 The results of this study suggest that past dietary patterns are more important than recent dietary patterns in the etiology of chronic diseases due to the long latency period involved in their development. The study found that the instrument used to recall vegetarian dietary patterns had higher reliability for recalled lacto-ovo-vegetarian and non-vegetarian patterns in both short- and long-term recalls. This is likely due to the fact that the last two dietary patterns were highly contaminated by recalls that would have been classified, as belonging to the adjacent category which consumed more animal products. This article was authored by Marsha C. Teixeira Martins, Karen Giseldosiegel, Jing Fan, and others.