Vegetarian Diet Issues
Acknowledgement:
This article on vegetarian issues are based upon copyright materials from
the outstanding health website Mercola.com
©Copyright 2003 Dr. Joseph Mercola. We recommend this website.
The author of this article is Stephen Byrnes:
see References
Vegetarian References:
Numbers in brackets refer to vegetarian references. See References
Vegetarians Live Longer And Have More
Energy and Endurance Than Meat-Eaters
Surprising as it may seem, some prior studies
have shown the annual all-cause death rate of vegetarian men to be slightly
more than that of non-vegetarian men (0.93% vs 0.89%). Similarly, the
annual all-cause death rate of vegetarian women was shown to be significantly
higher than that of non-vegetarian women (0.86% vs 0.54%). (40)
Russell Smith, PhD, in his authoritative
study on heart disease, showed that as animal product consumption increased
among some study groups, death rates decreased! Such results were not
obtained among vegetarian subjects. For example, in a study published
by Burr and Sweetnam in 1982, analysis of mortality data revealed that,
although vegetarians had a slightly (.11%) lower rate of heart disease
than non-vegetarians, the all-cause death rate was much HIGHER for vegetarians
(41).
It is usually claimed that the lives of
predominantly meat-eating peoples are short-lived, but the Aborigines
of Australia, who traditionally eat a diet rich in animal products, are
known for their longevity (at least before colonisation by Europeans).
Within Aboriginal society, there is a special caste of the elderly (42).
Obviously, if no old people existed, no such group would have existed.
In his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Price has numerous
photographs of elderly native peoples from around the world (42). Explorers
such as Vilhjalmur Stefansson reported great longevity among the Inuit
(again, before colonisation). (43)
Similarly, the Russians of the Caucasus
mountains live to great ages on a diet of fatty pork and whole milk products.
The Hunzas, also known for their robust health and longevity, eat substantial
portions of goat's milk which has a higher saturated fat content than
cow's milk (44). In contrast, the largely vegetarian inhabitants of southern
India have the shortest life-spans in the world (45). Dr Weston Price,
DDS, travelled around the world in the 1920s and 1930s, investigating
native diets. Without exception, he found a strong correlation among diets
rich in animal fats, with robust health and athletic ability. Special
foods for Swiss athletes, for example, included bowls of fresh, raw cream!
In Africa, Dr Price discovered that groups whose diets were rich in fatty
fish and organ meats, like liver, consistently carried off the prizes
in athletic contests, and that meat-eating tribes always dominated peoples
whose diets were largely vegetarian (42).
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