Vegetarian diet and mental disorders
Replies
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You're implying that people who made a different choice than you are insensitive and don't have your high degree of empathy for other living creatures.
I didn't mean this as a superiority thing at all. What I meant was that vegetarians, on average, are a lot more sensitive and emotional, especially when it comes to animals. I don't see how that makes them superior.
This is why people don't like vegetarians. Stop acting superior.I would guess this correlation is due to a higher degree of sensitivity0 -
This is why people don't like vegetarians. Stop acting superior.I would guess this correlation is due to a higher degree of sensitivity
I didn't mean this as a superiority thing at all. What I meant was that vegetarians, on average, are a lot more sensitive and emotional, especially when it comes to animals. I don't see how that makes them superior.
^^ Pretentious much?
People who eat meat are genetically predisposed to not being able to be sensitive?
No, I'm saying that it's a common trait among vegetarians, but it's absolutely not exclusive. You'll find a higher concentration of the bleeding heart, save the furry little animals types among vegetarians. I really don't intend to be pretentious, but this is an observation that I've made that I'm sure many people, vegetarian or not, would agree with.
That I agree with....strolling through the old OWS camp in SF....mostly vegans...go figure
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I'm still puzzled as to why there would be any widespread agenda against vegetarianism, given the relative scarcity of meat. It's heavily subsidized and still expensive, and a lot of people would be very unhappy if increased demand caused prices to go beyond the reach of the average American.
Environmentalists are probably also quite happy with the idea of more people following a vegetarian diet.
Problem is that this is where environmentalists (who probably tend to be vegetarians too) are misguided. No good can come from raping the land of nutrients and high density farming to feed everyone an all vegetarian diet. Forests will be cut down, topsoil depleted, animals displaced and killed just to raise huge factory farms that do more to harm the environment than to protect it.
Pound for pound animals provide more nutrition and have less impact on the environment when it comes to grazing land vs clearcut farmland.0 -
^^ Pretentious much?
People who eat meat are genetically predisposed to not being able to be sensitive?
But ... she didn't say that. She suggested that the higher degree of emotionality may be the influential factor. A person is more emotional and more prone to depression and anxiety. A person is more emotional and thus unable to see their burger as a piece of food but instead as a dead animal. Just like with anything else though, this could be a generalized suggestion, not the rule. Another highly emotional person may see the food as a dead animal but believe strongly in the rights of humans as above them in the food chain and thus not feel the same way about eating them.0 -
This whole 'making fun of vegetarians' will only stop when there's more of them I think. No one makes fun of vegetarians in India. There are hundreds of thousands of strictly vegetarian restaurants, both high and low end (with menus over 5 pages long) and supermarkets and convenience stores that are completely vegetarian. It is an accepted thing, a normal thing. That is mostly due to the fact that millions are vegetarian there.
I'm non- vegetarian and everyone constantly tells me, "If you're gonna eat meat, eat it once or twice a week." Can't do that though...0 -
I am far from vegetarian, and I have a slew of mental disorders! Asperger's, ADHD, anxiety disorder and PTSD. How on earth could they make a reliable study with that? I would only assume that it is a coincidence.0
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You're implying that people who made a different choice than you are insensitive and don't have your high degree of empathy for other living creatures.
I didn't mean this as a superiority thing at all. What I meant was that vegetarians, on average, are a lot more sensitive and emotional, especially when it comes to animals. I don't see how that makes them superior.
This is why people don't like vegetarians. Stop acting superior.I would guess this correlation is due to a higher degree of sensitivity
I guess I can see how it might come off that way, and I apologize. I really don't mean to offend anyone or assert that vegetarians are superior, because we're absolutely not. Diet doesn't make anyone superior, and neither (at least in my opinion) does sensitivity - it's simply a trait, and it can't really be weighed on a moral scale.0 -
I agree, I do find it interesting that many vegitarians here claim they showed signs of symptoms previous to leaving meat out of the diet. There are confounding variables for sure. I am curious if one where say exibiting signs of a mental disorder and then treated for that disorder, if they would then be less likely to become vegitarian.Correlation doesn’t prove causation0 -
You're implying that people who made a different choice than you are insensitive and don't have your high degree of empathy for other living creatures.
Higher degree of sensitivity =/= others are insensitive. And many people scorn people with "too much" empathy, not just in vegetarianism but in business, war, politics. People have varying degrees of empathy as much as they do varying degrees of intelligence, athleticism, competitiveness, spirituality. I take no offense to others saying they are more spiritual than me. They are. I take no offense to others saying they are more logical and rational than me. Often, they are. I have dear friends that are MUCH smarter than me, much fitter than me, much more poised and eloquent than me, much better with money and impulse control than me. It just is what it is. None of us are better or worse than the others for those things.0 -
You'll notice that people who are highly intelligent are healthier than those that are less clever, and will stand a greater chance of being a vegetarian. Brainy people try to eat better foods than less smart people. You'll notice that smarter people will run, ride bikes, and do aerobics more than spend hours on end pumping iron. If you notice that a lot of vegetarians and people who sway that way are depressed, it's because they recognize the harm being done to the planet, but are incapable of doing anything about it. These people are constantly trying to improve themselves and the people around them. It's the way their minds work.
Well said! ^^^^0 -
I agree, I do find it interesting that many vegitarians here claim they showed signs of symptoms previous to leaving meat out of the diet. There are confounding variables for sure. I am curious if one where say exibiting signs of a mental disorder and then treated for that disorder, if they would then be less likely to become vegitarian.
For me, no. Being a vegetarian/vegan is about my beliefs and my feelings about myself in relation to my beliefs. I'd be more challenged if being a meat eater was essential for survival. It would be interesting then to see how anxiety and depression would be affected. But for me, it just isn't difficult not to eat meat, so it's not nearly as big of a deal to be a vegan to me as it is to people around me that don't understand it.0 -
You'll notice that people who are highly intelligent are healthier than those that are less clever, and will stand a greater chance of being a vegetarian. Brainy people try to eat better foods than less smart people. You'll notice that smarter people will run, ride bikes, and do aerobics more than spend hours on end pumping iron. If you notice that a lot of vegetarians and people who sway that way are depressed, it's because they recognize the harm being done to the planet, but are incapable of doing anything about it. These people are constantly trying to improve themselves and the people around them. It's the way their minds work.
Wow, what broad sweeping, unfounded statements. I'll go ahead and tell an ex workout partner with quadruple PhD that he's actually a moron because he lifts weights and eats meat....0 -
But the problem with that is, the article says:
The analysis of the respective ages at adoption of a vegetarian diet and onset of a mental disorder showed that the onset of mental disorders tends to follow the adoption of the vegetarian diet.
You've got correlation but not enough to demonstrate causation. The vegetarian diet cannot be isolated as a causal factor unless you have a controlled study with people randomly selected to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle. It could be that the genetic disposition toward the disorder also increases the tendency of the person to self-select vegetarianism, or that the disorder is only diagnosed well AFTER the person adopts the lifestyle, and adoption of a vegetarian lifestyle is actually an early unrecognized symptom.
There may be enough to say, "hey, you're a vegetarian, that's an indicator that you are x% more likely to develop one of the following mental disorders and we'll watch more carefully for those in you so we can help you catch it earlier if it develops", but not enough to say "you know, going back to being an omnivore would decrease your chances of developing one of the following mental disorders".
Until you took a population of vegetarians and asked half of them to start eating meat, or selected random members of the population and asked half of them to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle and the other half to start eating meat, you haven't controlled for a possible bias toward vegetarian preferences in people prone to the disorder.0 -
All you fellow meat eaters leave the vegetarians alone. If everyone ate more meat, very few people would be able to afford it!
I'm not sure where you live where meat appears to be so expensive. Yes it's been on the rise mostly due to sh**ty economy and the price of fuel to get it to market, but it's far from unaffordable in most places.
I've decided to buy local grass fed beef here where I am, and once the price works out, for ALL cuts (even ones that cost $10/lb in the grocery store) come out to about $3.75/lb. Pretty affordable I'd say.0 -
Pound for pound animals provide more nutrition and have less impact on the environment when it comes to grazing land vs clearcut farmland.
Acre for acre it's more efficient to convert already-clearcut grazing land into farmland. You'll produce far more calories per acre.
A cow eats a LOT more calories to produce a pound of beef than are found in the pound of beef. Taking the space that cow needs to graze and converting it to farmland would yield more human-consumable calories out of that land. Considerably more.
I'm an omnivore, but I recognize and accept the inefficiencies inherent to eating meat. Fortunately, we are currently capable of producing far more food than the humans on the planet actually need, so we can easily absorb that inefficiency. Population increases may change that formula someday, but for now we're good.0 -
All you fellow meat eaters leave the vegetarians alone. If everyone ate more meat, very few people would be able to afford it!
I'm not sure where you live where meat appears to be so expensive. Yes it's been on the rise mostly due to sh**ty economy and the price of fuel to get it to market, but it's far from unaffordable in most places.
I've decided to buy local grass fed beef here where I am, and once the price works out, for ALL cuts (even ones that cost $10/lb in the grocery store) come out to about $3.75/lb. Pretty affordable I'd say.
I think it can be had for an affordable cost as well. I get my meat from an all pasture raised, grass feeding farm called 8 oclock ranch and their ground beef is only $3.50 a lb0 -
This whole 'making fun of vegetarians' will only stop when there's more of them I think. No one makes fun of vegetarians in India. There are hundreds of thousands of strictly vegetarian restaurants, both high and low end (with menus over 5 pages long) and supermarkets and convenience stores that are completely vegetarian. It is an accepted thing, a normal thing. That is mostly due to the fact that millions are vegetarian there.
I'm non- vegetarian and everyone constantly tells me, "If you're gonna eat meat, eat it once or twice a week." Can't do that though...
Ok, I tried to stay out of this but India? Really? India is ranked 2nd in the world of the number of children suffering from malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world...
You'd think being a vegan country they'd be healthier than that.0 -
I'm still puzzled as to why there would be any widespread agenda against vegetarianism, given the relative scarcity of meat. It's heavily subsidized and still expensive, and a lot of people would be very unhappy if increased demand caused prices to go beyond the reach of the average American.
Environmentalists are probably also quite happy with the idea of more people following a vegetarian diet.
Problem is that this is where environmentalists (who probably tend to be vegetarians too) are misguided. No good can come from raping the land of nutrients and high density farming to feed everyone an all vegetarian diet. Forests will be cut down, topsoil depleted, animals displaced and killed just to raise huge factory farms that do more to harm the environment than to protect it.
Pound for pound animals provide more nutrition and have less impact on the environment when it comes to grazing land vs clearcut farmland.
You didn't factor in the extra water required to raise the animals. One of the biggest sources of beef subsidy is water subsidies.0 -
All you fellow meat eaters leave the vegetarians alone. If everyone ate more meat, very few people would be able to afford it!
I'm not sure where you live where meat appears to be so expensive. Yes it's been on the rise mostly due to sh**ty economy and the price of fuel to get it to market, but it's far from unaffordable in most places.
I've decided to buy local grass fed beef here where I am, and once the price works out, for ALL cuts (even ones that cost $10/lb in the grocery store) come out to about $3.75/lb. Pretty affordable I'd say.
The laws of supply and demand would cause prices to spike if more people demanded meat. Also, meat is heavily subsidized, otherwise, a steak would cost you almost $100 and a burger more than $30.
To be fair, I only have one source for that. I'm trying to find others.
"Diet for a New America" is the source.0 -
Ok, I tried to stay out of this but India? Really? India is ranked 2nd in the world of the number of children suffering from malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world...
You'd think being a vegan country they'd be healthier than that.
Doesn't India have a third of the world's poverty? That might be a better explanation for the malnutrition.0 -
These threads get more and more ridiculous.0
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Ok, I tried to stay out of this but India? Really? India is ranked 2nd in the world of the number of children suffering from malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world...
You'd think being a vegan country they'd be healthier than that.
Doesn't India have a third of the world's poverty? That might be a better explanation for the malnutrition.
And for not eating meat.0 -
I'm still puzzled as to why there would be any widespread agenda against vegetarianism, given the relative scarcity of meat. It's heavily subsidized and still expensive, and a lot of people would be very unhappy if increased demand caused prices to go beyond the reach of the average American.
Environmentalists are probably also quite happy with the idea of more people following a vegetarian diet.
Problem is that this is where environmentalists (who probably tend to be vegetarians too) are misguided. No good can come from raping the land of nutrients and high density farming to feed everyone an all vegetarian diet. Forests will be cut down, topsoil depleted, animals displaced and killed just to raise huge factory farms that do more to harm the environment than to protect it.
Pound for pound animals provide more nutrition and have less impact on the environment when it comes to grazing land vs clearcut farmland.
You didn't factor in the extra water required to raise the animals. One of the biggest sources of beef subsidy is water subsidies.
As opposed to all the watering that plants need in 1000s of acres of farmland? Additionally, if you are feeding a cow (or other animals) what they are designed to eat and not *kitten* grains and feed they drink much less and get lots of water from grass. That's not to say that they don't require water, but so does farmland.0 -
This whole 'making fun of vegetarians' will only stop when there's more of them I think. No one makes fun of vegetarians in India. There are hundreds of thousands of strictly vegetarian restaurants, both high and low end (with menus over 5 pages long) and supermarkets and convenience stores that are completely vegetarian. It is an accepted thing, a normal thing. That is mostly due to the fact that millions are vegetarian there.
I'm non- vegetarian and everyone constantly tells me, "If you're gonna eat meat, eat it once or twice a week." Can't do that though...
Ok, I tried to stay out of this but India? Really? India is ranked 2nd in the world of the number of children suffering from malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world...
You'd think being a vegan country they'd be healthier than that.
Yes it is ranked 2nd in the world for malnutrition in children, but what does that have to do with anything I said? Malnutrition is from not getting enough of ANY food, vegetarian or otherwise. I spoke about vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism, not malnutrition.
Also, there's a difference between vegan and vegetarian. India has never been vegan. People there look at you like you're crazy if you say you don't drink milk and eat milk products.
And fyi, being vegan, vegetarian or non-vegetarian does not have anything to do with being healthy. You can be healthy regardless of what you are. Please read carefully what I said.0 -
I'm still puzzled as to why there would be any widespread agenda against vegetarianism, given the relative scarcity of meat. It's heavily subsidized and still expensive, and a lot of people would be very unhappy if increased demand caused prices to go beyond the reach of the average American.
Environmentalists are probably also quite happy with the idea of more people following a vegetarian diet.
Problem is that this is where environmentalists (who probably tend to be vegetarians too) are misguided. No good can come from raping the land of nutrients and high density farming to feed everyone an all vegetarian diet. Forests will be cut down, topsoil depleted, animals displaced and killed just to raise huge factory farms that do more to harm the environment than to protect it.
Pound for pound animals provide more nutrition and have less impact on the environment when it comes to grazing land vs clearcut farmland.
You didn't factor in the extra water required to raise the animals. One of the biggest sources of beef subsidy is water subsidies.
As opposed to all the watering that plants need in 1000s of acres of farmland? Additionally, if you are feeding a cow (or other animals) what they are designed to eat and not *kitten* grains and feed they drink much less and get lots of water from grass. That's not to say that they don't require water, but so does farmland.
You have to water the plants to feed to the cow, then water the cow, as opposed to just watering the plants, harvesting, and eating.0 -
No need to blaspheme....Meat was implicated as a driving factor in our brain evolution, and saturated fats are required by the brain to operate correctly.
Very interesting new research.0 -
Ok, I tried to stay out of this but India? Really? India is ranked 2nd in the world of the number of children suffering from malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world...
You'd think being a vegan country they'd be healthier than that.
Doesn't India have a third of the world's poverty? That might be a better explanation for the malnutrition.
And for not eating meat.
Yep and for a very high vegetarian population they have one of the highest rates of heart disease in the world. You can then compare the different cultural groups within India and see that the groups that do eat meat have a much lower level of heart disease.
The malnutrition is not neccesarily caused by lack of food or poverty, but also the diet makeup.
In 1946 Ghandi, a man committed to vegetarian diet strongly declared: "The crores of India today get neither milk nor ghee nor butter, nor even buttermilk. No wonder that mortality figures are on the increase and there is a lack of energy in the people. It would appear as if man is really unable to sustain life without either meat or milk and milk products. Anyone who deceives people in this regard or countenances the fraud is an enemy of India."0 -
If it means not eating a rib-eye, then yes.OUCH!
I am no vegetarian, but this is quite absurd.
Correlation does not equal causation.
Maybe a half baked mind is what draws some to give up meat. That makes much more sense to me.
To turn one's nose up before a fabulous steak is crazy.
Just an opinion.
Why is this not considered "holier than thou"?
Is it really so "crazy" to be compassionate?
And I am very holy in all that I do once you discount my many vices.
Like steak and potatoes over tofu and seaweed....0 -
Agriculture consumes about 70% of fresh water worldwide; for example, approximately 1000 liters (L) of water are required to produce 1 kilogram (kg) of cereal grain, and 43,000 L to produce 1 kg of beef.
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1641/0006-3568(2004)054[0909:WRAAEI]2.0.CO;2
I'm a meat eater, by the way. I'm currently on Atkins for crying out loud. My food preferences doesn't alter the problems associated with a society that consumes a lot of meat, however.0 -
I'm still puzzled as to why there would be any widespread agenda against vegetarianism, given the relative scarcity of meat. It's heavily subsidized and still expensive, and a lot of people would be very unhappy if increased demand caused prices to go beyond the reach of the average American.
Environmentalists are probably also quite happy with the idea of more people following a vegetarian diet.
Problem is that this is where environmentalists (who probably tend to be vegetarians too) are misguided. No good can come from raping the land of nutrients and high density farming to feed everyone an all vegetarian diet. Forests will be cut down, topsoil depleted, animals displaced and killed just to raise huge factory farms that do more to harm the environment than to protect it.
Pound for pound animals provide more nutrition and have less impact on the environment when it comes to grazing land vs clearcut farmland.
You didn't factor in the extra water required to raise the animals. One of the biggest sources of beef subsidy is water subsidies.
As opposed to all the watering that plants need in 1000s of acres of farmland? Additionally, if you are feeding a cow (or other animals) what they are designed to eat and not *kitten* grains and feed they drink much less and get lots of water from grass. That's not to say that they don't require water, but so does farmland.
You have to water the plants to feed to the cow, then water the cow, as opposed to just watering the plants, harvesting, and eating.
I'd be willing to bet that grass (and yes you can specifically grow drought resistant grass in hotter climates) takes way less water to grow than a field of, lets say lettuce or cabbage.
I'm not against vegtables and growing them, far from it, I just think that trying to feed everyone on a vegetarian diet would necessitate the destruction of more natural environments and death of animals through that destruction than is let on. To say the world could be fed on a vegetarian diet is silly at best in my mind.0
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