Below is Dr Den Greenhow's article (Nov 2005 -West Highland Free press).

A CLOSER LOOK AT VEGETARIANISM

In December, we moved up to Skye for a more sane life away from London. Since the spring, I have worked as a GP in the area, on the beautiful west coast. The Hebrides provides a relaxed contrast to my three years as partner in a busy Inner London surgery. We have been pleased to meet many other vegetarians, local producers of delicious and healthy food and people who are interested in a healthy lifestyle. There are indeed many scientific studies supporting the theory that vegetarianism is good for you that have convinced me of the benefits, as well as my seventeen years of experience with health and nutrition issues.

For instance more than 11,000 people joined an Oxford University study of 1985, half of whom were vegetarian. Life long vegetarians had 24% less heart disease than non-vegetarians, a 50% lower risk of needing an appendicectomy, and lower death rates from both heart disease and cancer. The top third eaters of animal fat (primarily meat eaters) had a three times greater risk of getting heart disease than those in the group consuming the lowest third of animal fat (primarily vegetarians). Indeed, the vegetarians were very significantly less overweight. The results would indicate that vegetarianism was associated with health. Health professionals across the world recognize that red meat should only be eaten in small quantities if at all. Moderate to heavy animal fat consumption is related to high risk of arteriosclerosis, peripheral arterial disease in the limbs, strokes and myocardial infarctions (heart attacks). Also as study of 160,000 women showed the vegetarian half in the study had 17% less osteoporosis aged 80 years than the meat eaters going against the idea that no meat equals “frailness”.

Things get even more interesting if we look at the ‘bigger picture’. We can do this by seeing how other societies have adapted to the ‘western diet’ that is inevitably higher in meat. Industrialisation in China has gone hand in hand with higher meat consumption and much higher heart disease and cancer. It has now been shown that eating between five and seven portions of fruit and vegetables a day protects against heart disease and cancer, the most recent Lancet study particularly recommending “greens” (broccoli, sprouts etc.) as cancer protective. The availability of these healthy fruit and veg options has been attributed as the major reason for a reduction in these conditions in Eastern Europe since the Berlin wall fell, from a diet that used to largely consist of meat and starch. Scotland has one of the highest incidences of heart disease in the world and so it is appropriate to bring these facts to people on Skye’s attention. More than one in four of us are likely to get cancer for instance, and surely it makes sense to protect ourselves against it, using the information from scientific research?

Why does this make sense? Let’s take cancer first. Red meat often remains poorly digested in the human bowel and has been associated with a higher incidence of bowel cancer. Japanese women who have a diet high in Soya protein have a lower incidence of breast cancer, and it seems likely these findings would also be true for Caucasian women. Prostate cancer is far higher among male eaters of animal fat, and so presents a similar story. Secondly, animal fat (“saturated” fat) tends to lead to higher levels of cholesterol in the blood, which blocks up arteries and this leads to heart disease and narrowing of other large arteries in the brain and limbs. Being obese accelerates the process. Fruit and vegetables are high in natural antioxidants such as bioflavanoids, which delay the aging process by stopping free radicals (highly active toxic molecules) from ravaging our bodies. So eating more fruit and veg and less meat helps keep you young and healthy.

Being a vegetarian protects you from other diseases too, ones that travel across the food chain. You do not need to be an epidemiologist, a researcher of the patterns of disease, to realize that disease thrives when potential victims are living in poor conditions. Factory farming has led to outbreaks of epidemics among animals, which can spread to humans. Providing meat based diets for vegetarian farm animals is thought to have led to the emergence of BSE in cattle and the human equivalent (the rare condition called Jacob Creutzfeld disease); where the central nervous system becomes like a sponge, and movement and intellectual activity collapse. Deterioration can be slow or rapid, and the condition is fatal. It is well known that eating factory-farmed chicken leads to salmonella and campylobacter infections, resulting in gastro-enteritis and the risk of infecting others. ‘Bird Flu’ is now hitting the news, and I expect it will not be over soon, partly because of the hellish condition of chickens that are raised in overcrowded cages has not changed. Indeed, a recent study showed that 80% of chickens in British supermarkets, suffer ammonia burns from excrement

I usually recommend that my patients eat the recommended five to seven portions of fruit and veg a day. Some people start by experimenting with a few meals without meat. On discovering food still tastes good, they then ease slowly into their new diet, dropping red meat first, then white meat, then finally fish. Other people, as in my own case, drop meat all at once. Whatever works for you. Just being vegetarian does not mean you do not need to worry about fat any more. It is a good idea to watch how much fat you eat initially, as the vegetarian option in a meat-eating restaurant is often something with cheese or egg, which can be quite fatty. You get all the protein you need if you eat a “pulse” (bean, chickpea, pea, or lentil) with a “grain” (rice, bread, quinoa, couscous). Indians on the subcontinent have been eating dal and rice dishes for centuries, but I like beans on toast as an easy healthy meal. Eat low fat cottage cheese and drink skimmed or semi-skimmed milk. Also providing all the protein (all eight essential amino acids) you need is contained in the following combinations – rice, potato and sweet corn, and also sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds combined. Tofu made from bean curd is almost a complete protein food in itself, although better eaten with a grain and some flavouring. Egg white is all protein and no fat if you do eat eggs. Boil an egg and eat the hard boiled white in a salad or curry. Give the yolk to a pet if you like, or eat two a week as a rough maximum. The yolk is high in cholesterol (although this may not actually raise the cholesterol levels in your body too much after all, it is now thought). Certainly it is perfectly possible to safely become vegetarian overnight, but watch the cheese and egg quantities you switch to, incorporating other vegetable proteins as alternatives. We are lucky on the west coast of Scotland is having a wide range of healthy produce, and eating it not only tastes good, and supports local producers, but can help prolong your life.

In my experience, children brought up on vegetarian diets are not lacking in nutrients. I would not hesitate to bring children up as vegetarian, as I believe it to be the healthiest option. An American study showed vegetarian youngsters are lean, and score highly in cardio-respiratory endurance tests, which relates to their stamina. I became vegetarian when I was seventeen, and found that I really didn’t miss meat. I think the fact I was vegetarian helped me cope with four a levels, six years of medical school, then 120 hour a week schedules as a houseman. I certainly needed all the stamina I could get! So for any parent who is worried about the consequences of their child turning vegetarian, please don’t be. Providing the balance is sensible, your child is likely to be healthier without meat (especially if Vitamin B12 and possibly iron are supplemented at recommended daily doses with this diet, these being cheap and widely available).

What’s the alternative? Today animals are often farmed in factories. There is no factory farming here on Skye, but the carcasses are available in the shops, at a cheaper price then more healthily produced meat. Make sure you spend your money wisely. For factory farmed animals are pumped up full of drugs and hormones. As we are higher up the food chain are exposed to environmental toxins that animals have ingested, such as PCB’s, which will stay in our bodies and can’t be eliminated easily. No one can avoid these pollutants, which are found even in ice at the poles, but we can at least reduce our exposure. Needless to say organic food is a way to reduce this although that’s a different story. If such chemicals mimic human hormones, aspects of you can be affected. For instance, gender-bender chemicals are thought to have caused male fish with female genitalia to turn up in our rivers. Many people find they put on weight when eating factory-farmed meat. One wonders, looking across the Atlantic, whether the American diet of heavily hormone treated meat has resulted in the rapid growth of obesity there? It is worth noting that the general population has eaten large volumes of hormone-treated meat only for the last couple of generations. Obesity is now bulging in Scotland, with many implications not just for the individual, but also for the overstretched resources of our healthcare system. The connection between hormone-treated meat and obesity is a tentative one, based on my observation. I cannot quote you a scientific study, and we might be waiting for a while, due to the moneymaking interests involved in keeping the system as it is. Meanwhile, you may decide that hormone-treated meat is not the best thing for your child – or you. You would be right, I believe.

There are however more good reasons for becoming vegetarian. An obvious one is that we don’t need to eat meat in Scotland. We are not living in an extreme environment, and live in times of relative prosperity giving us enormous choice about what we eat. If moral questions are important, and I believe they are, why buy into the killing of overcrowded and stressed animals, when you don’t have to? Is it really fair to kill at all our fellow sentient creatures for food? Pigs, for example, are sensitive creatures neurologically, and have many more different types of taste bud than we do. This makes them certainly more sensitive to taste, so why should they feel any less pain? It is worth thinking about when you are eating a bacon buttie, choosing a ham sandwich or snacking on pork scratchings. Eating animals is actually cruel and for us unnecessary. We don’t need to be. We have extremely few natural predators and don’t need to use violence against animals to survive ourselves. So why do we, if it’s bad for us and bad for them? Is it just habit? Habits can be changed.

This leads to my last point. If you can control one appetite, it is easier to control another. Becoming vegetarian, or even enjoying more meals without meat, gives the confidence to know you can kick other unwanted habits and addictions such as drinking too much, smoking too much or taking drugs. Indeed the results of these habits seem to make up an inordinate amount of my work as an emergency doctor over the Highlands and Islands at weekends. If you become vegetarian you will demonstrate self-discipline to yourself and others, which will roll out into the other areas of your life. You will also be likely to be helping your health, helping our fellow creatures and our local producers of fruit and veg. Isn’t that worth the price of a pizza without meat"?

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