veg or non-veg

I'm with you on this. You may like to get back to those who said this to you & qualify some things. They may, for example, be referring to the cleansing process that one goes through when they suddenly decide to switch from an omnivorous diet to a more vegetarian diet. It's not always 100% good; some of the effects, I mean. After maybe decades of having meat three times a day or more, for example, & you were to suddenly go without it, there can be a number of so-called bad effects on the body. Passing blood in one's stool is a fairly common occurrence in this case & if there's already an accumulation of all sorts of unwholesome stuff inside of you from your previous diet, then you could get quite ill as a result. People too often make the mistake of blaming this on the "crazy new diet" instead of trying to understand what's actually going on. There's nothing wrong with a well-balanced vegan diet in principle, it's the application of it where people often fail. Any minor set-backs, if one persists, will be rewarded many times over, in both the long term & short term.

Humans are naturally omnivorous, as can be seen from our dentition. We can, however, live perfectly well on a vegetarian diet, so long as we pay attention to eating a wide and balanced diet that contains all that we need. There are some nutrients which are much easier to find in meat and fish than in vegetable foods so, for a hunter-gatherer, such as humans were from early times, meat was an efficient food (though not really complete in itself). Most meat eaters these days eat far too much meat. What is important is the total amount and type of protein. Figures vary considerably but most adults need between 45 and 60 grams of protein a day. This can be from meat, fish, dairy or vegetable sources. Meat, fish and dairy products contain more protein as a percentage than vegetables, so a vegetarian needs to eat larger quantities of protein containing foods and also needs to balance two types of protein so should eat both grains (rice, wheat &c) and pulses (beans, peas and lentils). On the whole, a vegetarian diet contains less of the harmful things that meat can often contain (particularly saturated fats) but may often not contain enough of certain things like the Omega series of oils. Vitamin D can also be a problem if the person does not get enough sunlight. Vegans (who do not eat either meat or dairy products) are particularly at risk from a deficient diet but there are many vegans who live well on a totally vegetable diet and, by careful choice of foods, manage to get all the nutrients they need.