Almost 2 years ago I reported here on a comprehensive study conducted by the Austrian University of Graz showing vegans and vegetarians tend to have significantly more mental disorders and health issues than meat-loving people.
Photo credit: Alpha, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Well, that post has been brought back the public’s attention – and how! Over the past couple of days it has taken off and gone viral, being shared or liked at Facebook over a quarter million times.
Obviously people have been asking why some environmentally active and veggie-leaning people are acting so weird, irrational and at times even hysterical, especially when it comes to climate change. Looks like nutrition may actually be one factor here – in addition to the sorrowful state of Western education and academia.
Nutrition is often a seriously under-estimated factor when it comes to our health – really! Being deficient in just one or two vitamins, and/or minerals or trace elements is enough to make any person seriously ill. Poor nutrition during pregnancy can lead to severe birth defects. Nutritional deficiencies are also often the root cause of mental illness and depression. Too often people totally under-estimate the role of nutrition in their health.
The now famous University of Graz study came up with some sobering findings:
1. Vegetarians are more often ill and have a lower quality of living than meat-eaters.
2. Vegetarians showed 166% higher cancer rates (4.8% to 1.8%).
3. Vegans had a 150% higher rate of heart attacks (1.5% to 0.6%).
4. Vegetarian’s show more psychological disorders than meat eaters.
5. They are a greater burden on the health care system.
6. Vegetarians have twice as many allergies as big meat-eaters.
I don’t want to discourage people from eating vegetarian diets, as these can be highly beneficial IF they include eggs, dairy products and fish on a regular basis. For example for people who suffer from obesity, the vegetarian diet can actually be therapeutic if not taken to an extreme – and done over a limited period, monitored by a competent physician.
However, people who are considering the vegan lifestyle – one that rejects the consumption of almost every animal-based food product – they absolutely need to be extremely wary. The draconian diet often FALSELY promises health. Most experts will tell you that veganism is a very risky and potentially dangerous diet – especially for children and pregnant women.
By nature the human organism, forged by some 3 million years of evolution, is an omnivore and thus is designed to consume, digest and metabolize both animal and plant-based foods. A balanced diet is imperative for maintaining good health. Deny this at your own risk.
I recommend the following video for starters (hat-tip DirkH): www.youtube.com/v=3vr-c8GeT34
“IF they include eggs, dairy products and fish on a regular basis.”
’cause B12 has to come from somewhere.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/vitamin-b12/evidence/HRB-20060243
I suspect that they are vegans because they are mentally disturbed, not the other way around 😉
He he.I guess that many of the ecoloonies have been fruitcakes, even before showing “treehuggersymptoms”
That’s my statement as well
Who funded your study?
How big was your sample.
What was your experimental method.
Don’t think the World Health Organisation or the UN would agree with you.
http://epic.iarc.fr
Science please; btw just in case you did not know, the world is not flat.
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0088278&representation=PDF
I haven’t vetted this entirely yet, but it looks good so far.
http://naturalhygienesociety.org/diet3.html
Also see my comment to DirkH below, for another link on why Veganism, in the author’s words, “sucks.”
OK, that first one is good in exposing problems with extreme Veganism, but they seem to be over-thinking the alternative.
I’m beginning to see signs of improvement on the low carb diet, which makes most sense to me, and to my taste buds.
“Science please; btw just in case you did not know, the world is not flat.”
That reminds me of the warmunists claiming their theory to be true because gravity exists. Maybe warmunists have a B12 deficiency as well.
This appears to be a scientifically well founded article (based on his references).
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/why-vegan-diets-suck
So….you say “Science please” after an appeal to authority and an implication that this was tainted in some way by funding (with no evidence) and then directly before an implication that the original post’s author (And website’s owner) doesn’t understand science in the first place?
All of this while ignoring the obvious link in the article to what he was referring (which itself contained a direct link to the study)?
Just…wow.
“Don’t think the World Health Organisation or the UN would agree with you.” – James
The UN has lost ALL credibility when it comes to anything important.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-22508439
Go ahead, true believer. And, no, I won’t be following suit.
somewhere there is an article reporting certain dinosaur species that were vegetarians as adults, but ate meat while juveniles. I would be interested in knowing if the nutritional deficiency issue with veganism is more pronounced in children than adults? or older adults?
You don’t need a study; it’s observable in modern dinosaurs (i.e., birds).
“I would be interested in knowing if the nutritional deficiency issue with veganism is more pronounced in children than adults? or older adults?”
Of course it is far more damaging in children – B vitamins are vital for the development of the nervous system. Vitamin D as well, BTW. So exposure to sunlight is recommended. A grownup can withstand many kinds of deficiencies for much longer – as under normal circumstances the only tissue he needs to GROW constantly in large amounts is red blood cells.
Anecdotally, I started on a diet of meat and direct plants in most cases about eighteen years ago after reading up on some of the information that Mr Gosselin posted. I have found it to provide quite a bit more energy as well as mental clarity (although, I wasn’t exactly a vegan, before hand).
I wish more solid research would be done on nutrition, even though it’s expensive. Every study I see, now, seems to be data dredging on self-assessments of historical choice.
Do’h. Eighteen months ago.
Just a comment on the picture you used to illustrate this post. Why do the butchers insist on cutting off the fat from a good piece of steak before putting it on display? I need to find a butcher that will ask me before he cuts off that delicious and integral part of the steak.
“Why do the butchers insist on cutting off the fat from a good piece of steak before putting it on display?”
Because of demand from the majority of customers who swallowed the no-fat diet recommendation?
My mother BTW makes a great pork roast. Of course she doesn’t cut off the fat but melts it. I ate some of the crust yesterday.Very delicious and dripping with liquid pork fat.
Cause and effect?
“3. Vegans had a 150% higher rate of heart attacks (1.5% to 0.6%).”
They probably were smart enough to exclude those who became vegans after their heart attack, one hopes…
When my (ex) wife, who was a vegetarian, became pregnant of my oldest daughter her doctor told her that if she wanted a healthy baby, she should cut the cr@p and start eating red meat. He must have been persuasive, it was the end of her vegetarianism and we where blessed with a healthy child.
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“Be Veg, Go green to save the planet” – James Hansen
…a perfectly normal guy.