TIME Cover Story on Vegetarianism

[Guest guest]

>It's incredible! The cover story of Time magazine this week asks " Should You

>Be A Vegetarian? " The inside story, posted below, is titled " Should We All Be

>Vegetarians? " The article is generally supportive of vegetarianism, although

>anti-vegetarianism positions are also presented.

>

>

>Please craft a letter, no matter how small, as soon as possible, to the

>editor.

>Write to letters

>

>It's very important that TIME receives a lot of pro-vegetarian letters as a

>result of this cover story. Please take a few minutes to submit a letter to

>TIME, thanking them for printing articles about this important issue and

>letting readers know how easy and rewarding it is to become vegetarian. You

>might stress connections to hunger and global warming and other issues that

>the article ignores or does not give adequate attention to. Letters

>should be sent to:

>letters (Please include your name, address, and phone number so your

>letter may be verified if selected for printing. It's best to keep it under

>150 words.) The articles can be accessed at:

>http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020715/index.html

>

>====================

>http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,300595,00.html

>

>Should We All Be Vegetarians?

>Would we be healthier? Would the planet? The risks and benefits of a

>meat-free life

>

>BY RICHARD CORLISS

>

>FIVE REASONS TO EAT MEAT:

>1) It tastes good

>2) It makes you feel good

>3) It's a great American tradition

>4) It supports the nation's farmers

>5) Your parents did it

>

>Oh, sorry ... those are five reasons to smoke cigarettes. Meat is more

>complicated. It's a food most Americans eat virtually every day: at the

>dinner table; in the cafeteria; on the barbecue patio; with mustard at a

>ballpark; or, a billion times a year, with special sauce, lettuce,

>cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame-seed bun. Beef is, the TV

>commercials say, " America's food " -the Stars and Stripes served up medium

>rare-and as entwined with the nation's notion of its robust frontier heritage

>as, well, the Marlboro Man.

>

>But these days America's cowboys seem a bit small in the saddle. Those cattle

>they round up have become politically incorrect: for many, meat is an obscene

>cuisine. It's not just the additives and ailments

>connected with the consumption of beef, though a dish of hormones, E.

>coli bacteria or the scary specter of mad-cow disease might be effective

>enough as an appetite suppressant. It's that more and more Americans,

>particularly young Americans, have started engaging in a practice that would

>once have shocked their parents. They are eating their vegetables. Also their

>grains and sprouts. Some 10 million Americans today consider themselves to be

>practicing vegetarians, according to a Time poll of 10,000 adults; an

>additional 20 million have flirted with vegetarianism sometime in their past.

>

>To get a taste of the cowboy's ancient pride, and current defensiveness, just

>click on South Dakota cattleman Jody Brown's website, www.ranchers.net, and

>read the new meat mantras: " Vegetarians don't live

>longer, they just look older " ; and " If animals weren't meant to be

>eaten, then why are they made out of meat? " (One might ask the same of

>humans.) For Brown and his generation of unquestioning meat eaters, dinner is

>something the parents put on the table and the kids put in their bodies. Of

>his own kids, he says, " We expect them to eat a little of everything. " So

>beef is served nearly every night at the Brown

>homestead, with nary a squawk from Jeff, 17, Luke, 13, and Hannah, 11. But

>Jody admits to at least one liberal sympathy. " If a vegetarian got a flat

>tire in my community, " he says, " I'd come out and help him. "

>

>For the rancher who makes his living with meat or the vegetarian whose

>diet could someday drive all those breeder-slaughterers to bankruptcy,

>nothing is simple any more. Gone is the age of American innocence, or

>naivete, when such items as haircuts and handshakes, family names and

>school uniforms, farms and zoos, cowboys and ranchers, had no particular

>political meaning. Now everything is up for rancorous debate. And no

>aspect of our daily lives-our lives as food consumers-gets more heat

>than meat.

>

>For millions of vegetarians, beef is a four-letter word; veal summons

>charnel visions of infanticide. Many children, raised on hit films like

>Babe and Chicken Run, recoil from eating their movie heroes and switch

>to what the meat defeaters like to call a " nonviolent diet. "

>Vegetarianism resolves a conscientious person's inner turf war by

>providing an edible complex of

>good-deed-doing: to go veggie is to be more humane. Give up meat, and

>save lives!

>

>Of course, one of the lives you could save or at least prolong is your

>own. For vegetarianism should be about more than not eating; it's also

>about smart eating. You needn't be a born-again foodist to think this.

>The American Dietetic Association, a pretty centrist group, has

>proclaimed that " appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful,

>are nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention

>and treatment of certain diseases. "

>

>So, how about it? Should we all become vegetarians? Not just teens but

>also infants, oldsters, athletes-everyone? Will it help us live longer,

>healthier lives? Does it work for people of every age and level of work

>activity? Can we find the right vegetarian diet and stick to it? And if

>we can do it, will we?

>

>There are as many reasons to try vegetarianism as there are soft-eyed

>cows and soft-hearted kids. To impressionable young minds, vegetarianism

>can sound sensible, ethical and-as nearly 25% of adolescents polled by

>Teenage Research Unlimited said- " cool. " College students think so too. A

>study conducted by Arizona State University psychology professors

>Richard Stein and Carol Nemeroff reported that, sight unseen, salad

>eaters were rated more moral, virtuous and considerate than steak

>eaters. " A century ago, a high-meat diet was thought to be

>health-favorable, " says Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania.

> " Kids today are the first generation to live in a culture where

>vegetarianism is common, where it is publicly promoted on health and

>ecological grounds. " And kids, as any parent can tell you, spur the

>consumer economy; that explains in part the burgeoning sales of veggie

>burgers (soy, bulgur wheat, cooked rice, mushrooms, onions and

>flavorings in Big Mac drag) in supermarkets and fast-food chains.

>

>Children, who are signing on to vegetarianism much faster than adults,

>may be educating their parents. Vegetarian food sales are savoring

>double-digit growth. Top restaurants have added more meatless dishes.

>Trendy " living foods " or " raw " restaurants are sprouting up, like

>Roxanne's in Larkspur, Calif., where no meat, fish, poultry or dairy

>items are served, and nothing is cooked to temperatures in excess of

>118?F. " Going to my restaurant, " says Roxanne Klein, " is like going to a

>really cool new country you haven't experienced before. "

>

>Like any country, vegetarianism has its hidden complexities. For one

>thing, vegetarians come in more than half a dozen flavors, from

>sproutarians to pesco-pollo-vegetarians (see box). The most notorious

>are the vegan (rhymes with intriguin' or fatiguin') vegetarians. The

>Green Party of the movement, vegans decline to consume, use or wear any

>animal products. They also avoid honey, since its production demands the

>oppression of worker bees. TV's favorite vegetarian, the cartoon

>8-year-old Lisa Simpson, once had a crush on a fellow who described

>himself as " a Level Five vegan-I don't eat anything that casts a

>shadow. " Among vegan celebrities: the rock star Moby and Ohio

>Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who swore off steak for breakfast and

>insists he feels much better starting his day with miso soup, brown rice

>or oat groats.

>

>To true believers-who refrain from meat as an A.A. member does from

>drink and do a spit-take if told that there's gelatin in their soup-a

>semivegetarian is no vegetarian at all. A phrase like

>pesco-pollo-vegetarian, to them, is an oxymoron, like " lapsed Catholic "

>or " semivirgin. " Vegetarian Times, the bible of this particular

>congregation, lays down the dogma: " For many people who are working to

>become vegetarians, chicken and fish may be transitional foods, but they

>are not vegetarian foods ... the word 'vegetarian' means someone who

>eats no meat, fish or chicken. "

>

>Clear enough? Not to many Americans. In a survey of 11,000 individuals,

>37% of those who responded " Yes, I am a vegetarian " also reported that

>in the previous 24 hours they had eaten red meat; 60% had eaten meat,

>poultry or seafood. Perhaps those surveyed thought a vegetarian is

>someone who, from time to time, eats vegetables as a side dish-say,

>alongside a prime rib. If more than one-third of people in a large

>sample don't know the broadest definition of vegetarian, one wonders how

>they can be trusted with something much more difficult: the full-time

>care and picky-picky feeding of their bodies, whatever their dietary

>preferences.

>

>We know that fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and nuts are healthy.

>There are any number of studies that show that consuming more of these

>plant-based foods reduces the risk for a long list of chronic maladies

>(including coronary artery disease, obesity, diabetes and many cancers)

>and is a probable factor in increased longevity in the industrialized

>world. We know that on average we eat too few fruits and vegetables and

>too much saturated fat, of which meat and dairy are prime contributors.

>We also know that in the real world, real diets-vegetarian and

>nonvegetarian-as consumed by real people range from primly virtuous to

>pig-out voracious. There are meat eaters who eat more and better

>vegetables than vegetarians, and vegetarians who eat more

>artery-clogging fats than meat eaters.

>

>The International Congress on Vegetarian Nutrition, a major conference

>on the subject, was held this spring at Loma Linda (Calif.) University.

>The research papers presented there included some encouraging if

>tentative findings: that a predominantly vegetarian diet may have beneficial

>effects for kidney and nerve function in diabetics, as well as for

>weight loss; that eating more fruits and vegetables can slow, and

>perhaps reverse, age-related declines in brain function and in cognitive

>and motor performance-at least in rats; that vegetarian seniors have a

>lower death rate and use less medication than meat-eating seniors; that

>vegetarians have a healthier total intake of fats and cholesterol but a

>less healthy intake of fatty acids (such as the heart-protecting omega-3

>fatty acids found in fish oil).

>

>But one paper suggested that low-protein diets (associated with

>vegetarians) reduce calcium absorption and may have a negative impact on

>skeletal health. And although several studies on Seventh-Day Adventists

>(typically vegetarians) indicated that they have a longer-than-average life

>expectancy, other studies found that prostate-cancer rates were high in

>Adventists, and one study found that Adventists were more likely to

>suffer hip fractures.

>

>Can it be that vegetarianism is bad for your health? That's a complex

>issue. There's a big, beautiful plant kingdom out there; you ought to be

>able to dine healthily on this botanical bounty. With perfect knowledge,

>you can indeed eat like a king from the vegetable world. But ordinary

>people are not nutrition professionals. While some vegetarians have the

>full skinny on how to watch their riboflavin and vitamins D and B12,

>many more haven't a clue. This is one reason that vegetarians, in a

>study of overall nutrition, scored significantly lower than

>nonvegetarians on the USDA's Healthy Eating Index, which compares actual

>diet with USDA guidelines.

>

>Another reason is that vegans skew the stats, because their strict

>avoidance of meat, eggs and dairy products can lead to deficiencies in

>iron, calcium and vitamin B12. " These nutrients are the problem, " says

>Johanna Dwyer, a professor of nutrition and medicine at Tufts

>University. " At least among the vegans who are also philosophically

>opposed to fortified foods and/or vitamin and mineral supplements. "

>

>Debates about the efficacy of vegetarianism follow us from cradle to

>wheelchair. In 1998 child-care expert Dr. Benjamin Spock, who became a

>vegetarian late in life, stoked a stir by recommending that children

>over the age of 2 be raised as vegans, rejecting even milk and eggs. The

>American Dietetic Association says it is possible to raise kids as

>vegans but cautions that special care must be taken with nursing infants

>(who don't develop properly without the nutrients in mother's milk or

>fortified formula). Other researchers warn that infants breast-fed by

>vegans have lower levels of vitamin B12 and DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid),

>important to vision and growth.

>

>And there is always the chance of vegetarian theory gone madly wrong in

>practice. A Queens, N.Y., couple were indicted last May for first-degree

>assault, charged with nearly starving their toddler to death on a strict

>diet of juices, ground nuts, herbal tea, beans, flaxseed and cod-liver

>oils. At 16 months, the girl weighed 10 lbs., less than half the normal

>weight of a child her age. Their lawyer's defense: " They felt that they

>have their own lifestyle. They're vegetarians. " The couple declined to

>plea-bargain, and are still in jail awaiting trial.

>

>Many children decide on their own to become vegetarians and are

>declaring their preference at ever more precocious ages; it's often

>their first act of domestic rebellion. But a youngster is at a

>disadvantage insisting on a rigorous cuisine before he or she can cook

>food-or buy it or even read-and when the one whose menu is challenged is

>the parent: nurturer, disciplinarian and executive chef. Alicia Hurtado

>of Oak Park, Ill., has been a vegetarian half her life-she's 8 now-and

>mother Cheryle mostly indulges her daughter's diet. Still, Mom

>occasionally sneaks a little chicken broth into Alicia's pasta dishes.

> " When she can read labels, " Cheryle says, " I'll be out of luck. "

>

>By adolescence, kids can read the labels but often ignore the

>ingredients. Research shows that calcium intake is often insufficient in

>American teens. By contrast, lacto-ovo teens usually have abundant

>calcium intake. For vegans, however, consuming adequate amounts of

>calcium without the use of fortified foods or supplements is difficult

>without careful dietary planning. Among vegan youth who do not take

>supplements, there is reason for concern with respect to iron, calcium,

>vitamins D and B12, and perhaps also selenium and iodine.

>

>For four years Christina Economos has run the Tufts longitudinal health

>study on young adults, a comprehensive survey of lifestyle habits among

>undergraduates. In general, she finds that " kids who were most

>influenced by family diet and health values are eating healthy

>vegetarian or low-meat diets. But there is a whole group of students who

>decide to become vegetarians and do it in a poor way. The ones who do it

>badly don't know how to navigate in the vegetarian world. They eat more

>bread, cheese and pastry products and load up on salad dressing. Their

>saturated-fat intake is no lower than red-meat eaters, and they are more

>likely to consume inadequate amounts of vitamin B12 and protein. They

>may think they are healthier because they are some sort of vegetarian

>and they don't eat red meat, but in fact they may be less healthy. "

>

>Jenny Woodson, 20, now a junior at Duke, has been a vegetarian from way

>back. At 6, on a trip to McDonald's, she ordered a tossed salad. When

>Jenny lived in a dorm at high school, she quickly realized that teens do

>not live on French fries and broccoli alone. " We ended up making

>vegetarian sandwiches with bagels and ingredients from the salad bar,

>cheese fries and stuffed baked potatoes with cottage cheese. " Jenny and

>her friends were careful to avoid high-fat, calorie-laden fare at the

>salad bar, but for those who don't exercise restraint, salad-bar fixings

>can become vegetarian junk food.

>

>Maggie Ellinger-Locke, 19, of the St. Louis, Mo., suburb of University

>City, has been a vegetarian for eight years and went vegan at 15. Since

>then she has not worn leather or wool products or slept under a down

>comforter. She has not used cups or utensils that have touched meat. " It

>felt like we were keeping kosher, " says Maggie's mother Linda, who isn't

>Jewish. At high school Maggie was ridiculed, even shoved to the ground,

>by teen boys who apparently found her eating habits threatening. She

>found a happy ending, of sorts, enrolling at Antioch College, where she

>majors in ecofeminism. " Here, " she says, " the people on the defensive

>are the ones who eat meat. "

>

>Maggie hit a few potholes on the road to perfection. Until recently, she

>smoked up to two packs of cigarettes a day (cigarettes, after all, are

>plants fortified with nicotine), quitting only because she didn't want

>to support the tobacco business. And she freely admits to an eating

>disorder: for the past year she has been bulimic, bingeing and vomiting

>sometimes as much as once a day to cope with stress. But she insists she

>is true to her beliefs: even when bingeing, she remains dedicated to vegan

>consumption.

>

>The American Dietetic Association found that vegetarian diets are

>slightly more common among adolescents with eating problems but that

> " recent data suggest that adopting a vegetarian diet does not lead to

>eating disorders. " It can be argued that most American teens already

>have an eating disorder-fast food, soft drinks and candy are a blueprint

>for obesity and heart trouble. Why should teens be expected to purge

>their bad habits just because they have gone veggie? Still, claims Simon

>Chaitowitz of the pro-vegetarian and animal-rights group Physicians

>Committee for Responsible Medicine, " Kids are better off being junk-food

>vegetarians than junk-food meat eaters. "

>

>Maybe. According to Dr. Joan Sabate, chairman of the Loma Linda

>nutrition conference, there are still concerns over vegetarian diets for

>growing kids or lactating women. When you are in what he calls " a state

>of high metabolic demand, " any diet that excludes foods makes it harder

>to meet nutrient requirements. But he is quick to add that " for the

>average sedentary adult living in a Western society, a vegetarian diet

>meets dietary needs and prevents chronic diseases better than an

>omnivore diet. "

>

>Like kids and nursing moms, athletes need to be especially smart eaters.

>Their success depends on bursts of energy, sustained strength and muscle

>mass, factors that require nutrients more easily obtained from meat. For

>this reason, relatively few top athletes are vegetarians. Besides, says

>sports nutritionist Suzanne Girard Eberle, the author of Endurance

>Sports Nutrition, " lots of athletes have no idea how their bodies work.

>That's why fad diets and supplements are so attractive to them. "

>

>Eberle notes that vegetarian diets done correctly are high in fiber and

>low in fat. " But where are the calories? " she asks. " World-class

>endurance athletes need in excess of 5,000 or 6,000 calories a day.

>Competition can easily consume 10,000. You need to eat a lot of

>plant-based food to get those calories. Being a vegetarian athlete is

>hard, really hard to do right. "

>

>It's not that easy for the rest of America, either. Middle-aged to

>elderly adults can also develop deficiencies in a vegetarian diet (as

>they can, of course, with a poor diet that includes meat). Deficiencies

>in vitamins D and B12 and in iodine, which can lead to goiter, are

>common. The elderly tend to compensate by taking supplements, but that

>approach carries risks. Researchers have found cases in which vegetarian

>oldsters, who are susceptible to iodine deficiency, had dangerously high

>and potentially toxic levels of iodine in their bodies because they

>overdid the supplements.

>

>Meat producers acknowledge that vegetarian diets can be healthy. They

>also have responded to the call for leaner food; the National Pork Board

>says that, compared with 20 years ago, pork is on average 31% lower in

>fat and 29% lower in saturated fat, and has 14% fewer calories and 10%

>less cholesterol. But the defenders of meat and dairy can also go on the

>offensive. They mention the need for B12. And then they ratchet up the

>fear factor. Kurt Graetzer, ceo of the Milk Processor Education Program,

>scans the drop in milk consumption (not only by vegans but by kids who

>prefer soda, Snapple and Fruitopia) and declares, " We are virtually

>developing a generation of osteoporotic children. "

>

>Dr. Michelle Warren, a professor of medicine at New York Presbyterian

>Medical Center in New York City-and a member of the Council for Women's

>Nutrition Solutions, which is sponsored by the National Cattlemen's Beef

>Association-expresses concern about calcium deficiency connected with a

>vegan diet: " The most serious consequences are low bone mass and

>osteoporosis. That is a permanent condition. " Warren says that in her

>practice, she has seen young vegetarians with irregular periods and loss

>of hair. " And there's a peculiar color, a yellow tinge to the skin, "

>that occurs in people who eat a lot of vegetables rich in beta carotene

>in combination with a low-calorie diet. " I think it's very

>unattractive. " She also is troubled by the reasons some young

>vegetarians give for their choice of diet. One female patient, Warren

>says, wouldn't eat meat because she was told it was the reason her

>father had a heart attack.

>

>Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the

>Public Interest in Washington, sees most of the meat and dairy lobby's

>arguments as desperate, disingenuous scare stories. " It unmasks the

>industry's self-interest, " he says, " when it voices concern about B12

>while hundreds of thousands of people are dying prematurely because of

>too much saturated fat from meat and dairy products. " Indeed, according

>to David Pimentel, a Cornell ecologist, the average American consumes

>112 grams of protein a day, twice the amount recommended by the National

>Academy of Sciences. " This has implications for cancer risks and stress

>on the urinary system, " says Pimentel. " And with this protein comes a

>lot of fat. Fully 40% of our calories-and heavy cardiovascular

>risks-come from fat. "

>

>Pimentel argues that vegetarianism is much more environment-friendly

>than diets revolving around meat. " In terms of caloric content, the

>grain consumed by American livestock could feed 800 million people-and,

>if exported, would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year. "

>Grain-fed livestock consume 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram

>of food they produce, compared with 2,000 liters for soybeans. Animal

>protein also demands tremendous expenditures of fossil-fuel energy-eight

>times as much as for a comparable amount of plant protein. Put another

>way, says Pimentel, the average omnivore diet burns the equivalent of a

>gallon of gas per day-twice what it takes to produce a vegan diet. And

>the U.S. livestock population-cattle, chickens, turkeys, lambs, pigs and

>the rest-consumes five times as much grain as the U.S. human population.

>But then there are 7 billion of them; they outnumber us 25 to 1.

>

>In the spirit of fair play to cowboy Jody Brown and his endangered

>breed, let's entertain two arguments in favor of eating meat. One is

>that it made us human. " We would never have evolved as large, socially

>active hominids if we hadn't turned to meat, " says Katharine Milton, an

>anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley. The vegetarian

>primates (orangutans and

>gorillas) are less social than the more omnivorous chimpanzees, possibly

>because collecting and consuming all that forage takes so darned much

>time. The early hominids took a bold leap: 2.5 million years ago, they

>were cracking animal bones to eat the marrow. They ate the protein-rich

>muscle tissue, says Milton, " but also the rest of the animal-liver,

>marrow, brains-with their high concentrations of other nutrients.

>Evolving humans ate it all. "

>

>Just as important, they knew why they were eating it. In Milton's

>elegant phrase, " Solving dietary problems with your head is the

>trajectory of the primate order. " Hominids grew big on meat, and smart

>on that lovely brain-feeder, glucose, which they got from fruit, roots

>and tubers. This diet of meat and glucose gave early man energy to

>burn-or rather, energy to play house, to sing and socialize, to make

>culture, art, war. And finally, about 10,000 years ago, to master

>agriculture and trade-which provided the sophisticated system that

>modern humans can use to go vegetarian.

>

>The other reason for beef eating is, hold on, ethical-a matter of animal

>rights. The familiar argument for vegetarianism, articulated by Tom

>Regan, a philosophical founder of the modern animal-rights movement, is

>that it would save Babe the pig and Chicken Run's Ginger from execution.

>But what about Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse? asks Steven Davis, professor

>of animal science at Oregon State University, pointing to the number of

>field animals inadvertently killed during crop production and harvest.

>One study showed that simply mowing an alfalfa field caused a 50%

>reduction in the gray-tailed vole population. Mortality rates increase

>with each pass of the tractor to plow, plant and harvest. Rabbits, mice

>and pheasants, he says, are the indiscriminate " collateral damage " of

>row crops and the grain industry.

>

>By contrast, grazing (not grain-fed) ruminants such as cattle produce

>food and require fewer entries into the fields with tractors and other

>equipment. Applying (and upending) Regan's least-harm theory, Davis

>proposes a ruminant-pasture model of food production, which would

>replace poultry and pork production with beef, lamb and dairy products.

>According to his calculations, such a model would result in the deaths

>of 300 million fewer animals annually (counting both field animals and

>cattle) than would a completely vegan model. When asked about Davis'

>arguments, Regan, however, still sees a distinction: " The real question

>is whether to support production systems whose very reason for existence

>is to kill animals. Meat eaters do. Ethical vegetarians do not. "

>

>The moral: there is no free lunch, not even if it's vegetarian. For now,

>man is perched at the top of the food chain and must live with his

>choice to feed on the living things further down. But even to raise the

>question of a harvester Hiroshima is to show how far we have come in

>considering the humane treatment of that which is not human. And we

>still have a way to go. " It may take a while, " says actress and

>vegetarian Mary Tyler Moore, " but there will probably come a time when

>we look back and say, 'Good Lord, do you believe that in the 20th

>century and early part of the 21st, people were still eating animals?' "

>

>It may take a very long while. For most people, meat still does taste

>good. And can " America's food " ever be tofu?

>

>-Reported by Melissa August and Matthew Cooper/Washington, David

>Bjerklie and Lisa McLaughlin/New York, Wendy Cole/Chicago and Jeffrey

>Ressner/ Los Angeles

>

>

>Richard H. Schwartz, PhD

>Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island

>2800 Victory Boulevard, Staten Island, NY 10314

>Phone: (718) 761-5876 Fax: (718) 982-3631

>E-mail RSCHW12345

>Author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, Judaism and Global Survival, and

>Mathematics and Global Survival.

>Over 100 articles at http://jewishveg.com/schwartz