Hacker News Reader

Comment by nikatwork | Hacker News Reader

Someone please tell India's ~40% of their population of 1.25 billion that they have serious health issues and need to change their diet or they might die.

And no, this is not a poverty issue. I work with some very successful expat Indian developers who are strict vegetarians.

View on HN

Malnutrition is incredibly common in India.

http://wfp.org/content/malnutrition-widespread-indian-childr...

> Roughly 42 percent of all Indian children under age 5 suffer from malnutrition, a sobering reminder of the persistence of poverty and hunger in the world’s largest democracy,

Vegetarianism in India is partly driven by religious and cultural values. That article does not link vegetarianism with malnutrition.

My city has a flourishing expat Sikh community who are largely (though not exclusively) vegetarian, they are for the most part robust and successful individuals.

To categorize vegetarians as intrinsically at risk of health issues needs evidence before I'll buy it. And I say this as a meat eater.

Great point! According to research done on "Blue Zones," the healthiest community in the U.S. is a group of Seventh Day Adventists who are vegetarian. It would be so interesting to see what their diet has in common with vegetarians in Indian and Sikh communities.

Iron deficiency is prevalent in India

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/255701994_Prevalence...

B12 deficiency is prevalent in India

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19676146

Reply on news.ycombinator.com