Quoting the UK World Research Fund, Kathryn's Borg's feature on processed meat and cancer (The Sunday Times, January 11) seems to claim that only processed meats promote cancer. There is a considerable body of scientific evidence that shows that all animal-derived protein and fat (all meats and dairy produce, including poultry and rabbit) promote cancers of various types.

Among other studies, one conducted 30 years ago on human disease distribution patterns in China showed that diets of high animal-based foods led to "diseases of affluence", namely cancers, diabetes, cholesterol problems, heart disease and strokes, obesity, bowel diverticular disease and gall stones. Where diets consisted mainly of plant-based foods there were very little such diseases.

Recommendable plant-based foods include whole grain - unrefined oats, wholemeal bread, brown pasta, and brown, red and black rice. Too many refined carbohydrates in foods made from white flour and white rice contain no fibre and promote blood sugar and cholesterol problems.

For several decades we've been fed scientific and medical misinformation, such as that plant protein is inferior to animal protein. This is now known to be untrue - plant protein combined with fibre, found abundantly in beans and lentils, are as good as animal protein for body development and they improve blood cholesterol.

Some vegetables have more calcium than animal milk and it is not true that bone health needs animal milk products. Some vegetables and whole grains have abundant iron. No meat is needed to prevent anaemia. Fruit and vegetables, particularly the dark and brightly coloured ones, contain many compounds that protect us from cancers and heart disease.

Most Western medical schools ignore evidence that a predominantly plant-based diet with little animal protein and fat not only protects from cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity, but can also reverse heart disease and possibly also some cancers.

They have been teaching new generations of doctors little more than how to use pharmaceutical drugs and surgery, to the detriment of people's health and the escalating costs of health care.

Readers interested in learning more about these claims are referred to The China Study by T. Colin Campbell (ISBN 1-932100-66-0). The author has been directly involved with more than 350 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.