Kurma

Ouch! My puns are getting worse by the day.

Anyway, while on tour here in South Africa, I'm finding myself deluged by conflicting information about soy and its by products.

Here's the latest confusing so-called scientific information:

Dr Justine Butler from The Guardian stated in her August 8th article that, "There's no risk to humans from soya. The hormones in cow's milk are potentially far more harmful than those in plants." She stated that a recent critical article on soya was potentially misleading.

While sharing this information with you, I'd like to point out that many of these so-called unbiased articles are actually heavily loaded towards an agenda to which the author is affiliated.

Whereas the 'dangerous soy' theories that reports like this one choose to discredit were (apparently) written by someone promoting dairy and meat, it seems that the author of this article is biased towards vegan and dairy free perspectives. Despite this, each should be read critically. Don't take on face value everything you read in a report. Study the arguments carefully.

Information or suspicions about vested interests, hidden agendas, predilections, or prejudices should make us more vigilant in our scrutiny of that argument - although they should not be allowed to influence its evaluation.

I'll publish some more information on this argumentum ad hominem - the habit of trying to discredit a person to give his arguments less weight - in another blog.

Here's the link anyway. Read it and make up your own mind.

Last night's session at Lenasia Hare Krishna Temple was a great deal of fun. I led a massive one-and-a-quarter hour rip-roaring chanting session (with 4 sets of drums) that had everyone (all 200 of them) leaping. It sure dusted off a few cobwebs. Everyone seemed to like my talk, my readings and excerts from The Thousand Names of Lord Balarama and The Krishna Book.

This is the team of 60 students that attended our recent three-day cooking seminars here in Johannesburg. It's the biggest hands-on cookery session I have ever taught.

I'm teaching another one-day cooking class this weekend (with even more attendees!) before heading off to Europe.