Eating for Life

Some people ignore dietary advice to cut back on or cut out animal products, perhaps hoping that a 'magic pill' will come along that will make their illnesses go away. Common sense tells us that prevention is the best medicine. More and more people are finding wonderful ways to tempt their taste buds without tempting fate.

"Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rates of coronary disease of any group in the country ... they have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 per cent of our cancer rate." - William Castelli, MD, director, Framingham Heart Study, the longest-running epidemiological study in medical history

"There's no reason to drink cow's milk at any time in your life. It was designed for calves, not humans, and we should all stop drinking it today." - Dr Frank A. Oski, former director of paediatrics, Johns Hopkins University

"What do you think of meat-based diets like the Atkins diet?" I call them 'the make yourself sick diets' because they cause the body to go into ketosis - a state that occurs when we are seriously ill. I also use that designation because the very foods recommended - meat, chicken, bacon, eggs and cheeses - are the foods the Heart Association and the Cancer Society say cause our most dreaded diseases. ... There is only one way to fully satisfy your appetite with delicious foods and stay trim and healthy for a lifetime - that's a low-fat vegetarian diet with fruits and vegetables and a bit of exercise. - Dr John McDougall, medical director of the McDougall programme.

Eliminating animal foods from your diet reduces the risk of some of our biggest killers. According to Dr T. Colin Campbell, nutritional researcher at Cornell University and director of the largest epidemiological study in history, 'The vast majority of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases and other forms of degenerative illness can be prevented simply by adopting a plant-based diet.' Heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes, osteoporosis, obesity and other diseases have all been linked to meat and dairy consumption.It's never too late to change your habits for the better. Changing your diet isn't nearly as inconvenient as enduring a heart bypass operation, suffering paralysis from a stroke or facing chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer! Going vegetarian is the single best thing you can do for your health.

Vegetarians are typically slimmer than meat-eaters. A whopping 70 per cent of men and 63 per cent of women in the UK are either overweight or obese, conditions which lead to illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, gallbladder diseases, arthritis and musculoskeletal problems. In a study in the British Medical Journal, researchers studied 21,105 people and found that vegan men weighed 5.9 kilograms less and vegan women 4.7 kilograms less than their meat-eating counterparts. The study concludes, '[T]hese data suggest that a meat-free diet is associated with a low prevalence of obesity'.

The risk of developing heart disease amongst meat-eaters is 50 per cent higher than that of vegetarians. In fact, researchers have found that the longer and more often people eat meat, the greater their risk of heart disease.

Meat, dairy products and eggs are completely devoid of fibre and complex carbohydrates, the nutrients that we're supposed to be consuming more of, and are laden with saturated fat and cholesterol, which make us fat and lethargic in the short term and lead to clogged arteries and heart attacks in the long term.

How Does Eating Meat Harm the Planet?

Eating meat leaves behind an environmental toll that generations to come will be forced to pay.

Resources

While 40 million tonnes of food would eliminate the most extreme cases of world hunger, 540 million tonnes are fed to animals in Western countries every year. The world's cattle alone consume the same amount of calories as it takes to nourish 8.7 billion people - more than the entire human population on Earth.

Water

It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. A totally vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water per day, whilst a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day.

Land

Of all agricultural land in the UK, 90 per cent is used to raise animals for food, and we still need more food, so we import it from developing countries which often cannot even feed themselves. Using precious land to raise animals for food is wasteful. On 10 hectares, you can produce meat to feed just two people, maize to feed 10 people, grain to feed 24 people or soya to feed 61 people. Overgrazing of livestock has led to desertification around the globe.

Pollution

Raising animals for food causes water pollution as slurry leaches into the waterways. In some parts of Europe, slurry is the single greatest cause of acid rain. The methane produced by the world's cows is a major contributor to global warming.

Deforestation

Since 1950, half of all the world's rain forests have been destroyed to make way for grazing animals. After just six or seven years, the soil is so damaged that it can no longer support grass. It turns to dust. Tribal people are forced to move on as their habitat is sold off to the meat industry. In the UK, hedgerows are being cut down for the same reason, and 98 per cent of the forests that once covered most of the British Isles have been cut down

"To be vegan is a question of personal coherence. I think nobody can defend animals or environment if at the same time continues paying for the animals to be raised and killed. It´s the use of animals for food, clothes, entertainment, sport, experiments, etc. that causes the enormous animal suffering in the first place. There are also environmental reasons and social reasons to support veganism. Humans can live without using animals. It is not difficult if one is determined. Millions of people in the world already do it".Maria Luisa says.