People Become Vegetarians for Different Reasons

People become vegetarians for different reasons. Most people become vegetarian because they love animals. But today, more and more people are choosing a vegetarian lifestyle not just for ethical reasons but also for the health benefits. The ethical, health and environmental reasons for being vegetarian are all connected.

A Vegetarian is someone who does not eat meat, including pork, chicken, beef and fish. And some Vegetarians  choose to not eat any animal products such as dairy, eggs and gelatin (from pork or fish).

Many of the foods in the typical American diet are major sources of harmful toxic chemical exposures such as phthalates.  Phthalates have been linked to kidney and liver damage in animal studies and labeled a possible carcinogen.

A recent pilot study found that people who followed a vegetarian diet for only five days were able to reduce the level of phthalates and antibiotic levels in their bodies.

There are many benefits to becoming a vegetarian. 

Here are a few:

• Vegetarians have a 28 percent lower death rate from heart disease than meat eaters.
• The obesity rate among vegetarians is only about 6 percent compared to 30 percent of the American population. 
• Women who eat red meat once a day, have a 250 percent increased chance of getting colon cancer compared with women who eat it less than once a month.
• Because they are not consuming high amounts of saturated fat, vegetarians tend to have lower cholesterol.
• The saturated fat and cholesterol in beef, pork, dairy foods, poultry, and eggs cause about 63,000 fatal heart attacks each year.
• More than 60 percent of Americans are overweight, with at least 30 percent considered obese compared with an obesity rate of 6 percent among vegetarians and 2 percent among vegans.
• As many as 75 percent of women who eat fish more than twice weekly have  blood levels of mercury, a known neurotoxin, that are seven times higher than women who didn’t eat fish at all.
• The death rate of breast cancer among American women is 350 percent higher than the rate among Japanese women and nearly 500 percent the rate of Chinese women. (People in both China and Japan consume a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in animal products.)
• Skin and teeth look better — glow.
• Fewer allergies and more energy.

With all the information confirming the adverse health affects caused by antibiotics and phthalates in our meat supply, I’m convinced more than ever that becoming a vegetarian is the way to go.   It's not too late to rethink your approach to healthy eating.       Source

  

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Vegetarians Might Be On To Something

The latest federal suggestions for how Americans should eat were issued on Tuesday morning: You can have an egg for breakfast, just not the bacon. There is nothing wrong with eating meat, but the government admits vegetarians might be on to something.
As always, we need to eat more vegetables and grains, and less salt. And everyone needs to cook more.
The advice comes from a 13-member board of scientists and nutritionists appointed by the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services Departments to rework the Dietary Guidelines for All Americans. 

The guidelines are reassessed every five years so the government can adjust the official federal position on what constitutes a healthy diet.
This might mean nothing to the average home cook, who worries more about braising times and bagged salad than micronutrients and milligrams. But the guidelines affect what’s served in public schools and anywhere else government money contributes to the food budget, including prisons.

It is the information on which the food pyramid is built and also forms the basis for the work of many the nation’s nutritionists and dietitians.

Perhaps most important for consumers, the guidelines are used to create the formulas in the nutritional information labels on almost every package product. For the food industry, whether pork producers, vegetable farmers or processors of potato chips and soda, even slight changes in the recommended levels of fruit, salt or other aspects of the typical American diet can mean millions of dollars won or lost in the grocery stores.

The guidelines won’t be officially issued until the fall, after the agriculture department has a chance to consider the advisory committee’s report and listen to public comment on them.

Among the suggestions:
* Lower the maximum daily amount of sodium to 1,500 milligrams from 2,300 milligrams. The current dietary guidelines suggest the lower limit for adults with high blood pressure, but the advisory committee members believe the number of people at-risk for health problems connected to sodium is so great the entire ceiling should be lower. That won’t be easy. Americans on average consume more than 3,400 milligrams daily, according to the American Heart Association.
* Eat less “solid fat,” another way to describe saturated fat. The means fewer processed meats like sausages, bacon and ribs. The total amount of saturated fat in the daily diet should drop to 7 percent of total calories, from the previously recommended 10 percent.
* Drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages.
* Eat more seafood and low-fat dairy products.
* Eat more vegetables, cooked dry beans and peas, fruits, whole grains, nuts and seeds. The report suggests that people who are on a vegetarian diet have lower blood pressure and weigh less. As a corollary, access to fresh produce needs to be improved.
* Nutritional education, cooking skills and food safety needs to be strengthened, especially among families. The idea is to get people to cook and eat at home more.
* Lose the concept of “discretionary calories,” which was added in 2005. The idea was that people who ate according to the guidelines would have a handful of calories left over to indulge in ice cream or chips or other food with less nutritional value compared with the calorie hit. The more physically active you are, the more discretionary calories you could have.         Via NY Times

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Eating Right For Vegetarians

It is possible to have a fully balanced diet that is entirely vegetarian? If you work it right, all you need to do is eat smart to make your meals as complete as possible.
If you consider a meal of potatoes and rotis or rice and dal as staple vegetarian fare, then you could be getting seriously short-changed on some key nutrients. In such a diet, you will not be getting the required intake of protein, calcium, iron, zinc, vitamin D, vitamin B12 and omega 3 fatty acids.

BALANCE YOUR PROTEINS
Plant foods offer incomplete protein as they tend to be deficient in one or other essential amino acids (protein is made of building blocks called amino acids and our body needs nine of these from food). But this problem can be managed easily by being careful about both the kind and amount of protein being eaten.

How to:
1. Combine plant foods wisely to cover all essential amino acids. For example, legumes (cooked dried beans, dried peas, and lentils) are low in sulfur-containing amino acids (such as methionine), but they are high in another amino acid called lysine. Grains are just the opposite. So by eating both together or during the course of a day, you can get the benefits of both. Beans and rice,  dal-chawal, khichri, pita bread with hummus (ground garbanzo beans and sesame seed paste) are good examples of complementary proteins.
2. Look for variety. Don’t stick to just the known sources like legumes and dairy — nuts for instance are an easy and tasty source of high-quality protein.

HAVE MORE IRON
The best sources of iron tend to be non-vegetarian (liver, egg, sardines etc). Iron from plant foods (nonheme) is not absorbed as well as iron from meats (heme), so it is important for vegetarians to eat more iron-rich foods to meet their requirements. Vegetarian iron sources include beans, leafy green vegetables, banana, brown rice, sprouts, seeds (sesame, sunflower and pumpkin), mushrooms, and iron-fortified grain products.




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