Is being a vegetarian healthy?
I am considering being a vegetarian except I love chicken a lot. I have already cut out beef and pork from my diet because I find them nasty, and I have not drank milk for the past 3 years. (I am now lactose intolerant…)
The thing is that I am only 5′5″, 105-110 pounds with petite bones. Will I get osteoporosis or other diseases if I become a vegetarian? (I do have anemia at the moment…)
What should I do to maintain a balanced diet? I do know that some vegetarians eat excess starch, from imitation meat…
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I Suggest, Vegetarian + Chicken + Calcium Pills = Success Good Luck.
It is very healthy being a vegetarian. You can drink soy milk to avoid osteoporosis. Tofu made from soya and soy meat can be included in your diet instead of meat so you do not have give up on health or taste.
i was a vegetarian for 4 years or so…gained 40 lb and was exhausted all the time…think we were meant to be carnivores…would never go back to it again.
Your anemia is already the result of your diet. Humans are not plant eaters, they are omnivores. One of the best sources of iron is red meat. If you don’t like beef or lamb, eat chicken liver. As for osteoporosis, the best prevention is to walk/run in daylight for at least 1 hour every day.
well, sure…being vegetarian is healthier because it’s more toxidic in meats……if u’ve health problem, consult your doctor n’ discuss it with him/her….let him/her plan for your diet…..
Eat a balanced diet, including proteins from nuts, wheat products , etc, etc…….. Multivitamins are your best friend and if you can still “sneak” some traditional protein in, then it will be beneficial to you in the long run. Good luck!!
No. If a vegan diet is very carefully planned, and that requires either fortified foods or supplements, it can be AS healthy as a good meat eating diet. I think there are a couple of benefits, but they come from eating a wide range of fruit and veg and being health conscious as vegetarians have to be, not omitting meat, and thus those benefits can be got without actually going veggie. Needless to say a uncarefully planned vegetarian, or especially vegan, diet can lack many essential nutrients and be very bad for your health.
There are many benefits to a diet containing meat. Many vegetarians claim that meat is unhealthy. This is a blatant fallacy.
It is well established that eating meat improves the quality of nutrition, strengthens the immune system, promotes normal growth and development, is beneficial for day-to-day health, energy and well-being, and helps ensure optimal learning and academic performance.
A long term study found that children who eat more meat are less likely to have deficiencies than those who eat little or no meat. Kids who don’t eat meat — and especially if they restrict other foods, as many girls are doing — are more likely to feel tired, apathetic, unable to concentrate, are sick more often, more frequently depressed, and are the most likely to be malnourished and have stunted growth. Meat and other animal-source foods are the building blocks of healthy growth that have made America’s youngsters among the tallest, strongest and healthiest in the world.
Meat is an important source of quality nutrients, heme iron, protein, zinc and B-complex vitamins. It provides high-quality protein important for kids’ healthy growth and development.
The iron in meat (heme iron) is of high quality and well absorbed by the body, unlike nonheme iron from plants which is not well absorbed. More than 90 percent of iron consumed may be wasted when taken without some heme iron from animal sources. Substances found to inhibit nonheme iron absorption include phytates in cereals, nuts and legumes, and polyphenolics in vegetables. Symptoms of iron deficiency include fatigue, headache, irritability and decreased work performance. For young children, it can lead to impairment in general intelligence, language, motor performance and school readiness. Girls especially need iron after puberty due to blood losses, or if pregnant. Yet studies show 75 percent of teenage girls get less iron than recommended.
Meat, poultry and eggs are also good sources of absorbable zinc, a trace mineral vital for strengthening the immune system and normal growth. Deficiencies link to decreased attention, poorer problem solving and short-term memory, weakened immune system, and the inability to fight infection. While nuts and legumes contain zinc, plant fibre contains phytates that bind it into a nonabsorbable compound.
Found almost exclusively in animal products, Vitamin B12 is necessary for forming new cells. A deficiency can cause anaemia and permanent nerve damage and paralysis. The Vitimin B12 in plants isn’t even bioavailable, meaning our body can’t use it.
Why not buy food supplements to replace missing vitamins and minerals? Some people believe they can fill those gaps with pills, but they may be fooling themselves. Research consistently shows that real foods in a balanced diet are far superior to trying to make up deficiencies with supplements.
Lets not forget either that protein, while it is found in plants, is better quality in animal products.
Some people claim that meat is unhealthy because it contains saturated fat. So does margarine and olive oil, and they’re vegan suitable (in fact the hydrogenated fats in Marge can be very bad, but that’s another story). Besides, any excess calories in your diet, any excess sugar, starch or carbohydrates are stored in your body for later use. This is done by turning them into saturated fats.
Cholesterol also, your body on average creates four to five times more cholesterol than the average person consumes, and compensates by creating more when less is consumed. Cholesterol isn’t evil, it is essential; it makes up the waterproof linings of all our cells and without it we would die. Too much can be bad, but as with saturated fats there are more healthy ways of disposing of it, like regular exercise. Anyway, it isn’t so much how much cholesterol you eat, but how well your body handles it. A person who eats loads of dietary cholesterol and leads an unhealthy lifestyle can still have low cholesterol, and vice versa. Most people’s bodies are able to take a large amount of cholesterol without getting atherosclerosis. For this reason that eating meat gives you heart disease is very misleading, and for the most part untrue. Of course, if you do have a problem with how your body handles cholesterol eating loads isn’t a good idea, but for most people there is nothing at all to worry about.
Yes, there are things in meat that there is some evidence can cause cancer in some people, but there are as many in plants too. Soy especially has some very potent carcinogens. Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.
Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women. Also they are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.
Soy is bad for numerous other reasons, but that isn’t the point, I’m just using it as a quick example as why omitting animal products foir thins reason is rubbish, as there are many worse plant products. The evidence that claims meat does cause cancer is patchy anyway.
Some people also claim that we aren’t designed by evolution, to eat meat. They claim that our digestive system is quite long and that we produce amylase, a starch splitting catabolic enzyme, akin to herbivores and unlike carnivores. Apparently this clearly shows that we were designed to eat plants. Such people should go and look up ‘omnivore’ in a dictionary. They have also been known to cite other reasons we are like herbivores and unlike carnivores: that we suck water instead of lapping it, and that we perspire through our skin, such things have nothing at all to do with whether or not we were designed to eat meat, and nothing to do with how our body handles food. I might as well say that because we, like most carnivores and unlike most herbivores, have eyes that face forwards, we must be carnivorous. Of course, that’s not true for precisely the same reason.
The fact is Humans are omnivores, with the ability to eat nearly everything. By preference, prehistoric people ate a high-protein, high-mineral diet based on meat and animal sources, whenever available. Their foods came mainly from three of the five food groups: meat, vegetables and fruits. As a result, big game mammoth hunters were tall and strong with massive bones. They grew six inches taller than their farming descendants in Europe, who ate mostly plant foods, and only in recent times regained most of this height upon again eating more meat, eggs and dairy foods. We are adapted to eat meat, and it is just as natural as eating plants.
Some also claim that the digestion of meat releases harmful byproducts into our system. This is true, however such are our adaptations to eating meat that our bodies are quite able to dispose of said products without any adverse effects.
So, in summary: it isn’t healthier to avoid meat. You can be healthy without meat, but likely not as healthy as if you did, assuming you kept things like the wide range of fruit and veg that a veggie diet usually entails. Too much meat can be bad, but normal amounts are no problem at all. Any health benefits that come from a veggie diet come from a wide range of fruit and veg, and being health conscious, as veggies often are; that doesn’t require you to not eat meat.”
I don’t think a vegan diet benefits anyone in any way better than a better meat eating diet could at all. If you have no ethical qualms, it’s quite pointless. PETA will tell you otherwise, but they have very strong ethical opinions, and mould their ‘evidence’ around it. There is, for example, some evidence that vegans live longer and are at less risk from cancer and heart disease; however those studies show only a very marginal and insignificant difference and none of those studies have yet managed to identify meat as the only variable. Veggies are less likely to smoke, drink or eat junk food, and eat a wider range of fruit and veg, making the test results inaccurate and unreliable.
Yes it is if u cut out the cakes, sweets and fuzz pop lol, Susie
No , It’s not healthy ,
because u need a complete source of proteins that is hard to be maintained by vegetables and fruits alone every day so u need to eat meat , also milk and diary products are the best source of calcium , cus calcium pills can cause kidney stones.
Vegetarianism is a healthier lifestyle than meat eating. Chicken is just as nasty as beef and pork, chickens have hormones injected into them to make them grow faster and the hormones stay in the meat. When a person eats vegetarian they utilize what calcium and other minerals they take in more effectively than when meat is eaten. You are anemic? Perhaps you need to take an iron supplement. Also make sure you drink soy milk and eat enough protein rich things like lentils, beans, tofu and soy products like the ones made by Boca or Morningstar. Also make sure you are eating a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits and whole grain breads and cereals.
Actually I did a lot of research before I became a full vegetarian. Here’s what I found. Vegetarians live longer becasue they not only avoid animal meat but watch their fat intake and eat more whole grains, fruits and vegetables than carnivores.They have a lower risk of heart attack, heart disease, osteoperosis, cancer, and high cholesterol. The misconception that vegetarians can be anemic ifs false. As long as you have enough iron in your diet you’re fine.
Try it for a short time and see how you feel. Some people benefit from a vegetarian or vegan diet, while others do not. Most who do not benefit from a vegetarian diet, do not do well because they do not know how to eat correctly. Our society knows almost nothing about nutrition, so I suggest reading up on nutrition and what your body needs in order to make a sound decision.
all the best
rivka
one thing, being obese and getting disease has to do with the quantity of food you eat, not whether you are an vegetarian or non-veg’n. If you cut out meat, and consume lot of fatty foods like potato, fried iterms like chips or desserts, you are going to put lot of weight. Being vegetraian, it should be easier to count calories, and keep weight under check if you are disciplined. As far as calcium deficieny is concerned, soy milk or some calcium supplements will do.
You get osteoporosis from eating too much meat, not eating too little. The body has to leach calcium from bones to digest and process massive amounts of protein. Thats why osteoporosis is so prevalent nowadays. The average american diet is about 90% meat and dairy.
I know some people that haven’t eaten a piece of fruit in weeks, and won’t even touch anything on a plate thats green.
I became a vegetarian about a year ago. Before I was veg, I was close to anemic. I got my blood tested recently, and everything is fine.
Oh, I’m petite too, and I haven’t had anything go wrong.
Here’s a website that helped me a ton when I went veg.
http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/index.php?referrerid=12059
Good luck!
What a disgusting idea.
Yes it is healthy if you do healthy choices! First of all, many vegan are not strict and eat some chicken or fish once in a while but they try to buy certified organic products to have the healthiest ones! Be sure to include nuts, beans and grains to have complete proteins. There are good soy and rice milk products and greens will help you have your daily intake of calcium. BTW, the sun helps metabolize vitamin D which is used in our bodies with the calcium. I would check with the doc and see a nutritionist specialized in vegan diets to be sure if you want to be a strict type to be sure to have food you enjoy and miss nothing. Good luck, you can do it!