What's missing in the fight against puppy mills

Another day, another puppy-mill outlet.

I was distressed to learn yesterday that Naperville, Illinois - the next town over from where I used to live, and in most aspects a very progressive community - is allowing yet another puppy-mill-sourced pet store to open within its limits. Some residents of this wealthy Chicago suburb are rising up in predictable - and entirely justifiable - outrage (the blog post I just linked to is headlined "Naperville: The puppy mill outlet capital of America").

The blogger says she isn't trying to shut down pet stores; she just wants them to "go humane...to switch to an adoption model with rescue dogs instead of continuing to sell puppies at the expense of the parent dogs left behind in puppy mills...breeding litter after litter."

[My favorite pound puppies]

I get that. I got my own little dogs through a rescue group many years ago. Tiggy the mini-schnauzer mix was a young mother whose previous owners surrendered her, very pregnant, to the pound because, they said, they had "too many dogs." Muffin the toy poodle mix (and empress of the universe) was running wild in one of Chicago's meaner streets when animal control picked her up. The dogs are now at least 13 years old, and I love them dearly. I am a big fan of rescue groups and of the people who work tirelessly so animals will have better lives.

But something important is missing from nearly every call to shut down puppy mills. Folks, we've got to look at why puppy mills exist in the first place. It isn't just so the people who run them can make money. It's because lots of people want puppies.

Try this thought experiment: Imagine that every puppy mill in the U.S. was shut down, and every dog owner made sure their dog was spayed or neutered, and every pet store worked with shelters and rescue groups to re-home rescued dogs. A lot fewer dogs would be discarded, to be sure, and a lot more discarded dogs would quickly find homes, and that would be wonderful.

But very quickly all the available puppies would be gone, along with all the bright and attractive young-adult dogs, and the only dogs left would be the old ones, the ugly ones, the dangerous ones - the very dogs that are so hard to place right now.

And then where would people go to get puppies?

Good breeders, you say? Have you ever tried to find one?

The Humane Society publishes an excellent document called "How to find a responsible dog breeder." If you're looking for a puppy, you should read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it. But it has two problems, if we really want to solve the nationwide puppy-mill problem. First, such a breeder tends toward very small-scale operations and "doesn't always have puppies available." More realistically, such a breeder tends to have puppies available once every year or so, and the waiting list may be extremely long.

The second problem is that such a breeder requires you to "sign a contract that you will spay or neuter the dog unless you will be actively showing him or her." The aim, of course, is to cut down on unwanted puppies. The result, however - if all breeders followed the Humane Society's guidelines (this is a thought experiment, right?) - would be that the only available dogs would be potential show dogs.This could lead to genetic problems with the whole dog nation. It would certainly lead to extremely high prices for puppies. And there would be no more havanoodles and schnorkies and goldendoodles.

What's missing in the fight against puppy mills is a long-term solution. Shutting down the mills, adopting rescued dogs, spaying and neutering pets--good as these things are, they are all interim solutions. We need to come up with new ways to provide healthy, happy (but not necessarily purebred) pups at a reasonable price to families who can't afford potential show dogs, and whose children want a dog now and not three years in the future when their name finally comes up on the responsible breeder's waiting list.

One way to accomplish this would be strict regulation (with frequent inspection and adequate enforcement) of all pet breeders nationwide. I'm guessing this won't happen: it would cost money, and taxpayers who aren't willing to fix the ten percent of American bridges in urgent need of repair probably aren't going to open their wallets to help puppies.

So what's the solution? I wish I knew. One thing I never read about: large-scale (or even back-yard) puppy breeders who take good care of their dogs. Do these people exist? If so, could we learn more about them? Could we hold them up as examples?

Shaming cruel puppy mills is important, but it hasn't shut many of them down. Offering practical alternatives might be more effective. Can we do both?

What ideas do you have about better ways to connect puppies with the people who want them? Please comment!

WHAT'S A DOG FOR? by John Homans

When I saw this book's title in a New York Times review last month, I thought it might be similar to Jon Katz's engaging 2003 book, The New Work of Dogs. Katz wrote about how dogs have gone from being diligent farm workers who help us take care of our physical needs to being companions and even substitute children who help us take care of our emotional needs.

What's a Dog For?, it turns out, is wider ranging than Katz's book. It never quite answers its own question; it might have been more accurately if less attractively titled Lots of Stuff about Canines that Dog Lovers Will No Doubt Find Fascinating. For example, Homans, who is executive editor of and a frequent writer for New York magazine, looks at

• how dogs and wolves are similar and different
• the history of dogs from Newfoundland
• what kinds of emotions dogs (may) feel
• how humans have created dog breeds, mostly recently, and often by fast and reckless selective breeding
• how the animal rescue movement has both helped and hurt dogs
• how big dogs adapt to life in New York City
• how dogs think
• how Freud and Darwin related to dogs
• why it's dangerous to be a Pit Bull

--among other things.

I am a dog lover; I have lived at various times with Pepi the Toy Manchester Terrier, Willie the irrepressibly cheerful pound puppy, Baja Humbug the psychotic Chihuahua, Taco Bell the only mildly disturbed Chihuahua, Ladybug the sane but bossy Yorkie/Chihuahua, Maggie the docile but dumb Sheltie, Moose the TV-watching Maltese, and now Tiggy the perpetually distracted Mini Schnauzer mix and Muffin the Havanoodle princess. I enjoyed What's a Dog For?--a question that frequently crosses my mind--though the book may have more words than content. And I wish Homans hadn't focused quite so much on his dog Stella in particular, and on Labrador Retrievers and other big dogs in general.

Little dogs are people too, and mine would not be pleased to learn that Darwin considered them "sports of nature," i.e., spontaneous mutations. At least Homans showed some restraint: he did not descend to the level of a dear though Lab-owning friend who refers to our pups as "kick-its."

THE JEWELS OF PARADISE by Donna Leon

After writing 21 detective novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, it's not surprising that author Donna Leon needed a break.

Still, having read all 21 of the Brunetti books, I was expecting Jewels of Paradise to be book 22 in the series. It is not, and I was disappointed.

Disappointed because by now the characters - the lovable detective from Venice; his wife, Paola, and their two young adult children; his sidekick, Sgt. Vianello; his insufferable boss, Vice-Questore Patti; and the indomitable Signorina Elettra - all seem as familiar as Facebook friends, and I wanted to stay involved in their lives.

But my nostalgia is no reason to keep Ms. Leon from expanding her horizons. I was more disappointed because Leon's new book simply didn't hold my interest.

A lot of the book has to do with biographical material concerning Agostino Steffani (1654-1728), churchman, diplomat, and nearly forgotten composer. (Hint: Leon's plot will be easier to follow if you read the Wikipedia article first. Want to hear some of his music? Cecilia Bartoli has a new album, Mission, devoted to his work [you can listen to the NPR program about it here].)

But don't come to this book thinking it's historical fiction. It's closer to historical research as done by a high-school student - and there's no afterword telling us which parts of the story are historical and which invented.

The main character, Caterina, does not seem to have much of a life outside the library. We learn even less about the other characters (though her sister, Cristina the Religious, might be worth a book of her own someday, or at least a bit part in a Brunetti novel).

The plot is thin. Somehow two 300-year-old trunks have been found, and two cousins each claim inheritance rights. Caterina, a musicologist, is charged with reading all the documents in the trunks and figuring out which, if either, has claim to the material.

There aren't many scary parts. At one point, you think scariness is developing, but (spoiler alert) it doesn't.

There isn't even much good food - but I suppose without Guido's ever-cooking scholar-wife, Paola, in the kitchen, there wouldn't be.

And when all is said and done, I know what was in those trunks, but I'm still wondering who the trunks belonged to, and how they came to Venice, and what Opus Dei had to do with the whole situation. Maybe my mind was wandering when all that was explained ...

Why I kept reading: (1) I'm loyal to Donna Leon. Up till now, she's been one of my favorite detective story authors. (2) I appreciate her wry observations about Italian culture and the Catholic Church. (3) I kept thinking the plot would heat up.

If you are a diehard Donna Leon fan like me, you should read it too - and please let me know what you think. I confess that I began skimming the historical parts; maybe I missed something important. If you have not yet become a Leon addict, however, don't start here.

Black Friday at the pet store

The dog is right - this is the only Black Friday sale I was interested in. In fact, it's the only Black Friday sale I've ever gone to. And the only reason I went to this one is because my scruffy little terrier urgently woke me up at 6:00 this morning. This is the dog who, most mornings, would sleep as late as a teenager if we didn't drag her out from under the covers. I guess she knew about the sale.

So I dragged my protesting carcass to Pet Supplies Plus, vowing to come back home immediately if parking was hard to find - and snagged the space right next to the handicap space by the door.

Inside, a check-out line stretched from the cash register to the west wall of the store, angled right and continued to the premium dog foods on the north wall. A second line heading due north looked equally long. I noticed one shopper in pajamas.

No more shopping carts were available, so customers were using toddler-sized customer-in-training carts, stockroom carts, and dollies. No more of them were available either. Never mind. To save 30%, I was willing to schlep a 26-pound bag of Wellness Core Grain-Free Ocean Formula, a 5.5-pound bag of Orijen Adult Dog Food, a tube of poultry flavored toothpaste, and 2 packets of FrontLine Plus from the back to the front of the store.

The experience restored my faith in human nature.

Nobody was trampled. Nobody shoved. No voices were raised. Even the two dogs in line near me sat patiently - for 50 minutes, which is how long it took to get to the head of the line.

The man in front of me kindly held my place while I went in search of doggy toothpaste.

At 7:45, he commented that the sale was likely to be over before we made it to the cash register. At 7:50, however, an employee distributed cards marked "30%" to all of us in line.

I waved to a friend who was about 10 people ahead of me. After she checked out and unloaded her purchases, she brought her cart back into the store and gave it to me. I then shared it with the man in front of me, whose dog food bag was even bigger than mine.

The check-out clerk was efficient and pleasant. A smiling shopper came up to me as I headed for the parking lot and said, "I'm going to follow you and take your cart when you're done with it." I was happy to give it to her.

Everyone was so helpful and agreeable, in fact, that it felt like the way neighbors bond after a major snowstorm, or survivors after a disaster. Were we all thrilled to have escaped Black Friday unscathed? Or are animal lovers just really nice people?

Why we eat organic foods (in spite of today's headlines)

Fox News: "Organic Food Has Little Health Impact, Study Says"

New York Times: "Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce"

Washington Post: "Organic food adds no vitamins for extra cost, research finds"

Photo of South Bend farmers' market by Jane Halteman.

Hey, is this good news, or what? Give up organic heirloom tomatoes at $4.99/pound! Stop paying $5.99 up for a gallon of organic milk! Buy cheaper ground beef than the organic grass-fed stuff at $7.99+/pound!

Slow down, folks. Read the articles, not just the attention-grabbing headlines. What the scientists discovered was basically this: Take two identical, ripe, juicy, fresh peaches, one of which was grown organically and one of which was not. Analyze the nutritional profile of each. You will find that one peach has just about the same vitamins as the other.

OK, and I'll bet they're pretty much the same color, too. And they probably weigh the same. And if dropped from a tall building, they most likely will go splat at about the same time.

Only thing is, that's not the point. Most of us don't buy peaches because of their airborne velocity or their weight or their color--or their vitamin content. We buy them because they taste wonderful and because they're good for us. The good news is, we can get good taste and lots of vitamins whether we buy our peaches at Jewel or at Whole Foods, though the taste is even better if we can get them right off the tree at a fruit stand or a farmers' market.

Still, some of us prefer to buy peaches that were grown organically. This has nothing to do with their vitamin content and not much to do with their taste. It has a lot to do with the fact that they're number 4 of the Dirty Dozen.

Peaches are loaded with pesticides (though not quite as loaded as apples, celery, or bell peppers). Some of us think that neurotoxins, even if they are "almost always under the allowed safety limits," as the NYT puts it, may not be as good for us as vitamins. Some of us suspect that future research may change the allowed safety limits. Call me paranoid, but I'd rather avoid those neurotoxins whenever I can.

A few other reasons to buy food processed according to organic standards:

• The be-kind-to-animals reason. Animals involved in the production of organic meat, eggs, and dairy products are usually treated more humanely. They are not crowded in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which are the moral equivalent of puppy mills.
• The good-for-you reason, continued. Just as organically grown plants aren't sprayed with pesticides, organically raised farm animals are not given antibiotics, which increase the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant diseases; or hormones, which may contribute to early puberty and even cancer.
• The sustainable agriculture reason. Organic fruits, grains, and vegetables tend to be grown in ways that enrich rather than deplete the soil.
• The clean-up-the-planet reason. Do you have any idea how much pollution is generated by conventional farming methods?
• The taxpayer revolt reason. CAFOs generate oceans of manure, far more than their soil can absorb. Much of it goes into our waterways. Some pollutes the air. Taxpayers pay billions of dollars to clean up after these farmers--and also to subsidize the corn they feed their confined animals. 
• The bringing-down-costs-for-everybody reason.  Yes, supermarket food is cheap--but if you add in the tax burden and public health implications, it isn't as cheap as it looks. Sustainably produced food, over the long haul, could be almost as cheap. Once enough people who can afford to eat organically grown food start insisting on it, such food will become more readily available and the prices will come down. This is already happening: click here to learn what organic products are available today at Wal-Mart.

And then maybe, just maybe, the Department of Agriculture will stop subsidizing harmful farming practices and teenagers will give up Coke and Pepsi and will start eating organic peaches instead.  And organically raised pigs will fly.

A financial report from someone who has been on Mr Ryan's Medicare plan since 1999

For details, check out "The Dog Maxed Out My Credit Card" from the November 2, 2011, Wall Street Journal.

Why old dogs NEED new tricks

"Retirement should involve re-tiring, or putting on new tires and doing even more than before."

--Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who gives credit for this thought to Rabbi Menachem Schneerson

A friend posted this on Facebook recently. He, like my husband and me, is rushing headlong toward what Social Security calls  "full (normal) retirement age." No doubt his mailbox, like ours, is regularly replenished with offers for hearing aids, Medigap insurance, and free lunches sponsored by financial planners. No doubt he too has seen those chirpy birthday cards asking "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" or assuring us that "Age is just a number" or, heaven help us, promising us that "The best is yet to be."

I suppose that depends on how you define "best."

Muffin and Tiggy contemplate retirement

In any case, let me tell you about my two little dogs, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and Muffin. They do not know how old they are. For that matter, I don't know how old they are: both were young adults when they came to live with us 9 or 10 years ago. Both dogs need new tires, but since they don't know where to find them, the best is probably not yet to be.

Yesterday the three of us took a two-mile walk down the Prairie Path to Lincoln Marsh and back. We've been taking this walk for years, and we all love it. Sometimes we turn it into a three-mile walk by continuing to Jewell Road before turning around. Once this spring we turned right when we reached Jewell and walked four miles.

Except that yesterday afternoon, which was cool and pleasant, Muffin couldn't keep up. She didn't complain, but she started dragging behind Tiggy and me. She looked like she was working hard. Eventually I picked her up and carried her. Her heart was beating very fast.

Muffin looks great. Her health is good. She still enjoys a game of tug-a-toy with Tiggy, and she still wants to take walks. She's not an ancient dog, but she's nearing full retirement age. According to this chart that correlates a dog's age in human years with her size, she's probably between 60 and 68. In other words, she's my age.

I would like to point out that Rabbi Boteach, who believes in "doing more than before" in retirement, is 45 years old. When Robert Browning wrote "Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be," he was, at most, 52. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of youngsters - or even rare oldsters, like my 91-year-old friend who cross-country skis around her 15-acre farm - setting the bar for the rest of us.

Fact: Muffin can't do today what she could do last year, and this is not because she's depressed or lazy or conforming to society's low expectations for aging dogs. It's because most dogs, like most people, quite naturally slow down as the years go by, and no matter how strenuous our denial, we will not be puppies again.

A lot of us silly boomers think we're going to reinvent old age (and why not? didn't we invent sex back in the 1960s?), when all we're really doing is lapsing into nostalgia. Afraid to enter a new phase of life, we double down on what we already know: overwork, multitasking, constant activity. Those were the days, my friend, / We thought they'd never end.

But maybe we should be thinking forward, not backward. Maybe we should be looking at new ways of living, ways we haven't yet had time to try, ways uniquely suited to people with more life experience than health and vigor.

For Muffin, whose life purpose is to sit on laps and hang around her peeps, the future looks bright. Especially if she can persuade me to buy her a doggy jogger...

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by Garth Stein

Book publisher's marketing department's hypothetical dream plot, 2012 version:
Jacqueline Kennedy's toy poodle, having been transformed by a vision of heaven, moves to a decrepit Provençal farmhouse, falls in love with a shih tzu, and gives birth (without anesthetics) to a litter of pleasantly diverse puppies, who, being both French and Chinese, are perfectly housebroken by age six weeks.

Occasionally while reading The Art of Racing in the Rain I wondered if author  Garth Stein ever worked in that marketing department (short answer: probably not). He sure knows how to load a book with crowd-pleasing elements:

The dog. Like Chet, the narrator of Spencer Quinn's wonderful comic detective stories, narrator Enzo is an articulate canine of indeterminate ancestry. Chet, however, is much doggier. Enzo, by contrast, is literary, culturally sophisticated, and psychologically astute--practically an Edwardian English butler. The book does not reveal whether he ever scoots his bottom on the rug.

The dad. Like Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Stein's Art has to do with values, machines, and fathers, but it is blessedly shorter and simpler than Pirsig's tome--none of those lengthy digressions about ancient philosophy that gave Zen weight but also made it harder to read.

The dying woman. Like far too many popular books, films, and songs, Racing in the Rain centers on a dying young woman--in this case, with brain cancer. When was the last time you wept for a fictional dying man? Just wondering.

The dysfunction. Like just about everything by Jodi Picoult, Racing features people in dysfunctional families fighting with, against, and for one another.

The driver. Families, love, death, parenting--would a guy read this book? Hey, let's throw in a whole lot about auto racing! Cars! Technique! Competitions! And let's make Dad a driver! Should work.

The dharma.  Add a few grains of motivational spirituality--the cryptic mantra, "That which you manifest is before you" (huh?); the expectation of reincarnation; the belief that the mind, or the will, controls events; the valuing of the soul above the body--why, it almost sounds philosophical, yet you don't have to think very hard.

The dénouement.  May I tell you that the ending is reasonably happy? And that it takes place in Italy? What's not to like?

Well, it worked. I--and a million or so other people--liked The Art of Racing in the Rain. It's not a great book, but it's well plotted and cleverly written. Sometimes you laugh; sometimes you cry. Sometimes you laugh at yourself for being manipulated into crying. But it's a pleasant read. And it does make me wonder what my dogs are thinking.

REFUGE: AN UNNATURAL HISTORY OF FAMILY AND PLACE by Terry Tempest Williams

Twenty years ago, a woman in her mid-thirties wrote a book that would become an environmental classic. I finally read it last week.

Still in print and still selling briskly, Refuge defies classification. Check out the reviews posted on Terry Tempest Williams's website: Wallace Stegner evokes her poetic style; Barry Lopez mentions the story's emotional depth; the Kansas City Star calls the book an environmental essay, and Kirkus highlights its political implications.

Williams interweaves two stories: the rise of Utah's Great Salt Lake, and her mother's slow dying from cancer. "Most of the women in my family are dead," she writes in the Prologue. "Cancer. At thirty-four, I became the matriarch of my family. The losses I encountered at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge as Great Salt Lake was rising helped me to face the losses within my family."

I read more memoir than nature writing, and I found Williams's account both moving and satisfying. It is good to read about a strong family with supportive grandparents, aunts, cousins, siblings, and friends. The Tempest tribe has been Mormon for many generations, and their faith, shared history, and rituals clearly strengthen them. At the same time, Williams does not skirt difficult issues. Her father's grief sometimes turns into rage. Her grandmother and mother push well beyond Mormon boundaries to find beliefs that will sustain their difficult journeys. Williams grows weary of caregiving, even briefly considering giving her mother enough morphine to send her on her way.

I have cared for dying loved ones, and I have faced serious illness. I recognize the emotions she describes, both her own and her mother's.

I suspect that readers of nature writing find the book equally satisfying. Williams does not just use the natural world to illustrate her own emotions. "Currently the Annie Clark Tanner Scholar in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah" (see her bio here), she writes as a scientist and a keen observer of nature. Her descriptions of birds, their habitat, and their interactions with their human neighbors stand on their own (she even includes a six-page appendix listing all the birds associated with the Great Salt Lake).

And although the book is by no means a political essay, she ends it with a stunning chapter, "The Clan of One-Breasted Women," that is simultaneously political, environmental, poetic, feminist, and urgent.

Thanks to my friend Molly H. for giving me this book. Twenty years ago I might not have understood it as well as I do today. Now I pass it on to you.

INSIDE OF A DOG by Alexandra Horowitz

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

- attributed to Groucho Marx

Alexandra Horowitz has both a personal and a professional interest in dogs. Besotted with her own dogs - the late lamented Pumpernickel and the current model, Finnegan - she is also an assistant professor of psychology at Barnard College, where she studies animal cognition. According to Barnard's website, she "is currently testing anthropomorphisms made of the domestic dog, through experiments with dogs in natural settings."

Dogs, she points out, are not people. They perceive the world in an entirely different way from how we perceive it, and if we expect dogs to have human responses to our bumbling attempts to befriend and train them, we'll be disappointed. (So that's why my dogs never respond to my carefully reasoned explanations!) She labels the-world-as-perceived-by-dogs their umwelt, and much of the book is an explanation of how the world looks, sounds, feels, and especially smells to our canine friends.

On the other hand - and contrary to much popular opinion - she insists that dogs are not wolves. After at least ten thousand years of domestication, many of their physical, psychological, social, and developmental characteristics set them apart from their near relatives. "As the domestication process probably began with early canids scavenging around human groups - eating our table scraps," she writes, "it is a particularly silly stance to feed dogs only raw meat, on the theory that they are wolves at heart. Dogs are omnivores who for millennia have eaten what we eat."

Dogs, says Horowitz, are anthropologists. They study our behavior - our typical actions, and especially every minute variation of or departure from our usual theme. They know when we're thinking about going for a walk. They know how to persuade us to give them food. They may not actually feel guilt or shame (the jury is out on that one), but they know when they're likely to be punished.

And they know how to communicate. Not only with us (wag, lick, dance, growl) but also with other dogs: in one fascinating chapter, Horowitz describes how dogs invite each other to play, how they respond to another dog's invitation to play, how they play, and why they will play with some dogs and not others.

Are dogs, then, highly intelligent? Do they ponder philosophical questions? Most important, do they really, truly, love us? Read Horowitz and see what you think.

If you're only ever going to read one book on animal behavior, though, the book to read is Temple Grandin's highly original Animals in Translation. Once you've read that, you probably won't be able to keep from reading Grandin's follow-up book, Animals Make Us Human (my review is here). If those books whet your appetite - or if you want to skip the parrots and monkeys and cows and head straight for dogs - Inside of a Dog is a good choice. It's research based, well documented, aimed at a general audience, and seasoned with humor.

Your dogs will thank you for reading it - though if they had their druthers, you'd first take them for a walk.

TO FETCH A THIEF by Spencer Quinn

If you've already discovered Spencer Quinn's Chet and Bernie Mysteries (Dog On It, Thereby Hangs a Tail), all I need to do here is point out - in case you missed it - that the third book, To Fetch a Thief, was published last September and is now available in hardcover, Kindle edition, audio CD, and Audible audio download, and is probably also at your public library. You'll have to wait until July for the paperback, though.

If you haven't yet met Chet and Bernie, allow me to introduce you. Bernie Little is founder and part-owner (with his ex-wife) of the Little Detective Agency, and Chet is his partner. This confuses some of his potential clients, since Chet is a very large dog of indeterminate breed. Bernie always assures the dubious that Chet was top of his class at the police dog training school, though this is not, strictly speaking, accurate. Chet explains:

I'd done pretty well in K-9 school, up until the very last day. The only thing left had been the leaping test. And leaping is just about my very best thing. Then came some confusion. Was a cat involved? And blood? I ended up flunking out, but that was how Bernie and I got together, so it worked out great.

Yes, gentle reader, Chet narrates the whole series. Don't think, though, that it in any way resembles Christmas letters you may have received from addled friends' family pets. As Stephen King blurbs on the back cover: "Spencer Quinn speaks two languages - suspense and dog - fluently."

Here are 10 reasons you might want to get acquainted with Chet and Bernie:

1. You've overdosed on bleak literary novels and want to read something funny for a change.
2. You're a fan of Peter Abrahams, whom Stephen King calls his "favorite American suspense novelist." (Spencer Quinn is Peter Abrahams' pseudonym.)
3. You live with a dog and would like to know how he or she thinks.
4. You need an antidote for seasonal affective disorder. Chet and Bernie live in an unnamed Southwestern state whose temperatures range from warm to hot.
5. You can't resist dogs who are bloggers (see Chet's blog here).
6. You'd like to season your regular hardboiled detective story diet with a mystery that's softboiled or possibly even scrambled.
7. Nevertheless, you demand intelligent plots and clever dialogue.
8. You like detectives who are not only smart but also nice. Even if clueless about their finances.
9. You figure that any books Books and Culture editor John Wilson likes must be worth reading (hey, he even included two Chet and Bernie titles in his list of 2010 favorites!).
10. You want to get a head start so you're ready to read book 4 in the series, The Dog Who Knew Too Much, when it's published in September. 

Any of these reasons work for me. And I think To Fetch a Thief is Spencer Quinn's best yet - probably because I really like elephants.

WALKING GENTLY ON THE EARTH by Lisa Graham McMinn and Megan Anna Neff

A life dedicated to God's creation is a life dedicated to loving one's neighbor.

--Megan Anna Neff

Anyone who still thinks evangelicals are anti-environmentalists should read this book. So should evangelicals and other Christians who know that our overburdened earth needs all the help it can get - but who have no idea where to begin.

Lisa Graham McMinn is a professor of sociology, the author of several books,  and a backyard raiser of chickens. Her daughter Megan Anna Neff (no relation to me) has an M.Div. from Princeton, has lived in Africa, and works as a doula. Their new (August 2010) book, Walking Gently on the Earth, is as docile as its title - often personal, usually self-effacing, sometimes lyrical. The authors do not claim to be experts or perfect practitioners of sustainable living, but they refuse to shut their eyes to reality.

McMinn and Neff base their environmentalism on a theology of abundance. Creation is good. It is as important in God's plan as redemption. When we care for the earth, we care for one another.

By contrast, when we hurt the earth - its plants, its animals, its water and air - we hurt one another and our Creator God. And when we refuse to pay attention to what's happening all around us, we become like the bureaucrats in the Harry Potter series. The evil Lord Voldemort has returned, but

the Ministry of Magic thinks announcing the news would cast unnecessary fear into people and require a rather drastic change of focus, altering life as they were comfortably living it.

The Ministers choose to ignore the facts and attack the truth-tellers. Harry Potter knows this can't turn out well.

McMinn and Neff tell the truth, gently. Their eight chapters cover (take a deep breath) creation-care theology, factory farms, fair-trade practices, locally grown food, vegetarianism, consumerism, climate change, alternative energy sources, world hunger, overpopulation, home energy audits, and ... well, quite a bit else.

In just over 200 pages of text, of course, they can't treat any topic in depth. People already familiar with today's environmental issues won't find any new information here, though they may appreciate the authors' pervasive theological theme. On the other hand, people who aren't already environmentally oriented could be overwhelmed. Too much information! Too much to worry about!

Except that Lord Voldemort really is on the move, and hiding from him will not make him go away. The ecological crisis has already begun (see my review of Bill McKibben's Eaarth in the November issue of Christianity Today or online). As individuals, we can't do much to stop it - but together we can make a huge difference in the world. And together is the best way to read Walking Gently on the Earth.

This is a book for classrooms (though it is by no means academic and would need to be supplemented if used as a college text), or for church adult education programs, or for Christian book groups. It is not at its best when read at one sitting. If an hour is all you've got, read McMinn's excellent article in the fall/winter Conversations journal, "Food for the Soul," instead.

If possible, though, join with others to read and discuss this book one chapter at a time. Walking Gently on the Earth is a feast of information and ideas, and feasts should not be celebrated alone. Divide up the links provided at the end of each chapter and bring additional information back to the group. Brainstorm ways to begin practicing the kinds of creation care McMinn and Neff recommend. Together, celebrate God's bounty as you learn to care for the earth's needs.

LET'S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME by Gail Caldwell

One of my favorite memoirs is Caroline Knapp's Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs. It's also one of my favorite books about dogs, because Knapp, who knew how memoir should be written, tells us as much about dogs as about herself. The book is not self-indulgent, even though Lucille, her rescued German shepherd mix, in turn helped her come to terms with a series of devastating losses.

Pack of Two was published in 1998. In 2002, Knapp was diagnosed with lung cancer. Less than two months later, she died. She was 42 years old.

Gail Caldwell was Knapp's best friend. A memoirist and Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic, she and Knapp met at a literary gathering, but they bonded several years later near a duck pond where they had brought their rambunctious dogs. Both women enjoyed rowing and swimming. Both were recovering alcoholics. Both were driven introverts. They could talk for hours.

Let's Take the Long Way Home is the story of their friendship, their dogs, their personal struggles, and - eventually - Knapp's death. It is a nostalgic book, as memoirs often are, but it is not a downer. I recommend it to other bookish, dog-loving introverts who care deeply about their friends.

Books about dogs

The United States has more pet dogs and more dogs per family than any other country in the world. According to the Humane Society, 39% of our households include at least one dog, and nearly 80 million dogs live within our borders. Two of those dogs belong to us. We are desperately in love with them.

So I suppose we are the intended market for the flood of dog books that followed John Grogan's phenomenal publishing success, Marley and Me. When it sold 5 million copies and was made into a major motion picture, lots of publishers sat up and wagged. Whole litters of dog memoirs followed, most with appealing pups on their covers. Most were quickly remaindered, for good reason. Copy-cat books, even if they're about dogs, seldom appeal.

Let me recommend instead some excellent dog books that were published before Marley and are still available. All of these authors have written other good books too.

• Jon Katz: The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family (2003)

Time was, dogs earned their keep by herding, hunting, maiming intruders, or even fighting other animals. Some dogs still do - but most have quite a different job description nowadays. "The new work of dogs," says Katz, "is attending to the emotional lives of Americans, many of whom feel increasingly disconnected from one another." This insightful book highlights the dog-human relationship through stories about new dogs and their people.

• Patricia B. McConnell, The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs (2002)

McConnell, who is an adjunct associate professor in zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an animal behaviorist, and a dog trainer, helps us understand how our dogs think and helps us communicate so that our dogs will understand us. Who knew, for example, that you can get a dog to stop pestering you by gently patting it on the head? Unlike the ever-popular but controversial Cesar Milan, McConnell favors benevolence over dominance.

• Caroline Knapp, Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs (1998)

This is memoir as it should be written: a delicate interplay between the author's emotions and the world beyond herself. Knapp adopted Lucille, a German shepherd mix, when she was recovering from 20 years of alcoholism, the death of both her parents, and a failed relationship. Using her relationship with the dog as a springboard, she explores many facets of the human-animal bond.

• Peter Mayle: A Dog's Life (1995)

Pick up this book if you love Mayle's Provence books, or if you simply want to spend a delightful evening or two curled up with a laugh-out-loud story. Boy, a large French dog of uncertain ancestry, is the narrator. After a brutal childhood and adolescence ("a lesser dog might have despaired"), he is rescued from the side of the road by Madame. "The other half" grudgingly agrees that the dog may stay, and a series of hilarious adventures follow. Illustrated throughout by New Yorker cartoonist Edward Koren, this book would make a great gift for all the francophilic book lovers on your list. Me, for example.

•  Elizabeth Marshall Thomas: The Hidden Life of Dogs (1993)

Thomas had a rich career as an anthropologist and novelist before turning her observant eye on dogs. The result is a fascinating study of how dogs think, what they want, and why they act the way they do. Warning: dog lovers and dog trainers protested her hands-off approach to dog care, and scholars hated her anthropomorphizing (which she cheerfully admits and defends). Nevertheless, the book became a bestseller because - hey - it's really interesting!

• J.R. Ackerley: My Dog Tulip (1956) 

Ackerley spent his life looking for what he called an "Ideal Friend," finally finding it in an Alsatian bitch (U.S. translation: German shepherd female). This is his paean to a dog that was probably worse than Marley - so bad, in fact, that most of Ackerley's human acquaintances stopped visiting. He didn't care. In their absence he got a lot of writing done - and anyway, he had the dog. Now a minor motion picture starring the voices of Christopher Plummer, the late Lynn Redgrave, and Isabella Rossellini, My Dog Tulip is unlikely ever to play at a theater near me. It's touring a few cities between now and November, though, so click on the link to see if one of them is near you. Or buy the book, which Truman Capote called "one of the greatest books ever written by anybody in the world."

ZOO STORY: Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French

I like zoos. Good ones, anyway. When our children were very small, we lived near the San Diego Zoo and went there nearly every week. We now live within visiting distance of the Brookfield Zoo, where we used to take our grandchildren and where we once celebrated our anniversary, and the Lincoln Park Zoo, which we haven't visited in too long a time (anyone for a trip to the zoo this weekend?). Until I read Zoo Story, though, I hadn't really given much thought to what goes on behind the scenes.

Thomas French was a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times when he read Yann Martel's Life of Pi and decided he wanted to learn all about zoos. That was in 2003, just as four elephants from Swaziland were about to take up residence at Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa. Zoo Story begins with the arrival of the elephants, now the zoo's most physically powerful creatures, and continues with Herman the chimpanzee and Enshalla the Sumatran tiger, king and queen of their own domains. No matter how strong, dominant, or popular they may be, however, all the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians in the zoo are under the control of an even more powerful alpha male - Lex Salisbury, CEO, known to his employees as El Diablo Blanco.

Through fast-paced, absorbing stories, French depicts power struggles on many levels. Demonstrators from PETA and other animal rights groups oppose bringing in the elephants. Bamboo the chimp dethrones former alpha Herman. Enshalla refuses most suitors and outwits her keeper. An elephant tramples an employee. Zoo employees grumble about their tyrannical boss. Lex tangles with the mayor, the zoo board, and the press. Who knew that zoos were such hotbeds of dissent and intrigue?

Underlying the stories is an ethical question: should zoos even exist? Obviously zoos with small, dirty cages and scruffy, frightened animals should be revamped or closed. But what about zoos like Lowry Park that have created natural looking, cage-free environments, that attempt to breed endangered species, and that even return many of their animals to the wild after training them for independent living? And what makes anyone think that nature, "red in tooth and claw," is a better place for animals than a commodious zoo?

On the other hand, can large wild animals ever live normally in a confined area? Are endangered species, rather than being preserved, being domesticated to the point that they can no longer survive outside a sheltered environment? Do even the best zoos really care about animal welfare, or do they exist to make a profit?

French never answers these questions, but they preoccupy him right from the epigraph:

"I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces.

Religion faces the same problem.

Certain illusions about freedom plague them both."

--Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Zoo Story makes me want to spend a day at the zoo. It may make some readers want to shut the zoo down.

Review: "Animal Factory" by David Kirby

"The looming threat of industrial pig, dairy, and poultry farms to humans and the environment," says the subtitle.

Marketing copy like that makes a lot of us decide to read, say, a detective story instead. We are tired of hearing about what's wrong. We don't want to add to our guilt over what we eat. And besides, this book is 492 pages long. So why read it?

If you've already read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, and Nicolette Hahn Niman's Righteous Porkchop; and if you've watched King Corn and Food, Inc., you probably don't need to read Animal Factory, though you might be exactly the kind of reader the publisher had in mind: you are already worried about not only the cruelty but also the economic, ecological, and epidemiological dangers inherent in CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations).

If you haven't read those other books or seen the films, Animal Factory could be a good and relatively painless place to start your education. Kirby, like Pollan, is a journalist, and he knows how to tell a story. This is not a book of data (though it contains quite a lot of information), nor is it a book of sermons (though it may convert you to a new way of thinking about your food). It is rather an extended and very readable story about Rick Dove, a retired marine and Vietnam vet, whose North Carolina fishing business was destroyed when the fish all died; Helen Reddout, a farmer in central Washington whose town and livelihood were threatened by the overpowering smell wafting off lakes of pig crap; and Karen Hudson, an Illinois farmer who tried but failed to prevent her neighbor, a dairyman, from dumping millions of gallons of poop into nearby waterways. The book tracks Dove, Reddout, and Hudson as they all become activists in the fight against factory farms, Davids against the Goliath of Big Ag and corrupt politicians.

Kirby is a columnist for the Huffington Post, so some conservatives may be inclined to dismiss Animal Factory without opening it. They should not: the book has an agenda, but the agenda is not partisan. To his credit, Kirby usually avoids the soapbox, letting the stories carry their own message. Many - perhaps most - of the farmers and activists he profiles are ardent Republicans. And, as he points out, both Republican and Democratic administrations have failed to provide and enforce the regulations needed to avert disaster.

A reporter once commented that ex-Marine Dove does not look like a tree-hugger.

Rick jumped at the chance to explain himself. "No, I am not." He grinned. "I am a Republican. And I am a capitalist. I believe that industry is good and development is good. But it's got to be right, or we're shooting ourselves in the foot."

 The good news is that, as the word about factory farms gets out, change is beginning to happen.

Helen Reddout went so far as to predict that ten years from now, "We will have a lot more farms transition back to sustainable operations. And if the government can resist a bailout on large corporate farms, you will see a lot of them folding. They are having serious economic problems now, and if we don't come in and bail them out with more subsidies, then the free market will finish them off. Give us a chance and we can do it."

10 good reasons to be a part-time vegetarian

There are lots of good reasons to be 100% vegetarian. For one, vegetarians tend to live longer than meat eaters. For 10 others, see my May 7 post, "10 good things about being vegetarian." The list is by no means exhaustive.

But there are also good reason to eat meat some of the time. I first heard the term part-time vegetarian in 2005 when I was traveling in Asia. Many Buddhists, I learned, occasionally eat meat though they favor a plant-based diet. In largely Buddhist Thailand, for example, per capita meat consumption is about 30 pounds per year (in the United States, the figure is about 125 pounds; you can compare various countries' meat consumption here).

Part-time vegetarians are a diverse lot. Some, like my parents when I was growing up, eat meat no more than three or four times a year. Others, like some of my friends, eat meat six days a week but take a one-day vegetarian holiday. Here are 10 good reasons to try part-time vegetarianism yourself:

1.    Family. Some of your family members want to eat meat, and you don’t have time to cook separate meals. You can, however, offer meatless meals one or more times a week.
2.    Friends. You’re basically vegetarian, but you don’t want to be a fussy guest when people invite you to dinner.
3.    Taste. You’re basically vegetarian, but now and then meat tastes so good...
4.    Curiosity. You prefer to eat vegetarian, but you love to travel and sample native cuisines.
5.    Budget. You buy only ethically produced meat, which means you can’t afford to eat it very often.
6.    Winter. You eat mostly locally grown food, and you run short of vegetables and fruit in the winter.
7.    Sustainable agriculture. You eat lots of plants and small amounts of meat, since pastured animals make organically grown plant foods possible.
8.    Food intolerance. You can’t digest dairy products and/or beans, and so consistent vegetarianism is difficult to practice.
9.    Religion. You have religious reasons for periodically abstaining from meat; or you find that it is often easier to eat vegetarian than to find kosher or halal food.
10.  Practice. You would like to be a full-time vegetarian someday, but you need to spend time learning how.
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If you'd like to be a vegetarian, whether full-time or part-time, scroll through other posts in this series  for tips on vegetarian cooking, eating, and dining out.

Today's special - second-hand poop!

"You want chicken poop with that steak?"

Want it or not, says Animal Factory author David Kirby in an April 9, 2010, Huffington Post article - you're likely to get it. "Poultry excrement is loaded with urea, which bovine stomachs are adept at converting into lean, ready-to-grill protein," he writes. "We feed chicken manure to cattle because it's cheap; and because we produce far too much of it to properly dispose of as fertilizer."

In the 1960s and 70s, writes Nicolette Hahn Niman in Righteous Porkchop,  “agribusiness researchers came to regard all kinds of poop as acceptable cattle feed (and poultry and pig feed too)." The Food and Drug Administration was not especially bothered by this. Check out chapter 2 of their 1980 document Feed from Animal Wastes for a complete run-down on how to feed chicken poop to cows, cow dung to chickens, etc.

Ah, but that was 30 years ago. In the meantime we've had all kinds of scares: BSE ("mad cow disease"), salmonella and campylobacter, e coli ... surely the FDA has tightened its rules since then?

No, actually, the FDA and the USDA don't see anything wrong with second-hand poop. And if you think government regulators work hard and earn their salaries (think banking, Wall Street, oil spills, etc.), you probably feel quite confident that our food is safe. It won't turn your stomach to learn that many imported Chinese shrimp dine on chicken feces dropped from cages hanging above their ponds (see this L.A. Times article), or that after a temporary U.S. ban on feeding poop to cattle (2003-2005), the FDA concluded that the practice is perfectly safe and allowed it to continue (see  instructions, "Feeding Poultry Litter to Cattle," on the University of Missouri Extension website).

You won't be troubled by the fact that the rendering industry - the business that provides all that delectable manure to the animal feed companies - disliked the ban on bottom feeding and filed these comments with the FDA, arguing that there's no reason to lock the barn door if the horse hasn't been stolen,  providing laughable arithmetic computations to try to prove that BSE is not a danger, and engaging in a little jingoism: "It is our firm conviction that we must refrain from erroneously emulating the European legislation and instead pursue policies, which closely reflect the true state of affairs in this country." And you won't worry over the fact that the FDA listened to them.

Kirby describes the FDA response to agribusiness in 2004, and the government's lackadaisical attitude then and now:

In 2004, the FDA proposed banning poultry litter in cattle feed, to avoid the spread of BSE. It was already outlawed in Canada. But days later, the agency postponed its change, citing "troubling feedback" from the agricultural sector. Some foreign countries balked at buying US beef, but the Bush Administration held firm, refusing to commit to a deadline... 

I imagined that the Obama Administration would complete the work left undone by Bush and enact a universal ban on feeding beef products to cattle. Instead, I discovered that Obama's FDA had ratified what his predecessor proposed: Doing nothing.

You might want to check out the stats on agribusiness influence and lobbying. It doesn't look like we'll have an abundance of poop-free meat anytime soon.

Meanwhile, if you don't like the idea of eating second-hand poop, all you have to do is avoid shit-eating factory-farmed animals. The ascetically inclined may choose veganism. The rest of us can look for meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, and eggs at the farmers' market, or that bear at least one of these labels:

• 100% organic
• vegetarian-fed
• wild-caught
• 100% grass fed
• animal welfare approved

Voting with your fork -- Review of "Righteous Porkchop" by Nicolette Hahn Niman

"Are you trying to convert us?" asked one of my daughters after reading my recent posts on vegetarianism. Not to vegetarianism, I emailed back - just to mindful eating.

I like Michael Pollan's creed : "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

I also like Nicolette Hahn Niman's advice at the end of her 2009 book, Righteous Porkchop:

Do not thoughtlessly eat foods from animals. Know the source. Question the methods. There is great power in posing the following simple question to grocery stores, restaurants and farmers: “How was this raised?” Then shift your buying toward those meats, fish, eggs, and dairy products that come from animals raised in a way that you like.... It’s voting with your fork.

Voting with your fork seems like such a pathetically tiny response to the worldwide scourge of factory farms, which Niman describes in heartbreaking detail : Ecological devastation, such as the 1995 lagoon break that spilled “more than twenty-five million gallons of liquefied hog manure into the New River (more than twice the volume of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez).” Increased poverty in areas where agribusiness, with the help of public subsidies, tax exemptions, and favored treatment, has driven small farmers off the land. Endangered public health from antiobiotic-resistant infections and poisoned air and water. And, of course, unspeakable cruelty to animals who never see the sun, eat manure-rich feed, and are dismembered while still alive.

Model farms

Fortunately, in Righteous Porkchop Niman goes well beyond exposing the evils of factory farming. As her delightful title suggests, a small but rapidly growing movement is challenging industrial food production - not only by throwing well-deserved stones, but also by modeling animal husbandry as it should be practiced. Just as Pollan praises Joel Salatin's Virginia chicken farm in The Omnivore's Dilemma and Jonathan Safran Foer extols Frank Reese's Kansas turkey farm in Eating Animals, Niman writes glowingly about farmers who treat their animals and the environment with respect: the Klessig family, who own a Wisconsin dairy farm, for example, and Rob and Michelle Stokes, who raise goats in Oregon.

Niman herself is now a rancher. Formerly a senior attorney with Robert Kennedy Jr.'s environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance, she married Niman Ranch founder Bill Niman in 2003 and got personally involved with raising cattle, an odd vocation for a woman who has been a vegetarian since college. Ms. Niman, however, is by no means opposed to righteous porkchops. Having learned that milk cows and egg-laying hens are kept in conditions as abysmal as their meat-animal cousins, she "simply couldn't continue consuming eggs and dairy products and maintain any sense of moral superiority." All foods of animal origin can be farmed cruelly or responsibly. Those who eat such foods can ignore the problems - or they can vote for change with their forks.

But does voting with my fork do any good? What is one person against the Goliath agribusiness?

Change in the air
The thing is, it isn't just one person. It isn't even just a few activists or extremists. Michael Pollan's books regularly hit the best-seller lists. David Kirby's new book, Animal Factory, is getting rave reviews (watch this interview on the Fox Business channel). Movies like King Corn and Food Inc. are making the rounds. Farmers' markets have never been more popular.

Businesses are listening. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods markets are springing up everywhere, and major supermarkets are adding an abundance of organic products.

Policies are changing, too. “To qualify as ‘organic,’ dairies have not been required by USDA to truly keep their cows on pasture,” Niman wrote last year. Beginning next month, this will no longer be true. According to a February 12 New York Times article, Department of Agriculture rules go into effect in June requiring that dairy cows be allowed to "graze on pasture for the full length of the local grazing season. The season will be determined by local conditions and agriculture authorities, like organic certifiers or county conservation officials, not by the dairy alone. While the grazing season must last at least 120 days, in many areas it will be much longer."

In the meantime
Meanwhile, of course, factory farms flourish, and their public relations and marketing departments work overtime to persuade the public that their approach is ethical, healthful, and necessary. One of Niman's best chapters, "Answering Obstacles to Reform," no doubt has its roots in the legal battles she waged - and won - against industrial agriculturalists when she worked for Waterkeeper. Read it whenever you're tempted to believe that large operations are more efficient than small ones, or that industrially raised meat is necessary in order to feed the world.

And whenever you think it's just too hard to save the world one fork at a time, read the preceding chapter, "Finding the Right Foods." Even though interest in responsibly farmed food is growing, it can still be difficult to find 100% grass-fed beef, or milk from cows who graze in pastures, or eggs from hens who breathe fresh air. Niman offer many pointers and websites to make the search less daunting.

Righteous Porkchop covers a lot of ground. It's a memoir and an exposé, a call to action and a buying guide, a good read packed with information. If I'd been Niman's editor, I might have tried to get her to narrow her focus and smooth out her style  - but I might have been wrong. She's not as well-organized as Pollan or as literary as Safran Foer, but she makes an excellent case. She's going to convert a lot of us.

10 good things about being vegetarian

Having just read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals, I'm in a vegetarian mood. This is not too difficult for me, since I was a vegetarian until I was 16. Since then, I've probably eaten less than 20 pounds of meat a year (the national average is 222 pounds), plus fish once or twice a week.

Several years ago I decided that St. Benedict's advice, "Abstain entirely from the eating of the flesh of quadrupeds," was sound. Earlier this week Safran Foer's damning chapters on the poultry industry inspired me to pitch my half-eaten package of Trader Joe chicken tenders. (Call me heartless, but the information that pushed me over the edge wasn't the horrible abuse of the 99.9% of U.S. chickens that are raised in factory farms. It was the composition of what the chicken package describes as "7% water." After graphically describing the source of that water, Safran Foer labels it "shit soup".)

I haven't made up my mind yet about fish. Seafood Watch offers recommendations for "ocean friendly seafood," and Whole Foods claims to "build partnerships with farmers and fishermen that are committed to your health, the environment and the integrity of our ocean." Trouble is, the lovely frozen salmon we had for dinner last night, though bought at Whole Foods, is on Seafood Watch's "avoid" list. What's a girl to do?

Well, this girl makes lists. Here are 10 good things about being vegetarian.

Personal: what vegetarianism could do for you

1. Introduce you to fascinating ethnic cuisines

2. Lower your risk of ischemic heart disease

3. Lower your risk of various cancers

4. Reduce your spending on food

5. Help you lose weight

6. Eliminate most attacks of “stomach flu” or food poisoning

Global: what reduced meat consumption could do for the world

7. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions

8. Reduce the risk of epidemics

9. Reduce the risk of antibiotic-resistant infections

10. Reduce cruelty to animals

The list is just a start. Feel free to add to it.