However, it’s also important to look at these studies with a healthy degree of skepticism. Kimberley suggestst that while it’s possible that someone living with depression might benefit from a change of diet, for others, adopting a plant-based diet could exacerbate anxieties around food.

“While there are, of course, important benefits to consuming more plant foods, the current evidence suggests that there are no specific mental health benefits of vegetarianism/veganism over a well-balanced, omnivorous diet.”

Remember, this study is based on what people have reported – to have concrete evidence, we’d need more rigorous research that involves things like double-blinded, randomised controlled trials. The difficulty there is that most people can recognise what they’re eating; unless you feed people plants and meat in pill-form, participants are bound to notice what they’re eating so there’d be no way of testing a placebo. It’s also worth noting that this study didn’t track people for any length of time so we have no way of knowing whether people felt good on a particular day or regularly.

It’s also interesting that this study seems to fly in the face of previous studies that have looked into the link between mood and plant-based living. Kimberley cites a 2012 German study that found that vegetarianism was associated with an increased risk of mood disorders. “The authors say that this could be for a number of reasons, including the nutritional content of vegetarian diets, personality traits linked to vegetarianism and the fact that most vegetarians are women (women have a higher risk of mood disorders).

“However, a paper published in 2018 indicated too, that vegetarian men suffered more mood disorders than non-vegetarian men. Similarly, an Australian study of 1,000 women found that those who consumed animal protein had 35% reduced risk of having major depression or low mood and 32% reduced odds for anxiety disorder.”

Veganism: are vegans really happier than meat eaters and pescatarians?