Followup to that, because vegetarians eat things that are less dense in some vital nutrients, a good health-aware vegetarian will discover they need to stay away from the high-carb veggies like potatoes because they also have no nutrient value to speak of, and filling up on potatoes means you're not filling up on things high in iron (for example).<p>(Yes, part of the reason some vegetarians are vegetarians is because plants can be more rich in nutrients, but it is not automatically balanced, and some vital nutrients are more challenging to get than others.)<p>In that case, a vegetarian ends up eating a not-excessively-large portion of carbs naturally.<p>A bad vegetarian who assumes if it's not meat it must be healthy can still get in trouble, not just on this front but on others as well. It's not that simple.<p>(I've resolved that if any of my children ever want to be vegetarians, I'm OK with that, but a critical precondition is that they demonstrate that they have done their homework and understand the nutritional implications. I believe it can be done safely, but it's not trivial; it takes work in our environment.)