Is eating organic and/or vegetarian better for you than just eating normal homecooked meals?!

Is eating organic and/or vegetarian better for you than just eating normal homecooked meals?

I come from a family of 6 and i'm the oldest of 4 siblings at age 16. We've always eaten healthy for as long as i can remember, VERY limited fast food....like 4 times per year. We've never been big on fats/oils (unless it's olive oil) and we eat veggies and what-not with every meal. It's always homecooked and no one in the family is even close to obese. Well, my mom read "Fast Food Nation" and is purely convinved that if we dont organic/vegan, we're all going to die early and horrible deaths. She scared ym 8-yr-old brother into being a vegan and he hasn't eaten meat since early Nov. So now we stock up on MorningStar...no more meat unless dad BBQ's. Everything is organic and tofu...my mom figured if my bro is vegan, we all should be. Is it really so much better this way, that we're only eating organic/vegan? Based on what i've described, is there anything wrong with the way we were eating at first? Thanks so much!

-Concerned over-tofu'd teen.

Either diet (omnivore or vegetarian/vegan) has the potential to be very healthy, or very unhealthy. If you look at the food pyramid, the high-protein group is not only meat, but also eggs, beans, legumes, nuts, soy, etc. The choice to become vegetarian/vegan is mostly an ethical/psychological/spiritua... thing, as well as to send a message to factory farms, who are incredibly cruel to animals. I would tell you that if you want to eat meat, it can be healthy as long as it is not in excess and you should definetly buy organic where animal products (milk and eggs too) are concerned because they will be free of horomones which are horrible for you, far worse than pesticides because they directly effect your body in the same way they effect the animals body and they cannot be washed off. And that morning star fake meat stuff isn't that great for you either.