Wellness & The Life Span of Vegetarians
Many on the path of wellness, choose vegetarianism to live a lifestyle that has proven benefits for body and earth. Death rates for vegetarians are higher than all-cause death rates for people who eat mixed diets, a poor comparison because we really want information that compares vegetarians, people eating mixed diets, and people relying primarily on animal products.
The data on people eating mixed diets, including some amount of meat, shed no light on the health effects of eating predominately animal products. Health problems arising in those eating mixed diets, the “super-market diet” are unilaterally blamed on its meat component when, in fact the blame must fall upon those components from the fruit, vegetable, and grain families: the plant kingdom versus the animal kingdom.
Vegetarians do not live longer than meat-eaters (no data on pure meat-eaters); in fact, the all-cause death rates of vegetarian women exceed those of non-vegetarian women.
Although soy products have become the “health food darling” of the day, more and more evidence indicates that hyper-processed soy foods are not healthful. Soybeans also have high phyto-estrogen content, and some investigators have estimated that a child receiving a soy formula ingests the hormonal equivalent of five birth control pills a day.
Vegetarians trot out all kinds of nonsense to support the vegetarian lifestyle: Human beings possess grinding teeth similar to those of plant-eating animals, an evolutionary signal of their special adaptation to plant foods. Vegetarians observe that human beings have longer intestines than most typical carnivores, a fact they use to support the notion that the human body is suited for vegetarianism. They also claim that eating animal flesh causes violent, aggressive behavior in humans. We’ve learned earlier, in a discussion of Dr. Harris’s work, that these claims all arose from the ancient authority of religious sanctions designed to strengthen the prohibition against eating meat.
Toxic overload is another claim made by vegetarians to discourage meat eating. Toxins, however, are a part of the general food supply, as much a part of the vegetarian’s fare as of the meat eater’s fare. The best protection against toxins is a strong filtration system, the liver and the kidneys. A moderate-protein, high-animal fat intake is absolutely essential to strengthening the function of these organs, whereas, in contrast, a high-carbohydrate diet has been shown to decrease the ability of the liver to detoxify chemicals.
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As one of the Worlds’ foremost experts on nutrition, health and well being, Greg has dedicated over 40 years of his life to both scientific and practical research and has worked with over 10,000 subjects, including many champion amateur and professional athletes as well as the general public.
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