One thing left out in the discussion is this and this is no research involved just personal observation from some personal friends that have chosen to live this lifestyle.

Vegetarians/vegans need to take pharmaceutical supplements or stack on specific fortified foods in order to maintain proper levels of protein, calcium, iron, vitamin D, B12, and zinc. Within the vegetarian community there are also subgroups such as the "flexetarian" (who consumes dairy and eggs) which the traditional name for is lactoovo vegetarians. You will and are right to do so bring up that certain foods in the vegetarian/vegan diet do offer these but I will use zinc as an example. Zinc is essential to the human body for both a healthy immune system and wound healing. Vegetarians may need up to 50% more zinc intake through the vegetarian diet because zinc is not easily absorbed through plant foods.

So when dealing with supplements we have this simple chain which shows which lifestyle needs more in the way of supplemental health.

vegan > vegetarian > all around diet


Vegans need more supplements than vegetarians and vegetarians in turn need more help and planning than someone that consumes an all around diet.

We can all agree I think that in some cases the meat you get from store bought lines in some cases are unhealthy due to additives and hormones put through the livestock feed in order to make for solid yields. We could have a whole other discussion on the difference between domesticated farm raised animals and their methods and game meats which are hunted from the wild.

Now armed with the knowledge of certain mineral and vitamin deficiencies in the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle I would think that it seems less an ethical or actual health debate than it is a "pick your poison" scenario. If some livestock raised meat is tampered with via hormones and what not are you 100% certain that these supplements that are used by a vast amount of those taking part in the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle are more healthy seeing as how it is just as easy for a person to be consuming additives placed in said supplements?

The rules of humanity are fairly simple. Survive. The number one rule of survival is this...

Food is eat!

Now with our options in this day and age as said earlier it is merely a "pick your poison" scenario. Nothing is 100% correct because every ones needs are different and only an individual can discern what it is that their body needs.

[Linked Image from nodiatis.com]