Are vegan and vegetarian diets really healthy?

SwedishFish,
Yes I must agree that some of that is dumb with the name changing, and if they are actually destroying property, that is dumb too. But I don’t think that they would actually do that. If they do then I agree with you. But I have not heard of the name changing or the vandalism from a reliable source (sorry, no offence, but I have no idea who you are), so cannot say one way or the other.
 
eddymrsci,

that pretty much applies to every group, of any size and of any political, religious, or ideological viewpoint. Basically everyone has an agenda and at least 50% of what they say is crap, wildly exaggerated or at best factually dubious.
 
I agree, they are trying to make a very strong point, the evidence they give must be purely supporting their point and it must have nothing ambiguous.
I must admit, it's harder to look for supporting evidence objectively after you already have a viewpoint on the issue. On the contrary, if you evaluate the difference evidence first, then come up with a viewpoint, it would be relatively more objective, in my opinion.
 
eddymrsci said:
I was just wondering, the number of vegetarians is rising rapidly, and lots of places are recommending and promoting vegan diets. But are they REALLY healthy? Are they REALLY the best kind of diet so far?
We are omnivores for a reason. The expansion of diet and the discovery of meat played a major role in our evolution. Therefore, I think we should have a balanced diet consisting of meat, plants, and diary products. However, some vegetarians argue that consuming meat can cause many serious health problems, and that you can get all the nutrients in meat just by consuming plants, which reduce the tendencies of getting those health problems. But is this really true? I mean, there is a very observable difference between herbivores and carnivores in terms of behaviour. So something must be significantly different about meat and plants.
So does meat have something unique that can never be found in other nutritional sources? Is it better to be omnivores, and eat a little bit of everything in our diet? Or are the vegetarians telling the truth?

Looking forward to any response and comment :)
Thanks
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Can't we relate it with alkaline/acid forming effects? Just see:
http://home.bluegrass.net/~jclark/alkaline_foods.htm
 
that isn't a reliable site, but strangely enough, pH is rather important and something people don't consciously think about when eating. your palette does it for you by pairing things like potatos to balance out the meat (typical biochem example- i'm still a veg!).
but what does this have to do with the thread?
 
I do not see how the pH of food is relevant in any way at all. First, the acid in your stomach is far more concentrated and caustic than anything you eat, so in order to change the pH of your body, the food must be very strongly buffered at a low pH. Of course, any change greater than even a few tenths of a pH point and you are unconscious, and a few more and you die. There is some quack book out by a naturopath about this nonsense. Something to do with his speculation about evolution, diet and chemistry, three areas that naturopaths have no training. This is more media bunk. Coffee and orange juice are both acidic, but so poorly buffered the pH rapidly changes to that of the stomach when swallowed.
Jack Quack- I agree, I do not approve of animal abuse and PETA has occasionally revealed some abuse.
In a general sense, many animal rights groups use young people to commit stupid outrageous acts to get media attention. The media attention gets people interested in their message. Some organizations take millions of dollars in donations, especially by naive celebrities who believe in the cause. That then gets a lot of other people to give money. Since most of the work is done "non-profit" or unpaid work, the executives make tons of money. In that sense, I call it a scam, but others no doubt will disagree. Of course, this is just a generalization. I also suspect many environmental groups follow the same behavior.
 
Quasi, what is the nett effects of all gastric juces, bile & other secretions in GI tract? Pls don't consider the pH of food taken just for calculation purpose. How constituents of acid/alkaline forming foods can effect body pH/buffers? See here at; http://www-biol.paisley.ac.uk/courses/stfunmac/glossary/buffers.html

This is related to this thread because most of veg & non veg foods are said to be alkaline & acid forming respectively.
 
hey you know what, I AGREE with buffys - well just the first part :p - no food is perfect, all food is bad in their own way. plants are not that much better than meat.
I just heard from a reliable source that meat itself does not cause all those problems, but over-consumption of prepared meat (like cooked, fried, grilled, whatever) can cause free radicals in your body and cause harm, even cancer. Well, I don't think anybody here consumes raw meat, hopefully not. Well the point is, it's extremely important to exercise after food consumption, that way you can keep the balance in your body, maintain the operation of your organs, regardless of what you eat. A lot of cases where meat-eating people get health problems is caused by energy imbalance, they probably like to eat a lot of stuff, but sit around the house all day watching tv.
I think the main difference between plants and meat is that plants don't have that much saturated fats, which are hard to digest for the body. So plants don't give your body a huge workload. (Unsupported idea, opinion only) Meat probably can produce more fats - or muscles, depending on your exercise - because it has more. And you are not going to get health problems from meat if you use the energy, exercise, and help your body to digest.
Meat is very hard to digest without the aid of exercise. But if you eat meat and exercise, you can be in great shape and have a great healthy life, probably even better than some vegetarians (I bet Arnold Schwarzenegger is not a vegetarian, haha :p). But seriously it really is all up to your own choice of lifestyle. (if you wanna be like the "governator", eat more meat and work out, haha just kidding :)) it's all good.
and yeah also, food is for energy production, if you eat and don't use your energy, you are gonna get all kinds of problems no matter what you eat. I like cooked meat (hmm... steak... hmm...), but I don't over consume it, I like the way it tastes, the way it looks, and the way it smells (no offense to vegetarians) I maintain my body's exercise, and I am perfectly strong and healthy. I rarely get sick.
So anyway, eat whatever you want, enjoy your life, but don't forget to exercise!
Great discussion people!
BALANCE IS EVERYTHING!!!
 
Acid/base effects & simple/complex moleculed foods seems to be a basic consideration in selecting foods then comes their constituents, toxicity etc. More the complex food- more should be the time gap/ intervals between taking these foods unabling it to digest it properly--can be a other consideration.
 
hell i jjst gave up looking for vegetarian food years ago, i only eat fruit and raw materials eg. oats, milk
 
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