Is Vegetarianism Healthy?

I've been thinking about this question a lot lately. As a person who studied nutrition for two years as part of my job, I've been exposed to many theories of what the ideal diet is. Some advocate a high-protein caveman diet, others a low-protein macrobiotic diet and still others, a totally raw vegan diet. (I like the latter two.)

Many vegetarian and vegan health experts advocate a flesh-free diet as the ultimate diet. Certainly, it protects the heart, lowers cholesterol and cancer risks. And a healthy vegan diet is better for you than the standard American diet high in animal products and low in fruits and vegetables. But I've been wondering, since doing all this wide reading, if totally eliminating meat and fish can be harmful?

I've been wondering this because there are certain nutrients which are harder or impossible to get from only plant sources. It can be hard to get your daily iron quota from just plants, and B12 is virtually nonexistent in plants. Vitamin D can be synthesized from sunshine, but comes from fish and not plant sources when we eat it. And some vegetarians, myself included, struggle in the beginning with letting go of meat, and crave it.

Over the past two or three years of being vegetarian, I sometimes notice myself being lethargic and craving a hamburger or sushi. I have also noticed that recently, my healing time for a cold or a cut on my body was very slow, indicating a lack of iron. I got so low-energy recently that I thought, maybe I should eat a little bit of flesh, and see if it helps.

But whenever I got close to buying meat, I thought about the pain and terrible life that went into producing it, and I couldn't do it. I also realized that I hadn't been taking any vitamins, and maybe that was contributing. I resolved to take my vitamins, and see if that helped.

I bought a quality multivitamin, and began taking some iron and vitamin D that I had, to build up my stores. I immediately noticed a lift in mood, energy, willpower, and immune system. Since taking them, I have not craved meat or fish at all.

Because of my reading, and because of my personal experience, I do believe that the body needs flesh food. But I also believe that with supplements, it is possible to thrive without these foods. The ideal source of a nutrient is always from food, but if your politics are such that you don't want to eat flesh, supplements are fine.

So I've determined that the ideal diet is one that is mostly plant-based, but peppered with tiny bits of animal food here and there. They are so powerful that you don't need much, and most people could stand to cut consumption down by a lot. But I also believe that it is possible, in this industrialized country, to survive just fine being vegetarian and taking supplements. If one's beliefs are such that they cringe to think of eating flesh, they can gladly turn it down by just taking vitamins.

I will finish by saying I just saw a documentary, "The End of the Line," narrated by Ted Danson, that says the global fishing supply has been cut down by 90 percent. The fish we eat are becoming endangered. The oceans are totally out of whack. And if that's not inspiration to cut down, I don't know what is.