Almost 100 rescued chickens - saved from an egg farm by Animal Place sanctuary - embarked on their new lives in loving homes on Saturday, when PETA’s Los Angeles headquarters, the Bob Barker Building, hosted the biggest chicken adoption event ever. "These birds will never be used as egg-laying machines or cut up for dinner - they'll be family companions, as beloved as any dog or cat," said Animal Place Executive Director Kim Sturla. Guests snacked on vegan chicken-salad sandwiches and washed them down with vegan eggnog. The birds had a blast, too, creating abstract art with non-toxic paints. The chickens were rescued from an egg farm that was "depopulating" birds who were no longer productive. This is done at farms all over the country - even at so-called "humane" or "free-range" farms. You can help chickens everywhere by refusing to buy any eggs and instead using egg-free options for baking and cooking. (peta.org)

India being the only country in the whole world to consider vegetarianism as mainstream, the show Masterchef India 4 is going all vegetarian this season. All the contestants who earlier felt that they could not participate in the show because they only cooked vegetarian food can now be part of the show. Chef Vikas Khanna, who prepared an all-veg meal for President Obama in the White House in 2009, admits that the decision to come out with a purely vegetarian show is right. He said, "When I was learning French cooking in France, we were told that it is easier to cook meat, but much more difficult to cook vegetarian food. India is the only country where you find so many vegetarians, and so it is justified that the show goes all-veg this season. Besides, we are now often called for all-veg tasting menus and this becomes a challenge and inspiration." (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

The judge in Zutphen decided that Van Hattem Vlees, famous for the horse meet scandal, is to be declared bankrupt. The meat processing company from Dodewaard had already been deferred payment after it ran into difficulties because of its involvement in the horse meat scandal. Early this year Van Hattem Vlees was discredited because of tampering with horse meat. The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) stopped the production at Van Hatten early this year. The company is not allowed to butcher or to trade. In addition the meat processor had to remove 15 thousand tons of meat from the market because the NVWA had discovered that several dozen horses and ponies had disappeared in the administration of the company. The NVWA suspected that the cheap meat from these animals was incorporated into shredded beef. (nltimes.nl)

Scientists at the University of South Carolina have determined that the vegan diet is the best for losing weight, despite the fact that vegans are more likely to indulge in carb overload than say, someone on a paleo or gluten-free diet. The study compared the weight loss effectiveness and speed of vegan diets compared with omnivorous diets, and found that on average, vegan shed 4.3 percent more weight than their meat-eating counterparts. The study participants were divided into vegan, vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, pescetarian, and strict vegan diets, and the vegan participants came out on top in saturated fat-levels, BMI, and overall weight loss. The study also showed that, in addition to plant-based diets contributing to more efficient weight loss, people don't need to shy away from pasta and bread. (thedailymeal.com)

The latest research shows that drinking dairy can increase chances of bone fractures and mortality. A study published in the British Medical Journal followed 100,000 people in Sweden for 20 to 30 years and found that those who drank three glasses of milk daily were more likely to die of heart disease and cancer. For the women, milk drinkers had a significant better chance of suffering a hip fracture. The Swedish study blamed milk's negative features on a type of sugar called galactose, which is present in big quantities in milk. Yogurt and cheese have less of that type of sugar, which supposedly mollifies the dairy products' impact on the body. According to Dr. Neal Barnard from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, however, a better choice to get the 1,000 mg of suggested daily calcium allowance would be spinach (with 245 mg in a single cup), collard greens (268 mg in a cup) or fortified orange juice or tofu. (ecorazzi.com)