Vegetarian Diet not necessarily more Loving and Humane - Letters to the Editor

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  April, 2002  

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Editor:

As a subscriber since 1996, I much enjoy your publication and your lack of fear of controversy. Let me then respond to a comment by Michael Blate that I found foolish and incorrect. In his column, "In Which I Argue Vigorously Against Common Cannibalism" (1) he says, after he equates meat eating with fear, and recommends eating grains, that "they tend to keep us a bit heavier than when we follow a high-protein diet...a small trade off, I believe, for the reduced fear and suspicion, and an increase in loving thoughts, that tend to arise from choosing such a humane diet." (His emphasis). There is no attribution to such a far-reaching statement.

First a word about my credentials in this matter. I taught vegetarian and macrobiotic cooking for 20 years, and started a school in 1977 that is still the only one of its kind in the country vegetarian (The Natural Gourmet Cookery School in New York City). Since 1987 we have been offering a 600-hour licensed and accredited career course in natural foods cooking, focusing on whole grains, beans, fresh vegetables and fruits, with only about 10% of classes including fish, eggs, and organic poultry. I raised my children on a grain and vegetable diet, and have been counseling people on their health and diet since 1975. I have written several books on the subject of food and health. My best known one is Food and Healing (Ballantine Books, 1986, 1996). I'm currently a doctoral candidate in Wholistic Nutrition at The Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In my experience, equating vegetarian or vegan eating with the possession of loving thoughts is completely unwarranted. Two major examples of vegetarians who are not known for their loving thoughts: Adolf Hitler (2) and Osama bin Laden (according to the CBS-TV program 60 Minutes, 9/ 26/2001). I have also found that many vegans and vegetarians may have loving thoughts towards animals, but they can be positively venomous when faced with people who choose to eat meat. The most hateful mail that I ever received was from vegans as a result of a column I wrote in which I recommended chicken soup. I have found that grain eaters who eat whole grain because of an ideology can be surprisingly arrogant, critical, and intolerant of others who eat differently. At the same time, I have numerous friends and acquaintances who are meat eaters and who are kind and loving people, and not nearly as kidney-damaged and fear-possessed as Mr. Blate would have them be. I have also encountered many vegetarians in my counseling practic e who are living in fear: fear of eating the wrong thing, of disease, of going out, of traveling, and of life in general. Often I have to spend quite some time just dispelling that fear which I believe is more dangerous than a poor diet.

In Chinese medicine, fear relates to the kidneys, just as Mr. Blate implies. However, one of the beautiful aspects of Chinese medicine is that it recognizes both excess and deficiency. The kidneys can be damaged by an excess of protein, for sure. But they can also be damaged by a deficiency of the same. Therefore, kidney deficiency can cause fear just as kidney excess can. Then there is another aspect, according to the Chinese Five Element (or Phase) Theory: Kidneys, which are Water phase, can be weakened by an excess of sweets or carbohydrate, which are Earth phase. Thus, assuming that a high protein diet causes fear is unwarranted, because fear can be caused by many different factors, including sweets and a high-carbohydrate diet. (3)

I will not get into the issue of whether we need animal protein or not, as many qualified writers in the TLfDP have addressed that issue often and well. What I do want to point out is the following two thoughts.

First, the system of the world has been set up very nicely and ecologically, in that each creature eats others in an astonishingly well-balanced cycle. (4)

And second, in terms of spirit, I would like to point to a well-known verse in the New Testament, "Not that which goes into the mouth defiles a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defiles a man." (St. Matthew 15:11) For many years I thought that surely this notion was mistaken, that what we eat truly impacts our spirit. However, with time I began to see that the food we eat is only a part of what contributes to our well-being, and has nothing much to do with our goodness, our lovingness, or our self-worth. These belong to a different level of energy exchange with the universe.

Annemarie Colbin, CHES

Fax 212-721-3336

www.foodandhealing.com

www.naturalgourmetschool.com

References

(1.) Michael Blate, In Which I Argue Vigorously Against Common Cannibalism, Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients 2001, no. 219 (October)(2001):42-3.

(2.) Annemarie Colbin, Food and Heating, Second ed. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996).

(3.) Harriet Beinfeld, L.Ac., and Efrem Korngold, L.Ac, OMD., Between Heaven and Earth: A Guide to Chinese Medicine, (New York: Ballantine Books, 1991).