Can you please back up arguments with facts?
I MUST respond to Sue Doughty’s letter which contains considerable misleading information and unsubstantiated statements (“Humans are not made to live only on plants”,
Mailbox, January 27).
Sue said that the reason for the Enclosure Acts was to enable “more people to be able to afford meat and dairy...”
The Acts made agricultural production more efficient but there is no mention of meat or dairy or of the intention to improve the nation’s health.
Would Sue name the NHS hospitals setting up wards to “deal with an influx of patients suffering malnutrition” caused by following a vegan diet? Would she also inform us of how many patients have been admitted.
Dr Neal Barnard said: “To this day meat-eaters have a higher incidence of heart-disease, cancer, diabetes and other problems”.
Compared to meat-eaters, vegans are less likely to be obese, have lower blood pressure and cholesterol.
Sue mentioned that humans do not have a rumen. Research shows that a plant-based diet is very beneficial to human digestive health and our intestinal tracts are long and more like those of herbivores.
Also of great concern to human health is that, worldwide, animals consume more antibiotics than humans. This is contributing to the international crisis of antibiotic resistance.
According to the Chief Medical Officer, we are facing a “post-antibiotic apocalypse” that heralds the “end of modern medicine”.
A plant-based diet is not only beneficial for humans. Among many issues it also helps to combat global warming and ecological breakdown, uses land and water more efficiently and prevents considerable animal suffering.
Please would future anti-vegan correspondents support arguments with facts, figures and quotations from reliable sources.
Elizabeth Allison, Aylestone