[Topher]

Now, in general, a vegetarian diet is not a healthy diet. In order to have a healthy vegetarian diet, one must avail themselves of eggs (best source of natural protien God created) milk and other dairy. I was a vegetarian for 4 years. I made fresh vegetable juice on a daily basis, made fresh fruit smoothies with every fruit imaginable for breakfast, ate salad all the time, drank soy, and ate whole grains. I started to become fat, my metabolism was all but destroyed.

Yes, I learned that I ate to much breads, beans potatoes. The breads and beans were one of my sources of protien. There is not much protien in these sources vs the carbs in these sources. I was reading all of the mumbo jumbo "THE FDA IS YOUR ENEMY!!!!" crap, and hanging out with these nature fruits and nuts. I was reading the mags, and the www's. I was convinced of a lot of the ill-informed propaganda that is coming from the New Age "health food fad" that is still growing today.

A little over 2 years ago I got serious about my health. I started working out and exercising. I do cardio and weight lifting on a very regular basis. I began to study health and fitness in a much more in depth way. I began to research nutrition (protien, carbs, fat, vitamins etc.) and supplements, and how they affect and work in our bodies. I spent literally hundreds of hours researching. I learned that good bio-available protien is only found in the animal kingdom. I learned that good bio-available iron is found in beef, and that the iron in plants has a low bio-availability. Also, when it comes to essential fatty acids, it is true that you can find them in flax seed oil and so forth. But, again, the bio-availability of that fat from those sources is also very low compared to fish oil.

The best protien available to us is whey isolate, followed by casein isolate, followed by albumen. The first 2 are isolated milk protiens and the last is egg protien. All protien is rated by egg protien. This being stated, there is absolutely no such thing as a healthy vegan diet. To eat vegan for a month can be healthy, just as fasting for a time can be healthy. But it is not a sustainable healthy option.

Some people have body types that need a much higher protien, and much lower carb diet like myself, and there are people that need more carbs... usually people with A and B blood types. This is not always the case though. But, generally, O type people should have a high meat diet compared to others.

All-in-all, you can be a healthy vegetarian, but I suggest using whey protien powder in smoothies if you decide to be vegetarian. Optimum Nutrition seems to be the most effective for me when it comes to muscle growth. Also, everyone should take a good multi-mineral/vitamin, B complex vitamin, and extra Calcium and Magnesium in a 2 to 1 ratio, along with fish oil. You need these supplements for whatever diet you are on, weather it be carnivore, omnivore or herbivore. Unless you have some kind of illness, you have no need for any other supplements.

If you do have an illness, please do more than a couple hours of research before you decide on any supplements to take for said illness. I say this for this reason... 2 years ago I spent hundreds of dollars on suplements while I was researching. By the time I finished my research, I learned that I wasted a ton of money.

For instance, I recommended calcium and magnesium in the last paragraph as a supplements everyone should take. Many companies offer these two together, or in package deals. They will market for bone health, or heart health, or muscle health, or central nervous-system health. These 2 minerals are a key component in all of these areas. BUT, you need to take about 1500mg Calcium, and 750mg Magnesium to really correct anything, weather it be muscle soreness, atrial fibrilation, high or low blood pressure etc. Most companies sell these minerals at doses so low that it will not affect change in your condition, and the prices are usually quite high. Some prices will appear low, until you look at the dosage. You may find some of these reasonable appearing priced items having 50 to 250 mg per serving. That means that the "30 day supply" is less than a week supply.

BUT, you can go to Walmart, and get the Calcium Citrate and the magnesium. The pills are in higher doses, and you can take them throughout the day. (i.e. split it to different meals) Besides, it is way cheaper than any other place you are going to get it.

One other thing to look at is the fact that generally almost all vitamin companies now have quality products. 10 or 15 years ago that was not the case. Now, the quality bar has risen much higher. So, you can get very good quality vitamins at much cheaper prices. And for the products that are still high in price, you can find them at more reasonable prices on the www. For instance, there are companies with whey powders that perform much better than other competitors. I have tried many, and have settled on one, which I mentioned above. If you search the web, you can find it at nearly half of the retail price. It is average in price compared to other sources, but the walmart whey did not help me grow muscle near as fast as the ON protien. The Muscle Tech protien was also wonderful, and there was another I tried that was ok. I am spacing on the brand right now. The MT stuff is kinda spendy, and I was using there Hydroxy Cut for 2 years before they found that it was destroying livers and killing some people. So, I am a bit leary of them now. They do have a great research program for their products though. Hope I shed some light in my ramblings....