Great question, @kennyskitchen!

I've touched on this before, and I will do a full post about it it, but in brief, I think there are positives and negatives on both sides.

I have tended to eat a primarily vegetarian diet for most of my adult life, and I'm the soup queen, as soups are one of those things I make particularly well. I could pretty much live on soup, frequently all but do, and a lot of the soups I make are indeed vegan.

But I am not vegan, or truly vegetarian, and likely never will be, because after a period of not eating meat. my health starts to deteriorate. If I ignore it, which I have often done, I will start literally craving meat, and I very rarely get true cravings of any kind.

I've learned the hard way not to ignore those cravings, or I'll wind up ill for real, sometimes seriously. I evidently require a certain amount of meat, and it can be a small amount, in order to properly process the rest of the nutrients I am taking in. Without it, my immune system takes a lunch, which is clearly not a good thing.

One thing I've learned over time is that those of us with O blood types don't typically make good vegetarians. I have a LOT of vegetarian friends, which is why I developed a number of go to vegan recipes. Damned few of them, at least those who are able to remain vegan long term, have O blood types.

I met an evolutionary biologist several years back, and he explained that this is because O negative is the oldest human blood type, which is also why we are the universal blood donors. Evidently there is something in our physical chemistry that makes us incapable of successfully making the switch to a strict vegan diet; much like cats, which will sicken and die if kept on a strictly vegan diet.

Thankfully we are not obligate carnivores, but speaking strictly for myself, if I want to become seriously ill, becoming strictly vegan would get me there pretty quickly. So, far preferring good health, I do eat some animal products, including organic milk that I typically make into kefir, eggs from our chickens and ducks, and occasional fish, poultry and meat, grassfed when possible.

So this is the tip of the iceberg version, which I will expand into a full post, hopefully tomorrow. Lots more to say on both sides of the issue. ;-)