What is it that you eat?" one of my work friends asked me the other day, he was of course referring to the fact that I claim to be vegetarian though not strictly vegan. I along with my wife made the decision to be vegetarian some 7 years ago and we would never go back to the way we were before. The decision was fostered in part by a moral feeling that seeing all the trucks on the local highways carrying several thousands cows, pigs, sheep and chickens to their death didn't jive well with the fact that we kept several pets in our household. You see we (at the time) had six cats, several guinea pigs, a couple of birds, a dozen or so gold fish and 1 turtle rescued from being eaten by Herons at the local park.

Another idea that added weight to the decision was the apparent impurity of the food supply (in particular the meat and poultry industry) and the massively profit run structure of the industry. It was about this time that Canada had suffered it's latest Mad Cow scare, the book Fast Food Nation was published, the movie super size me entered theatres and my wife found a book in the second hand stores called Toxin. After a little investigation on our part (isn't the internet a wonderful tool?) we discovered more about the food supply (filthy poorly managed slaughter houses, little to know inspections, genetic engineering, drugs, hormones and a profit over safety attitude) than we ever wanted to know. That was the end of our meat eating days. We have since that time even reduced the amount of fish and dairy that we consume.

So the questions remains, "what do we eat?". Well the exact same as you do except there is no meat in our dishes. We still have massive roast veggie dinners with potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, brussel sprouts, lashings of vegetarian gravy and massive Yorkshire puddings. We have also discovered that there is a burgeoning industry in vegetarian food products mostly made of TVP, textured vegetable protein.  There are vegetarian burgers, meatless meat balls, chicken less nuggets and burgers even Buffalo Wings that have no chicken what so ever in them. The problem is mostly one of education, profit and perception. When we first started down this road we didn't really know what we might eat either. We have since discovered however that we can eat any number of things from soup to chili to hamburgers to whatever suits our fancy, none of it having any meat.

When we eat at home. Eating out, particularly at fast food restaurants is another story all together. While some of the burger flipping joints offer up the obligatory "veggie" burger, they cook this burger right along side it's meaty brethren using the same utensils and the same grill. I can't count the number of people who have told me that for a  soup to have any flavor it must be made with beef broth or chicken stock. I don't think so! There are lots of vegetarian recipes out there and lots of vegetarian products (more on this in a moment) that provide as rich a food supply as any meat based diet. So contrary to the belief of my friends, I actually eat well, eat much more than lettuce leaves and beans and I am  gaining weight and living a very healthy lifestyle. In fact since becoming vegetarian I have noticed that I don't get quite so many colds, they are not quite so bad and I haven't had heartburn in many years. Makes you wonder.

Remember I said there were lots of vegetarian products out there to be found? Well that's sort of true but it is a challenge. In our city a number of the big stores will carry vegetarian products for a time, hiding them away in some obscure corner of the meat aisles or the freezer sections. Then a month later they will all disappear, the store managers claiming "they didn't sell well so we took them off the shelf" Well no wonder since they were mostly hidden, not well advertised and overpriced. Both the manufacturers and the stores will tell that they have to be higher priced because there is a smaller market. The smaller market is mostly due to the perception thing.

Vegetarianism and vegetarian products suffer from a huge perception problem. A great many of my "friends" believe emphatically that the veggie burgers must taste like so much sawdust, the chicken less kievs like some mushy bean pate. Nothing could be further from the truth but have they tried some much as a morsel? No. The never will, believing as they do that it is just cleverly packaged rabbit food. The manufacturers and media do little to erase this perception. Can you remember the last ad you saw on TV or in a mag for chicken less kievs?

So vegetarian products are not well advertised by the stores that sell them, not in the least respected by the carnivores, not generally advertised by the media?  What about restaurants?  Peruse any restaurant menu, you'll find 47 meat dishes and oh yes the token vegetarian dish. Have you seen any Burger king ads extolling the virtues of their vegetarian burgers? Doubt it. Even in the medical industry the perception problem persists. When was the last time your doc said to you, "you must eat more red meat! Get some protein into you." or "if you don't eat meat, you'll fade away and die"? Well the only way I am fading is sideways, I have lost no weight since becoming vegetarian. Incidentally have you looked at your teeth lately? No I am not insinuating that vegetarianism gives you better teeth. Compare them to those of your dog (he is a bonified carnivore), you'll find that he has all manner of sharp pointy teeth for tearing at meat but no molars. We on the other hand have lots of big flat grinding teeth for breaking up vegetable matter. Guess we were meant to be vegetarians after all.

Read a great story lately? A short while ago I posted a blurb about reading and READING, about reading the words and reading the story. Well what makes a great story? Is it winning a big prize like the Pulitzer or the Nebula? I don't really think so.

A great story has a bit of magic in it that appeals to you personally, maybe to everybody on some level. Read harry Potter? I would bet you have, in fact I would bet that just about everyone has read Harry Potter, it's a great story. The Harry potter books have been read by just as many adults as children, think of that. Here's a story about a group of kids going off to school to learn to be witches and warlocks, hounded by a really evil dude named Valdemort and having adventures of all sorts. Doesn't really sound like the type of book an adult might read does it? But it is. The book appeals to kids of all ages, to adults to almost everyone. The series of Harry potter books has put the READING back in reading, it's a great story.

Lord of the Rings is a similarly great story, millions of people, adults, kids whole families have read it and continue to read. Many like myself have read it many times. It's a great story, a rollicking adventure full of baddies, goodies, dragons, great evil and great triumph. Lord of the Rings appeals to all ages and is a timeless story, still fresh every time you read it.

A great story however is not necessarily one that appeals to all ages all of the time however, it is one that appeals to you, the reader in a special way. When I was 10 (and that was a long time ago I assure you!) I read a book given to me by a grade school teacher who thought I should read more, that book was Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. This was the story of Douglas Spaulding and the adventures he experienced over a summer. This is a great story and a book which has stuck with me all these long years. In one passage Douglas is explaining to a shoe store owner why he need a new pair of sneaks ( Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Shoes!) for the summer. Here are the words of Douglas Spaulding:

But Mr Sanderson, but - asoon as I get those shoes on, you know what happens?

what?

Bang! I deliver your packages, pick up your packages, bring your coffee, burn your trash, run to the post office, telegraph office, library! You'll see twelve of me in and out, in and out, every minute. Feel those shoes, (Mr Sanderson having been convinced to dawn a pair of Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Tennis Shoes) Mr Sanderson, feel how fast they'd take me? All those springs inside? Feel all the running inside? Fell how they kinda grab hold and can't let you alone and don't like you standing there? Feel how quick I'd be doing things you'd rather not bother with? You stay in the nice cool store while I'm jumping all around town! But it's not really me, it's the shoes. They're going like mad down alleys, cutting corners and back. There they go!

The passage goes on but you get the point, Douglas has saved all winter to visit the store and get his new pair of Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Tennis Shoe, to shed his winter Oxfords and go bounding across new grass. He has to have  new ones because the summer is all lived out of last years' pair languishing in his closet at home. It's the first day of summer. It was a great story 40 years ago and i must have read it 50 times since then. Every year round about the first day of summer I go and by my pair of summer shoes, shedding my winter oxfords for sneaks, not the Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Tennis Shoes (never could find a pair!) but new sneaks none the less. To me that is a great story.

A great story is a bit of magic woven by a special type of magician who captures a bit your soul in words and transports you to places you could never reach by any road on a map. They create a magical place you can go to that may be in this world, may be in the far reaches of space or the depths of fantasy. They carry you away, bring you back and stay with you all your days. There is nothing quite so enjoyable as a great story unless maybe it's new sneaks. Which reminds me I must be off to hunt down my new pair of Cream-Sponge Para Tennis Litefoot Shoes.

Have you ever wondered about this modern environment we live in? I have. Something like two hundred years ago when my great great great grad father came to Canada there was no electricity, no smog and no one even had a word for microwaves, radar and electromagnetic pulses. two hundred years before that, this continent didn't even have much of the disease's, germs and bad breath imported from settlers from Europe.

These days we hear a lot about "organic" food grown without pesticides, insecticides and all the rest of the genetically enhanced, chemically purified mumbo jumbo that goes into most crops and livestock. I am a vegetarian (still eat dairy, eggs and some fish though) and I try to eat healthy, limiting fats and such. However more and more often I feel it is a losing battle and a false economy. In the modern world, this one where we rise every morning and go to bed each night, we are bombarded every moment of the day by all manner of things totally foreign to the natural environment of our distant ancestors. Every day we are subject to microwaves (radar, cell phones, TV, radio, satellite), smog and bad air from cars, trucks, planes, industrial pollution, noise pollution, and about a zillion other things that never occurred naturally a few hundred years ago.

Scientists, politicians and industry would have you believe that all this has no effect on us, that global warming is a hoax and that the 40 million barrels crude oil spilled into the sea by the latest busted tanker will all dissipate and be absorbed by the environment. Well here's the wake up call cause we're the environment, us and the 47000 species of animals that share (now 46999 species as one goes extinct every few seconds) this planet. We're the ones absorbing the spills, the pollutants, the microwaves and whatever else we have added to the air, water and soil around us.

There is no getting away from it either, I read recently an article on the Internet about old growth forests in Northern Ontario dying off due to polluted air. This same article talked about fish poisoned with cyanide in India and dead rivers in Mexico. We, you and I and everyone else who enjoys Late Night with David Letterman while lounging in our nylon jammies in the back of our Limousines whilst chatting on our cell phones are having a massive affect on the environment, all environments. We are rapidly using up non-renewable resources, use virtually everything to excess, bulldoze our forests and farm lands to build ritzy condos for rich business men, demand bigger more gas guzzling, more pollutive SUVs to show how successful we are and generally think about our environment last if at all.

Yesterday while commuting to work (I drive a Honda civic by the way) I heard a report on the radio about 15 local mayors lamenting the fact that the latest gas guzzler tax (up to $8000 for the worst offenders, thats about 3000 pounds for you Brits) was going to cause a major downturn in the local auto industry. Did the reporter(or the mayors) note that the local auto industry (and the auto industry in general) turns out more gas guzzling, environmentally unfriendly cars than fuel efficient environmentally ones? Puzzle me this, does anyone really need a two and a half ton four wheel drive SUV with 18" of drive over clearance to commute the one and a half miles to their downtown office? Is it really necessary to drive around town in a 500 HP, V-10 pick up truck whose back box is covered up so it can't possibly carry the leather sofa home from Leons? Does a 1000HP, two seat sports car that gets 3.5 miles per gallon (and that's Brit gallons, not mini-American gallons!) make any sense? In all of the above I would say no!

It's not all doom and gloom however, in the last week I have seen advertisements for at least 5 different hybrid cars, cars that run on electricity and/or gas. These cars apparently get better gas mileage, pollute less and are much more environmentally friendly. They have been around for a few years now but are just starting to be promoted and get some exposure. Here once again I think it is the auto manufactures who are at fault for the lack of popularity of the hybrids. First is the styling of the cars, remember the first Honda hybrid to be marketed? It looked like it was a direct transplant from that 70's Brit show about invading aliens, I think it was called UFO. Then there is the pricing, hybrids typically cost about ten grand more than there pure gas brethren. That's a high price to pay when the savings (in fuel economy) are not really that spectacular. My Honda civic will go 675 Km on one tank of gas while a friend of mine claims her hybrid will go 1000 km. I can't say for sure but I think it would take some considerable time to make up the ten grand price difference in just gas savings alone. Then there is the advertising, until this week I could name only two hybrid cars on the market, could count the number of hybrid ads on one hand even though they had been on the market at least a few years. As i said however, the manufacturers do seem to be learning, there are now more ads and apparently many more hybrids to choose from. Maybe there is hope for us after all.

Visit David Suzuki's blog as well

I have noticed a trend as I get older (and more cynical), people (kids really) seem to be getting taller and food packaging seems to be getting smaller. I can't say the two are necessarily related but it does seem odd. About a hundred years ago when I was in grade school (and later in high school) I was not counted as one of the shortest or tallest people in my class, I was average height and all my friends were about the same height. These days I work at the local University and when I wander the halls here, I feel like one of the little people. My view as I walk the halls is one composed mostly of shoulders, the kids (mostly in their teens) towering above me by several inches.

So why are children getting taller? Some would have you believe that it is natural, they would say we eat better more nutritious food so we grow taller. How much nutrition do you suppose is found in a super sized Quarter Pounder meal Deal? I on the other hand have quite a different theory though I do believe it is related still to what the kids are eating. When I was that gangly teenager many ages ago, genetic engineering was the stuff of science fiction books, no one had ever thought of putting growth hormones into the food supply and all food was pretty much organic and natural. Sure we had pesticides, insecticides and a host of other things to help farmers make better crops and get shut of the bugs but today it is a very different story. We genetically engineer all of the crops to grow faster, ripen sooner, grow bigger and yield more produce. Miracle grow is the order of the day if you are growing anything, hence we get 1500 pound pumpkins and strawberries that look like small apples. Similarly with the livestock that is raised for food, we engineer them for faster growth, leaner meat, fatter drumsticks so that we can get them to market sooner and make a bigger profit. The people in charge of the food supply will tell you that all these chemicals, growth hormones, accelerators, enhancers, fatteners has no effect on the human health and physique. So puzzle me this, why were most of the kids in my grade eight class 5 foot and a bit and now most of the first year students at Uni are well over 6 foot? You have to wonder.

At the beginning of this little rant I had mentioned packaging getting smaller in addition to children getting taller. I said packaging but really I meant cereal boxes, chip bags and cracker boxes among others. When I was a sprout, the corn flakes boxes were huge, looking more like the "Club Packs" of todays supermarkets. In the supermarket the other day I was looking at a box of raisin bran thinking if it got any thinner the manufacturers would have to stand the flakes on edge to get them in the box. Manufacturers today claim "the contents settle during shipment" but that doesn't really explain why there are only six chips in my bag of Tortillas or my bog roll has only six sheets and a middle tube big enough to fit my hand through. I exaggerate of course but even as a teen I couldn't sit down and eat a whole family size bag of chips in one sitting, today that same bag seems half the size, barely a snack. However in this case that is a good thing since eating a whole bag of chips has more calories, fats, carbs and more trans fat than a weeks worth of real food. Ah but that's a rant for another day.

Have you noticed lately that there seems to be no middle ground any more? Almost everyone will tell you that "this thing" is "absolutely the best!", "Best of Breed", "revolutionary", "State of the Art", "It's gonna wipe out the competition".  Take computers for instance, probably the most obvious example of this around. The boys (and girls) in the Apple camp will absolutely swear to you that Macs are the best, fastest, neatest, coolest computers in the universe and PCs (most especially Windows PCs) are crap. At the same time the Windows aficionados will tell you that Macs compare favorably with a crushed styrofoam cup, have no software, don't play games and are generally useless. The two camps are vehemently (sometimes violently) opposed, neither giving the slightest ground to the other side.

However it's not just computers we tend to be fanatic about. We tend to be fanatical about a great many things, everything in fact. Every Christmas thousands of parents will race through department stores fighting, scrapping and swearing their way through the toy ailses to get that cabbage patch doll, tickle me elmo, Xbox 360 or whatever the toy of the year is. How many times have you heard of people lined up outside a Krispy Kream doughnut shop for days waiting to get the first doughnuts served up. The patrons telling you that "you absolutely must get them when they are still warm and sticky".

Have you ever watched a World Cup soccer game? Do you really think the ten thousand fans who rush on to the field to tear the Italian ref limb from limb because of a bad call that gave the game to Holland over Brazil are sane rational people? No, they are raving fanatics, totally obsessed with the game, winning and their team. Soccer fanatics are not the only sports fanatics however, just the other night there was a bench clearing fre for all knockdown drag out fighting and wrestling match at a hockey game in Toronto involving players and fans. We tend to be fanatic about just about everything computers, sports, fast foods, cars, celebrities and a host of unmentionables like politics and religion.  It's even in the very word, fan. Fan being a shortened version of fanatic obviously means that every "fan" is a little (or a lot) fanatic about that thing (or person) of which they claim to be a fan.

Why is that I wonder? Isn't it enough to say I really like that and it's ok if you are not so crazy about it? Empirical evidence would say that the opposite is true. I am really crazy about something and well you had better be too dammit! It's not that we want to share our enthusiasm for this thing with you, built in to our psyche is the need to impose our enthusiasm on you. Trouble is, we're all different in a lot of ways, having disparate likes and dislikes, so this enthusiasm gets us into a whole lot of trouble. We should all just chill out a bit. It's equally ok that I don't like Krispy Kream doughnuts and you are not enamored of Macs. just chill.

Reading the post of a friend the other day who was lamenting the demise of books and reading I was struck by a similar and much related thought. In this day and age of fast foods, instant gratification, flash movies and mindless television few people read (the words) and even fewer READ the story.

When I was growing up TV was black and white and where I lived we got two stations, CBC and CTV. My kids call it the black and white days. A large part of our (or mine at least) entertainment came from books. I read everything that had pages when I was a kid and carry on to this day. Sure I attend movies now and then and watch a few shows a week on the tube but still to this day one of my greatest sources of entertainment is a great book. You see I am one of those strange people who READ a book not just read it.

Let me explain what I mean. In school they teach you to read the words, you learn the grammar, the punctuation, the prenunciation and all the other mechanics of the language. If you take a literary course, they take books, stories and prose and dissect them in minute detail, analyzing every word and every nuance until the story is all but lost.

When I read a book, the words transport me away from this world to any of a thousand million other worlds. I can be traveling in time to hunt t'rexs (mindful of the butterflies!), sailing on a ship round Cape Horn, flying through the farthest reaches of space. I don't need television, CGI graphics, Panavision or any other technical wizardry, my imagination provides all that's necessary and the author weaves the magic in words. A great story by Ray Bradbury, Jules Verne or Nicholas Monseratt is much more  exciting and moving than any movie or television could ever be. A great many people who read, do not actually read the story, do not become immersed in the book, feeling, living, breathing the story. I do, when I read Tolkiens' passages about traversing Moria, I am there right along side the rest of the fellowship. I can feel the stone beneath my feet, the slight breath of air stirring my hair, hear the echo of my footfalls and the stirring of the Balrog.

Reading is quickly becoming a lost art in the modern age. Kids these days would much rather attend a flashy movie with lots of explosions, fast cars and scantilly clad women than curl up with a great book. Schools still teach them the mechanics of reading but there are fewer and fewer teachers to teach them the art and the joy of reading. That's a very sad thing. Now if you will excuse me I must return to a space station at the edge of the galaxy under attack by those pesky aliens!

Have you noticed lately how instant our culture and society is becoming? Everything is instant. Almost all of our food is fast food, freeze dried and re-hydrat-able, frozen and microwavable, delivered to your door in thirty minutes or it's free. Our entertainment is instant, no one reads anymore, they go to movies instead but only if they are short and to the point. More than one of my friends has lamented the length of "Lord of the Rings" ... three movies and three hours each! They're just so long. Everything in our society is fast paced, we are always late, always rushing somewhere with no time to eat, no time to rest, it's all go go go. We schedule 50 hours worth of activities for every day then lament the fact that we don't have time to do them all. We certainly have no time to eat, so it's fast food picked up on the way somewhere, gobbled down while we drive.

Speaking of fast food, have you ever wondered about the food that might be in it? Watching a movie a while back called "Supersize Me" was a shocking experience. The star of the movie ate nothing but fast food for an entire month, at the end of which he had gained 30 pounds, was on the verge of kidney and liver failure and had completely lost the athletic physical shape he had been in when he started the experiment. The movie reinforced my opinion of fast foods of all kinds, that there is very little food in them, mostly they are chemicals, fats and other stuff that is equally non-nutritious. When a burger maker claims "100% beef" for their burgers, that doesn't mean the patty you're buying is 100% beef, it means the beef that is in the patty is 100% beef. However there is likely only about 1% beef in the patty, the rest being fillers, sawdust and chemicals. Don't believe me? Before your next Happy meal, trot into Chapters (or Indigo) and pick up two books, "Fast Food Nation" a documentary on fast foods in America and "Toxin" an entertaining little story by Robin Cook. If these don't cure you of your need for a fast food fix, well then enjoy!

So what is it about cats, dogs and clocks? More specifically why is it they insist that everyone should be up and about by 5:00 am? In my household live 6 cats and two dogs. The latest, Minnie (after Minnie the moocher) starts barking round a bout 5:15, "let me out, it's time for walk-a-bout" she is saying. If one of us actually gets up and takes her out, the other one, Charlee the chunk, a hefty cocker spaniel with snow shoe sized paws comes and plants his size 10s on the edge of the bed and licks your face. Get shut of him and you are again wakened by a parade of cats all purred up, gently walking round your noggin, insisting that you get up and feed them, scrape the cat box and let them out for a gamble. So you see in my household every day starts about 5:30 when everyone, cats, dogs, guinea pigs, fish turtles and people get out of bed and greet the day. All of them are eclectic lovable and irreplaceable even if they don't realize that on Saturday and Sunday I should be sleeping in ( at sixes and sevenes) instead of commuting to my place of work.