I became a vegetarian in 1950, while I was a student at the University of Iowa (USA). And then when I finally got around to completing my internship at San Diego County Hospital, I realized that in order to get milk out of a cow you have to keep her pregnant. And I hadn’t realized that, and I didn’t realize that there’s a huge amount of suffering involved in the dairy industry, so I became a vegan.

Hallo, compassionate viewers, and welcome to another edition of Healthy Living featuring Dr. William Harris a now retired respected US physician, a board member of the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii and a long-time promoter of the vegan lifestyle.

Today he will share his insights on diet and health. For decades, Dr. Harris has been deeply concerned about the issue of dietary choices and their effect on well-being and has conducted extensive research on the subject. In 1996, he launched the Kaiser Permanente Vegetarian Lifestyle Clinic in Hawaii, USA, where clients learned about the benefits of the plant-based diet including how it prevents disease.

The last couple of years as a physician for Kaiser (Hospital), I ran a volunteer Kaiser Permanente Vegetarian Lifestyle Clinic, and the idea was to take a few patients who were willing to listen and try to make changes and teach them how to be successful vegetarians, and by doing that, getting off many of their medications.

I didn’t actually get any real support. This was a volunteer effort. I initiated it back in 1996 and I ran it myself, but I think some of it must have rubbed off, because it is true that they’re now trying to prevent disease rather than trying to treat it after it’s arrived, which is the only sensible thing to do, really.

In 1998, desiring to spread the word regarding the hazards of animal agriculture, Dr. Harris published “The Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism” and sent the book to every member of the US Congress to inform them of the harmful impacts of providing federal subsidies for livestock raising and that government support for fruit and vegetable production is a constructive way to improve public health.

We are the long-term descendents of large arboreal primates. Our ancestors, if you go back three or four million years ago, were living in the upper branches of trees. And they were eating what was available up in those trees, which was leaves and fruit. They didn’t have to be eating meat in order to be healthy. And they certainly weren’t drinking cow’s milk, because cows don’t live in trees.

The dangers of consuming meat, eggs and dairy products are being confirmed by more and more scientific research every day.

The connection is becoming increasingly clear that all animal food contributes to most of the degenerative diseases of our time: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, certainly type two diabetes, and probably a whole bunch of esoteric diseases that are so unusual that they are known by hyphenated names.

Dr. Harris now addresses the myth that humans need to eat meat for protein.

Protein is a co-polymer of amino acids, which means it’s a long string of amino acids hung together by chemical bonds, and all of the essential amino acids, the ones that you have to have in your diet, are synthesized only by plants and microorganisms.

So when a doctor tells his patient that he’s got to eat meat in order to get over thus and such disease, I see it only as a misinformed doctor. When you feed the meat protein to a human, the first thing they do is break down the protein to the amino acids of which it’s made. And the amino acids are identical, whether they came from a plant or from an animal. There’s absolutely no difference.

Vitamin A is important to maintaining healthy eyesight, skin, teeth, and mucous membranes. Vitamin D is essential to keeping our bones strong, as it helps us absorb calcium. Both are easy-to-obtain nutrients for those following a vegan diet. Vitamin A is an essential metabolite. That means you have to have it in your body. But you can make it from beta-carotene, and if you have enough leafy, green vegetables and carrots and things like that, pigmented vegetables generally have the carotenoids.

Vitamin D, the best way to get it is from the Sun. And just a little bit of exposure to the Sun in sub-Arctic latitudes is enough to give you all the vitamin D that you need. If you’re afraid you won’t get enough, a vegan source of vitamin D is mushrooms. You turn the mushrooms gill side up and hang them out in the Sun for a while, and they develop the so-called vitamin D, which is actually ergosterol. And from that you can make the hormone that you need, which is misclassified as vitamin D.

Dr. Harris wishes that all vegans pay special attention to ensuring their diets include sufficient amounts of vitamin B12.

One vitamin that is an absolute must for vegans is vitamin B12. You have to have this vitamin as a supplement.

You can’t get B12 from higher plant foods. You won’t find it in spinach or in rice or grain. It’s made by bacteria of a couple of species. And it’s an extraordinarily complicated, complicated molecule. It has the highest molecular weight of any of the vitamins, and it has a very complicated transport mechanism. And so you do have to have the stuff, and you have to add that to your vegan diet.

When we return, Dr. Harris will continue to discuss how to supplement one’s diet with vitamin B12, and presents more practical suggestions on choosing nutritious foods. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Healthy Living here on Supreme Master Television where we’re talking with Dr. William Harris a now retired respected US physician, a board member of the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii and a long-time promoter of the plant-based lifestyle.

A vegan since 1963, Dr. Harris has done much in his career to promote healthy eating. In 1998 he published “The Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism” and sent the book to every member of the US Congress to inform them of the destructive effects of government subsidies for animal agriculture. Dr. Harris now continues discussing vitamin B12 supplementation.

I think if you just add a little Red Star T-66 35 nutritional yeast to any recipe, you’ll get enough. A teaspoon of the stuff will give you your day’s requirement for vitamin B12. That’s the only nutritional yeast that I can recommend. I can also tell you that most of the other things that have been alleged to have B12 in them, like spirulina, and I think nori, various seaweeds, have B12 analogues don’t. They look like B12 from a molecular standpoint, but they’re lacking the essential component, which is cobalamin.

Dr. Harris has long been concerned about the consequences of livestock raising on public health which include its large role in spreading deadly illnesses.

There is a book which was written by a couple of non-vegetarian doctors, who conclude that 75% of the contagious diseases that humans suffer from we get from domesticated animals. And the swine flu is just one example. Swine flu and the bird flu seem to interchange. The swine flu, people should start by understanding that that virus was a normal inhabitant of the GI tract of waterfowl; ducks carry the influenza virus.

They can then transmit it to the swine, and the swine transmits it to us, and their manner of transmission is fecal contamination. But we transmit it to each other by aerosol. If somebody with the flu sneezes on you, or you get some dirt off the person’s hands, or maybe from the cook that has a case of the flu, then you get it.

Dr. Harris provides us with two simple, practical tips on choosing healthy foods.

First of all, if it doesn’t have fiber in it, don’t eat it. All these animal foods have no fiber, because animals cannot synthesize cellulase, which is the main component of fiber. And refined sugar and vegetable oil also have no fiber because they are either 100 % sugar or 100% fat.

Here is another bit of advice: if man made it, don’t eat it. That’s probably the most important piece of advice I have here.

How should parents help their children who want to adopt a plant-based diet?

Get one of any number of well written diet books or vegetarian books by professional authors, by MDs who’ve had experience. And there are lots of them. You can read (John) McDougall, you can read (Michael) Klaper. Read a good book written by somebody that knows what he’s talking about.

And make sure that your kid gets vitamin B12. Now, that’s an essential. The other possible nutrient that might be valuable, particularly in a neo-natal child, is DHA, which is one of the omega-3 fatty acids. And that is vitally important in the membrane structure of the brain and the developing retina.

For new mothers, Dr. Harris strongly recommends breastfeeding over formula feeding.

So pregnant women have to give some thought to this. I absolutely don’t think there is any substitute for breastfeeding. And the best breast milk comes from a well-nourished, vegan mother.

Dr. Harris always encourages people to stop smoking and alcohol consumption. In addition, he advocates doing regular exercise, especially running. He sets a good example for others with his fitness routine.

My daily exercise is about 38 flights of stairs in my condo. And I swim a half-mile I do some light weightlifting. I used to do heavy weightlifting, but I found out that you can bulk up and as soon as you stop weightlifting you lose it all. So I just stay with the light weights. And then my main activity is acrobatic trampoline, which gives you an aerobic work out, which is equivalent to competitive running.

Dr. Harris’s other favorite sport may be a bit of surprise to many.

I was a hang glider until 1998, and then I switched and started skydiving. I actually made my first skydive the day after I retired from medical practice.

At almost 80 years of age, Dr. Harris still skydives with friends. We sincerely thank Dr. Harris for his splendid example of following the healthy vegan lifestyle and wish him continued health and happiness.

Hi, I’m Dr. Bill Harris. I’m a board member and the TV coordinator for the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii. Be Veg, Go Green, and Save the Planet.

For more details on Dr. William Harris, please visit www.VegSource.com/harris
“The Scientific Basis for Vegetarianism” is available at the same website

Compassionate viewers, thank you for joining us on this edition of Healthy Living. Up next is Science and Spirituality after Noteworthy News. May we all be embraced by Heaven’s love and light.

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