As for eating. Keep doing it. What you eat does matter. Though vegans and vegetarians do live healthy lives for a while they really do not all remain that way. There are different blood types and different needs for different people. According to the book "Eat Right 4 Your Type" people with blood type A do best on a vegetarian diet. Blood type O people do best on a high protein diet. Types B and AB have their own things.
Meat does have nutritional value for all people. Even dairy products do. It was found that vegetarians and vegans who don't supplement their diets with omega 3 and 6 are prone to heart attacks. Not all will have heart attacks but it shows that there is a weakness in those diet plans.
Personally my body actually works better when it gets some meat. I was a vegan for nine months. When I quit my body got more energy and felt better. Eating dairy actually healed my teeth by rebuilding them. My teeth actually got stronger and were less sensitive. Eating dairy regularly fixed all of my tooth pains. Yep. That nasty dairy stuff made my body better.
During almost all of my life (including most of my time as a vegan) I have taken food supplements. So don't say I wasn't getting enough vitamins. It seems that the basic vitamins in supplements just aren't enough to keep us healthy. All of those other enzymes and proteins and micronutrients in foods seem to be necessary too. Especially those in animal products.
I'm not saying eat only meat. I'm saying that eating meat and dairy products in moderation can benefit health.
It seems that the newest enemy is wheat. Not just gluten but any grain product. There is some scientific documentation that proves this.
Read the book Wheat Belly to learn one aspect of it. Basically it says that the ubiquitous wheat hybrid introduced in the 1970s affects the enzyme in our stomachs that tells our bodies we are full when eating. Thus an average person who eats wheat tends to eat four-hundred more calories per day. Stop eating wheat and your body will eventually recover. Then when that happens you will eat four-hundred fewer calories per day and feel just as full. You'll then begin to lose weight depending on what you normally eat.
Another doctor I've heard speak has shown that the contents of wheat actually work as a poison in our bodies. He shows that humans weren't designed to eat grains at all. Stop eating wheat and your body will be free of the irritation it causes. He says that all intestinal diseases and digestive problems would go away if humans just stopped eating wheat. He has proven that this is true with numerous patients.
If you or someone in your house has severe digestive problems, remove all wheat products from your house (including pet foods) and give it two months. See how it works. You might be amazed.
Years ago I made a video and posted it to Youtube.com. It mentioned that many nutritional deficiencies can cause depression and anxiety. Deficiencies in magnesium, B vitamins, vitamin D3, and probably others can affect one's mental health. Everybody should take lots of vitamins and eat unprocessed foods. For those who won't do that just realize that the worse your diet is the worse your health will be.
We're all different and each need different things. All that my recommendations can do is point you in a direction where you can do research. Most conventional doctors don't have a clue about nutrition. The ones that do have limited knowledge. Even the super informed Naturopath's don't feel what you feel. They can't be inside your body and feel what you do. Take their advice but always remember that you will be the ultimate decision maker regarding what needs to go in your body.
I don't automatically dismiss what conventional doctors tell me. They do have tremendous knowledge related to the human body. Just be aware that they don't know everything. Evaluate what they tell you and make your decisions. Even in the world of conventional medicine it is expected that people get a second opinion about any diagnosis and treatment plan. That in itself is an acknowledgement and proof that conventional doctors don't all know what is best for you.
Eat meat. Don't eat meat. Eat wheat. Don't eat wheat. Eat dairy. Don't eat dairy. It's your body. You decide what it needs. Just equip yourself with the knowledge about the benefits and detriments regarding your food choices.
REMEMBER THIS! There will be times when you change or perhaps you have an acute incident that would call for a dietary change. It's OK to make such a change. You don't need to chain yourself to an ideology of any kind, even those related to food. Let the people around you have the same freedom. They might not need or want the same foods as you. Allow it to be.
This is my advice in 2017. Read other posts in this blog and make your decisions regarding what was written. Much of the information is still valid.