The researchers from Cornell University who wrote The China Study discovered that disease could be turned on and turned off by the amount of animal protein in the diet. The way they word it in the book is quite complicated, talking about "percents of caloric intake", etc. But we can simplify what they said to just this: If we keep animal products down to about a tenth of our diet, we are mostly under the wire for turning on disease. Notice how this fits with "eating meat sparingly". Is this not greater than heck?
Jim Simmons explained something to me about animal protein once that I have loved with all my heart. It is this: Our bodies need protein for building and repair, and for adults, that typically isn't very much -- something like only 6 grams a day (not the 150 grams that most of the Western world believes we need). When we eat more protein than our body needs, our body has to break it down and eliminate it. We have no mechanism for storing protein, unlike our bodies' ability to store excess carbs and fats. Protein comes from two sources: 1) plant protein, and 2) animal protein. When we eat more plant protein than our bodies need for repair, our body can break it down with no problem. But here is the amazing thing, when we eat too much animal protein and our body has to break this down, there is a nasty little by-product of this process called H2S04, namely sulphuric acid!! In other words, we can eat plant protein with no ill effect, but eating too much animal protein, i.e. more than our body needs, puts sulphuric acid into our tissues, and how good can that be? Sulphuric acid is a serious acid, the kind that would eat your face off. Is it any wonder then, that eating more meat (and actually more animal products) than we need causes disease?
This brings up D&C 49: 21
"And wo be unto man that sheddeth blood or that wasteth flesh and hath no need."
I used to think that this meant that Heavenly Father was sitting up in Heaven with a big stick that He was going to hit us with if we killed animals for sport and basically were willing to waste the lives of other beings. Now this might be true too -- who can know! :) But, what I see now is that He doesn't need a big stick and can spend His time looking over us and blessing us, because there is a natural law that kicks in and we zap ourselves by wasting flesh. In other words, the "wo" is that we are filling our cells and tissues with sulphuric acid, which causes us to have all the degenerative diseases that America leads the world in having (by the way) when we don't eat meat sparingly, or in other words, when we eat more meat than our body needs -- when we waste flesh and have no need!
But there is not the health problem in eating meat or animal products when it's within the amount of protein that our body needs for building and repair! I love this!!
Look how wonderful and consistent Heavenly Father is once again: He gives us animals for our use but expects us to be responsible with their lives and with the fact that they are living beings who have lives. If we actually need them, there is no problem. When we waste their lives because we take their lives for our use when we have no need, natural law kicks in and we pay for it in the end with our health and after a while with our own lives. What this says to me is that we need to open our eyes to the seriousness of the responsibility we have in our stewardship over the animals on the earth. And besides, we all want to be healthy anyway!