What are the health benefits of being vegetarian or vegan?

Just because someone says they are vegetarian or vegan doesn't necessarily mean that they are healthier. It depends on the protein sources they are eating in place of meat. You can do it right, but most people dont, and I have found that veg eat way too much sugar.

Key reasons: benefit to the planet, it takes a lot less resources to grow vegetables for food consumption than it takes to grow cows (also responsible for disappearing rain forests), plus, it doesn't support factory farming practices which are not only horribly cruel to animals in that they have horrible living conditions, but also, this type of farming is environmentally destructive.

I was veg for about 6 years. Health benefits (if you do it right with nutrition focus), you can find a better pH balance. Most people in our culture are too acidic, meats, dairy, animal products, and even beans and brown rice are all high acidity pathways in metabolizing in the body. Because the body needs to maintain a balance, it draws Calcium from the bones to counter the acid levels of metabolizing these proteins. A main cause for Osteoporosis is this high acidity level (if it were just about getting calcium, US would not have the highest rates of milk consumption and osteoporosis).

America would do better to eat less meat, and more fruits and vegetables. We need only a fraction of the protein we are getting daily.

The reasons are many and varied:-

1. Too much meat is bad for one's diet for various reasons, including - if you have preexisting kidney disease, it accelerates it, humans have a physiological difficulty in digesting animal proteins

2. There is a school of thought that certain proteins are associated with cancer formation

3. because we are omnivarous (humans can eat a variety of things and be both carnivorous and vegetarian), we therefore should eat a variety of things in our diet for our health, rather than have a high meat protein diet. High meat diet was popularised during the war, when money was short and having a meat diet indicated wealth. This continued into our times of relative plenty and has resulted in many of the first world diseases (eg obesity) today.

4. The Meat Board and its ancillary facilities are very powerful in politics. They have made it a point to popularise meat-eating both directly and indirectly, and thus, we are where we are today

Did you know there is protein in everything we eat, including vegetables? It's just that this is a relatively less known fact because politics/schooling/media/etc have chosen not to highlight this fact to us. For example, lentils is a very good source of protein which humans can digest very well.

5. Protein eating also contributes to global warming, as some would put it. A lot of energy is required (and a lot of waste is generated) in producing beef for humans. This energy far surpasses the amount of energy we are able to expend, as a result of eating this beef.

Red meat has been strongly linked to cancer, high cholestrol and heart disease.

Why do people always say we have the teeth to eat meat? We don't! Could we really bite through flesh the way, say, a dog can? No.

The fact is you can be healthy if your a vegetarian omnivore or vegan....being a veggie doesnt mean your healthier.....

So to be honest there is absolutely no health benefits from having a well planned veggie diet to that of a well planned omnivorous diet

Better question is why do you have the teeth required for eating meat?

Mike Tyson took a chuck of ear like a mad dog

watch this video "diet for all reasons" by doctor michael klaper

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-388151573...

meat, even if it is organic is high in saturated fat and bad ldl cholesterol.

This is so obvious!!!!! You rot from inside out when you eat meet!!!!!!! slowly but surely! it is poison!!!! you little by little creating cansers and other problems! people wake up!!!!!