[Cali Panthers Fan]

It's nice to see the measured responses so far. I'm still an omnivore, but I definitely eat a lot less meat than I used to. My wife and I often do "Meatless Mondays" for our meal planning, just to give us a day out of the week where we eat a vegetarian diet.

In general, there's nothing wrong with most food so long as it is actually food and not processed crap. The other point is to not take any diet to an extreme. Too much meat can be detrimental to your health, but no meat at all can also be detrimental to your health if you're not careful and mindful about getting essential vitamins and nutrients in your diet another way. Any diet taken to an extreme can have significant health effects.

Things like high blood pressure or high cholesterol have significant genetic components, and while lifestyle factors like diet are contributors, they are often multi-factorial in nature and no one thing will change your levels.

There's also the issue of environmental concerns to make people think about their dietary choices. Issues of environmental degradation, water consumption, and even greenhouse gas emission are worsened by excessive animal farming, namely cattle. If those things are important to you, eating less meat (not necessarily NO meat) is a good thing for sustainability.

Mark Bittman's approach makes the most sense to me, and it's pretty easy to follow: Eat Vegan Before 6. Basically, you eat vegan meals before dinnertime, and then allow yourself the richer foods at that meal. You still get everything in your diet, but you eat less meat and dairy and more vegetables and whole grains. This came from a guy who had no interest in becoming a vegan, but knew that he needed to make some changes for his health.

Obviously, the Bittman approach is totally anecdotal and not scientific in any way, but it's just a simple way of getting a better balance of foods in the diet. Just something to consider.