Interesting link.  I think I've read it before (failing that, I read something similar).  I agree that orthorexia can be a serious issue for some people.

I don't calculate the gclycemic index of my meals (no need, the odds of me getting diabetes from a plant-based diet focused around whole foods is next to non-existant).  I don't avoid gluten, lots of really healthy foods contain gluten, and I don't have celiac disease.  I don't avoid soy, as it's one of the healthiest beans on the planet, despite fear-mongering to the contrary.  I don't ruminate on the grains I'm eating creating malabsorption issues, because if you're eating the rainbow then you don't tend to suffer that effect (vitamin C improves the absorption of a raft of other nutrients, including iron).  I don't take supplements, aside from vitamin D in the winter (and only because I live in a northern climate).

I do avoid dairy.  As a species we only started eating dairy about 10K years ago, which is a blink of an eye evolutionarily.  The populations that consume the most dairy tend to have the most osteoporosis despite the dairy industry's calcium claims.  Plus there are plenty of ethical issues with dairy where I would be less happy with life if I were participating in them, so not consuming dairy contributes to a happier life for me, which is ultimately what the article you linked to is all about.

Meat and dairy aren't stopping Earth's population explosion as the health problems from them tend to come well after reproductive years, so I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

What evidence do you have that people who choose a vegan lifestyle are more health conscious on average?  I don't see a lot of evidence for that.  I see more evidence for the reverse, I see omnivores buying supplements like crazy, going to the gym, obsessing over fish and so-called "white meat", etc.  Until recently the vegan movement was focused on animal welfare, not optimal health.  I'm a part of a vegan Facebook group with over 2000 members, and another with over 5000 members, and there are legions of people there getting excited every time some new processed food comes out (or some grocery store puts a popular processed food on sale).  This is a commonly asserted claim, but it seems to fly in the face of a lot of evidence.  Has it ever been studied, or are you simply assuming it's true?

I'm right with you that a stress reduced lifestyle is good for health.  I think stress reduction, lots of sleep, and an appropriate diet are the three pillars of health, but I wouldn't put stress reduction above the other two.

To your first point, the independent research continues to call BS on the idea that dairy and eggs are good for you.  The science suggesting otherwise is being funded by vested interests connected to industries that sell cholesterol laden foods, and they're manipulating the science in the same way the tobacco industry used to before they gave up trying to defend tobacco on the health front.

If you want a study that suggests cholesterol is not bad for you, there are several ways to do it.  For example:

- Construct a study that *slightly* increases or slight reduces cholesterol, find no statistically significant change, and declare victory.  This is akin to taking someone who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and doing a study that reduces that by one cigarette, and finding no significant health benefit to the reduction.  Similarly, if you take someone who smokes two packs a day and increase their cigarette smoking by one cigarette you're unlikely to find a significant health detriment.

- Publication bias.  Independent research is likely to publish their findings no matter what, but research funded by vested interests typically only publishes when they get the result they want.  If they come up with results that don't fit their narrative, you'll never hear about it.  Yet the research funded by public health agencies, charities, etc., usually gets published whatever the result.

- Correlative studies on cholesterol is another way they manipulate the data.  For example, put people on diets with the same amount of cholesterol, note that each participant ends up with different levels of cholesterol, declare no correlation, and that eating cholesterol makes no difference to health.  Declare victory.

The above is the approach of the vested interests.  Independent research continues to do studies where they take people and significantly increase their cholesterol intake, and they find bad cholesterol skyrockets.  Or take groups of people and significantly reduce their cholesterol intake, and their bad cholesterol plummets.  Open and shut.

The Canadian government for its most recent round of proposed nutrition guidelines chose to ignore *all* research funded by vested interests.  Didn't matter if it was funded by a dairy board, or an alliance of rice producers.  And they concluded that while research funded by vested interests was all over the place, the independent research all had a consistent narrative that cholesterol was bad, caused heart disease, and should be reduced in the diet for optimal health.  That was preceded by a similar decision by the Brazilian government, and followed up by a similar decision by a Northern European government.

The research that says cholesterol is A-OK is bad science.  It usually doesn't get submitted to peer review, and generally fails peer review when it does get submitted.  It's true junk science in the worst sense of the word.  That's not cherry-picking, as that's ignoring not only the pro-cholesterol science paid for by meat/dairy/egg industry, it's also ignoring science by the pomegranate industry trying to oversell the health benefits of their product.  It's choosing to look at independent science that is submitted to rigourous scientific scrutiny only, and that's increasingly the approach that government health agencies are having to take as vested interests become more daring in their attempts to over-sell their products.

Staying an omnivore is even more likely to be bad for your health, well informed or not.  Statistically, the average North American omnivore is more nutritionally deficient than the average vegan (one study found the average vegan deficient in 3 essential nutrients, the average omnivore deficient in 7 essential nutrients; they were both typically calcium deficient, but they differed on the other nutrients).  And since many people go vegan for ethical and environmental reasons, there isn't a lot of evidence to support the idea it's because vegans are necessarily even more health conscious people, making that result all the more significant.  Hell, the definition of vegan includes not wearing wool, not using leather, etc., so the very word speaks to a lot of things that are nothing to do with what you eat.

The fact that 14 of the top 15 killers in North America (heart disease, diabetes, many cancers, etc.) are related to diet and lifestyle suggests that successful health and vibrancy into old age as an omnivore is what's hard, not being vegan.  I agree with you that simply eating a vegan diet is no guarantee of health (hell, Oreo cookies are vegan).  But the standard American omnivorous diet is almost a guarantee of bad health.

However, if you adopt a plant-based diet focused on whole foods, and you eat the rainbow, it's almost impossible to do it wrong.

What about breast-feeding? We've been consuming that for far longer than 10,000 years I imagine.

I'm not a vegetarian but I've found there's quite a lot of alternatives that make it a lot less difficult than I thought it would be, and when you go a long time without eating meat you begin to lose your taste and desire for it.

The truth is, it's a very, very healthy way to go so long as you make sure you're still getting sufficient protein (which can be found in plenty of non-animal sources) and vitamins (perhaps get a metabolic panel after a couple months of it to make sure you're not deficient in anyhting); I don't believe I've ever met a fat committed-vegetarian.

Personally, I've been gradually removing meat from my life but more so because I've been developing feelings of guilt about the animals I eat... I recall one turning point night was when I was at a bar watching basketball and ordered a large plate of wings with a friend who hardly ate any, and looking down at it I realized that something like a minimum of nearly a dozen animals had to die so that we could have something to snack on with our beer. That just felt inherently wrong, but certainly didn't stop me lol

There's certain animals, though, that I've really felt the need to stop eating, first and foremost being pigs. I've just seen far too much evidence on youtube and the like that pigs are essentially dogs, with similar levels of intelligence and emotions to the point that it just seems insanely cruel the way they are kept in pens and then killed. It was painful as hell to say goodbye to prosciutto, pepperoni, and bacon, but it turns out turkey bacon is actually quite good.

At this point the next animal I may have to abandon (but am extremely hesitant to) is the cow... I hope they're not as aware and intelligent as some evidence has begun showing them to be, as damn do I love steak lol

Oh lordy. I mistyped and put one little ietter into a word that doesn't belong there and all of my points that I made are now debunked. I never mentioned omega 3s in any of my posts....so what are you talking about? 

Supplements are for people who for some reason or another don't get enough of something in their diet. Normal people who eat a normal balanced diet don't need to take them.  

What about breast-feeding? We've been consuming that for far longer than 10,000 years I imagine.

True, my comments were about cow's milk, not human milk.  That actually strengthens the argument against dairy.  The nutritional differences of human breast milk and dairy are significant.

"Milk from cows and goats is quite different in composition than human breast milk and, therefore, should not be fed to human infants. Human milk, which is designed specifically for promoting infant health, is much lower in protein, calcium, and sodium, and higher in mono- and polyunsaturated fats, carbohydrates, folate, and vitamin C."  (source:  http://www.nutritionmd.org/nutrition_tips/nutrition_tips_infant_nutrition/breastfeeding_milks.html)

And of course, cows wean themselves off cows milk, so the idea that we should be consuming the milk of another mammal, and doing so as adults, is silly and not health promoting.