Joel Fuhrman - Eat To Live

Eat to Live 75

A Vegetarian Diet Is No Guarantee of Good Health

People who omit meat, fowl, and dairy but fill up on bread, pasta,

pretzels, bagels, rice cakes, and crackers may be on a low-fat diet, but

because their diet is also low in vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals,

important essential fatty acids, and fiber, it is conspicuously inade-

quate and should not be expected to protect against cancer. Addi-

tionally, because these refined grains are low in fiber, they do not

make you feel full until after you have taken in too many calories

from them. In other words, both their nutrient-to-calorie and nutrient-

to-fiber ratios are extremely low.

Let me repeat this again to be clear: Following a strict vegetarian

diet is not as important as eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

A vegetarian whose diet is mainly refined grains, cold breakfast cere-

als, processed health-food-store products, vegetarian fast foods, white

rice, and pasta will be worse off than a person who eats a little chicken

or eggs, for example, but consumes a large amount of fruits, vegeta-

bles, and beans.

Studies have confirmed this. Multiple studies have shown that

vegetarians live quite a bit longer than nonvegetarians do.

21

But when

we take a close look at the data, it appears that those who weren't as

strict had longevity statistics that were equally impressive as long as

they consumed a high volume of a variety of unrefined plant foods.

Remember, long-term vegans (stria vegetarians who consume

no dairy or other foods of animal origin) almost never get heart at-

tacks. If you have heart disease or a strong family history of heart dis-

ease, you should consider avoiding all animal-based products. To

quote a respected authority, William Castelli, M.D., director of the

famed Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts:

We tend to scoff at vegetarians, but they're doing much better than

we are. Vegans have cholesterol levels so low, they almost never get

heart attacks. Their average blood cholesterol is about 125 and we've

never seen anyone in the Framingham study have a heart attack with

a level below 150.

The research shows that those who avoid meat and dairy have

lower rates of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes,

and obesity.^22 The data is conclusive: vegetarians live longer in Amer-

ica, probably a lot longer.