Any Vegetarians here?

[arh1]

I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals...







I just hate plants.

[bad beetz]

[jd2b2006]

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I was a vegetarian for two years. I thank my friends for sticking by me during that dark time.

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WTF...did not eating meat change your personality for those two years?

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

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All in all, claiming a reasonably well-designed vegetarian diet isn't better than that of the average guy you bump into on the street isn't making an outrageous claim.

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Anybody putting any reasonable effort into a decent diet is going to be better than the average guy you bump into on the street, whether it's a vegetarian diet or not. Being better than the average joe on the street isn't exactly setting the bar very high.

[Evan]

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All in all, claiming a reasonably well-designed vegetarian diet isn't better than that of the average guy you bump into on the street isn't making an outrageous claim.

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I think the problem with this argument is a big selection bias. The average vegetarian is a lot more conscious of nutritional decisions, but that's not an effect of being vegetarian. I have no idea what the results would be if you compared equally health conscious vegetarians with meat eaters, but that seems like a more reasonable place to start.

[otnemem]

The bottom line, when it comes to diet and health, is that different diets work for different people. It's impossible to debate what the single best diet is for everyone, because we're all different. I recently read a book that endorses a diet high in saturated fat. It claims that the promotion of soy and vegetable-based oils, for the most part, was based on faulty science, and that modern man should eat much the same way his ancestors did: Fatty meats, cheeses, coconut oil etc. Again, the truth is that different diets have different health effects on different people. Different.

[tuq]

This thread needs more awesome pics of delicious meat.

[microbet]

So many people just like to argue. It's not like what Blarg is saying is rocket science, it's just common sense. That is just out of place when other people are just trying to score points.

My 2 cents is just about how the diet makes you feel. I was a vegetarian for about 10 years and have eaten meat for about 29. I didn't notice one tiny difference in how I felt physically either way.

[Blarg]

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All in all, claiming a reasonably well-designed vegetarian diet isn't better than that of the average guy you bump into on the street isn't making an outrageous claim.

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Anybody putting any reasonable effort into a decent diet is going to be better than the average guy you bump into on the street, whether it's a vegetarian diet or not. Being better than the average joe on the street isn't exactly setting the bar very high.

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From what I've read, the American diet isn't very high in vegetables compared to many others, but is very high in fat. Eating more vegetables takes care of that. Whether you want to go all the way into being a vegetarian is another thing, but in general, we could eat a lot more vegetables and be better off for it.

[Blarg]

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All in all, claiming a reasonably well-designed vegetarian diet isn't better than that of the average guy you bump into on the street isn't making an outrageous claim.

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I think the problem with this argument is a big selection bias. The average vegetarian is a lot more conscious of nutritional decisions, but that's not an effect of being vegetarian. I have no idea what the results would be if you compared equally health conscious vegetarians with meat eaters, but that seems like a more reasonable place to start.

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I don't agree that vegetarians are necessarily more health conscious. For instance, many are only vegetarian because they are religious, and most of the ones that I've known who became vegetarian for other than religious reasons don't necessary pay much attention to nutrition. Quite the contrary, quite often. (Same with the religious ones too, actually.)

For instance, I've known many vegetarians who will just pick a vegetable, or maybe two, virtually at random to eat for a meal. Maybe it's just one of their favorites or something. Like, one might have a potato and some broccoli for dinner. That is not a balanced meal. They may think it's automatically a healthy way to eat just because it's vegetarian, but they're wrong. And probably just too lazy to learn what it takes to be a healthy vegetarian. That's one reason why you sometimes see the seeming paradox of sickly looking or very low energy vegetarians.

One benefit of not being a vegetarian is you don't have to think nearly so much about what you eat. If you want your protein taken care of, eat your piece of meat and you're covered on that front. If you're going to be lazy or not really think much about your diet, it might be better to eat meat than not.