The Case for Vegetarianism

"It is of course possible to eat meat dishes less than once a day or to omit them from the diet altogether, for it has been determined that all the necessary protein and energy may be obtained from other materials" (Circular: The United States Department of Agriculture)

"Fruits, grains, and vegetables, prepared in a simple way, free from spice and grease of all kinds, make, with milk or cream, the most healthful diet."

"Meat is not essential for health or strength, else the Lord made a mistake when He provided food for Adam and Eve before their fall. All the elements of nutrition are contained in fruits, vegetables and grains." (Counsels on Diet and Foods, pp.92,395)

"Rollin, the celebrated historian, says, that in training the boxers for the bloody arena, to whom a ferocious spirit and great physical strength were the chief requisites, they were fed exclusively on raw flesh." (How to Live, p.60)

"B-12 deficiency is a very rare disorder, and the overwhelming majority of cases occur in non-vegetarians. Contrary to popular belief, B-12 is found not only in meat but also occasionally, but in sufficient frequency, in or on soybeans, various common greens, olives, fruits, sea weed, alfalfa and many other foods." (Dr. Agatha Thrash, Nutrition for Vegetarians, P67)

"The Lord intends to bring His people back to live upon simple fruits, vegetables and grains. One of the great errors that many insist upon is that muscular strength is dependant upon animal food. But the simple grains, fruits of the trees, and vegetables have all the nutritive properties necessary to make good blood." (MM277)

"On a natural diet, if one takes care of the calories, the protein will take care of itself." (Dr. Agatha Thrash, Nutrition for Vegetarians, p.55)

It is well established that an excess intake of protein is harmful and that it actually speeds up the ageing process. It is also a well known fact that those animals with long life spans are generally vegetarians, and conversely, that carnivorous animals have shorter life spans. Drs. Fisher and Emerson in the book, How to Live, insist that meat is "one of man's chief life shorteners." (20th Ed. p.67)

"If one eats a variety of unrefined foods sufficient in quantity to keep up a normal weight, he can safely forget about his protein supply." (Dr Mervyn Hardinge, Nutrition and Food Service, p.63)

"As long as this country has access to a plentiful supply of calories and a variety of whole grain cereals and legumes, it is most unlikely that protein deficiency will ever occur." (Dr. Stare, American Journal of Public Health 33:1449, 1943)

"The ingestion of protein supplements by athletes who eat an otherwise well-balanced diet is of no use in body-building programs. Athletes need the same amount of protein foods as non-athletes. Protein does not increase strength. Indeed, it often takes greater energy to digest and metabolize the excess of protein. In addition, excess protein in the athlete can induce dehydration, loss of appetite, and diarrhoea." (C. P. Cyborski, Journal of the American Medical Association. 240 (1978):481)

"Over-consumption of protein has been linked to breast, liver, and bladder cancer and to an increase in the incidence of leukemia." (V. Kulvinskas, Survival into the 21st Century, p.39)

"Weight loss diets that are high in protein and low in carbohydrates cause adverse side reactions that include breakdown of some protein tissues and increase urinary excretion of calcium and other minerals. It appears that loss of bone matrix occurs on a high-protein diet." (Study conducted by Dr Harold Yacowitz, Ph,D of the Health Research Institute at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey)

"So insidious and destructive are the effects of a high protein diet, and so extensive is the research which proves as much, that it is difficult to understand why the 'lots of protein is good for you' myth still survives. Excess protein is so damningly implicated in premature aging that it is hard to understand how anyone who is serious about caring for themselves in the long term can continue to eat large quantities of high protein foods. A diet which supplies more protein than the body needs actually causes deficiencies of many essential vitamins, including the B vitamins B6 and niacin. It also causes important minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc, phosphorus and magnesium to leach out of the body. And during protein breakdown complex by-products are formed some of which, ammonia for example, are highly toxic. These toxic residues deposit themselves throughout the body, predisposing it to degenerative illnesses - to arthritis, atherosclerosis, heart disease, cancer, even to schizophrenia. Lots of protein certainly brings about early and rapid growth, but it also brings about early and rapid aging and disease. One of the most dangerous protein by-products is a fatty-waxy deposit called amyloid, found in large quantities in the tissues of dedicated overeaters of meat. Dr. P. Schwartz, professor of physiological pathology at Frankfurt University and a world expert on amyloid deposits and their implications, refers to amyloid as 'the most important and perhaps decisive cause of decline with age.' It not only stifles proper cell metabolism by interfering with the movements of oxygen and nutrients but also damages cell membranes and DNA." (Leslie & Susannah Kenton, Raw Energy, p.87)

"Fish are also afflicted with tapeworms and roundworms. These worms may infest man if diseased fish are eaten. Leptospirosis has now been found to also infect fish." (SNL Report, Sept 1, 1962, as quoted by Dr. L. & D. Rosenvold, Science and Modern Manna, p.104)

"In 1964, the death of more than 12 million diseased poultry was reported to the United States Department of Agriculture by cooperators. Unreported figures would have made the total far higher. Undoubtedly, additional diseased birds reached the slaughter houses." (B. T. Hunter, Consumer Beware, p.160)

"Poultry or poultry dishes cause about one out of four cases of food-borne disease. Environmental sanitation and handling in poultry packing plants is in many instances deplorable. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, pigeons, and other species of poultry are susceptible to many diseases, some of which affect only part of a flock whereas others are highly infectious and may spread through the flock . . . producing extensive outbreaks, or epizootics. Poultry are also infested by numerous kinds of parasites, some of which live on the surface of the body and others internally, especially in the crop, stomach and intestines." (U.S. Farmers Bulletin No. 1652, 1941 Revision)

"Chickens are now being fed their own excrement to about fifty percent of their total intake of food, it's very economical." (Peter Cox, Why You Don't Need Meat, p 109)

"Huntmill Broiler feeds contain the antibiotics, penicillin and bacitracin and the growth promoter, 3-nitre-4-hydroxyl phenyl arsenic acid. Also, coccidiostats are added to your order." (Ross Horne, 'The Health Revolution', p.341)

"Those who use flesh little know what they are eating. Often if they could see the animals when living and know the quality of the meat they eat, they would turn from it with loathing. People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculous and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer and other fatal diseases are thus communicated." (E. G. White, Ministry of Healing, p.313)

"During 1938 over 32 million inspected, slaughtered swine revealed over 3 million with tuberculosis, and of these over 90 percent were passed after removal of the obviously affected parts." (United States Federal Bulletin No. 1069)

"The nation loses more than TWO BILLION DOLLARS a year through livestock diseases and parasites....." (Denver Post of December 8, 1958)

"It takes a physician and a clinical laboratory twenty-four hours or more to determine the causative organism of infection in a human being. In poultry and meat inspection as practiced in this country [U.S.A.] by the federal government, a layman is expected, in as little as two seconds, to determine the wholesomeness and freedom from infection of the meat of a chicken, cow, sheep, or pig that we are to eat. It is impossible." (Oscar Sussman, Veterinary Medicine, 63:639, July 1968.)

"An eminent sanitary authority states that hamburger steak may contain 850 million bacteria to the ounce. The significance of this will be appreciated when it is remembered that certified milk is not permitted to contain more than ... 300,000 per ounce; that is, marketable hamburger steak may contain a thousand times as many bacteria as certified milk. Milk which contains as many as 600,000 per ounce, is regarded as unmarketable, and is promptly condemned wherever a milk inspection service is maintained, while at the same time hamburger steak containing fifty times as many bacteria is sold and eaten without protest. It is also to be noted that the bacteria of milk consist almost wholly of harmless lactic-acid-forming organisms, or sour milk germs, while the bacteria of meat consist almost exclusively of putrefactive organisms." (Dr. J. H. Kellogg, Natural Diet of Man, pp.128,129)

"It is a well known fact that the chemical composition of beef broth closely approximates that of human urine." (Dr. L. & D. Rosenvold, Science and Modern Manna, p.123)

"It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood." (Leviticus 3:17)

"But see, there is joy and revelry, slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine! 'Let us eat and drink,' you say, 'for tomorrow we die!' The Lord Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: 'Till your dying day THIS SIN will not be atoned for,' says the Lord." (Isaiah 22:13,14, NIV)

"I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good ... which eat swine's flesh and the broth of abominable things is in their vessels" (Isaiah 65:2-4, KJV). See Deuteronomy 14:8; Isaiah 66:15-17.

"In the holding pens the slaughtermen were trying to move a young but fully-grown steer. The animal could sense and smell the death before him and didn't want to move. Using prods and spikes they drove him forwards into a special restraint where he received a meat tenderizing injection [I wonder what is in those injections?]. A few minutes later the animal was driven reluctantly into the stunning box and the gate slammed shut. He was then 'stunned' by a captive bolt pistol, his legs buckled beneath him, the gate was opened, and he sprawled out onto the floor. They pushed a wire into the half-inch diameter puncture made in his forehead by the stun bolt, and twisted it. He kicked whilst the wire was in and then was still. A chain shackle was put around one of his hind legs, at which point he started struggling and kicking whilst he was hoisted over the blood bath. He was then still. A slaughterman then approached with a knife. Many people saw the steer's eyes focus on the slaughterman and follow him as he approached. He struggled both before and as the knife went in. The universal opinion, including that of the press, was that it was not reflex action - he was conscious and struggling. The knife was inserted twice and he bled into the bath." (Peter Cox, Why You Don't Need Meat, p157)