Vegetarian Diet

Hundreds of millions of people are vegetarian (eg. Hindus for religious reasons); more health professionals are discouraging the consumption of animal fats and red meats, that have been shown to increase the chance of obesity, cancer and other diseases; and the environmentalists who know that much of the limited resources, on Planet Earth, are wasted by converting them to meat.

* It takes 2,500 gallons of water, 12 pounds of grain, 35 pounds of topsoil and the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline to produce one pound of feedlot beef.
* 70% of US grain production is fed to live stock.
* 5 million acres of rain forest are felled every year in South and Central America alone to create cattle pasture.
* Roughly 20% of all currently threatened and endangered species in the US are harmed by livestock grazing
* Animal agriculture is a chief contributor to water pollution. America's farm animals produce 10 times the waste produced by the human population.
* There are sound reasons for health, ethically, and ecologically to be vegetarian. There is nothing strange about being vegetarian.

Definition

Vegetarian, the belief in and practice of eating exclusively vegetable foods and abstaining from any form of animal food.

To what extent this definition applies, in reality varies, what it refers to is a strict vegetarian or a vegan. Lacto-vegetarians include milk and other dairy products in their diet. Lacto-ovovegetarians eat milk, dairy products and eggs. Those who eat fish are not vegetarian.

A vegan, excludes animal flesh (meat, poultry, fish and seafood), animal products (eggs, dairy and honey), and the wearing and use of animal products (eg. leather, silk, wool, lanolin, gelatin). The vegan diet consists totally of vegetables, vegetable oils, and seeds.

vegan 've-gen also 've-jen or -,jan\ n [by contr. fr. vegetarian] (1944) : a strict vegetarian who consumes no animal food or dairy products; also : one who abstains from using animal products (as leather) _ veganism 've-ge-,ni-zem, 'va-ge-, 've-je-\ n .

Partial vegetarians exclude some groups of animal foods but not others. A diet that excludes red meat but includes fish is often adopted for health not moral reasons.

If you are vegetarian or want to become one, start off by giving up one kind of animal food, the one that offends you most. Once you are used to supplementing this food with another of vegetable origin, tackle the next. Progressively reaching the level of vegetarianisim you desire, slowly over a period of time. This progressive vegetarian is one who changes their eating habits / lifestyle at a positive rate, by doing so you allow your body to adjust to the eating of new types of foods or foods that may have given you troubles before (beans). It also gives you time to learn more about nutrition and increase your pool of knowledge on the subject. Thus it is not a fad diet that you will give up the next day but a progressive change towards a healthy lifestyle.
History

Vegetarianism is an ancient custom. It has long existed among certain Hindu and Buddhist sects that consider all animal life sacred, and it was advocated zealously by numerous philosophers and writers of ancient Greece and Rome. In the Roman Catholic church, it has been practised monastically by Trappists since 1666, and among Protestants more recently by Seventh-Day Adventists. As an active Western movement, it originated in 1809 near Manchester, England, among members of the Bible Christian Church. In 1847 the Vegetarian Society, a nonreligious organization, was founded. The movement spread to continental Europe and the U.S. (1850), and in 1908 the International Vegetarian Union was founded. Today the union holds congresses every two years in different countries.
Vegetarian Arguments

Although vegetarianism originated as a religious or ethical practice, it has also gained acceptance among many for aesthetic, nutritional, and economic reasons. Humanitarian vegetarians refuse meat because they believe that the killing of animals is unnecessary or cruel, or that such a practice can conceivably lead to a disregard for human life; the trades that the slaughter of animals supports, such as butchering, are considered degrading. People who adhere to vegetarianism for health reasons believe that meat is harmful to the human body and that a purely vegetable diet is more nutritious. [Infopedia, 1996]
Evolution

Some people believe that humans were originaly vegetarian through the evolutionary process. It is not in the scope of this book to get into a complex discussion of evolution, but here are a few background notes covering the subject

Primates evolved from ancestral mammals more than 60 million years ago, during the Palaeocene Era. The first known primates resembled small rodents or tree shrew. Like tree shrews, they probably had huge appetites and foraged at night for insects, seeds, buds and eggs on the forest floor.

The Hominids probably emerged between 10 million and 5 million years ago, during the late Miocene. There appear to have been many varieties of early hominids, but many had three features in common:

1. Bipedalism
2. Omnivorous feeding patterns
3. Further brain expansion and elaboration.

Monkeys have long canines and rather rectangular jaws. Human teeth are smaller and more uniform in length, and the jaw is bow-shaped. The jaws and teeth became less specialized during the evolution of forms leading to humans. Beginning with the earliest primates, there was a shift from eating insects, then fruit and leaves, and on to a mixed diet.

The Protein Myth

It is incredible how often a vegetarian is asked "...so where do you get your protein from?" Why is this such a major concern to the majority of lay people and health professionals? When one considers all the healthy benefits of a meat-free diet it is sad to see people responding with this irrelevant concept. It would be like asking meat eaters where do you get your carbohydrates from? Duh!

The question of protein intake has been raised so often with vegetarians that it has become a depressingly boring subject. There is no protein problem, studies consistently show that vegetarians and vegans have a satisfactory protein intake. An extensive study of several thousand vegetarian foodstuffs reveal that the following are good sources of protein:

Pumpkin and squash seed kernels, roasted
Soy Flour
Tofu raw, firm, prepared w/calcium sulphate
Almonds, blanched
Oats
Lentils cooked
Rice brown, long grain, raw
Chickpeas cooked

Plant sources of protein alone can provide adequate amounts of essential and nonessential amino acids assuming that dietary protein sources from plants are reasonably varied and that caloric intake is sufficient to meet energy needs. Whole grains, legumes, vegetables, seeds, and nuts all contain essential and nonessential amino acids. Conscious combining of these foods within a given, as the complementary protein dictum suggests, is unnecessary.

Additionally, soya protein has been shown to be nutritionally equivalent in protein value to proteins of animal origin and, thus, can serve as the sole source of protein intake if desired.

Although most vegetarian diets meet or exceed the Recommended Dietary Allowances for protein, they often provide less protein than nonvegetarian diets. This lower protein intake may be associated with better calcium retention in vegetarians and improved kidney function in individuals with prior kidney damage. Further, lower protein intakes may result in a lower fat intake with its inherent advantages, because foods high in protein are frequently also high in fat.

So, how has this myth of deficiency arisen? Early research (circa 1914) into protein consisted of experiments on rats. These animals were found not to grow as quickly when fed plant protein as when given animal protein. Hence the idea arose that plant protein was second class, and animal protein superior. There are a few reasons as to why this happens. The weaning rat grows at as much faster rate than the human infant and thus requires a much more concentrated source of nutrients, including protein. Human breast milk, for example, contains about 7 per cent of caloric content as protein, while rat milk contains 20 per cent protein. If rats were fed solely human milk, they would not thrive. Using this logic one could argue that human breast milk is an inferior protein source. Obviously this is not true to humans. Humans are not rats, and results of dietary studies on rat can therefore not be equated to humans.

The second 'protein myth' arose from an unexpected quarter, a book written in the late 1960s which exposed the terrible wastes inherent in a meat-centered diet. Diet for a Small Planet sold over 3 million copies, and popularized the idea of 'protein complementarity'. Written with best intentions, its effect was to make plant sources of protein again seem second class, unless carefully combined with each other, and to make the whole subject of protein nutrition seem vastly complex and fraught with danger.

In subsequent editions of the book, this mistake was corrected. But still the myth lives on, no doubt due in part to the zealous promotional efforts of the meat industry. [Cox, P., The Realeat Encyclopedia of Vegetarian Living]

The truth of the vegetarian diet is that if the proper amino acids are eaten daily or over a few days there is no need to fear that vegetable protein is inferior. Protein is protein and amino acids are amino acids whether they come from a cow or a soy bean.

Guidelines for formulating nutritionally balanced vegetarian and vegan diets

A wide variety of foods should be chosen from the following groups.

1. Milk. 1 pint (children) 1 pint (adults) or other dairy products (cheese or yoghurt). Strict vegetarians can use dairy substitutes such as soy milk or tofu.
2. Proteins. 2 - 3 portions daily of any of the following: pulses and beans - in casseroles, stews and soup; nuts - in salads, rissoles and roasts; T.V.P., tofu and other soy products - in casseroles, stir fry and curries.
3. Cereals. 3 - 5 portions daily of any of the following: bread, breakfast cereals, rice, pasta, flour, crackers, or other cereals such as millet, bulghar wheat, wheat grain and buckwheat.
4. Fruit. 2 - 3 portions daily of: fruits, fresh, dried or juice. This should include 1 serving of citrus fruit or juice daily.
5. Vegetables. 2 - 5 portions daily, lightly cooked or raw, of a variety that include both dark green leafy and root vegetables.
6. Fats. Margarine and oils should be consumed as required. In contrast to most of the population the diets of vegetarians and vegans are naturally low in fat. It is therefore unnecessary to restrict the amounts of fats and oils used in cooking or to recommend the use of low fat spreads. Furthermore, some vegetarians may need to increase their consumption of fats and oils in order to meet their energy requirements.

Nutritional deficiencies can occur, particularly when an individual decides to become vegetarian and simply stops eating meat or animal products, without considering what can be eaten instead.

Source : http://www.diet-and-health.net