I'd say the first big thing to highlight is that correlation is not causation - you wouldn't want someone to take this study as proof that eating meat makes you less depressed. I would imagine that vegans (in particular vegans who chose their diet on ethical grounds) are overall more concerned about the state of the world around them - or are at least subjected to more of an echo-chamber effect from their peers - which would contribute to anxiety and depression?
A second big thing to highlight is the study disclosure at the bottom of this article. Four of the six authors "have previously received funding from the Beef Checkoff, through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association."
That is important to take note of. But also not disqualifying by itself. I would expect any researcher or scientist that has experience researching meat eating to be likely to get grants from meat related organizations.
It does pose questions about impartiality, especially for any form of statistical analysis. It just sadly is the reality of getting funding for certain studies.
Hey, Rick, do you have any studies by researchers funded by the National Right to Life Committee that show that women who haven't had abortions suffer less depression and anxiety?
> Whatever its flaws, the writing you find online is authentic. It's not mystery meat cooked up out of scraps of pitch letters and press releases, and pressed into molds of zippy journalese. It's people writing what they think.
The New York Times would say “experts say the exodus was fueled by QAnon conspiracy theories which have flourished as Facebook refuses to remove them.”
The Guardian is an extremely liberal paper, but they simply do not approach the level of disinformation that you see in American papers.
I would reverse the causation. People become vegans because they are highly empathetic and emotionally driven - this personality type also is more susceptible to anxiety and depression
Not necessarily. I was a localvore before I went vegetarian, and the place where I got my chickens, pork, lamb and beef was ~10 miles from my house. (I live in a hipster city.) I did this because I liked meeting my animals and watching them be butchered. (Industrial meat production is wildly, horrifically cruel by comparison.)
Now I'm vegetarian because meat is just too effing expensive when purchased ethically. I can't justify $40 steaks and $20/lb chicken, and to be honest, steak just really isn't that tasty... and bacon is awful for you. I'm also tired of chicken for the most part. Now that I've found soy curls I make way more fake-meat dishes than ever before.
I'm not vegan because trying to get protein from vegan sources is too difficult. I still eat fish and eggs (but not milk, cuz cow milk is nasty) and I'll never give up cheese even though milk is taken from baby cows/sheep waaay to soon (they are switched to milk substitutes).
But I get it, I like to cook, and if you don't like to cook, nothing is easier than throwing a steak on a grill.
Soy curls are a product from Butler Foods. Not sure if there's a generic equivalent, I haven't found one. Not vegan, but I do try and limit my meat consumption and really love them.
Yeah the generic version is TVP, textured vegetable protein (made from processed soy). It comes in all kinds too: like those curls, slices that are more like beef slices for stir-fry, and mince-like granules for making "mince"!
Its cheap as, and at tonnes of asian supermarkets or vegan stores.
Rehydrate with beef-style or chicken-style stock and you're off to the races. Some of my friends have started using it to save money on meat despite not being vegan :)
I'm in the process of writing some up as of the last few weeks -- but the core of it is "just replace any beef in your stir-frys or pasta minces with TVP cooked with a particular technique"
Send me an email (its in my profile) and I'll make sure to send the link to you when I chuck them up on my site in the next week or so?
But in short: rehydrate the TVP with boiling water with a cube or two of beef-style stock. Let it sit for about 5 minutes or so, it should become soft.
Drain it, and really squeeze the stock out of it if you're doing a nice stir-fry or similar; it'll fry better the less water is in it.
In a wok or fry-pan, add half a tablespoon of oil, add the TVP. Crack salt, black and white pepper over them. Don't stir too much to begin with, you want it to brown, almost char in places. Then stir, fry as normal.
Now you can use it to replace most beef protein sources in stir-frys, pasta sauces (if you use the "mince" versions) and so on.
My partner and I have come up with some from-scratch(ish) sauces that go best with it, but it's great even without those. My particular favourite recipes are: "beef" and black bean, Thai basil and chili, bolognaise (which is more like a pomodoro with TVP mince added), soy and garlic stir frys, and some others I'm likely forgetting.
I have to stop myself from eating this every week because the sugar and frying probably isn't very healthy, but damn it's great with sticky short-grained rice:
Rice and beans, or corn and beans, are classic recipes for protein combination in poorer demographics. I make those all the time in an instant pot and they are very convenient and satisfying. I stir in stuff like pasta sauce or Indian vegetable packets to add flavor.
Soy curls! I'm not even vegetarian and I love those things. (caveat: my wife is vegan and I don't cook so I'm mostly vegetarian by association.) They are so freaking versatile. We've used them replace almost everything meat like that I want to eat that can't be don't by using a beefless ground.
You got any sources? I get the feeling we got some stuff in common, so would you mind laying some wisdom down with regard to soy curls or other economic meat substitutes?
I'm very much not a vegan. However, as I've grown more eco-conscious over time, I find myself drawn to it due to the environmental costs (for now though, my stomach continues to win over my mind)
It’s a pretty reasonable assumption that if a significant portion of vegans choose that lifestyle based on ethical/empathetic grounds (which is a pretty reasonable assumption n its’ own merit , IMO) then its reasonable to assume on average they’re more empathetic than meat eaters, even if there are some vegans who are not empathetic / choose the lifestyle for selfish reasons.
That or people become vegan because they have depression and anxiety and are just trying to find a lifestyle that will help manage the symptoms. Then the vegan diet works, and they keep on not eating meat because their depression and anxiety actually got better. Not as good as someone that doesn't struggle with those from the get go, but better.
That's another correlation, and if true it would actually mean that not eating meat is good for depression and anxiety in some people.
The point of the parent comment is that it is possible that having a correlation like this is actually an inverse of the causation. You're indeed misundestanding their point.
An example of a case with inverse causation vs correlation is "A study found out that there is a strong correlation between the number of firemen at a house on fire and how large the fire is. As such, we should send fewer firemen to fires to ensure they are smaller".
The parent poster isn't claiming the same sort of reverse-causation is true here, but merely pointing out that it's possible.
To explain more clearly the parent poster's hypothetical: let's say there's the normal population, which is say 20% depressed and 5% vegan. Let's say there's a second population which suffers an 80% depression rate while eating meat, and a 50% depression rate while vegan. If that second population entirely goes vegan, they now have a 50% depression rate, which is 30% higher than the normal population, so a study would show "this group of vegans are more depressed than a typical group of meat eaters", but at the same time it would be true that being vegan improved their rates of depression.
It is easy to lack some vitamins or nutrients while going on a vegan diet. Some of them have an impact on mental health.
Unless you are very comited into calculating your intake in every mineral and vitamin, I would recommend to take some supplements if you are going vegan (which is something I support but did not totally go through yet)
Many (most?) meat eaters are deficient in nutrients their body needs. The USDA found that only about 3% of people get their daily recommended amount of fiber. Eating meat doesn’t mean you get what your body needs
Yeah, it's for the gut biome. Eating many different kinds of fiber is great for biodiversity in the gut. Dr. Rhonda Patrick has some great videos about this, as well as the effect of sugar on gut bacteria.
what diseases are linked to lack of fiber? you have a generous definition of "need".
edit: I'm not disputing the benefits of fiber for the average person, but the implied necessity of fiber is just false. Fact: A zero fiber diet is not guaranteed cause disease, whereas essential nutrient deficiencies will cause disease.
A bottle of Metamucil, a psyllium husk fiber supplement, indicates on it that helps with "heart health by lowering cholesterol" and "healthy blood sugar levels". I'm sure you can find studies that both support and deny these claims, but I understand the general consensus to be that these claims are supported by science.
Heart disease is #1 killer of Americans, diabetes is #7 according to CDC [1].
Search PubMed. I will throw a couple links at you but cannot establish consensus for you.
American Heart Association says "Dietary fiber can help you improve blood cholesterol levels and lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity and even type 2 diabetes" [1]
American Diabetes Association says "eating foods higher in fiber can also improve your digestion, help you manage your blood sugar and reduce your risk of heart disease." [2]
But low fiber doesnt _cause_ those diseases in the same sense as low vitamin D causes rickets. Most fiber-related studies I've seen were small and published in obscure journals. I'd agree the average person (with an average diet and lifestyle) probably benefits from getting enough fibre. But that's in conjunction with other factors. I just disagree with the statement humans "need" fiber.
Your gut cannot be healthy without fiber. It's important for the digestive process. There's a reason dietary guidelines include fiber, and I'm not sure where you're reading these journals but your agreement/disagreement is irrelevant to the point. A lack of fiber does _cause_ blood sugar fluctuations, cholesterol increases, constipation, etc.
Just because it's not as severe as rickets or scurvy doesn't mean people should ignore the needs of their gut microflora, especially given that the majority of cells in our bodies are (mostly beneficial) bacteria.
Eating less sugar and replacing it with nuts and seeds, and not eating starchy vegetables and replacing them with leafy greens will increase your fiber consumption like 4x or 5x. I seriously doubt someone doing like bacon butter and steak keto will claim improvements in their digestive issues unless they were like very sensitive to an allergen or something and didn't know it.
Do you have any specific vitamins/nutrients in mind that have relevant mental health impacts? Ones that meat diets get, but vegan/vegetarian diets don't?
From what I can tell, meat eaters are even less likely than vegans to calculate their nutritional intake (naturally so, vegans are much more likely to read ingredient and nutrient lists because how else can you shop vegan?), and the claim that it's easy to not have enough nutrients on a vegan diet goes both ways. It's easy to miss having enough of specific nutrients on a meat diet too if you don't carefully calculate your intake.
From what I can tell, in practice some amount of nutritional deficiency just isn't that big a deal for most people. College kids that live on a diet of 80% ramen still survive relatively well, as do people who spend time attempting to balance their nutritional intake. The level of impact varies by person I'm sure.
B12 is the only one that is commonly talked about needing to be supplemented as a vegan; though in Australia if you consume Soy milk, you likely already get enough as it is fortified with it.
B12 deficiency can have quite profound neurological effects, though thats in pretty severe cases, IIRC
I am mostly thinking of B7, because I know 2 persons in my family who get seriously depressed when they lack it.
Note that I did not say it is impossible to get these through a vegan diet, just that it takes some efforts and care to have the daily dose necessary to avoid a deficit.
Yes, I agree that almost no one calculates their nutrients intake, but when you go full vegan, you remove more than half of your food diversity, it opens yourself more easily to deficits.
> From what I can tell, in practice some amount of nutritional deficiency just isn't that big a deal for most people. College kids that live on a diet of 80% ramen still survive relatively well
People with mild depression survive relatively well, and this is what is discussed here.
I used to have very bad dietary habits when I was working like crazy at my first job, and managed to get a deficiency in vitamin C. As I was young and in good conditions, it did not trigger any medical problem, but I can tell you that my quality of life improved greatly after I started taking vitamins (and later just rebalancing my diet a bit). It was removing a constant fog from my brain.
I think this is a reason why so many pseudo-scientific dietician advice abound: "surviving relatively well" is not a good enough criterion anymore, yet that's what the medical research focuses on. Well-being is also something that people seek to achieve. Being more alert, more focused, less depressed, less stressed are things that a diet can have an influence on, and the scientific data on that is pretty scarce.
K2 seems to stick out to me as one vitamin that would be hard to get, but I'm not sure if it does anything for mental health. It's mostly in animal products (though can be made by bacteria or something which I think is how they make the supplements). If I recall correctly, B12 is potentially problematic too.
Look in to creatine. Studies suggest that it may increase cognition for vegetarians (but not omnivores).
Again this has only been demonstrated in a couple of studies. But if you’re on a plant-based diet consider giving it a try.
Omega-3 fats can also be important, but I’m not sure if there’s any vegan options there (it’s been a few years, maybe someone is synthesizing them now.)
> Omega-3 fats can also be important, but I’m not sure if there’s any vegan options there (it’s been a few years, maybe someone is synthesizing them now.)
Which Omega-3 fatty acids are you referring to? It can’t be all of them. There are plant sources like flax seeds, walnuts and others for ALA and EPA. DHA is the one that’s a bit difficult to get (or be synthesized in the body from the others). That has been solved by algal oil or algae based supplements (fish get DHA from algae).
I wonder if more bioavailable B vitamins from a meat-heavy diet has anything to do with it.
Vegetarian diets, as I understand the common saying, need to actively contain or be supplemented with B vitamin sources.
If you're veg but live on nutrient-poor junk food, I could see nutritional deficiencies entering the mix. I think it's relatively uncontroversial that malnutrition has mental health side effects.
Of the B vitamins, vegans (and to a lesser extent, vegetarians) only need to supplement B12. B12 is produced by bacteria but can be obtained in meat and animal products. Historically we got plenty from unsterilized water.
Do you have a citation about the unsterilized water?
I would guess that lots of things had bacteria, but not in large enough quantities to supply enough B12. It would need to be accumulated somehow.
Cows have special hardware in their digestive tract to cultivate bacteria that can supply the B12. Why would that exist if cows could just get it from unsterilized water?
I got this from Dr. Greger at NutritionFacts.org, "We presumably used to get B12 drinking out of a mountain stream or well water, based on studies showing vegetarians in developing countries who drink purified water appear to be at higher risk." [1].
He references a paper [2] which states "Logistic regression analysis showed independent association between use of RO water and Vitamin B12 deficiency" in Western India.
That evidence isn't as iron-clad as I would like, and I haven't been able to find any study directly measuring B12 in city/well/stream water.
I don't know much about cow digestive systems, but I know evolution has created many weird solutions across different animals. The cow GI system is very different from humans (4 large stomach parts, sometimes referred to as separate stomachs) which is different from cats (obligate carnivores).
Meat-based diets need their meat to be actively supplemented with B vitamin sources.
If you're a carnist but live on nutrient-poor junk food, I could see nutritional deficiencies entering the mix. I think it's relatively uncontroversial that malnutrition has mental health side effects.
You could do a quick search but I think common sense should suffice here.
How did all the (meat eating) humans survive before b12 supplements were around? Animals surely do not receive supplements in the wild. In the factories is where they are deprived of their natural diet that would provide the b12.
I agree, but sometimes I hear other theories. One of the other comments said something about unsanitized water providing b12. In the past I've heard that just eating dirty fruit and vegetables had enough b12.
I suppose those theories are possible and I should do some research. The "normal" way to receive B12 was from livestock eating grass/vegetation that were covered in dirt. In that case, humans would indeed meet their B12 requirements from eating those livestock.
> I think it's relatively uncontroversial that malnutrition has mental health side effects.
Perhaps, but I think the next step, showing that vegetarian diets / vegan diets are more likely to have poor nutrition, is harder.
There's a portion of meat-eaters who live on terrible diets and don't get enough nutrition due to their primary source of vegetables being the potatoes in fries. Is that portion more or less than the portion of vegans/vegetarians that have poor nutrition?
Studies about diets and longevity usually show vegans and vegetarians living mildly longer than typical meat eaters, which to me seems like at least a small data-point that nutritional deficiencies aren't more pronounced in the former group.
My two cents being a vegetarian 6/7 days a week is that day-to-day figuring out where / what you can eat, how to meet nutritional needs, what to cook, etc. gives me more stress than any philosophical concerns.
> They are the opposite: telling you what not to eat.
There doesn't seem to be a difference to this to me. When I go to the supermarket or eat out I simply have a lot of choices excluded from me.
> It's a lot easier to follow your family and culture around you with some minor adaptations.
While I wrote what to cook, I guess figuring out what dishes I want to cook isn't really tough. I'm more stressed by logistical issues: it's more necessary to be able to cook, and also, when you're lazy or don't have time, pre-mix and intermediate ingredients that allow you to skip steps usually don't cater to the vegetarian or vegan.
I don't at all see how you managed to jump to the conclusion that vegans are "or are at least subjected to more of an echo-chamber effect from their peers". This seems entirely unfounded.
Totally anecdotally, I've noticed a lot of vegans that I know have a strong leaning to socialise with other vegans, who often discuss veganism and end up with a lot of pro-vegan/anti-omnivore content on their social media feeds. So from my observations a social echo chamber exists that makes my acquaintances feel that the world urgently needs to progress towards veganism to avert social injustice/climate change/other existential issues/etc.
I would also not be so fast in concluding that there is a correlation at all from this study. Others have pointed out that it was funded by interested parties in the meat industry. This meta-analysis only included 20 studies, and of these 20 only one was randomized trial. 18 of 20 used self reporting of mental health.
While this meta-analysis suggests that there may be correlation here, I would wait for more proper studies to be conducted and maybe an eventual meta-analysis with better studies included preferably funded by a disinterested party before concluding that a correlation exists.
On the other hand, correlation is a consequence of causation. Pragmatically one can reach a plausible conclusion, despite a lack of positive verification. In my own experience, I can conclusively report that a high quality steak definitely improves my mood. Causation of emotional states is bafflingly complex, so it could be some hidden cause, but to my senses it's just that eating delicious meat feels good.
Yes, a good steak is wonderful, and I like the idea of meat as self-care. It resonates with the therapeutic society[1] and might be a good ad campaign for a beef board. I'd even buy a scented candle if it smelled like ribeye.
Not if you keep in mind that the animal you're eating likely got in effect tortured in an animal farm
And that eating meat speeds up climate change -- creates more violent storms and wildfires, and droughts and famines, and land conflicts and migration and wars.
Hmm @User23, I didn't mean to sound grumpy. Most of my friends eat meat and my parents too. Just in case you happen to be a sensitive person, I didn't mean to be negative against you, sorry if what I wrote came across in that way
I like meat too btw (although I no longer eat it, unless it's about to be thrown away anyway)
Being on an eternal guilt-trip, surrounded by killers and asphyxiating cow farts!
Surely that decreases your smarts? But have to be hip! (SCNR)
OTOH: I think this has no merit if not taken into account the larger populations where meat is taboo for some longer time, instead of the current hype.
Like Jains and some Hindus(or all?(don't know exactly)), for instance?
Lack of a conscience leaves you suffering less depression and anxiety ... it also lets you feel more comfortable eating the flesh of another being.
Perhaps this is less a case of causality, and more a case of correlation ... specifically with where you are on the sliding scale towards full sociopathy.
p.s. I say this as someone who eats meat and knows it is objectively immoral.
Does it? Or does high population density lead to both high density housing and higher prices? I can make a very good casual link. Higher population density means more competition for housing. Meaning they need to build more houses and we can follow traditional supply and demand curves to obtain high prices.
I don't know if this is true or not, but it is definitely plausible. I'm getting at you because you're congratulating the parent for not linking correlation and causation and then you yourself are linking correlation and causation in the same breath.
Heh, without reading the article, I thought "correlation isn't causation" and clicked into the comments to see if anyone else who read the article thought so, too. And I see you at the top of the comments. It's nice to know I'm not alone.
I did exactly the same and went to leave a comment saying as much and saw this.
I hoped that the article itself would make at least some attempt to deal with the issue, but it does not. It’s a meta study (meta meat?) that includes a set of studies. Those studies do not randomly assign people to eat/abstain from meat. It’s as bad as it sounds. Further, they use their poor study to criticise other, poorer, studies.
Disclosure: "This study was funded in part via an unrestricted research grant from the Beef Checkoff, through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association."
I thought you were kidding, but I checked, and sure enough at the bottom:
"This study was funded in part via an unrestricted research grant from the Beef Checkoff, through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. The sponsor of the study had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report."
Maybe not, but how likely is it that they'll continue funding more studies if you come back with results that don't support more beef consumption?
Sorry, don't mean to be overly cynical, but <gestures around at basically everything>.
If this were real science, it wouldn't matter because anyone could repro the results.
But almost all of this nutritional "science" is just people in white coats messing with statistics and sounding authoritative. Goes for the "meat is good" camp and the "meat is bad" camp.
(My personal belief is that only a very small amount of meat is good for your body, but having more meat is good for your brain.)
As the paper described, all they did was pull available data from other studies. That's about as low a barrier to repro as you could wish - you could probably do it yourself.
If you want to see what appears to be a training ground for beef industry propaganda, check out /r/AntiVegan on Reddit. The vitriol is overpowering. I simply quoted a contradictory statistic from a paper a mod posted themselves that supposedly showed that not eating meat is unhealthy, and got banned.
A far more believable source would be a university studying causes of depression. Literally anyone else not profiting off meat would be more believable though.
Universities are prone to fads and political correctness. Try publishing results that are unpopular in academic circles, and see how long your funding lasts.
Sure, it would be more believable if they did. But they won't.
This is nothing but conjecture, but my suspicion is that neurotically conscientious people are more likely to become vegan, and also more likely to be depressed and anxious.
I will say this, having known both and helped/been both. They do tend to use more of the livestock/game when eating meat than those who are separated from the process of harvesting the animal, itself. This is, of course, purely anecdotal.
I hunt and raise livestock and I eat more meat than most, but I try to be very conscious of where my meat comes from and how it was produced. People that hunt/produce have much different relationships with meat. I think the comment above meant if more of the masses knew how terrible mass produced farms and slaughterhouses were, they would be more conscious of the chain too, hopefully making their buying decisions more sustainable and ecological.
I think there would be some initial shock if we had to pull the trigger on the food we eat but eventually it would just be normal and those who enjoy meat would and those who don’t won’t. I would bet no one was squeamish at a food market several hundred years ago.
No, that’s not what sundvor says. They explicitly talk about the whole population (“everyone “), and I am pretty sure if everyone had to pull the trigger on their dinner, total meat consumption would absolutely go down, regardless of what a few hunters or farmers do.
Yep. I've only done so once, well my brother did the shooting whilst I held the rabbit down then helped prep to skin them.
Meeting the meat was also a reference to the Restaurant at the End of the Galaxy; there, the meat would kill itself. It forced the attendants higher up in the food chain to be confronted by the reality of the situation, rather than having the slice of meat simply something you get at the supermarkets in a packet.
In all seriousness, by reducing the amount of meat eaten you can avoid the worst meat factories with their horrible conditions for the animals.
I believe organic farming is far more ethical, and better for the planet as well (methane emissions) as for the consumers who are likely to be overweight.
I'll truly never understand how the automatic reply to every comment about population statistics always attacks the idea of an outlier that prevents the 100%, as if it's an all or nothing situation.
Interesting suspicion. What atypical mind states are associated with meat eating?
It would have to be a very large effect given 95‰ of the US eats meat. I think the opposite is more likely. Atypical mind states are associated with veganism and the mood disorders.
To clarify, when I said "neurotically conscientious" I was referring to two of the traits in the Big 5 personality assessment scheme--neoroticism and conscientiousness. So not an "atypical mind state" so much as an ingrained way of viewing the world.
So in response to "what personality traits would you associate with meat eaters?" I would say, closer to average levels of neuroticism and conscientiousness, and hence also closer to average levels of anxiety and depression.
Well, if you consider animal life to be valuable, it makes sense you that consider raising cattle for food similarly to how one would consider slavery today, and be disgusted by the results of that process.
The complaint I’d register with this explanation is that neurotic and conscientious are psychological buzzwords. There is certainly some truer way to describe vegans just as briefly.
An anecdote: I have been 100% carnivore for the past two months. The last vegetable I ate was in August. I’ve eaten 10 grams of carbs in that time period (in the form of vitamin C tablets early on), and zero fiber.
My anxiety levels are subjectively lower, I’ve had fewer instances of insomnia, I’ve lost 20lbs of water + fat weight while maintaining an active lifestyle (standing desk all day + running 20+ miles a week). To be honest, I feel great! Much better than I expected I would going into this experiment. Originally I set out to do this in September and October after knowing someone who did something similar, but I may stay on it, or move to a more keto diet because I miss veggies.
My diet is more fat-heavy than it used to be, and certainly more meat-heavy. I used to eat red meat once or twice a month, versus once or twice a day. The lack of fiber does make for some interesting digestion, but in general it seems I’m producing less waste.
What seems to be the biggest impact is FAT. Getting a lot of fat makes me feel a lot better that day. Ketosis has been great too; I can go for a two hour run, then come home and clean my apartment and run errands without feeling like I’m wrecked all day.
Zero fiber? No vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, or grains?
I'm truly glad you're feeling good but if you're really 100% meat I urge you to talk to your doctor about potential issues and tests for nutrient levels. Vitamin C and cholesterol are top of mind but I'm far from an expert. Blogging those numbers before/during this diet would be very interesting!
> The lack of fiber does make for some interesting digestion, but in general it seems I’m producing less waste.
If "interesting digestion" is constipation, that could be a warning sign. Insoluble fiber isn't digested so reduced fiber intake is expected to reduce fecal volume. <insert analogy to oil in car here>
I came here to post this exact same thing. I have gone KETO the last few months. I feel better than I have in ten years. I can focus straight from 10 am to 5 pm at work, without music and excess caffeine. I feel amazing and literally cannot believe it. I have also been hitting the gym and sleeping well, but I really do think its the diet.
Many people have not studied nutrition, or not studied it properly, and associate fats as in lipids with fat as in being overweight when this is in fact not the case and the various types of fats are both essential and provide energy to become an active person. Like you, I run 20+ miles a week, eat beef everyday and I'm the skinniest person I know.
There are many considerations to take into account. Nutrition is not one size fits all, but the general rule which does apply is moderation and balance. A completely sedentary lifestyle would have higher risk for disease if they had the same diet as, for example, a professional athlete.
I don’t own a car. I take public transportation everywhere. I recycle, compost, and consume very little electricity at home. Eating slightly more meat isn’t going to significantly change my environmental footprint.
Do you actually test your blood ketones? Unless you're eating largely fat tissue straight up, rather than somewhat fatty meat, you're probably getting enough of your calories from protein that your ketones aren't particularly elevated.
It looks like this is a meta-analysis, and the line "Twenty studies met the selection criteria representing 171,802 participants with 157,778 meat consumers and 13,259 meat abstainers." suggests that this is a post hoc analysis so we can't rule out the most obvious confounding variable: are people who care more about externalities (e.g., as they pertain to meat eating, more likely to be depressed or anxious?
Good point. If you are concerned with animal well-being, you are probably concerned with environmental issues as well, and it is hard to not be depressed in that case.
Do any of the 20 studies analyzed in this one control for protein and fat consumption?
I get the impression that some vegetarian and/or vegan diets are low in protein and fats, and those proteins and fats have different ratios of the amino and fatty acids than meat does. Vegetable and seed oils tend to be high in linoleic acid in particular and low in saturated fats.
Personally, I have to make a conscious effort to add protein to my diet as someone who doesn't eat much meat and is athletic.
One thing worth noting is this appears to be entirely correlation, not causation.
It's possible that it is not diet, but an additional factor. For example, perhaps people who are worried about their impact on the world are more likely to be depressed and also more likely to be vegetarian/vegan.
If that were the case, it's plausible that the same person, even if they ate meat, would have an identical chance of being depressed.
Another thing to note is that they did not control for anything except sex. My, not totally scientific, observation is that depression and anxiety is more prevalent in people under a certain age, as is concern about the environment, as is veganism. I'd be curious if controlling for age made any difference. Maybe it's just millennials are just a both more-depressed and more-vegetarian cohort.
Levels of meat consumption are also linked to location, and I think depression might be too. I'd be curious if controlling for location made any difference. Maybe people living in big cities are both more likely to be vegetarian (due to restaurants catering to more dietary preferences due to mass of people) and more likely to be depressed.
I personally like the original theory I proposed. Someone who is self-conscious about their existence is more likely to be worried about the environment (especially their personal impact), is more likely to be vegetarian, and also is more likely to be depressed.
I think we need either a proposed nutritional link / mechanism, or a controlled study in which people's diets were changed, to draw the conclusion the title implies.
I'm a meat eater but I find these kind of research bound to find such result from the start.
The vast majority of Vegan and vegos people (citation needed) would naturally be more conscious and sensitive than your burger munching to no-tomorrow typical guy/gal.
This kind of caring for the world and information seeking mammal would be naturally more exposed to anxiety. It's bliss to be a chicken nugget munching idiot, not caring about the environment. Other opposite side of the scale, the information seeking sensitive, often misunderstood vegan is very likely to be more sensitive and overwhelmed, leading to anxiety and depression.
Not to boil down a technical topic into something small, but...
IMO eating meat is something that is considered a societal norm, where it is the abnormal to not eat meat at all. Generally, doing things that the rest of society also does would lead to greater outcomes in terms of fitting in and following the herd.
That's not to say that doing things that society normally does won't lead to mental health impacts.
But eating food is such a social aspect of our lives that we do every day, having to consider dietary impacts each time you eat with other people would surely push my anxiety up. Especially if it was driven based on principle.
Want a possible explanation? General happiness is fueled by consistently spending effort towards your long-term goals, and seeing these goals advance. Such goals must be something you can imagine, something that requires effort, and something you can more or less quantify. Savings, paying off mortgage, gardening, you name it.
When you deprive people of such goals, they start looking around for other things satisfying these criteria. Veganism is spending effort towards reducing animal suffering. It's a noble goal, except it's virtually impossible to quantify. You can sort of proxy it into converting other people to your beliefs (that creates tension), or by finding products that claim to be aligned with your values, but generally you will still be less happy than someone taking care of their own farm animals and seeing them every day.
And the latter type will seldom consider veganism, because they are already happy with their current goals.
This reminds me of the research on alcohol being good for heart disease. Excerpt from Science Vs:
> Eric found that drinking booze… lowered the men’s risk of a heart attack as much as exercising regularly… Which is bonkers!
> So Kaye’s like: ok… all these studies are showing that those who drink have less heart disease than those who don’t… well have you ever thought… who are these non-drinkers in these studies? Like… what kind of person doesn’t drink anything?
> She started looking into the studies that had been done on people who don’t drink and found something kind of shocking. Generally speaking, they were more likely to be unhealthy.
> The people - who did drink… and then stopped… some scientists call them “sick quitters”... Sounds like a bad burn, but basically means they didn't stop drinking because they were running a triathlon, but because they weren’t well.
It would be interesting to have studies that distinguish between ethical vegans, ethical vegetarians, and cultural/religious vegetarians.
Vegetarianism has been practiced around the world by for thousands of years among Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, some Greeks, etc and there are hundreds of millions of vegetarians worldwide who avoid meat for all sorts of reasons. Some are born into cultures and religions where it is the default, others go out of their way to choose it for ethical or health reasons.
As one example, if studies found different rates of depression in ethical vegetarians compared to cultural/religious vegetarians then that might be an indication that the depression is correlated with the choice to practice a non-standard diet rather than the diet itself.
And when it comes to veganism, that is a smaller and more recent phenomenon. Most of the vegans I know were not raised vegan and consider being vegan to be a major part of their identity, devote significant effort and commitment to it, take supplements, and are often actively involved in some kind of animal welfare activism. Interestingly I've also heard that about three-quarters of vegans are female, which makes me suspect there may be other confounding variables.
I really wish I could understand this better because it seems important. If I have this straight, BDNF is a thing that makes neurons grow and trk is a thing that tells the neurons they have enough fuel (cholesterol) to grow. So SSRIs are promoting neuron growth to beat depression by tricking it into thinking it has enough fuel to grow, when there probably actually isn’t?
Causal link or no causal link, this definitely lines up with what I've observed among people I've met. A lot of depressed and anxious folks that are vegan or vegetarian compared to the 'go to church twice a week and watch football' crowd.
But it very well may be an "I'm depressed / anxious, and somehow that is linked with me wanting to become vegetarian/vegan" rather than the other direction.
Either way, if I was very depressed or anxious and vegetarian or vegan, and I'd tried a lot of other interventions, I'd definitely consider the option of returning to meat like trying nutrient dense meats like organ meat (heart and liver are great) that are often thrown away or discarded because they are less marketable, or meats that are going to be trashed whether I ate them or not (expiring, or leftovers from someone else's meal? or some grocery store food donation program), and see if it gave me any respite.
How sure are you that they know all the vitamins, fatty acids, amino acids, etc that are important to your health?
We know for sure that there are vitamins that it is pretty much impossible to get with a normal vegan diet (without either taking a supplement or consciously consuming certain foods to supplement) such as vitamin B-12. Other minerals such as iron are more bio-available when consumed as part of meat.
Humans evolved as omnivores. Human nutritional needs evolved based on what an omnivore diet provided. If you think that nutrition science is at the stage where they completely understand all the macro and micro nutrients that meat provides and are confident that supplements can match that, then go for it.
This page is really lame propaganda and is using the typical lazy emotionally manipulative arguments I've come to expect from vegans. For instance:
>Humans are omnivores:
> This is still debated in the scientific community. There’s a substantial amount of evidence pointing towards us being herbivores, or at least scavengers (like rats, who eat meat after the animal’s been killed by other predators).
Scavengers that eat meat and vegetable matter are omnivores; omnivore does not imply predator. Rats are omnivores even if you don't count scavenging for some reason; they kill and eat smaller rodents and bugs. Lots of animals are scavengers, including many that don't have negative reputations as vermin; bears are a great example. Humans in the modern era also scavenge; lots of people in America eat roadkilled deer. Arguably, buying meat from a store is 'scavenging' too since somebody else killed it.
In two mere sentences this 'refutation' creates a false dichotomy and tries to exploit biases against rats and scavenging. Really lame.
Vitamin B12 is produced by bacteria but can be obtained through meat and animal products. Historically we got plenty through unsterilized water as well. It is really the only required supplementation for vegans.
If you are into the science you may like NutritionFacts.org - Dr. Greger goes DEEP into the studies and science. I'm pretty sure he's done a video on forms of iron.
It seems as if you responded to someone saying "are you confident you know what components are needed and that all components have been identified?" with "one component we've identified is vitamin b12, it's possible to get it via blah blah blah".
This is a study where the majority of authors "have previously received funding from the Beef Checkoff, through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association."
I have way more trust in nutritionfacts.org, which says the opposite:
"Studies on the emotional health and mood states of those eating plant-based diets suggest that eating less meat may not only be good for us physically, but good for us emotionally too."
I noticed this anecdotally. I also noticed that people who avoid meat are more susceptible to empathizing with tons of noble causes that make someone stressed. I eat meat.
I’m just here for the confirmation bias, but seriously as others have noted this study was funded by an organization that benefits from this headline being true.
I'm willing to guess that any minority is going to suffer more depression than the majority, in this case meat eaters vs non meat eaters, due to the social stigma. It gets tiring having people hassle you and ask you stupid questions about your lifestyle, eating habits, cultural background, sexual orientation, and so on, which leads to, guess what, more depression and anxiety.
I am curious whether it implies causation or just correlation. I can easily explain it away with correlation. Most likely vegans will be people who are quite attuned to somebody else's (including animal) suffering. And the same empathy my guess would cause a higher level of anxiety. (All of this obviously, my guesses and I don't have any data to prove it)
A lot of people ITT make the claim that vegetarians are inherently more empathetic. I am skeptical.
In my experience, vegetarians are frequently utilitarian. Empathy means understanding another person’s situation and requires placing a high value on personal relationships.
Utilitarians are focused instead on global impact and large scale societal cost/benefit.
I don't feel bad when I eat meat ( physically bad, like tired ).
It's easier to not feel mentally bad when I don't feel physically bad.
Today I had way more carbs than I normally would, and I'm feeling sluggish. It is certainly having some impact on my emotional chords.
Two of my kids are anemic (iron deficient).
After meeting with a phycologist (for a different issue) this year we learned that the symptoms of iron deficiency actually mirror depression.
Perhaps it’s not the beef, but the fact it’s a good source of iron?
It’s worth looking into the relationship between carbohydrate consumption and mental health. Many people report a significant mental health benefit from using fat rather than carbohydrates as the primary energy source. Works for me, too.
>Many people report a significant mental health benefit from using fat rather than carbohydrates as the primary energy source. Works for me, too.
This is anecdotal, but I recently had blood work done showing that I have high A1C[0] levels. As such, I cut out most carbohydrates and sugar from my diet.
I've been maintaining this for almost three months and I have noticed no difference in my mental well being.
That said, I have spoken with a number of folks who claimed that not eating meat or carbs has made them feel better.
I don't have data to back it up, but I suspect it's more a result of the placebo effect than anything else.
Self-proclaimed hackers: Our trades rely on rationality and facts
Also self-proclaimed hackers: Let's all upvote this purely correlational study riddled with conflicts of interest because it makes us feel better about ourselves
I would just remind people that there is a lot of talk about "when i became a vegetarian/vegan". There are many many people that did not become vegetarian, they have always been vegetarian.
I'm not sure about the journals on food science but impact factor 11 would be good in my field (medical). I'd expect a more rigorous statistical analysis from a retrospective meta-study.
Correlation is not causation, many people who are depressed and anxious, give up meat and become Veg/Vegan as they are already suffering and want to change their diet to help.
For any study of meat-diet-stuff, I'd be interested in where people fall who eat meat occasionally, maybe a couple times a week or as an accent to a meal, rather than as the main focus.
Stomach problems are highly correlated to depression. People with stomach problems are probably more likely to have vegetarian diets than the normal population. Voila.
There’s intuitively a link between people who go vegan and are more conscientious leading to higher risks of general anxiety, but that’s my conjecture.
despite being carnivore for years and reducing my anxiety and depression massively from when I was vegetarian, I think it’s best to take nutritional studies with a grain of salt unless they are clinical trials.
Anecdotally meat has definitely helped me with my health in so many countless ways. However, this study can’t prove causations.
You can find ads like "Most doctors recommend our cigarette - <brand>". All the studies are funded by the tobacco industry, says cigarettes make you stronger, healthier. Seen these several times.
Why do you think World Health Organization says meat causes cancer? After reading studies from all over the world?
Makes me concerned about the pressure to abstain from eating meat that I've been seeing recently. I wonder if, as a species, the trend away from meat eating will be to our collective detriment.
Not eating meat is one of the major things a person can do to reduce their carbon footprint, so I would imagine more people giving up meat would be very helpful collectively.
The OP didn’t say it’s the best thing a society can do, he said it’s the best a PERSON can do. One person deciding not to eat meat will not fix the climate crisis.
People not eating meat will lower demand, the price goes down, someone who couldn’t afford meat before now can and eats the meat. Either way, that cow is getting eaten. See my other comment…Meat consumption in China is up 30% over the last 7 years and expected to continue to climb. Meat producers will find a hungry mouth somewhere in the world to feed.
The less animals products you buy the lower the demand. Have enough people reduce meat consumption and fewer animals will be bred and killed. It's not about "resurrecting the cow".
Wrong, the supply of meat can’t keep up with world-wide demand. Chinas meat consumption has increased 30% in the last 7 years and will continue to climb. As supply increases, prices fall and more people can purchase the meat. If you don’t eat the steak, someone else will.
Don’t let your American (or Western European) viewpoint distort the overall world trend of increasing meat consumption. As more Chinese enter the middle class, their meat consumption rises drastically. It’s up 33% in the last 7 years.
Don’t let this study have any influence on you at all. It was funded by the meat industry and is a ridiculous meta analysis of studies that make no effort at all to separate cause from correlation.
(I’m a meat eater - but junk science should be flagged off HN and such “scientists” should be shunned)
