debilitating conditions such as arthritis and osteoporosis. All age groups are increasingly suffering from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer and the other ‘diseases of affluence’. Even more alarming is the growing number of children with serious health problems, particularly childhood obesity, which has reached epidemic proportions. The effects of obesity itself are bad enough but it also acts as a gateway to other diseases – high blood pressure and raised cholesterol levels, asthma, diabetes, heart disease and other conditions. Then there are the potential psychological and social problems from discrimination and bullying.
What’s the Cause? Poor diet and lack of physical exercise are responsible. Meat, dairy products and processed foods containing high levels of saturated animal fat, animal protein, salt, sugar, cholesterol, hormones and growth factors are squarely in the frame.
What’s the Cure? The solution is simple – get on your feet and go vegan! Veggies have lower blood pressure and a whopping 25 to 50 per cent lower risk of dying from heart disease! Vegan diets contain zero cholesterol and much less saturated fat than the typical meat eater’s nosh. Vegans also consume more of the good stuff such as nuts, soluble fibre (from oats and barley), soya proteins and plant sterols. All this means that vegans have much lower levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol (Amercian Dietetic Association). The research is crystal clear, vegans weigh less, suffer less from diabetes, obesity, arthritis, constipation, kidney and gallstones and certain cancers including breast, prostate and colon cancer. People who eat plenty of fruit and vegetables (and pulses – all types of peas, beans and lentils) but little animal fat and animal protein cut their risk of many illnesses 10
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