Health

It would be possible to follow a 100 per cent vegan regime and not be eating healthily - but you'd have to work at it. For example you could have white bread and jam for breakfast, chips and beans for lunch and baked beans and white toast for dinner. Providing you persisted, after a while, if you didn't die of boredom, you'd die of something else.
   But people who become vegan generally do so only after a lot of thought and the diet they choose usually consists of high-quality wholefood cereals, grains and pulses, supplemented with fresh fruit, salads and vegetables - the diet, in short, that we present in The Vegan Cookbook and this is what we mean by "a vegan diet" in this section.

There is increasing evidence that a vegan diet like this is to be strongly recommended on health grounds:

• Factory-farmed animals are fed a dubious array of artificial foodstuffs, chemicals, hormones and antibiotics. The long-term effects of eating these toxic substances isn't known. The recent worldwide panic over BSE and foot and mouth disease may be no more than a hint of horrors to come.

• The high levels of cholesterol found in all meat and dairy products are now generally thought by the medical profession to be dangerous for human health. "Natural" meat came from animals that roamed and ran wild. They had virtually no fat on them and what they had was unsaturated. Factory-farmed animals get no exercise at all and their flesh - even the lean - contains up to 50 per cent saturated fat.

• Cow's milk produced by the dairy industry has been found to contain significant quantities of pesticides, antibiotics and teat dip disinfectants. Their effect on humans has not been been investigated. Again, it cannot be beneficial.

• A surprisingly large number of people are allergic to cow's milk, especially young children. Eczema, asthma, tonsillitis and gastro-intestinal disturbances are some of the problems that can result. People may suffer from a range of distressing symptoms for years before discovering that the symptoms simply disappear as soon as they stop drinking the cow's milk that caused them.

• The typical Western diet provides about 12 grams of salt a day - about 2 teaspoonfuls - most of it coming from meat and meat products. This is certainly too much and may lead to high blood pressure and all its associated risks. Vegan diets are relatively low in salt.

• Vegan and vegetarian foods do not attract the noxious bacteria that are responsible for salmonella and other forms of food poisoning.

Further evidence was published by the Health Education Council in a leaflet in 1985:

"A hundred years ago, most people ate plenty of fibre from bread and potatoes, but lacked a fully adequate varied diet. Diseases caused by a lack of vitamins and minerals were common. Today, the problems are different. Many people now eat too much meat, dairy produce and sugar, and too little fibre for good health...
"Research has shown links between what we eat and many modern diseases. For example:

• Heart disease may be linked with too much fat.

• Diabetes and tooth decay may be linked with too much sugar.

• High blood pressure and strokes may be linked with too much salt.

• Bowel cancer, constipation and diverticulosis (a common bowel problem) may be linked with too little fibre.

• Obesity may be linked with too much fat and sugar, and too little fibre. Diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes and heart disease are all associated with obesity too."

All the fats referred to in this quote are the saturated type, found chiefly in foods of animal origin. Just over a quarter of the fat eaten in the typical Western diet comes from meat; butter and margarine provide another quarter; milk and cooking fats account for another; and the remaining quarter is made up of cheese and "hidden" fats in pastry, sweets, ice-creams and other "convenience" foods.
   The simple fact of converting to a vegan diet removes all the cholesterol and nearly all the saturated fat and reduces the total quantity of polyunsaturated fat to the 30-35 per cent of the total energy intake which is recommended by the Health Education Council for general good health and the prevention of heart disease.

If all this leaves you unmoved, consider this: Britain's longest-lived man, Harry Shoerats, died in February 1984, aged 111. He was born in Russia in 1872 and settled in Britain in 1917. He attributed his longevity primarily to his vegan diet of fruit, nuts, vegetables and cereals. He did not retire from his work as a craftsman until the age of 104 and cycled to work daily till his 100th birthday.