NEWS FLASH: VEGGIE DIET HEALTHY

I ignored this the first few times I saw it over the past couple weeks, but now it's everywhere - this news story stating that "A well-planned vegetarian diet can be a healthy alternative for people of all ages." It's pegged to a position paper of the American Dietetic Association, but that position is not new. At any rate, it's pegged to the inclusion of the paper in June's Journal of the ADA, and the full paper is much more extensive and informative than the version I once read on the ADA web site, so I'll link to it. Just a couple of noteworthy items: "Dietetics professionals have a responsibility to support and encourage those who express an interest in consuming a vegetarian diet." (OK, I'll quote you on that) "Studies typically show iron intake by vegans to be higher than that of lacto-ovo-vegetarians and of nonvegetarians" (I did not know that!) "those who ate meat were more than twice as likely to develop dementia. Those who had eaten meat for many years were more than three times as likely to develop signs of dementia." (Didn't know that either, but it explains a lot.)