Q&A: What are the different types of vegetarian diets utilized in society?
June 22, 2011 Categories: Vegetarian
Question by Chach: What are the different types of vegetarian diets utilized in society?
What are the different benefits and risks associated with vegetarian diets?
Are you for or against vegetarian diets?
Im am writing a paper on vegetarian diets and know nothing about them… can anyone help?
Best answer:
Answer by Cliff
I’m against them. There are no benefits, except for the extra meat for the rest of us.
Add your own answer in the comments!
They’re all just different forms of insanity and stupidity.
The main types of vegetarian are ovo-lacto vegetarian, meaning someone who doesn’t eat meat, poultry, or fish but does eat eggs and dairy, and vegan, someone who doesn’t eat any animal products.
There are many benefits to vegetarian/vegan diets. Modern animal agriculture (factory farms) is extremely damaging to the environment and also inhumane for the animals. The meat, milk, and eggs it produces is not as nutritious as traditional pasture-based methods of livestock farming either.
Diets high in animal products are also associated with many serious health problems. Personally I think the animal products themselves are not the problem as much as the sheer quantity of animal products eaten in the Standard American Diet (double the amount consumed even 50 years ago) and the poor quality of modern animal products due to the harmful practice of grain-finishing and routine feeding of antibiotics and growth hormones.
Speaking of routine feeding of antibiotics, antibiotics fed to healthy livestock have been implicated in the rise of antibiotic resistant diseases such as MRSA. 70% of all antibiotics used in the US are fed to HEALTHY livestock to make them gain weight faster and keep them healthy in overcrowded, stressful conditions.
Eating a healthy, balanced vegetarian diet has no health risks whatsoever. (Eating an unhealthy vegetarian diet obviously does, but not any more than an unhealthy omnivorous diet.) Vegans need to be careful to get enough vitamin B12, which is only available naturally in animal products, but can be found in supplemented grains and other products now.
I’m personally an omnivore, but I average about 80-100% vegetarian meals in any given week, and a fair number of vegan meals as well, so I support both lifestyles fully.
My advice is to go to Facebook and join the VEGETARIAN! group, then ask the people there or look at the discussions.
There is the average vegetarian-no meat
vegan-no animal products
pescetarian-seems to think seafood is a vegetable
and many others.