Healthy Food: The Impacts of The Vegetarian Diet

A healthy diet is essential for good health and nutrition. It helps to fight against chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and so on. A healthy diet is beneficial for any age group of people; it helps in the growth of children and reduces the risk of diseases. Adults who eat a healthy diet live longer and have a lower risk of chronic disease. There are several types of diets. In recent years the vegetarian diet has gained popularity. The vegetarian diet is free from meat and seafood but it contains eggs and dairy products. A well-planned vegetarian diet improves the quality of lifestyle and reduces the risk of long-term diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and so on.

What is a Vegetarian Diet?

A vegetarian diet does not include any non-vegetarian food. This diet is free from meat, poultry, or seafood. This meal is made up of mostly plants that are healthy for people. It also includes; vegetables, fruits, cereal, grains, nuts, and so on. Why are people choosing a vegetarian diet? 

There are many reasons for choosing a vegetarian diet. Some people think this diet is a way to live long and free from disease and other people are vegetarian for that reason they choose the vegetarian diet. The vegetarian diet contains mostly all kinds of nutrients. Many studies show the vegetarian diet is healthier than other diets.

What are the Types of Vegetarian Diet? 

There are a variety of diets that come under the vegetarian diet:

• Lacto-Ovo vegetarian diet: This diet is known as a traditional vegetarian diet. This diet wouldn’t contain meat, fish, and seafood but it includes eggs and dairy products.

” Lacto” refers to milk and dairy products. “Ovo” refers to eggs.

It means this diet includes egg, milk, cheese, butter, curd, ice cream, and other dairy products. This variation is followed by those people who follow Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.

• Lacto-vegetarian diet: This diet is based on plants. A lactose vegetarian diet includes dairy products such as milk, butter, curd, cheese, and so on.

This Variation is free from meat, seafood, chicken, etc. It also excused eggs. This Variation is followed by people who follow Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.

• Ovo-vegetarian diet: This diet is excluded from dairy products but it contains eggs. It excluded meat, fish, and dairy products such as milk, cheese, butter, curd, and so on. This variation includes only eggs and egg dishes like omelets, boiled eggs, cakes, bread Etc.

• Flexitarian diet: This diet is a combination of the words flexible and vegetarian. It focuses on the benefits of plant-based food with small amounts of animal products including fish, meat, egg, and other dairy products. This variation includes mostly plant food so technically we can say that this variation is vegetarian Because it contains less amount of meat.

• Pescatarian diet: Pescatarian diet is based on plants but it involves fish. In this diet dairy products also include milk, curd, butter, and cheese; they contain almost all essential nutrients. This variation of a vegetarian diet is followed by most people.

• Vegan diet: Vegan diet excludes all kinds of animal products including dairy products. Some people exclude honey also because honey is produced by bees. This diet is only based on plant food like fruit, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, beans peas, etc.

Impacts of a Vegetarian Diet’s

There are many pros and cons to almost any diet. In this article, we share both the positive impact and negative impacts of a vegetarian diet.

The Positive Impact of a Vegetarian Diet

• Health benefits: The vegetarian diet is good for health. It reduces the risk of chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and so on and it also improves the lifestyle of people.
• Reduce weight: Vegetarian diet may help a person lose weight in less time. Many studies show that a vegetarian diet helps to reduce weight.
•  Cholesterol: Vegetarian diet controls people’s cholesterol levels because in these diets plant foods are included and these are free from cholesterol. 
• Save the lives of animals: A meat-based diet needs to take a million animals’ lives. Nowadays some people feel responsible. They start avoiding meat and follow a vegetarian diet.
• Environment issues: This vegetarian diet is beneficial for the environment. Also, much evidence shows that. Consumption of red meat causes deforestation in many parts of the world and it can also contribute to the emission of CO2 in huge amounts.
• Healthy for bones: The vegetarian diet includes dairy products like milk, curd, butter, cheese, ice cream and so on which are healthy for bones. It reduces the deficiency of calcium.
• Low cost: There are financial advantages also to following a vegetarian diet. The vegetarian diet is cheaper than other diets. People spent a large amount on non-vegetarian food items. By spending a low amount we can buy many nutrients.

Negative Impact of Vegetarian Diet’s

• Incomplete protein: This vegetarian diet mostly included plant food which is less cholesterol. This food didn’t contain all kinds of protein because it doesn’t contain every kind of food item. As we know, one food item does not contain every kind of food.
• Deficiency of nutrients: When you restrict any of the main food groups increases the risk of nutrient deficiency one food item doesn’t contain all kinds of nutrients and it causes a deficiency of nutrients.

• High in cholesterol, Some variations of a vegetarian diet contain high cholesterol levels, for example, some variations of a vegetarian diet include animal products, meat, fish, and dairy products these contain high cholesterol levels which is dangerous for health.
• Processed vegetarian food: vegetarian diet reduces the risk of chronic disease but too much vegetarian diet is unhealthy for people. It also gains unnecessary weight.
• Less choice of fitness: is the major disadvantage of a vegetarian diet. There are limited choices of food items we noticed when we designed a vegetarian diet chart. In this diet, we have fewer choices compared to other diets.

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed vegetarian diets, their types, and the impacts of a vegetarian diet. Whichever diet we choose for ourselves should be healthy and contain all essential nutrients. As we discussed the types of vegetarian diets, the vegan diet can be healthy for all at all stages of life. Eating a balanced diet is important for our good health.