Vegetarianism is growing widely in popularity as a way to lose weight and as a means of preventing and treating many chronic diseases, as put forth by the American Dietetic Association. Vegetarian diets generally are distinguished by the change from animal protein to a variety of beans, legumes, and tofu. It is not to be confused with veganism which is where in addition to no meat being consumed, no dairy products or eggs are consumed either.
There are many studies proving that a vegetarian diet consisting of whole grain products, legumes, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds can help lower cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and even cancer. A 1997 study from the World Cancer Research Fund stated that we can significantly lower the risk of cancer by choosing a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and legumes and avoiding grilled or smoked meats which contain carcinogenic substances.
A wide variety of fruits and vegetables included in your diet are also a great means of getting an adequate amount of vitamins and minerals. There are many studies available to show that the increased intake of fruits and vegetables, such as those seen in vegetarian diets, result in a 24 per cent decrease in mortality from heart disease and 20 per cent decrease in total cholesterol. These types of results are astounding and only help to support the switch to a vegetarian lifestyle.
As vegetarians do not consume animal proteins, they effectively limit the amount of saturated fats they consume. Because of this, vegetarians tend to have lower BMI, body mass index, a decreased risk of diabetes, osteoporosis, and even dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Many people question the nutritional aspect of vegetarians – assuming that they don’t eat enough protein, are potentially iron deficient and have lower vitamin B levels. Needless to say, these concerns are unfounded. Vegetarians consume more than enough protein through vegetables sources, both complete and combined, to make up for the lack of animal protein. As long as they are eating a variety of vegetables, iron deficiency should not be an issue and vitamin B12 is available through dairy products and eggs.
That being said, a vegetarian diet consisting of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds has a wide variety of health benefits which range from weight loss to cancer fighting properties. Along with a regular exercise program, vegetarianism may be the best diet choice.
By: Don Rogers
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Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 21st, 2010. 
If you focus on eating a low fat, low sugar, high fiber, and high carbohydrate diet, you can easily control your diabetes and prevent further complications. Managing diabetes using a vegetarian diabetic diet is an excellent way to also prevent diabetes from occurring in the first place.
This is because a vegetarian diabetic diet will contain less or no high fat animal products that are so bad for you and include lots of healthy legumes, grains and lots of fruit and vegetables that are rich in fiber, which are perfect for keeping your blood sugar levels in check.
If you suffer from diabetes it is even worthwhile to gradually switch to a vegetarian diet and cut out meats and animal products altogether. This can really improve your diabetes, and in the best case scenario might reverse your diabetes altogether. If you suffer from Type 1 diabetes, it will gradually allow you to reduce the amounts of insulin you have to take or the frequency of your insulin injections so that you can live an easier life with diabetes.
Using a vegetarian diabetic diet will not only provide you with some relief from your disease and help to control your blood glucose levels better, but it will also help you to lose weight, which could have been the trigger that started your diabetes.
If you lose enough weight through the correct eating habits that are created for diabetics to follow, you might be able to adequately reverse your diabetes. It is an amazing feeling to see this occur and take control of your own health.
By: Tim James
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Vegetarian Diabetic Diet
It was recommended to me and I am sure it will help you.For more of my articles and advice that won’t cost a cent please click to my site.Thanks fo taking the time to read my article and I wish you all the best.
Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 18th, 2010.
Being vegetarian is one of the greatest things in the world. From good health to sufficient energy in your daily life. Eating healthy is one of the easiest ways to ensure both your mood and physical wellbeing remain at their positive peek.
Uplift Your Mood
If you have an attack of the blues, try drinking some tea made from walnut. Walnuts are plentiful with the mood boosting chemical serotonin. Brew this wonderful little food in hot water (easier for the body to acquire the serotonin) and drink away much of your blues. The recipe is simple, use half a shell walnut for each cup of hot water and steep for 3 minutes and drink 4 to 6 cups daily.
Apart from uplifting your mood, walnuts also protects your heart from coronary disease, lowers cholesterol, boost your memory, fights cancer, enhance blood flow and of course lifts your mood.
Best Salad Dressing
Researchers recommend using salad dressing with full fats in salads to gain the full benefits of carotenoids. Their research showed that people that ate low fat dressing, absorbed very little of the carontenoids, people that ate none fat dressing, absorbed almost zero of the nutrients, but those who ate full fat dressing, absorbed the most of these little wonders. It should be noted that eating cheese, nuts and avocado do allow you to absorb as much carontenoids as possible according to researchers.
Benefits of Green Tea
Green tea has long been known for the numerous benefits it provides. As a vegetarian, it’s important not to overlook this tea as part of your daily or regular diet. The tea aids in the fight of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, high cholesterol levels, cardiovascular disease, infection and impaired immune function. But what about the negative effect of insomnia since it contains caffeine? What about it, the fact that it makes you a little sleepy far out weights the benefits. Also, the caffeine in it contains 30 to 60 milligrams per 8 ounces of tea. Compare that to over 100 milligrams in 8 ounces of coffee.
If that’s not enough to convince you of making green tea part of your diet, lets look at the Japanese study of the benefits of green tea against dioxin. Dioxin is a byproduct of paper and plastic manufacturing. It is released into the air and settles in the soil which finally makes its way into your food. Dioxin causes birth defects, increases your risk of cancer and suppresses your immunity. The Japanese researchers say that several antioxidant compounds in green tea prevent dioxin from destroying DNA and cells. Epigallocatechin gallate is one of the antioxidants that does a fabulous job in preventing dioxin’s effects. Epigallocatechin gallate also makes up for one-third of green tea’s antioxidant compounds.
By now you should be convinced of all the positives of green tea being a staple in your vegetarian diet.
By: Gabriel Foster
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Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 18th, 2010.
You probably thought that the Zone diet was all meat and little vegetables. You may be right in a way as the main food recommended in the diet is chicken and fish. But this does not mean that vegetarian Zone diet does not exist. Zone diet is not meant only for non-vegetarians. You may have been misled by the 40:30:30 (40% carbohydrates, 30% fat, and 30% protein) diet plan as being ideally suited for non-vegetarians. Zone diet for vegetarians is very much possible.
Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 16th, 2010.
When you are beginning the process of converting to a vegetarian diet it is important to plan carefully. You need to make yourself familiar with the nutrient value of your food and how foods interact with one another.
A vegetarian diet can be lacking in five essential nutrients unless it is planned. These are protein, iron. calcium, zinc and vitamin B-12. In a meat based diet these are easily obtained from animal products. If dairy produce and eggs are included in a vegetarian diet these essential nutrients should not be in short supply.
If you have decided to eat a vegetarian diet, whether for reasons of health or because of ethical considerations, you need to consider where you will obtain these nutrients. It is perfectly possible for a vegetarian to derive these nutrients from vegetable sources with a little thought.
A vegetarian can obtain protein from beans, peas, lentils and other pulses. These vegetarian staples need to be mixed with grains such as rice, barley or wheat, which also contain protein, because only together do they make what is called a complete protein. A complete protein contains all the essential amino acid that are found in meat and other animal products.
Soya beans are unique among beans in containing all the essential amino acids without the addition of grains. Soya products make up an important part of a vegetarian diet for that reason. Soya milk, soya yoghurt, soya cheeses, tofu and soya meat substitutes make up an important part of a healthy vegetarian diet.
A vegetarian diet need not be lacking in protein if it contains a variety of pulse, grains, nuts and seeds. Sprnkling a few sesame seeds on a meal will increase its protein content.
It is not even necessary to include different incomplete vegetable proteins in the same meal to create a balanced protein. The body is capable of storing amino acids and combining them later.
Many of the commercially available soya products have calcium, zinc and vitamin B-12 added in the manufacturing process. But a vegetarian should also ensure that these nutrients are present in the rest of their diet.
Soya beans are also a good source of iron as are seeds such as pumpkin seeds. Quinoa, a seed that cooks like rice and can be used as the starch component of a meal contains iron.
Zinc is vital for growth and cell division. It is essential for reproductive health. for liver function and insulin activity. It is present in dairy foods as well as beans, lentils nuts and seeds. ***** peas are a good source of zinc, as is tahini paste. A hummous dip is more than a tasty snack it is valuable source of a nutrients in a vegetarian diet.
Calcium need not be a major problem in a vegetarian diet. If a vegetarian diet includes dairy produce it will provide enough calcium. Even for vegans it is possible to obtain calcium from plant sources. Wholemeal bread is a fairly good source of calcium as are dried apricots. Baked beans and broccoli are both good sources of calcium.
Where vitamin B-12 is concerned it is only necessary to resort to supplements if eggs and milk are excluded from a vegetarian diet.
By: Abhishek Agarwal
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Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 16th, 2010.
A healthy vegetarian diet is easy to keep and prevents from attacks by a lot of diseases that come with the consumption of meat; whether white or red meat. A vegetarian is an individual that does not partake of meat or its products. However, some vegetarians may eat animal products.
There are varying types of vegetarians. Those vegetarians that do not eat meat but consume animal products are called lacto-ovo vegetarians, those that do not consume meat but will gladly ingest dairy products are called lacto vegetarians or the vegans that keep off animal products. These are just a few types of vegetarians. They are a dime dozen other types.
The benefits of keeping a healthy vegetarian diet are vast. Many people have their own different reasons for turning vegetarian. In a nut shell however, a vegetarian diet makes for a healthy living. It keeps you from eating meat and you can as well still find alternative products that will give you the same nutrients as meat.
Therefore, a healthy vegetarian diet will strive to offer a lifestyle rich in consumption of iron, and other essential vitamins like D and B12. A vegetarian diet will hence focus on alternative products to meat. Vegetarians will consume carbohydrates for their energy needs. Their essential vitamins will come from a diet rich in mineral components like iron, zinc, calcium and many others.
A healthy vegetarian diet keeps you from the immediate danger of serious diseases like obesity. But it is a commitment and a decision an individual and has to stick with them.
If you make a decision to go vegetarian, you are making a choice to eat and live on a diet based on food extracts from plants like fruits, vegetables obviously, and other many plant foods. A vegetarian diet will consist of more fiber and less fat because vegetarians have basically decided that they are not going to eat meat.
Prevent attacks by diseases like stroke, heart attacks, and kidney ailments amongst others eating a healthy diet whether vegetarian or not. Eating healthy is a choice we make and is very beneficial to our lives.
By: Jonathan Octora Smith
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Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 16th, 2010.
Most people on the verge of turning to vegetarian foods tend to hesitate because they often worry about the proteins that vegetables can provide to our body. It has long been thought that vegetarians are all thin and weak with dark skin and seem to have been living in a world without proteins. The truth is that vegetables can give us enough protein and make us even healthier.
We do not need to worry about the insufficiency of proteins. Because in the modern times when foods are so rich and diversified, the human body can only be over-fueled with proteins. The proteins that are more than enough can load our liver and kidney with extra pressure. The excessive pressure could cause malfunction to the organs within our body.
As we all know, doctors always advise the patients to take low pressure foods when something is wrong with their organs. This means that we, healthy people, should take this advice before anything wrong happens with our body and include the “low pressure” foods into our daily diets.
If you are still worried about proteins, then there is a very simple tip that you can take in order to get enough protein from vegetarian foods, i.e. rice plus beans.
As you can see, proteins should not become the concern of modern people who are exposed to enough of them without changing anything we eat on a daily basis. Rice and beans which are nice vegetarian foods can give us enough without overload our organs.
By: Robert Liang
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Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 16th, 2010.
Losing weight can be extremely hard on a diet heavily laden with meat and dairy. It is the very reason why many people choose to turn to vegetarianism because on a healthy vegetarian diet it is very easy to lose weight and keep it off.
For those who consider this path, they can often worry about getting enough protein, nutrients or are worried that it is difficult to do. In today’s world though, going meat-free it a lot easier than before with fake meats and cheeses for examples. You can also get veggie burgers, veggie meats and even vegan cookies and chocolate. Not to mention of course that the grocery stores are always stock with beautiful varieties of vegetables for you to choose from.
The majority of restaurants also offer vegetarian meals as well, due to the rise in how many choose to leave meat behind.
To help you get the most out of a veggie weight loss plan, below are some tips to help you transition easily and what to look out for when choosing vegetarian weight loss.
1. Toss out all meat from your house or give it away to people who will eat.
2. Make vegetarian versions of your favorite meals. There are plenty of ways to do this by either substituting the meat for fake meat or choosing to how an all-vegetable version. Personally I prefer all vegetables because I find them tastier but when transitioning you may need to weight of meat still so veggie mince is a good way to go.
3. Try everything! Explore eating vegetarian meats and cheeses. Try vegan versions too. Trying these news things and exploring what is available will help you stray further away from the meat, helping your transition be complete.
4. Be careful when trying new things and try not to overdo it on some products as often extra fat is added to compensate for the lack of meat flavor.
5. Don’t beat yourself up if you mess up a day. Just try to pay attention to what triggered you.
6. If you choose to be an ovo-lacto vegetarian (you will happily eat eggs and dairy) then make sure you don’t rely heavily on cheese and dairy foods. Cheese is about 30% fat and the point of vegetarian weight loss is to move away from fatty foods (meat is typically 30% or much much higher).
7. Try to include regular helpings of complex carbohydrates like whole wheat bread, cereals and rice in your weight loss plan.
8. Make sure you are eating your fruits and vegetables! Many vegetarians end up eating junk foods and slacking of the whole foods. Eat plenty of fruit before each meal and try to eat some raw whole vegetables with your meals. Soups and sauces can be a great thing to mix dark leafy greens in with to get your 5 a day.
Once you have replaced meat and have sustained a vegetarian diet for a while you may start to cut out the replacement foods and eat more vegetable based meals. When you get to this point meat will not appeal too much anymore and this is a great thing. You should also find that the more vegetable based meals you eat and the less reliance you have on dairy the better for your waistline.
By: Marie Crawford
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Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 7th, 2010.
I sometimes get questions
Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 7th, 2010.
Being a vegetarian is not for everyone. If you are doing it for fun, you probably will not last for long. It is not because it is hard but it a life style change or habit change. And anything changes to your life style require motivation. You need to find out the reasons why you want to become a vegetarian. The rest is easy.
There are many beneficial reasons for being a vegan. Some of the reason include cutting down on the fats, food poisoning and even weight loss. Meat is a great source for protein, it also contain a lot of saturated fat. By avoiding meat your are cutting out a lot of fats that are bad for you and replacing them with food that are healthier and contain some good fats. This greatly reduces your risk of heart disease. There have been studies that shown vegetarians tend to have a lower risk to heart disease. Every year millions of people suffer from food poisoning, many of them for eating meat that are not stored, prepared or cooked properly. Which create a breeding ground for bacteria to grow. Cutting out meat consumption reduces you risk of food poisoning.
Do your homework. Read up as much as possible before you start. Check out a couple of good books in the library. Go to online forum, share your ideas or just post your questions. There are tons and tons of website available on the internet. Have a notebook with you. Look for some good recipe. Go for the simple one for starters. Do a recipe or two for a week. if it does not suit you, try another recipe. Trying making vegetarian snack food for work. There are many food that are a great substitution for meat and best of all the food taste just as great.
Stating try new food. Vegetarian dishes can be found all over the world. From Italian pasta to many Indian dishes to spicy Thai food to Chinese, Ethiopian, Moroccan, Mexican, South American and more. You can plan you weekly meal base on a theme, try some recipes or dishes from a particular country and then move to other ethnic food from other parts of the world.
If you decide to become a vegetarian, start yourself on a gradual transition. Giving up meat all at one go needs a lot determination. Have fun. Most of all, do not make becoming a vegetarian be a restrictive, grueling ordeal. If you feel like you are depriving yourself, you will not last long. But if you feel like you are doing something good, and trying out some great-tasting food, you will stick with it for much longer.
By: Eddy Sg
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Filed under Health And Fitness by on Jul 7th, 2010.