Myth: A vegetarian diet is always healthier.
There is no doubt that our society eats too much meat and too few plants. Changing to a plant based diet is essential if we are to reverse the rise of chronic disease in this country. Certainly vegetarianism is one excellent means to that end. It is not, however, an automatic healthy lifestyle. Your dietary philosophy, whether omnivore or vegetarian, is only be as healthy as your individual food choices and the habits you maintain over time.
The goal in any food philosophy is to eat a wide variety of foods and stay away from processed selections as much as possible. As a vegetarian there is also the need to understand the concept of complimentary protein, combinations of plant proteins that together provide the building blocks for animal protein. To maintain good overall health you must either feed your body animal protein or feed it the plants with which it can make animal protein. Either plan works as long as your individual food choices are sound.
