Vegetarianism- The right mantra of being healthy

The latest fad in health and fitness conscience people is vegetarianism. More and more, People all over the world are giving away meat, sea foods and animal fats for a vegetarian diet. The reasons could be numerous, moral, ethical, cultural or even health related reasons. The stigma that hounded a vegetarian and a vegetarian diet is gradually shedding away.

A vegetarian is a being, who refrains from consumption of meat for spiritual or fitness purpose. The vegetarians are further divide into various types. Lacto vegetarians and ova-lacto vegetarians are others to name some.

What are the advantages of being a vegetarian?
Being a vegetarian diminishes the threat of degenerative diseases like, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, cholesterol problems, obesity and diabetes mellitus. A well balanced vegetarian diet is successful in meeting the dietary recommendation of other important constituents of food. The chances of contracting infections and food poisoning due to meat and sea food is evaded. Eating a vegan food not only gives a spiritual but a healthy well being. The other harmful impact from consumption of meat and seafood on environment is given away.

Some important practices for a healthy vegetarian:-

• More emphasis should be laid on food like legumes, whole grains, nuts, vegetables, seeds and fruits.
• The consumption of dairy products should be balanced, in fact it should come down to two servings in a day.
• A good vegetarian diet must have all the essential vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in appropriate ratio. Fiber and roughage also forms an important constituent of diet.
• The loss of protein zinc and iron should be made good by consumption of rich salads, legumes, tofu, soybean etc. fortified milk, juices, soymilk are considered rich sources of diary supplements.
• Finally the icing on the cake is that researches have shown in recent years that vegetarians are believed to live longer and healthier life then their non-vegetarian counterparts.

Thus a vegetarian diet has the potential to cut the chances and evade the occurrence of any chronic ailments or diseases.