sorry, but if possible, find a book published in 1919 by Alfred McCaan - the Science of Eating. He was a biochemist working as a prosecutor in federal lawsuits against giant food companies. He never lost a case. The read is just hilarious, and it was a heavensent I found just days after going veggie. The cruiser Kaiser Wilhelm case is just unbelievable. It had to pull into the Boston harbour on account of utter lack of able bodied men aboard..
Maybe my question was unclear, I'll try to rephrase it.
Do you have any actual studies designed to evaluate the health benefits of a nutrionally balanced vegan/vegetarian diet versus a nutrionally balanced diet that includes meat? I don't really care about some guy's book from the early 20th century, I'm more interested in a rigorous study of the comparable effects of the two diets.
Although I'm not professionally qualified to speak as an expert on this, I would wager that the main reason why vegetarian diets tend to be healthier is that they include a low amount of cholesterol and saturated fats, while the diets of many people that eat meat are often higher in those particular nasties. Moreover, speaking purely from personal experience, it seems that many of the people that choose to eat a vegetarian diet are doing so, at least in part, for health-related reasons, and so tend to be more health-conscious than the average person.
Obviously, that general trend will result in a healthy lifestyle, but it isn't lack of meat per se causing it so much as a generally healthy diet and lifestyle.
From what I've read, the problems confronting those choosing a vegan or vegetarian diet are different from those eating meat, but there are still potential problems. For example, I have read that one of the main problems with a non-meat diet is getting adequate protein, as well as certain amino acids found primarily in animal tissue. Obviously these issues can be dealt with through nutritional planning, but so can the higher fat and cholesterol intake that plague those of us who choose to keep eating meat.
This is all rather beside the point, though. Are you really saying that the picture shows a rifle, or are you joking?