IS MEAT NECESSARY?


These practical demonstrations of the effect of a low protein diet on the health of both civilized and native peoples are in themselves a virtual indictment of flesh-foods. Meat is rich in phosphorus and sulphur and is poor in calcium.


POPULAR NOTIONS ABOUT MEAT EXPLODED.

FOR decades flesh-foods have been regarded as absolutely essential to health and strength, but science cannot now sustain this supposition. Meat is just one kind of protein food. The flesh of animals is build of nothing other than the grains upon which the animal thrives during life, so that meats are merely second-had or animalized grains, with nothing desirable added, but much that is unwholesome in the way of wastes contained in the carcass.

It follows, therefore, that meat is not a dietetic necessity.

It is interesting to note that Fisher and Fisk in their work, How to Live, state:.

“At a recent meeting of the Interallied Council of Physiologists, it was decided that meat was not a physiological necessity. The following statement was made: It is not though desirable to fix a minimum meat ration, in view of the fact that no absolute physiological need exists for meat, and the proteins of meat can be replaced by other proteins of animal origin, such as those contained in milk, cheese, and eggs, as well as proteins of vegetable origin.

In corroboration of his Prof. E. V. McCollum, of Johns Hopkins University, in Newer Knowledge of Nutrition, page 52, declares: “Lactovegetarianism (vegetables, and milk) is, when the diet is properly planned, the most highly satisfactory plan which can be adopted in the nutrition of man.”.

Witness also the experience of Sir Robert McCarrison, who spend nine years in a remote Himalaya region of India caring for the natives. He says: “During the period of my association with these people I never saw a case of asthenic dyspepsia, of gastric or duodenal ulcer, of appendicitis, or mucous colitis, or mucous colitis, or of cancer, although my operating list averaged 400 major operations a year.

Their buoyant health has, since my return tot he West, provided a remarkable contrast with our highly civilized communities. Searching for a explanation of this difference, I find the people live on the unsophisticated foods of nature-milk, eggs, grains, fruits, and vegetables,”

These practical demonstrations of the effect of a low protein diet on the health of both civilized and native peoples are in themselves a virtual indictment of flesh-foods.

The second main fact is that the meat-eating is productive of positive harm. Almost any layman knows that pork, beef, and fish may produce tape-warm disease. Likewise, too, nearly everyone has heard of trichinosis, which also come from the hog; and tuberculosis is so common among cattle that rigid meat inspection and herd supervision are necessary.

The more subtle relationship between the high protein diet and the chronic degenerative diseases of our day is not, however, a matter of such general knowledge. In the past decade or two, especially in England and the United States, the use of meat has increased enormously.

It is just by coincidence that during this time high blood pressure and chronic degenerative diseases-those of the kidneys, heart, and blood-vessels-and cancer have also increased by leaps and bounds to the role of chief killers? It is not, for there is abundant experimental evidence in both animals and man, definitely showing that high protein diet produces Brights disease, increase blood pressure, and cause hardening of the arteries in both herbivora and carnivora.

It has been further shown, in experiments with rabbits, that while a high protein diet of any type will cause degenerative changes in kidneys and arteries and elevation of the blood pressure, the more intensely acid the ash or residue of the protein, the greater the damage and the more quickly it is produced. For instance, a high protein diet of flesh-food (liver) induced kidney damage and elevated blood pressure in six weeks, while a high protein diet of soya beans, and alkalizing legume, did not increase blood pressure for four months, nor produce evidence of renal injury for nine months.

Meat is rich in phosphorus and sulphur and is poor in calcium. The phosphorus and sulphur are oxidized in their passage through the body to phosphates and sulphates, uniting with base and depleting our alkali reserve. Meat is, therefore, correctly spoken of as being “acid forming”.

At times the urine from such a diet will be 100 to 1,000 times as acid as the blood. The excretion of this type of urine is highly irritating to the kidneys, apart from the added burden thrown on these organs just to rid the body of the large quantity of nitrogenous wasted of such a diet.

To summarize: The evidence proves that meat is not a dietetic essential, that on the contrary it is disease producing, and that lacto-ova-vegetarianism is vastly superior. It is interesting fact that there is a chain of about one hundred sanitariums, hospitals, and other institutions scattered throughout the world, employing hundreds of physicians, of whom the writer is one, which stand in vindication of dietetic principles and attest their value in the healing of the sick.

Charles H. Wolohon