From a letter published to The British Vegetarian (Official magazine of The Vegetarian Society, Bank Square, Wilmslow, Cheshire and The London Vegetarian Society, Kensington, London), probably July/August, 1964. Dr. Rotondi argues that vegetarians should also give up dairy products for health, evolutionary, and moral purposes.
To the editors,
MILK
Being a recent subscriber to your magazine, The British Vegetarian, and in reading the article in your May/June 1964 issue on cheese and rennet, in which you are searching for a vegetable rennet for the production of cheese from animal milk, I would like to comment that the object of producing cheese is for the protein which it has in place of animal flesh as a food for human consumption.
We know that the human body does not need as much protein as we have been told hereto. Furthermore, all animal proteins are extremely putrefactive, whether flesh, fowl, milk, eggs, cheese or any other milk by-product; therefore, very dangerous to human health, physical, mental, or spiritual.
It is understood that to be a vegetarian is to adhere to the confirmed “Edenic Diet: as related in Genesis 1 19-30; i.e., fruits, vegetables, nuts, tubers including grasses, grains, melons, berries, succulents and any other form of land and sea vegetation. From the time man deviated from the Divine Plan and became a flesh-eating creature, including the meat by-products, the ills of the flesh have pursued him and brought about premature old age, painful death, diseases of all kinds which force him to the use of scientific drugs and surgery, adding more sorrow and grief and pain to the already burdened body. There is an old saying: “You might as well eat the devil as drink his broth.”
The use of milk from animals and its by-products for food, such as cheese, carries with the products of diseases. Milk is a special secretion of the body of animals and humans for the sole purpose of feeding its young until the teeth are developed. The milk-animal is exploited to the nth degree by drawing this secretion and producing commercial products and then sending these animals to the slaughterhouse for human food (which the vegetarians desire to abolish).
We should realize that the poisons in these by-products, such as pus, dead cells, bacteria of all kinds, (milk is a perfect media for any disease-producing bacteria), make animal milk and cheese, irrespective of any coagulating media, such as rennet or vegetable, unfit food for vegetarians.
An authority, Karl F. Meyer, M.D., Director of the Medical Center, University of California, San Francisco, stated that the “Animal kingdom is a reservoir of disease,” and many human diseases are traceable to animal by-products such as milk, cheese, eggs, etc. The vegetable proteins found in nuts, legumes, cereals, etc., are far superior to animal proteins and free from disease-producing bacteria, and are much more conducive to physical, mental and spiritual development.
Furthermore, cow’s milk is intended to build large bony structures, including horns, hoofs, and 98 percent more hair. Quoting Dr. John H. Kellogg, an international medical authority, “The popular notion that animal milk (cow, etc.) contains everything needed for human nutrition is an unfortunate and dangerous error, though one into which a person naturally falls.” Milk is the adapted nourishment of the species of animals producing it. If nature had intended milk for further human consumption, teeth would have been delayed and lactation would have been provided for a much longer period of time. Scientific investigation has proven that milk is the primary cause of so much increase of illness such as T.B., colitis, undulent fever, strepto-infection, etc., thus necessitating prescribed drugs to counteract its effect. Milk not only multiplies disease but increases the fatality and has killed more people than wars pestilence, and famine combined. Cancer occurs with higher frequency among people who are milk-users and its by-products. “It should be sentenced to oblivion for human consumption.” This is but a brief mention of the use of milk and its by-products, but should give rise to serious consideration for the truly health-minded vegetarian.
Cheese, like milk, is one of the four greatest offenders in precipitating heart trouble–the other two being butter and eggs.
In my personal experience since 1922 as a Naturopathic and Chiropractic physician and vegetarian, I can safely say that 80 percent of my practice has been devoted to leading people who deeply desired to live Nature’s Way, to abolish the greatest amount of disease, through their elimination of animal by-products.
A research recently conducted by an eminent doctor of the well-known Loma Linda Sanitarium, in California, among 300 meat-eaters, 300 lacto-vegetarians and some true vegetarians, revealed the astounding fact that there is little difference between the flesh-eaters and lacto-ovo vegetarians. The true vegetarians were more perfectly balanced in body content and their cholesterol content was exceptionally low. It is greatly preferred to become a true vegetarian and open the door to health and happiness. Pick the best and freshest of the lavish supply that nature offers for the development of the finest qualities for man from infancy.
In my book, Vegetarian Cookery, menus are free from all animal by-products. I have endeavored to bring to the enlightened public the menus which will delight the taste buds of the particular. In Your Vegetarian Baby, parents will find astounding moral and physical guidance in every respect for parenthood; also, a complete regime for the child from prenatal to adolescence.
Sincerely, Dr. Pietro Rotondi