Vegetarian Diet Prevents Disease

umm.. i think our expanding lifespans has alot to do with our great leap in medical research and advancement, i also believe that that person was talking about how our food production has been perverted by corporations in it for the profit with a complete disregard for the consumers health and the enviroments well being

What are these "planned vegetarian diets" compared to? The general populace? I would contest that ANYONE who makes informed decisions about their diet will be healthier than the general populace, whether they are eating meat or not. To make the claim that vegetarian diets are better, you must compare "planned vegetarian diets" to "planned omnivore diets".

There is growing evidence that a human being cannot live without acquiring some nutrition from animals. Michael Pollan discusses this at length in his book "In Defense of Food". He also goes on to talk about how all sorts of traditional diets are perfectly healthy for people to consume. He even points out that Inuit diets, which are almost entirely consumed of meat, do not promote the modern dietary diseases: heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. The fact that entire populations of people exist in the world that eat traditional diets that contain meat, yet remain far healthier than the average American diet, clearly demonstrates that meat is not the problem, but the so-called "Western diet."

Meat cannot be sustainable? This is a terribly ignorant statement. Again, Michael Pollan describes numerous scenarios of sustainable meat in his book. For example, the beef industry in Argentina uses an 8-year rotation that raises beef for 5 years and grain for three, which uses virtually no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides. This sounds sustainable to me.

In "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal", Joel Salatin (featured in Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma") describes, in detail, some very clever farming methods that are perfectly sustainable. He describes a composting method of handling winter-time manure that is not only incredibly brilliant, but also provides its own heat for his animals and springtime fertilizer for his crops. This is the absolute opposite of CAFOs and the vast amount of energy used to handle all the manure waste. Salatin actually turned those "wastes" into increased production.

He also describes how grazed fields of grass actually sequester more carbon from the atmosphere than any other crop. The grazing cows not only keep the grass healthy by "mowing" it, but they fertilize the soil as they go. Environmentally speaking, these animals are an essential component to the healthy ecosystem.

To be honest, I have been a vegetarian for two years because I refuse to eat industrial meat and don't have access to alternatives, but I have to disagree with your claim that vegetarianism as fundamentally better than consuming meat. With a little research, you will find that beneath the industrial behemoths, there are plenty of sustainable farming practices - in use today - that raise high-quality meat.