miniboes wrote:This study compares pescetarians and vegetarians, not vegans. Both groups have in common that they dropped non-marine meat, which lowers their heart disease risk. However, both still consume animal products: the pescetarians consume fish and the vegetarians consume dairy and eggs. It is no suprise that they would get similar scores. If you compare a high fiber (plant-based/vegan) diet to a pescetarian diet it becomes clear fish is not healthy. Jebus posted a good article to look at.
Well said.
Fish is probably healthier than eggs and milk, and one important thing to understand is that lacto-ovo-vegetarians tend to increase their consumption of those animal products to replace meat, whereas a fish eater might displace milk and eggs with fish protein.
It's long been known that vegetarians who eat milk and eggs aren't much better off than meat eaters.
The healthiness of a thing is relative. It's not just based upon its own composition, but upon opportunity cost in the diet (or what is displaced).
If you stop eating one unhealthy thing, and just replace it with another equally or more unhealthy thing, you're not doing much good.
"Coconut oil is healthy!" But wait, that's only if you replace butter with coconut oil. It's not 'healthy', it's just healthier than butter.
Well then:
"Canola oil is healthy!" But wait, that's only if you replace other unhealthy fats with canola oil, which is healthier. It's not just healthy to top off your diet with extra oil.
"Apples are healthy!" Yes, if they're replacing pork. But not if they're replacing broccoli.
Things are only more or less healthy than other things, in particular contexts.
Cyanide is healthy! ...Compared to Ricin.
Ricin is healthy! ...Compared to Botulinum toxin.
gogogadgetarms, hopefully that clarifies things for you.
When you make the claim "X is healthy!" in a non-contextualized dietary context, what you're saying by default is that this item is health-promoting when added or increased in amount, or in the very least that decreasing it would be detrimental, in the average diet where you're making that claim.
That is certainly not the case for meat in the average North American or European diet.
In regions of Africa where people are starving? Possibly, but that's only because it's healthier than nothing at all.
