Vegetarianism

By AVINASH KAUR, Health Zone Tips

What's a Vegetarian?

“Vegetarian” is a blanket term for a variety of diets that exclude meat, poultry, and fish. The most healthful, the pure vegetarian (or "vegan") diet, only includes foods of plant origin, such as nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes. A "lacto-vegetarian" includes these plant foods and also dairy products. A "lacto-ova-vegetarian" consumes both dairy and eggs.

Is Veg Healthier?

There is abundant evidence that vegetarian diets are more healthful than the average American diet, especially for preventing, treating or reversing heart disease and reducing the risk of cancer. Research has shown a low-fat vegetarian diet is the single most effective way to stop progression of coronary artery disease or prevent it altogether. Several other health conditions, such as diabetes, obesity, gallstones, and kidney stones, are much less common in vegetarians. The health benefits of a vegetarian diet may be linked to the fact that vegetarians tend to eat less animal fat, protein and cholesterol and more fiber and antioxidants. Simply put, the fewer animal foods and the more varied, whole plant foods consumed, the healthier the individual will be compared to the general population.

Plant foods have been shown to have "chemo preventive" properties. Risk of lung cancer in heavy smokers has been shown to be reduced in populations eating generous amounts of plant foods, and risk of breast, prostate and other cancers is substantially lower in populations which consume vegetarian or largely vegetarian diets. Researchers have identified eight food groups, each of which has unique cancer-preventing qualities. All eight of the food groups come from the plant kingdom. Conversely, animal product consumption is implicated in a host of degenerative diseases including cancer and heart disease, and animal-source foods in general provide little or no protection against most health conditions other than starvation.