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During 2011 I was able to attend many health related conferences around the country in addition to the NAMA, National Automatic Merchandising Association (aka Vending Machines) conference. While at the NAMA it is no surprise I was surrounded by Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Mars and a host of other related companies that make food like products. It was also of no surprise that most of the people were over weight and looked unhealthy.

Then I got to attend the Ancestral Health Symposium. Major difference, people were talking about eating food our ancestors would have eaten and getting back to the basics. Reducing our sugar intake, lower our consumption of processed foods and getting more information about what we are really putting in our bodies. Some people were overweight, but the majority of people there looked like they cared about their overall health.

Last I got to attend the ADA conference. This is a huge conference in San Diego where all the Dietitians go to get some of their continuing education credits and current health information. Who was there?!? Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Mars and a host of other related companies that make food like products. It was so sad for me to see. So much became clear to me over the course of that weekend.

I would much rather give my money to Steve Cooksey for his advise, or to support his legal fees, than to most of the Dietitians I met at the ADA.

NAMA: http://www.vending.org/
Ancestral Health Symposium: http://ancestryfoundation.org/
American Dietetic Association: http://www.eatright.org/

well, if you must have scientific study, you can start with this list. or, if you want to go beyond just the "family and children" category into general veganism, you can go up a level. the articles seem to focus on how a plant-based diet avoids many of the common childhood health problems, particularly obesity.

there's also this series of blog posts by a physician who is trying to evaluate all the scientific publications on the topic of vegan pregnancy out there. the basic takeaway in 10 different categories reviewed so far is that a well-planned vegan pregnancy is safe. while it does rely on supplements, a quick googling seems to indicate taking supplements is recommended for non-vegan pregnancies as well.

there's also this, which also relies on supplements, but the same source recommends all pregnant women take supplements and, again, i don't think they're unique in this regard.

there's also this already-quoted-and-bashed-below article from the american dietetic association.

I'll just leave this here. The much publicized cases you're thinking of are parents starving their children and then trying to blame it on veganism, not children just spontaneously dropping dead because vegan diets are inadequate (they aren't).

It's amazing what hostility I am seeing for suggesting that people merely think about the consequences of their diet.

Here's what the American Dietetic Association ("the world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals") has to say:

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life-cycle including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence and for athletes."

And more specifically:

Vegetarian diets are often associated with health advantages including lower blood cholesterol levels, lower risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure levels and lower risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes, according to ADA's position. "Vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates. Vegetarian diets tend to be lower in saturated fat and cholesterol and have higher levels of dietary fiber, magnesium and potassium, vitamins C and E, folate, carotenoids, flavonoids and other phytochemicals. These nutritional differences may explain some of the health advantages of those following a varied, balanced vegetarian diet."

I have no doubt that we are omnivores by nature. Also, by nature, we should die of old age in our 30s. I don't care what is "atural." I am just talking about giving some thought to the quantitiy of meat in the average diet.

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.

I've personally met vegan children who are perfectly normal, well-developed and healthy. There are healthy adults living today who have spent their entire lives vegan. Vegans compete and win in international athletics competitions (Carl Lewis, anyone? The guy won a gold medal in sprinting on a vegan diet), and you honestly expect me to believe that their growth is stunted? Whether a Vegan diet is healthy isn't even an issue any more, at least not for people who bother to educate themselves from reliable sources, instead of parroting the same uncited crap that gets repeated ad nauseum.

Please, stop spewing your pseudoscientific nonsense: this isn't the 40's, and now we have actual data about these issues that doesn't come from the meat industry's PR department.

Well-planned vegan, lacto-vegetarian, and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation. Appropriately planned vegan, lacto-vegetarian, and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets satisfy nutrient needs of infants, children, and adolescents and promote normal growth (49-51).

(Emphasis mine)

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.

Now of course, if you don't eat enough, or eat nothing but junk food, you're going to be in trouble... but that's true no matter if you're vegetarian or not. If you take a standard meat-eater's diet and cut the meat out of it, you probably aren't going to be left with enough to live on. But if you follow sound nutritional principles and eat more vegetables, you'll probably be better off.

BTW, there are two things that most doctors will tell almost everyone they need more of: water, and vegetables. Drink as much water as you can, and eat a good variety of as many nutritious vegetables as you can, and your health will improve. This is true whether or not you eat meat. And if you're going to go vegetarian, don't just cut the meat out of your diet... start eating more things that are good for you instead.

[ whether things are necessities... ]

Nor is steak(or any meat for that matter)

Hardly. A pure carb diet is very unhealthy, and a great ticket to obesity and diabetes.

I'm highly skeptical of that claim. I've never seen any evidence that avoiding meat causes weight gain. From what I can dig up, apparently being a vegan not only does not cause diabetes, it's actually an effective treatment for diabetes. Oh yeah, and vegetarianism is a treatment for obesity. Read this summary from the American Dietetic Association and see if you can find any evidence in it that abstaining from meat results in weight gain. Also, my sister is the only one in my family who is a vegetarian, and guess what: she's also the only one who isn't overweight. (Yes, I'm overweight. Not by a lot, but I am.) I've seen a few overweight vegetarians, but honestly, being overweight is less common from my experience, and apparently studies agree with that.

Eating meat is simply not necessary to maintain a healthy weight. Eat a reasonable, healthy diet with reasonable portions, and exercise some, and you should be fine. If you have a medical problem, that's different and you may need to spend some cash to pay for a special diet, but for most people with weight problems, the cause is behavioral and not medical. Many forms of exercise are free, and eating reasonable portions instead of overeating would actually save you money.

Also, for what it's worth, there isn't really any reason you can't have a little meat and still eat for very cheap. Buy meat in bulk and go for the cheap cuts of meat, and you can get the prices down under $1.00/lb sometimes. In fact, in general, you can eat pretty healthy for pretty cheap. For example, try pricing skim milk compared to 2% or whole milk sometime. The skim milk is cheaper. The real reason most people spend too much on food is that they're going for convenience foods, which are often double or triple the price.

A balanced diet consists of meat, period.

uuuummm.... no.
you, sir are ignorant of basic nutrion, period.
I say this based on statements by the ADA, such as :
"The American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada agree that vegetarian eating plans are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. "
http://www.eatright.org/Public/index_19963.cfm

So, not only does a balanced diet *not* require meat, an optimal diet would not have it.

You need to learn more about nutrition!

Try reading the American Dietetic Associations paper

Vegetarian Diets -- Position of ADA

Here is a quote from the paper

It is the position of The American Dietetic Association (ADA) that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.

American Society for MicroBiology
The ASM believes that labeling on the basis of process is not scientifically warranted. Genetic modification has long been used to enhance the production of plants and animals for food. Indeed it is doubtful that there exists any agriculturally important product that can be labeled as not genetically modified by traditional breeding procedures or otherwise. Biotechnology as practiced in agriculture today is part of a continuum of ever more refined attempts to breed better plants and animals for food or show.

American Society for Cell Biology
Many individuals and groups have raised concerns about the safety of transgenic BT crops despite the fact that the bacteria that naturally produce BT have been applied directly to crops as a form of organic pest control for over 40 years. Transgenic BT crops have passed rigorous testing in the US, Canada, and Japan, and they have been found to pose no threat to other insects, animals, or humans. The primary alternative to BT is large-scale spraying of pesticides which kills both beneficial and harmful insects and has other negative environmental consequences.

National Academy of Sciences
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309069300/html/

Since the National Academy of Sciences is the nations premier scientific organization, they best represent the current scientific consensus in the field, so I will quote from their report, first stated in a 1987 white paper and reitterated April 2000:

• There is no evidence that unique hazards exist either in the use of rDNA techniques or in the movement of genes between unrelated organisms.
• The risks associated with the introduction of rDNA-engineered organisms are the same in kind as those associated with the introduction of unmodified organisms and organisms modified by other methods.
• Assesment of the risks of introducing rDNA-engineered organisms into the environment should be based on the nature of the organism and the environment into which it is introduced, not on the method by which it was produced.