Is it more healthy to be a vegetarian or an omnivore?

I have heard as much that it is more healthy to be an omnivore and I am trying to prove my friend wrong on this one. So... help!
Please support your answer and list your sources.

The number one group of people having bypass surgery at the hospital my friend works at are vegetarian Indians. Vegetarian or omnivore isn't the question. The question is what within the chosen diet you choose to consume. There are morbidly obese vegans and omnivores. There is no quick fix to diet. Know what you are putting in your mouth and be aware of the quantities. Every bite counts. Educate yourself. Read all you can get your hands on and then make the decision that seems right for you and your health.

carnivore because vegatables will make u skinny and sickly looking. and a lot of vegans have smeelly breath plus milk aids in fighting diesease. and so does orange juice

the consensus from the medical community is that it is healthier to be vegetarian. You can check the American Dietetic Association http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada...

Webmd also shows that a vegetarian diet is healthier and can prevent certain diseases:http://www.webmd.com/hw/diet_and_nutriti...


Just remember that there are many different types of vegetarians. Plus, when you are a vegetarian, you can't just sit around eating french fries and salad and expect to be healthy. You have to eat a variety of foods, and then you will get all the amino acids/protein, vitamins, and nutrients that you need.

I was vegetarian for over a year and it was the healthiest I have ever been . . . not even a headache for all that time . . . But I was also exercising regularly . . . it was a total life-style change. Again, everything in moderation. You could be a very unhealthy vegetarian/vegan if you don't do it right. Meat CAN be part of a healthy diet. As far as eating meat being cruel/gross . . . it's a matter of opinion.

I was vegan for two years. I gained weight because I was eating more carbohydrates, but I got sick less (because I didn't eat any dairy, or meat and I ate way more fruit and veggies which are full of vitamins).
Now that I eat meat (but not dairy), I do get more colds and weigh less because im not eating so many carbs.

I don't know wether really either lifestyle choice is "healthier" but I know for sure if you eat more fruits and veggies, you will get less colds, and feel "healthier".

know thy self, nothing in excess! it is best to have a proper and balanced diet! I have yet to know of a starving person turning up their nose in favour of a strict diet regimen....

VEG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!definately

It is more healthy to be a vegetarian. Better to be a vegan. These diets do not have any of the animal fat and cholesterol in them that a meat diet does. Also, these diets do not have all of the antibiotics that are used to keep animals alive and make animals grow big in factory farms. The vegan diet is the best because it cuts out all animal products. There is no cholesterol from eggs. Milk is not good for adults. No one should drink milk after age of two years old. It is as unnatural for a human to drink cows milk as it is for a cow to drink human milk.
Vegetarians and vegans also are 40% less likely to develop heart disease and certain cancers. Vegetarians and vegans also live on average 10 years longer than meat eaters.
Hope this helps.

Vegetarian and vegan athletes are at the top in their sports. Carl Lewis, the runner, won nine Olympic gold medals. Lewis says that he had his best performance as an athlete after he adopted a vegan diet. (source)
The famed bodybuilder, Andreas Cahling (picture at right), is also vegan.

Ruth Heidrich, a vegan Ironman triathlete and marathon runner has racked up more than 700 first-place trophies and set several performance records. She was also named One of the 10 Fittest Women in North America.

Those who would object by saying that most top athletes eat meat can congratulate themselves for missing the point. The fact is that most Westerners are meat-eaters, because we've all grown up thinking it's good for us, and we like it. So of course most athletes are going to be meat-eaters too, since they're only human. These athletes perform well in spite of their diets, not because of them, and would undoubtedly perform even better if they ate less animal foods. And while reliable statistics are hard to come by, there is little doubt that athletes in general have been moving towards vegetarianism in large numbers over the past twenty years.

John Robbins wrote in Diet for a New America about how vegetarians have much more stamina and endurance than meat-eaters:

At Yale, Professor Irving Fisher designed a series of tests to compare the stamina and strength of meat-eaters against that of vegetarians. He selected men from three groups: meat-eating athletes, vegetarian athletes, and vegetarian sedentary subjects. Fisher reported the results of his study in the Yale Medical Journal.25 His findings do not seem to lend a great deal of credibility to the popular prejudices that hold meat to be a builder of strength.

"Of the three groups compared, the...flesh-eaters showed far less endurance than the abstainers (vegetarians), even when the latter were leading a sedentary life."26
Overall, the average score of the vegetarians was over double the average score of the meat-eaters, even though half of the vegetarians were sedentary people, while all of the meat-eaters tested were athletes. After analyzing all the factors that might have been involved in the results, Fisher concluded that:

"...the difference in endurance between the flesh-eaters and the abstainers (was due) entirely to the difference in their diet.... There is strong evidence that a...non-flesh...diet is conducive to endurance."27
A comparable study was done by Dr. J. Ioteyko of the Academie de Medicine of Paris.28 Dr. Ioteyko compared the endurance of vegetarian and meat-eaters from all walks of life in a variety of tests. The vegetarians averaged two to three times more stamina than the meat-eaters. Even more remarkably, they took only one-fifth the time to recover from exhaustion compared to their meat-eating rivals.

In 1968, a Danish team of researchers tested a group of men on a variety of diets, using a stationary bicycle to measure their strength and endurance. The men were fed a mixed diet of meat and vegetables for a period of time, and then tested on the bicycle. The average time they could pedal before muscle failure was 114 minutes. These same men at a later date were fed a diet high in meat, milk and eggs for a similar period and then re-tested on the bicycles. On the high meat diet, their pedaling time before muscle failure dropped dramatically--to an average of only 57 minutes. Later, these same men were switched to a strictly vegetarian diet, composed of grains, vegetables and fruits, and then tested on the bicycles. The lack f animal products didn't seem to hurt their performance--they pedaled an average of 167 minutes.29

Wherever and whenever tests of this nature have been done, the results have been similar. This does not lend a lot of support to the supposed association of meat with strength and stamina.

Doctors in Belgium systematically compared the number of times vegetarians and meat-eaters could squeeze a grip-meter. The vegetarians won handily with an average of 69, whilst the meat-eaters averaged only 38. As in all other studies which have measured muscle recovery time, here, too, the vegetarians bounced back from fatigue far more rapidly than did the meat-eaters.30

I know of many other studies in the medical literature which report similar findings. But I know of not a single one that has arrived at different results. As a result, I confess, it has gotten rather difficult for me to listen seriously to the meat industry proudly proclaiming "meat gives strength" in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

i am a vegeterian, and i condider myself quite healthy, meat is very fattening, and so gross