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downside of vegetarianism
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
A study from the University of Graz in Austria asserts:
Our study has shown that Austrian adults who consume a vegetarian diet are less healthy (in terms of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), have a lower quality of life, and also require more medical treatment.
"Vegetarians were twice as likely to have allergies, a 50 percent increase in heart attacks and a 50 percent increase in incidences of cancer."
The study does not suggest that vegetarians rush out and start wolfing down Big Macs, but it does seem to sound a cautionary note.
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I think if we were to cut out everything we are advised is allegedly noxious, toxic, cancer-causing, heart-attack-inducing, allergy-encouraging and generally thought or believed to be detrimental to health - well, tell me - what do these so called researcher/experts suggest we stick to.........?
@ genkaku
No idea but...
I was asked recently why so many meditaters are F......up.
I answered because we are the ones who really know how badly we need to meditate.
I think the numbers may also crunch this way for vegetarians. Most vegetarians I meet, choose that diet to try to address there health concerns. Cause or symptom?
I think it might be one of those chicken or the egg questions.
All I know is that everytime in the past I tried to go vegetarian my health suffered.
And I tried diary/no diary. Wheat no/wheat. Raw. Macrobiotic. Vegan. Macrobiotic raw vegan.
And everytime I became ill.
Not desperately ill.
Just chronically fatigued and mucusy and under par.
And everytime I added meat and fish back into my diet I was well again in a week.
It would be interesting to know more about the people they are talking about. I know vegetarians who are very well versed on nutrition and benefits and eating whole, real foods and I know vegetarians who avoid eating meat, but live on pasta and white rice and junk food. As long as they aren't eating meat, they think it is good to eat, despite the high sugar and glycemic food intake.
Simply not eating meat does not make one healthy. It is what they eat instead of the meat that matters.
I've read that vegetarians live longer and healthier lives. At an anecdotal level, Mrs Tosh is quite the athlete and was a vegetarian for about three years with no problems and I'm sure there's a long list of Olympic athletes who're vegetarian/vegan too.
I'm in a rush, but I'll do some further interweb research on this later.
Just curious...do you think "there's a long list of Olympic athletes who're" not vegetarian/vegan?
Published April 1, 2014
I think the point is, a vegetarian/vegan diet doesn't have to be a bar for an athlete competing at the highest levels.
And - this is Buddhist psychology by the way - humans operate by inference; to some extent anyway. So if we have a list of vegetarian athletes, we can infer that the rest aren't without having to produce another list.
Did I really have to explain that?
The study looks like it's a serious one though.
There's a limitation to the meaning of the findings:
conditions and poorer subjective health more frequently. This
might indicate that the vegetarians in our study consume this form
of diet as a consequence of their disorders, since a vegetarian diet
is often recommended as a method to manage weight and
health
survey was based on cross-sectional data. Therefore, no statements
can be made whether the poorer health in vegetarians in our study
is caused by their dietary habit or if they consume this form of diet
due to their poorer health status.
My point is that putting forth a list of Olympian athletes who are vegetarians in a thread about vegetarianism implies that there is a relationship between being a vegetarian and being an Olympian.
Would you, for example, construct a list of Olympians who are Republicans?
If someone posted, "Being a Republican is bad for your health", yes, I think constructing a list of Republican Olympians would be a valid point to make, which would go some way to show that being a Republican aint bad for your health.
I'm not sure what your point is though.
Not everything dated April 1st is a joke.....
I'd like to know who actually sponsored the research.... many years ago, a 'thorough and in-depth' investigation into how bad butter is for you, proved without doubt that margarine was much healthier.
An investigation, one has to add, sponsored and funded by a major margarine manufacturer.
people nowadays, are far more knowledgeable about such information, and apt to do more personal investigation themselves, of course.... which is why many now believe that butter isn't the big bad nasty boy it was made out to be....and it has been thus proven.
The thing to remember about anything dietary related, is what works for one person, doesn't necessarily work for another. And that both are ok. Not all vegetarians are healthier than meat eaters. Not all meat eaters are healthier than vegetarians. Some people need meat for their bodies to function optimally, and some need to not eat meat (or other things) to function optimally.
That said, there are multiple studies coming out (and there will be more that are in the works) stating repeatedly that animal fats/saturated fat is NOT the evil we have been lead to believe. That doesn't mean one should go crazy and live on nothing but bacon smothered in butter while drinking heavy whipping cream all day long. Good nutrition is about variety and moderation. What exact type of variety and ratio of macro and micronutrients varies by person.
It's interesting that this has hit our media. There was a debate on radio 4 today, about this very thing. We had a Vegan arguing that you can get everything you need from veg and fruit, and some scientist arguing we need meat. Both arguments were strong.
However, there are plenty of vegetarians in the world living a healthy lifestyle and plenty of carnivores too. The paranoid veg's take supplements, as do the paranoid carnivores.
Science is just a debate. The problem is the debate is happening slowly, and for someone to contradict the 'evidence' takes a lot of well-planned research. I know! I also know that the results of the research are usually biased in favour of what the researcher was hypothesising in one way or another. Also there is such a thing as publication bias, where things that do not produce something positive, are generally not published. This is usually because the poor soul who has worked hard to do 'the science' has given up because the results are insignificant or don't agree with the prevailing view. There are parallels in the religious market place.
Don't get too attached to the media's interpretation of the scientific literature. Otherwise you are just as blind as those leading you to their conclusions.
Remember when we were told vaccines might cause autism based on a study mostly one guy performed? And then later we found out he lied about his results and took the mout of context, among other problems with his so-called study? The idea that animal fats are making us sick is along the same line. But because it was so quickly adopted without taking the time to really test it out, big medical associations are slow to flip their view because they don't want to be seen as changing their tune, despite the many decades of evidence to the contrary. It's really quite sad, that the people we rely on to make healthy meals for kids at school, people in the hospital, elderly at nursing homes and so on have been doing it wrong for years, and they knew it yet chose to keep doing it because they didn't want to look dumb. Thank goodness that is finally coming out.
People absolutely can be healthy as vegetarians, vegans, or omnivores.
I'm sorry that you don't.
They say:
The authors have no support or funding to report.
Competing Interests:
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist
When I think of the veg folks I know versus the meat eaters, it's clearly the former who are healthier. Just my little dataset. And let's not forget the mental health boost from not contributing to the suffering of animals by eating them. That's where the rosy glow in MY cheeks comes from! :-0
@Zenff I am sorry to say you are scientifically illiterate, and you should not be offended by that statement; unless you are a professor of medicine, in which case I would question the authority that gave you that authority to profess anything.
So, to put this in perspective, they are promoting themselves as people who have done rigorous research. But I question that, because I am scientifically trained.
By definition research provides new knowledge, and gives rise to further questions that advance science (Note well: you are entrusting your interpretation of the scientific work they have done as rigourous because they state they are self funded and have no competing interests; usually they are seeking funding, and are busually under-resourced and over-stretched, so the output is questionable.
One scientific study does not constitute a body of evidence.
As someone who has done a lot (and I mean a lot) of medical scientific research which turned up nothing, and as a result was unpublishable, because it didn't show research or the funding body, or the methods as being sound or in a good light.
Question everything. Especially if you don't have the background or knowledge.
Hope this was helpful
Well would you like to explain it to me, or are you just having a bad day and showing it through some pedant posts?
I already explained it. You still don't get. That's okay.
Hmmmm. I've just re-read the posts and don't see an explanation from you. I suspect you're being pedantic. And that's okay too.
My point is that putting forth a list of Olympian athletes who are vegetarians in a thread about vegetarianism implies that there is a relationship between being a vegetarian and being an Olympian.
Or, the point could be that having a vegetarian diet doesn't automatically mean we're going to be unhealthy? In fact we could be really healthy with the correct vegetarian diet; you know, don't overdo the cheese (renin free cheese of course); eat plenty of pulses - that kind of thing.
Scott Jurek (a world class ultra marathon runner) wrote a good book called Eat, Sleep, and Run, and in it he pushes a vegan diet. Now, I'm sure that book didn't imply that all vegans can run 300 mile ultra marathons across deserts; but Jurek places much of his success on his vegan diet.
He puts recipes in his book too!
Now chins up, Vinlyn and be kind to me. I'm not here for a fight; I have a wife for that kind of stuff.
Just because someone is a great athlete doesn't meant they automatically have a great diet, either. Michael Phelps eats a diet of mostly crap, lol. So do a lot of young athletes. Makes you wonder what they could do if they ate really well, too.
I still think that people can be just as healthy as the most healthy vegetarian while still eating meat if they simply increase the amount of healthy fresh veggies in their diet. Many non-vegetarians eat meat for every meal, or at least 2 meals. That's a lot of meat. Replacing a meaty lunch with a leafy green veggie lunch and then eating fish for dinner can easily have the same (or even better, depending) results as a fully vegetarian diet.
Problems add up when moderation and variety is lacking. Sausage mcmuffin for breakfast, salad with egg and ham and turkey for lunch, dinner with hamburger helper. Too much of some things, not nearly enough of others. Not to mention half (my random number) of Americans consider a spoon of over salted canned corn to be a vegetable. When really corn is not a vegetable at all, and canning it in sodium destroys what little nutritional benefit it has. Other popular veggie choices for people: iceburg lettuce (mostly water), corn, baked beans (what? those aren't veggies either), baby carrots. Very few people eat an endive salad or a beet green salad, and so on. So, really, most of us eat far too little vegetables and what little we do eat are nutritionally inferior.
Time Mag reckons - according to the latest studies - that veg-heads live longer, healthier lives, with one study showing 'mood improvement' for the lentil-eaters:
http://time.com/#9463/7-reasons-vegetarians-live-longer/
Healthy Food.
Eat. Enjoy.
Job done.
It's really kind of pointless to keep debating and comparing studies unless the studies went into not just whether the person called themselves vegetarian or not, but truly what they ate. "Vegetarian" can mean a lot of things. So can "meat eating." I am a meat eater. My husband is a meat eater. But the degrees of our diets vary so much you could hardly tell we live in the same house. Just saying we are both meat eaters does absolutely nothing to determine how healthy we are.
I definitely notice a difference in my mental clarity and my mood when I eat well. But I notice that difference whether I am still consuming meat or not. For me (not saying same for everyone) the difference is in eating more fresh foods, and less processed foods. Not in simply not eating meat.
Also, as has been mentioned before, the reasons why someone is vegetarian come into play, too. If they are veggie because of moral reasons, it makes sense that their mood on being veggie would improve. If they are veggie for health reasons, it makes sense they are healthier, because they likely include other healthy options in their lifestyle than simply not eating meat.
I don't think I've ever seen a study that differentiates between the health of veggie or vegan versus omnivore that takes into account what the people in the study eat. They only take into account how the people define themselves.
Interesting article: http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2014/04/01/study-vegetarians-less-healthy-lower-quality-of-life-than-meat-eaters/
A true controlled study would be essentially impossible logistically. Here's why.
First, if you are studying the effect of, say, diet, you have to start with two groups that are statistically the same. Same diet, same health history, (overall), age, etc. Then you need to get one group to change their diet, and both groups to not change anything else. Then you have to follow them for many decades. And you need a LOT of them!
If you don't do that, then you can't draw conclusions about cause and effect. You can draw conclusions about correlation, perhaps, but not cause and effect. In the jargon of scientists, correlation does not imply causality. In other words, just because two things occur together does not necessarily mean that one causes the other. For example, if I only eat soup and I have no teeth, that's not enough information for you to conclude that I lost my teeth because of a poor diet, or I only eat soup because I don't have teeth.
Research finding an association is not the same as an experiment that demonstrates cause and effect.
The researchers themselves said the same thing. They said:
"Our results have shown that vegetarians report chronic conditions and poorer subjective health more frequently. This might indicate that the vegetarians in our study consume this form of diet as a consequence of their disorders, since a vegetarian diet is often recommended as a method to manage weight and health"
"Potential limitations of our results are due to the fact that the survey was based on cross-sectional data. Therefore, no statements can be made whether the poorer health in vegetarians in our study is caused by their dietary habit or if they consume this form of diet due to their poorer health status. We cannot state whether a causal relationship exists, but describe ascertained associations."
If someone uses this study as an excuse to say "vegetarian diet is more unhealthy" well then they really didn't read or understand the study to begin with. Correlation does not equal causation.
But even ignoring that, if you look at the big picture you see probably hundreds of studies that show it's healthier. And this one says it's not. Which holds more weight, a hundred or one? Of course a hundred hold more weight!
Im sure there has been a study done that controls for the diets of the participants. I just can't be bothered to find it now.
For a true study to be done, there needs to blind groups and blind researchers. Where diet is concerned, it's pretty darn hard to have a blind group who doesn't know what they are consuming to truly study the effects of solely the intake of certain foods. It would be pretty mean to take a group of professed vegans, and then sneak animal fat into their diets to produce the blind needed to remove bias. Per several articles, a blind study on vegetarian or vegan diets versus other diets has never been done.
Most studies such as these depend on people to report their information. Basically questionnaires along with submitted blood/medical tests. It's just a way to gather information about a group of people who have a similarity (on each side) and there is very little control for anything else.
I agree with you. When I am at the Temple there are always a lot of refreshments. Most of the items are not really that healthy. Baked goods, chips and dips, candy.
I have had to put my cat on a diet and have read a lot about cat nutrition. They are carnivores and will not survive on a grain or cereal diet. Just an interesting piece of trivia.
One thing is certain..The vast majority of those reading this will be dead in 75 years...and in a 100 years that is likely to 100% of those reading this.
Whatever they eat.
Life is too short to worry about what the other guy has for lunch .
Well now @anataman, as it happens part of my role is as a visiting Professor of one branch of medicine..albeit one that has no direct association with nutrition...
And of course you might be right.that my appointment might have been a mistake.
But I cannot glean enough from the data provided in the article to make a judgement about the science one way or another.
A fella who was often on the tv when I was a child (his name escapes me*) said that all food was healthy; it was the amount we ate of it which creates the problems.
I love chips (that's fries to you 'Mericans); and the odd portion now 'n' then isn't going to harm anyone. But if we eat them too regularly, then that's not going to be a good thing.
*I remembered his name, Magnus Pyke; an eccentric British scientist from what I remember of him.
That sound like plain sense Tosh.
"Everything in Moderation.
Including Moderation."
I couldn't possibly comment on your appointment @Citta, as I don't have the authority. But I agree with you that we need to have and be able to read and understand the data before making judgements, or as @Tosh intuits, be moderate in what you eat to be healthy.
Or you can go to the extreme like Mr Mange Tout:
He seems pretty healthy for someone who's been eating inorganic matter for 30 years lol
Being an old fart, it is a constant source of surprise to me that Dharma in the west has become so concerned with what to have for tea.
Asian Buddhists don't obsess about it.
The only guideline in the suttas is about not eating too much.
I had been involved with Dharma for a long time before I heard anyone talk about the subject at all...
I think its because of an influx of people who come to Buddhadharma via yoga and Hindu thought.
And they are frequently shocked to find that most Theravadin teachers and the vast majority of Vajrayana teachers are carnivores.
(Omnivores.)
Well yes I guess...but actually a lot of Tibetans are almost entirely carnivore, apart from roasted barley.
They are as veg -averse as a Scotsman.
And the idea of eating raw fruit appals them.
This is what a professional taoist thinks about the buddhist hypocrites:
http://www.taoistmasterblog.com/buddhist-monks-can-eat-meat-theories-debunked/
I think my H must be a Tibetan Vajrayana teacher, then.......
Although, it's quite appropriate to be concerned about people destroying the planet for future generations and quite appropriate to be concerned about institutionalized and systemic animal abuse. Both of which are directly linked to what people eat for lunch!
Its also too short to worry about one sided, simplistic, and partial interpretations of what if anything, is harming the planet
Be concerned, by all means. But don't condemn, and don't be so attached that it consumes.
Speaking generally, that is......
It's also too short to make straw man arguments and try to equate concern with simplistic worrying!
Well there you go then.