Perfectly justifies my proclivity for lipid-rich, Jewish Eastern-European fare

In fact there are and have been rabbanim who maintained vegetarian diets ostensibly for the reasons you give.
Rav Kook for example would only eat a k’zayit (olive size) of meat once a week on Shabbat in order to fulfill the requirements of the day. He recommended a vegetarian diet to his students.

Some rabbis talk about the eating of meat only being permitted only as a concession to human weakness, rather than as an ideal. Some rabbis also say that in the time of mashiach, the Jewish diet will again be vegetarian.
With this in mind, id be interested to hear your thoughts about whether the vegetarian or meat based diet is better for us.

I find it interesting, however, that the Jewish food laws, evolving at a time when meat was possibly a rarer commodity, work to maximise the iron absorption per kilo of meat eaten. Another article, which I didn’t discuss because it was more discursive than experimental, suggested that historically in different cultures, meat-limiting food laws allowed women greater access to and shares of the meat (ie, they didn’t get it when the men got first dibs and they only got the scraps). So it seems like women are winning on a couple of counts with kashrut.

Re frosh’s pizza, there are 2 major kinds of iron – haem-iron (mainly the meat kind) and non-haem-iron (basically in vegies, ie the hypothetical mushroom pizza). The literature says both kinds of iron are affected by calcium, so it seems logical the cheese on the mushroom pizza could be having an effect. However, there are also ways to improve iron absorption – for example, having vitamin C at the same time – so maybe a glass of OJ could counteract the effect. Not to completely dictate your diet or anything!

And finally, thanks for the great reference Ariel, I’ll definitely be incorporating it

Gefilte fish:
I’m in trouble as it’s my staple every Friday night

Vodka:
I don’t like vodka at all, but I do love an occassional (read, frequent) scotch.
However, my Russian Jewish cleaners told me that the best cure for a cold/flu is to fill a glass (yes, 200-250mL!!) with vodka, to add a few good shakes of pepper and to guzzle the whole thing down in as few gulps as possible (ostensibly skulling). Then you lie down in bed and wake up 2 days later feeling like a million dollars!
I tried this once on a small scale when I had blocked sinuses. A shot of vodka with a bit of pepper cleared me up.

By the way Liz, you may like to have a look at this document on tefillin and acupunctre as part of your next piece on religious practice: http://www.koshertorah.com/PDF/tefilin.pdf

You wrote:

“Swedish researchers found that calcium blocks the absorption of iron in your gut …I n other words, you only get a little over half the nutritional value from your meat if there’s a slice of cheese lying on top of it.”

So, I assume this would have ramifications for non-fleish eaters too.

For example, I am told that for vegetarians, mushrooms are one of the best sources of iron (at least that’s what the mushroom board advertises: ‘It’s meat for vegetarians!’).

Now it happens that my preferred form of eating mushrooms is finely chopped up and well cooked on a vegetarian pizza. However, based on the findings you report, the cheese on the pizza is robbing me of the iron content. Damn you cheese!

It would be interesting to see how consuming milk and meat might affect absorption of other nutrients: for all we know it could hinder some while helping others.