By now, most of us know the nutrition we take into our body is a vital factor in determining our health ... how we feel, how effectively our body heals itself and how long we live. On the flip side of that coin there is a factor of equal - if not greater - importance that is sometimes completely overlooked and nearly always underestimated.

This often un-discussed area of health maintenance concerns the elimination of waste and toxins from our body. While it is practically impossible to overestimate the importance of putting good things into our body, it is more likely that we will underestimate the importance of getting the bad things out of our body.

It was Henry Wheeler Shaw who said, "A good reliable set of bowels is worth more to a man than any quantity of brains."

All cells must take in nutrients to maintain their metabolism and their life. As an end result of this metabolism, every one of our approximately 140 trillion cells also must produce waste material. To maintain optimal health, we must eliminate this waste efficiently. Every cell and every organ in our body eliminates waste and is effected by waste elimination from the body as a whole.

It is up to our colon to eliminate the bulk of the most toxic and putrid waste in our body. When we obtain energy from the food we eat, we create a waste product (feces) that should be eliminated within 24 hours or less. But with a meat-based, high-fat, low-fiber diet, the average American has a transit time of 72 to 96 hours, meaning this waste begins a toxic build-up that creates numerous problems for the colon and every other part of the body. If it is not quickly eliminated, fecal matter in the colon turns into a toxic and putrid waste that is absorbed into the rest of our system. Over the course of time, this effects the functioning of every cell and organ in our body. It poisons the blood, lymphatic system, nervous system and brain, while clogging up the heart, vascular system, lungs and sinuses.

A proper diet is one that provides necessary nourishment for the body, and facilitates proper

Most colons have become stagnant cesspools, collecting layers and pockets of toxic and putrid feces and mucus that poisons the blood stream and every cell and organ in the body.

waste removal and cleansing ... from the cellular level to the colon. But the typical American diet featuring an abundance of meat, dairy, fried and over-cooked foods, sugar, starches, salt and artificial chemicals is hard to digest, very little of it can be assimilated as nutrition into our cells, it is high in toxic waste, fat and cholesterol, and slow to move though the colon because it is low in fiber.

We know the body of a dead animal in hot weather creates quite a stench after a couple days. This stench gives us a good idea of what meat does inside the 98.6-degree temperature of the body. The comparison of a human colon with the colon of a true carnivore, such as a dog, provides strong evidence that humans were not designed to eat meat. The colon of a dog is smooth and straight, like a stove pipe, and takes a short, direct route. In contrast, the human colon turns back and forth along a convoluted pathway with many puckers, pouches, twists and turns. The dog's colon is designed to allow a short transit time for even hard-to-digest meat, cholesterol and fat, without much need for fiber to move things along.

In Diet for a New America, John Robbins points out, "Dogs, cats and the other natural carnivores do not get colon cancer from high-fat, low-fiber, flesh-based diets. But we do ...The toxins from putrefying flesh are not the problem for them that they are for us because everything passes through them so much more quickly." He notes that colon cancer is a killer that affects more than 20 percent of American families, and his book provides an incredible number of statistics and medical studies proving that the more meat, the more fat, the more cholesterol and the less fiber we eat, the more likely we are to die of colon cancer.

Fiber acts as an intestinal broom to sweep things along in the colon while fat clogs up the intestines. It is vital to-remember that all animal products - meat, dairy and eggs - have zero fiber, while most are high in fat. In addition to constipation and increased risk of colon cancer, a meat based, high-fat, low-fiber diet can cause a host of other colon-related problems, including diverticulosis, hemorrhoids, irritable bowel syndrome, spastic colon and appendicitis. These are all problems that can be caused by slow-moving, hard, dry feces, and can be cured by something as simple as a predominately raw foods, vegetarian diet, which is high in fiber, low in fat, and produces soft, moist feces that are easily eliminated.