Everything You Need to Know About Vegetarian Lifestyle

Vegetarian diet is where people choose to avoid meat or seafood in their diet. Some people find it comfortable to add eggs and dairy products to their diet while others may not include either or both of these. While there are different variations of vegetarian diet, the health benefits are plenty.

The different type of vegetarians are:

Vegan: People who only eat plant-based foods and avoid all animal foods including dairy products, eggs and even items such as leather products.

Lacto Vegetarian: People who avoid eggs, meat and seafood but eat dairy products and plant-based foods.

Ovo Vegetarian: People who eat only eggs in addition to plant-based foods and avoid meat, seafood, and dairy products.

Lacto-ovo-vegetarian: People who eat both eggs and dairy products in addition to plant-based foods but avoid meat and seafood.

Two other forms of diet that aren’t properly vegetarian but are different from non-vegetarian diets are pescatarian – people who eat seafood, dairy products, eggs and plant-based foods but no meat, and flexitarian – people who include small portions of meat and seafood in their diet. People who eat these two kinds of diets do so to reap the benefits of the other foods they include in their diet while remaining mostly vegetarian.

While these are the kinds of vegetarians we can find, the health benefits related to being a vegetarian are:

• Reduced risk of cancer
• Good for your heart
• Regulates blood pressure and heart rate
• Improves bone health
• Decreases asthma symptoms
• Prevents Diabetes (type 2)

The innumerable benefits of vegetarianism make it a suitable lifestyle choice for people. But this diet may come with some nutrient intake problems. It is essential for people to know how to reach their nutrient intake limit every day. Some nutrients such as Protein, Iron, Vitamin B12, Omega-3 fatty acids, etc. might not be easily available to people in a vegetarian diet. Hence, it becomes important for one to research about the vegetarian alternatives to the animal foods that provide these nutrients and minerals.

The quantities of such foods should also be higher as compared to the meat eating counterparts as the amount of these nutrients and minerals in the same quantity of vegetarian food is relatively less than meats and other animal products containing the same nutrients and minerals.