Teacher Said, "Don't Eat Meat"

I say, "Moderation in Everything"

My three daughters all graduated from the same High School in Manchester, New Hampshire.

When Carrie, my oldest, was a sophomore (16), she had a teacher (she thinks it was her Biology teacher) who told the class never to eat meat, because meat will give them colon cancer. I was shocked. I had never heard that before and no amount of reasoning would change Carrie’s mind.

As a matter of fact, it was all I could do to reassure her that the occasional roast beef and hamburger she had already eaten in the past —(and I hoped she would continue to eat in the future), were not going to ‘give’ her colon cancer.

Gone are the days when a cowboy’s entire meal consisted of a 2–1/2 inch thick steak the size of his dinner plate and nothing else to go with it.

Two years later, Carrie went off to college in Indiana, still not eating meat. Since my girls are all two years apart, my middle daughter, Bethany, was now a sophomore (16). She was also told by the same teacher that eating meat was dangerous and cautioned the class not to eat it. It caused colon cancer.  I thought, “Oh great. Here we go again.”

Two years later, Bethany left for college in Vermont and Heather, my youngest, was now a sophomore (16) … same teacher, same class, same warning. But I wasn’t surprised by the third time. I was used to it. I still didn’t agree with the teacher and felt she was out of line to warn students about something she didn’t back up with any concrete evidence that meat, all meat by the way she worded it, ‘caused’ colon cancer.

I’m happy to report that Carrie came home from college for Christmas that first year eating meat again —-once in a while. Her college friends had finally convinced her that getting colon cancer from eating meat was unwarranted because it was unproved.

With Bethany, it was much sooner —she was back to occasionally eating meat by the time she was a senior in High school, as I remember. But Heather, my little rebel with a few causes, had heard it for four years with Carrie and Beth and she was not giving up eating meat.

What I remember most was getting a phone call from Heather’s teacher. She told me Heather interrupted the class and announced loudly to everyone that what she was saying about meat causing colon cancer was …

“… bull crap, don’t listen to her!”

The teacher was so upset, I thought Heather would not only flunk the class, but be expelled from school … so I told the teacher I thought it might be a good idea to get a professional opinion from someone to back up her claim: say, a nutritionist, physician, pharmacist, or better yet, an oncologist, rather than making a blanket statement every year that meat ‘caused’ colon cancer..

I told her everything I had read said eating too much meat may contribute to colon cancer, but nowhere did I see that meat “caused” colon cancer.

Parents of teens in high school have a tough enough job.  Meat or no meat, teen girls hardly eat anything as it is …

To my knowledge, the teacher never warned another class not to eat meat …

Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
Quora Top Writer 2018.
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