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This is the first of the 20 Health Myths series that we started earlier. The idea is simple: Talk about 20 of the most common health myths and understand why they are considered myths. And to start with a bang, we’re looking at the myth that giving up meat ensures weight loss. Needless to say, we’re pretty sure that most people will continue thinking, “That can’t be true” but that’s fine – people also believe in god, clearly no one’s perfect. As far as this myth is concerned, it didn’t even come from an incorrect study. It came purely from hear say and ignorant half truths…

Read the next myth: Cold Weather Makes You Sick

Vegetarian Food is Considered Light
A steak with a side of grilled vegetables IS light.
A baked potato with chives IS light.
A dressing soaked Caesar’s salad is NOT light.
If you cook your dal and veggies with ghee, it is NOT light.

How you put your meal together matters. If you shallow instead of deep fry, you half the number of calories. If you’re going to drown the mutton in oil, it’s bound to be heavy and therefore unhealthy. Watching the oil in your cooking is what makes the food light – regardless of meat or vegetables.

Quantity Matters
An off shoot of the “light” argument is that since vegetarian food is light, you can eat a lot of it and you won’t put on weight. Remember that strange little concept called calories and your body only needing a certain amount of them? Whether they come from meat or veggies, you will always ONLY need so many calories… anything more and it’s called… what’s that word… oh yeah, weight gain!

Where’s the Balance
You need carbohydrates, you need protein. What a vegetarian diet does is make it very difficult to get your share of protein. Especially if you’re a finicky eater and don’t care for dals, paneer or mushroom.

Moral of the Story
If you don’t eat meat then you’re missing out on some of the greatest foods invented by man.

And that’s it – everything else is a myth. You need to balance your meals and balance your intake. Giving up meat won’t ensure weight loss any more than looking both sides of the road will ensure you don’t get run over by a drunken asshole…