A veg*n diet significantly lowers your risk for heart disease, cancer, and stroke.

Cholesterol

The average American has a cholesterol level of 210. The average vegetarian’s cholesterol is 161. The average vegan’s cholesterol level is at 133. An elevated level of cholesterol in your body leads to atherosclerosis, the buildup of fat, cholesterol and cells in arteries that feed the heart. When these arteries become clogged, a person will suffer a heart attack.

There are no plant foods that contain cholesterol. All meat meat, eggs and dairy are packed with it, saturated fat and concentrated protein, all of which are horrible for heart health. When it comes to cholesterol, there is no significant difference between that from chicken, fish or red meat. Eliminating one source from your diet will have no impact on your cholesterol level. Eliminating all animal products from your diet will decrease it dramatically.

A healthy cholesterol level means healthy blood vessels. Healthy blood vessels means no heart disease or strokes.

High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure (hypertenstion) is the single most important risk factor for strokes. In a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers found that 26 percent of meat-eaters studied suffered from high blood pressure, compared to only 2 percent of vegetarians. By eating a vegetarian diet, you will reduce your risk of having a stroke or of developing cardiovascular problems associated with hypertension.

Obesity

Being obese increases your risk for all kinds of health problems, including stroke, diabetes, and cancer. Adopting a veg*n diet gives you lower risk of becoming obese and all of the negative health effects from it.

Cancer

According to the World Health Organization, up to 40 percent of all cancers are preventable, and one-third of all cancer deaths in the U.S. can be attributed to nutritional factors, according to the American Cancer Society. Antibiotics, hormones, heavy metals, dioxins and various other compounds (found in meat) increase your risk for developing cancer, while a vegan diet maximizes the foods that help us fight cancer- fiber-packed grains and beans and phytochemical-packed fruits and vegetables.

To keep chickens alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them, they are pumped full of antibiotics, including one that contains the most toxic form of arsenic. If that isn’t enough, more carcinogens (cancer causing agents) are formed when the meat is cooked. Chew on this:

• Eating a typical 2 ounces of chicken a day means ingesting 3.6 to 5.2 micrograms of cancer-causing arsenic.
• More than 95 percent of our exposure to dioxin, a well-known carcinogen, comes from eating animal products.
• Fish is very high in environmental contaminants including mercury, dioxins, polychlorinated bipehnyls (PCBs), and other organochlorine pesticides. These have ALL been linked to cancer.
• 80 to 90 percent of dietary pesticide exposure, as well as 100 percent of dietary hormone and dioxin exposure, comes from eating animal products. Many of these chemicals are known to cause cancer in human beings.

Other Health Issues to Think About

Hormones:

The governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the European Union have all banned the use of recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH or sometimes called rBST), yet our government has allowed it’s use to increase milk production in dairy cows. Artificial hormones are also given to beef cows to promote their growth.

Approximately 22 percent of all dairy cows in the U.S. and 54 percent of large herds (500 animals or more), such as those found on factory farms, are injected with rBGH. In fact, the European Union has prohibited the import of all beef treated with hormones, which means it won’t accept any beef imported from the U.S. Their government doesn’t want it’s people to eat the same beef that you are eating. Why? Because IT’S HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH.

The milk from cow’s injected with rBGH has higher levels of a hormone called insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1). Elevated levels of IGF-1 in humans has been liked to colon and breast cancer.

rBGH has increased bacterial udder infections in cows by 25 percent. To treat these infections, cows are given doses of antibiotics. In addition to the nice dose of hormones, you are also getting a “healthy” dose of antibiotics. Great! So, what are you going to do the next time you have an infection? The antibiotics in your milk aren’t enough to kill it, but one’s your doctor may prescribe may not do the trick either. Bacteria exposed to low levels of antibiotics (like those continuously given to all farm animals) can become resistant.

Whew?! I guess you’ll just have to buy “organic” milk then. “Organic,” indeed… “organic” dairy cows develop infections too and, since antibiotics would lose the organic label, the infection is allowed to persist. This means that “organic” milk often contains pus and blood from infected “organic” cows who were not treated. What’s worse- pus and blood or hormones? Um… I’ll choose neither.