Effects of Diet on Human Health

Scientists estimated that the earth’s age is about 4.5 billion years, and that human like species existed on earth for about 6 million years (Ref. 1). During this period, these species evolved into homo-sapiens, the species to which we belong. It is speculated that since that time, these human like creatures were vegetarians (Ref. 2, also see the first Reference Table: “Comparison of Anatomical and Physiological…”), but since 2.5 million years ago, they started eating meat, may be for reasons of survival during times of severe ecological changes and because at that time, they developed the first stone tools.

Apparently, they liked the taste of meat and decided to hunt and kill animals for food. Later on, humans, with their characteristic creativity, had foreseen a golden business opportunity, and created profitable businesses using the easily accessible animals.

However, this business opportunity resulted into the creation of the serious health, and environmental problems, from which the world is suffering today, and probably was and still is the biggest mistake that humans have made.

Land animals are raised for their meat, for the production of food products (milk, yogurt, cheese, and eggs), and for other reasons (scientific research, and for the creation of commercial products). In order to satisfy the great demand of the world markets, it is necessary to produce a large numbers of animals, to keep them healthy, and to make them grow faster and heavier. For all these reasons, almost all today’s animals are fed with foods containing drugs, and chemical substances. (Ref. 3)

The following is a list of the most commonly used drugs and chemical substances:

• Antibiotics,
• hormones,
• cortisone steroids,
• antitoxins (which are toxins themselves),
• pesticides, and
• substances containing arsenic.

When we eat meat and/or the dairy products originated from farmed animals, we intake some portion of these drugs and chemical substances but never think about it. Unfortunately, this situation may create a health hazard which is surfaced when a certain medication (i.e. antibiotic) is urgently needed but it does not work effectively. Clearly, this is because our bodies may be over saturated with such medications. For example, this could be the case of bacterial diseases (i.e. pneumonia, urinary, and hospital infections which could be deadly), as well as chronic diseases (i.e. respiratory, allergies).

The transmission of animal diseases (Note 1, Note 2) from animals to people is another concern which should be carefully addressed. Animals have diseases similar to humans (i.e. cancer, leukemia, and others), which under certain favorable, but unknown, conditions could be transmitted to humans after eating their meat. Unfortunately, monitoring the health condition of all the animal used for our food is very difficult (there are not enough inspectors to do the job). So. in spite of the fact that occasionally inspectors found salmonella and other diseases in cow and turkey meat, and recalled hundreds of thousands of pounds from the market, the assumption that we eat healthy animal based food may not be a prudent one.

As you know, the thousands of seashore cities and industries, offshore oil production facilities, and ships (that cross the oceans, lakes, and rivers) generate huge amounts of human waste, garbage, and chemicals (most of them highly toxic and carcinogenic).  All these  are continuously thrown into the oceans, the lakes, and the rivers, supposedly after treating them before throwing them  into the waterways. However, monitoring such treatments is practically impossible. Most probably, heavy metals, arsenic, and other carcinogenic chemicals do exist and seriously affect the fish, and subsequently the humans who eat them.

In reality, the farmed raised fish are medicated with almost the same drugs and chemical substances that the land animals are. According to research findings, farm raised fish are responsible for human body inflammations which are known to be associated with chronic diseases (Ref. 4).

Unfortunately,  most of us are raised to believe that fish diet is a healthy one (because fish is a good source of omega-3, etc.). However,  this is true only if the farm raised fish we eat were not medicated.

Unfortunately, In the case of plants pesticides are also used but their use can be controlled much easier than it is in the case of  animals, and fish. Furthermore, plants are free of harmful fats and cholesterol, they do not involve the killing of innocent animals, and if are grown organically they are safer than meat/fish  foods (Ref. 5).  It should be pointed out here that since the population of humans is much smaller than the population of animals and fish (Ref. 3) it require much less land acreage for the production of the food needed to feed the humans (Ref. 3). Consequently, reduces the problem of deforestation, make the environmental pollution problem milder, and create better health and economic conditions for humans.