This is great info! 

Bacon Ranch Cheese Ball
Ingredients

(2) 8 oz packages of cream cheese, room temp
1/2 cup shredded cheddar
1 cup bacon crumbles, divided
1 package of Hidden Valley Ranch dip mix
Instructions

Place cream cheese in a medium sized mixing bowl.
Mix with mixer until both blocks are combined.
Add in ranch dip mix and mix well.
Blend in shredded cheddar and 1/2 cup of the bacon crumbles.
Once mixed, using your hands, form into a ball.
Roll the ball into the remaining 1/2 cup of bacon crumbles.
Refrigerate 1 hour before serving.
Serve with pita chips, crackers, or anything that strikes your fancy
Enjoy!

I love all dips!

Thank you for posting this Cappy.  I made them the other night and served them with my husband's homemade marinara sauce and parmesan cheese, over spaghetti squash.  They were wonderful, and the recipe made enough for our meal, and for freezing a bag full for future meals.  

Yes you can get overweight and unhealthy on a vegetarian diet (even on a vegan diet, though it is less likely).  You can also get overweight on a low-carb diet (e.g. Paleo).

"Vegetarians" eat dairy & eggs.  So if you replace meat with cheese (aka flavored solid fat with lots of salt), drink lots of milk (aka liquid meat), continue to use oils too freely, eat plenty of eggs... well all you've done is replace one source of concentrated calories, fat, and cholesterol with another source.

There is irrefutable evidence at this point that eating a "whole foods, plant based" diet will improve all aspects of health. This way of eating is filling, full of good nutrients, and very low in bad calories or "free ride calories" (calories that don't do any useful work, lol).

"Whole-food" means that you eat foods as close to an unprocessed state as possible.  So, potatoes instead of french fries; bulgur instead of bread (and choose whole grain bread over white bread); olives instead of olive oil; avocado or nut butter instead of butter; baked chicken instead of chicken nuggets...  You get the picture.  The big things to avoid are added sugars and processed fats such as added oils, crisco, etc.  Limit foods made from flours, and when you do have flour, try to make most of it whole-grain.

"Plant based," on the other hand, means different things to different people.  Some go all the way and go vegan (although as someone else pointed out, you can live on Coke & potato chips and be "vegan," so the "whole foods" part is really important to health). Some, like myself, still eat flesh foods sometimes, but focus on getting most of our calories from minimally processed, highly nutritious plant foods.

Plant-based eating never gets boring, and it's great not only for weight loss but also for diabetes, heart health, brain health... you name it. All well-designed, unbiased research shows that reducing animal products (all of which contain high quantities of fat and cholesterol) and free oils improves health in virtually every way.  But we don't know if "no" animal products is any better than "some."

So pick a level of "plant based" that suits you.  Take your time and see how you feel as you add/remove foods from your diet.  As bariatric surgeons Matthew Weiner and Garth Davis say, "eat your veggies first" (Dr. Weiner has a video in which he explains why most bariatric programs overemphasize how much protein is needed).  Make as much of your food as possible be minimally processed and eat as many vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and legumes as you can.

Instead of a turkey burger, try a homemade veggie patty (they freeze great). Instead of string cheese, try some microwaved edamame with a sprinkle of salt. Instead of sauteeing onions in oil, sautee them in broth or wine or water. Instead of adding olive oil to your salad, eat some olives.  Instead of adding Splenda to sweeten your smoothie, add a couple of dates or frozen grapes.

Here are some great resources for moving towards a more whole-foods, plant-based eating pattern, in case you want to verify the research for yourself, or need recipes & ideas, etc.

• http://drmatthewweiner.com/ (bariatric surgeon; also has a great youtube channel)
• https://www.facebook.com/drgarth (bariatric surgeon)
• drmirkin.com (retired doctor and health enthusiast)
• anything by Dr. Dean Ornish 
• http://www.happyhealthylonglife.com/ (a National Library of Medicine librarian who looks into nutritional research & posts simple recipes)
• jeffnovick.com (RD who specializes in plant based eating and is very common-sense).
• http://www.pcrm.org/media/experts/neal-barnard (Dr. Barnard, MD, specializes in type II diabetes research)
• http://nutritionfacts.org/ (Dr. Greger, MD, specializes in nutrition. Lots of funny videos about "which is better - this or that?")
• engine2diet.com (lots of recipes)
• http://www.dresselstyn.com/site/faq/ (Dr. Esselstyn, MD, wrote a book called Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease that has the BEST and simplest recipes I've ever found!)
• http://nutritionstudies.org/about/board/dr-t-colin-campbell/ (Dr. Campbell, Ph.D., is a world-recognized nutritional epidemiologist)