Harvard-educated nutritional and metabolic psychiatrist Dr. Georgia Ede studies the relationship between what we eat and our mental and physical health. Although the health status of the vegetarian diet has gained in recent years, he says giving up meat is detrimental to mental health. “You need brains,” he told KIRO news radio.
“We’ve heard that meat is bad for our overall health, including our brain health, but plants are the best way to nourish and protect our brains.” “But the reality is the opposite. Although adequate protein has long been the focus of a vegetarian diet, there is more to eating meat than protein, said Dr. Ede. “It’s less about the protein and more about the other nutrients in the meat.”
If you plan carefully, you can meet your protein needs through vegetarian and vegan diets. Animal foods such as eggs, meat, cheese, and Greek yogurt are high in protein, but they are also found in vegetarian sources such as corn and broccoli. It is more difficult, if not impossible, to extract from the plant.
Meat, he said, is the only food that contains essential nutrients in the right form, and is also the safest food for our blood sugar and insulin levels. For example, vitamin B12 helps make red blood cells rich in oxygen and DNA.
However, low serotonin levels are associated with an increased risk of depression and anxiety, as is mood-enhancing serotonin regulation. Additionally, a study in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology found that low zinc levels are associated with depression, as zinc can reduce brain inflammation.
Some studies show that meat eaters have better mental health. A 2021 systematic review of 18 studies comparing meat eaters with non-meat eaters. The study included 160,257 participants aged 11 to 96 (53 percent of whom were female), including 149,559 who ate meat and 8,584 who avoided meat. Of these, 11 studies found that a meat-free diet was associated with poorer mental health outcomes.
A vegetarian diet is “less healthy” than adding meat, eggs and milk to the diet, a major study found. Additionally, vegetarians were 31.5% more likely to have an anxiety disorder compared to 18.4% for meat eaters. A study published in 2022 looked at 14,000 Brazilians between the ages of 35 and 74 and found that vegetarian dieters were twice as likely to suffer from depression, even though they had the same nutrients as meat eaters.
Despite years of health benefits, new research suggests that a vegetarian diet may have lasting health effects.
For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2023 report reviewed more than 500 studies and concluded that animal food sources provide “an important source of nutrients.” The agency states that these macro- and micronutrients are difficult to obtain in the “required quality and quantity” following a vegetarian diet. In addition, meat, eggs and milk are “especially important” for children, the young and the elderly, and pregnant and lactating women.
A 2019 article states that vitamin B12 deficiency, which is more common in vegetarians, may increase the risk of stroke. It is due to the lack of inhibition of protein secretion in the blood and causes swelling – which in turn increases the damage of blood vessels. According to US officials, adults need about 2.4 mg of vitamin B12 per day to function properly.
