Why aren’t meats accompanied by warning labels? Some may argue that warning labels may become lost on a product and it would be significant and a financial waste. The fact is that although to many it may not influence their decision in avoiding the product it will give the consumer the facts and therefore, giving the RIGHT to make a fair choice. Take tooth paste for instance, it does come with a warning label and the vast majority still use the product but the key point to stress is that everyone is aware of the indicated hazards and that it looms in the back of our minds contributing to some caution regardless how minimal it may be. These are the immediate steps we can take in educating our society, gradually eliminating its demand , finally eliminating its production entirely.
Simply considering the individual health risks that meat possesses, labels may allow consumers to make a more conscientious choice. Items such as alcohol, tobacco and a more recently debated in the United States, sodas(no warning label is used yet), are few items accompanied by warning labels but again none have the equally devastating repercussions to our health and that of the planet.
Dr. Neal Barnard, M.D of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and on the Board of Directors for the Cancer project is in accord with deliberations of the World Health Organization, where it was determined that dietary factors are responsible for at least 30 percent of all cancers in Western countries and up to 20 percent in developing countries. Consequently, research on the subject concluded that individuals with a lesser chance of developing cancer were those that deterred from consuming meat. Other significant findings in developed nations such as England and Germany demonstrated that the numbers were as high as 40% less likely to develop cancer when maintain in a plant based diet in comparison to people who consumed meat. In addition, a study on a religious group with a predominantly meat free diet had an overall noticeable lower risk in cancer. Consequently, Harvard studies concluded that the risk of colon cancer was close to 3 times as much in individuals that consumed meat when compared to individuals that mostly abstained from meat consumption.(1)
Considering the undeniable facts of meat related mortality we should note that in some form its consumption is still contributing to some level of chronic illness and we should be warned with the use of labels.
(1) http://www.cancerproject.org/diet_cancer/facts/meat.php
