Vegetarians vs. Meat Eaters

Vegetarians versus meat eaters According to Kathy Freston, the New York Times bestselling author of "The Lean, Veganist, and Quantum Wellness", vegetarians and vegans have significantly longer life expectancy. Based on doubtful studies and media claims, vegetarians are trying to push us eliminate meat from our diet. But there are other findings, which conclude that a vegetarian diet conferred no more benefit than a diet that included plenty of unrefined plant foods together with animal protein. According to a recent report on the largest study on vegetarians and vegans, they live an average 8 years longer than the general population. The study was based on our leading causes of death, such as heart disease, cholesterol level, cancer, stroke, COPD, Alzheimer disease, kidney failure, and depression. According to this study, all mentioned causes of death may be prevented or even treated using plant-based diet. Statistic from CDS (Centers for Disease control and Prevention) shows that heart disease is a leading cause of death in the United States. A long-term study on older women's health was recently published, showing that "consuming the amount of cholesterol found in just a single egg a day may cut woman's life short as much as smoking five cigarettes daily for fifteen years, whereas eating a daily cup of oatmeal's worth of fiber appears to extend a woman's life as much as four hours of jogging a week." (Freston, 2012). In this study dietary cholesterol intake (only found in animal foods) was associated with living a lot shorter life and fiber intake (only found in plant foods) was associated with living a much longer life. According to Dr. Dean Ornish heart disease could not be only stopped but even reversed with a vegan diet, arteries opened up without drugs or surgery. It is a known fact that high cholesterol levels cause a build-up of plaque in our arteries which leads to heart disease, but it is hard to believe that eating one egg a day can be as harmful as smoking five cigarettes daily for fifteen years. One chicken egg has about 186 mg of cholesterol and all of it is in the yolk. However recommended daily limit on cholesterol in your diet varies from person to person. If you are healthy, it is recommended that you limit your cholesterol intake to 300 milligrams a day, but if you have cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or high blood cholesterol level, you should limit your dietary cholesterol to less than 200 mg per day. According to Dr. Thomas Bechrenbeck, eating eggs can increase you cholesterol, but eating up to four eggs on a weekly basis hasn't been found to increase your risk of heart disease. So, if you decide to eat an egg it is important to limit other sources of cholesterol on that day. When it comes to meat, it is a similar story, you have to watch for how much you can eat daily, in order not to increase your cholesterol. Any kind of 8-oz. steak has about 200 mg of cholesterol, which is a recommended daily limit by The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. So if your consider eating meat, you should not eat more when 8-oz of lean meat on any given day and avoid any other foods, which can contain cholesterol. According to American Heart Association on occasional 8-oz. steak won't significantly impact your heart health, but frequent or large servings do make a difference. Second biggest cause of death is cancer. According to the study on the subject of diet and cancer, "the incidence of all cancers combined is lower among vegetarians." But there is a different study from 2006, which found no differences in "cancer rates between vegetarians and non-vegetarians." (Who's Healthier - Vegeterians or Meat Eaters?, 2012). However, same study showed that vegetarians have lower body mass index, lower cholesterol level, and they also had 20% fewer deaths from ischemic heart disease. The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Oxford study showed that in the comparison of vegetarians with meat eaters and after adjustment for age, sex, and smoking, the incidence rate ratio for all malignant neoplasm's was 0.89, but the incidence rate ratio for colorectal cancer in vegetarians compared with meat eaters was 1.39. So even thou vegetarian diet have lover incidence in some type of cancer, it shows increased ratio for colorectal cancer. Third place takes Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which is one of the most common lung diseases. According to vegetarians COPD can be prevented or even treated with the help of plant-based diet. However, some of these results are not definitive, and in some cases so different to other research, that we need to compare them to the work of other researchers. For example, vegetarian activists claims that COPD can be prevented or even treated with the help of a plant-based diet. In order, to ever prove, or deny this theory we have to know what is COPD, what causes it, and how it can be treated. COPD is a lung disease, which makes it difficult to breathe. Smoking is a leading cause of COPD. The other risk factors of COPD are exposure to certain gases or fumes in the workplace, exposure to secondhand smoke and pollution, frequent use of open fire without proper ventilation. There is no cure for COPD, but there are medications to treat COPD, such as inhalers, inhaled steroids to reduce lung inflammation, anti-inflammatory medications, oxygen therapy, and in some cases antibiotics. According to A.D.A.M. medical encyclopedia there are some things you can do to make it easier for yourself and that include "eat a healthy diet with fish, poultry, or lean meat, as well as fruits and vegetables. If it is hard to keep your weight up, talk to a doctor or dietitian about eating foods with more calories." (PubMed Health, 2011). So, there is no facts proving that vegetarian diet helps to prevent or treat COPD, it is quite opposite - the diet suggested by doctors should be higher in calories and should include animal protein. CDC statistics puts stroke in the fourth place in the cause of death chart. The strokes can be prevented if our diet is rich with potassium-rich foods, such as green leafy vegetables, beans, and dates. Alzheimer's disease is sixth leading killer. Once again, vegetarians claims, that those who eat meat are three times more likely to have Alzheimer's disease compare to long-term vegetarians. Diabetes is the next cause of death on that list. They say that plant-based diets help to prevent, treat and even reverse Type 2 diabetes. The list goes on together with the reasons, why vegetarian diets are so good for your health. Let's take a look at some other researches on the subject of that topic. A Dutch review on this subject showed that vegetarian diet had no more benefit than a diet which included unprocessed plant foods, such as vegetables, fruits, and nuts, together with animal protein. Another study confirmed that vegetarian diets are associated with nutrient deficiencies, such as vitamin B12, iron, zinc and calcium. Red meat is well-known as an important dietary source of protein and essential nutrients including iron, zinc and vitamin B12. According to Alison J. McAfee, a significant amount of evidence supports the role of lean red meat as a positive moderator of lipid profiles with recent studies identifying it as a dietary source of the anti-inflammatory long chain (LC) n−3 PUFAs and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). The moderate amount of lean red meat is a part of balanced diet, which positively influences nutrition intake and fatty acid profiles. One more study which showed positive correlation between meat eaters and healthiest population was conducted by a Slovakian research. This study showed that healthiest people of Northern Europe live in Iceland, Scandinavia and Switzerland populations, which consume a lot of animal protein. Based on all the different studies and reports everyone should have a choice to pick the right diet, which suites his/her needs. I do agree with Dr. James Lavelle, which states that vegetarians diets are healthier, but when it comes to overall mortality, there is no difference in vegetarians versus non-vegetarians. I think that vegetarians should not put so much emphasis on they believe that vegetarian diet is healthier compare to meat eaters, because vegetarian diet is not always healthy. Some vegetarians load up on foods like processed veggie burgers, processed veggie cheese, and other processed veggie-based foods. This kind of food would not give you nutritional benefits your body needs. So even if you pick vegetarian diet you still need to watch what you eat in order to be healthy. So what diet to pick? Some people follow a semi vegetarian diet — also called a flexitarian diet — which is primarily a plant-based diet but includes on occasion or in small quantities meat, dairy, eggs, poultry and fish. I believe that everything should be in moderation. We should eat more green leafy vegetables, fruits, legumes, and nuts, but limit grains and other starchy foods. Unprocessed animal protein, such as chicken, turkey and fish should be also included in the diet. Red meat should be included, but limited to a few 8-oz. portions per week. Diets, which uses a lot of unprocessed plant food together with a limited amount of animal protein provides long lusting health benefits like lowering BMI (body mass index) and cholesterol level. More plant based especially should be used for those with Diabetes.