(François Mariotti/ The Conversation) — Are vegetarian diets the key to healthy aging, or could they be a health risk? These questions are a source of confusion for the general public, and for many scientists too. Why? Nutrition is a complex discipline and it struggles to provide simple answers to issues as broad as the relationships between a range of dietary practices and health outcomes. Are vegetarian diets good or bad? Can we tweet the answer in 140 characters or less?
You can add to this intrinsic problem the general trend of society, with less-qualified messengers relaying information that is fragmented and often biased, misinterpreted or indeed uninterpretable. Many viewpoints are advanced, but few reflect any consensus between experts, in particular those from national advisory committees – for example, in France, the United States) and internationally. Even reliable media may highlight a particular study without referring to the hundreds that preceded it.
In this general context, why is vegetarianism subject to so many radically opposed points of view? Beyond being a major societal debate, it’s also a highly politicised one. Pure and impartial science is not fashionable, and cannot be heard above the din of clashing and frequently uninformed views.
The fact is that consumption of animal protein has doubled since the end of World War II, but today questions are being raised about the food model of industrialised societies – they are seen as having degraded public health and being unsustainable, particularly in the face of global warning. (…)