Health Promotion the Vegetarian Way

Auto Intoxication

Most diseases of the human body are caused by auto-intoxication or self-poisoning. The flesh of animals increases the burden of the organs of elimination and overloads the system with animal waste matter and poisons. Chemical analysis has proved that uric acid and other uremic poisons contained in the animal body are almost identical to caffeine, there and nicotine, the poisonous stimulating principles of coffee, tea and tobacco.

This explains why meat stimulates the animal passions and creates a craving for liquor, tobacco and other stronger stimulants. Excessive uric acid resulting from meat-eating also causes diseases such as rheumatism, Bright’s disease, kidney stones, gout and gall stones. Meat proteins cause putrefaction twice as rapidly as do vegetable proteins. The morbid matter of the dead animal body is foreign and uncongenial to the excretory organs of man.

It is much harder for them to eliminate the waste matter of an animal carcass than that of the human body. Moreover, the formation of ptomains or corpse poisons begins immediately after the death of the animal and meat and poultry are usually kept in cold storage for many days and even months before they reach the kitchen.

Another powerful influence tends to poison the flesh of slaughtered animals. As is well known, emotions of worry, fear and anger actually poison blood and tissues. Imagine the excitable condition of animals after many days of travel, closely packed in shaking vehicles - hungry, thirsty, scared enroute to the slaughter -houses. Many die even before the end of their journey. Others are driven half dead with fear and exhaustion to the slaughter pans, their instinctive fear of death augmented by the sight and odour of the blood shambles.

Flesh is often a carrier of disease germs. Diseases of many kinds are on the increase in the animals, making flesh foods more and more unsafe. People are continually eating flesh that may contain tuberculosis and cancerous germs. Often animals are taken to the market and sold for food when they are so diseased that their owners do not wish to keep them any longer. And some of the processes of fattening them to increase their weight and consequently their market value , produce disease. Shut away from light and pure air, breathing the atmosphere of filthy stables, perhaps fattening on decaying foods, the entire body now becomes contaminated with foul matter.

Benefits of Vegetarianism

A vegetarian diet can have many nutritional benefits, if it is rich in fruits and vegetables, and contains moderate amounts of seeds, nuts, whole grains and legumes. One of the main benefits of a proper vegetarian diet is its low caloric content in relation to the bulk supplied, which helps maintain ideal weight.

Another benefit of the vegetarian diet is the much lower intake of fat, if dairy products, seeds and nuts are eaten sparingly. This accounts for lower serium cholesterol levels found in vegetarians, which considerably reduces the risk of developing heart diseases and breast and colon cancer.

A third nutritional advantage of the vegetarian diet is its high fibre content. Fibre, being indigestible, increases the bulk of the faces, keeps them soft and makes them easy to expel. One study has indicated that lacto-avo vegetarians consume twice as much and vagans four times as much fibre as non-vegetarians. High fibre intake has been associated with decreased risks of diseases of the colon, appendicits, cancer of the colon and rectum, hiatus hernia, piles and varicose veins.

McCarrison, one of the greatest aurhoties on food, has outlined a perfect diet. According to him, " a perfectly constituted diet is one in which the principal ingredients are milk, milk products, any whole cereal grain or mixture of cereal grains, green leafy vegetables and fruits. These are the protective foods. They make good the defects of other constituents of the diet, protect the body against infection and disease of various kinds, and their use in sufficient quantity ensures physical efficiency. "

Vegetarianism is thus a system based on scientific principles and has proved adequate for the best nutrition free from the poisons and bacteria of diseased animals. It is the best diet for man’s optimum, physical, mental and spiritual development.