10 Reasons to go veggie 865

On Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:30:38 +0100, John Cartmell

Proof by induction.

Is it a coincidence that the most developed countries have the longest life expectancy and those in regions closest to how people lived 10,000 years ago have the shortest?

The life expectancy of Inuit men is 62.6 years as against 71.1 for Canadian men overall. Is this lower life expectancy because they eat almost exclusively meat? Not very likely since low tech cultures in Africa eat less meat than Canadians and have an even lower life expectancy still.

There are tribes of Yanomami Indians in Venezuela that had no contact with the outside world and are generally regarded to live very much as in the Stone Age. Life expectancy? Below 50 and they have horrendous infant mortality so if you survive infancy you are sturdy stuff and would be expected to do well whatever the diet.

You just need aggregated census data to get an idea of how life expectancy in this country has improved in the last few centuries. This is likely to be more statistically reliable than tracing individual family trees.

What it all proves is that modern medicine is a far more important factor in prolonging life than diet. Sure you can add maybe a decade on average at most from eating healthily but take away modern drugs and immunisation and chances are you will be dead before 25 particularly with current population densities. If you exercise hard it probably has just as much effect as diet. Vegetarianism in itself is largely irrelevant to how long you live. John, try and separate your religious beliefs from rationality.

-- Ian Lynch www.theINGOTs.org www.opendocumentfellowship.org www.schoolforge.org.uk