"aren't you emotionally attached to the almost religious 'dogma' that meat eating is the better policy? In the same manner a devout Christian is attached to the dogma Creation and the Almighty God?"

No. If that were the case, then I wouldn't want to know the answer to my question "how does animal protein raise cholesterol." If presented with strong evidence of an underlying metabolic mechanism, I would be forced to choose between my beliefs, or invent rationalizations around why the undesirable answer was wrong.

Or I could just stick my fingers in my ears and shout "LALALALA". At any rate, were I strongly committed to dogma, the "smart" thing would be to not come here and ask questions that might shake my beliefs, but rather stick with the other "meat eaters" so we could prop up each others' confirmation biases.

BTW, I would invite any and all to come to my blog and ask tough questions. Like I said to Dr. Campbell, such open dialog is crucial in the search for the truth. And for what it's worth - I actually don't currently believe that eating meat is the only way to be healthy. I suspect it's the easiest way, but would also guess that a well-informed vegetarian (like those at beyondveg.com) could make it work as well. It's the "informed" part that is important, not the dogma of vegetarians vs. carnivores vs. ???

Fine. I will look elsewhere for the answer. Thank you for your time. I apologize that the discussion seemed to have strayed from my original question, and that's partly my fault.

I'll also apologize for any perceived "attacks" on Dr. Campbell. The one thing I've taken away from this whole Denise Minger episode is a belief that Dr. Campbell is at least sincere in his beliefs, and not simply trying to sell his own brand of snake oil. I don't agree with him, but would be willing to find the source of that disagreement through discussion, if he changes his mind.

Sorry again to have caused upheaval here. I'll leave now before anybody else gets angry.

Ah, Denise -- the Michelle Malkin of the meat industry!

Mark, Spark's question is valid, in fact anybody's questions are valid, and he was quite reasonable. His question is interesting, and KEY to go from a somewhat informed omnivorous diet to an informed vegan/vegetarian diet, when Health is what is valued. I am vegetarian more because of my ethics than health, but some people are more interested in what diet would be optimal, not ethical. Plus defining well what an optimal diet REALLY is, its important regardless. A diet abundant with vegetables & leafy greens, herbs, Ancient grains (no wheat), some tubers & fruit, and supplemented with some quality animal protein and fat seems to be close to optimal, from what I've learned. Personally Im only interested in optimizing my vegetarian diet, but still itch to know what would be optimal, and what diets are best for treating & preventing illnesses like cancer. Steve Jobs didnt survive his cancer, and he was seemingly going with the Ornish approach (I am aware of the other problems that may have gotten in the way of sucessful diet/lifestyle intervention), now I would love to see someone that believes in a lower carb, meat, fat & plant rich diet, intervene with THAT diet and see if its more protective.