THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 203, October 28, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
EATING FOOD WILL KILL YOU
By Alan Caruba
CITING HUMAN CONSUMPTION OF MEAT AS A MAJOR CAUSE OF CANCER: WHY THE ASSAULT ON MEAT?
WHY THE MEDIA ARE FLOODED WITH FULMINATIONS AGAINST EATING MEAT? VEGETARIANS WHO BEHAVE LIKE
SOME WEIRD RELIGIOUS CULT -- ORGANIZATIONS WHOSE FUNDING & SUPPORT ARE DEPENDENT ON PERIODICALLY
ANNOUNCING THAT JUST ABOUT ANYTHING WE EAT WILL KILL US -- THE NEED FOR PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL SCIENCE
RESEARCHERS TO KEEP FINDING CORRELATIONS OR FIND OTHER JOBS -- WHAT SO MANY OF THE ANTI-MEAT STUDIES
FAIL TO TELL US -- OUR NEED TO APPLY COMMON SENSE TO THE ASSAULT ON MEAT
FULL STORY:
It is now a proven fact that eating food — any kind of food — will kill you. No one who has eaten food in the past is alive
today and everyone currently eating food will die. Therefore, those noble people who seek to save us from eating every
kind of food that the earth provides should be hailed and saluted for their efforts to keep us alive.
I say this as the son of a woman who taught the art of haute cuisine for over three decades and authored several
cookbooks. That poor woman died at age 98, and I am convinced it was all that fabulous food that killed her. Ridiculous?
YES!
These thoughts were occasioned by word that two groups, the World Cancer Research Fund International, based in the
United Kingdom, and the American Institute for Cancer Research, will likely announce that eating meat will give you some
form of cancer, making the announcement at a press conference scheduled the same day as Halloween. Boo!
In mid-October, 2007, the New York Times ran an article, “U.S. Cancer Death Rates Are Found to Be Falling.” It cited a
decline “by an average of 2.1 percent a year … a near doubling of decreases that began in 1993, researchers (from the
American Cancer Institute) are reporting.” Now this is, of course, good news. The bad news is that smoking appears to be
a significant cause of cancer. In the U.S. cancer remains the second leading cause of death after heart disease, with 559,650
deaths expected every year.
Bear in mind that at least 10,000 Americans, on the average, die every day from something, not infrequently just old age
and the infirmities associated with it. If you live beyond age 85 or into your 90s, the odds of dying from something are
pretty good.
So why is it that meat is so often singled out as lethal? Well, for one thing, there are any number of vegetarian groups that,
like some weird religious cult, flood the Internet and other media with fulminations against eating meat of any kind.
A Google search for “Meat + Health” will turn up links to literally thousands of studies that proclaim that eating meat will
cause breast, prostrate, colon, and other forms of cancer. That said, if you search all the studies, you will also find those
that confirm that meat is as healthy a part of diet as anything else. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(USDA) 2005 Food Guide and its Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Eating Plan recommend two to three servings
a week of lean meat.
What so many of the anti-meat studies do not tell you is that the subjects of their studies were, as often as not, also
exposed to other risk factors that might have contributed to whatever form of cancer is being cited. The correlation between
eating meat and the cancer risk cited is a statistical conclusion, but not necessarily the actual cause.
As often as not, if you read the abstract of these studies, you will find mitigating phrases such as meat as a “suspected”
cause and that those who have a diet high in meat “may” be “particularly” exposed. Now, I admire people who devote their
lives to unraveling the mysteries of medical science, but I also know that, when you do this for a living, you also have to
keep finding correlations or find another job.
I also know there are organizations whose funding and support are dependent on periodically announcing that just about
anything you eat, from popcorn to fish, will kill you.
My friend, Frank Murray, the author of dozens of books on nutrition and longtime contributing editor of Let’s Live
magazine, once co-wrote an entire book, You Must Eat Meat, with Max Ernest Jutte, MD. The other day, I asked him
what he thought of all the anti-meat efforts, and he replied that, “It stands to reason that, if you eat a lot of highly-cooked
meat, bacon and meats full of nitrosamines, you need to take counter measures, for example, lots of vitamin C and vitamin
E.” You can either get these vitamins from the foods you eat or, like myself, take them as dietary supplements.
According to Wikipedia, “Nitrosamines are found in many foodstuffs especially beer, fish, fish byproducts, and in
meat and cheese products preserved with nitrite pickling salt. The U.S. government established limits on the amount of
nitrites used in meat products to decrease cancer risk in the population. There are also rules about adding ascorbic acid or
related compounds to meat, because they inhibit nitrosamine formation.”
Let’s have a show of hands to see how many of you are going to stop drinking beer or eating either meat, fish, or cheese?
The oldest rule of pharmacology regarding the level of threat from anything you injest is that the amount — the dose — is
what determines the hazard. Potatos, for example, contain trace elements of arsenic, but not enough to kill you, even if you
ate a truckload at one time.
What people are rarely told these days is that meat is a great source of high quality proteins that a vegetarian diet is not
able to provide. It also contains all the essential amino acids the body requires. This is true, as well, for phosphorous,
which is more easily absorbed than that present in cereals and legumes. Meat is rich in vitamin B12. Nutritionists will also
tell you that, in general, preserved meats such as ham, bacon, salami, et cetera, should be avoided because they are contain
large amounts of fats, salts, nitrites and nitrates that have been associated with increased rates of cancer.
It is common sense that must be applied to the latest assault on meat, and it is common sense that suggests that vegetables
are good for you, too.
So, keep on eating, but not too much, okay?
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2007
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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