Is Vegetarianism an Improvement on the SAD?

I really should be going to bed, as I want to be up early to go deer hunting (I will be posting some venison soon, Gods willing), but as often happens, somebody was arguing with me over the Internet (the gall!) and I feel the need to bring it up.

Paleo eaters love to pick on vegetarians.  This is an  interesting development, because it's perfectly possible to eat a vegetarian diet that is reasonably close to paleo principles, but we tend to single out vegetarianism because culturally we're really into meat.  It's a mutual thing, too... vegetarians, the evangelical kind anyway, loathe paleo diets because of the aforementioned meat-heaviness, even though we are more likely to buy meat from more ethical sources than non-paleo eaters.  Although honestly, I understand vegetarian hatred of paleo diets much more than paleo hatred of vegetarian diets.  At least vegetarians have a percieved moral basis for their ire.  We basically have butthurt... someone with absolutely no real power over us says meat is immoral, and we get indignant.  But that's a different story.

As often happens, somebody was making fun of percieved flaws in the vegetarian diet, and somebody pointed out that vegetarianism is better than the Standard American Diet (SAD), so we shouldn't be bashing vegetarians.

I agree on the one point... bashing vegetarians is stupid as fuck... but the idea that vegetarianism is better than the SAD actually really stings me.  And here's why:

There is nothing about vegetarianism that is inherently better--or worse--than the Standard American Diet.

Even if we're talking about veganism, the more extreme version of vegetarianism in which no animal products are intentionally consumed, there is a great deal of diet variability.  If you really emphasize whole vegetables and increase things like coconut oil and avocados to get some good fat sources, make sure you have adequate protein sources (even whole soy, although that's a paleo sin), watch your sugar intake, and supplement B-12 for Gods' sake, veganism doesn't have to be recklessly unhealthy.  On the other side of the coin, things like potato chips, soda, and everything on this list of foods I'll probably be forced to eat in hell, are all perfectly vegan, and yes, there are vegans that live almost 100% off of this shit.  And when you expand to ovo- and lacto-vegetarianism, you get even more variability.

And there is a huge push to get vegetarians to eat that junk, a push that is perpetuated by animal rights activists who are perfectly willing to potentially trash the health of a human if that human stops eating animals.  It's not really their fault, though... the mentality is more like this:  If people are going to be subsisting off of crap anyway, why not introduce them to vegan crap and at least save some animals?

A vegetarian diet can lead somebody away from a meat-heavy SAD if that's what they're after... it's just that there is nothing inherent to vegetarianism that will do that, and vegetarians are increasingly reaching for processed junk.  In addition, most vegetarians eat very grain-heavy diets even when they do try to eat healthy.  So vegetarians and vegans are gaining weight along with the rest of us, with all the lovely associated health problems.  I know that this is how I was when I was a vegan... I'd try eating whole foods, get really sick because whole wheat gives me cramps, and I'd make myself feel better by eating the giant vegan cookies at the convenience store that probably had eight-hundred grams of sugar each.  So weight gain and other problems among vegans is pretty common, and not the shock people think it is.

Me being every college vegan ever.

Keep in mind that I'm not damning vegetarianism, here.  This is common to every diet that isn't terribly specific.  Paleo eaters also have our own types of junk food... from homemade cookies, breads, pies, and cakes made with almond or coconut flour to Lärabars, there are even companies that make processed, packaged paleo bread, pasta, and other foods.  I still think this is an improvement on the SAD, but only for now.  I honestly feel that in the future people are going to be marketing shit like paleo soda (people already come up with recipes) and paleo God-knows-whatever-else.

The point here is that, yes, I agree that we shouldn't single out vegetarianism as somehow being worse than the SAD, because it isn't.  But we shouldn't give it a pass just because they aren't the SAD we all know and hate... they're prone to the exact same diet follies non-vegetarians on the SAD are.  Pretending otherwise just reinforces inaccurate beliefs about the healthfulness of vegetarianism.