The Major Cause of Disease

Modern research has confirmed the folk adage that eating less, and especially
eating less fats and high-protein animal foods, prolongs life.

Our rich, modern diet has been implicated as a causative factor in cancer,
heart attack, stroke, hardening of the arteries, and diabetes, and the leading
causes of death in this country can be prevented or delayed by adopting
healthier nutritional habits. The same foods that cause premature deaths also
subject us to misery and chronic illness in life.

This is the main purpose of this book: to provide a more complete
understanding of the cause of various diseases and to explain how to remove
the obstacles to healing so you can recover your health.

If individuals choose to undergo a fast for internal cleansing and rejuvenation
of their system, or for therapy of a specific disease, they must combine the fast
with a healthy diet before and after fasting to maintain the benefits they reap
from the fast. In many instances the change in diet alone is sufficient to achieve
a complete recovery.

Many do not comprehend the relation between their food intake, their lifestyle
habits, and their chronic illnesses, such as arthritis, osteoporosis,
recurrent infections, allergies, acne, asthma, and sinusitis. Ironically, and sadly,
health authorities, most physicians, and dieticians recommend the very same
eating plans that cause these diseases to develop in the first place. Patients and
their physicians generally rationalize that the problems they are facing are
genetic, biochemical, structural, or otherwise beyond their control. Patients are
frequently told the food they consume has nothing to do with the disease from
which they suffer. This is simply untrue. Most chronic medical problems are not
only caused by improper diet and life-style, but also can be reversed by
adopting a more primitive and natural diet, one that our species was originally
designed for.

This information is not a ―new breakthrough‖ or medical discovery. Many renowned physicians, after reviewing the evidence collected over the last few
decades, are taking a new approach to dietary recommendations. For example,
the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, headquartered in
Washington, D.C., has recently asked the Department of Agriculture to replace
the traditional four food groups (meat, dairy, grains, and fruits and vegetables)
with four new ones: fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes. The reasoning
behind this change is sound — it emphasizes the foods that protect against
disease rather than those that cause disease.

Unfortunately, we live in a modern society where suffering from preventable
illnesses and chronic disease is the ―norm.‖ Half of us die from the totally
avoidable occurrence of heart disease, and the majority of the individuals who
do not die of hardening of the arteries die of cancer. Millions suffer from
osteoporosis, deterioration of the musculoskeletal system, and chronic back and
joint pain. The majority of people in this country are out of shape and
overweight, and live their lives waiting for some disease to strike.

From hay fever and allergies to hypertension and high cholesterol, all these
chronic conditions can be prevented through optimal nutrition. We do not need
to be a nation of medical dependents, visiting physicians and taking drugs in a
futile attempt to combat the effects of our disease-producing modern diet.

Instead of feeding ourselves in such a manner as to cause our deterioration, I
recommend eating primarily unrefined plant foods. This means eliminating or
de-emphasizing meat, chicken, fish, and dairy products; and avoiding processed
foods, fried foods, fats, and sweets. If these rich foods are to be consumed at
all, my patients are encouraged to limit their use to special occasions (once
weekly or less) or to use animal-based foods only as condiments, in very small
quantity, to flavor a soup or vegetable dish.

Even though these recommendations may be abhorrent to certain individuals
and to the animal agriculture community, it can not be denied that vegetarian
populations live longer and healthier lives than meat-eating populations. Not
only does the epidemiologic evidence from around the globe point to this, but
also the studies on healthy vegetarian populations show that there is a
significant survival advantage when animal foods are eliminated from the
diet.

Meat and dairy products, which have traditionally been our primary source of
protein, have high fat and cholesterol content, minimal fiber, and are deficient
in the cancer-preventing antioxidant nutrients. This nutritional profile of animal
foods is the precise combination associated with an increased risk of coronary
artery (heart) disease, most cancers, diabetes, and obesity.

Plant foods have substantial amounts of fiber, little fat, and moderate
amounts of protein. Much modern research has linked not only fats to cancer
and degenerative illnesses but also the proteins in animal products.
These foods were thought in the past to be appropriate for our species, but now it is
clear that animal-based foods, because of their link to so many of our ills, are
poorly adapted to humans when used in significant quantities.

As a species we are closely related to the great apes, who are primarily plant
eaters. Clearly, the diet for which our species is best adapted is one consisting
predominantly of natural, unrefined, plant-based foods with little if any foods of
animal origin.