• Accordng to the latest edition of the USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans, "Consumption of plant foods is associated with a substantially lower risk for many chronic diseases." "Vegetarian diets are consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and can meet Recommended Dietary Allowances for nutrients."
• The concept of protein complementingÑa need to eat certain types of foods in combinations at each meal to utilize the proteinÑhas long since been dismissed as unnecessary in all but the most deficient diets.
• Vegetarians and vegans have less than one-half the risk of heart disease and adult onset diabetes as does the general population. Vegans have as much as 35% lower cholesterol levels. Plants contain no cholesterol.
  
• Osteoporosis is a disease of protein excess, not calcium deficiency. Vegetarian and vegan women have bone mass similar to or better than that of meateaters.
• Five hundred people die each year in the U.S. from bacteria in meat; another 6.5 million become ill. More than 70% of the poultry in stores is contaminated with salmonella or campylobacter, or both.
• Consumption of meat is estimated to cost $30-60 billion in direct medical costs due to associated diseases.
• Vegetarian girls reach puberty later than omnivore girls. Early menarche is one of the factors linked to a greater risk of breast cancer later in life.
• Farm animals are fed 30 times more antibiotics than are used by humans. This has driven the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria strains in humans against which antibiotics are no longer effective.
• In 1996, there were 2,193 health advisories in effect cautioning people not to eat fish from certain waterways due to pollution. These advisories covered 15% of lakes, 5% of rivers, and all of the Great Lakes

Exerpted from articles on the website of the Vegetarian Society of the District of Columbia, as reprinted by Food for Thought, newsletter of the Corning Area Vegetarian Society. For supporting references or more information, see the VSDC website, www.vsdc.org