Of course we all know that eating our vegetables is good for us. But for years, nutrition experts have questioned whether vegetarians could get all the nutrients essential to good health. These days, as researchers increasingly extol the benefits of eating more veggies, fruits and whole grains and less saturated fat to prevent cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and obesity, the question seems to be: Is a vegetarian diet actually the healthiest choice?
Like so many issues related to diet and health, there is no firm conclusion to this question. In fact, few studies have actually compared the health benefits of a vegetarian diet with a nutrient-rich diet that contains minimal amounts of lower-fat meat products. Add to this the fact that most vegetarians tend to be more active and abstain from smoking, caffeine, refined foods and heavy alcohol use and you can see why it's difficult to ascertain whether vegetarianism is the healthier way.
The benefits
According to Canada's National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), a research organization that studies health and nutrition, evidence is "strong" that a vegetarian diet leads to lower mortality rates, and reductions in chronic diseases such as constipation, obesity and several types of cancer, especially colon cancer. Data indicating a correlation between vegetarianism and a reduced risk of hypertension, coronary heart disease, adult-onset diabetes and gallstone is rated "good."
Still, the "bottom line," according to the NIN, is that most researchers believe it's not the absence of meat, but the abundance of plant foods that explains the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. "People who give up meat and switch to a vegetarian diet do often lose weight and say they feel better, but there is no evidence that eating a little bit of animal products every day is conducive to ill health," says Dr. Rejeane Gougeon, an NIN trustee and assistant professor at McGill University's Nutrition and Food Science Centre and Faculty of Medicine. "The main message from most studies is that meat should be a complement to a meal that contains vegetables, fruits and whole grains, not the main event."
That's a view even Vesanto Melina, the author of Becoming Vegetarian: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Vegetarian Diet (Wiley, 2003), concurs with. "I think there's evidence for what I call a near-vegetarian diet -- mostly plant-based with very small amounts of meat -- being considered healthy," says Melina, a Langley, B.C., registered dietitian and author of several other books on vegetarian eating. "All the studies are so clear in concluding that eating more vegetables and cutting back on saturated fat brings great health benefits."
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