Transition to Vegetarianism An Evolutionary Step

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Himalayan Institute, Honesdale, PA 18431
HimalayanInstitute.org

© 1987, 1999, The Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and

Philosophy of the USA®

All rights reserved.

No part of this book in any manner, in whole or in part, in English or in any

other language, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or
by any information storage or retrieval system without prior written
permission of the copyright owner.

12 13 14 15 16 45678

ISBN-13: 978-0-89389-175-6

Cover design by Jeanette Robertson

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:

Ballentine, Rudolph, 1941-

Transition to Vegetarianism
 Includes index.
I. Vegetarianism. II. Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science
and Philosophy of the USA II. Title.
TX392.B297 1987 613.2’62 87-23618

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39-48-1992

(Permanence of Paper).
CONTENTS

Foreword by Dr. Patrick C. Pietroni

Preface
Introduction
WHY VEGETARIAN. . . AND HOW
The Vegetarian Diet and Health
Beyond Health: Strength, Endurance, and Clarity of Consciousness
The Transition Plan
Getting Started

PHASE 1: Red Meat

Meats and Fats: The Impact on Health
Carbohydrate: The Ideal Fuel
Iron Without Meat
Substantial Without Being Heavy

PHASE 2: Poultry
Amino Acids: Complementation Versus Supplementation
How Much Protein?
Calcium, Vitamin D, and Osteoporosis
Trace Minerals and the Secrets of Seasoning
PHASE 3: Fish
Fish Oils and the Essential Fatty Acids
Problems with Fish: Sanitation, PCBs, and Mercury
Vitamin B12 and Pernicious Anemia
Meal Planning: Escaping the Entree Mentality
NOW THAT YOU’RE A VEGETARIAN: Milk and Eggs
Cleansing and Dietary Fiber
Milk Products: Pros and Cons
Choosing a Cooking Medium: Butter Versus Oil
Translating Principles into Practice

THE VEGETARIAN DIET IN PERSPECTIVE: An

Overview
Notes
About the Author
FOREWORD

The Himalayan International Institute is known for its synthesis of

Eastern wisdom and Western science, which began in the 1960s with the
work done by Swami Rama, the Institute’s founder, at the Menninger
Foundation. His demonstrations of the voluntary control of internal states
established the groundwork for the development of biofeedback and an
impetus for the extension of the holistic perspective into the field of health
care.
Unfortunately the term “holistic” is often used to mask or to justify an
attitude that is, in fact, anti-science and anti-rational. Many “alternative”
practitioners have seriously impeded the development and wider acceptance
of the holistic approach to health care by their uncritical and, at times,
superstitious attachment to their work. In view of this, we owe Dr.
Ballentine and his colleagues at the Himalayan Institute a great debt for
their detailed and careful research. Their work and the publications arising
out of it have been a healthy antidote to the unfortunate effects of much of
what is passed off as holistic, and have provided the inspiration and
guidance for clinical and teaching centers throughout the world.
This current volume on the benefits of a vegetarian diet is no exception.
The understanding of the importance of diet to our physical well-being is
finally becoming accepted. Dr. Ballentine, using an impressive array of
evidence, suggests how our eating habits may affect our well-being. Time-
honored Eastern traditional teachings on diet have been used to generate
hypotheses which have been checked against computerized surveys of
current research literature in the health sciences.
It is increasingly accepted that vegetarians do not suffer to the same
degree from certain of the disease processes that affect meat-eaters so
severely. Dr. Ballentine provides a critical analysis of meat-eating habits
and demonstrates a thorough understanding of the potential harms and/or
limitations on one’s well-being from undesirable animal foods. The benefits
to physical health of changing to a vegetarian diet are indisputably
documented herein. Moreover, the probable benefit to mental life is strongly
suggested.
But holistic health includes the physical, the mental, and the spiritual.
The realization of one’s potentials for spiritual growth depends on clarity of
consciousness and a sharpened sense of self-awareness. Perhaps the most
intriguing thesis that emerges from this book is that in addition to causing
disease, the modern meat-based diet might dull one’s awareness, limit one’s
capacity for creativity, and interfere with one’s progress in the direction of
personal evolution. Taken as a whole, the book firmly reinforces the age-old
conviction that clarity and awareness are promoted by a vegetarian diet. If
humankind is to evolve to its next step, the dimension of personal spiritual
growth must be deepened and reinforced and a major means to this end may
just turn out to be the transition to a vegetarian diet.

Dr. Patrick C. Pietroni, FRCGP, MRCP, DCH

Senior Lecturer in General Practice, St. Mary’s Hospital
Medical School; Chair, British Holistic Medical Association
PREFACE

In nearly twenty years of working with vegetarian patients and teaching

them nutrition, I have come to be familiar with the questions most asked on
the subject. When I set out to write this book, it was my purpose to provide
a brief guide that would address these questions in a simple and
straightforward way. But as I began a systematic survey of the scientific
literature on vegetarianism, I came to realize that it had become much more
extensive than I had thought.
Just in the last decade, a massive amount of evidence has accumulated
which collectively provides an argument for the importance of moving
toward a vegetarian diet—an argument so forceful as to compel the
individual to modify his eating habits, and of proportions sufficient to
mandate major changes in official attitudes and policies. With this in mind,
I began to see the book as an opportunity to pull together and present as
much as possible of this research so that its far-reaching implications might
become more evident and more widely recognized. I hope that I have been
able, at least to a modest extent, to accomplish this end.
As I reviewed and researched the literature, another basic point was
repeatedly reinforced: dropping meat isn’t enough. While the potential
benefits of a vegetarian diet are profoundly impressive, the problems that
can arise from doing it wrong are equally so. Zinc deficiency, for example,
is a problem that may be considerably more widespread among vegetarians
than is generally appreciated, and it deserves special attention, as do a
number of other issues, such as that of iron or vitamin D. The book is
intended to present the information most relevant to helping the reader
move toward a vegetarian diet safely and wisely.
The format of the book also calls for a word of explanation. It’s a
common observation that most people make the transition to vegetarianism
by way of a series of fairly predictable steps, dropping red meat first,
poultry later, and eventually (sometimes) fish. The book is arranged to
correspond to those steps in order to make it as convenient and usable as
possible. At each step or phase the data that support the elimination of the
food in question are first considered, and then the issues that arise as a result
of dropping it are discussed, for example, how to get enough iron after red
meat is stopped.
The parts of the book that bring to light certain little-known aspects of
meat and poultry production, though entirely accurate, may be so shocking
as to seem almost intentionally sensational. They have been included
unabridged, however, because in many cases such facts must be thoroughly
appreciated before one will feel justified in investing the considerable time
and energy necessary to make fundamental changes in how he eats. Dietary
habits are often deeply ingrained—especially those that have extended over
generations and that may have become closely involved with family or
ethnic identity.
It is hoped that the critique of meat and poultry detailed in the book will
not preoccupy the reader nor distract him from the experience of optimism
and excitement that can otherwise result from discovering the improved
health, the increased sense of well-being, and the enhanced clarity of mind
that follow the shift toward a well-balanced vegetarian diet. With more
individuals enjoying such rewards, and with the weight of evidence so
obviously supporting such dietary change, it seems inevitable that interest
in it will spread. What awaits the reader is, I suspect, not only personal
benefit but also the growing conviction that vegetarianism is likely to be the
diet of the future—a logical next step in humankind’s perennial search for a
better way of living and being.
INTRODUCTION

When Transition to Vegetarianism was first published a dozen years

ago, I predicted in the preface that more and more people would gravitate
toward a vegetarian diet. That has certainly happened. Though some try
vegetarianism for a while and then abandon it, a growing percentage of the
population is taking a larger proportion of its food from non-animal sources.
The ecological crisis is making this shift ever more necessary and
urgent. The fragile and weakening web of life that sustains us cannot bear
the strain of producing enough meat to feed a burgeoning world population.
Moreover, the level of environmental toxicity continues to increase at an
alarming rate—at the time of this writing, for example, the United States
produces close to a ton of petrochemicals per person per year. Because
animals concentrate toxins in their bodies, eating primarily plant foods is
becoming critically important in minimizing toxic intake. At the same time,
the quality of conventionally raised livestock continues to deteriorate.
Animals are in line for the same erosion of health as humans due to the
pollution of the environment. Many researchers also think that the risk of
repeating the British beef tragedy will continue to increase as long as we
use the carcasses of sick animals to feed livestock destined for human
consumption.
These are all potent reasons for moving toward a meatless diet. In
addition, as is well-documented in the pages of this book, research suggests
than even with healthy animals, a largely vegetarian diet minimizes the risk
of heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, and other degenerative diseases.
And there are other reasons, too. Even though this has not yet been studied
in the laboratory, those sensitive to the subtler aspects of human functioning
point out that the violence and suffering implicit in modern meat production
may also have adverse effects on the mind and consciousness. Consuming
such food has traditionally been seen as detrimental to emotional stability
and mental clarity. Your consciousness, it is thought, absorbs and reflects
the abuse of the animals you are eating.
There is no lack of evidence, on the other hand, that meat production is
destructive to the ecology of the planet. The major reason the rain forest is
being destroyed so rapidly is to create grazing land for beef cattle. This
despite the fact that the amount of plant-based food that can be produced on
an acre of land is many times what it will yield in meat.
In short, humanity can ill afford the use of animal foods when it must
pay for that questionable luxury with increased toxicity, decreased health
and well-being, and the waste of land, water, and food necessary to raise
livestock. An animal-based diet is simply no longer feasible. To persist in
demanding it would be irrational and self-destructive.
Fortunately, much of the world’s population is grounded in traditions of
low-meat diets. Developing countries do not need to repeat the tragic errors
of their more affluent cousins. But they do need education in the risks of
meat-eating and the benefits of a plant-based diet if those who are not yet
habituated to animal-based diets are to strengthen their sounder dietary
patterns and assume a position of leadership in creating a healthful diet for
the future. This is not only possible, it has already begun, as indicated by
the proliferation of ethnic restaurants and cookbooks—from Thai to Middle
Eastern—that lean heavily on low-meat or meat-free dishes from such
cultures around the world.
When I visited China nearly a decade ago, I urged highly placed friends
to slip a copy of Transition to Vegetarianism to the health ministry, in hopes
that the impulse to imitate the West could be averted in the area of diet, and
the goal of increasing meat consumption be recognized as the financial,
ecological, and heath disaster that it would turn out to be. Unfortunately my
efforts were unsuccessful, but awareness of these issues is increasing. When
China applied to the World Bank for funding its planned livestock
expansion, for example, the request was refused. The reason was not hard to
guess. It was in China that pioneering and highly publicized nutritional
research had been conducted showing that meat-eating was associated with
increased incidences of cancer and other “diseases of civilization.” Why
fund an expensive project that would undermine health and create a demand
for an ecologically unsound diet?
I remain optimistic that the information contained in this book can help
chart a new course for agriculture and nutrition. Even in this age of
information overload, when new research is exploding, the principles
outlined herein have held up surprisingly well. Transition to Vegetarianism
is as timely and trenchant today as when it was first published. Though
additional evidence to support the concepts and conclusions presented here
could be added, those concepts and conclusions stand essentially
unchallenged.
This is because Transition to Vegetarianism is not based on a narrowly
focused set of beliefs or habits, but on a cross-cultural comparison of the
eating patterns of healthy cultures around the world. Dietary practices that
popped up repeatedly in such a comparison were checked against current
research, and when the scientific studies confirmed what the various
traditions practiced, it became clear that there was a solid principle
involved. For example, bean and grain dishes are a mainstay in the diet of
almost every healthy population, and countless studies support the value of
such a staple.
The three-phase process of moving first away from red meat, then
poultry, and finally dropping either fish or dairy is an increasingly common
feature of the nutritional landscape. The guidelines this book offers for
taking those steps safely and sanely are needed more than ever. If there is
anything that I wish I had included that I did not, it would be more
emphasis on the value of feeling free to move back and forth between the
different phases as one’s needs and circumstances dictate. Though we will
all, I believe, inexorably move in the direction of consuming less and less
animal food, this process should not be forced or done mechanically.
We must respect our own limitations, the reality that we are embedded
in a world that offers limited nutritional resources, and the fact that our
actions affect the web of life which sustains us. It is, I believe, only by
understanding the facts and having the benefit of a wider perspective that
we will be able to help ourselves and others find the way to a healthier diet
and a healthier planet.
Rudolph Ballentine, MD
May 1999
TRANSITION
to
Vegetarianism
WHY VEGETARIAN . . . AND
HOW

As recently as the early 1960s, diets without meat were considered the
domain of the eccentric, the bizarre, or the deranged. But now, ideas are
changing rapidly. In recent years “vegetarian” has become a household
word. Flight attendants on airlines routinely handle requests for vegetarian
meals, and restaurants having any interest at all in appearing up-to-date
must have vegetarian alternatives listed on their menus. Food sections in
major newspapers carry frequent articles on meatless recipes, while
cookbooks catering to vegetarians are selling briskly. According to a poll, in
1985 over six million Americans called themselves vegetarians. A popular
news magazine terms vegetarianism “very much middle-class mainstream.”
Why all the commotion about an idea that is anything but new? A recent
survey by the United States Department of Agriculture found that two thirds
of households had made changes in their diets “for reasons of health or
nutrition,” and that households with higher educational levels were more
likely to change their diets. The changes reported included a decrease in
beef and pork and an increase in vegetables. In fact, Americans are eating
11% more vegetables and 7% more fruits than five years ago.
There’s a new trend afoot today in attitudes toward diet. It involves
making choices consciously rather than following ethnic or cultural