[The Unhealthy Vegetarian Diet] The Low Carb Diet VS The Vegetarian Diet
May 21st 2009 · by Catherine Osthaus
So it has seemed that in the last week that I have gotten some flak for posting this series. I will address some concerns. Like I have reiterated in my previous blog posts about the veggie diet is that this series is inspired by health problems I have seen in my own daughter and the same problems I see in other vegetarian children. These children have no choice in being vegetarian even though it is their health that is at stake.
The Low Carb Fibre issue
The Low Carb diet is not deficient in fibre. Actually fibre reduces net carb counts and you can get plenty of fibre from ground flax seeds, coconut, nuts, seeds and vegetables.
Saturated Fats And Cholesterol
The comments that I received about saturated fats and cholesterol were that they are not healthy, that the low carb movement is a fad and “plain out of style”. All of this is false. Saturated fats are very healthy and cholesterol may actually be an anti-oxidant.
As for the low carb diet being a fad, Gary Taubes writes in his book Good Calories, Bad Calories that the Low Carb diets can be traced all the way to the 1800’s and they are still around to this day in many different forms:
The Mercola Diet, Susan Sommers diet, The Paleo Diet, The South Beach Diet, Protein Power Diet, Dr. Atkins Diet, The Leptin Diet, Dr. Richard Bernstein Diabetes Solution, Dr. Al Sears the Author of “The Doctor’s Heart Cure” and many more… All of these except the Susan Sommers diet have medical doctors who stand behind them. I believe Susan Sommers referred to nutritionists and dieticians to help her outline the principles of Sommercising.
So if you still think that these diets are “fads” let me refer to this study that was performed for 12 months (which is one of the longest and largest studies performed) and found that the Atkins Diet was the healthiest.
The results of the study:
At the end of a year, the 77 women assigned to the Atkins group had lost an average of 10.4 pounds. Those assigned to LEARN lost 5.7 pounds, the Ornish followers lost 4.8 pounds and women on the Zone lost 3.5 pounds, on average. In all four groups, however, some participants lost up to 30 pounds.
After 12 months, women following the Atkins diet, relative to at least one of the other groups, had larger decreases in body mass index, triglycerides and blood pressure; their high-density lipoprotein, the good kind of cholesterol, increased more than the women on the other diets.
The Atkin’s Diet is a High Fat, medium protein, low carb
The Ornish Diet is a Low Fat, vegetarian diet, high carb
This study is comparing the Low Carb Atkins diet and the High Carb Vegetarian diet together. And as you can see it is the Atkins diet that turned out to be healthier. This study was published in the March 7, 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Saturated Fats are traditional fats and have been used since the times of Jacob, Issac and Moses.
In previous generations we have never had so much heart disease. But now we have introduced a lot of vegetable oils into our diets and guess what?? Heart disease has skyrocketed! Why? Because saturated fats are stable fats, they don’t oxidize and vegetable fats are easily oxidized.
Polyunsaturated vegetable fats are one of the greatest contributors of heart disease. Not only that but they also greatly contribute to increased cancer, immune system dysfunction, damage to the liver, reproductive organs and lungs, digestive disorders, depressed learning ability, impaired growth and weight gain. Source: Nourishing Traditions, Pg 10
I did call this article Low Carb Diet Vs. The Vegetarian Diet so I will give you another example…
Many people would say that Dr. Atkins died from eating a low carb diet which caused heart disease. But actually he died because he slipped and fell on some ice and hit his head.
There is even an online copy of his death certificate which states his death as a “blunt impact injury of head with epidural hematoma.”
As many people have vilified Dr. Atkins as having heart failure, I do have to mention the death of Jay Dinshah who was the founder of the American Vegan Society in 1960. He was born to a vegetarian family and had become vegan. His parents had congenital heart problems and he died of a heart attack at the age of 66.
It makes me question if these heart problems in the family could have been caused by oxidized polyunsaturated vegetable fats???
There is a lot of disagreement and just pure lies about what is healthy and what is not healthy. It is your choice what you feed your family. But our children need the best nutrition to thrive.
My daughter was not thriving on a vegetarian/vegan diet. We were able to heal her cavities, uncontrollable crying, and failure to thrive by following the dietary principles founded by Weston A. Price and written in Nourishing Traditions.
To your health and wellness,
Article Series
- Signs Your Veggie Baby is Not Thriving
- What is wrong with the vegetarian, vegan and raw vegan diet...
- The Low Carb Diet VS The Vegetarian Diet







If you’ve read all of Taubes you know that the fibre issue is a likely non-starter. Even if a low-carb diet were without fibre I’d bet it would still be healthy.
GK
Yes, a low carb diet lacking fiber can still be healthy. But constipation can be uncomfortable and painful.
With proper food enzymes and bacterial digestion constipation can be prevented on a low fiber diet. It is not fiber that takes up nutrients and digests food. It is the enzymes and good bacteria. I have been trying to eat lacto-fermented foods 2-3 times a day to aid in the healing of my digestive system.
There is a reliance on fiber for moving the bowels and digestive health. Before the reliance of refrigerators we had to preserve food with bacteria. Lacto-fermentation is a lost art, but it was the start of the digestion process even before the food entered our mouth.
Well, Donald Watson (vegan society founder) lived to age 95, and was a vegetarian since the age of 14 and vegan for the last 60+ years. So, Jay Dinshah’s fate is far from universal.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article754304.ece
Modern Polyunsaturated vegetable oils are not a necessary part of a vegan/vegetarian diet. One could have coconut oil. Or, one could eat avocado, nuts, and olive oil (all of which are not high in polyunsaturated fats).
eating too much of anything isn’t going to be good for you… I have friends that live on boca burgers and french fries… obviously the veg. diet isn’t going to work wonders for them. It’s amazing how many things a vegan can eat. People get stuck eating the same things as if it is all they have. If your diet caused your poor health it was lack of variety and failure to embrace your lifestyle.
vegan kids can’t be worse off than the McDonalds, hot dogs, Soda brats of this country…
which brings to mind do your kids drink things with corn syrup in them? I’d go cutting out all that poison before I make them eat a steak….
Catherine,
I am 24 and have been a vegetarian for 8 years (and significantly restricted my meat intake since I was 15). I now have OCD/ADHD symptoms. Looking back, I’ve struggling with depression and anxiety since then.
Maybe there are people healthy as vegetarians, this is just my experience (I was very determined to “make it work”). My memory is not what it used to be, I have problems focusing, get tired easier, etc.
It seems that meat – chicken, turkey – (well, unless you want to eat huge amounts of nuts
) contain tryptophan. Tryptophan helps make serotonine, which makes us feel happy. And yes, I was depressed all the time (ironically, I always thought it’s “other things”).
With less serotonine, you become less resistant to stress, and your body generates too much adrenaline. Adrenaline in excess attacks the **myelin sheath**.
I have a friend who had the same issues as I do now. She has been taking omega-3 oils (in quite large quantities) for a few months and is feeling much much better – basically went back to being normal. I will start taking fish/flax-seed oils as well.
This website talks about it: ocd-free.org. And yes, I am aware that doctors think the myelin sheath can’t be repaired. But they also seem to think ovo-lacto-vegetarianism is safe, which was not for me. I am not going to take drugs, and I do know that fatty acids are what the brain is made of. So I’m going to try it and hope for the best.
Also, I thought this article was very interesting: http://www.theecologist.info/page14.html. I wish I read this a long time ago. My past 8 years would have been different. Probably happier.
Best wishes for you
I prefer Atkins diet to vegetarian cause I love to eat protein. Not really sure why.
Low carb had been my favorite for many years.