Animal Products

The Nordstrom shoe salesman approaches. "May I help you?" he asks. "You really don't want to," Sabri na LeBeauf assures him. The actress, best known for her work on "The Cosby Show," is a vegan (VEE-gan) who wants nothing to do with animal products. She believes in "compassionate shopping," a practice that applies to clothing, cosmetics, accessories--even sporting goods and automobile interiors. Although many of the nation's 12.

I currently follow a strict vegetarian diet and consume no animal products at all. Since vitamin B-12 is missing from the vegan diet, I wonder how many micrograms of it I should take. I've seen B-12 pills of up to 1,500 micrograms each in my food co-op, but the daily requirement is just 3 micrograms. Vitamin B-12 deficiency is far more common than most people realize. Vegans (who eat no eggs, dairy or other animal products) are frequently lacking in this essential nutrient.

Averting an imminent showdown with the United States, the Japanese government bowed Friday to pressure from Washington and announced that it plans to end its trade in endangered hawksbill sea turtles, whose shells are used to make jewelry and eyeglass frames. The action came after months of negotiations and just hours before the Bush Administration planned to impose a products ban on the import of all animal products from Japan.

"Cheap protein" sounds like something you buy from a shady character in a raincoat, but it's right there in the grocery store. The Chicago Tribune reports that in recent years Americans have never paid less for food, with meat singled out as a particularly cheap source of protein. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 46 grams of protein per day for women 19 to 70-plus years old and 56 grams of protein per day for men of the same age. (Read the CDC chart on recommended grams per day by age and sex in "Nutrition for Everyone.

Nilo Amier massages Bag Balm into her chapped hands. Formulated 100 years ago to soften the udders of milking cows, the salve works just as well on people, said Amier, who tends a half-acre mini-ranch in Tarzana. "And it sure beats Vaseline." Canyon Country feed dealers Odie Fox and his son Jerry swear by Flex Free, a pricey supplement for easing stress and strains in horses. One dissolves a pinch of the bitter powder in his orange juice. The other sprinkles it on breakfast cereal.

Bringing food, plant, and animal products into the United States is not a cut-and-dried certainty.

If you've ever wanted to learn how to cook with beans and grains, author David Gabbe will share his insights Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at the Senior Center. Participants will prepare a variety of simple dishes that contain no animal products, white sugar or refined products. Information: (714) 229-6780.

I currently follow a strict vegetarian diet and consume no animal products at all. Since vitamin B-12 is missing from the vegan diet, I wonder how many micrograms of it I should take. I've seen B-12 pills of up to 1,500 micrograms each in my food co-op, but the daily requirement is just 3 micrograms. Vitamin B-12 deficiency is far more common than most people realize. Vegans (who eat no eggs, dairy or other animal products) are frequently lacking in this essential nutrient.

Regarding the Feb. 22 letter from P. Johnston in response to the vegetarian article on Feb. 1: Gee whiz, P. Johnston! What are you so angry about? I am a vegan and know many other people who are vegan (those who eat no animal products at all, as opposed to ovo-lacto vegetarians who eat eggs and dairy products). Neither I nor any of the other vegans I know buy, use or eat any animal products . . . no leather anything, no fur, no skins. I hope your [leather-wearing vegetarian] friend has made merely the first step in becoming a vegan with a truly compassionate and non-harmful lifestyle.

There is a really dire problem with wildlife in foreign countries. Their plight is horrific when you think of all the circumstances under which they are being exploited. Please ask your readers not to buy any live animal or bird, or any wildlife product such as fur, skin, ivory or tortoise shell. Discourage them from having their pictures taken with chimpanzees, monkeys or lion cubs. (It is a big racket at many of the world's beach resorts and one which involves gross cruelty.)

Billie Mae Richards, a Canadian actress best known for voicing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in the enduring animated 1964 television special, has died. She was 88. Richards, who had suffered strokes, died Friday at her home in Burlington, Canada, west of Toronto, said Rick Goldschmidt, who documented the history of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and its producers. Like most of the cast, Richards was a veteran of Canadian radio when the producers traveled north to assemble the voices for the program based on the 1949 song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Reporting from Paris — As Brigitte Bardot approaches her 76th birthday, her starlet aura has been enjoying a broad resurgence — and the woman herself, plenty of attention. In the year since her widely commemorated 75th birthday, a fashion elite — Dior, Lagerfeld and Gaultier — have offered their catwalk homages to France's famous "sex bomb. " The actress' tantalizingly retro 1960s-era face looks out over shoppers from the posh Lancel store on the Champs-Élysées (where they sell the recently launched eco-chic Brigitte Bardot Bag)

Every so often, we take a candid look at the private dietary lives of people whose food choices need a makeover. Up this week: the kitchen and dining habits of 22-year-old Jessica Watson and her boyfriend, 31-year-old Todd Preboski. She's a vegan; he eats fish but no other animal-based foods. Such diets may conjure up images of fresh vegetables and fruits, nuts, tofu and whole grains. But a lack of time and planning have cornered the couple into relying too often on Taco Bell burritos, protein bars and potato chips.

FOR YEARS NOW, preservationists have been pleading and preaching in a failed attempt to get humans to stop slaughtering exotic and increasingly rare animals whose organs are believed to increase sexual potency. But it hasn't worked. Poachers risk bullets, handcuffs and steep fines for the profits from rhinoceros horns, tiger penises or the eggs of endangered sea turtles, all wrongly believed to enhance male sexual performance or desire. It's time for a new approach.

I would like to comment on the article on the Chicago foie gras ban and the response of one reader. Each time I read of another ban, I ask myself the same question: "Why is foie gras being championed by the general population as the food product they are trying to ban?" The main issue seems to be that people find the process amounts to "animal cruelty." Yet it would seem that if people universally cared about animal cruelty, they wouldn't eat any animal products. Do people not know about the processing of mass-produced poultry (and accompanying waste)

Is your car vegan? Actor Michael Bell's is. The 66-year-old Encino resident doesn't eat or wear animal products, and his hybrid car doesn't have a stitch of leather in it. If it had, Bell said, he wouldn't have bought the car, a 2001 Toyota Prius, despite its impeccable green credentials. In raw numbers, vegans such as Bell are so few that they barely register on surveys of consumer habits.

The four low, white buildings on Mark Glass' farm hold a powerful recycling system. Open a door to any of the rooms inside, and the system springs to life. First there is the sound of splashing water. Then, from the darkness of the room, shapes form. They are long, low and stare out of blinking round eyes. A foul odor pervades the air. Hundreds and hundreds of alligators fill every inch of the room. They swim toward wooden platforms suspended at the water line.

FOR YEARS NOW, preservationists have been pleading and preaching in a failed attempt to get humans to stop slaughtering exotic and increasingly rare animals whose organs are believed to increase sexual potency. But it hasn't worked. Poachers risk bullets, handcuffs and steep fines for the profits from rhinoceros horns, tiger penises or the eggs of endangered sea turtles, all wrongly believed to enhance male sexual performance or desire. It's time for a new approach.

India's leather industry is worried about the ruling party's efforts to ban the slaughter of cows nationwide. The cow is sacred to most of India's Hindus, who make up 85% of the population. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which heads the federal coalition, wants to ban cow slaughter. Last week, coalition partners forced postponement of such a bill, but the party plans another attempt.

Top scientists have advised federal officials that there is "no evidence yet" that products from cloned animals are unsafe for human consumption, in a report released Tuesday that reduces the roadblocks now keeping such products off supermarket shelves. At the same time, experts warned that genetically altered animals capable of escaping and breeding with wild populations could devastate ecosystems--a possibility the current regulatory system is not equipped to prevent, the study's authors said.