Would we live longer if we never ate meat?

Answer 1

generally, yes.

A vegetarian will live between 5 and 10 years longer than a meat eater.

The jury is still out on if this is entirely down to their diet or whether other factors influence it, such as lifestyle and veggies typically being in the top 5% of intelligence for any given country.

Answer 2

I have been vegan for about almost 2 yrs now. My motives were animal cruelty. I agree with you about the inhumane ways and values of the industry. Im a pretty strict vegan with my food. My clothing and products are harder to follow up with bc Im a full time student but I do try. I pretty much live at Whole Foods & Trader Joes. Whole Foods has hot and prepared vegan entrees and snacks. A little pricey but worth it. I am from the the southbay in California. Almost all placescan be veggie friendly. You just have to modify your food.So I pretty much eat at : Real Food Daily (BEST veg. food I have EVER had) California Vegan Pita Pit Vegan Joint The Spot The Green Temple Daphnies Subway Pappillion Thai (all thai is veg friendly) Greats Swingers House of Veggie Casa de Arbol Chipotle Qdoba Del Taco(1 of 2 fast foods) Taco Bell(2 of 2 fast food) Sushi places-veggie sushi PF Changs California Pizza Kitchen

Answer 3

The research on this subject seems to suggest so.

I love how people like to assume that no data to back up our claims of meat eating being deadly exists.

When so many of you make comments like "we can only get protein from meat" or their are minerals in meat that we just can't get" "insert pseudo-science, off the cuff comment here". Saying things like this just make you people look ignorant. The WHO, the ADA, and most if not all of the major authority's on nutrition agree that a properly planed Vegetarian or Vegan diet is perfectly healthy for people in any life stage. These are not fringe groups, they are mainstream. Get with the times people.

Answer 4

"we get a lot of vitamins and minerals from meat"

And saturated fat and cholesterol and hormones and..

The top two causes of death in the US are: heart disease and cancer. Meat causes both, and vegetarian diets reduce the risk of both.

So yes, we *could* live longer if we never ate meat. Supposing that we didn't get hit by a bus.

Answer 5

On average vegetarians live longer, however, this does not necessarily mean a vegetarian diet makes you live longer, as there are other considerations.

"Statistical surveys do generally suggest that vegetarians, on average, live longer, healthier lives. But we should bear in mind that research has yet to isolate the presence or absence of meat in the diet as the only variable under investigation. There are always extraneous factors which can explain equally well any health differences found between vegetarians and meat eaters. For example, many vegetarians choose their diet for health reasons simply because it is accepted on many fronts that vegetarianism is healthier,rightly or wrongly. But people willing to cut out meat for health reasons are likely to be making other lifestyle decisions for health reasons. Perhaps to smoke less, drink less or exercise more frequently. Alternately stated: people unwilling to make sacrifices for the good of their health will be more likely to eat meat than those who will make those sacrifices. Thus the healthy vegetarian diet becomes self-fulfilling prophecy."

Vegetarians are much less likely to smoke, binge drink, eat junk food and are generally much more health conscious that the average meat eater, meat eating being the group that contains almost all the unhealthiest of society: the poor, the uneducated and the smokers who frankly aren't likely to give two figs about veganism.

"A well-designed piece of research by using matched samples may, in theory, control for extraneous variables. But it would be virtually impossible, in the case of a large sample population studied over a lifetime, to determine whether differences found were genuine measurements of the meat/non-meat factor, or an effect of vegetarians opting for meals with higher nutritional value, irrespective of meat content.

Moreover, irrespective of parental diet, very few western vegetarians give up meat until their late teens or early adulthood. Some will make the switch later in life. For as long as the general trend in society is away from meat and towards vegetarianism, the average effect of people crossing the meat/non-meat barrier will be to reinforce this skew in the distribution, and create the illusion of a longer average life-span in vegetarians."

There are other variables as well that can skew results if not properly controlled for.

- Vegetarians are mostly women. Women have a longer average lifespan than men so on average the life span of vegetarians will be longer than that of meat eaters.

- Vegetarians are, on average, much younger than the average meat eater, because it tends to be young people who convert. Thus, as young people are at less risk from virtually all diseases and death than their older counterparts, their rates of diseases and death will be lower than the meat eating majority of the population. Death rate and longevity are, obviously, closely interlinked and some studies use death rate as their marker for longevity.

As such, few studies on this subject can truthfully say they've at least tried there best to eliminate all other variables. The studies Peta show don't even try. When studies do try to control for these things they generally show little difference in longevity, if any. If there is any difference it is not likely to be anywhere near the quoted 5 to 10 years average.

Answer 6

I don't think there is any scientific proof to back up that belief. The fact is, we get a lot of vitamins and minerals from meat. Our body needs protein!
Being a vegetarian/vegan is really a personal choice, and if you're going to cut something out of your diet (Something in the food pyramind, that is) you need to replace the nutrients you'll be missing with some other type of food.
That being said, I think it's safe to say that you won't necessarily live longer if you stop eating meat, because meats are some of the best sources of protein. It's really best to have a diet that's balanced in all types of foods.
But, like I said, if you're going to adequately replace those nutrients, it's not a problem :)


(I want to add afterwards that I'm in NO WAY trying to say that you NEED to eat meat, but rather that it's a personal choice whether or not you would like to eat it. If you're eating lean meat in moderation in combination with a healthy diet, it doesn't have to be bad for you.
If someone cuts out meat and still eats potatoes covered in sour cream, french fries, potato chips, junk food, very few fruits and vegetables, smokes, and drinks they can still have the same health problems as someone who eats fatty steaks all the time.
All I mean to say is that people really need to be aware of what they're putting in their bodies. Certain food choices are better than others, regardless.
Didn't mean to cause any angry feelings- just trying to say that if you moderate and substitute and maintain a healthy balance, you can really do one or the other and still stay healthy.)

Answer 7

Absolutely. Vegans for life with good nutrition live years longer than meat-eaters.

And don't listen to those who say the opposite- they just have a grudge against vegetarians.

Answer 8

So much untruth out there.

We are not omnivores, people. We have the teeth and colon of an herbivore.

My friend, the book Healthy at 100 by John Robbins may be of interest to you.

Answer 9

I'd rather not live long if that is the price of eating meat.


---edit,

I'm not sure if we have enough data to answer that accurately, if you want to find out, you can choose to reincarnate yourself several times, eat lots of meat for about 30 lifetimes and then never eat meat for another 30 lifetimes. Then compare the result of the two groups and lifetimes and check the difference. Of course, if you can reincarnate yourself, what's the point of living long?

Hell what's the point of living long if you keep denying yourself everything just to get it? (heard the story of some african guy who lived over 100 because he never gambled, never smoked, never got drunk, does not watch TV, does not listen to radio, and abstained from sex... makes no sense to me why he wanted to live long in the first place)

Answer 10

A 1999 metastudy compared six major studies from western countries. The study found that the mortality ratio was the lowest in fish eaters (0.82) followed by vegetarians (0.84) and occasional meat eaters (0.84) and which was then followed by regular meat eaters (1.0). In "Mortality in British vegetarians",[51] it was concluded that "British vegetarians have low mortality compared with the general population. Their death rates are similar to those of comparable non-vegetarians, suggesting that much of this benefit may be attributed to non-dietary lifestyle factors such as a low prevalence of smoking and a generally high socio-economic status, or to aspects of the diet other than the avoidance of meat and fish."

Among these meta studies, the Adventist Health Study is an ongoing study of life expectancy in Seventh-day Adventists following different behaviour patterns. The researchers found that a combination of different lifestyle choices could influence life expectancy by as much as 10 years. Among the lifestyle choices investigated, a vegetarian diet was estimated to confer an extra 1 1/2 to 2 years of life. The researchers concluded that "the life expectancies of California Adventist men and women are higher than those of any other well-described natural population" at 78.5 years for men and 82.3 years for women. The life expectancy of California Adventists surviving to age 30 was 83.3 years for men and 85.7 years for women.[52] However, this study of Adventist health study is again incorporated into meta studies titled "Does low meat consumption increase life expectancy in humans?" published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which, again made the similar conclusion that occasional/low meat eating and other life style choices significantly increase the life expectancy.[53] The study also concluded that "Some of the variation in the survival advantage in vegetarians may have been due to marked differences between studies in adjustment for confounders, the definition of vegetarian, measurement error, age distribution, the healthy volunteer effect, and intake of specific plant foods by the vegetarians." It further states that "This raises the possibility that a low-meat, high plant-food dietary pattern may be the true causal protective factor rather than simply elimination of meat from the diet." In a recent review of studies relating low-meat diet patterns to all-cause mortality, Singh noted that "5 out of 5 studies indicated that adults who followed a low meat, high plant-food diet pattern experienced significant or marginally significant decreases in mortality risk relative to other patterns of intake."