Why be vegetarian or vegan? Why not?

Answer 1

If a vegetarian or vegan diet is very carefully planned, and in the case of vegans that requires either fortified foods or supplements, it can be AS healthy as a good meat eating diet. I think there are a couple of benefits, but they come from eating a wide range of fruit and veg and being health conscious as vegans have to be, not omitting meat, and thus those benefits can be go without actually going veggie. Needless to say a uncarefully planned vegetarian, or especially vegan, diet can lack many essential nutrients and be very bad for your health.

There are many benefits to a diet containing meat. Many vegetarians claim that meat is unhealthy. This is a blatant fallacy.
It is well established that eating meat improves the quality of nutrition, strengthens the immune system, promotes normal growth and development, is beneficial for day-to-day health, energy and well-being, and helps ensure optimal learning and academic performance.
A long term study found that children who eat more meat are less likely to have deficiencies than those who eat little or no meat. Kids who don’t eat meat — and especially if they restrict other foods, as many girls are doing — are more likely to feel tired, apathetic, unable to concentrate, are sick more often, more frequently depressed, and are the most likely to be malnourished and have stunted growth. Meat and other animal-source foods are the building blocks of healthy growth that have made America’s and Europe's youngsters among the tallest, strongest and healthiest in the world.
Meat is an important source of quality nutrients, heme iron, protein, zinc and B-complex vitamins. It provides high-quality protein important for kids’ healthy growth and development.
The iron in meat (heme iron) is of high quality and well absorbed by the body, unlike nonheme iron from plants which is not well absorbed. More than 90 percent of iron consumed may be wasted when taken without some heme iron from animal sources. Substances found to inhibit nonheme iron absorption include phytates in cereals, nuts and legumes, and polyphenolics in vegetables. Symptoms of iron deficiency include fatigue, headache, irritability and decreased work performance. For young children, it can lead to impairment in general intelligence, language, motor performance and school readiness. Girls especially need iron after puberty due to blood losses, or if pregnant. Yet studies show 75 percent of teenage girls get less iron than recommended.
Meat, poultry and eggs are also good sources of absorbable zinc, a trace mineral vital for strengthening the immune system and normal growth. Deficiencies link to decreased attention, poorer problem solving and short-term memory, weakened immune system, and the inability to fight infection. While nuts and legumes contain zinc, plant fibre contains phytates that bind it into a nonabsorbable compound.
Found almost exclusively in animal products, Vitamin B12 is necessary for forming new cells. A deficiency can cause anaemia and permanent nerve damage and paralysis. The Vitimin B12 in plants isn't even bioavailable, meaning our body can't use it.
Why not buy food supplements to replace missing vitamins and minerals? Some people believe they can fill those gaps with pills, but they may be fooling themselves. Research consistently shows that real foods in a balanced diet are far superior to trying to make up deficiencies with supplements.

Lets not forget either that protein, while it is found in plants, is better quality in animal products.

Some people claim that meat is unhealthy because it contains saturated fat. So does margarine and olive oil, and they're vegan suitable (in fact the hydrogenated fats in Marge can be very bad, but that's another story). Besides, any excess calories in your diet, any excess sugar, starch or carbohydrates are stored in your body for later use. This is done by turning them into saturated fats.
Cholesterol too. Your body on average creates four to five times more cholesterol than the average person consumes, and compensates by creating more when less is consumed. Cholesterol isn't evil, it is essential; it makes up the waterproof linings of all our cells and without it we would die. Too much can be bad, but as with saturated fats there are more healthy ways of disposing of it, like regular exercise. Anyway, it isn't so much how much cholesterol you eat, but how well yur body handles it. A person who eats loads of dietary cholesterol and leads an unhealthy lifestyle can still have low cholesterol, and vice versa. Most people's bodies are able to take a large amount of cholesterol without getting atherosclerosis. For this reason that eating meat gives you heart disease is very misleading, and for the most part untrue. Of course, if you do have a problem eating loads isn't a good idea, but for most people there is nothing at all to worry about.

Yes, there are things in meat that there is some evidence can cause cancer in some people, but there are as many in plants too. Soy especially has some very potent carcinogens. Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.
Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women. Also they are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.
Soy is bad for numerous other reasons, but that isn't the point, I'm just using it as a quick example relating to cancer not being exclusive to some animal products. The evidence that claims meat does cause cancer is patchy anyway.

Some people also claim that we aren't designed by evolution, to eat meat. They claim that our digestive system is quite long and that we produce amylase, a starch splitting catabolic enzyme, akin to herbivores and unlike carnivores. Apparently this clearly shows that we were designed to eat plants. Such people should go and look up 'omnivore' in a dictionary. They have also been known to cite other reasons we are like herbivores and unlike carnivores: that we suck water instead of lapping it, and that we perspire through our skin, such things have nothing at all to do with whether or not we were designed to eat meat, and nothing to do with how our body handles food. I might as well say that because we, like most carnivores and unlike most herbivores, have eyes that face forwards, we must be carnivorous. Of course, that's not true for precisely the same reason.

The fact is Humans are omnivores, with the ability to eat nearly everything. By preference, prehistoric people ate a high-protein, high-mineral diet based on meat and animal sources, whenever available. Their foods came mainly from three of the five food groups: meat, vegetables and fruits. As a result, big game mammoth hunters were tall and strong with massive bones. They grew six inches taller than their farming descendants in Europe, who ate mostly plant foods, and only in recent times regained most of this height upon again eating more meat, eggs and dairy foods. We are adapted to eat meat, and it is just as natural as eating plants.
Some also claim that the digestion of meat releases harmful byproducts into our system. This is true, however such are our adaptations to eating meat that our bodies are quite able to dispose of said products without any adverse effects.

So, in summary: it isn't healthier to avoid meat. You can be healthy without meat, but likely not as healthy as if you did, assuming you kept things like the wide range of fruit and veg that a veggie diet usually entails. Too much meat can be bad, but normal amounts are no problem at all. Any health benefits that come from a veggie diet come from a wide range of fruit and veg, and being health conscious, as veggies often are; that doesn't require you to not eat meat."

I don't think a vegan diet benefits anyone in any way better than a better meat eating diet could at all. If you have no ethical qualms, it's quite pointless. PETA will tell you otherwise, but they have very strong ethical opinions, and mould their 'evidence' around it. There is, for example, some evidence that vegans live longer and are at less risk from cancer and heart disease; however those studies show only a very marginal and insignificant difference and none of those studies have yet managed to identify meat as the only variable. Veggies are less likely to smoke, drink or eat junk food, and eat a wider range of fruit and veg, making the test results inaccurate and unreliable.

Answer 2

I wouldn't mind going vegetarian.

Keep in mind, your body loses the enzymes necessary to break down meat after time, and you'll actually get sick if you eat meat.

The other thing is the stigma with being a vegan. I'd never be one, because I'd have to constantly explain that I was doing it for health reasons, not because I "had such compassion for animals".

Right off the bat, people would think I supported the asshats called PETA, and that lifestyle would simply be intolerable.

Tofu isn't all you guys say it is. Sorry, just sayin.

Answer 3

Because you do not feel that your eating enjoyment should come at the expense of a living being. There are numerous studies that indicate the vegetarians diets are healthier and more nutritious then your average diet. Also it is much better for the environment and takes a lot less resources out of the environment. No one needs to eat meat today and the only reason to do so is strictly for taste. Pepperoni, hot dogs, hamburgers, etc... do nothing but hurt your body. It comes at the expense of living animals who are beaten and then dismembered (often while alive).

Answer 4

Well I have a friend who is practically a vegan and from his point of view, people should kill and eat people and animals should kill and eat animals.
I once asked what he would do if i snuck a bite of meat into his food and he said i might as well sneak bits and parts of a little child in his food cuz thats how he feels about it.
I never saw things from this point of view until now and honestly, I agree with him. I still eat meat, but i never have eaten that much, mainly just fish and occasionally beef and chicken. Tofu and soy really arent that bad actually.

Its not bad for your body to not have meat. Theres other ways to obtain protein. :)

Answer 5

It is better for you health
http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/updates/vegetarian_diets_health_benefits.php

its better for the planet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_benefits_of_Vegetarianism

it's better for your inner well being:
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/vegetarian_recipes_and_resources.htm

But that doesnt mean you have to be a vegetarian 24/7 - 365
Just cutting meat out of your diet for several meals a week is a good place to start to reap the benefits. Try looking into the magazine vegetarian times to try some recipes. You might get to try foods you would never other wise eat - and like them!

Answer 6

yu shud be a vegetarian/vegan, because in every package of chicken there's a little poop and people that are vegetarians/vegan have a lower risk of a heart attack than a person who eats meat. if yu want to know more info. on why yu shud be a vegetarian yu shud visit: ---->peta2.com<----- (yu could find alot of info. and see celebrities that are vegetarians/vegan.)

Answer 7

vegetarians are less likely to suffer from heart disease, strokes, and colon cancer.
meat is so wasteful of fuel, grain, and water, you will be helping prevent global hunger by going vegetarian.
the amount of food they grow for one cow raised for slaughter could feed 100 starving people.
those are just a few reason. There are so many.

Answer 8

I've thought about this in various aspects about eating another living creature and the cruelty towards animals for products.

As a few people I know say "they [animals] were meant to be eaten!" or "Didn't you watch 'The Lion King'? It's the Circle of Life!"

I've seen arguments against the cruelty of how animals are killed in the US as well as the supposedly more humane kosher (Jewish) and halal (Muslim) ways of preparing food.

Interesting topic.

Answer 9

I might be able to pull over vegitarian because its only getting rid of meat.But still I like meat and I dont think its good for you not to eat it.You need the protein.But i dont think its good AT ALL to be vegan you are missing so much stuff you need in your body.Plus you may loose so much weight that your not healthy.Overall i believe that you should stay a omnivore.

Answer 10

I dated a vegetarian once. Not a very healthy man, by the way. I wouldn't suggest going totally veggie. Fish is a good source of protein. Even Jesus ate fish!

Answer 11

tried the vegetarian thing
couldn't handle it
I'm a hard core carnivore