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Don and Rachel Matesz <[log in to unmask]>


According to Understanding Nutrition (Whitney and Rolfes, West Publishing,
1993, p. 344),  symptoms of vitamin A deficiency include (my comments in
brackets):

Bones:  Cessation of bone growth, change in shapes of bones, painful joints.
[How many vegans think of vit A deficiency when their joints start aching
after 1-2 years on the diet?  More likely, they think its "just" arthritis,
which so many people have, even non-vegans.]

Teeth:  Malfunctioning of enamel-forming cells, development of cracks in
teeth and tendency to decay, atrophy of dentin-forming cells.
[How many vegans or physicians or dentists will think of vit A defic if
their teeth show increased decay or cracking after 1-2 years w/o animal
products?  Most people think dental decay is "normal" with aging, since
almost everyone, even non-vegans, have it.  ]

Blood:  Anemia, often masked by dehydration.

Eyes:  Night blindness, changes in epithelial tissue (hyperkeratinization),
drying (xerosis), triangular gray spots on eye (Bitot's spots), irreverisble
drying (keratomalacia), and corneal degeneration (blindness).
[How many vegans or physicians will think of vit A deficiency if eyes are
slowly losing ability to function, i.e. when stronger eyeglass prescription
is needed after 1-2 years or more on vegan diet?  How many notice gradual
development of night blindness?   Most people think decay of eyesight is
"normal" with aging, since it is so prevalent.]

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Clearly, some of the symptoms of vit A deficiency are accepted as normal
developments of aging in modern nations.  So if vegans develop these
symptoms, who is going to question the diet--since almost everyone gets
them.   Who would think instead that perhaps most people in modern nations
are vit A deficient? due to lack of sufficient preformed vit A in the
typical diet?

Eskimos ate plenty of preformed vit A (fish sources).  They are one of the
few cultures that have been shown to be virtually free of dental decay on
their native diet--i.e. about 90% animal products.  When Weston Price
studied diets and dental health of many native cultures with varying amounts
of animal products in their diets, he found that the incidence of dental
decay was invariably inversely proportional to the amount of animal products
in the diet:  The cultures that ate lots of animal products had very little
or no dental decay, while the cultures that ate few animal products had many
times more dental decay (invariably, the lower the animal product intake,
the more decayed teeth) (Nutrition and Physical Degeneration).  Price found
no strictly vegetarian traditional cultures--but he did find strict
vegetarians in modern nations and found among them a high incidence of
dental decay and disorders.  Also, the best eyesight was found among those
who ate the most animal products.  His dental findings have been confirmed
by numerous investigators.

What is normal is not necessarily natural.

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Re B12, from the same textbook, p. 317:

"Anyone who eats reasonable  amounts  of meat is guaranteed an adequate
intake [of B12] , and lacto-ovo-vegetarians (if they use enough milk,
cheese, and eggs) are also protected from deficiency.  "Enough" means a cup
of milk or 3.5 ounces of cheese or one egg in a given day....Vegans need a
reliable source, such as vitamin B12 fortified soy "milk", meat
replacements, or vitamin B12 supplements.....

"People who stop eating foods containing vitamin B12 may take almost 20
years to develop deficiencies."

Dr. Rudoph Ballentine M.D. is the author of Transition to Vegetarianism.  He
serves as physician for a community of Hindus in the U.S. (Himalayan
Institute, Honesdale, PA).  In the Nov/Dec '92 issue of Natural Health, he
was quoted:

"When I was in medical school, I was taught that what you get with B12
deficiency was pernicious anemia. Then, if it goes on too long, you get
degeneration of the nervous system.  But now we know that this is not
necessarily true.  Neurological symptoms can precede hematological ones."

To find a more reliable indicator of B12 status, Ballentine scoured the
literature and found that the most reliable test was one called the
hypersegmentation index, a test where you put blood samples under the
microscope and count the number of hypersegmented nuclei--the more
hypersegmented nuclei, the greater the B12 deficiency.  "  We now examine
people for hypersegmented nuclei and have found it in a surprising number of
people, even vegetarians who eat dairy products, and even in a few people
who are not vegetarian,"  Ballentine says.  "It is alarming."

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MILK is an animal product, it comes from flesh, in fact it is right to call
it liquid flesh, not much unlike blood.  It contains ANIMAL PROTEIN that has
an exceptionally high biological value for humans (higher BV than fish or
meat).  It provides amino acids poorly supplied by vegetable foods, contains
TRUE preformed vit A,  and active B12.

CHEESE  is highly concentrated milk.  It essentially is a kind of meat.
Compared to milk, cheese has higher concentrations of fat soluble nutrients
such as vit A and D.  One ounce of cheese is nutritionally equal to 8 ounces
of milk.

Since neither milk nor cheese is a vegetable, no one who eats milk or cheese
is truly a vegetarian.

Anyone who eats 'some' cheese is getting 'some' animal protein, some true
vitamin A, some B12, and some of the amino acids not found in vegetables
(such as taurine).  True vit A and B12 are persistent and stored in the
body, so sporadic intake of even small amounts can forestall deficiency
symptoms.  Therefore, no one who eats cheese (no matter what color it is)
even occasionally can consider him or her self a test case for the
nutritional adequacy of a purely vegetarian diet.

People who don't walk their talk are annoying.

Don

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