Now I don’t follow UFC in any way, but I still know who Conor McGregor is. His personality is larger than life. His tattooed bulk frame, Irish accent, and machismo attitude epitomizes the sport of competitive fighting.

McGregor had a fight last weekend against Nate Diaz. Going into this battle, McGregor was undefeated in UFC fights.

He was the Ronda Rousey of male UFC fighters. No one expected him to lose.

But he did.

I don’t really care, since I don’t follow the sport. Sure I know him and his personality well, simply from being a sports fan, but the fact that he lost doesn’t mean a thing.

Except for one fact: Nate Diaz is vegan a plant-based athlete, following a mostly raw vegan diet.

Yes.

A vegan just took down the world’s most accomplished and feared fighter.

Why does this matter?

This probably doesn’t matter to most of you reading this. You probably don’t follow UFC, don’t know who these people are, don’t care.

But you know who does?

The male roommate of one of my friends, who has no real knowledge of or interest in the vegan diet. About all he knows is that vegans supposedly suffer in their search for protein in their measly leaves they eat.

But as we sat around talking about how both of us are vegan and loving it, and trying to open his mind to it, I casually threw out this fact: “you know the guy who just beat Conor McGregor is vegan…”

His ears perked up. I had his attention. This stood out to him.

So no, the result of this UFC fight is not very important to my life. But is is very important to the vegan movement. Not because Nate Diaz needs to be an ambassador for the lifestyle. But because his accomplishments can speak to a demographic that other vegans simply can’t.

The strongest man in the world just got beat by a vegan. Deal with it.

It’s been a big week for hot dogs, and it’s only Tuesday.

On Sunday evening, news broke about a report from startup Clear Food on the cleanliness of the hot dog industry. This is their first report, and if the response is any indication, the company is poised to do well.

What Clear Food offers is analysis on the molecular level to determine what food products actually contain. It is amazing that this is truly necessary in 2015, and yet, the Hot Dog Report proves that, yes, it very much is. In other words — you can’t trust food companies to tell you what’s in your food, we have to go to the DNA!

The report found, among other things, that 10% of vegetarian hot dogs — meatless options for those following a vegetarian or vegan diet — actually contain meat! Yikes!

As a vegan this is shocking, and I was disappointed that the report did not list the offending brands. They do, however, note the cleanest brands. For meatless, it’s Gardein, Trader Joe’s products and Yves Veggie Cuisine.

For meat hot dogs the report wasn’t much more promising. Kosher hot dogs containing pork, other animals in products they shouldn’t be in, and hygiene issues across the board, including human DNA. It turns out what we all expected was true is indeed true — hot dogs are gross.

Speaking of what we already knew…

Meat Causes Cancer (gasp!)

On Monday, the news that caught the attention of most Americans was that, contaminated or not, their meat-based hot dogs cause cancer.

A report from the World Health Organization listed processed meats as a Group 1 carcinogen and red meat as a Group 2A carcinogen.

Put another way, processed meats cause cancer, and red meat probably causes cancer. Processed meats include bacon, sausages, sliced ham, pepperoni, Slim Jims, etc. Red meat is mammal meat — cows, pigs, sheep, lamb, etc.

This isn’t actually new news — other organizations have listed these foods as carcinogenic for years. In fact I remember as a kid hearing on the news that processed meat was linked to colon cancer. As a twelve year-old I debated if I should give up my beloved Oscar Meyer bologna. I did not, but I did cut back. It took another 9 years before I swore off all meat.

Are They As Bad As Cigarettes?

This was the question on many people’s minds.

“So my bacon causes cancer and my burger likely causes cancer; to what degree?”

Let’s compare it to cigarettes. Nowadays everyone who isn’t a Philip Morris executive is comfortable with the notion that cigarettes are carcinogenic, so it’s a good comparison.

Well, cigarettes are still worse, make to mistake about it. Cigarettes contribute about 19% of all cancers while processed and red meats contribute 3% of all cancers (SOURCE).

So the bacon sandwich is still better than a cigarette. But it is humorous how many people rushed to the defense of their beloved processed and red meats by arguing this point.

They are not as harmful as cigarettes but how comforting is that, really?

Handguns aren’t as dangerous as semi-automatic weapons, but is this really important when one is pointed at your face?

I did a video a few months back comparing the story of tobacco to meat (check it out if you haven’t: Is Meat The New Tobacco?). In that video I pointed out that just 28% of smokers get lung cancer.

Does that mean you should smoke? Your odds are actually in your favor that you won’t get lung cancer from smoking. But you know where your odds are even better? Not smoking to begin with! In fact that is decidedly the healthy choice in this scenario.

So will everyone who eats bacon develop colon cancer?

Obviously not. But make no mistake about it, you are raising the chances.

Just as you can still legally smoke, you can still legally chow down on meat. But I wouldn’t recommend it.

I am interested to see what’s next for hot dogs this week! For now stick to the veggie dogs from trusted brands with no risk of containing animal flesh!

Last Thursday I posted a video about the killing of Cecil the Lion. If you haven’t checked it out yet, do so here: You Killed Cecil The Lion.

I’ve had many conversations in the past week since the story broke about why it is so frustrating. I go into a lot of the detail in my video so I won’t rehash it here.

But I think one point that didn’t make it into the video was a broader point about society, social media, and the nature of activism in the digital age.

The story of Cecil the Lion was frustrating because for a few days, the majority of people were on “my team.” For a few days, the world’s attention (or, the internet-using-world’s attention) was on a story that was in my wheelhouse, in my camp.

It’s not often that people speak up for animals, especially with such vigor, passion, and quite honestly, vitriol.

You’d think this would be an overwhelmingly positive development, that I’d be ecstatic by this attention to an issue I care about deeply! Here lies the rub though — it doesn’t last. It never does.

It is frustrating to have the whole world pop-in on your issue for 3 days and go “I care! No really, I care!” only to have them go back to posting about Kim Kardashian, Coachella, and their lunch a few days later.

Outrage Porn

The world of 2015 is a strange one. The internet, social media, and click-bait have paved the way for a new brand of content called “outrage porn.” Essentially this is seemingly inflammatory content (whether or not it actually is outrageous is the line between news and outright click-bait) presented in a way to get you to click on a story, and more importantly, share it, with outrage and indignation.

It’s the news-anchor who lies about certain details of a decade old story; the comedian who’s joke offends one person in a crowd of 300 that goes viral because he/she was being filmed; or the killing of a lion –a species facing far worse outcomes than the death of any one individual — thousands of miles away in a country with far more pressing issues.

Yes, the story of a priviledged rich white American male traveling to Africa to kill a prized lion is an awful one. But the frustration is that there are SO many awful things happening, in Zimbabwe, to animals, and in your community, to minorities, to women, to the environment. Why do we only have the attention span for one isolated story at a time, and why does the issue fade so quickly?

Remember the outrage after Sandy Hook? Where did that go? What about the Ice Bucket Challenge, how long did that really last? I already sense the outrage over police mistreating and murdering black people waning, which is devastating. When will the outrage over Cecil’s death subside? I feel it has already passed.

That is sad, because as I pointed out, 10 billion animals are slaughtered every year in the U.S. alone. Africa’s lion population has plummeted 60% in 30 years. We are destroying habitats by the millions of acres to make room for more animal farms to feed meat to more humans.

A plant-based diet requires 1/16th of the land of a meat-eating diet. The fact that we continue to drive species to the brink of extinction to continue a habit, a choice, that is not only destroying the planet but personal health as well, is ludicrous.

The problem is that this outrage is manufactured pop-culture. Everyone wants to have an opinion on it, and everyone wants to feel virtuous and “right.” When the tide shifts, there’s no one left holding the torch but the few activists that were there before millions piled on for a fun few days. “Thanks for stopping by…”

The real outrage is not over one dead lion, but billions of unnecessarily slaughtered animals; animals that live on land that was taken from wild animals, causing their mass extinction; animals that clog our arteries and cause disease.

This is the real outrage. This is, however, the issue that only ~3% of Americans can stand up and say, “No really, I care!”

People react to the photo of the hunter, Walter James Palmer, crouching over the dead carcass of the majestic creature, his smug smile seemingly confirming what we all already suspect — that this man has no respect for nature or her creatures.

However I have to admit that I don’t fully understand this outrage. Not that the act is forgivable, or even defensible. No, what Palmer did was horrible and he deserves the treatment he is now receiving.

What I don’t understand is the disconnect. Where was the outrage for the 40,000 lions killed and driven to extinction in the past 30 years? Where is the outrage for the countless species, big and small, charismatic and not, that are being driven to extinction right now?

But perhaps most importantly, where is the outrage for the pig on your plate in the morning, the chicken in your salad at lunch, and the cow on your grill at dinner?

SOURCES:
http://www.cowspiracy.com/infographic
http://time.com/9463/7-reasons-vegetarians-live-longer/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24871477
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11434797
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/28/africa/zimbabwe-lion-killed/