11. Recap

Dr. Scharffenberg (p. 84, Problems with Meat) says: "The reality of the problems" (with meat-based diets) "is evident in the high mortality from cancer and atherosclerosis, among other disease problems, which makes it tragically obvious that it is not easy for the average person to learn how to eat properly on a meat diet."

A summary of the specific health reasons for eliminating flesh foods from the diet follows.

1. Flesh foods cause putrefaction by decomposing in the intestines, reducing the functioning of intestinal flora, and interfering with the synthesis and utilization of Vitamin B-12.
   
2. Their byproducts of toxic substances (uric acid, purines, etc.) and carcinogens cause degenerative diseases.
   
3. Saturated fats from meat produce abnormal cholesterol deposits, causing heart and arterial degeneration.
   
4. Meats contain parasites, chemicals and hormones, which damage the body and cause disease.
   
5. Diseased animals pass their diseases on to humans.
   
6. Flesh foods provide a favorable medium for the multiplication of the bacteria of disease.
   
7. Flesh foods lessen the resistance of the body to disease.
   
8. Vegetarians have stronger bones.
   
9. Meat-based diets present complex and grave nutritional problems.
   
10. People who eliminate meat from their diets are better nourished, and have better health and greater longevity than meat eaters.

As indicated at the beginning of this lesson, there are many other arguments against the use of flesh foods. In addition to the reasons listed there (that are not specifically health-related), the following should be included:

1. The lack of strength and endurance of meat-eaters, compared with vegetarians, has been repeatedly demonstrated (e.g. Olympic champions, etc.).
   
2. A meatless diet is conducive to symmetry and normal development of the human body.
   
3. A meatless diet improves the various senses and renders them more acute.
   
4. Meat, being highly stimulating, tends to cause overeating and other excesses (e.g. alcohol).
   
5. Meat-eating influences the mental, emotional and moral life. Flesh foods tend to make a person pugnacious.

The poet Shelley maintained that there is no disease, bodily or mental, which a meatless diet does not mitigate. He said, "On a natural system of diet, old age would be our last and only malady."