Healthy diets: vegetarian, vegan, raw, macrobiotic - what are their specific health and animal welfare benefits?

In the competitive world of healthy diets, much is left to individual perception and to whatever gets the highest media coverage on your favorite device.

Most people are aware that eating more fruits and vegetables will give them a leg up on the heart healthy scale, but the same percentage of folks still believes that lean chicken and low fat milk is a must to get sufficient nutrients in a healthy diet.

In a society where even government health officials tout the benefits of cholesterol and chemical-ladden meat and dairy products, the real crusader for perfect health is often left to her own devices.

In order to escape the daily onslaught of falsified marketing and misguided nutrition recommendations from so-called experts, the brave one sets out to explore a revolutionary new idea: skip the highly subsidized animal foods and leap into the fantastic multitude of plant-based power foods! 

Those who experiment with healthy vegetarianism get all the required nutrition (yes including sufficient protein - read about the protein myth here) and then some: vegetarians of all flavors score much higher on the scales of health, environmental, and animal cruelty protection. In short: their cholesterol tumbles, they give back to the planet, and they save lives.

But how much do the various vegetarian diets actually contribute to health gains, environmental savings, and animal cruelty prevention?

I have compiled a comparison of the vegetarian, vegan, raw vegan, and macrobiotic diets:
check out their scores and share your comments!

Here is a quick summary what each vegetarian diet consists of:

• Lacto-ovo vegetarian diet - followers eat no meat or fish, but they do consume dairy products and eggs.
• Lacto vegetarian diet - followers consume milk products but no eggs, meat, or fish.
• Ovo vegetarian diet - these people consume eggs but no milk products, meat, or fish.
• Vegan diet - followers consume no animal products of any kind. The vegan diet is completely plant-based. Vegans also avoid the use of animal products for clothing or any other purpose.
• Raw vegan diet - people on this diet eat at least 75% of their diet in raw, natural, unprocessed, unrefined plant-based food that is not heated above 116 degrees F. The remainder of the raw vegan diet can be vegan cooked foods. 
• Macrobiotic diet - people on this diet eat plant foods based on whole grains, vegetables, and phytoestrogens from soy products. The diet focuses on Asian and sea vegetables and most foods are eaten in specific percentages for optimum balance.

Find out more about these vegetarian diets and their pros and cons.