There is a mountain of available evidence to validate a healthy choice for vegetarianism.  The case is so one sided that it is almost laughable.  Unfortunately, laughable becomes tragic when one considers the slave-like bias towards an animal based diet.  This malady did not happen over night either.  Just as in the years between 1933 and 1960 when tobacco lobbyists bought the right to make us all believe that cigarettes were actually healthy for us, so also the beef industry, and specifically the American Meat Institute has bought the right to make us all believe that we NEED meat as a healthy part of a balanced diet.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We not only do not need meat, but actually it is the cause of a shocking number of premature deaths in America.

Medical research is finding that a balanced vegetarian diet is the healthiest diet.  The Oxford vegetarian Study is a classic demonstration of the truth of this.  This study utilized 11,000 volunteers over a period of 15 years.  Researchers analyzed the effects of a vegetarian diet focusing on issues such as lifespan, heart disease, cancer, and several  other diseases.  The study concluded that "Meat eaters are twice as likely to die from heart disease, have a 60 percent greater risk of dying from cancer and a 30 percent higher risk of death from other causes."

Some one very dear to me once told me matter of factly that:  "Chicken is the only vegetable I eat."  Granted it was said somewhat "tongue in cheek" but that attitude still begs the question: how have we as a country become so dependent on the antibiotic and pesticide-laden corpses of tortured animals?  That is Ingrid Newkirk's apt description of meat, and the simple answer to that question is MONEY, POWER, AND GREED.  When lobbyists are able to put the government in their "hip pocket" so to speak, they then control a barrage of media in favor of whatever it is they have to sell.  They can pay off doctors, the USDA, athletes, etc. to say exactly what they want them to say. Many of us remember the slogan "Beef, real food for real people."  Neal Barnard countered this catchy slogan by saying: "…The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined.  If beef is your idea of "real food for real people" you'd better live real close to a real good hospital."  How right he is.

I have found in my discussions with meat eaters that the majority take a strange position when it comes to their diet.  I have presented large amounts of evidence concerning the benefits of a vegetarian diet, but many whom I have talked to are so set on justifying their bad habit that they dismiss the truckload of evidence with one very weak point and a wave of their hand. One such point that comes up a lot is the supposition that humans have "canine teeth" so therefore meat eating must be the right thing to do.  They would dismiss an avalanche of evidence displaying the superiority of a vegetarian diet regarding health, the environment, and cruelty to animals by making that one weak argument.  Moreover after they grab hold of that one argument they feel that they have won the case and don't want to hear anymore.  It doesn't seem to matter to them that we really don't have canine teeth and we really don't use our supposed canine teeth to eat meat.  Have you ever seen the canine teeth of a true carnivore?  Look in the mirror and find a tooth in your mouth or any other persons mouth for that matter that has any true resemblance to a carnivore's canine teeth.  You do not have such a tooth.  So when they make a statement like that and finish their very short discourse with "case closed"  or "end of discussion" they have really built a case on nothing but imagination.

Another argument is Vitamin B12.  As soon as they make mention of this they seem to feel that nothing more needs to be said... Period!  Again they dismiss a great mass of evidence on the grounds that they have made one point.  To be intellectually honest though, you can't dismiss a huge array of clear evidence by making one point.  You actually need to have more evidence favoring your position then the other side has favoring theirs.  If you don't, then whether you admit it or not you have committed intellectual suicide and also made the wrong choice. 

As for Vitamin B12, animals don't make it, rather it is produced by bacteria.  Meat is really dirty, and that is why it is loaded with bacteria that produces B12.  This one advantage however is certainly not worth heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer or a stroke.  Due to the fact that our environment is so sanitized, a vegetarian might very well have some difficulty getting enough of the vitamin on a strictly plant based diet.  But don't go losing  a bunch of sleep on account of this small advantage to the practice of eating animals since the 3 micrograms (basically nothing) of vitamin B12 we need per day can easily be attained by a supplement.  By the way, do you know how small a microgram is?  Your lifetime requirement for this vitamin would be less than the size of a peanut.

There are other weak arguments you will hear when you challenge someone to examine the facts but none of them, nor all of them together come close to making a dent in the mountain of evidence concerning the benefits of a plant based diet.  The wisest approach to a decision that has life and death implications is to examine all of the evidence with a view to arriving at the truth.  Put away all of your preconceived notions and biases and study the issue as though your life depended on it.  I am fully persuaded that if a thorough examination is made you will find in favor of a plant based diet.  The only thing left to do once you have made an honest investigation is to act on your findings. Adopting a vegetarian diet is a life choice that you can and should make.  The evidence is clear...