Are Vegetarians healthier? Do they get less food poisoning etc?!
Are Vegetarians healthier? Do they get less food poisoning etc?
Are their teeth, skin, general health better? I have wondered about this for years now as I am sort of contemplating becoming a vegetarian. Is there anything unhealthy about it.eg. certain protein, mineral deficiencies? Do they get food poisoning, have health food scares etc.
Answers:
On average vegetarians live 7 years longer than meat eaters and generally enjoy better health. If you become a vegetarian make sure you're eating good sources of protein. You can get them in any health food store. As far as food poisoning...I don't know, never heard of any statistics on that.
In a word - yes.
No they are not healthier. Because, green leaves have
pesticides on them. Which may cause cancer. Along
with acid rain....
I got E Coli from spinach. Vegetarians are probably healthier. I do think a little of evertyhing is a good thing.
I am veggie and have been for about a year, i would not go back to eating meet but have become anaemic and appear to have been to the doctors more since becoming veggie. The only difficulty i have is going out for meals a lot of places do not cater well for veggies.
Well, I can only answer from my personal experience. I was crippled with lupus for many years, and healed myself completely when I switched to a natural diet. I consider myself to be pescatarian, as I do eat fish and seafood, but no other meat or poultry. I consume only raw dairy-milk, butter and cheese. You can read more about my recovery on my blog if you like.
http://360.yahoo.com/profile-8un2kqu5fqc...
As for my hair, teeth, and skin...they have improved dramatically since going veggie. As for food poisoning, that can happen in many ways-unsanitary conditions in restaurants, etc. I hope you find the blog useful in helping you make a concious decision. I tell about the pitfalls of the standard american diet on my blog as well, and why raw dairy is better for you.
health can only imporve going vegg, the key is to eat a balanced diet
They always look ill to me. Real pale like the're not getting enough iron or something.
I would say that if you want to become a vegeterian, you must be thoughtful about it, so you would not encounter deficiencies in proteins, etc. I doubt it helps with food borne illnesses, though, as the most recent scares we/ve had have all been things vegeterians eat...spinach, peanut butter...
There are subtle differences in the quality of the micro-nutrients between vegetarian and non-veg diets. The dis/advantages of either is the cause of many arguments. Being vegetarian myself (all my life), I can appreciate the benefits of this lifestyle choice in the same way non-veg people will back their choice too. If anything, I have had less cause for concern with regard to the likes of Foot & Mouth Disease, Mad Cows Disease and Bird Flu.
Vegetarians are generally healtheir due to looking after themselves more. Vegetarians have to watch thier diet so that they don't lack in proteins and as such have a reasonably healthy lifestyle. If you take the average meat eater they don't really care what they are eating and usually eat whatever is handy at the time causing themselves problems in later life. If you balance your diet well and make sure that you are eating all the necessary food groups you will be fine whether you are a vegetarian or not.
This really is a tough question to answer in generalities.
There are two distinctly different kinds of vegetarians. Those who simply cut out meat due to their love of animals. And those who want a healthier way to live. Who also love animals.
Those who have cut out meat ONLY because they love animals tend to continue eating the same SAD (Standard American Diet) way. They just change gears and use fake veggie meats which are highly processed and loaded in chemicals. Not really the way to go.
Those who have discovered that vegetarian and veganisms are better ways to live tend to be more involved with WHAT they eat and how to maintain optimum health. These folks, with their radiant skin, shining smiles and postive outlook are the best example of veg-heads. Best advocates for changing the world view of health by food.
I've been veg for 14 years now. I haven't needed a doctor once. When I was a meat eater I was in and out of the hospital all the time.
If you want to learn more check out the websites for Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine and McDougall Wellness Center.
No, food poinsonsing can happen whether you are vehetarian or not but generally vegetarian is safer. Generally the bacteria comes from animals and the food had been in contact with some sort of contaminated animal product (example the spinach had been contaminated from a near by factory cow farm)
Any diet can be bad for your health, vegetarian or not, if you do not eat correctly. Actually most doctors recommened EVERYONE needs to take vitamins in todays age because people are to busy to cook healthy. I would recomened that too. Iron and protein are the most common worries among people with a vegetarian diet. These are really not a huge problem if you aren't eating chips and pop non-stop, especially on a ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet. (which means you eat eggs and dairy)
You can get both from lots of everyday foods like beans, spinach, bananas, avacado, brown rice, broccoli, tofu/soy products, figs, nuts and peanut butter, dairy, eggs, asparagus, zuchini, cauliflour. The possibilities are pretty endless. Even the fudge I was eating yesterday had iron in it. :P
The most important thing that vegetarians miss is B12. This is found in eggs and dairy but if you intend not to eat those you can also try nutritional yeast. Also a lot of foods are fortified with it including most cereals, soy milk, and premade veggie foods.
Personally healthier is everyones opinion, there is evedience to support both sides of the issue. You just have to review the facts and see which side has stronger points and makes sense to you. Personally I have ben a vegetarian for 11 years and my hair is down to my waist and don't have any health problems. As well my son has been vegetarian from the moment he was concieved. He has always been advanced, could read at the age of 3 and now at 4 is still ahead of everyone of his friends. He's not over weight, he is strong and active, and not to different from any other child except he doesn't ask for Spaggetti o's, Mc Donalds, and little debi snack cakes :P
Yes it's healthier.Most of the foods that pose big risks for food poisoning if out of date are meat or fish products.
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 vegeterian 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.
I had food poisoning once before becoming vegetarian and it was horrific, I really wanted to die. We don't seem to get health scares with vegetables because they're more natural than farm reared animals that are pumped with chemicals to keep them disease free. For example, consuming meat from antibiotic-fed animals is creating super-bugs that human bodies can't defeat because they are becoming immune to the amounts of the drug that exists in some peoples bodies. Also, some people say you need to eat meat for protein but that's daft, baked beans have as much protein as a good steak.
Generally speaking, I would say yes. My husband is vegetarian and me and my daughter are not, but because of him we hardly eat meet. We do not take any vitamins or minerals from tablets but all fine and quite healthy. One big different after I eat much less meat is the hey fever used to annoy me in certain season has gone!! This is amazing to me ( if you have one, you can understand). If you eat all sorts of food like green veg, root veg, beans, fruits, pulses, etc... it should cover what you need, but as we eat fish a lot so this is not completely sure ( most of the vegetarian book's saying the same though). We order the organic vegetable box every week , they are great in so many ways( it's not expensive). I do not think you need worry about to become a vegetarian. I should be someday completely....
Go for it!!