Vegetarian Diets

You Should Avoid a Vegetarian Diet

Meat is a High Density Food.

Organ meats, meats, fish and shellfish, are among the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat.

Even when eating meat and animal fat, people have trouble getting a full range of vitamins and minerals, that's why we should try to eat animals from "nose to tail."

In our society, people are often reluctant to eat organ meats. Those are super foods, and frequently they are cheap to buy.

Protein Deficiency in Vegetarians

The quality of protein in many vegetarian diets is poor. In vegan diets it's commonly disastrously poor. Soy protein, nuts and seeds, deliver poor levels of the amino acids taurine, cysteine, carnitine and methionine. This makes if difficult for the body to rebuild itself well. (Dr L. Wilson will add, that these amino acids are essential to the liver to enable it to detoxify heavy metals from the body. I'm not sure of that as science.)

Vitamin Deficiency in Vegetarians

B12 deficiency is especially common in vegetarians, causing fatigue, lethargy, weakness, memory loss, plus neurological and psychiatric problems.

68% of vegetarians and 83% of vegan's are B12 deficient, compared to just 5% of omnivores.

The two fat-soluble vitamins: A and D, are commonly lacking. Fat-soluble vitamins play numerous and critical roles in human health.

Vitamin A promotes healthy immune function, fertility, eyesight and skin.

It's nearly impossible to get enough vitamin A from plant foods without juicing or taking supplements.

Vitamin D regulates calcium metabolism, regulates immune function, reduces inflammation and protects against some forms of cancer.

Vitamin D levels are 58% lower in vegetarians and 74% lower in vegan's than in omnivores.

Well Known Vegetarian Diets

Nathan Pritikin advocated that 80% of your diet should be carbohydrates. Senator George McGovern lost weight following the Pritikin Diet.

Dean Ornish developed his diet based on Pritikin's key ideas. He was very strict about it.

Ornish Diet: No red meat, no liver, butter, cream or eggs.
Mostly fruits, vegetables and grains.
Dean Ornish was called "the healer of hearts." The Anti Coronary Club picked up Ornish's key ideas.

One research study found that people on the Ornish diet developed wider arteries. This was considered a success.

It's also said that the blood supply to the heart increased from 10% to 15%

Dean Ornish, physician and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, sits down to discuss how lifestyle changes can prevent and reverse chronic disease. If you make big enough changes, explains Ornish, your body can heal itself much more quickly than previously thought. Nancy Gibbs of Time Magazine conducted this interview on February 2nd, 2015. (30 minutes)

There have been several attempts to replicate the Ornish Study in other centers without success. Ornish studied 41 men, but only 35 completed the trial. The Ornish vegetarian diet did lower LDL-C, but also lowered HDL-C, and raised triglyceride's. This is consistent with the Boeing Study by Robert Knopp et al. (2000) where HDL-C was lowered by a very-low-fat diet (undesirable) and more was pronounced in women (New finding). LDL-C was also reduced but further lowering of saturated fats had no additional effect. As with the Ornish study increased carbohydrates raise blood triglyceride levels.

Three Recommended Dietary Patterns - US Dietary Guidelines
Note basically the same. Less protein in the vegetarian diet. More olive oil in the Mediterranean diet.

There is STRONG support for the vegetarian diet, in the USA's 2015 Dietary Guidelines. That's strange because the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee could not offer a single study that showed that a vegetarian diet was healthy. Since 2015 two studies have been done. Both studies showed that a vegetarian diet was no better or worse than the standard American 'control' diet. How can that be? Above we explain how certain groups have strongly injected themselves into both the scientific and political debate about diet.

Only 7% of Americans claim to be vegetarian. The 2015 US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, consisted of fourteen people. Eleven of those have strong publishing records supporting a vegetarian of 'plant based' diet. Isn't that a little bit unusual? Perhaps there is some bias showing there?

No Health Benefit in a Vegetarian Diet

An Australian study, "Vegetarian diet and all-cause mortality:" released in April, 2017, evaluated a cohort study of 267,180 men and women aged 45 and up over a period of six years in New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

Four groups were evaluated; complete vegetarians, semi-vegetarians (eat meat less than once/week), pesco-vegetarians (fish eating), and regular meat eaters.

There were 16,836 deaths in the cohort.

There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality for vegetarians versus non-vegetarians. There was no significant difference in mortality risk between pesco-vegetarians, or semi-vegetarians, versus regular meat eaters. "We found no evidence that following a vegetarian diet, semi-vegetarian diet or a pesco-vegetarian diet has an independent protective effect on all-cause mortality."

This confirms the view that most medical doctors have been taught, that in the long run diet makes no difference. There's quite a lot of other evidence to show that while everyone claims to "know" what a healthy diet is, and would generally say they try to eat that way, that almost nobody succeeds. Everyone gets sick. So, what's the truth here? That's one reason why we are all here. (Open Future Health isn't entirely sure either, but we are sure that the doctors are wrong, that what we eat matters, and that dietary QUALITY matters.)

Mineral Deficiency in Vegetarians

The bioavailability of the iron in plant foods is much lower than in animal foods.

Vegetarian diets tend to reduce zinc absorption by about 35% compared with omnivorous diet.

Essential Fatty Acids lacking in Vegetarians

The long-chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA & DHA, are essential. These fatty acids play a protective and therapeutic role in a wide range of diseases: cancer, asthma, depression, cardiovascular disease, ADHD, and autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Vegetarians struggle to get enough EPA & DHA.

Vegetarians have 30% lower levels of EPA & DHA than omnivores, while vegan's have 50% lower EPA and nearly 60% lower DHA.

Nevertheless, I Don't Want Animals Killed for Food

It is possible to be a vegetarian, but it's hard to be a healthy vegetarian, and dietary science gives that diet no support.

If you want to be healthy, don't make a rod for your own back, it's best not to be a vegetarian.

Difficult to be a Healthy Vegetarian

There is no evidence that people on a vegetarian diet live longer, although that claim is often made.

Both George Mann and Weston Price looked for tribal peoples who were both vegetarian and healthy. Both failed in that task. Mann, in 1962, found the Akikuyu tribe was distinctly less healthy than the Maasai. Since then many studies have shown that people on vegetarian diet struggle to remain healthy.

Price claimed that there were super-foods: Insects, offal meats, fish eggs and bone marrow.

Elmer V McCollum, biochemist, wrote in 1921 that it was difficult to keep rats healthy on a vegetarian diet. They had stunted growth, were low weight, and had a shorter life span.

McCollum's formula for healthy rats was to feed them milk, eggs, butter, organ meats and lots of leafy vegetables.

Calcium and the vitamins A, D, K and E, cannot be fully absorbed if they are not eaten as food in saturated fats.