The vegetarian diet is rapidly gaining in popularity. It reduces the risk of many diseases and is also beneficial in weight loss programs.
However, if you have decided to follow a vegetarian diet, it is better to learn some truths before taking this step.
Why do people become vegetarians?
There are a variety of reasons.
Many want to lose weight or improve their health.
Others no longer want to eat meat, worried about the multitude of diseases that can be contacted by eating it: salmonella, anthrax, mad cow disease, etc. Others for religious or spiritual reasons (the case of yogis).
Many simply cannot stand the taste of meat or protest against world hunger.
How many types of vegetarian diet are there?
There are several types.
Strictly vegetarian is the diet followed by people who do not consume animal products at all. Their diet consists only of fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds, etc.
Lacto-vegetarians are those who consume besides products of plant origin and dairy.
There is another category that, besides the above products, also consumes eggs – lacto-ovo-vegetarians…
We believe that this is a wise option for any person, from whatever culture they belong.
Those who eat only fish or chicken and no other meat can be regarded as semi-vegetarians.
What are the benefits of a vegetarian diet?
Vegetarian diets are low in fat, cholesterol or animal protein and contain many vitamins and minerals. The risks of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis or cancer (especially lung or colon cancer) are much lower.
Is it possible to get my daily protein requirement only from products of plant origin?
You don’t have to worry about that.
To give you some examples we can tell you that
Tomatoes contain 11% protein, oranges 8%, beans 26%, etc.
Two even more compelling examples are former bodybuilding champion Bill Pearl or wrestler Killer Kowalski, who are strict vegetarians.
Are vegetarian diets always healthy?
This is not mandatory, especially if you replace meat with very fatty cheese or vegetable oils. This means that you can eat no meat at all and still consume a large amount of poor quality calories.
Remember: eliminating meat does not mean that you necessarily have a healthy diet.
Is vegetarian diet healthy for children?
According to the American Association of Dietitians, vegetarian diets meet the needs of children and young people, forming the basis of normal growth and development, alim supplements for bodybuilders are of vegetable origin.
How to make the transition from a normal diet to a vegetarian one?
It depends on each individual. Some decide to simply give up the usual meal regime, others do it gradually. You can eat a day or two a week for a month, only vegetables, then gradually increase the number of days. You can, if not eliminate meat from most daily meals and eat it very rarely. Your. Decide.
We suggest here a way that, more often than not, has provided success!
In this way it is not necessary to fight against the desire to eat and meat.
You just need to cultivate the pleasure of eating many other tasty and nutritious foods that do not contain meat.
That is, you can also put meat dishes on the table, but also having tasty and even cheaper meatless dishes available.
It’s up to you to decide whether to choose the healthy option.
Then, if you managed for a week, it is worth continuing.
If you managed for three months, one more reason to continue.
After 10 years, what sense would it make to give up such a valuable eating habit – namely, that of eating vegetarian?
Do vegetarians need dietary supplements or certain vitamins? In most cases they do not need. An exception can be considered vitamin B12, which is found in animal products. Calcium is also found in smaller amounts, the best sources being beans and orange juice.
Are there famous people who follow the vegetarian diet?
Leonardo Da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Socrates, Plato, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, David Duchovny, Drew Barrymore, Kim Basinger, Paul McCartney, Chelsea Clinton, Woody Harrelson, Alec Baldwin, Bryan Adams, Peter Gabriel, Alicia Silverstone, Liv Tyler, Jerry Seinfeld, Mark Twain.
Carnivorous or vegetarian?
Meat consumption and health
In the yogic conception and some religions, balanced lacto-vegetarian diet, from which meat has been completely excluded, will determine in time an excellent state of health. We are to a large extent exactly what we eat, the millennial yogic conception teaches us. The delicious dishes that we swallow with appetite are finally more or less transformed, continuing to exist for some time in each of our cells, influencing not only our vitality and physical health, but also our way of thinking and spiritual experiences.
Several thousand years ago, yogic sages realized the immense importance of lacto-vegetarian food on health, noting at the same time its multiple effects on both vitality and regeneration of the body and on the mind.
Previous research has shown that human anatomy is not carnivorous, as is the digestive system that is adapted for digestion of nuts, grains and vegetables. As in the case of the anthropoid ape, the length of the intestines in humans totals about 12 times the length of the body, which makes obvious the adaptation to slow digestion of vegetables and fruits.
In an article recently published in the American journal Medical Counter Point, Williams S. Collius wrote: “Man is evidently endowed with teeth that resemble more that of herbivores than that of carnivores: they have sharp incisors to cut grass, molars with flat surfaces to crush vegetables and fruits, and short, rounded canines unable to tear and crush flesh.”
Carnivores have an almost unlimited ability to assimilate saturated cholesterol fats. Dogs, for example, can consume 250 g of butter along with their regular meat ration without the slightest change in their arteries. This amount of cholesterol is approx. 100 times higher than that found in our usual diet. In rabbits, there is an amazing change in arterial walls at an increase of only 2 g per day in the amount of cholesterol. The Eskimos, who live mostly on meat, however, age very quickly, with an average life span of only 27 and a half years. The Kyrgyz, a nomadic tribe from eastern Russia whose diet consists essentially only of meat, also age prematurely and die quite quickly, often not exceeding the age of 40.
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, the bodies of killed animals contain large amounts of toxins such as uric acid and other toxic waste products found in both their blood and tissues, due to biochemical changes during the agony of terrified animals struggling for their lives. One of the most serious problems of our century is cancer, the vulnerability and danger of cancer being greatly increased in people who eat meat. One of the reasons that favors the appearance of the disease could be that a piece of meat, after only a few days from the slaughter of that animal, acquires an olive-green gray, and to prevent this degradation, the meat industry currently uses various substances that affect human health over time, such as: nitrates and other preservatives to make it artificially (but unhealthy) appear red.
Animal fats such as cholesterol cover the walls of blood vessels and as the person who eats meat ages, the opening of these vessels diminishes more and more. The pressure on the heart increases, resulting in cardiac vulnerability and an increase in blood pressure.
In our society, one in two people who eat meat will be affected by a heart disease or that is related to blood vessels, while precisely these diseases are practically unknown in countries where meat consumption is very low.
Unlike plants, which have a rigid cell membrane and a simple circulatory system, animal cells die very quickly when circulation is stopped. As soon as life ceases, animal proteins coagulate and self-destructive enzymes are secreted; A new substance called “ptomaine” is formed.
Meat, fish and eggs have one common property: they quickly decompose and rot. The greatest amount of meat is usually eaten at an interval of a week or two, and here we must remember that putrefaction and growth in the number of bacteria begins almost immediately after death. The habit of eating such animal meat in its characteristic state of rapid decomposition, creates very violent poisons in the colon and, in addition, prematurely ages the intestinal tract.
Since it is possible for us to live healthily without eating meat, it is natural to wonder if carnivoreism is a moral and human habit. Many religious and spiritual groups have advocated vegetarianism, recognizing the sacredness of all life and the need to live without causing suffering; Among these groups are: yogis, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Taoists, Essenes, Theosophical Society, Adventist Church, Unitarian Church, Order of the Cross, Benedictines, Trappists, Universal Christian Gnostic Movement, Rose Croix Order, etc.
In the early days of Christianity, numerous Jewish and Christian spiritual groups tenaciously opposed the consumption of meat as an expensive, barbaric, and health-damaging luxury.
Anyone who has visited a slaughterhouse knows well that animals suffer greatly before and during their slaughter.
A great sage, SRI AUROBINDO explains the principle of AHIMSA – to do no harm to living beings,
This means that our food should, as far as possible, be chosen from among living creatures in which the manifestation of consciousness is as low as possible. Therefore, if we have enough vegetables, fruits, cereals and various dairy products, animals must never be slaughtered (killed) to provide us with food.
Modifying an all-meat diet with a vegetarian diet composed of live, fresh, pure and nutritious food is easier than we imagine a priori. There are, on the contrary, a lot of delicious lacto-vegetarian specialties with a rich nutritional content that, due to ignorance, we have never had the opportunity to taste even once, due to lack of information, conventional habits and conditioning caused by prejudices.
Many are even very amazed to discover foods so rich in protein, prepared only on the basis of plant ingredients. The radiant health that will result soon enough will not be just physical. We will gain obvious joy in putting humanitarian ideas into action, and with it we will feel the overwhelming goodness emanating from our permanent state of love that is transmitted to all creatures (human and nonhuman). Vegetarianism can be justified medically, biologically, psychologically, mentally and spiritually. It is worth noting that there is no intelligent argument against him.
Next you will be able to discover for yourself the multitude of culinary recipes obtained from natural foods, properly prepared, which any housewife can make without special effort and without additional expense. The raw material for the preparation of these recipes is very varied. From the same raw material, even the vegetable one, an enormous number of dishes can be prepared depending on everyone’s openness to newness, imagination but also willingness to accept changes in diet, how everyone finally knows how to adapt to respect the principle defined by Socrates: “I eat to live, I don’t live to eat.”
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