How to be a healthy vegetarian (Health Issues for Vegetarian)

Member Name: notallsoft

Product:	Health Issues for Vegetarian
Date:	09/08/01 (72 review reads)
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Advantages: Easy, healthy if pursued correctly, avoids needless cruelty/death of animals

Disadvantages: Requires some knowledge of nutritional values of food, a veggie diet will not solve all your life problems, can make life harder for people with allergies/food intolerances

Yes, human beings are omnivores. The easiest way to get all the nutrients your body needs is to follow a healthy, balanced diet with items from all the main food groups, and as some of those groups are largely made up from meat and fish products, then naturally it is easier to do so on a diet that includes these products. Unfortunately, meat products do contain some of the highest fat and cholesterol-building substances available in foods, but eliminate or cut down on those and you’re on the way to a healthy diet.

Good, now we’ve got that argument out the way, I can begin to explain my take on the whole meat-free debacle. The point is, yes, it probably is easier to get all your nutrients in an omnivorous diet, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fairly easy to get them all as a vegetarian too, as long as you know what you’re doing. I don't eat meat, and I make a conscious effort to substitute those areas of my diet that might be lacking so that I have optimum health. Someone who just drops meat out of an unhealthy diet and feels no benefits may well be missing out on lots of things. Fried egg, chips and beans is no healthier for a veggie than a meat-eater, after all!

Much as I yearn for a world where animals don’t need to be treated like so much factory produce, I realise that the vegetarian diet isn’t for everyone. For some people, it’s actually a pretty bad idea. If you're sensitive to wheat you may find it harder, as a lot of vegetarian foods are wheat-based. If you’re trying to follow a lo-carbohydrate diet you could find it very difficult, as many of the vegetarian meat substitutes contain much more carbohydrate than the food they are imitating. Of course, as the normal diet should be highest in carbohydrates (remember the food triangle?) this is an added health benefit of vegetarian food.

A vegetarian diet can’t be treated as auto-weight loss either, although many peop
le have noticed that benefit. It will depend on your metabolism, for one thing, and if you have a taste for fatty foods, a nice French brie can do all the damage of fried bacon (though you do get more brie than bacon for the same amounts of fat!) I return to my egg and chips point. There are enough vegetarian alternatives out there to allow someone on a very unhealthy diet to substitute foods that are almost as unhealthy, and have just as high a fat content. And your problem may not be diet after all - you may need exercise, have glandular or even psychosomatic problems, or any number of potential factors could be causing ill health.

If you want to become vegetarian purely for health reasons, my best advice is to make a food diary as you begin – write down what you’re eating every day for every meal for a week – and cross-check that against a nutritional chart to ensure you’re not missing out on something important. Or take vitamin and mineral supplements for those nutrients you haven’t represented. If you’re becoming vegetarian out of choice, good on you, as it’s something that people can now do without any difficulty, but don’t automatically blame any health problems on the lack of meat. Take a little initiative and find out what you’re really missing.

Personally, I choose be vegetarian, and I’ve followed a strictly “death”-free diet (no meat or fish, or produce that involves the death of an animal, such as caviar, non-veggie cheese or gelatine) for over 10 years now. It gets easier every year, with all the new meat-free products in the shops. If I did eat meat, I'd still be slim and fit. I'd still exercise and not eat red meat or anything fatty. However, I don’t need to eat meat. I don't want to be needlessly responsible for anything's death and I'm very happy with the alternatives. If you feel you need meat, then that's another matter.

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