Debate: Steak or Salad: Is Vegetarianism foolish?
Side: Steak

Vegetarian diets are lower in fat, cholesterol and saturated fat.If and only if you eat only fresh possibly raw vegetables all the time. Eating processed foods will bring you right back to square one, further, how you prepare your vegetables will have a massive impact on how good for you they actually are, so you'll need to know a thing or two about cooking, over-cooked veg may fill you up, but they're nutritiously vacuous. Add to that the fact that you'd need to be eating only organic vegetable produce in order to avoid any pesticide/herbicide residue and you've got only a narrow window of opportunity.Also, due to the fragile nature of vegetable matter, they begin to loose their goodness the second they're picked, as they are cut off from the source. So they'd need to be eaten quickly (see later comment on environmental impact for further)There's a lot of nutrients that are better sourced from meat and seafood, such as Iron and Omega 3 to name but two everyday essentials.I also don't trust much American sources on fat consumption, given the American need to promote the growing of corn for that particular cash crop, a by-product of which is high fructose corn syrup, a much bigger cause of diabetes than any steak.Vegetarians get enough proteinVegetarian diets if they includes eggs and dairy produce can have a fair amount of protein, but these sources also contain a lot of dietary fat, not that fat is all that bad really, it's just the type and how much you consume that's the issue. There's also the question of intestinal upset, a diet high in legumes (one of the best sources of vegetable protein) can lead to some gassy consequences, Too much protein is harmfulToo much of anything is harmful, you can find statistical data to show the same about carbs as you can about meat or any other thing.A vegetarian diet is better for the environmentI don't see how exactly, I'm not stating that meat producing agriculture is better, but it most certainly is not worse.The high production and introduction of nitrogenous fertilisers into the environment due to intensive vegetable and plant farming is having a massive impact on the environment wherever it is carried out. Soils are becoming acidified and land run off is causing dead zones in aquatic environments.A population of vegetarians equal to or greater than omnivores would force the intensive farming of land, destroying wildlife habitats, and as this would be a "not in my backyard" kind of thing you'd be looking at (as is currently the case) shipping in a lot of vegetables and fruits from developing nations. Shipping itself at the moment causes more greenhouse gases than a lot of other industries combined. Add to that the fragile nature of the cargo and you'll have to ship a hell of a lot more than you need for just eating, to make sure that enough arrives on time and in sale worthy condition. These also have to be picked before ripening in order to ensure they aren't spoiled and they'd also have to be temperature controlled (more energy wasted).Factory farms are unethicalDon't eat factory farmed meat.Intensive vegetable agriculture is also unethical given the waste of land and the unfair price given to your average developing nation farmer, and the above mentioned aquatic dead zones and you have seriously unethical practice here too.If we all went veg, what would happen to the existing livestock?Vegetarian/Vegan AthletesOmnivorous Athletes: Just about everyone else