Is vegetarian food really good to maintain goodhealth and remain fit?!
Is vegetarian food really good to maintain goodhealth and remain fit?
Answers:
Well, I've been at it for ten, almost eleven years now. I run 20-30 miles a week, I work out regularly, my cholesterol levels are very good, and every test I've had--and I've had some pretty extensive ones--have all been positive. I'm on no medications, and my doctor is very pleased with my condition.
I'd say that I'm pretty healthy.
Read T. Colin Campbell's book, "The China Study," a long test of people in rural China who live(d) almost exclusively on a vegetarian diet, and the findings on their lack of heart disease and cancers is quite convincing.
Recent Western findings--these have been reported in the popular press so you've either seen them or at least had the chance to--show that more vegetables in our diet is good for us, the American Heart Association admitted some years ago that their limit of 300mg of cholesterol a day and 30% of calories from fat isn't the best for us, it won't lead us to optimum health, but it's the lowest they thought they could get us to go and still listen to them, for they decided that it was the best they could do without causing us to change our lifestyle.
But of course, it's the lifestyle that causes the heart disease and a lot of our cancers. Vegetarian diets help us avoid many of the degenerative diseases that plague our society and increasingly--as others adopt a western lifestyle--our whole world.
The Food Pyramid website says:
"Vegetarian diets can meet all the recommendations for nutrients. The key is to consume a variety of foods and the right amount of foods to meet your calorie needs. Follow the food group recommendations for your age, sex, and activity level to get the right amount of food and the variety of foods needed for nutrient adequacy. Nutrients that vegetarians may need to focus on include protein, iron, calcium, zinc, and vitamin B12."
So, with research showing that more and more vegetables are good for us, with the government saying that vegetarian diets can meet all of our nutritional needs, and with all the vegetarians around who show that vegetarian diets work, I think we can safely answer your question with a "yes."
Sure, just be sure to add some meat to your diet also...
yes.... it's a lot better for you as long as you keep eating enough protein (bean, peanuts and other foods can give you protein)
No.
It can be a very healthy diet as long as you get enough protein.
studys show vegetarians live longer, and the following people are all vegetarians
Hank Aaron (baseball player)
Steve Berra (pro skateboarder)
Brendan Brazier (ironman triathlete)
Peter Brock (race car driver)
Peter Burwash (tennis player)
Andreas Cahling (champion bodybuilder)
Chris Campbell (Olympic wrestler)
Sally Eastall (marathon runner)
Ruth Heidrich (3-time Ironman)
Desmond Howard (football, Heisman trophy winner)
Billie Jean King (tennis)
Romy Korz (ballerina)
Killer Kowalski (wrestler)
Tony LaRussa (pro-baseball manager)
Debbie Lawrence (5k record holder)
Marv Levy (pro-football head coach)
Carl Lewis (Olympic track star)
Bill Manetti (powerlifting champion)
Mike Manzoori (pro skateboarder)
Edwin Moses (Olympic track star)
Joe Namath (football player)
Martina Navratilova (tennis player)
Robert Parnish (basketball player)
Bill Pearl (bodybuilder)
Anthony Peeler (basketball player)
Laban Pheidas (pro skateboarder)
Lawrence Phillips (football player)
Pat Reeves (powerlifter)
Murray Rose (Olympic swimmer)
Lucy Stephens (tri-athlete)
most of them won many many gold medals, so yea I think is good
no idiot...meat is good for you! alot of ppl think that meat is unhealthy but its actually healthy...and vegans and vegatarians dont get enough protein in their diets and its very bad for them.
(sorry if i spelt things wrong..im not that good of a speller)
yes, it is but without non we can't get protiens in a wright quantity. so both non veg. and veg is important to our body.
It really depends on what kind of vegetarian diet you choose.
The standard American diet is about 50% fat; oddly enough many vegetarians end up with a similar percentage of fat in their diet. So a vegetarian diet can be healthier, but you still have to think about the amount of fat in your diet.
Most Americans get more protein than they need every day, and so long as you are eating a variety of foods you will get plenty on a vegetarian diet as well.
Many studies have found that protein of animals, examples, meat, cheese, milk... have been linked to lower intelligence, shorten life expectancy and there are certain chemicals in animal proteins that age your skin. This could be due to hormones and antibiotics that are given to animals. Many cancers, heart disease, and diabetes are linked to these additives.
Carl Lewis was at his peak in his career when he was a Vegan.
You can get more than your share of protein from soy, seeds, nuts, dry beans and green, leafy or colorful vegetables.
P.S. Please remember vegans eat absolutely no animal products. Vegetarians come in various types:
Lacto-Ovo: east eggs and milk or milk products
Pesce-Pollo: eats polutry and/or fish
There are others I can't remember off the top of my head.
Yes, it's the best. I was born anemic, and now I'm vegan. My anemia is actually gone. Given, because I was born anemic, I will have to watch these levels forever, as I could slip on iron anytime, but for now I'm perfect. I am not overweight anymore. I have the best bloodwork in my family (compared to my sister who is vegetarian, and my parents who are meat-eating). I feel better than ever. I rarely get any kind of break-out (though I'm only 15 and it's normal to get one). I never get sick and only go to the doctor for physicals needed for school. My only problem is that I am unable to sleep well, but that has nothing to do with veganism.
Yes it is! You’ll have more energy. Good nutrition generates more usable energy―energy to keep pace with the kids, tackle that home improvement project or have better sex more often, Michael F. Roizen, MD, says in The RealAge Diet. Too much fat in your bloodstream means that arteries won’t open properly and that your muscles won’t get enough oxygen. The result? You feel zapped. Balanced vegetarian diets are naturally free of cholesterol-laden, artery-clogging animal products that physically slow us down and keep us hitting the snooze button morning after morning. And because whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables are so high in complex carbohydrates, they supply the body with plenty of energizing fuel.
Also, You’ll live longer. If you switch from the standard American diet to a vegetarian diet, you can add about 13 healthy years to your life, says Michael F. Roizen, MD, author of The RealAge Diet: Make Yourself Younger with What You Eat. “People who
consume saturated, four-legged fat have a shorter life span and more disability at the end of their lives. Animal products clog your arteries, zap your energy and slow down your immune system. Meat eaters also experience accelerated cognitive and sexual dysfunction at a younger age.”
If a vegetarian diet is very carefully planned, and that may require 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 vegans have to be, not omitting meat, and thus those benefits can be go 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 and Europe's youngsters 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 too. 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 yur 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 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 relating to cancer not being exclusive to some animal 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.
Not if you eat vegetarian junk food. You have to eat mostly whole, unrefined foods and plenty of veggies. Most of your fat intake should be modorate and from nuts, avocados, and seeds, not tubs of margerine.