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Vegetarianism

While there are various aspects to the subject of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism, only the aspect of health is discussed here.

This post discusses vegetarianism; not veganism. Veganism is more than a dietary lifestyle shunning all forms of animals products such as leather goods. Also, this post does not discuss the common Indian food culture called pure vegetarianism. What we discuss here is vegetarianism in terms of the food composition.

There are three forms of vegetarianism.

• Vegetarianism, which consists of plant based diet, fungi and algae.
• Lacto vegetarianism, which adds milk and milk products (diary) to vegetarianism. This is what most Indians are even if they claim to be vegetarians.
• Lacto ovo vegetarianism, which adds eggs to plant and diary based diet.

Nutrients

The most common argument from a nutritional perspective is that you do not get sufficient or quality proteins for plant based sources. The fact is, enough protein can be sourced from plant based food and so are complete essential amino acids. For more information, read this. If you are on lacto-vegetarian or lacto-ovo vegetarian diet, things get easier.

There are indeed nutrients that you do get from plant based diet; such as creatine, retinol, etc. But they are not essential nutrients. We repeat: as per the current nutritional science, there are no essential nutrients that cannot be sourced from plants.

Vitamin B12 is hard to source for vegetarian diet, but not impossible if you exercise variety. Nutritional yeats, mushrooms and seaweeds are great sources. If you are on lacto or lacto-ovo vegetarian diet, vitamin B12 can be abundantly sourced from milk, milk products and eggs. There is no need for meat.

Cancer

Red meat and processed red and white meat increases the risk of cancer¹. Red meat refers to unprocessed mammalian muscle meat such as beef, pork and mutton; while processed meat refers to meat that has been altered using salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes.

To quote World Cancer Research Fund International,²

There is strong evidence that consuming:

• red meat INCREASES the risk of colorectal cancer
• processed meat INCREASES the risk of colorectal cancer
• Cantonese-style salted fish INCREASES the risk of nasopharyngeal cancer
• dairy products DECREASE the risk of colorectal cancer

The irony is that several plants and their extracts help in the prevention and treatment of cancer, such aloevera³ and mushroom extracts⁴⁵. Such is the ironic relationship between meat and plants with cancer.

Non-vegetarinism also increases the risk of cancer through plastic and chemical contamination of meat. Because of our own irresponsible handling of pastics, animals (including sea and freshwater organisms) are contaminated by micro plastics, consuming which, humans get contaminated too.

A study found the presence of BPAs, a chemical found in plastics, in fresh pork loins⁶. The contamination was attibuted to the exposure of pigs to plastics in the farm. Chickens in poultry farms, because of the way they forage food with their beaks, are very much susceptible to plastic contamination. Also, plastic packaging poses the risk of chemical contamination of the food packed. The primary health risk posed by plastics inside the human body is cancer, the evidence of which is listed here.

Meat and fish from inorganic farms, and seafood catches have been found to be contaminated by dioxins, heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants and radionuclides too⁷.

Gastrointestinal health

Protein rich food and fatty food takes longer to digest than others. Therefore, the digestive system works harder digesting meat for the same amount of calories and less nutrients. This is inefficient digestion.

Also, the movement of meat inside the gastrointestinal track is harder because of the absence of fibres in meat. This can be eased by complementing meat with high fibre food, but non-vegetarian meals in India do not come in such balanced manner. When you consume a chicken or beef biriyani, there is no inclusion of high fibre vegetables or fruits. When you buy or prepare chicken curry for rice or chappatti, you are eating it as a replacement to a vegetarian curry which you would have otherwise had.

So, this food culture essentially results in fibreless high quantity meat in your digestive system resulting in hard movement of food in the system often resulting in constipation and haemorrhoids (piles).

Heart diseases

The high content of saturated fat in meat contributes to high levels of cholesterol, plaque build up in arteries, decreased blood flow to the heart and the overall content of saturated fats in the blood; thus risking coronary diseases⁸. Although this study was conducted on endurance athletes, their findings applies to ordinary individuals too since they are more vulnerable than endurance athletes.

Consumption of red meat triples the level of trimethylamine N-oxide (known as TMA) in the body⁹, a compound linked with heart diseases and has been proved to increase mortality risk in several studies^10111213.

Although this risk is reduced among those who engage in physically intensive work since fat and cholesterol are neutralised to an extent, a good part of our population does not live that lifestyle. This puts most of us at risk as these compounds accumulate overtime proving fatal.

Emotional health

A scientific study¹⁴ found that the restriction of meat, fish and poultry improved the mood of the participants. In meat, the culprit is the compound called arachidonic acid (AA) that changes the brain state thus influencing mood¹⁵.

When an animal is slaughtered, hormones of fear, anxiety and aggression are released into their blood and into their body. When we consume its meat, these hormones end up in our body. Being from the same kingdom (animal kingdom) and sharing almost the same biology, it will not be an overstatement that these compounds will affect us.

Sexual health

The medical fraternity asserts that "sexual health includes emotional, psychological, physical, intellectual and spiritual dimensions¹⁶". It can therefore be inferred that a vegetarian diet improves the sexual health of a person since it improves other health aspects of an individual.

But, to be more precise, vegetarianism in men has a direct influence on sexual health; such as the elimination of blood flow related erectile dysfunction¹⁷ as vegetarianism improves blood flow due to the lack of saturated fats.

Even among extremely healthy men without erectile dysfunction, a vegetarian diet contributes to more frequent, longer and harder erections, when measured during sleep ¹⁸.

Ecological cost

The ecological cost of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism has an indirect effect on the health of an individual; hence covering this topic. Industrial meat production have resulted in unsustainable practices¹⁹ such as—

• the clearing of forests to graze cattle which killed a part of bio-diversity and contributed to climate change.
• the use of large quantities of ground water for cleaning, feeding and the production of synthetic cattle food, such that for every litre of water spent on meat production, we get less calories compared to food from plants using the same amount of water.
• the energy use in cattle farming and meat production such that we spend more units of energy per calorie from meat than per calorie from plants. When multiple ranches practice these methods, these effects are amplified with massive consequences.

That is not to say that meat cannot be produced in an ecologically safe manner. In fact many farmers across the world are using cows to improve the soil and regenerate barren lands and an ecosystem. However, until the methods of meat production change from few centralised large ranches to small distributed farms and the demand for meat subsides, the ecological consequences will continue or even get worse. For an ecologically friendly meat, cattle must be grown respecting their natural cycles and natural limitations. This cannot meet the current insatiable demand.

Whenever the environmental footprint of non-vegetarianism is pointed out, it is often countered with accusations of the same footprint by vegetarianism; especially the footprint from the inter-continental transportation of fruits and vegetables. This footprint is due to the food distribution system rather than the production of vegetarian food itself. A well distributed network of local farms from which people can source their food locally can eliminate this already lower environmental footprint.

In comparison, plants — if anything — takes in carbon dioxide to give out oxygen; and further runs the natural ecology. Animals, on the other hand, eats these plants and expels green house gases like methane to the atmosphere. So, it is reasonable to conclude that the net emission footprint of non-vegetarianism is many fold higher than the same of vegetarianism. However, it would be stupid to judge ecological effects merely by the emission footprint. Plants and animals evolved together helping each other and their net ecological effect would be positive if farms are non-industrial and animals are allowed to move.

Financial cost

Contrary to popular belief, meat is not the cheapest source of protein; plants are. As an example, in India a kilo of mutton costs about ₹400-600, a kilo of beef costs about ₹300-450, a kilo of chicken costs about ₹100-200 and a kilo of ungutted fish starts at around ₹140. Once gutted and boned, less than a kilo of consumable food remains.

On the other hand, various lentils with both complete and incomplete protein starts at ₹80 per kilo to about ₹200. Nothing to gut or waste; and 100% consumable. This makes plant based protein cheaper than its counterpart.

Meat isn't the cheapest source of vitamins and minerals too; plants are. Meat doesn't have the complete vitamins and mineral profile and almost all variety of fruits and vegetables are cheaper than meat per kilo. If there is any fruit or vegetable that is costlier than meat such as an exotic imported one, you will find a much cheaper nutritional substitute for that.

Real life examples

A statistical proof for the quality of non-meat based protein is the nutrition state of among Indians. Had vegetarian food lacked sufficient quantities of protein, demographic nutritional anomalies and protein deficiencies would be apparent among the Indians, whose majority have been 100% lacto-vegetarians for millennia. The protein in milk is not large enough to provide 100% of daily requirement of protein, thus inferring the protein sufficiency of 100% vegetarian diet.

A second example is the gladiator-like combat between MMA fighters Cornor McGregor and Nate Diaz. McGregor relied on meat while Diaz relied on plant diet. They fought twice and each won one. Winning a fight depends on various factors than just diet, and Diaz may have had protein supplements too (athletes usually do). But since supplements cannot replace diet altogether, it is fair to say that vegetarian diet is not inferior to non-vegetarian diet, even for a high performance actions.

Anatomical arguments

The canine teeth and other anatomical parts of carnivorous animals found in human body is often used to argue that humans are meat eaters. However, they does not prove that we are omnivorous in nature. They only proves that we evolved eating meat. Our body indicates how we evolved, not what we are or what we should be, which must be decided by our cognition. And the arguments to consider have already been discussed.

It indeed makes sense to continue the lifestyle we evolved with since it is the healthiest. But the continuation of food habits is unhealthy because we no longer live the physical lifestyle we evolved with. The impact of health already discussed earlier is proof of this logic.

The takeaway

Meat won't kill you, but it comes with health risks that gets compounded in the long run. Therefore, a diet without meat is healthier than a diet with meat, especially if you are living a sedentary lifestyle.

If you are a non-vegetarian and cannot turn vegetarian, reduce your meat intake to not more than thrice a week. Furthermore, consume it as a side dish. And to compensate the reduction, start consuming variety of vegetarian protein sources.

A 100% plant diet, on the other hand could raise health issues if you do not consume a large variety of plant based diet — which is impractical in most cases. So cosume non vegetarian food occasionally or practice lacto or lacto-ovo vegetarianism.

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