According to Research, vegetarians are less healthy than meat-eaters.

I was inspired to write this article after seeing a study conducted by the Medical University of Graz in Austria; this study concluded that Vegetarians are less healthy than meat eaters, as well as have a lower quality of life. When this study reached social media I found that a few of my Facebook friends were taking notice of articles based off the study, liking it and sharing it around with comments mainly like “I knew it!” or “Now they can stop preaching”. This spurred me to realise that a good number of people on my Facebook friends list tend to share articles mainly based on the title, and I feel that social media is starting an epidemic of people neglecting to do any further research beyond the one article that they’ve seen. One reason I realise this is because this study was only based on Austrian adults, and several of my friends tagged mentioned the article telling me that I should stop being Vegan as now there is proof we’re not as healthy… (1. the article was about Vegetarians, and 2. it was Austrian people.)

I feel that people have a tendency to so easily stand by a study or research that supports what they already believe in, for example, a lot of people on my Facebook are obsessed with cheese, and thus I seem to get a lot of people sharing articles that claim cheese is good for you etc. I’m not saying that I don’t do the same thing — I definitely do, it’s not like I’m going to share an article that claims that meat is really good for you… but as of late I would read it and take the theories into consideration. I’m trying to be more open-minded and less stubborn regarding my current beliefs, and I feel that others could make an effort also.

I’m basing this article on Veganism because that’s what I try to spread awareness of, what I have a bit of experience in, and I know that it’s difficult to convince people to read up on it. It seems that, no matter how small they are, all of the negative studies tend to stick in people’s heads as opposed to the positive ones. For example, when I talk to my friends about Veganism, they tend to almost always bring up that there is a chance of nutrient deficiency… It makes sense that people do this as we tend to remember the negatives of a subject, especially when we don’t know much about it, and when we don’t particularly want to do it; the negative information that we have read usually act as an excuse for not doing something.

I find that my meat-eating Facebook friends love to share article upon article of studies that devalue non meat-eating diets, albeit, there aren’t actually many negative studies against the Vegan diet (yet)… But the Austrian study that attempts to devalue the Vegetarian diet still isn’t enough proof to me, considering they only used 330 Vegetarians, whereas they used 990 meat-eaters — doesn’t seem particularly fair. Would you believe in a study that used 330 meat eaters and allowed for their lifestyle’s to speak for everyone that ate meat? Even if they did use more Vegetarians, I think it’s ridiculous that anyone could generalise people just because they simply eat the same foods.

The wider message of this article is basically saying that less and less people (particularly on social media) are taking the time to do extra research on studies that they read about in articles. Although, the readers aren’t only to blame as I find that many journalists seem to write articles on Veganism when they clearly have a lack of knowledge on the subject. For example, Julie Bindel wrote an article about why she hates Vegetarians, and quotes “promotes Vegetarianism not only as healthy but as a solution to world hunger and a safeguard of the planet”; although this article is out dated, surely it was always common sense that we could easily use the billions of crops that feed the farmed animals, to feed people in poverty instead? Also in the article she twists facts, like “giving up meat and dairy has been linked to anorexia and other eating disorders in teenage girls” — people suffering from anorexia tend to eat the minimal amount of food, and thus most likely avoid meat as its high calorie. So therefore anorexia sufferers may be considered Vegan or Vegetarian, but that is not necessarily a conscious decision of theirs. There is actually more evidence of people improving their relationship with food when converting to Veganism, as it teaches you to nourish your body to the best of your ability.