I shared how Daniel and his three friends made the important decision not eat the King's meat and chose a vegetarian diet. During my presentation, I held up a number of articles to support my conclusion that meat-eating is dangerous. Like the ancient Daniel in Babylon, this Daniel also refuses to eat the meat that the U.S. Government says is safe and nutritious food. 

      The first illustration I used was from USA Today, December 13, 1999, which featured an article entitled: "Colon Cancer Linked to Red Meat." The article cited findings from The Nurses Study involving 88,751 women as reported by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study said: "Cancer risk is 2.5 times greater in women who ate red meat daily as compared to those that ate it less than once a month. Fiber in fruits and vegetables protects against cancer. The lowest risks were in diets of primarily fruits and vegetables."

     Then the article said something that struck me as ludicrous. It said, "The culprit in red meat isn't known. Most studies point to animal fat that increases stomach bile and promotes tumors."

     I wondered, "If the article had been written this year, would they have agreed with Dr. T. Colin Campbell's conclusion in The China Study that eating high amounts of animal protein is the #1 cause of cancer in this country?" "Or the 2004 report from the European Journal on Cancer that constipation increases colon cancer? How about a study from three scientists from Sacramento that said we are getting cancer because we are eating animals with cancer. They said, "We must now look at the ingestion pathway as a possible cause of cancer."

     The next article I shared with the audience that Sabbath morning was from the American Cancer Society. It read: "American Cancer Society Study Links Meat Consumption to Colon Cancer." The study of nearly a 150,000 Americans, the largest and most comprehensive to date, adds substantially to previous evidence linking the highest consumption of red and processed meat to intestinal cancer. It was published in the January 12, 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). It was also very interesting that the study defined "high consumption" as just three ounces daily of red meat for men and two ounces daily for women.    
      My next illustration was from Newsweek, September 1, 1997. The cover for that issue showed a package of ground beef complete with the safe handling Instructions that tells you to nearly wear gloves before handling the raw meat. Is it then safe to eat? The Headlines read: "Can This Meat Kill You? The E.coli threat - It's worse than you think."
     I will never forget the time I was teaching at BellaVita and quoted from the 1967 Department of Agriculture Yearbook that said 100 million chickens die each year from leukemia or blood cancer. To my surprise, a kind, little African American woman raised her hand and asked if she could share something. I was blown away when she told her story. "My husband was one of the scientists employed by the USDA who worked on that report. Many times when the inspectors brought samples back from meat packagers throughout the country, my husband would test the samples and find dog and cat and other animals in the ground beef. It happens all the time." YUCK!!!

      The sickened audience now looked at my next illustration from Newsweek, March 12, 2001. The bold headlines read: "The Slow Deadly Spread of Mad Cow Disease. How It Could Become an Epidemic." The article, of the popular news weekly, said, "Health officials say they have Mad Cow under control, but millions of unaware people may be infected. Why it could still turn into an epidemic." If the headlines weren't frightening enough, the picture of a brain with holes in it was! They were caused by the infectious prion. 

    I remember reading the Book "Deadly Feasts" by Richard Rhodes. This book really opened my eyes to the horrors of Mad Cow Disease. I will never forget Rhodes' prediction that 200,000 Britons could die each year starting in 2015 because they are already infected with the prion! People can be infected by drinking tainted milk or eating infected meat. And beef isn't the only flesh that can be infected.      

    The next convincing article I shared with the audience was dated, February 18, 2008. The headlines of this article read, "USDA Orders Largest Meat Recall in U.S. History." The article said, "The Agriculture Department has ordered the largest meat recall in its history - 143 million pounds of beef, a California California meatpacker's entire production for the past two years, because the company did not prevent animals from entering the U.S. food supply, officials said....'About 37 million pounds of the meat - cuts, ground beef and prepared products such as meatballs and burrito filling - went to school lunch and other public nutrition programs, and almost all of this product is likely to have been consumed,'" said Ron Vogel, a USDA administrator.     

      The next article that I shared wasn't about beef or luncheon meats, but this time it was about what most Americans think is a safe alternative - CHICKEN! It came from Consumer Reports, January 2007, and warned: "HEALTH ALERT - More Bacteria in Chicken." The article, on page 20, said: "DIRTY BIRDS...If you eat undercooked or mishandled chicken, our new tests indicate you have a good chance of feeling miserable. CR's analysis of fresh, whole broilers brought nationwide revealed 83 percent harbored campylobacter or salmonella, the leading bacterial causes of foodborne disease."       

       My last article also warned about the dangers of eating chicken. It was Entitled, "You Need to Know This If You Eat Tyson Chicken." It said: "Tyson Foods, the world's largest meat processor and the second largest chicken producer in the U.S., has admitted that it injects its chickens with antibiotics before they hatch and then labels them as raised without antibiotics.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has told Tyson to stop using the antibiotic-free label, but the company has sued for the right to keep using it.
      "Poultry farmers regularly treat chickens and other birds with antibiotics. But scientists have become increasingly concerned that the routine use of antibiotics in animal agriculture may accelerate the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
      "After Tyson began labeling its chicken antibiotic-free, the USDA warned the company that such labels were not truthful, because Tyson regularly treats its birds' feed with bacteria-killing ionophores. Tyson argued that ionophores are antimicrobials rather than antibiotics, and are not used on human patients. Tyson suggested a compromise which was eventually accepted by the USDA -- they would use a label reading 'raised without antibiotics that impact antibiotic resistance in humans.'
      "Tyson's competitors: Perdue Farms Inc., Sanderson Farms Inc. and Foster Farms sued, and in May 2008, a federal judge ruled in their favor and told Tyson to stop using the label. Not long after, USDA inspectors discovered that in addition to using ionophores, Tyson was regularly injecting its chicken eggs with gentamicin, an antibiotic that has been used for more than 30 years.
      "The agency told Tyson that based on the new discovery, it would no longer consider the antibiotic-free label 'truthful and accurate.' Tyson objected again, claiming that because the antibiotics are injected before the chickens hatched, the birds can truthfully be said to be 'raised without antibiotics.' Tyson has filed a lawsuit against the USDA, claiming that the agency had improperly changed the definition of 'raised without antibiotics' to include the treatment of eggs.'" Natural News, November 9, 2008.

     There you have it. Meat-eating causes colon and intestinal cancer, Mad Cow Disease that eats holes in the brain, and bacterial infections because sick animals are being fed to cows which are herbivores. If that weren't enough, you have an 83 percent chance your chicken is contaminated. But don't worry, Tyson is injecting the chickens before they are hatched, right? 

      Doesn't this give you a new appreciation for the 100-year-old predictions made by E. G. White, the most prolific author on health and nutrition, on the dangers of meat-eating?