The World Peace Diet: Eating For Spiritual Health And Social Harmony

Hunting and Herding Sea Life / 99
all the pollutants consumed by that animal. The oil squeezed from
fish livers may contain high levels of hydrocarbon toxins such as
PCBs and dioxins. People who use fish oil “to protect their arteries”
may actually be poisoning themselves with hydrocarbons, and thus
increasing their cancer risk from these dietary oils.
The better solution is to keep one’s arteries clear, by not loading
the blood with saturated animal fats in the first place. People who do
not eat saturated animal fats generally have a much lower risk of
clogging their arteries. Fish is not “brain food”—in fact, it now may
well have become just the opposite—mercury poisons the brain and
nerve cells. Because, in our current dietary understanding, a vegan
diet can, in theory, meet all the human body’s nutritional needs, and
help protect against clogged arteries, heart attacks, strokes and cancers,
you will do your health (and the fish!) a favor by letting them
“off the hook.” 7
Becoming Vegan outlines in detail the plant-based sources of the
omega-3 fatty acids that people often eat fish flesh or oil to obtain. The
main sources are flax seeds, walnuts, soybeans, tofu, canola oil, hemp
oil, dark greens, and seaweeds. 8
Fish absorb and intensely concentrate toxins like PCBs, dioxins,
radioactive substances, and heavy metals like mercury, lead, cadmium,
and arsenic, 9 all of which are linked to cancer as well as nervous system
disorders, kidney damage, and impaired mental functioning. They contain
excessive amounts of cholesterol, animal protein, and hazardous,
blood-altering oils. Besides contributing directly to human disease and
suffering through the toxicity of its products, the seafood industry causes
enormous damage to marine ecosystems throughout the world.
Herding Fish
Most people don’t realize that the confinement and factory farming of
fish and shellfish is a large and growing industry, euphemized as the
“Blue Revolution.” In fact, according to the United Nations’ Food and
Agriculture Organization, about thirty percent of worldwide saltwater
and freshwater seafood production comes from commercial fish farm