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Is going vegetarian or vegan good for you? You bet! Here are some of the reasons why….
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About half of all adults in the UK are overweight or obese. Childhood obesity is on the increase. Saturated fats found in meat and dairy products are huge factors in weight increase, and also put consumers at risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes.
Two of the most detailed comparisons of the health of vegetarians and meat-eaters concluded that vegetarians are less likely to suffer from the diseases above and therefore have a longer life expectancy. A vegetarian diet high in wholegrains, vegetables, fruits, and beans is free of cholesterol and low in saturated fat.
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Diets high in meat and dairy products are also high in protein, and contrary to popular belief you can actually have too much protein in your diet. High protein diets make the blood more acidic and in order to neutralize this, the body draws on the calcium reserves in the bones. The result is weaker bones and osteoporosis. Excessive protein consumption also puts a strain on the kidneys by producing more nitrogen than the body requires, which need to be expelled in the urine.
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High blood pressure increases your risk of dangerous health problems, such as heart attacks and strokes – the higher the pressure the greater the risk. Blood pressure rises as we get older but some people defy this seemingly inevitable development. And the blood pressure of vegetarians doesn’t increase in the same way as meat eaters – in fact it goes up little with age. It’s not surprising, then, that a vegetarian diet can be used to treat high blood pressure. It is the totality of the vegetarian diet that works not any specific ingredient. Vegetarians’ lower risk of high blood pressure is considerable and can be anywhere between 33-50 per cent
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Common in children and the elderly and more common amongst women – constipation is an uncomfortable condition where the sufferer finds it difficult or impossible to pass stools. A low fibre diet can cause constipation. While a vegetarian diet high in plant foods contains plenty of fibre, animal products contain none. Dietary fibre is the indigestible part of vegetable foods. Despite its indigestible nature, fibre is essential for the digestive system to work properly. It acts like a broom in the intestines, sweeping away toxins and helping prevent diseases such as colon cancer. Eating red meat frequently can increase your chances of colon cancer by 20-40 %!
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Almost 2.6 million people in the UK suffer from heart disease. It is the UK’s biggest killer, responsible for over 100,000 deaths a year. Heart disease occurs when there is a build up of fatty deposits on the inside walls of the arteries. These can clog up the arteries making them narrower and restricting the blood flow in the same way that the sewerage pipes get blocked when you pour fat down the plughole!
Many of the risk factors for heart disease are linked to diet. These include eating a lot of saturated fat, hydrogenated and trans fats, cholesterol, salt, refined carbohydrates and not enough wholegrains, fruits and vegetables. A typical Western diet, dominated by meat, eggs, dairy and processed foods, contains high levels of these undesirable substances.
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Scare stories…
You’ve probably heard them before, those things your meat-eating friends say to scare you off being veggie or vegan…
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But where do you get your protein from?
- As we’ve seen already too much protein in the diet can actually cause health problems. Plant-based diets provide sufficient protein from grains and pulses. Whoever heard of a vegetarian or vegan with a protein deficiency? Well, if they did it was probably someone eating a very poor diet rather than specifically because they were veggie.
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Vegetarians and vegans are always anaemic….
- You don’t need to eat meat to get enough iron! Iron is plentiful in plant foods, including baked beans, chick peas, breakfast cereals and dark green leafy vegetables.
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The only place to get calcium for bones is from dairy products…
- Wrong again! In fact as we have already seen, high calcium dairy products are also high in protein, and too much protein leeches calcium from the bones, so drinking lots of milk may negatively impact your calcium stores. It’s far better to get your calcium from beans, dried fruit, nuts, fortified soya milk and dark green vegetables.
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What about essential fatty acids – you get only get them from fish…
- Not true! Plants can provide all the healthy types of polyunsaturated fat that we need. Rich sources of essential fatty acids include seeds, nuts, legumes – including the oils made from them – and green, leafy vegetables.
Omega-6 fats are widely distributed in plant and manufactured foods and most people get more than enough. Omega-3 fats aren’t so common but there are ample plant sources that are exceptionally rich in them.
These include linseeds (flax), rapeseed oil and walnuts.
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I expect you have to take lots of supplements…
- As long as you eat a varied vegetarian or vegan diet there should be no need to take supplements. Fuel up on a wide range of fruit and veg, various wholegrains, beans and pulses, small amounts of nuts and seeds and their oils (e.g. flaxseeds, walnuts, hemp and rapeseed oil) and a daily source of vitamin B12, such as fortified soya milk or breakfast cereal. Get your iodine from sea vegetables, kelp tablets, iodised salt or Vecon yeast extract two or three times a week. As we have seen above you should also be able to get plenty of iron and calcium.
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