If vegetarians were shown to have a significantly reduced rate of colon cancer relative to meat eaters, it could be an issue with the quality of meat that the people in the meat eating arm of the study were eating. Most people I know who are "meat eaters" eat processed meats and fast food meats. Nitrates in the former and a tendency to eat the fries and other garbage while eating the latter could be an important variable in how the meat eaters fared with respect to chances of getting colon cancer. It's possible that eating good fresh unprocessed beef, poulty and fish may be as protective as a vegetarian diet; who knows. It could explain why heavy meat eating populations don't have the increase in colon cancer incidence that we have here.

rerics