is being vegetarian healthier?

I was watching a show on it and it said they're depressed because they don't eat meat..even if they take vitamin d. Thought about it..ALLLLL of my vegan and vegetarian friends are on antidepressants.

Not necessarily :-)

I was watching a show on it and it said they're depressed because they don't eat meat..even if they take vitamin d. Thought about it..ALLLLL of my vegan and vegetarian friends are on antidepressants.

I find this very silly, no offense. I know many who aren't on antidepressants and show no signs of depression.

To the OP, it's all relative. Just because you are a veggie doesn't mean you are more healthy or thinner. It's all about what you eat. My boyfriend used to be a vegetarian several years ago and ate nothing but bean tacos.

I've been vegetarian for 27 years and have never been on antidepressants. Even when I went through a prolonged and horrific relationship break-up I don't think I was depressed...I just looked forward to a better future.

I have my moments when I eat cr*p, but I try to focus on eating mostly unprocessed foods, which is something anyone can do whether vegetarian or not.

It depends on the food choices you make. If you're loading up on carbs, then no. But if you are eating the right good carbs, lots of fruits and veggies, beans, legumes then yes it can be. Do some research on the contents of your meat. Chickens are twice the size they used to be 25 years ago because of the use of the steroids and are also PUMPED FULL of antibiotics. This is pretty much ALL meat companies. Perdue being the dominate one. Ground beef is rinsed in an ammonia wash to wash it of bacteria. Its really gross what they do to meat before we get them. Everything is genetically modified. You do not need meat to live. The fats alone in animal flesh are no good for humans. This also includes dairy products. Cows milk is not made for humans. It's made for...Ready? BABY COWS. Meat also degenerates the bones. The best thing I ever did for me and my family is stop eating meat and starting to cut off dairy products too.

Totally depends on what they eat. Everyone has a subjective opinion unless you are a research scientist who's done the work. Read The China Study and find out why being vegetarian or Vegan is healthier. The key is to make sure you are getting all the right nutrients for your body. After reading the China Study and work from the Hippocrates Institute in Florida, I am moving to become vegetarian as a minimum. I may quite possibly become a Vegan. We'll see. It's also not something you should try to do overnight. I think you have to work your way into it slowly to make sure you are getting the right nutrition. Meat isn't necessary though.

I think the average vegetarian eats a lot more healthily than the average omnivore. If only because we have less scope to eat junk without the McDonalds/KFC fast food thing to tempt us.

However, it is perfectly possible to be a healthy meat eater and equally possible to be an unhealthy vegetarian.

In general I would say simply making the decision to be vegetarian or vegan usually means you are thinking more about nutrition than the average person.

I think it depends on the individual. My sister has been a vegetarian for about 20 years and never craves meat. I run a fairly strict no-meat, no-meal policy. Our mum reports that my sister was never interested in meat when she was a littlun and apparently I loved it!

Some people don't seem to be unwell without it, but I think I'd start to feel pretty crappy if I removed it from my diet. I don't think anyone can make sweeping generalisations.

P.S. sorry for the duplicate post!

I was a vegetarian for almost 20 years and started to eat meat again a few years ago. Personally I feel a lot healthier now as I have more energy and generally feel better. When I was a vegetarian I was constantly battling with protein and iron deficiencies which left me feeling drained.....

I think it's different for different people and you just need to find what works for your body.

On the flip-side, I was a pescetarian for the first thirteen years of my life, and then ate other meats for five, and in that five years, I gained a great deal of weight and was very unhealthy, I think probably both because my body didn't like the other meat and because I wasn't eating healthy in general. It's going to depend on if you eat healthy no matter what. You can eat healthy whether you're vegetarian or not.

As an aside, I've never had a problem with protein or iron deficiencies, and as a pescetarian I ate seafood seldomly enough I think it wouldn't impact that.

idk..., I'm a meat-etarian & i'm pretty happy about it! )

If you eat right, it is definately better, I reccomend you watch Forks over knives, it gives you a better perspective on that!

There are benefits to both. I personally am a vegetarian (for 15 years), and I'm quite happy with it. Vegetarians can have a harder time getting adequate nutrition, which is why you'll see so many unhealthy vegetarians. I would advise avoiding all refined soy products; I don't consume any processed food at all - only whole foods. I do consume some raw whole milk dairy, eggs, and fish oil supplements (I'm ovo-lacto veg), but no meat. My diet consists in large part of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and legumes. My decision to not eat meat came in childhood, because I have simply never liked it - there are no ideological or moral reasons for my choice. Basically, vegetarianism is not a catch-all for healthiness - you can be just as unhealthy as a vegetarian as you can as a meat-eater. However, if done properly, vegetarianism can be an extraordinarily healthy and rewarding way to go. I have tons of energy, and I feel great.

It depends on the individual and whether or not they're a junk food vegetarian or a vegetarian who eats a balanced diet.

Again a subjective subject. Since genes and family history play a part in disease, then even the staunchest vegetarians can still have higher risk for cancer and heart disease than some you eats meat daily. I eat a lot of meat and have a great track record of health compared to some vegetarian friends I know.

Totally depends on what they eat. Everyone has a subjective opinion unless you are a research scientist who's done the work. Read The China Study and find out why being vegetarian or Vegan is healthier. The key is to make sure you are getting all the right nutrients for your body. After reading the China Study and work from the Hippocrates Institute in Florida, I am moving to become vegetarian as a minimum. I may quite possibly become a Vegan. We'll see. It's also not something you should try to do overnight. I think you have to work your way into it slowly to make sure you are getting the right nutrition. Meat isn't necessary though.

Did you read the part in the China study where smokers lived longer than non-smokers?

PS, there is a reason why epidemiological studies should be taken with a grain of salt. There is a reason that most of the author's claims in this study are not published within the peer-review process...Most researchers have recognized the fallacy of this highly biased study.

Also, did you read the part where animal protein, fish protein, meat intake, saturated fat, and fat calories consumption were all negatively associated with all-cause mortality in infants, children, teenagers and adults?

No statistical significance was found for heart disease and cancer with total protein, animal protein, fish protein, meat intake, milk intake, saturated fat, total fat, fiber, legumes, etc., well, you get the idea.

No, I guess you probably couldn't have read all that since you probably only read what Campbell published and didn't go through the actual data that he collected. Similar to Gary Taubes, the author of the China study decided to selectively cherry-pick his research to justify his pre-fabricated hypothesis. He just did in the opposite direction of Gary Taubes.

With that said, some of the comments I've read here about how vegetarians tend to get depressed are LUDICROUS. All things being equal, for overall health, there are a ton of merits with being a vegetarian.