Stop eating meat

There is no longer any doubt about the fact that eating meat is bad for your health.

The list of diseases known to be associated with meat, which are commoner among meat eaters, looks like the index of a medical textbook.

Anaemia, appendicitis, arthritis, breast cancer, cancer of the colon, cancer of the prostate, constipation, diabetes, gall stones, gout, high blood pressure, indigestion, obesity, piles, strokes and varicose veins are just some of the well known disorders which are more likely to affect meat eaters than vegetarians. Avoiding meat is one of the best and simplest ways to cut down your fat consumption.

Those who still eat beef are, in my view, foolishly exposing themselves to the risk of contracting the horrifying human version of Mad Cow Disease.

Add to those hazards the fact that if you eat meat you may be consuming hormones, drugs and other chemicals that have been fed to the animals before they were killed and you can see the extent of the danger. No one knows precisely what effect eating the hormones in meat is likely to have on your health. But the risk is there and I think it's a big one. Some farmers use tranquillisers to keep animals calm. Others routinely use antibiotics so that their animals do not develop infections. When you eat meat you are, inevitably, eating those drugs. In America, over half of all antibiotics are fed to animals and I don't think it is any coincidence that the percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin went up from 13% in 1960 to 91% in 1988.

The healthiness of a vegetarian diet is perhaps shown most dramatically by the fact that lifelong vegetarians visit hospitals 22% less often than meat eaters - and for shorter stays! Vegetarians tend to be fitter than meat eaters - as well as healthier - and many of the world's most successful athletes (particularly those who specialize in endurance events) follow a strictly vegetarian diet.

It is the fat in meat that does most harm - and which makes meat eating an even bigger health hazard than smoking - but don't think you can avoid the dangers simply by avoiding red meat because you cannot. If you want to eat a truly healthy diet then you must give up eating meat completely.

There are, of course, all sorts of old-fashioned myths about eating meat. It used to be claimed that people who didn't eat meat would be short of protein. But that is now known to be absolute nonsense. And it is equally untrue that if you don't eat meat your diet will be deficient in essential vitamins or minerals.

Meat contains absolutely nothing - no protein, vitamins or minerals - that your body cannot obtain perfectly happily from a vegetarian diet. Becoming healthier isn't the only reason for turning green.

Many of those who stop eating meat do so for moral and ethical reasons as much as for personal gain.

Every minute of every working day thousands of animals are killed in slaughterhouses. Many animals are bled to death. Pain and misery are commonplace - for animals suffer from pain and fear just as much as you do.

In an average lifetime the average meat eater will consume 36 pigs, 36 sheep and 750 chickens and turkeys. More and more people are deciding that they just don't want that much carnage on their consciences. It is never too late to stop eating meat.