One mans opinion on Vegetarians

January 19, 2002

Vegetarianism is Not as Healthy as You Think It Might Be

By Byrnes, PhD, RNCP

This article is one part of a series of articles, which is a revision of an older article that we had previously posted on our site. You can find the original article here. Additionally, please see the rebuttal to this article posted elsewhere in this issue of the newsletter.

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

Many thanks to Dr. Bryrnes for compiling such an outstanding resource to help us understand that excluding animal protein from one's diet can result in quite devastating health consequences.

Dr. Janson is past-president of both the American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM) and the American Preventive Medical Association (APMA), and he founded and directed the first complementary-alternative medical center in New England, in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1976.

He is a life-long vegetarian, and he is firmly committed to that lifestyle for a number of reasons that he will expand on. He has been kind enough to offer a rebuttal to Dr. Byrnes' series so we can witness the debate. I will, of course, provide my comments to both.

Not a month goes by where I don't see one or more new patients who have chosen to be a vegetarian and have suffered a loss of their health. Typically they are able to rapidly recover their health after including animal protein back into their diet.

Let's be quite clear that I am a huge fan of eating vegetables. I believe that we should consume about one pound of vegetables a day for every fifty pounds of body weight. Ideally these vegetables should be organic and eaten raw. One really needs a large amount of raw, uncooked food in their diet if they hope to achieve ideal health.

The simplest way to obtain this is by juicing vegetables.

Vegetarians also correctly identify that there are huge problems with most commercial meat sources. We were not designed to eat cattle that were raised on grain and fed hormones and antibiotics to maximize their grower's profits.

However there are other meat sources available such as grass-fed beef, organically raised poultry and wild game animals that do not violate these principles and are important contributors to optimal health.

In my experience though, most people are better off from a health perspective eating reasonable quantities of animal protein, even though it is less than ideal, than eating large amounts of grains.

Many have an emotional issue about killing animals for food. I have used EFT a number of times to help people in this area.

You can review the articles below for further details about the dangers of excluding animal protein from one's diet.

Part 1 of 15

Bill and sat before me in my office in a somber mood: they had just lost their first baby in the second month of pregnancy. was particularly upset. "Why did this happen to me? Why did I miscarry my baby?"

The young couple had come to see me mostly because of 's recurrent respiratory infections, but also wanted some advice as to how they could avoid the heartache of another failed pregnancy.

Upon questioning about her diet, I quickly saw the cause of her infections, as well as her miscarriage: she had virtually no fat in her diet and was also mostly a vegetarian.

Because of the plentiful media rhetoric about the supposed dangers of animal product consumption, as opposed to the alleged health benefits of the vegetarian lifestyle, had deliberately removed such things as cream, butter, meats and fish from her diet. Although she liked liver, she avoided it due to worries over "toxins."

and Bill left with a bottle of vitamin A, other supplements and a dietary prescription that included plentiful amounts of animal fats and meat. Just before leaving my office, looked at me and said ruefully: "I just don't know what to believe sometimes.

Everywhere I look there is all this low-fat, vegetarian stuff recommended. I followed it, and look what happened." I assured her that if she and her husband changed their diets and allowed sufficient time for her weakened uterus to heal, they would be happy parents in due time. In November 1999, Bill and happily gave birth to their first child, a girl.

The Evolution of a Myth

Along with the unjustified and unscientific saturated fat and cholesterol scares of the past several decades has come the notion that vegetarianism is a healthier dietary option for people. It seems as if every health expert and government health agency is urging people to eat fewer animal products and consume more vegetables, grains, fruits and legumes.

Along with these exhortations have come assertions and studies supposedly proving that vegetarianism is healthier for people and that meat consumption is associated with sickness and death. Several authorities, however, have questioned these data, but their objections have been largely ignored.

As we shall see, many of the vegetarian claims cannot be substantiated and some are simply false and dangerous. There are benefits to vegetarian diets for certain health conditions, and some people function better on less fat and protein, but, as a practitioner who has dealt with several former vegetarians and vegans (total vegetarians), I know full well the dangerous effects of a diet devoid of healthful animal products. It is my hope that all readers will more carefully evaluate their position on vegetarianism after reading this paper.

Myth #1: Meat consumption contributes to famine and depletes the Earth's natural resources.

Some vegetarians have claimed that livestock require pasturage that could be used to farm grains to feed starving people in Third World countries. It is also claimed that feeding animals contributes to world hunger because livestock are eating foods that could go to feed humans. The solution to world hunger, therefore, is for people to become vegetarians. These arguments are illogical and simplistic.

The first argument ignores the fact that about 2/3 of our Earth's dry land is unsuitable for farming. It is primarily the open range, desert and mountainous areas that provide food to grazing animals and that land is currently being put to good use (1).

The second argument is faulty as well because it ignores the vital contributions that livestock animals make to humanity's well-being. It is also misleading to think that the foods grown and given to feed livestock could be diverted to feed humans:

Agricultural animals have always made a major contribution to the welfare of human societies by providing food, shelter, fuel, fertilizer and other products and services. They are a renewable resource, and utilize another renewable resource, plants, to produce these products and services. In addition, the manure produced by the animals helps improve soil fertility and, thus, aids the plants. In some developing countries the manure cannot be utilized as a fertilizer but is dried as a source of fuel.

There are many who feel that because the world population is growing at a faster rate than is the food supply, we are becoming less and less able to afford animal foods because feeding plant products to animals is an inefficient use of potential human food.

It is true that it is more efficient for humans to eat plant products directly rather than to allow animals to convert them to human food. At best, animals only produce one pound or less of human food for each three pounds of plants eaten.

However, this inefficiency only applies to those plants and plant products that the human can utilize. The fact is that over two-thirds of the feed fed to animals consists of substances that are either undesirable or completely unsuited for human food.

Thus, by their ability to convert inedible plant materials to human food, animals not only do not compete with the human rather they aid greatly in improving both the quantity and the quality of the diets of human societies. (2)

Furthermore, at the present time, there is more than enough food grown in the world to feed all people on the planet. The problem is widespread poverty making it impossible for the starving poor to afford it. In a comprehensive report, the Population Reference Bureau attributed the world hunger problem to poverty, not meat-eating (3). It also did not consider mass vegetarianism to be a solution for world hunger.

What would actually happen, however, if animal husbandry were abandoned in favor of mass agriculture, brought about by humanity turning towards vegetarianism?

If a large number of people switched to vegetarianism, the demand for meat in the United States and Europe would fall, the supply of grain would dramatically increase, but the buying power of poor [starving] people in Africa and Asia wouldn't change at all. The result would be very predictable -- there would be a mass exodus from farming. Whereas today the total amount of grains produced could feed 10 billion people, the total amount of grain grown in this post-meat world would likely fall back to about 7 or 8 billion. The trend of farmers selling their land to developers and others would accelerate quickly. (4)

In other words, there would be less food available for the world to eat. Furthermore, the monoculture of grains and legumes, which is what would happen if animal husbandry were abandoned and the world relied exclusively on plant foods for its food, would rapidly deplete the soil and require the heavy use of artificial fertilizers, one ton of which requires ten tons of crude oil to produce (5).

As far as the impact to our environment, a closer look reveals the great damage that exclusive and mass farming would do. British organic dairy farmer and researcher Mark Purdey wisely points out that if "veganic agricultural systems were to gain a foothold on the soil, then agrochemical use, soil erosion, cash cropping, prairie-scapes and ill health would escalate." (6)

Neanderthin author Ray Audette concurs with this view:

Since ancient times, the most destructive factor in the degradation of the environment has been monoculture agriculture. The production of wheat in ancient Sumeria transformed once-fertile plains into salt flats that remain sterile 5,000 years later.

As well as depleting both the soil and water sources, monoculture agriculture also produces environmental damage by altering the delicate balance of natural ecosystems. World rice production in 1993, for instance, caused 155 million cases of malaria by providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes in the paddies. Human contact with ducks in the same rice paddies resulted in 500 million cases of influenza during the same year.(7)

There is little doubt, though, that commercial farming methods, whether of plants or animals produce harm to the environment. With the heavy use of agrochemicals, pesticides, artificial fertilizers, hormones, steroids, and antibiotics common in modern agriculture, a better way of integrating animal husbandry with agriculture needs to be found. A possible solution might be a return to "mixed farming," described below.

"The educated consumer and the enlightened farmer together can bring about a return of the mixed farm, where cultivation of fruits, vegetables and grains is combined with the raising of livestock and fowl in a manner that is efficient, economical and environmentally friendly.

For example, chickens running free in garden areas eat insect pests, while providing high-quality eggs; sheep grazing in orchards obviate the need for herbicides; and cows grazing in woodlands and other marginal areas provide rich, pure milk, making these lands economically viable for the farmer. It is not animal cultivation that leads to hunger and famine, but unwise agricultural practices and monopolistic distribution systems." (8)

The "mixed farm" is also healthier for the soil, which will yield more crops if managed according to traditional guidelines. Mark Purdey has accurately pointed out that a crop field on a mixed farm will yield up to five harvests a year, while a "mono-cropped" one will only yield one or two (9). Which farm is producing more food for the world's peoples?

Purdey well sums up the ecological horrors of "battery farming" and points to future solutions by saying:

Our agricultural establishments could do very well to outlaw the business-besotted farmers running intensive livestock units, battery systems and beef-burger bureaucracies; with all their wastages, deplorable cruelty, anti-ozone slurry systems; drug/chemical induced immunotoxicity resulting in B.S.E. [see myth # 13] and salmonella, rain forest eradication, etc.

Our future direction must strike the happy, healthy medium of mixed farms, resurrecting the old traditional extensive system as a basic framework, then bolstering up productivity to present day demands by incorporating a more updated application of biological science into farming systems. (10)

It does not appear, then, that livestock farming, when properly practiced, damages the environment. Nor does it appear that world vegetarianism or exclusively relying on agriculture to supply the world with food are feasible or ecologically wise ideas.

Please see next week's newsletter for our continuation of this article.

Author's Notes:

The author would like to thank Sally Fallon, MA; Lee Clifford, MS, CCN; and Dr. H. Leon Abrams, Jr., for their gracious assistance in preparing and reviewing this paper.

This paper was not sponsored or paid for by the meat or dairy industries.

About the Author:

Byrnes, PhD, RNCP, enjoys robust health on a diet that includes butter, cream, eggs, meat, whole milk, cheese, and liver. He is the author of Diet & Heart Disease: Its NOT What You Think and Digestion Made Simple (Whitman Books; 2001); and The Lazy Person's Whole Foods Cookbook (Ecclesia Life Mana; 2001). His website at http://www.PowerHealth.net.

Originally published in the Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients, July 2000. Revised January 2002

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