A vegetarian or vegan diet can also lead to the desired goal of a healthy lifestyle. A study showed that under certain circumstances, meat consumption can have even less harmful effects on the body and well-being.
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Vegetarian and vegan are not the same as healthy
The increasingly ongoing campaigns about avoiding meat as much as possible and switching to a vegetarian, or even better vegan diet is a double-edged sword. It’s true that a vegetarian diet carries far fewer risks of serious illness than eating a lot of meat. According to a study, vegans are even healthier than vegetarians. However, this does not apply under all circumstances, because the label “vegan” or “vegetarian” does not automatically say anything about the nutritional value.
Highly processed products can be problematic
In the campaigns to avoid meat and towards a vegetarian lifestyle, which sometimes appear as “re-education”, the focus is usually on climate protection and nature conservation and less on the health aspect for the people. When vegetarian or vegan nutrition is mentioned in this regard, it is usually based on foods from correspondingly processed products. The manufacturers of meat substitute products, such as sausage and cheese imitations and “vegan chicken”, are on a clear upward trend. But these products are so highly processed that they tend to entail higher risks than a courageous bite into a freshly cooked steak. Ultimately, in addition to meat substitutes, sweets and soft drinks are considered vegetarian food. A vegan label on the bottle of a “sugar water coloring caffeine drink” would not be wrong, but it does not indicate any high quality of this drink.
Study proves wrong kind of vegetarianism
The Loma Linda University of California, USA, investigated in a study how highly processed “foods” labeled as vegetarian can affect people’s health. This was contrasted with a red meat diet. At the time the interim balance was recorded, more than 77,000 subjects took part in this study, whose eating habits differed accordingly. This included vegetarian, vegan and non-vegetarian diets. Age, weight, lifestyle such as sleep, sport, alcohol consumption and known previous illnesses were taken into account. In this study, the highly processed foods were recorded separately and their effects on the health of the participants evaluated. The duration of the study was more than seven years.
interim conclusion
A vegetarian can make as many mistakes as a non-vegetarian. It can even go so far that a “poorly nourished vegetarian” is exposed to higher health risks than a “well-nourished non-vegetarian”. The study showed that highly processed vegetarian foods account for a higher proportion of the risk of death than animal-based foods.
The participants who got half of their calories from highly processed foods had a 14 percent higher mortality rate than the participants who got only 12.5 percent of their calories from highly processed foods. Eating 40 grams of red meat daily resulted in an 8 percent higher risk of death. However, this only applies if highly processed foods have been largely avoided.
The summary of this study is very simple. Refrain from highly processed foods and only make meat an exception.
The study has not yet been completed and the above results should therefore be viewed as an interim assessment.
The Science label is required
It can also be said at this point that such results were also foreseeable. Anyone who eats sugar and rapeseed oil, cola, soda, coffee, white bread with butter and mayonnaise long enough every day is far worse off than someone who has a lot of leafy vegetables next to their schnitzel. But such arguments based on pure common sense are hardly accepted today. Rather, the consumer who has been declared underage only has to orient himself to a Nutri-Score for his everyday life. So scientific studies are needed. Science has already been raised up as the modern “priesthood” and its credibility must not be undermined by any heretical criticism as long as the results fit the narrative.
“Nutrition of the future” is highly processed
A – let’s say – strong indication of the switch to such highly processed meat substitute imitations, which is strongly supported by the media, are tips from investment tipsters who advise to do the same as the billionaire not mentioned here, who is the developer of an operating system and has meanwhile blossomed into a much-heard “multi-expert” in the fields of vaccines, climate and nature protection and also nutrition. He has invested heavily in Nobell Foods, Nature’s Fynd, Beyond Meat, Upside Foods, Motif FoodWorks, Eat Just and Impossible Foods. All companies that have specialized in the production of the “nutrition of the future”.
For vegetarian and vegan natural products
So if you want to understand vegetarian or vegan nutrition as a healthy lifestyle, you should keep your distance from highly processed products and reach for the “green” instead. The more genuine a meat substitute product is to look, the more the food chemists have to reach into their bags of tricks and it is just teeming with “special ingredients” provided with E numbers (Europe / Germany). Fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts, grains are the choice and not meat, sausage and cheese imitations.
