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April 2002
Vegetarian Advocate: Meat Kills! (Pass It On)

By Jack Vegetarianberger

 

 

Of the people you love, how many of them frequently eat meat? The reason I ask is because I recently read yet another newspaper article about the relationship between poor human health and meat consumption. According to a new study by the Harvard School of Public Health, men who commonly eat bacon, hot dogs, sausage, and other processed meats are nearly 50 percent more likely to develop Type II diabetes than men who less regularly eat processed meats.

The Harvard study, which analyzed dietary data from 42,504 men aged 40 to 75, found that the men who eat processed meats five times or more a week are 46 percent more likely to develop Type II diabetes than men who eat it less frequently. As Frank Hu, M.D., the study’s senior author, noted: “The effect is dose-related—the more you eat of these foods, the higher the risk.”

That eating animal flesh can be disastrous for your health—that it can literally cripple or kill you—is well documented and an established medical fact (unless, of course, you’re a spokesperson for McDonald’s or the Cattlemen’s Beef Association). Hu’s study reiterates what countless other medical studies have demonstrated: namely, that eating meat increases a human’s risk of heart disease; obesity; cancer of the colon, breast, prostate, and other body sites; moral lameness; overall stupidity; and so on. An earlier study by Hu, for example, found that watching television increases a person’s risk of diabetes. Put simply, Hu’s study indicated that the more TV you watch, the greater your risk of becoming diabetic. Why? His analysis of the study’s participants, 37,918 men, aged 40 to 75 years, found that the ones who watched more television also tended to eat more red meat, processed meat, snacks and sweets, and fewer fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Like you, I can reel off the names of numerous friends, family members, relatives, and co-workers who regularly eat meat. And apparently they don’t think twice about it. To them, it’s normal. For me, it’s painful. I don’t like to watch someone I care about sit down with a cowburger or a slice of pepperoni pizza and, bite after bite, slowly kill her or himself.

So, Jack, what’s your solution? I have decided to firmly but gently speak up. “Oh, by the way, have you heard about the study by the Harvard School of Public Health which shows that men who frequently eat processed meats are nearly twice as likely...”

Our society of carnivores blindly believes in meat consumption just as it once didn’t think twice about rampant cigarette consumption. Let’s change that! When the social situation feels right, speak openly and honestly to your friends and acquaintances about the health defects of eating animal flesh. Do it in a non-threatening way and remember that no one likes being lectured to. Speak from your heart. And if you’re worried that you’ll feel uncomfortable doing this, well, treasure this thought: You might save someone’s life.

Georgie Porgie
Recently President George W. Bush has played the role of an airhead cheerleader for the beef industry. He spoke at a cattle industry convention in Denver last February and was quoted in the media as uttering rubbish like “Every day is Earth Day for people who rely upon the land to make a living” and “Thank goodness we don’t have to rely on somebody else’s meat to make sure our people are healthy and well fed” and “We want people in China eating U.S. beef.”

Regarding President Bush’s second statement: I think what he actually meant to say was, “Thank goodness we don’t have to rely on somebody else’s meat to make sure our people are unhealthy and obese.”

As for the desire to export U.S. beef to China, is this a covert attempt on the part of the Bush administration to destabilize the Chinese government? As any nutritionist worth his or her weight in tofu can tell you, once the Chinese people embrace beef as a significant part of their diet, the nationwide healthcare implications will be horrific: the government of China will be saddled with the cost of fighting heart disease, various cancers, and obesity, just like America is.

More than ten years ago, T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., a nutritional biochemist at Cornell University, conducted one of the largest, in-depth dietary studies in the world. From 1983 to 1988, Campbell and a team of researchers tracked the lifestyle habits of 6,500 Chinese people. Published in 1990 as Diet, Lifestyle and Mortality in China (Cornell University Press), the book is nearly 900 pages long. It analyzes 367 dietary, health, and lifestyle factors of its subjects.

One of the unique aspects of Campbell’s research is that the Chinese whose lives he examined are ideal test subjects. Their eating habits and lifestyles vary significantly by region, and in rural areas they typically live in the same village for their entire lives. Hence, Campbell could easily study the relationship between certain diseases and lifestyle factors such as diet.

Not surprisingly, the study found that people who eat the most protein, particularly the most animal protein, are more likely to suffer the so-called “diseases of the affluence.” As Chinese carnivores, like other human carnivores around the world, ate more meat, they suffered higher rates of heart disease, cancer, leukemia, and diabetes.

Campbell told Vegetarian Times in the April 1992 issue, “The fat intake on average in a couple of the big cities [in China] is already up to 30 percent, whereas in our original study [from 1983 to 1988] it averaged 15 percent. And what’s happening? Mortality from Western-type diseases rather quickly increases.”

Obviously, the reason President Bush wants to increase the consumption of U.S. beef in China is to enrich our nation’s beef industry. Sadly, President Bush, like most carnivores, is unwilling to acknowledge the health risks of a meat-based diet. Massive denial? A conspiracy of stupidity? It seems that every week I read yet another newspaper or magazine article about the relationship between meat consumption and poor human health, be it diabetes, obesity, cancer, or heart disease. The information is available. Human carnivores just don’t want to believe it.

Contact: President George W. Bush, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20500; (202) 456-1414; fax: (202) 456-2461; president@whitehouse.gov.

Meat and Cigarettes
What’s the difference between meat and cigarettes? It’s legal to sell meat to minors.

 

 


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