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tetracycline alone save the meat industry $1.9 billion a year. Yet these drugs may be breeding deadly
antibiotic-resistant organisms in the consumer’s body.
Animal protein foods are nearly always propagated as being the safest choices for people with type 2
diabetes and also for those who want to avoid developing this condition. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Most people believe that high blood sugar comes from eating too much sugar or refined
carbohydrates. They are correct. It has recently been proven that women who drink one regular soda such
as Coke or Pepsi per day have an 83 percent chance of developing diabetes. (One can of soda contains
about 12 teaspoons of sugar or the equivalent amount of high fructose corn syrup, amounting to 200
calories.) However, sugar pales as a cause for diabetes when compared with meat.
If you eat concentrated protein foods such as meat or chicken, your body requires much insulin to
synthesize proteins from the amino acids derived from these foods. According to research, the stimulation
of protein synthesis is a classic action of insulin. Loss of the stimulatory effect of insulin on protein
synthesis would reduce growth and result in weight loss, which are hallmarks of type 1 diabetes. To make
certain that the amino acids derived from the protein meal are synthesized into proteins, the pancreas has
to secrete insulin. In other words, the more protein you eat, the more insulin your body needs to make,
thus increasing the chances of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Accordingly, eating a normal-sized steak forces your pancreas to secrete more insulin than it would
need to produce in response to eating 12 times the amount of sugar contained in one can of soda. In
addition to that, if you also eat potatoes, a sweet desert, and drink a soda along with your meal, like most
Americans do, you can expect to further increase insulin resistance. Currently, diabetes is the fastest
growing epidemic in America, and it is easy to see why. (More on diabetes in Chapter 11.)
The effect of insulin on protein metabolism is complex, and it involves changes in both the synthesis
and degradation of protein. If protein intake is excessive, insulin secretions increase to help with its
degradation. Protein synthesis and the control of carbohydrate and fat metabolism have now been linked
in unexpected ways, and many of the same signaling systems utilized by insulin to control glucose
metabolism, for example, have been found to be involved in the control of protein synthesis as well. The
bottom line is that excessive intake of protein is a direct cause of insulin resistance and may lead to the
onset of type 2 diabetes.
Other very harmful effects that may occur as a result of eating meat are generated indirectly by the
tragic conditions to which farm animals are exposed during their short lives. Most animals never see the
light of day. They spend their entire lives in cramped and cruel surroundings, merely to die a brutal death.
High rise chicken farms breed animals that have never been exposed to fresh air or allowed to take as
much as one step. This not only greatly upsets their body chemistry but also causes malformations and the
growth of malignant tumors. These sick animals are slaughtered and sold to unsuspecting customers. In
the United States, chicken with airsacculitis (a pneumonia-like disease), which causes pus-laden mucus to
collect in the lungs, are permitted to be sold. Other examples of common diseases include eye cancer and
abscessed livers among cows. Carcasses contaminated with rodent feces, cockroaches, and rust are
routinely found in meat-packing companies, but meat inspectors are very lax about enforcing regulations
because this would effectively close down the whole industry.
Modern research on diseases such as cancer and diabetes is mostly focused on how to combat the
effects of an unbalanced lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits. Billions of dollars are spent on discovering
everything about the symptoms of these diseases, with little or no attention being paid to their underlying
causes. By contrast, some people have adopted vegetarianism as a way of life and subsequently have
significantly lower disease rates, especially of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Vegetarians do not
claim to understand the mechanisms of or treatments for these diseases, yet through the elimination of