Concerns About Health, Environment Aiding Spread of Vegetarianism : Nutrition: Vegetarianism continues to gain credibility as cancer-resistant way to live, while meat diets have been increasingly associated with cancer risks.
When Dr. Belur Bhagavan first came to the United States in 1963 new acquaintances were startled by his diet. “People would take me to dinner; I’d tell them ahead of time I was a vegetarian, and they’d find it extremely difficult. They’d ask, ‘How do you manage?’ ” says the chief of pathology at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.
“That seems to have changed,” he says now. “Virtually any place I go, I find something vegetarian to eat.”
Dr. Benjamin Carson, professor of neurosurgery, oncology and pediatrics and director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, has noticed a similar change in attitudes. A vegetarian for 15 years, Carson is “amazed by the number of vegetarians today.” Attending scientific functions in the United States and abroad, he sends word ahead that he requires vegetarian food; at dinners with colleagues he finds, “Everybody is coveting my vegetarian meals.”
Once considered offbeat and impossibly limiting, vegetarianism seems to have gained credibility. Although no one knows exactly how many vegetarians there are, various surveys put the number at anywhere from 2% to 5% of the population, according to Carol Wiley, an associate editor of Vegetarian Times magazine. And the increase in interest is measurable: Readership has tripled in the past few years, she says, and the list of vegetarian restaurants has grown from 300 or 400 to 1,000.
Who are these new vegetarians? A recent survey of the magazine’s 175,000 subscribers showed that most have some college education and are in the middle- or upper-middle-income group. Some of them cite ethical or environmental-economic reasons: They are bothered by the killing or by the high cost--in land and resources--of raising cattle.
But the majority--52%--said that they are vegetarian for health considerations.
Studies of coronary artery disease support the notion that plants are better for our bodies. Foods of animal origin are high in artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fats; plant foods have none of the former, and with the exception of coconuts and palm kernel oils, little of the latter either, unless they are artificially hydrogenated, or hardened.
More recent studies have also correlated high-fat diets with cancer risk, and high-fiber, low-fat, vegetable-rich diets with cancer resistance. Beta carotene--the orange-colored pigment in carrots, sweet potatoes, winter squash and cantaloupe--and cruciferous vegetables, like cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, appear to be especially protective.
“Quite a few well-recognized authorities believe the healthier diet would be one that de-emphasizes meat and emphasizes more plant foods,” says Eleanor Williams, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Maryland, College Park. “If we ate less animal flesh and more plant food, the diet would be lower in fat and greatly improved in the mixture of vitamins and minerals. Americans could improve their diets by eating a lot more vegetables.”
Williams is not a vegetarian; nor does she necessarily recommend it to others. On the other hand, she does not recommend against it either: “Studies show that lacto-ovo vegetarians (who consume eggs and dairy products) are doing quite well as far as diet is concerned,” she says.
Vegans--who consume no foods of animal origin at all--arouse more concern: They need greater sophistication about nutrition in general, and about the special needs of very young children, Williams warns.
More difficult than distinguishing between the various kinds of vegetarians, these days, is determining exactly what the title means to the people who use it. To the purist, a vegetarian is one who eats no meat whatever; but some people who eat poultry define themselves as vegetarians because they eat no red meat; and some who eat fish define themselves as vegetarians because they eat no land-dwelling animals, and others, who eat flesh foods only rarely, may or may not put themselves into the vegetarian category.
Warren Belasco, professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and author of “Appetite for Change,” a book that traces some of the current eating patterns to the counterculture movements of the 1960s and ‘70s, is in the not-quite category: He and his family eat no flesh at home; he does, however, consume poultry in restaurants and in the homes of other people.
“We’re inconsistent,” he says. “So I don’t call myself vegetarian.”
To the degree that he does abstain, however, his motives cover the gamut reported in the Vegetarian Times survey. “I do it partly for health reasons,” he says. “And, I guess there’s some residual guilt about eating animal flesh. But mostly it’s ecological-environmental: Studies of animal husbandry show that enormous resources are required to raise enough grains to feed animals to be used for food.”
About 40% to 50% of Seventh-day Adventists--members of a religious denomination that emphasizes health--are vegetarian: “The reason,” says Carson, who is an Adventist, “is that your body is the temple of God; you should keep it as clean as possible. Common sense almost tells you how to take care of it.”
Slim and healthy all his life, the 38-year-old neurosurgeon is no slimmer or healthier now than he was when he ate meat. And, he points out: “Arnold Schwarzenegger probably eats meat. Mike Tyson probably eats meat. And they’re fine physical specimens. Linebackers in the NFL probably eat meat, and they could crush me with one hand.
“I don’t say that vegetarianism is necessarily going to make one realize his complete potential. But as a physician, I’m aware of a lot of diseases carried by meat. Everyone knows about trichinosis (a parasite in undercooked pork), but there’s also a type of worm in beef, tapeworms in fish, amoebic diseases carried in meat. Also, there’s cholesterol and saturated fat, which clog the arteries. And, there’s a higher incidence of cancer . . . particularly of the bowel” in meat eaters.
Statistics on the health of vegetarians, are spotty. However, studies of Seventh-day Adventists--who do not smoke, drink or eat pork, whether they are vegetarian or not--certainly support the notion that something about the life style is healthier: They are less likely to die of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer than the rest of the population. Their reduced risk of cancer includes not only the mouth and airway sites associated with smoking, but also the colon, rectum and breast, where malignancies are often associated with a high fat diet.
