'DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA' BY JOHN ROBBINS

The link between meat and cancer has also been well-established. Dr. Gio B. Gori, Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Cause and Prevention, testified before Congress that nutrition is the key to prevention and control of cancer, and that evidence "makes this notion not only possible but certain (that) dietary factors responsible (are) principally meat and fat intake." We also know the less fiber in people's diet, the more often they get colon cancer. (Animal products have no fiber.)

Read the embarrassing answer given to a Senate committee by the director of the NationalCancer Institute in 1976 when asked why his organization spends only 1 percent of its budgeton the area of diet. Robbins quotes two-time Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Linus Pauling as stating, "Everyone should know the war on cancer is largely a fraud." Robbins notes, " Today, treating cancer is a huge business. Every 30 seconds another American is diagnosed as having the disease. Typical cancer patients spend over $25,000 to try to treat their condition." Because treatment is more profitable than prevention, Robbins says, " We are losing a war we could prevent."

Robbins envisions a time when people understand the consequences of a meat-centered diet,and make a change for the sake of their own personal health, for the sake of animals, and for the sake of our environment. With decreased personal costs for food, medical care and insurance, more efficient use of natural resources and less dependence on foreign oil, he sees potential for major economic benefits.

But, he notes: "At the present time, when most of us sit down to eat, we aren't very aware of how our foodchoices affect the world. We don't realize that in every Big Mac there is a piece of the tropical rain forests, and with every billion burgers sold another hundred species become extinct. We don't realize that in the sizzle of our steaks there is suffering of animals, the mining of our topsoil, the slashing of our forests, the harming of our economy, and the eroding of our health.
We don't hear in the sizzle the cry of the hungry millions who might otherwise be fed. We don't see the toxic poisons accumulating in the food chains, poisoning our children and our earth for generations to come."