Thanksgiving arrives every year with a heated debate over how to best cook that plump and juicy turkey. But the idea of a tofu turkey (also known as a “tofurkey”) has gone from a joke a couple years ago to a reality for many. While vegetarianism has been practiced for over a thousand years in some countries, it is a relatively new concept in the West. And so, with the question cropping up more and more often, should we eat meat?
The consumption of animal products has been conclusively linked to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and a host of other chronic and deadly diseases.
Animal Products Lead to Heart Disease
Heart disease is the number one health problem in the United States, accounting for more than a million heart attacks and half a million deaths every year. Researchers have found that cholesterol (found only in animal products) and animal fat clog arteries, which leads to heart attacks and strokes. One of the largest studies on lifestyle and health found that heart disease mortality rates for vegetarian males was only one-third that of meat-eating men. The British Medical Journal published findings from a study concluding that lifelong vegans have a 57 percent reduced risk of death from heart disease.
Cancer’s Connection to Animal Products
Studies have shown that vegetarians are between 25 and 50 percent less likely to suffer from many types of cancer, including prostate, stomach, esophagus, pancreas and lymphatic cancers. The number one recommendation in the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) Guidelines on Nutrition for Cancer Prevention is to eat a diet “with an emphasis on plant sources.”
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