Can it prevent certain diseases?
Advocates of vegetarianism have said yes
for many years, although they didn’t have much support from modern
science until recently. Now, medical researchers have discovered
evidence of a link between meat-eating and such killers as heart disease
and cancer, so they’re giving vegetarianism another look.
Since the 1960s, scientists have suspected
that a meat-based diet is somehow related to the development of
arteriosclerosis and heart disease. As early as 1961, the Journal of the
American Medical Association said: Ninety to ninety-seven percent of
heart disease can be prevented by a vegetarian diet. Since that time,
several well-organized studies have scientifically shown that after
tobacco and alcohol, the consumption of meat is the greatest single
cause of mortality in Western Europe, the United States, Australia, and
other affluent areas of the world.
The human body is unable to deal with
excessive amounts of animal fat and cholesterol. A poll of 214
scientists doing research on arteriosclerosis in 23 countries showed
almost total agreement that there is a link between diet, serum
cholesterol levels, and heart disease. 4 When a person eats more
cholesterol than the body needs (as he usually does with a meat-centered
diet), the excess cholesterol gradually becomes a problem. It
accumulates on the inner walls of the arteries, constricts the flow of
blood to the heart, and can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease,
and strokes.
On the other hand, scientists at the
University of Milan and Maggiore Hospital have shown that vegetable
protein may act to keep cholesterol levels low. In a report to the
British medical journal The Lancet, D.C.R. Sirtori concluded that people
with the type of high cholesterol associated with heart disease may
benefit from a diet in which protein comes only from vegetables.
What about cancer? Research over the past
twenty years strongly suggests a link between meat-eating and cancer of
the colon, rectum, breast, and uterus. These types of cancer are rare
among those who eat little or no meat, such as Seventh-Day Adventists,
Japanese, and Indians, but they are prevalent among meat-eating
populations.
Another article in The Lancet reported,
People living in the areas with a high recorded incidence of carcinoma
of the colon tend to live on diets containing large amounts of fat and
animal protein; whereas those who live in areas with a low incidence
live on largely vegetarian diets with little fat or animal matter.
Rollo Russell, in his Notes on the
Causation of Cancer, says, I have found of twenty-five nations eating
flesh largely, nineteen had a high cancer rate and only one had a low
rate, and that of thirtyfive nations eating little or no flesh, none had
a high rate.
Why do meat-eaters seem more prone to
these diseases? One reason given by biologists and nutritionists is that
man’s intestinal tract is simply not suited for digesting meat.
Flesh-eating animals have short intestinal tracts (three times the
length of the animal’s body), to pass rapidly decaying toxin-producing
meat out of the body quickly. Since plant foods decay more slowly than
meat, plant-eaters have intestines at least six times the length of the
body. Man has the long intestinal tract of a herbivore, so if he eats
meat, toxins can overload the kidneys and lead to gout, arthritis,
rheumatism, and even cancer. And then there are the chemicals added to
meat. As soon as an animal is slaughtered, its flesh begins to putrefy,
and after several days it turns a sickly gray-green. The meat industry
masks this discoloration by adding nitrites, nitrates, and other
preservatives to give the meat a bright red color. But research has now
shown many of these preservatives to be carcinogenic. 9 And what makes
the problem worse is the massive amounts of chemicals fed to livestock.
Gary and Steven Null, in their book, Poisons in your Body, show us
something that ought to make anyone think twice before buying another
steak or ham. The animals are kept alive and fattened by continuous
administration of tranquilizers, hormones, antibiotics, and 2,700 other
drugs. The process starts even before birth and continues long after
death. Although these drugs will still be present in the meat when you
eat it, the law does not require that they be listed on the package.
Because of findings like this, the
American National Academy of Sciences reported in 1983 that people may
be able to prevent many common types of cancer by eating less fatty
meats and more vegetables and grains. But wait a minute! Weren’t human
beings designed to be meateaters?
Don’t we need animal protein? The answer
to both these questions is no. Although some historians and
anthropologists say that man is historically omnivorous, our anatomical
equipment teeth, jaws, and digestive system favours a fleshless diet.
The American Dietetic Association notes that most of mankind for most of
human history has lived on vegetarian or near-vegetarian diets.
And much of the world still lives that
way. Even in most industrialized countries, the love affair with meat is
less than a hundred years old. It started with the refrigerator car and
the twentieth-century consumer society. But even in the twentieth
century, man’s body hasn’t adapted to eating meat. The prominent Swedish
scientist Karl von Linne states, Man’s structure, external and
internal, compared with that of the other animals, shows that fruit and
succulent vegetables constitute his natural food. The chart on the next
page compares the anatomy of man with that of carnivorous and
herbivorous animals.
As for the protein question, Dr. Paavo
Airola, a leading authority on nutrition and natural biology, has this
to say: The official daily recommendation for protein has gone down from
the 150 grams recommended twenty years ago to only 45 grams today. Why?
Because reliable worldwide research has shown that we do not need so
much protein, that the actual daily need is only 30 to 45 grams. Protein
consumed in excess of the actual daily need is not only wasted, but
actually causes serious harm to the body and is even causatively related
to such killer diseases as cancer and heart disease. In order to obtain
45 grams of protein a day from your diet you do not have to eat meat;
you can get it from a 100 percent vegetarian diet of a variety of
grains, lentils, nuts, vegetables, and fruits.
Dairy products, grains, beans, and nuts
are all concentrated sources of protein. Cheese, peanuts, and lentils,
for instance, contain more protein per ounce than hamburger, pork, or
porterhouse steak.
Still, nutritionists thought until
recently that only meat, fish, eggs, and milk products had complete
proteins (containing the eight amino acids not produced in the body),
and that all vegetable proteins were incomplete (lacking one or more of
these amino acids). But research at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden
and the Max Planck Institute in Germany has shown that most vegetables,
fruits, seeds, nuts, and grains are excellent sources of complete
proteins. In fact, their proteins are easier to assimilate than those of
meat and they don’t bring with them any toxins. It’s nearly impossible
to lack protein if you eat enough natural unrefined food. Remember, the
vegetable kingdom is the real source of all protein. Vegetarians simply
eat it direct instead of getting it second-hand from the vegetarian
animals.
Too much protein intake even reduces the
body’s energy. In a series of comparative endurance tests conducted by
Dr. Irving Fisher of Yale University, vegetarians performed twice as
well as meateaters. When Dr. Fisher knocked down the nonvegetarians’
protein consumption by twenty percent, their efficiency went up
thirty-three percent. Numerous other studies have shown that a proper
vegetarian diet provides more nutritional energy than meat. A study by
Dr. J. Iotekyo and V. Kipani at Brussels University showed that
vegetarians were able to perform physical tests two to three times
longer than meat-eaters before tiring out and the vegetarians fully
recovered from fatigue three times more quickly than the meateaters.
