Meat is unhealthy (From Oxford Mail)

Meat is unhealthy

10:00am Wednesday 29th December 2010 in Letters

HUMAN AID charities and environmental groups do not appear to be giving out the right message when it comes to the western diet.

While we indulge in our seasonal dinner parties which, by and large, consist of animal produce, it takes half of the world’s grain, soya and water supplies to feed the animals we then kill to eat, while children in the Third World die through lack of the very same food and water.

We have been fooled by the meat industry, which promotes the lie that humans need to eat animal produce for strength and sexual prowess, when in the natural world all the strongest and most sexually reproductive animals on earth are vegetarian, the gorilla being our closest-related prime example.

Most anthropologists and biologists agree that human bodies are better suited to a plant-based diet. Carnivores have short intestinal tracts which allow meat to pass through quickly before it has the chance to cause illness.

Humans, on the other hand have long intestinal tracts which are suited to extracting the nutrients from plants.

A meat and fatty, animal-based diet is linked to the development of colon cancer. It also increases the risk of other forms of cancer as well as heart disease, obesity, diabetes and is a major factor in strokes.

It is not just fat and cholesterol that cause problems. Meat diets also deliver much more protein than we need. This contributes to the development of osteoporosis and kidney stones.

Those who maintain that we have always eaten animal produce without any problems must be reminded that, historically, all the major illnesses which have constantly killed people are caused by our animal-based diet.

It is a statistical fact that the longest living and healthiest communities are vegetarian.

EDWARD SANDERSON, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford