<snip nearly all of Ward's very thoughtful post in response to Doug>

>>Sure humans can eat meat, but I would be very surprised if eventually
>>their aging rate is accelerated & diseases such as cancer show a
>>greater & earlier incidence.

>I would like to see some peer-reviewed substantiation of this speculation.
>The closest I know of is T. Colin Campbell's China Study which apparently
>shows increases in cancer when meat represents over 5-7% of the diet.

I'm sure critiques of the China Study exist, but a simple correlation
between %meat consumed and cancer among the infinite factors in Chinese
life loses much of it's spunk. Meat is prized in much of southeast Asia.
When income goes up I suspect meat consumption goes up, along with all
sorts of "rich man's habits" which may or may not have anything to do with
cancer incidence. Even a correlation by average consumption in different
regions of China would be frought with similar problems. Probably, it would
be discovered that money causes cancer :)

I've always thought such correlation studies would be simpler, and perhaps
more meaningful, if we looked at the averages for a culture across the
board. For instance, what foods (and how prepared?) are consumed in Mexico
per capita, and what diseases occur in Mexico per capita? The results may
give clue as to what "mexican foods" do to the metabolism. Go on with the
USA, the Somalis, etc. Of course many other variables occur across these
cultures. But why isn't the almanac food consumption stats, along with %
urban/rural, smoking, etc etc just tossed into a stats program and
factor-analysed? The data is already there isn't it? What's the smiley for
puzzled? :?

Cheers,
kirt