I think most of us think it is possible to live healthily as vegetarians, but much more difficult. Meat from other mammals contains almost all the nutrients we need in a convenient and properly balanced format. In particular the protein quality and digestibility is higher than in most plant sources.
For those of us who are active athletes, there are a lot of anecdotes about people who tried vegetarian or vegan diets and found they had trouble recovering from workouts or healing from injuries. I suspect many vegetarians suffer from subtle, sub-clinical nutritional deficiencies
and that makes me hesitant to give up meat.
For those of us who are active athletes, there are a lot of anecdotes about people who tried vegetarian or vegan diets and found they had trouble recovering from workouts or healing from injuries. I suspect many vegetarians suffer from subtle, sub-clinical nutritional deficiencies and that makes me hesitant to give up meat.