DIET & HEALTH
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:
Violinist Edgar Stanistreet, of
Philadelphia, still performing at 94, attrib-
utes his longevity to “No meat, eggs, milk,
booze, or cigarettes. Milk is for calves.”
The USDA on August 12
unveiled labels for meat, to become
mandatory in October, that include instruc-
tions on cooking to kill toxic bacteria. The
labels were drafted to settle a lawsuit
brought by the parents of a child who died
from tainted meat and the advocacy group
Beyond Beef, whose president, Jeremy
Rifkin, warned he would sue again if the
language isn’t strengthened. Added Farm
Animal Reform Movement president Alex
Hershaft, “The USDA should require that
animal products carry warning labels with
full disclosure of the documented dangers of
meat consumption to human health.”
Mutual of Omaha, the largest
U.S. health insurer, announced July 27
that it will reimburse heart disease patients
for undergoing “reversal therapy” in a pro-
gram based upon adopting a vegetarian
diet. Developed by Dr. Dean Ornish,
director of the Preventive Medicine
Research Institute in Sausalitio,
California, the program is the first non-
surgical, non-pharmaceutical treatment for
heart disease to qualify for insurance reim-
bursement. Blue Cross and Blue Shield
are also considering approving the Ornish
treatment, which Ornish himself intro-
duced to the White House at invitation of
Hillary Clinton on July 13. Ornish modi-
fied his dietary recommendations for the
Clintons to include some fish and chicken,
since any mention of vegetarianism makes
political advisors apoplectic.
Dr. Terry Shintani of the
Wai’anae Coast Comprehensive Health
Center in Hawaii made the August 9 issue
of Newsweek with his dramatic success in
improving native Hawaiians’ health by
putting them on an updated edition of their
ancestral diet: fruit, vegetables, seaweed,
a small amount of fish, and no meat.
A Medical Tribune News Service
feature distributed in August carried the
headline, “Youngster’s death traced to
unwashed vegetables.” Summarizing a
recent article in The Lancet, a medical jour-
nal, it attributed the death to the failure of a
vegetarian woman, who also became ill, to
wash her garden produce before giving some
to three children, one of whom died of E .
coli bacterial poisoning. But the vegetables
themselves had nothing to do with it. The E.
coli came from cow manure that was still on
the vegetables when they were eaten.
Three out of four California
children don’t eat the recommended five
servings of fruit and vegetables per day,
and two out of three don’t think they need
to, the California Department of Health
Services reported July 26. Dr. Cary
Presant, president-elect of the California
branch of the American Cancer Society,
responded by announcing a joint effort of
the ACS, state Department of Education,
Universal Studios, and produce growers to
increase the popularity of vegetables among
the young. “There’s nothing better than to
see one of your friends say, ‘No, I don’t
want the hamburger, I want the salad,”
Presant said.
How On Earth!, a newsletter for
“Teens supporting compassionate, ecologi-
cally sound living,” is $12/4 issues, from
the Vegetarian Education Network, POB
3347, West Chester, PA 19381.
