sigh. okay. against my better judgement, i'm joining this discussion. (why is there a little voice in the back of my head that's screaming "don't go back to college! no! no! noooooo!")
the silly thing is that just about everyone here has something useful to say. several posters that shall remain nameless have done it in -ahem- quite a rude manner, but what can you do!
personally, i'm not a vegetarian - i eat dairy, eggs and seafood. but i stopped eating other food because i was living out of the country and a lot of friends were getting sick; when i stopped, i felt healthier. that is not to say that others would feel the same way.
i went to a small liberal arts college for women that was very liberal, and a lot of typically "liberal" lifestyle choices (NOT to say that everyone who is vegetarian, or vegan, or anything else controversial that i might mention is liberal... ) were prevalent. in fact, most of them were very faddish there. despite wonderful vegetarian and vegan options (i believe it was rated #1 in the country for veggie/vegan food), i knew many "vegetarians"/"vegans" who ate horrible diets. i also knew many meat eaters who did. i knew many people with eating disorders. however, that was completely separate (as far as i could tell) from the bad diets - the vegetarians who ate badly looked unhealthy; they had no energy, their hair and skin were dull ... many of them were quite overweight, in fact. same with the meat eaters. many of the people i knew with eating disorders were obsessive about the "healthiness" of what they ate, whether their plate had meat or not. the issue with eating disorders has very little, if anything, to do with whether or not you eat meat, and more to do with having a
mental illness that makes you think you are not healthy/thin enough, no matter what the physical evidence suggests. For this reason, many anorexics/bulimics tend to obsess about nutrition, calories in/out, etc. yes, many of them, in this obsession with "good" nutrition, hear about the health benefits of vegetarian diets and stop eating meat, but that doesn't mean that all or most or even a significant portion of vegetarians have the same illness.
as to what is better, there is no best diet for people as a whole, in my opinion. i think veggie diets are better for the environment, yes. however, if i ever feel that i need to start eating more meat to be healthy, i will do so. i have very serious concerns about hormones, etc., and would do my best to eat organic,etc., etc.
as to the buddhist diet, well, i think there is a good point there. i actually eat and cook a huge amount of indian/buddhist/vedic foods, and it is largely because i find that cuisine from that part of the world tends to provide the most balanced nutrition for the vegetarian diet (not to mention that it's so tasty!).
as for meat eaters - i have no problem with it whatsoever, and i find it upsetting when people hijack what could be an enlightening and interesting discussion into arguing over who is stupider, or less evolved, etc. based upon their eating habits. let's just say that
that title belongs to the people who eat **** (meaty or not), sit on their *** all day and die young of cardiac disease and diabetes. i would guess that there's no one one this board that fits, but i'm sure i've flushed him/her out if so to come flame me
i'm going to go hide back in the newbie forum now.
btw, was i the only one who was trying to figure out how vegetarian college women were so prone to erectile dysunction?
