More information: www.ProVegan.info

Our diet influences our health tremendously: “You are what you eat.” A well-planned diet means that we have a wonderful chance to live a long, fit and healthy life. So if our diet is so important, shouldn’t we learn more about how to eat right from the standpoint of nutrition, working with reputable studies from all around the world?

We are all familiar with articles that urge us to eat more fruit and vegetables and less meat. Even so, meat is still considered a completely normal part of an allegedly healthy, balanced diet, despite the fact that numerous scientific studies have proved that consuming meat damages our health. The disastrous impact that milk, cheese and other dairy products have on our health is less well known or not widely known at all. The public is shocked whenever natural disasters or terrorist attacks kill hundreds or thousands of people. But will people react in the same way when millions of people suffer from and die of cancer, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, obesity and other diseases that are related to diet and malnutrition? While the public is being misinformed and misled about a healthy diet, certain industries will profit from this situation.

The animal industry’s fairy tales about the alleged health benefits of meat, eggs and dairy products often go unquestioned by uninformed consumers and uninterested politicians. But that’s not all: in the EU and in many countries elsewhere, unhealthy and cruel products are subsidized with tax money. It is scandalous that sales of plant drinks in Germany are impeded by a value-added tax of 19 % while cow’s milk is massively supported by a value-added tax of only 7 % in addition to subsidies. This political activity is absolutely unacceptable since it obviously places the interests of the animal industry above the health of the people whom governments should be representing.

Even the media attacks healthy diets from time to time. In most cases, it never comes to light whether a journalist was simply uninformed or might have had close connections to the animal industry and therefore an economic interest. One example: in 2004, a toddler whose parents had reportedly fed him a vegan diet died. However, the child had not actually eaten any vegan food. In fact, he hadn’t eaten any food at all! He had lost his appetite because he’d contracted pneumonia and hadn’t received medical treatment for the condition. What’s shocking is that the child had not been fed at all and that his parents believed in a special diet called “Urkost” (primordial food), which has nothing to do with a healthy vegan diet. As is too often the case, the media did not think it was necessary to do proper research about the story or the nutritional basics of a vegan diet. Instead, the media condemned vegan diets in the interests and favour of the animal industry with the usual prejudices, even though this very case had nothing to do with veganism. What remains in the public mind, though, is a faulty impression about veganism which is completely in the animal industry’s interests.

Millions of people suffer and die because of extreme malnutrition caused by meat, milk, dairy products, eggs, and animal fats and proteins – from obesity, hypertension, heart attacks, angina pectoris, strokes, atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and other chronic diseases. In recent years, numerous studies have demonstrated a connection between the consumption of animal products and these diseases. Studies have also shown that many fish are contaminated with shockingly high levels of environmental toxins, such as dioxin and heavy metals. The universities of Barcelona and Granada in 2009 conducted separate studies on the mercury levels of children and pregnant women and found a clear connection between fish consumption and mercury contamination. Elevated mercury levels obviously affected the children’s mental effectiveness (memory, language) and were connected with delayed development. Several studies, including a French one from 2007, indicated that fish and milk, in particular, are the most common sources for the intake of toxins (including dioxin, furans and dioxin-like PCBs).

Numerous studies have demonstrated a connection between milk consumption and a number of serious diseases, such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, types 1 and 2 diabetes and osteoporosis. Statistics published by the World Health Organization about the worldwide incidences of breast cancer correlate with the levels of milk consumption in the respective countries. The “EU-BST-Human-Report”, commissioned by the EU to show the effects of milk consumption on human health, concluded that hormones in milk can increase the growth of malignant tumors, especially in cases of breast and prostate cancer.