WHEN THE RUSSIAN woman accepted Leo Tolstoy's invitation to dinner, she was hardly prepared for what she found at the table—a live chicken tied to her chair. "My conscience for bids me to kill it," Tolstoy, a committed vegetarian, told his meat-eating visitor. "As you are the only guest taking meat, I would be greatly obliged if you would undertake the killing first."
The story, which does not go on to tell if the woman did kill the chicken, is tribute to the dedication that many vegetarians bring to their adopted life style. For some, the pursuit of vegetarianism is almost a noble commitment. "I hold flesh food to be unsuited to our species," said Gandhi. "We err in copying the lower animal world—if we are superior to it." The register of vegetarians reads like a diversified Who's Who: Voltaire, Milton, Newton, Shelley, Schweitzer, and George Bernard Shaw were all vegetarians. More recently, such celebrities as Dennis Weaver, Glint Walker, Paul Newman, Dick Gregory, and Samantha Eggar have converted to non-flesh diets.
To the meat eater, the first, and very puzzling, question is why. Why give up the steak, the barbecued spareribs, the pork roast, the Thanksgiving turkey, the hamburger, and the hot dog? There is a myriad of reasons why people do so:
- Most vegetarians live below the poverty level. They simply cannot afford the high price of meat;
- Followers of certain religions and philosophies exclude flesh foods from their diets because they believe eating meat hinders their spiritual develop ment, or because it is contrary to their religious edicts;
- Health faddists think that meat, as well as all processed or refined "super-market" foods, are harmful to the body;
- Some pacifists believe that killing and eating animals is inconsistent with their ethical or social consciences;
- Recent emphasis on ecology has convinced many that using meat as a primary protein source is an arrogant exploitation of the earth's finite re sources.
The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that less than 5 per cent of the country's population is predominantly vegetarian; even so, that figure represents more than 10 million people. A second question comes naturally: Is a vegetarian diet nutritionally sound?
It certainly didn't hurt the Danes during World War I, when Denmark virtually became a meatless country be cause of the British naval blockade. Nutritionists who studied the people during the war concluded that general health had significantly improved. Similarly, Norway had to adopt a vegetarian diet during World War II, and there was a significant drop in heart disease. Both nations, however, reverted to meat diets as soon as the crises passed and subsequent studies showed that the temporary health advantages apparently subsided.
We Americans, too, have been conditioned to believe that only a meat-based diet can provide the adequate nutrition necessary for good health. Traditionally, we have been a nation of carnivores, consuming an average one-half pound of meat, per person, every day (the Japanese eat an average of only one-half pound of meat per month, per person). In 1973, Americans devoured 176 pounds of meat per person—66 times more than in the average Indian diet. In fact, McDonald's—the fast-food ham burger franchise—uses more beef per year than is consumed by the entire populations of countries such as Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
Until recently, even many scientists were accustomed to classifying meats as "first-class" proteins, and vegetables as "second-class" proteins, thereby implying that non-animal sources of protein were somehow inferior in quality. The most current medical and scientific evidence, however, points to other considerations:
- Man can subsist perfectly well on a proper nonflesh diet;
- Statistically, vegetarians in the United States are thinner, healthier, and may live longer than meat eaters;
- Meat, especially in the large quantities Americans are accustomed to eating, may be harmful to the body;
- Protein from nonflesh foods can be an adequate nutritional substitute for meat protein.
Protein is essential to life: It is the substance that the body uses to build and replenish its organs, skin, cartilage, nails, hair, muscles, and the organic framework of bones. The proteins that our bodies use are composed of 22 amino acids, not all of which must come from the diet. The human metabolic system can synthesize (combine by uniting chemical elements) 14 of these 22 amino acids, but the remaining 8 must be obtained from food sources outside the body. Hence their name the essential amino acids.
To be useful to a person, the totality of food proteins must be "complete" that is, all eight essential amino acids must be ingested simultaneously, and in the right proportion. Incomplete proteins cannot be used to build muscle and tissue; they often end up as stored fat or are utilized for energy.
Meat is a complete protein because all eight essential amino acids are present in the proper proportion. Vegetable foods, however, may be incomplete proteins, lacking the minimum requirement of one or more of these eight amino acids.
But it is possible to satisfy your protein needs by a proper intermixing of vegetable proteins, according to El wood Speckmann, Ph.D., director of the nutrition research program for the National Dairy Council. "You have to be careful and make sure you use the right combinations," explains Dr. Speckmann. "It's simply easier to meet your protein needs with animal foods, such as meat, milk, and eggs."
In Diet for a Small Planet, Francis Moore Lappe offers some suggestions for combining vegetables to good advantage. Wheat, which has a deficiency in the amino acid lysine but an abundance of sulfur-containing amino acids, can be combined with beans, which have the opposite enrichment combination. Taken together, they complement each other to form a "complete" protein.
"Certainly some vegetable proteins, if fed as the sole source of protein, are of relatively low value for promoting growth," the editors of the British medical journal Lancet wrote in 1959. "But many field trials have shown that proteins provided by suitable mixtures of vegetable origin enable children to grow as well as children provided with milk and other animal protein."
Nutritionists use two criteria in evaluating protein sources: quality and quantity. Quality refers to the useability of protein by the body (not all of them can be used). This factor is expressed on a scale of 0 to 100. Quantity is the pro portion of useable protein to total weight and is expressed as a percentage. The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) gives meat a protein quality rating of 67—higher than that of most plant proteins, with the exception of whole rice (70), but below that of cheese (70), fish (80), milk (82), and eggs (95). In terms of quantity, 20 to 30 percent of the total weight of flesh food is useable protein—lamb rates the lower figure and turkey the higher one— the rest is water, fat, and trace minerals. On the other hand, soybean flour is 40 percent protein; Parmesan cheese, 36 percent; many nuts and seeds, be tween 20 and 30 percent; and peas, lentils, and dried beans, between 20 and 25 percent. Grains are fairly low in quantity but, surprisingly, so are milk (4 percent) and eggs (13 percent).
(There are other rating systems for food protein, also. The Food and Drug Administration uses a protein efficiency ratio [PER] as a quality standard for protein in nutritional labeling. Foods, such as meat and eggs, which are above a 2.5 PER, are considered excellent sources of protein; those, such as vegetables, which are below a 2.5 PER, are considered poor sources. The National Livestock Meat Board rates meats both raw and cooked, on the basis of protein quantity. A serving of broiled, lean round steak is 31 percent protein; raw, the same piece of meat contains 22 per cent. Choice-grade leg of lamb cooked, is 25 percent protein; raw, 18 percent.)
What all this means is that, in general, one has to eat proportionately less meat in order to obtain the same amount of useable protein than if relying on vegetable sources, but that nonflesh alternatives are perfectly adequate. Balanced against this, however, are the disadvantages of a heavily meat-laced diet.
The first problem most American meat eaters face is not a deficiency of proteins, but an excess. Nutritionists have established that a 154-pound man needs 43.1 grams of useable proteins and 2,800 calories per day for adequate nutrition; a 128-pound woman also needs 43.1 grams of protein, but only 2,000 calories.
A number of nutritional studies have concluded that lacto, lacto-ovo, and pure vegetarians who eat a proper diet consistently meet their protein and caloric needs but do not significantly exceed them. Most meat eaters, however, consistently exceed their limits and, as a consequence, tend to weigh more.
"Forty percent of the fat in our diets comes from meat," says Frederick Stare, M.D., chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Meat is about 4 percent saturated fat, or cholesterol. With the exception of eggs, nonflesh foods have no cholesterol. The consequences of meat and nonmeat diets were measured in a study con ducted by Dr. Frederick Stare and Mervyn Hardinge, M.D., dean of the Loma Linda School of Health, Loma Linda, California. The results showed that vegetarians had consistently lower levels of serum cholesterol than did meat eaters.
The effect of meat additives on human health also is a point of contention among scientists. In 1971, for example, Charles Edwards, M.D., former com missioner of the Food and Drug Administration, testified before a House committee on nutrition that sodium nitrate —a meat preservative—is potentially dangerous to small children, can deform the fetus in pregnant women, and can cause serious damage in anemic per sons. Dr. Edwards, currently secretary of health in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, also said the additive may be carcinogenic, or cancer causing.
But Harvard's Dr. Stare says no carcinogenic agents are used in preserving meat. "Sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate have probably been used longer than any other type of preservatives," he explains. "And there is no evidence, which I know of, that they are carcinogenic."
Some studies, however, indicate a strong correlation between a meat diet and cancer of the colon. "Animal protein tends to create anaerobic bacteria in the intestinal tract, and these anaerobic bacteria tend to convert bile acids into carcinogenic compounds," explains U. D. Register, Ph.D., chairman of the nutrition department at the Loma Linda School of Health.
And there are some indications that meat is highly susceptible to bacteria growth and food spoilage.
Meat eaters also may be bothered by poor absorption and elimination. Food with a low fiber content, such as meat, moves sluggishly through the digestive tract, making stools dry and hard to pass. But vegetables retain moisture and bind waste bulk for easy passage.
But still the question remains: Is a vegetarian diet healthier than a meat diet? Nutritionists have yet to agree on an answer. Advocates of vegetarianism frequently cite unsubstantiated evidence and present "testimonials" about the relative superiority of a nonmeat diet, often claiming "miraculous" cures for asthma, poor eyesight, and even cancer. While such claims may be sincere, they have not been proved.
Scientific evidence suggesting the superiority of a vegetarian diet is offered, not by nutritionists, but by anthropologists. Field investigations of certain nonmeat cultures have documented the excellent health and longevity enjoyed by people such as the Hunzas of Northern Pakistan and the Otomi Indians of Central Mexico. Heart diseases and many forms of cancer appear to be Western diseases in that they are practically unknown in some underdeveloped countries where meat is not part of the diet. That lower incidence, however, may result from the very different life-style.
Last year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began a $1 million, five-year study to determine what role vegetarianism plays in health. The subject: 100,000 Seventh-day Adventists who neither drink, smoke, nor eat meat, and use limited amounts of coffee and tea.
"Our studies have revealed that the Seventh-day Adventist vegetarians are healthier than the average Californian," says Dr. Mervyn Hardinge. "There is virtually no lung cancer—in fact, a lower incidence of all forms of cancer. Heart disease is significantly less and, when it does occur, it is an average of 10 years later than in other Californians. Adventist males live/6.2 years longer than the average California male, and women 3.5 years longer."
The differences have been substantiated, says Dr. Hardinge. The purpose of the NIH study is to see if they are linked, in any way, to a meatless diet.
Other nutritionists are unconvinced of the superiority of vegetarianism. "From a standpoint of nutrition, I don't think vegetarianism is superior," says Hilda White, Ph.D., a consultant in nutrition and instructor at Northern Illinois University. "However, there is no reason why vegetarianism cannot be an alternative to a meat-based diet. It's just that I can't think of any nutritional reason that would stop me from eating meat."
Unfortunately, certain vegetarian diets can lead to serious nutritional; problems. A strict macrobiotic diet, for example, can induce scurvy, hypoproteinemia, anemia, hypocalcemia, emaciation, and loss of kidney function.
Other equally ill-advised exotic vegetarian diets have resulted in kwashiorkor (a rare protein deficiency that be came endemic with children who were victims of starvation during the Biafran- Nigerian war), marasmus, beri beri, rickets, pellagra, and severe vita min deficiencies.
There are a few basic guidelines that nutritionists recommend for people who are following, or plan to adopt, a vegetarian diet. For those who wish to include dairy products and/or eggs:
Cut "empty" (sugar, fats, oils) calories in half;
Replace meat with increased in take of legumes, nuts, or meat analogs (textured vegetable protein [TVPs] such as soy burgers);
Give up as many refined or processed foods as possible whole foods have greater nutritional value;
Eat more grains and cereals;
Eat a salad every day, adding such things as raw carrots, beet roots, and dried fruits;
Include cottage cheese and low-fat milk in your daily diet, and restrict eggs to no more than four per week;
To retain vitamins and minerals, cook vegetables for the shortest time and in as little water as possible.
Pure vegetarians should make a special effort to:
Increase their intake of leafy green vegetables;
Increase general caloric intake, eating more of everything;
Use either fortified soy milk preparations or take some form of vitamin B12 supplement.
Perhaps it is good to remember that the word vegetarian is not, as one might think, derived from the word vegetable, but from the Latin vegetus, which means "whole, sound, fresh, lively."
Note: Reprinted from the October, 1974, issue of TODAY'S HEALTH, published by the American Medical Association. Used by per mission.