A Vegetarian Future

Humans are designed with a capacity for a highly versatile diet. Amongst the many dietary alternatives is the common omnivorous diet in which animal and non-animal products are consumed equally, as well as a variety of vegetarian diets in which some or all animal products are excluded from the diet. Although many people still follow an omnivorous diet, an increasing amount of people are choosing to follow vegetarian styles of eating. There are many types of vegetarianism, in which different food types are included and omitted. There is much debate about whether vegetarian diets are healthier than omnivorous diets or if they increase cases of malnutrition. While many people and experts believe that vegetarian diets can provide proper nutrition, but there are other risks to such diets brought about by basic ignorance of how to properly fulfill standard nutrition requirements when consuming a vegetarian diet. To help reduce such health risks, nutrition education programs should be implemented to teach the public about how to obtain adequate nutrition from a meatless diet.

The implementation of such a program would not only be useful to those who choose to adopt vegetarianism as a way of life, it would also be useful for those who find that meat is difficult to obtain. While such a problem may seem inconceivable today, especially for those living in a developed, industrialized nations, Time Magazine has addressed just such a notion. Time put forth a report called Visions of the 21st Century, which answers several questions about the future of science, health, and the way humans will live. This report posed the question "Will we still eat meat?" to which Time answered, �no,' we will not eat meat in the future, or at least not in the way that we do now.