The number one is a lot of bull. I'm a very happy, healthy woman, and I don't eat meat at all (if I do... No, I'll not get into details, just let's say it ain't pretty).
Yes, it's perfectly possible to get enough iron from a meat-free diet, but there may be some people who mess it up, so that they don't get the suffient amount of something needed (like for instance iron). The study doesn't say that everyone eating no meat gets depression, it only says that the risk increases (as in "twice as many people.."). Could be interesting to see how the authors themselves discuss or interpret their findings, but unfortunately the article is not available for free.
There's a lot of meat eaters that mess up their diets too. It's all about having a balanced, healthy diet, and in my experience, a lot of meat eaters are worse at that than pescetarians, vegetarians and vegans. Iron can be found in spinach (one of my favourites), brown beans, broccoli, tomatoes, chickpeas, misc. nuts... And if you're "just" ovo-vegetarian or pescetarian, you get iron from eggs too.
How did they come to this conclusion? (And we all know that women in general tend to lack iron, meat eaters or not...)
Indeed. A whole lot of meat eaters don't really eat healthy. I suspect that's a major thing which screws up the statistics - the "meat eaters having greater risks for overweigh, heart disease or cancer" stuff.
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How did they come to this conclusion? (And we all know that women in general tend to lack iron, meat eaters or not...)
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While I cannot download the study itself, I found an article which provides some details. Apparently, it's not iron but omega 3 fatty acids which may play a role, and not meat in general but red meat.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9158235/Red-meat-halves-risk-of-depression.html
It's not "the more meat you eat the happier you get" though. They talk about an recommended amount of 70g/day.
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