Being a vegetarian is apparently the clever choice

Vegetarian Food and Health

According to information gained from the 1970 British Cohort Study, which includes more than 17,000 volunteers from all over Britain born between the 5th and 11th April 1970, people with higher IQs at the age of ten are more likely to be vegetarians as adults. Vegetarians are also more likely to be female, with higher educational attainment although these factors are not reflected in their salaries. The research also found that vegetarians are more likely to work in the public sector, particularly as teachers, and believe in the redistribution of wealth. The findings are published in the BMJ Online.

The research, led by Catharine Gale at the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Resource Centre at Southampton University, looked to see why people with higher IQs were apparently less likely to suffer from heart disease. It would appear that one of the factors may be that they thought more about what they ate, which in some cases led them to become vegetarians.

Since vegetarianism is associated with lower cholesterol and blood pressure and with decreased risks of obesity and coronary heart disease, it could be that people with higher IQs make a deliberate decision to cut meat from their diets.

This theory is strengthened by the fact that a third of self-reported vegetarians in the study, were not strictly vegetarians - they admitted to eating fish or chicken on occasion. It would appear that in these cases the reasoning which led to their vegetarianism was perhaps more practical than ethical.