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Have you heard a news report or read a newspaper lately? - Mad cow disease found in animals in the U.S., Unsafe mercury levels found in fish, Food borne disease outbreak endangers lives, and the list goes on.  This is the locomotive, quickly gaining on you.  And all you're trying to do is eat a healthy, balanced diet!  Our food supply is polluted - what can we do?!

The simplest, most effective way we know of avoiding these dangers is to eat a vegetarian diet.  And there are so many other advantages as well!  We realize that to make such a huge change in your lifestyle requires a decision on your part that this is truly "the way to go."  We would like to provide you with some information to help you sort out myths from scientific facts - so you may make this decision wisely and after careful consideration.  Of course, we may not, in one article, persuade you to join the swelling ranks of vegetarians.  But in light of our current food supply pollution crisis, you owe it to yourself to explore options.

Consider the following excerpts from an excellent article entitled, "Protein and Propaganda," by Michael Dye.  The article can be viewed in its entirety at the Hallelujah Acres website at http://www.hacres.com/html/protein.html.
 

Several generations of school children and doctors were taught incorrectly that we need meat, dairy and eggs for protein. The meat, dairy and egg industries funded this "nutritional education" and it became U.S. government policy. Much of the evidence used to support the claim that animal products are ideal for meeting human protein needs was based on a now discredited experiment on rats conducted in 1914.

Experts in the field of nutrition and medical science have drastically changed their thinking about human protein needs since that infamous rat study 80 years ago, but this updated knowledge has been very slow to reach the public.

So, in an effort to fill this wide gap of information as concisely as possible, here is a six-point summary of what we should know about protein. Every one of these six points will come as a surprise to the average adult whose knowledge about protein is limited to what was taught several decades ago in school.

The medical and nutritional establishment has been slow to accept evidence contrary to the status quo of self-serving "nutritional education" promoted by major commercial influences, especially the meat and dairy industry. But facing the facts has forced doctors and nutritionists to steer more and more people away from animal products (cholesterol, saturated fat, mucous, zero fiber, etc.) and to more fresh fruits and vegetables. It has been interesting to observe over the years how expert opinions and official policies have changed, sometimes reluctantly, in the area of health and nutrition. For example, on the subject of protein:

Modern research has shown that most people have more to be concerned about medical problems caused by consuming too much protein, rather than not getting enough.  Protein is an extremely important nutrient, but when we get too much protein, or protein that we cannot digest, it causes problems. In Your Health, Your Choice, Dr. Ted Morter, Jr. warns, "In our society, one of the principle sources of physiological toxins is too much protein." It may come as quite a shock to people trying to consume as much protein as possible to read in major medical journals and scientific reports that excess protein has been found to promote the growth of cancer cells and can cause liver and kidney disorders, digestive problems, gout, arthritis, calcium deficiencies (including osteoporosis) and other harmful mineral imbalances.

It has been known for decades that populations consuming high-protein, meat-based diets have higher cancer rates and lower life-spans (averaging as low as 30 to 40 years), compared to cultures subsisting on low-protein vegetarian diets (with average life-spans as high as 90 to 100 years)....

It is easier to meet our minimum daily protein requirements than most people would imagine... with just fruits and vegetables. Because much of what experts once believed about protein has been proven incorrect, U.S. government recommendations on daily protein consumption have been reduced from 118 grams to 46 to 56 grams in the 1980's to the present level of 25 to 35 grams. Many nutritionists now feel that 20 grams of protein a day is more than enough, and warn about the potential dangers of consistently consuming much more than this amount. The average American consumes a little over 100 grams of protein per day.

Drastically reduced recommendations for protein consumption are an obvious indication that official information about protein taught to everyone from school children to doctors was incorrect, but there has been no major effort to inform the public that what we were taught has been proven wrong. So there are large numbers of people with medical problems caused by eating more than four or five times as much protein as necessary, yet their misguided obsession is still to ensure that they get enough protein.

A good way of determining which foods provide sufficient protein is to consider recommendations on the percentage of our total calorie intake that should be made up of protein, and then determine which foods meet these recommendations. These recommendations range from 2 1/2 to 8 percent. Reports in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition say we should receive 2 1/2 percent of our daily calorie intake from protein, and that many populations have lived in excellent health on that amount. The World Health Organization established a figure of 4 1/2 percent. The Food and Nutrition Board recommends 6 percent, while the National Research Council recommends 8 percent.

The 6 and 8 percent figures are more than what most people need, and the higher percentages are intended as a margin of safety. But still, these recommendations are met by most fruits and greatly exceeded by most vegetables. For example, the percentage of calories provided by protein in spinach is 49%; broccoli 45%; cauliflower 40%; lettuce 34%; peas 30%; green beans 26%; cucumbers 24%; celery 21%; potatoes 11%; sweet potatoes 6%; honeydew 10%; cantaloupe 9%; strawberry 8%; orange 8%; watermelon 8%; peach 6%; pear 5%; banana 5%; pineapple 3%; and apple 1%. Considering these figures, any nutritionist would have to agree it is very easy for a vegetarian to get sufficient protein.

The need to consume foods or meals containing "complete protein" is based on an erroneous and out-dated myth.  Due to lingering mis-information from a 1914 rat study, many people still believe they must eat animal products to obtain "complete protein." And for other people, this fallacy was replaced by a second inaccurate theory that proper food combining is necessary to obtain "complete protein" from vegetables. Both of these theories have been unquestionably disproved, because we now know people can completely satisfy their protein needs and all other nutritional requirements from raw fruits and vegetables without worrying about proper food combining or adding protein supplements or animal products to their diet.

In fact, the whole theory behind the need to consume "complete protein" -- a belief once accepted as fact by medical and nutritional experts -- is now disregarded. For example, Dr. Alfred Harper, Chairman of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and of the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, states, "One of the biggest fallacies ever perpetuated is that there is any need for so-called complete protein."

Protein is composed of amino acids, and these amino acids are literally the building blocks of our body. There are eight essential amino acids we need from food for our body to build "complete protein," and every one of these amino acids can be found in fruits and vegetables. (There is a total of 23 amino acids we need, but our body is able to produce 15 of these, leaving eight that must be obtained from food.) There are many vegetables and some fruits that contain all eight essential amino acids, including carrots, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, kale, okra, peas, potatoes, summer squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and bananas.

But the reason we do not need all eight essential amino acids from one food or from one meal is that our body stores amino acids for future use. >From the digestion of food and from recycling of proteinaceous wastes, our body maintains an amino acid pool, which is circulated to cells throughout the body by our blood and lymph systems. These cells and our liver are constantly making deposits and withdrawals from this pool, based on the supply and demand of specific amino acids.

The belief that animal protein is superior to vegetable protein dates back to 1914 when two researchers named Osborn and Mendel found that rats grew faster on animal protein than plant protein. From these findings, meat, dairy and eggs were termed as "Class A" proteins, and vegetable proteins were classified as an inferior "Class B." In the mid-1940s, researchers found that ten essential amino acids are required for a rat's diet, and that meat, dairy and eggs supplied all ten of these amino acids, whereas wheat, rice and corn did not. The meat, dairy and egg industries capitalized on both of these findings, with little regard for the fact that nutritional requirements for rats are very different than for humans.

It was discovered in 1952 that humans required only eight essential amino acids, and that fruits and vegetables are an excellent source of all of these. Later experiments also found that although animal protein does speed the growth of rats, animal protein also leads to a shorter life-span and higher rates of cancer and other diseases. There are also major differences in the protein needs of humans and rats. Human breast milk is composed of 5 percent protein, compared to 49 percent protein in rat milk. To illustrate how ignorant "experts" can be, during the time that high-protein diets were thought to be healthy, many experts felt it was a mistake of nature that human females produced breast milk of only 5 percent protein....

Eating meat -- or protein in general -- does not give you strength, energy or stamina. One of the easiest ways to dispel the theory that meat is required for strength is to look at the animal kingdom. It is herbivores such as cattle, oxen, horses and elephants that have been known for strength and endurance. What carnivore has ever had the strength or endurance to be used as a beast of burden? The strongest animal on earth, for its size, is the silver-back gorilla, which is three times the size of man, but has 30 times our strength. These gorillas "eat nothing but fruit and bamboo leaves and can turn your car over if they want to," the Diamonds note in Living Health. It would be hard to argue anyone needs meat for strength.... Protein is for building cells. Fuel for providing our cells with energy comes from the glucose and carbohydrates of fruits and vegetables.

Hallelujah Acres Online
Opinion No. 6 - September 11, 1997

According to a Reuter's health story, food borne illnesses sicken 33 million people each year and kill 9,000 in the United States alone. Scientists agree the worst food borne bacteria may be E.coli:0157, first identified in 1982. It causes diarrhea, severe cramps, dehydration, and in some cases, kidney failure. E.coli bacteria appears naturally in the intestines of cattle. If intestinal material comes into contact with meat during processing, it can contaminate the meat. Researchers believe E.coli contamination arises during the slaughtering and packing process, when fecal matter from the intestines of cattle, where the bacteria naturally occurs, comes into contact with beef.

You probably think, as I used to during my flesh-eating days, that it would be rare for intestinal content to come into contact with the meat we eventually eat. If you've never given any thought to meat processing, and most of us don't because we like to think our meat comes in nicely wrapped packages and not from some poor butchered cow, you probably assume the whole process is sterile and kind.

If you maintain that assumption, you've made a grave error....

Ever since I saw a black and white television documentary filmed entirely in a meat packing house, I'd been appalled by the idea of killing cows so I could eat the flesh from their dead bodies. Appalled, yes, but not enough to stop eating meat until five years ago. And even then I shamefully admit I didn't do it for ethical reasons but for health reasons.

So I don't throw stones at meat eaters since I belonged to their ranks for more than 40 years.

But I'm ready to hurl boulders at the individuals currently producing the meat that goes down America's throat every day.

Why?

The many horrors of the meat industry came together for me when I read a story by Michael Satchell and Stephen J. Hedges in the September 1 issue of U.S. News and World Report.

From this story and my other research, I realized that we had a new food chain in the United States.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I came to believe that God sends the rain which feeds the grass which feeds the cattle who provide us with our meat and milk and cheese. I learned that we need plenty of fresh milk and good meat every day of our lives to build strong healthy bodies. I believed the truth of this simple story but chose, as most of us do, to not ask or think about how the meat got from the nice cow to the nice plate on my table.

Today, public relation campaigns and catchy slogans notwithstanding, we have a new food chain, which goes something like this: For reasons of efficiency and economics, many cattlemen feed their animals anything.

And I mean anything.

Satchell and Hedges tell us "Agricultural refuse such as corncobs, rice hulls, fruit and vegetable peelings, along with grain byproducts from retail production of baked goods, cereals, and beer, have long been used to fatten cattle."

Okay. Since I don't consume meat anyway that didn't bother me too much, though I'd prefer to see cattle eating only natural foods like grains and grasses.

The authors continued, "In addition, some 40 billion pounds a year of slaughterhouse wastes like blood, bone, and viscera, as well as the remains of millions of euthanised cats and dogs passed along by veterinarians and animal shelters, are rendered annually into livestock feed--in the process turning cattle and hogs, which are natural herbivores, into unwitting carnivores."

This information knocked me flat. Not wanting to believe it, I got on the Internet to seek confirmation. A few searches later, I realized that cattle have been eating the rendered remains of other cattle for years.

Many of America's once proud cattlemen have not only turned herbivores into carnivores, but they've also turned their cows into cannibals!
 

...On September 9th, as I prepared the final draft of this article, an Associated Press story revealed that "Two Kentucky doctors last month reported a possible link between eating squirrel brains and the rare and deadly human variety of mad-cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease."

"Dr. Eric Weisman, a behavioral neurologist who practices in rural western Kentucky, reported in the distinguished British medical journal The Lancet that he has treated 11 people for Creutzfeldt-Jakob in four years, and all had eaten squirrel brains at some time. Six of the victims, ranging in age from 56 to 78, have died."

When I read this story, I immediately wondered, "How many of these men have eaten beef at some time? And I again wondered, "How many people in America who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's actually have Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease?"

Interestingly enough, the doctors who reported the outbreak "... said many questions remain, including how the squirrels would contract the disease, since they do not eat meat." Even more interesting, "... no squirrel brains have actually been examined for the disease."

I don't know about you, but if I thought the animals my fellow community members were eating were making them sick, I'd examine some squirrel brains before presenting my paper for publication. Wouldn't you?

Now we don't want to eat beef, do we?!  And we've seen that we don't need "flesh foods" to get what our bodies need for protein and nutritional requirements. However, is total vegetarianism really necessary?  After all, you may argue, that's pretty drastic.  And we've been told by the media for some time now that beef isn't really such a good idea.  But what about the "healthier" alternatives of chicken and fish?  Again, for your consideration, below is an excerpt from an article by George Malkmus, entitled, "Meat, Dairy and Eggs."  The entire article can be viewed at http://www.hacres.com/html/meat.html.
 

Often people will say: "Oh, I don't eat red meat any more... I only eat chicken and fish." Somehow the American public has the misconception that chicken and fish are healthy. NOT SO! Chicken has the same amount of cholesterol as beef and is loaded with growth hormones. A chicken that used to take 15 weeks to mature is now ready for market in just six weeks. Sixty percent of all chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Then there are the antibiotics and other drugs. And when we look at fish, we find that in terms of calories consumed, fish has twice the cholesterol of pork or beef; has no fiber (as is the case with all other animal products), which promotes problems connected with lack of fiber, ranging from constipation to colon cancer; not to mention the risks associated with eating contaminated fish from polluted waters. Studies consistently show that when a person switches from a red meat diet to a diet high in chicken and fish, there is no drop in serum cholesterol levels!

For more information, read Dr. John McDougall's article on "Mercury in Fish" at http://www.drmcdougall.com/Newsletter/apr_may.99.2.html.

  All articles and information on this website are for educational purposes only. They are not to be regarded or relied upon as medical advice. The articles and information have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. AIM products are not intended to cure, treat, heal, mitigate, or prevent a disease or illness. Results may vary per person. Consult your health practitioner if you have health problems.