By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Columnist

Retired physician William Harris hasn't eaten meat for half a century, and he's still kicking, so he figures maybe there's something to it.

Harris said he believes the vegetarian (no fish, flesh or fowl) and more specifically the vegan (no milk or eggs, either) diet is healthier than the standard American diet, but he said his basic reason for adopting it was ethical.

"I don't think it's right to kill animals," he said. He quit eating meat in 1950 and went vegan in 1963.

His commitment to the lifestyle is confirmed by the experience of "35 years taking care of sick omnivores," he said.

"There are enormous health advantages to staying away from animal food," he said, including reduced cardiovascular disease and reduced cancer rates. Harris does note that while you can reduce your chance of getting cancer with a vegetarian diet, adopting the diet won't stop an existing cancer.

Harris, 72, who worked in the Kaiser emergency room before retiring, is a co-founder of the Vegetarian Society of Hawai'i and author of the 1993 book, "The Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism." It has the details, and it pays to check the details, he said, since "you need to be a little bit savvy" to go vegan. For instance, it's a good idea to find a reliable source of vitamin B-12. A lot of folks just take a vitamin pill for it, since it's missing in a vegan diet.

Harris doesn't take the even more rigorous step to the raw food diet — used by folks who eat only plant products, and also don't cook them. Most vegans are at least partly raw fooders, but they eat some of their fare cooked.

"We've only been using fire for a half-million years, a relatively short time when you consider primates have been around about 60 million years," he said.

You can safely eat a raw food diet, but it pays to be educated about it. There are benefits, and there are risks. A key feature on both sides is weight loss.

"The problem and the advantage are the same," he said. "You lose weight. It's very easy to meet all your nutritional needs and to fill your stomach before you eat enough calories to keep from losing weight."

Raw fooders also start tasting things the rest of us cook out of our food: "By going on a raw diet you finally kick the salt habit, because you find there are flavors in raw foods that make it an epicurian feast. You don't feel the craving for salt after you've been on the diet for a while."

Harris will give free talks about the raw food diet at 7 p.m. Oct. 8 at the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Kahului, Maui, and at 7 p.m. Oct. 11 at McCoy Pavilion in Ala Moana Park on O'ahu. For more information call 944-8344.

Jan TenBruggencate is The Advertiser's Kauai bureau chief and its science and environment writer. Reach him at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.