Should You Be a Vegetarian?

Has it ever crossed your mind that going vegetarian might carry a downside? Most of what gets published by nutritionists and dietitians stays focused on the upside: the benefits of cutting out meat, the perks of this or that eating plan. Weight Watchers, veganism, Atkins, every one of them has something going for it. People take up a diet for a couple of reasons, usually to drop weight or to feel healthier, and sometimes because it's the latest thing in the self-improvement world and feels like growth.

The mistake I see over and over is that people never bother to look into what a diet might do to them before they commit, and they skip exercise on top of that. Vegetarianism in particular tends to attract people who want to make a statement, a big break from how they used to live. There's more than one version of it, too. A lot of folks land on veganism, or something close to it, because they can't quite stick to a fully meatless plate.

Whatever you pick, go in with your eyes open about the side effects. Diets are a bit like prescription drugs that way: the negatives ride along with the positives, and yet the people promoting these plans rarely bring them up. Watch the next diet commercial that comes on television and notice how the drawbacks never get a mention.

Plenty of doctors and health professionals point patients toward vegetarian eating. Type "vegetarian diet" into Google and you'll scroll through article after article praising life as a plant eater. Brown University notes that vegetarian diets can lower the odds of some cancers, along with heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure (2015).

The body still needs specific nutrients to run the way it should, though, and eating only plants can leave gaps. Those gaps can turn into real problems, and some of them affect the mind. Pairing the words "mental illness" and "vegetarianism" in one breath sounds like a contradiction, I know. I wouldn't have believed it either. Then I came across an article in Psychology Today describing a strong link between the two, and that sent me digging into what else a plant-only diet might do.

The two problems that come up most often:

1. B12 deficiency. Vitamin B12 shows up in meat, in poultry, in fish. It matters for building the brain and keeping the brain, the nerve cells, and other systems working the way they're supposed to (Skerrett, 2015). Run low on it and you can end up with deficiency, which brings anemia, memory loss, paranoia, hallucinations, and jaundice (Skerrett, 2015).

2. A higher chance of mental illness. Depression and related disorders trace back to the brain struggling to move around the neurotransmitters that govern mood and memory. Researchers over the last decade have run studies on the downsides of vegetarian eating, and the data keeps pointing to a strong tie with depressive disorders. That rise in mental illness traces back, again, to low B12.

So those are the big two. But I'm not telling you to abandon the idea of vegetarian eating. Just know what you're signing up for. The health gains and the weight loss are real. And there are ways to keep the downsides in check.

The most direct fix is to eat things that carry a solid amount of B12. Search the internet for it, and narrow the query to "sources of B12 for vegetarian diets." You'll get a stack of articles aimed at newcomers. Lean toward the ones tied to medical organizations and universities, and steer clear of anything buried in jargon, because you'll lose the thread and forget why you opened it. Those are written for the professionals. If you're anything like me, you want something short, plain, and done.

Matthew Lee's article, Vitamin B12 Foods for Vegetarians, does the job. He lists four foods that cover enough B12 to keep the body running: dairy, yeasts, eggs, and fortified foods (2015).

- Heather Browning, MBA, BA

Brown University. (n.d.). Being a Vegetarian. Retrieved 09 March 2015.

Lee, Matthew. (n.d.). Vitamin B12 for Vegetarians. Retrieved 09 March 2015.

Skerrett, Patrick J. (January 10, 2013). Vitamin B12 deficiency can be sneaky, harmful. Harvard Health Publications. Retrieved 09 March 2015.