There are plenty of health reasons to avoid eating red meat, and a higher risk of colon cancer is just one of them. The saturated animal fat found in red meat products contributes to heart disease and atherosclerosis. In addition, red meat can contain contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides and undesirable environmental pollutants that tend to collect in the fat tissues of cows, which are absorbed into your body when you eat cow fat. And you can't eat red meat without getting some animal fat.

There are a lot of negative effects associated with the consumption of red meat, and this is why more and more people are now giving up red meat and moving to healthier foods like fish, free-range chicken, or better yet, plant-based proteins like spirulina or soy products like soy milk and tofu. This is where you'll get your best protective effect and disease prevention, and you will be helping protect the environment at the same time. After all, it's far less stressful on the environment to produce food as plants than as animals.

These are all reasons to avoid an animal-based diet and pursue a plant-based diet. Many people reading this are already following a plant-based diet, but some of you who might be considering making the change probably aren't sure exactly how to do it.

I found the transition away from red meat to be difficult at first. I started consuming less of it and eating other meat alternatives, and pretty soon I began to view red meat in a different way, because if you eat less of it, you eventually start to lose your appetite for it. And within less than a year, any time I would see red meat at the grocery store, it would gross me out. I look at it and I realize what it is: a chunk of flesh sliced off the carcass of a living creature that has been ground up and stuffed into a box. Usually there's some blood running around in the container as well. Every time I would look at that I would get grossed out and think to myself, "Gee, is this really what I want to eat for the rest of my life? This sliced up chunk of a dead cow?" And the answer was, "No." So it didn't take very long before I didn't want any red meat, and now I can't imagine eating it.

Think about limiting or eliminating your consumption of red meat and instead nourish your body with the phytonutrients, phytochemicals, vitamins, minerals and even the living energy of plants. That's how you'll be the healthiest you can be.