THE eminent Professor Robert Pickard, director general of the British Nutrition Foundation, has gone public with the important information that red meat is essential for health and keeps us in the pink.

When you're such a busy man, running a body that represents the commercial interests of the food industry, it's obviously easy to overlook things. Such as the avalanche of research from the world's leading health bodies -- World Health Organisation, American Dietetic Association and British Medical Association -- that vegetarians suffer less from all the degenerative diseases such as heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, strokes, diabetes, kidney disease, etc.

Of course, it's also easy enough to misread the thousands of reports which show that one of the primary causes of these diseases is animal fat, cholesterol, and animal protein. And the fact that veggies live longer than meat eaters isn't of any great significance for a nutritional body, is it?

All easy mistakes to make, particularly when part of your funding comes from McDonald's, Bernard Matthews, and the Meat & Livestock Commission. No, the BNF's claim should have been that red meat keeps them in the black.

Tony Wardle

Communications Director

Viva

Queen Square

Brighton