Food Choices and Your Health

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that what we eat has a profound influence on our well-being. The medical community is in agreement: for optimal health, they recommend diets rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables and legumes, and low in fat, especially animal fat. Despite this, millions of North Americans continue to eat in ways that severely compromise their health.

Consider these realities

• More than 2,500 Americans die each day from heart disease, the number one killer of both women and men.
• People eating no meat have 24% less heart disease than meat-eaters. People eating no meat and dairy have 57% less heart disease.
• Physicians are able to reverse existing heart disease in more than 70% of patients by prescribing a low-fat vegetarian diet.
• More than 1.2 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer each year, and more than 500,000 die from the disease.
• A study of more than 11,000 people found that those eating a vegetarian diet have 40% less chance of contracting cancer than people who eat meat.

Health & Nutrition

• 68% of all diseases in the US are diet related.[1]

Obesity

• There’s been a 40 percent increase in obesity since 1966.[2]
• Nearly 30 percent of the adult population (24 million people) is considered obese.[3]
• 11 percent of American children between 6 and 17 are considered severely overweight.[4]
• Americans each consumed an average of 140 pounds of sugar in 1991.[5]

Diet and Disease

• Total dollar costs and deaths from excess dietary fat far exceed costs and deaths from all forms of substance abuse, including tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs combined.[6]
• Heart Disease is the most common cause of death in the US.[7]
• 925,000 Americans die each year from cardiovascular disease.[8]
• 40% of all cancers in the US are diet related.[9]

[10]

Cholesterol

• Amount of cholesterol in a 3 oz. serving of: T-bone steak 72 mg; Chicken 75 mg; Turkey 76 mg; Salmon 74 mg; Shrimp 166 mg [11]
• All foods derived from plants (fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, seeds) 0 mg
• Every time the blood cholesterol level rises one percent a corresponding risk of coronary heart disease rises two percent.[12]
• A recent international conference of leading heart researchers concluded, "The optimal intake of cholesterol in the adult is probably zero." [13]

The Good News About Cholesterol

• The human body makes all the cholesterol it needs.
• By changing their eating habits now, today’s children can save themselves from elevated cholesterol and saturated fat levels that would have caused 1.5 million heart attacks and 500,000 needless premature deaths by 2030.[14]

Nutrition Education

• Only 30 out of the 125 medical schools in the US require doctors to take a course in nutrition.[15]
• The average physician has received only 2.5 hours in nutrition training in the 4 years of medical school.[16]

Food Safety

• Annually E. coli-tainted hamburger is the leading cause of at least 7,500 children contracting a severe disease, Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome.[17]
• 500 deaths and 20,000 illnesses are caused by E. coli every year.[18]
• An estimated 325,000 Americans contract food-borne illnesses from eating fish each year.[19]
• The food-borne illnesses in 1992 afflicted up to 7.13 million people and cost $6 billion. The majority of these come from animal products.[20]

Protein Requirements

• The human body’s protein need is quite modest and easily met. Eating a varied diet of wholesome foods with adequate calories for the appropriate weight and activity level provides plenty of protein.[21]
• The most rapid human growth is during infancy. Nature’s food for human infants is mother’s breast milk which provides all the protein needed or 5% of the calories as protein.[22]
• The World Health Organization of the United Nations recommends only 4.5% of daily calories be provided as protein.[23] The National Research Council says 8-10%.[24]
• The average North American consumes four times the minimum daily requirement of protein and this leads to a host of overconsumption problems. Excess protein cannot be stored by the body and it must be broken down and excreted as waste material.

Animal Protein

• Osteoporosis[25] and kidney disease[26] are linked to excess animal protein consumption.
• Tens of millions of cases of osteoporosis[27] and kidney disease[28] exist in the United States.
• Female meat-eaters at age 65 experience an average measurable bone loss of 35%.[29]

The Good News About Vegetable Protein

• Female vegetarians at age 65 experience an average measurable bone loss of 18%.[30]
• Frances Moore Lappe, who popularized the concept of combining proteins, provided updated research that protein combining is unnecessary in a healthy, varied vegetarian diet.[31]

Percentage of Calories as Protein

The Good News About Plant-Based Diets

• A low-fat diet free of animal products can prevent, improve and/or cure: [33]

• Greek women significantly reduced the incidence of breast cancer by increasing their daily consumption of vegetables to 4-5 servings and fruit to 6 servings.[34]
• As dietary fat declines from 24% to 6%, and these diets become richer in plant matter, breast cancer rates make a similar decline. Girls who eat a diet higher in plant-based foods have a lower risk of breast cancer and they reach puberty at a later age.[35]
• Vegetarians have a 50% less risk of developing senile dementia than meat eaters.[36]
• 70 to 80% of US restaurants offer meat-free entrees.[37]
• For the last two decades, research is repeatedly showing the positive health benefits of a plant-based diet. Vegetarians experience much less suffering and have 20% less risk of all-cause mortality.[38]

References

[1] The Surgeon General’s Report on Nutrition and Health, Pub. #88-50210, Washington, DC: US Dept. of Health and Human Services, 1988.

[2] President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, as cited in Madu Dillingham, "Off the Scales," E Magazine, July/Aug 1995.

[3] Ibid.

[4] "Kids’ weight has ballooned since 1980, US survey says," Washington Post, Oct 3, 1995.

[5] Environmental Nutrition, Sep 1995.

[6] Attwood, Charles, MD, Dr. Attwood’s Low-Fat Prescription for Kids, Viking, New York, 1995, p. 48.

[7] Roy Walford, Maximum Life Span, New York: Norton, 1983, 8.

[8] Peggy Eastman, "Healthier Habits, Science Curbing Heart Disease," AARP Bulletin, Sep 1995.

[9] National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Annual Cancer Statistics Review, 1989.

[10] Preventive Medicine,1995, 24, p. 646-655; Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, "Recommended Revisions for Dietary Guidelines for Americans," January 31, 1995.

[11] Jean Pennington, Food Values, 15th edition, Perennial Library Press, 1989.

[12] MJ Martin et al, "Serum cholesterol, blood pressure, and mortality, implications from a cohort of 361, 662 men," Lancet 1986; 2:933-6.

[13] S. Moncada, JF Martin, A. Higgs, Symposium on regression of atherosclerosis, European Journal of Clinical Investigation 1993; 23:385-98.

[14] Charles Attwood, op. cit. p. 156.

[15] Phillip Kapleau, To Cherish All Life, Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1981, p. 59.

[16] McDougall, The McDougall Plan, op. cit. p. 7.

[17] Fact Sheet from Lois Joy Galler Foundation, Melville, NY 1995.

[18] Susan Meeker-Lowry, "Challenging the Meat Monopoly," Z Magazine, March 1, 1995.

[19] Centers for Disease Control cited in "Is our Fish Fit to Eat?", Consumer Reports, Feb. 1992.

[20] Preventive Medicine, 1995, 24 p. 646-655.

[21] Food and Nutrition Board, Vegetarian Diets, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, 1974, p. 2.

[22] G. Bell, Textbook of Physiology and Biochemistry, 4th ed. Williams and Wilkins, Balentine, 1954, p. 167-170.

[23] "Protein Requirements," Food and Agriculture Organization, World Health Organization Expert Group, United Nations Conference, Rome, 1965: C. Pfeiffer, Mental and Elemental Nutrients, New Canaan, CT: Keats, 1975.

[24] National Research Council, Recommended Dietary Allowances, 9th ed., Washington, DC, National Academy of Sciences, 1989.

[25] L. Allen, "Protein-induced Hypercalcuria: A Longer-term Study." American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,1979, 32:741; J. Brockis, "The Effects of Vegetable and Animal Proteins on Calcium, Urate, and Oxalate Excretion." BR J. Urology, 1982) 54:590; V. Barzel, Osteoporosis (New York: Grune and Stratton. 1970.

[26] B. Brenner, "Dietary Protein Intake and the Progressive Nature of Kidney Disease: The Role of Hemodynamically Mediated Glomerular Injury in the Pathogenesis of Progressive Glomerular Sclerosis in Aging, Renal Ablation and Intrinsic Renal Disease." New England Journal of Medicine,1980. 307:652; G. Maschio, "Effects of Dietary Protein and Phosphorus Restriction on the Progression of Early Renal Failure." Kidney Int., 1982, 22:371.

[27] Same as note 16.

[28] Same as note 17.

[29] Same as note 15.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Lappe, Frances Moore, Diet for a Small Planet, tenth anniversary edition, Ballantine Books, New York, 1982. 17, 162.

[32] For complete documentation, refer to: John McDougall, MD and Mary A. McDougall, The McDougall Plan (Piscataway, NJ: New Century, 1983); John McDougall, MD, McDougall’s Medicine, A Challenging Second Opinion (Clinton, NJ: New Win Publishing, 1985), 75; John Robbins, Diet for a New America, Walpole, NH: Stillpoint, 1987.

[33] For complete documentation, refer to: John Robbins, Diet for a New America, Walpole, NH: Stillpoint, 1987; John McDougall, MD and Mary A. McDougall, The McDougall Plan (Piscataway, NJ: New Century, 1983); John McDougall, MD, McDougall’s Medicine, A Challenging Second Opinion (Clinton, NJ: New Win Publishing, 1985), 75.

[34] Journal of National Cancer Institute, 1995, 87, p. 110-116.

[35] T. Colin Campbell, Nutrition Advocate 1995.

[36] Neuroepidemiology, 1993, 12, p. 28-36.

[37] Maggie Jackson, "Americans Flirt with Meatless Eating," Associated Press Business Extra, Aug. 8, 1995.

[38] British Medical Journal, v. 308 p. 1667-71, 1994.