No veggies will give you colon cancer and constipation.

The complete benefit of a clean diet (not only vegetarian, i refer to a perfectly natural diet) can be resume in the quote of Dr. Ferriz: "come ill person, and eat the life".
I have controled an anemia case with vegetarian diet, of course with i big Fe nutrition (based on spirulina spirel).
Vegetarians can not be fat guys, because carbohidraths are too much regulated. So the fight against the fat is declared.
No salt. Is an important detail. Salt is not necesary and does not help.

You can be fat and vegetarian, look at buddha.

You talk about an mithological fat figure publicited in non indian (and many others) countrys as "buda". Exist other image of an "not fat buda" that is perfectly acceptable, thinking in the self-control regime that de buddhist (especially hinayanic) reflect.

In a concrete field, we must talk as vegetarianism as an dinamic regime of diet, and not as an "static state" of non eating meat. A mean, going to Mc Donalds and extrac the meat from the food just for eat "without meat" is an wrong practice.

Of course there is a lot of non serius exponents talking about veganism as simply "not eat meat". Nothing more simplystic.

that sounds stupid. stuff yourself with bananas all day long and you’ll be fat.

A balance of this and a balance of that…. Remember the food pyramid. On the very most top we have there the oils and fats, at the middle meat/fish/dairy products; at the 2 bottoms we have grains/rice/wheat and the fruits and vegetables.
But it’s better to eat variety of foods since it would be possible to get the vital vitamins needed by the body; if not so–food supplements will come to the rescue. We can actually eat anything which is edible, but remeber that you always guard yourself with DISCIPLINE… I think that’s one of the best recipes.

A good case can be made that our ancestral diet would be mostly plants, but with a significant animal component. That animal component can be mimicked in vegetarian diets with supplements and some exotic plants, but it would be tough to stay healthy with a purely meat-based diet, even with supplements.

DISCIPLINE…in relation to discipline i am perfectly with you, i can not say the same about the pyramid because in my opinion milk, meat, or eggs are not the important thing for a best diet. I think the quality and porportion of certain biochemical elements (Ca, Fe, proteins, B complex, ETC) must be considered more importan than a type of food.
For example, is not the same Ca than milk (by the way very poor in Ca if you see the nutritional content of spirulinna), is not the same meat than protein (few second hand proteins,if you see the nutritional content of spirulinna)…ETC,ETC.

In my personal case, i am latinoamerican, to me is not "exotic" the spirulina because is a legade of our Aztec traditional medicine. If some prehistorical european or afrikan group man was in the position of eat meat for survive, this fact does not mean that all humans did the same, or does not mean that all humans have to do the same.

The western and northern science use to think for the rest of the world: "lets see…poor indians they does not have cows, our mission is to save them, and we are going to do it. The american indians and the humanity need cows !"

This is a very soft article about spirulina:
http://www.ambiente-ecologico.com/edici … lud02.php3

Try to read this (i am sorry i only have access to "in spanish" information):

La Spirulina ha sido consumida desde hace más de 500 años por los aztecas en México y los kanenmbu en África, los cuales recogían el producto y lo colocaban en cestos y jarros a fin de secarlo expuesto al Sol. En África todavía su consumo es común en forma de una salsa llamada die a la que se le agrega grasa de res, cebolla frita, pimientos, gramíneas silvestres y lengua de vaca, y esta salsa sirve para acompañar las albóndigas de mijo.

El cultivo de Spirulina lo iniciaron los técnicos franceses y belgas en la árida región de Tchad en el año de 1962 y esto trajo como resultado que otros países se interesaran en producir esta alga; por ejemplo, en México la compañía Sosa Texcoco, S. A., aprovechando las aguas que sobran de su proceso industrial ricas en sosa cáustica, sal industrial, carbonato de sodio, carbonato de calcio, y uilizando un evaporador solar, la cultivó en la región conocida como "El caracol" en Texcoco, produciendo tabletas de concentrado del alga que se exporan a Inglaterra, el resto de Europa, Japón y Estados Unidos, y así el viejo tecuitlatl de los aztecas volvió a resurgir después de cinco siglos.

En la actualidad, Sosa de Texcoco extrae sales de sodio del lago semiseco, para uso industrial; mientras una planta piloto anexa permite obtener la Spirulina. Una hectárea de alga rinde una cosecha de 30 toneladas de proteína seca. El Instituto Nacional de Nutrición fabricó sopas, atoles y flanes con la Spirulina y los probó en seres humanos, comprobando que no provoca ningún tipo de enfermedades.

En 1985, en los Estados Unidos se estableció una granja para cultivar Spirulina dotada de instalaciones con la más alta tecnología, que puede producir una tonelada diaria de esta alga. La granja pertenece a la empresa Earthrise Farms, localizada en la región del Valle Imperial, al sur de California, y utiliza tierras no aptas para otro tipo de cultivo, y agua con alta concentración de sales que tampoco se puede utilizar en agricultura. El producto lo están empleando para producir complementos alimenticios para atletas, naturistas vegetarianos y gente que desea tomar una dieta balanceada.

Conforme se desarrolla la tecnología para el cultivo de las algas, los costos de producción se abaratan de manera sorprendente, lo que significa un estímulo para los países pobres, ya que pueden conseguir alimento sin que esto implique un gasto grande, lo que es muy importante para los pueblos deÁfrica Asia y América Latina principalmente pues, con esto se puede colaborar a resolver el problema de falta de alimento que en estas naciones se presenta.

If we’re discussing about vegetarians diet here, I’d personally suggest ovo-lacto vegetarian’s diet.

It means they eat only vegetables, eggs (lots of protein) and dairy products (which also have much protein). As a vegetarian, protein intake is very important because not all plants that we usually eat contain proteins. However, we could try beans for proteins, another alternative =)

I hope this helps.