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Heart disease is virtually unheard of in societies where meat consumption is low, and the majority of
the population eats mostly traditional foods. A group of Harvard doctors and research scientists examined
400 people in a remote mountain village in Ecuador and were surprised to find that except for two men,
none of the people above 75, including all the centenarians and a 121-year-old man, showed any signs of
heart disease. All the villagers turned out to be complete vegetarians. Examinations of similar age groups
in the United States would typically reveal a 95 percent incidence of heart disease.
Cancer, the second most common killer disease, now closely rivaling heart disease, may largely be
caused by meat-eating, too. Modern cancer research claims to have found specific protein compounds
responsible for certain types of cancers. This, in itself, may be a very important finding, but it is even
more important to discover where these proteins come from. Putrefying meat is one answer, and the
decaying protein of dead human cells is another. Meat consumption slows or hinders the complete
removal of dead cells in the body by congesting the lymphatic system (which removes dead cells) and by
using up the body’s resources of energy, enzymes, minerals and vitamins (needed to break down dead
cells and dispose of them safely). Both undigested meat proteins and decaying cell protein can, therefore,
damage human cells and impair their genetic programs.
Another reason why meat-eaters have more cancers than vegetarians may be the fact that they ingest
large quantities of sodium nitrates, which are carcinogenic preservatives that are used to make meat look
“fresh.” But meat is no longer fresh after the animal has died. As already mentioned, if left untreated,
animal flesh begins to turn a sickly grayish-green color within several days. Since nobody would buy
meat in that condition, the meat industry uses these toxic nitrates to make it look red and palatable. In
reality, though, it is already decomposed and highly toxic.
The most appalling news from cancer research, however, is that secondary amines, prevalent in beer,
wine, tea and tobacco, react with chemical preservatives in meat to form nitrosamines. The American
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has labeled nitrosamines “one of the most formidable and versatile
groups of carcinogens yet discovered.” In other words, if you are a smoker or if you drink beer, wine, or
tea and eat meat, you produce one of the most deadly toxins that can be found anywhere. As it turns out,
most meat-eaters also drink wine or beer, and many of them smoke, too. When fed to test animals,
nitrosamines produced malignant tumors in one hundred percent of the animals; the cancers appeared
everywhere, including the lungs, pancreas, stomach, adrenals, intestines and the brain.
A meat-eater's immune system also has to combat many other cancer-producing agents. Farm animals
are regularly injected with hormones to stimulate growth, are fed appetite stimulants to “force” them to
eat non-stop, and are given antibiotics, sedatives and chemical feed mixtures. Over 2,500 drugs are
routinely given to animals to fatten them and to keep them alive. Most of these harmful chemicals are still
in the animals at the time of their death. Many other drugs are added after the animal has been
slaughtered. These drugs will still be present in the meat when it is eaten, but the law does not require a
listing of the cocktail of drugs that have been added. Hence, you have no way of knowing what kind of
drug interactions and allergic reactions you could become a victim of by eating a juicy steak at your
favorite restaurant. It is difficult to imagine how many people today become sick for no apparent reason,
due to being drugged with poisonous medicines contained in the meat they eat. Sadly, when they go to
see their doctor, they are most likely given even more drugs to combat those they have already
unwittingly ingested.
One of the chemicals added to animal feed in the United States is the growth hormone
diethylstilbestrol (DES). The FDA estimates that the use of this chemical earns meat producers in the
United States $500 million annually. DES is highly carcinogenic and has been banned as a serious health
hazard in thirty-two countries. According to another report by the FDA, the antibiotics penicillin and