Vegetarians are more stupid than flexitarians

Oh, how I love Nature! Nature: as in the science magazines.?

I love regular nature as well, but when you do your morning media tour Nature is where you can find true sustenance. This time in the form of an article describing food’s effect on the brain. More on that below, but first, let me rub in the message. Those of you who follow Sweden Foodtech know that we since time immemorial have talked about the need to see the value of food beyond the plate – in the effects of what we eat. That value is far higher than what’s on the plate and has the potential to radically shift our global food systems. If you don’t care about getting a good beach-bod, at least think about how your brain feels on food.

In short, the click-bait friendly results say vegetarians (and presumably vegans) have less well-functioning brains and thus are more stupid than people on a mixed diet like the Mediterranean one. They are also more depressed. Probably because they eat less protein and get less omega 3.?

But the results say way more so let’s dive into the study.

The study looked at 181?990 participants of the UK Biobank according to their food preferences, divided into in four groups: starch-free or reduced starch, vegetarian, high protein and low fiber and the final one was the “balanced” group.

The ones with the balanced diet had better mental health and superior cognitive functions compared to the other groups. So it's not just vegetarians that are stupid, it seems like everyone is in need of a balanced diet.

However, vegetarians show a heightened genetic susceptibility for mental disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and are generally more depressed than the other groups.

The high protein and low fiber group had less grey matter in their brains than the “balanced” group. The two groups also have 16 genes that are different.

The levels of Omega 3 and Omega 6 are lower in groups that aren’t on a balance diet. The lovely oils seem to affect the levels of serotonin (not really news) and thus happiness.

And there is more sciency stuff, so do sift through the article. I love that the analysis is data-driven, because the world is going data-bananas and there will be a tsunami of similar studies in the future, deepening our understanding of our relationship to food, as groups and, increasingly, as individuals.

The results do not only make perfect sense (we are all different) but also points to how we need to work as societies in order to build a better life for our citizens.?

1.???? If we have a society that through subsidies and unregulated food environments push us to consume more protein and less fiber we will have a society where both people’s bodies and their souls will suffer. Is it worth it? And for whom?

2.???? We need to understand our individual genetic susceptibility for various diets so that we can fix what needs to be fixed and try to adjust our dietary preferences from early on. Being a vegetarian (or vegan) is arguably a very good way to eat, but seems to need more attention than a flexitarian one. If society in general moves in the vegan/vegetarian direction (which it needs to do for a number of reasons) society and individuals need to pay attention to the diet, its results and how to solve for potential deficits.

3.???? We need to eat more Omega 3 and Omega 6. Let’s get them from microorganisms (these wonderful little bio factories) rather than squeeze oil out of our dwindling fish stocks.

4.???? We need to start yesterday building a food system for the next generation instead of pushing today’s habits and systems on our children and create more wasted generations (another of Sweden Foodtech’s vintage core messages).

If you’re an old-school food system stalwart and don’t like the reasoning above, don’t. But do realize that findings such as these will guide future food decisions, simply by enabling the correlation between food and its effects, and the rather easily calculated value of those effects.

And, yes, it is stuff like this that we will talk about at the Sweden Foodtech Big Meet conference, already next week. If you still haven’t signed up and want to grab a ticket, ping me and I can fix a little something discount for you.

And the article you find here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-024-00226-0