tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 06:20 AM

Have you got rapeseed around,Sen?

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 06:22 AM

Grass pollen levels have been exceptional for several weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 06:57 AM

We have indeed Jon, but the flowers died off weeks ago, and there are just the stalks left while the seeds mature. He'd been trying the local honey desensitisation idea over the winter, and we though it had worked, because while the oil seed rape was in flower he didn't have much in the way of hayfever.

I wonder if it's grass pollen Steve. But this came on yesterday all of a sudden, and the sprayers were out yesterday too. There's a strong wind today, which might be bringing more pollen into the air (and in our windows!) or more chemicals up his nose!

|He's just taken Piriton, but of course it dopes one up no end, and he says he feels 'weird'. I don't think he should go in to work this afternoon (2pm - 9pm) but he'd sooner die than let his employers down!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 10:03 AM

I used to suffer terribly with perennial allergenic rhinitis. Like hay fever but had it all the time. One cetirizine usually sorts it out but I occasionally used a steroid nasal spray as well. Recently, rather than the nasal spray, I have used a seawater spray to wash out the nostrils in times of high pollen counts and that seems to work as well.

One odd one I heard recently was a man who claims stinging himself with nettles once a week stops his symptoms. Dunno if I fancy trying it myself though :-O

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 10:09 AM

whether it's medicinal or a fetish - depends where he stings himself...???

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Jos
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 10:13 AM

I often get stung by nettles (I don't like gardening in gloves), and I hardly ever get hayfever, but that doesn't mean the two are connected.
Someone who is susceptible to pollen told me he puts vaseline round the inside of his nostrils to catch the pollen as the air passes over it. Worth a try, maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 10:18 AM

Hahaha! I don't think that nettles suggestion will appeal somehow! He hates stinging nettles; they were the first weeds he identified when doing gardening for the first time. (He learned the hard way)

I'll pass on your ideas Dave, as we're desperate for anything that might help.

He's on the last day of Ramadan, and wasn't too keen on taking the Piriton tablet (absolutely nothing should pass one's lips during the daylight hours) but it ends this evening at around 9pm (start of Eid el Fitr) and I persuaded him neither God nor Mohammed would mind!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 10:33 AM

One cetirizine tablet a day that should have read. Rhere are some branded tablets that are cetirizine (I think Pititon now market one as 'non-drowsy') but I have never spotted a difference between them at up to £5 a box and the generic ones from supermarkets and discount shops at 79p! Standard Piriton (chlorphenamine) sedates most people which is probably why hubby feels so groggy. You may be able to get round it if you can convince him to drink strong coffee but the crash from that later on is probably even worse :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 01:13 PM

It's so kind of you to post these suggestions! Thank you so much!

He has a huge quantity of different medications in his bedside cabinet, including Piriton, Pirinase, Piritese, Otravine, Vaseline (as Jos suggested, he puts it around his nostrils to trap any pollen) and even some strange crystals to which one adds boiling water and inhales the steam (decongestant)
The only thing that has much effect is the Piriton. He only has a short journey to work in the car, but still, I do worry about the drowsiness.
It's worse this year than we can ever remember.

He gets fiery hot and has a fierce headache too. I did think it was recurring malaria, but he says it isn't (and he should know - he's had that loads of times back in Africa!)
Sorry about going on and on, but I'm rather worried.
I'll try and get him to have a doctor's appointment.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 02:18 PM

We just watched the BBC 2 part documentary "Neanderthals - Meet Your Ancestors "

Current theories are that 'modern' humans migrated out of Africa and interbred with their distant cousins
to produce Europeans.

Present day Europeans carry part Neanderthal DNA.

Modern humans who stayed in Africa don't.

Part 2 of the documentary suggested [too briefly] how this might affect health conditions differently
for Europeans and Africans...

Not a bad 2 hours of TV...

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Jos
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 02:22 PM

I have read (can't remember where but I'm pretty sure it was an academic publication) that Muslims with medical conditions (this includes pregnancy) have a dispensation and are allowed to eat drink or take medicines where necessary for their health. They then make up for it either by fasting later when they are fitter, or by carrying out an act of charity.

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jun 18 - 02:58 PM

It's true Jos that Africans have a different set of health risks to Europeans. They are likely to have higher blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular problems and strokes for example. Also allergies, since they won't have had contact with many of the allergens that are encountered in Europe.

I often get ribbed about my probable Neanderthal DNA. He does a very good gorilla act to tease me, but won't believe that Neanderthals weren't all that different to Homo Sapiens in appearance, (according to an interesting TV programme I watched recently)

You're right pfr, Muslims can be excused the Fast if they are ill, pregnant, frail etc. My sister-in-law Rakieta has TB unfortunately (she's having treatment which we're monitoring and funding) and so isn't doing Ramadan. But my husband has nearly completed his Fast and didn't want to spoil it on the last day. I'm not convinced that God wants people to suffer, and I'm sure He wouldn't mind anyone having a Piriton tablet!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Jun 18 - 07:56 AM

I was told recently that the life cycle of a wasp (dunno which) is tied-up with the fig, and visa versa. Which leaves traces of the insect DNA in the fig.

go figure.................

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jun 18 - 09:05 AM

Otrivine should be banned. After a few uses the congestion returns on the rebound, much worse than before the Otrivine did its dirty work. Bin it!

Subject: RE: BS: Meat traces found in vegan meals!!!
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jun 18 - 10:13 AM

You're quite right Steve. My sister warned us about that - it actually causes inflammation of the nasal passages. He doesn't use it much now, just if he's desperate.

It's strange, because he's just done four hours of intensive gardening, cutting the grass, clipping back flowering shrubs and pulling out weeds in full flower, but his nose seems to be behaving itself.
I'm beginning to think it was indeed the crop-spraying.