The self righteousness of your post almost made me feel sick. Vegetarianism SHOULD be a stepping stone to veganism? It SHOULD be whatever the hell you want it to be - for example a temporary situation for when you SHOULD return to eating meat.

Now i'm not going to do what you did and reel off the standard list of reasons why veganism is bad for you, they are well documented and discussed but we all know that it is very possible to have a varied and sufficient diet regardless of what you limit yourself to.

As for your comment about milk, i did a quick bit of research - most of the sources i can find saying that milk causes calcium to be ejected out of the body sourced from the bones and/or cause osteoporosis are new age blog style websites written by a vegan who - like you - clearly has some serious agenda.

As for decent sources, here is what i found:
- Several scientific papers noting that though some observational studies have shown more alkali diets being beneficial to bone health in pre- and post- menopausal women, it has yet to be proven in any definitive clinical trial
http://osteoporosis.org.za/general/downloads/dairy.pdf
(and other sources, but not as scientific)

- The Harvard School of Public Health state that it is not clear what the best source of calcium is for bone health. However the consumption of dairy products has more beneficial effects than just bone health - protection against colon cancer for example, also other vitamins, proteins and minerals that are present.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/calcium-full-story/#calcium-from-milk

Job losses may seem irrelevant to you, but i suggest that's because you have a very very tenuous grasp on the farming profession and don't rely on it for your income. No, you can't simply replace any and all dairy farms/farmers and workers with plant-based farming alternatives. There are a huge number of reasons for this which only a farmer would be able to tell us in detail, but for example - the equipment is different and requires a huge investment (both for acquisition and storage and transport and so on), the land and buildings are not necessarily interchangeable, the skills and knowledge are often built up since childhood and are not instantly transferable, the connections within the industry for logistics and business dealings are different. These are just a few that i thought up.

Yes, some animals are poorly treated in the farming industry and it makes me very sad to think of. However if you are careful and attentive you can ensure that you do not consume any products that were unfairly treated. This is like saying that a minority of clothes sold in shops are made in sweatshops by exploited child labour, therefore we should ban all clothes from the planet.

I could go on and on and on, and even begin my own dissertation on how "everyone going vegan" would be detrimental to overall public health and prosperity; if we grow more crops, more animals must be killed to ensure the crop is healthy and full.. we are not able to process celulose because we evolved.. there are things you can't get from plants that your body needs.. etc. But this comment is already very long, and i think i've broken the backbone of your argument already.

I will mention though that your crusade could end up being very damaging to the health of people who have auto immune diseases and/or allergies that rely on meat to have a balanced and varied diet. I recently discovered that i have coeliac disease (auto immune response to gluten) and secondary lactose intolerance, and i really wish i could explain to you just how difficult it is to avoid gluten containing grains and lactose.

For you it is a choice to not eat anything that comes from animals, for me it is a necessity that i have to avoid gluten and lactose otherwise i get debilitating pain within half an hour. If i did not have access to meat and eggs, there would be very little that i could eat. Wheat is added to almost everything, or almost everything is made in the same vicinity as wheat products resulting in cross contamination. Meat and eggs are sometimes the ONLY thing that i can be sure are safe to eat, and yet some self righteous do-gooder like yourself sits there on a high horse telling me how terrible it is that i inevitably, medically do what our ancestors have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years of human prosperity and ascendance.

If you'd had a bit more of an open mind when you wrote that comment, if i hadn't found out i have these medical conditions, if you'd said things in a debatable way, presented your sources (you provide none), offered it up for discussion rather than a commandment written on a stone tablet, then i probably wouldn't have replied like this. But when i'm forced into doing something and an interfering busybody strolls along and shrieks "oooooooooh you shouldn't be doing that!!!" it really does wind me up.

To me Soda sounds wrong and doesn't make sense. I immediately think of Baking soda or something similar

Some chemical compounds containing sodium
Sodium carbonate, washing soda or soda ash
Sodium bicarbonate, baking soda
Sodium hydroxide, caustic soda
Sodium oxide, an alkali metal oxide

Hasidic vs. Alkali. LOL.

Upvote.

I don't know if could work or not but I like the idea.

And here is a little something from wiki that I read about earlier on yahoo.



Gorilla™ Glass

Corning’s Gorilla™ Glass is a high-strength alkali-aluminosilicate thin sheet glass used as a protective cover glass for high-end display devices such as notebook PCs, televisions, and mobile phones.[2] Originally invented in 1962, it did not find commercial applications until 2008.[3]
In October 2009, Motion’s C5 and F5 line of Rugged Tablet PCs became the first to feature the Gorilla™ Glass.[4] Later in March 2010, Corning announced that Gorilla™ Glass' use in the Japanese cell phone market.[5] Corning's next leap was a few days later, March 15, 2010 was incorporating the Gorilla Glass into the LG x300 Ultra-thin Mobile PC; which unveiled at the 2010 CES Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada [6][7]
Corning attributes the choice of Gorilla™ Glass superiority not only for "unparalleled damage resistance and protection" but:
"Thinner form factor: Gorilla™ Glass retains its performance advantage over standard chemically strengthened substrates even when used in thin form factors. Currently, Gorilla™ Glass is available as-drawn in thicknesses ranging from .5 mm – 2.0 mm.
Pristine surface quality: Because it is formed using Corning’s proprietary fusion process, Gorilla™ Glass offers the same high-quality pristine surface available with all of our high-technology display substrates. This feature offers the ability to use the glass “as drawn,” eliminating lapping and polishing processes which can introduce surface damage.
Compliance with environmental standards: Gorilla™ Glass is compliant with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS). It contains no heavy metals, making it an ideal component for devices engineered to meet environmental standards.
Compatibility with touch screen devices: Gorilla™ Glass can be used as a protective cover sheet for touch screen devices without impeding the functionality of the device. Reliable strength is important for these types of devices that function in response to pressure being applied to the glass.
Available with an easy-to-clean, wear-resistant coating: Customers can specify a version of Gorilla™ Glass with a special coating, making it easier to clean than other cover glasses. This is especially useful for devices that function by touch."[8]
In addition to its uses for mobile phones such as the Motorola Droidx[9], Corning expect increasing usage in television screens starting in 2011, with a projected market of $1 billion in 2011.[10][11]

>> ^residue:
http://www.badscience.net/?p=270
http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/AlkaliBangs/index.html
The second one has videos of what would actually happen and why.


*lies

your statement is true....one needs to take into account the actual levels of mercury.

from the abstract: The samples were found to contain levels of mercury ranging from below a detection limit of 0.005 to 0.570 micrograms mercury per gram of high fructose corn syrup. Average daily consumption of high fructose corn syrup is about 50 grams per person in the United States. With respect to total mercury exposure, it may be necessary to account for this source of mercury in the diet of children and sensitive populations.

this was one of two studies done on the subject. While I know the 2nd study found mercury in more products that contain HFCS, I'm not sure at what levels.

Q

In reply to this comment by jwray:
>> ^qruel:
Since we are talking about Mercury... here's some interesting facts...
Gold mines are the nation's largest source of mercury pollution. Like all mining, separating and processing the gold creates tons of toxic metals, like lead and mercury. Nevada is home to eight of the nation's top 10 mercury polluters. Here is a list of the top 100 Some other sources: Coal Fired Power Plants, Cement Kilns, Incinerators, Chlor-alkali Production, Chemical Plants.

In 2005 the FDA did a study that showed mercury in many food products that contained High Fructose Corn Syrup (due to mercury in the caustic soda and hydrochloric acid used in the manufacture of HFCS), and the FDA did absolutely nothing about it.


Presence of "detectable" levels is meaningless unless you name a specific concentration. Nearly everything will randomly contain at least 1 part in 10^20 of whichever stable element you want, which could be measured with a sufficiently accurate mass spectrometer.

>> ^qruel:
Since we are talking about Mercury... here's some interesting facts...
Gold mines are the nation's largest source of mercury pollution. Like all mining, separating and processing the gold creates tons of toxic metals, like lead and mercury. Nevada is home to eight of the nation's top 10 mercury polluters. Here is a list of the top 100 Some other sources: Coal Fired Power Plants, Cement Kilns, Incinerators, Chlor-alkali Production, Chemical Plants.

In 2005 the FDA did a study that showed mercury in many food products that contained High Fructose Corn Syrup (due to mercury in the caustic soda and hydrochloric acid used in the manufacture of HFCS), and the FDA did absolutely nothing about it.


Presence of "detectable" levels is meaningless unless you name a specific concentration. Nearly everything will randomly contain at least 1 part in 10^20 of whichever stable element you want, which could be measured with a sufficiently accurate mass spectrometer.

Since we are talking about Mercury... here's some interesting facts...

Gold mines are the nation's largest source of mercury pollution. Like all mining, separating and processing the gold creates tons of toxic metals, like lead and mercury. Nevada is home to eight of the nation's top 10 mercury polluters. Here is a list of the top 100 Some other sources: Coal Fired Power Plants, Cement Kilns, Incinerators, Chlor-alkali Production, Chemical Plants.

In 2005 the FDA did a study that showed mercury in many food products that contained High Fructose Corn Syrup (due to mercury in the caustic soda and hydrochloric acid used in the manufacture of HFCS), and the FDA did absolutely nothing about it.

sweeeeeeeeeeet...now I can post my series on alkali, alkaline earth, and transition metals.

>> ^HaricotVert:
Braniac did this way better.

Yes, except they faked it and Brainiac generally sucks.

Braniac did this way better.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'alkali, metals, lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium, water, reaction' to 'alkali, metals, lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium, water, reaction, chemistry' - edited by mauz15

>> ^MarineGunrock:
And hello, since when was any sort of radiation mono-directional? I.E. - pointing a cellphone in a certain direction doesn't do shit as far as where the waves go.
[votewhore]
http://www.videosift.com/video/Brainiacs-using-cell-p
hones-to-cook-shit-is-a-load-of-shit
[/votewhore]


I wouldn't take Braniac at their word, either. They flat out lied on their Alkali metal clip (posted here, somewhere, I think).

http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/AlkaliBangs/index.html

Thankfully no one invited Cesium.

Here's my take on this (... someone who doesn't hate chemistry with a passion should double check it);

Adding sodium to water creates NaOH, sodium hydroxide, along with hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas and oxygen will ignite since adding sodium to water produces such an exothermic reaction. The other part, sodium hydroxide, is lye, which would be bad to add to a regular lake. But he notes that this is a strongly alkali lake devoid of fish. So basically (pun intended!), they're just making an already strongly basic lake a little more crazy.

So, maybe no harm no foul! I'm not familiar with how they would have produced the metallic sodium, so maybe there could have been trace heavy metals or something. Certainly could have been explained more by Mr. Narrator... maybe the education system back then was that much more robust concerning chemistry that everybody knew this sort of thing.