[Dent]

There are too many confounding variables to be confident that the higher IQ scores and longer lifespans of Western vegetarians demonstrate the superiority of an optimal vegetarian diet. Not least, better educated and higher IQ young people are more likely to become vegetarian in the first instance. But what such statistics do suggest is that any alleged benefits of a meat-based diet, if they exist at all, must be exceedingly subtle. For sure, strict vegetarians should ensure a supplementary source of Vitamin B12. Veganism calls for (very) mild inconvenience, not heroic self-sacrifice. Either way, too many discussions of the merits and demerits of different diets are conducted exclusively at he level of personal self-interest. If a cannibal were to wax lyrical on how his victims yielded a useful source of protein, he'd no doubt be correct; but ethically, he'd be missing the point.

-DP