Donate to The Aniplant Project to help Cuban animals

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Diet for a Better World

Diet for a Better World

If you're a visitor to Cuba, there seems to be plenty of food around--in good quantity with a nice variety. But you spend your tourist days in a cocoon sealed off, food-wise, from the Cubans themselves. The food we visitors eat in Cuba, served up in hotels, resorts, larger restaurants, etc, comes from a supply system set up only to support the tourists. There's plenty of meat, dairy products, and eggs for the tourist to eat, but the man on the street eats different fare.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Cuba entered a "special period" where the food supply system went through its own "revolution". Today, driving through Havana, you'll see what amount to farmers' markets set up in front yards in residential neighborhoods. Fruits and vegetables compatible with Cuba's tropical weather seem to abound, and so do the people crowded around the booths. What you won't see often in these markets is meat of any kind or dairy products. In fact, unlike our grocery stores, these stores have no refrigeration.

For an old vegetarian like me, I ask myself, "What's so bad about that?" Nutritionally speaking, I'd answer, "Not much." But Cubans, like Americans, like their meat, dairy, and eggs and would like to have more of them in their diets.

And yet, what sort of food should a country with strained resources produce for its people? It turns out the best diet is plant-based foods, as study after study has made clear for many decades. Really there are many good reasons why plant-based foods are better for you than animal-based foods.

First, consider that it's just plain more efficient. If you grow 10 calories worth of grain, you have two choices--eat it yourself or feed it to a steer. The steer will give you back one calorie of beef, and that ratio applies roughly to pigs, chickens, goats, etc. So if you have a country full of hungry people looking for enough food to put on the table, you'll reduce hunger ten times as fast growing plant foods for humans to eat.

Second, these days, much of the temperate and some of the tropical regions are drying out, probably due to global warming. Texas is so dry, many can't remember the last time they had a good rain. Yet it takes about 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef--hardly a bargain in a drought. So a diet of less beef and more grain makes a better environment for people--or at least one that uses its available water better.

Third, eating plants instead of animals is much healthier. During WWII, Norway and Denmark still produced food, but much of it was diverted to the Nazi war machine. Facing shortages, the people in those conquered countries made do with more plant-based foods and practically no meat and little dairy and eggs. With a few years of these restrictions, the incidence of heart disease, cancer and stroke began to decline. Today, doctors generally counsel restrictions on saturated fats (a primary harmful component of meat) in the diet. As I write this former President Bill Clinton has just announced he has become a vegan.

So, little meat, dairy and eggs in your diet isn't a bad thing, although modern societies tend to move in the opposite direction. Today Japan is losing its long-held health advantage, coming from little red meat in the diet as they strive toward copying our "Standard American Diet"

Where will Cuba end up as it solves its own food production problems? A word to the wise among Cuba's central planners: There are some good reasons for not trying to duplicate the Standard American Diet.

Les Inglis

Friday, August 19, 2011

Talking Politics

Talking Politics

While I'm still registered as a republican, I haven't voted for one since 1988. I mention this, not because I want to talk politics, but as an introduction to this blog chapter on politics in the US and Cuba. Basically, I'm not a strong party member, no matter which party thinks it can claim me. We have a friend who is a staunch republican, and I do what I can to avoid any political discussions with him. I know I can't change his mind with my liberal views (and vice versa, I'm sure), and so I certainly wouldn't want to lose his friendship because of a conversation that can't go anywhere.

But if I were more of a political animal, I would feel free to go further than showing a bumper sticker or two on my car. I might send a letter to the editor or speak at a public meeting. Those who don't agree with me would just ignore me anyway.

But my visits to Cuba provoke questions from my friends: "What does he think of the US Embargo?" or "How does she feel about the communist government there?" I'm really happy to say I don't know the answers to questions like that. The reason is that I studiously avoid talking politics in Cuba. It's not because I'm worried I might be picked up and jailed. Hardly! It's more because I'm there as a guest in someone else's country with different political and economic systems, and our two countries' governments more often criticize each other than not. Now many Cubans have lived their entire lives under the present government, and they know nothing else. It's unfair to criticize any facet of their country when I go there as a guest. It's also unfair to compare any facet of US life with what obtains in Cuba.

People in each nation have been denied a close relationship with the other, and there is far less interchange between the two countries than there should be. For those who have traveled there or those who are about to, I counsel them to adopt my apolitical attitude, not only while there, but also here at home.

The Cuban-American community in Miami was once more homogeneous in their opposition to the Cuban government. They had nearly all risked their lives to escape, making an arduous boat trip here, and their antipathy to their former government was palpable. Today, many Cuban Americans can't remember living there, and we find an almost 50/50 split in opinion on many political questions. One way to gauge this is to take the daily little poll on the front page of El Nuevo Herald, Miami's Spanish newspaper.

Today, even the two governments are changing their tunes a little. Raul Castro has eased the rules on the use of cell phones and privately operated small businesses. Barack Obama has eased on some travel restrictions on US citizens wanting to go to Cuba.

Many Cubans get permission from Cuba and a visa from the US to visit. It takes time and a reason, but it certainly is not an island prison keeping everyone home. Some Cubans are quite well-traveled. And the current impression is that US citizens can't go to Cuba. Also wrong. You need a reason, but hundreds of thousands have made the trip legally. I've now done it six times.

For me, animal protection is the reason I go, and we try to help a really fine organization that does good work for Cuba's animals. Many other Americans go for research, education, history, or to visit relatives.

There are plenty of reasons to visit here or there, and avoiding political discussions seems to me to be a small price to pay for travelers on either side of the Florida Straits.

Les Inglis

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Support Your Local Shelter

Support Your Local Shelter

34 million people live above our northern border, and none of them needs to worry about laws restricting their travel to Cuba. This fact, plus Canada's chilly northern locale, make for a healthy tourist business in Cuba. Sure, lot of Europeans jam busses dieseling all over Cuba, but a surprising number come from Canada.

Cuba's homeless street dogs are happy about this swarm of tourists, as they quickly learn there are handouts and wasted food to find near where tourists congregate. Hotels, restaurants (almost exclusively for tourist use), beaches, bars, tour bus rest stops, and shopping areas--all seem to have their share of canine hangers-on. The Cuban nationals are extremely careful not to waste food, after decades of struggle to have enough to eat.

It's no surprise we hear from lots of Canadians who've just come home from Cuba and have decided they'd like to save that cute little dog they saw begging near a bar at the beach. This presents a huge ethical dilemma. To get a stray dog out of Cuba is just as expensive--or more so-- as sending your purebred Portuguese Water Dog out of the country. And your purebred animal probably has a health certificate while the stray must undergo many tests and a thorough veterinary exam before flying out of the country.

But the first hurdle is to find the animal, and hopefully the traveler has some photos and a good description. To pick up the stray, you need to be sure it belongs to no one, because many Cuban family dogs still run loose.

For the medical matters the vets first need to clear up stray dog problems like fleas, ticks, worms, and mange. The vaccinations for rabies and other diseases need to be run. By law, some of these inoculations need to be done weeks before air travel. Also time passes as some tests are sent away to laboratories by the vets who draw the samples. All this can add up to a month or more in a foster home as vet work is sorted out.

Once a health certificate is obtained, you're still not home free. Some airlines quite correctly refuse to transport animals in the hot summer. A delay until cooler months could cost lots for foster care. And it pays to know what you're doing. Canadian airport authorities recently refused to accept a health certificate rendered in Spanish (not arranged by Aniplant). Without much frantic intervention, the next step would have been euthanasia by the airport vet.

Well, you get the picture; this is a time-intensive, expensive project to save one animal and, hopefully, to give it a better life in a loving family. Most travelers start out thinking it's really simple: Run it by a vet for a check-up, get a ticket and a travel cage, coordinate flight times and you're home free. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

When you think about the ethics of the situation, it really isn't a great thing to do. Yes, you save an animal and give him or her a better home, but you can do that at your local animal shelter as well. You have no choice of type if a stray dog touches the soft spot in your heart, but the local animal shelter could easily have up to 50% purebred animals looking for homes. Also at the shelter you can choose age, gender, color, disposition, etc. And the cost might be $50 instead of $300 or more for a Cuban intervention.

And the biggest ethical question of all is, have you done any more for the universe of homeless dogs by adopting from Cuba than by adopting from your local shelter? The answer, obviously, is "no."

But you have purchased the right to tell your friends the story of how you found and saved the dog.

Of course you can tell them the same story about a shelter dog for a lot less time, worry, and expense.

Les Inglis

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Humane Warriors in Another Era

Humane Warriors in Another Era

Last week in this blog, we toured the Colon Cemetery in Havana and reacquainted ourselves with Jeannette Ryder, founder in 1906 of the Banda de Piedad (group of mercy). It stirred me to try to look back into Cuban history to learn a little more about the humane movement in Cuba in the early part of the 20th century. Doing history today is easy compared to just a few decades ago. A Google search can turn up thousands of documents on some subjects. Still, some others only generate a few references. Cuba's early humane history only gave a few, but they were pretty interesting.

Jeannette Ryder didn't let any grass grow under her feet. She quickly became a force for humane action in Havana, frequently rescuing dogs injured in traffic or just sick dogs from the streets. The Banda de Piedad recruited many volunteers and fielded a fleet of ambulances to pick up unfortunate animals and bring them to her hospital where treatment and drugs were free. She sent recruiters across Cuba and began humane work in other cities. Eventually she could count 20,000 members across the nation.

In 1912 there were some cases of bubonic plague in Cuba. Cubans then, and to a lesser extent today, tend to believe human illnesses can be transmitted from animals. In 1912 a wave of fear of street animals grew among the people, and fear of the plague caused many to harm or kill their animals.

That year Nicolás Russo López, a member of the Banda de Piedad, discovered a man trying to kill dogs by pouring coal oil on them and lighting them on fire. He rushed to rescue the dogs and saved them. He then threatened the man with reporting him to the Banda, and the dog torturer became incensed, drew a pistol, and fired at Russo López. He was struck, nearly fatally, by a bullet in the left lung but eventually recuperated. Later, the Pennsylvania SPCA awarded him $50 from a fund to reward courage in the defense of animals.

A couple of years earlier, Senora Arredondo of Havana was not so lucky. She was also a member of the Banda de Piedad, and had called out a known animal abuser, a mule team driver who treated his mules cruelly. She berated his cruelties to his face as he sat in his wagon. Suddenly, he swerved his wagon and it struck Sra. Arredondo, crushing her between the wagon and a brick wall. She was terribly injured and died on her way to the hospital. Ironically, the force that killed her was provided unknowingly by the mules she was trying to save. Word of her killing stirred a popular reaction in Havana, and a fountain was built and dedicated in her memory.

These heroes of humane action for animals, Señor Russo López and Señora Arredondo, seem obscure today, a full century later, but their spirit lives on--not really in great historical fame--but in the lives and values and actions of millions who support the protection of animals.

Les Inglis