Vegetarian Diet Prevents Disease

Vegetarian Diet Prevents Disease

— By Julia Whitty | Tue July 7, 2009 4:21 PM PST

—Photo courtesy of Khalid Mahmood, Wikimdia Commons

Just in time to refute last week's atrociously reported story...The American Dietetic Association released a position paper stating that vegetarian diets are healthful and nutritious for adults, infants, children and adolescents, and can help prevent and treat chronic diseases including heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes.

The American Dietetic Association is the world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals.

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life-cycle including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence and for athletes."

The good news is that vegetarian diets tend to be lower in saturated fat and cholesterol, with higher levels of fiber, magnesium, potassium, vitamins C and E, folate, carotenoids, flavonoids and other phytochemicals.

Consequently, people eating well-balanced vegetarian diets tend toward lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure levels, and lower risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Beyond that, vegetarians tend toward lower body mass indices and lower overall cancer rates.

Expanded sections in this updated position paper include: cancer protection factors in vegetarian diets, and the roles of fruits, vegetables, soy products, protein, calcium, vitamins D and K and potassium in bone health.

In other words, a vegetarian diet is better for you than a meat diet. It's also better for every other living thing on Earth. So why hasn't this study cracked the headlines?

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WRONG: Vegetarian diet 'weakens bones'

— By Julia Whitty | Thu July 2, 2009 4:11 PM PST

—Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Why can't the media report science correctly? According to this AFP story: "People who live on vegetarian diets have slightly weaker bones than their meat-eating counterparts."

They could hardly misreport a scientific study more spectacularly. I mean, how hard is it to:

• Understand the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian?

• Assess the fact that differences in bone density (which the researcher himself deemed "clinically insignificant") did not lead to any increase in the number of bone fractures?

The Australian news reported the story somewhat more accurately.

But this headline and misleading story have been virulently misreported today. And what is the effect but to reinforce meat-eating habitats that are bad for the health of individuals and for the health of our world?

Jeez.

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