Clive Simpkins

A great case for vegetarianism

If you're a non red-meat eater, you're in trouble. Unknown to the public, the British, naughty buggers that they are - inject their chicken with pork and beef extracts to plump up the breast meat in order to secure higher prices. No kiddin'. Go read here. It makes a great case for vegetarianism because you just don't know what animals are being fed when they're alive or (as it now turns out) injected with once they're dead. Seems they get injected anyhow if they're destined for freezing because the flesh on the cadaver 'becomes tough'. Ugh!

Remember the 'mad cow' (BSE) disease transmission to humans of a few years back? Seems we never learn.

Melamine in animal feeds and baby products courtesy of unscrupulous mainland Chinese.... and so it continues. Maybe time to give the animal proteins the heave-ho?

Posted by: Clive Simpkins

Dem veggies finally pay off!

Ain't this cute? I was a total vegetarian from 1972 until about 1993 when my Spiritual Preceptor, the inimitable Swami Shivapadananda, told me to eat fish 'now and again'. No seafood per se. Just fish. I do that. But I haven't eaten meat or chicken for 35 years. Of course it's a bit late for me to get a discounted Life Assurance policy as a reward for my abstemious and animal-friendly eatin' habits! ;-) Nevertheless, bravo to Animal Friends Insurance for their initiative.
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Want some interesting daily spiritual reading? Go read the Swami Shivapadananda Blog.

Posted by Clive Simpkins

Even Woolies has cows in its sweets!

Yuck! On behalf of all vegetarians, those who keep Kosher and Halaal and anyone else expecting to buy and eat candies free of animal ingredients - I protest! Read the accompanying article. How dare manufacturers masquerade bovine (cattle) gelatin as 'stabiliser'. Are these people daft? The quicker our Nanny State government gets to crack down on more accurate contents labelling, the better. I expect better from Beacon Sweets (owned by Tiger Brands) Cadbury Schweppes (their freakin' website doesn't even work - and they were zapped recently in the UK for Salmonella bacteria in their products),Kraft, Wilson+Rowntree (owned by Nestle) and Woolworths.

Brits get in on the food contamination act

Horrible how even the legends in the food business can get caught cuttin' corners. Mars have just made a right-royal screw up. Read the accompanying article-let.

This is hot on the heels of Cadbury in the UK being slapped with a humongous fine because they knowingly kept Salmonella-contaminated chocolate products on retail outlet shelves instead of notifying the public, the authorities and withdrawing the darned stuff.

Now they've created a crisis of confidence. Worse, they and folks like Mars are contributing to a legitimate global paranoia about what's lurking deep inside our formerly tried'n trusted foodstuffs.

I know of a toothpaste manufacturer who years ago ran out of glycerine and their production manager suggested substituting an animal ingredient to produce 'the same effect'. Being a vegetarian, I was furious and asked him how, if he kept Kosher or Halaal, he'd feel about finding unspecified animal ingredients in his mouth, without his knowledge or choice. Yuck! If I were on the board of that company, I'd have fired him on the spot. His approach is called, 'How to kill a brand overnight.' A marketing and PR case-study of note.
Posted by Clive Simpkins

Exhaustion fixer-upper

Take a careful look at this young lady. She could just change your life. About a week ago I blogged about my bone-marrow dredging exhaustion. I'd missed a workshop run by nutritionist and public speaker Celynn Erasmus RD (SA) for the National Speakers Association of South Africa (NSASA). So I decided to make an appointment and go see her. In a nutshell (no pun!) she gave stunning advice and opened my thinking to a gazillion new food options designed to maintain a better blood-sugar balance throughout my crazy business days. Sometimes when coaching I can go for a whole day without food and then demolish the refrigerator in one gulp when I get home. Celynn evidently has Roman contacts who excommunicate you for doing that... ;-)

Being a vegetarian means fewer (or for me at least - more complicated) snacking options. But in a burst of compliance that has impressed even me, I've spent the week dutifully nibbling like a hamster on Jungle energy bars, and more fresh fruit, nuts'n dried fruit, wedges of tasty cheese and chunks of Tofu than I've done in months. Too early to tell if I'm going to wake up one morning feeling utterly turbo-charged, but it feels like a good beginning. If you're in Johannesburg and you want to prep your body'n brain for 2006, why not make your Christmas pressie to yourself a visit to Celynn?