Vegan/ Vegetarian
Vegetarianism
and its more strident sibling, veganism, have been around for millennia, sometimes associated with religious tradition, and in the deeper human past by the local availability of certain foods. Modern vegetarians and vegans profess a whole variety of reasons for their dietary choices, from understandable ethical concerns about the pain and suff ering infl icted on farm animals to the worrisome misuse of the Earth’s resources to grow meat for human consumption. Most people who eat a meat- free diet also believe it is a healthier option, but that assertion suff ers from the same lack of convincing evidence as most restrictive diets. Observational studies that attempt to make connections between elements of diet and the risk of illness or death sometimes show positive associations between vegan and vegetarian diets and a lower risk of cancer and heart disease, but run into trouble trying to isolate those eff ects from other lifestyle factors. It is the same extrapolation problem: Vegans are slimmer; obesity increases risk of cardiovascular disease; ergo, vegans have fewer heart attacks. Vegans and vegetarians do tend to eat a high- fi bre diet, which may confer a benefi t in reduced risk of certain cancers, although the amount of fi bre required to create a detectable benefi t would have most people crapping wicker, according to McCormack. The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization rate the eff ect of a vegan diet rich in nuts, fruits and vegetables on cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes as somewhere between “probable” and “possible.”