It is already obvious that the world becomes aware of the hazards and problems connected with deplorable nutrition habitudes. Therefore, alternative diets are becoming very popular among people from all lifestyles on a worldwide scale. Vegetarian diet (vegetarians prefer to call it a lifestyle, not a diet) is the best option for those who are not only concerned about their own health and healthy lifestyle but also take into account other crucial issues, including animal welfare and environment protection. The current paper will demonstrate the benefits of vegetarian diet.

Background

In a broad sense, a vegetarian is an individual who does not consume meat, fish, poultry, and seafood. Vegetarians eat mainly fruits, vegetables, grains, various types of beans, nuts, and seeds. There are kinds of vegetarian diets, which allow eating eggs and dairy products. Nevertheless, vegetarians try to obviate furtive animal products, including chicken and beef broths, fleck, and gelatin. People become vegetarians for numerous causes, incorporating worriment for individual health and the environment, the waste of environmental resources to prepare meat products, animal compassion, nonviolence beliefs, specific food preferences, economic reasons, world hunger concern, or spiritual causes. A lot of people feel suppressed regarding the fact of eating a dead animal and concerning the genuine farm practices associated with the process of nurturing and killing an animal. The facts and statistics demonstrated that people become vegetarians for one cause, and adopt other causes in a process as well. Thus, in reality, vegetarians have a whole mixture of reasons for refusing to eat meat. Vegetarian diets are more popular among adolescents, who have specific eating disorders than in the general populace. Nevertheless, the recent data demonstrate that the adoption of a vegetarian can have numerous benefits and it is frequently selected in order to camouflage the existent eating disorder.

General Review of Health Benefits of a Vegetarian Diet

Due to the fact that there is a huge debate concerning the fact to be vegetarian or not to be, a lot of scientific trials and analyses have been conducted. An increasing body of scientific convictions demonstrates that healthy, reasonable, and balanced vegetarian diets suggest well-defined benefits on a contrary to diets including meat and other animal origin foods. The advantages appear from decreased saturated fat intakes, lower level of cholesterol and animal protein combined with elevated consumption of “complex carbohydrates, folic acid, dietary fiber, carotenoids, magnesium, vitamins E and C, and other phytochemicals”. Nevertheless, due to the fact that vegetarians have extensively discrepant diets, it is necessary to provide a demarcation between different kinds of vegetarian dietary regimes. In fact, numerous antimonies and misconceptions regarding vegetarianism appear as a result of the fact that scientific data from studies is provided without this demarcation. In the past, scientists believed that vegetarian diets were indigent in a number of nourishes, incorporating vitamin B12, protein, calcium, n-3 fatty acids, etc. Various researches have depicted that the above-mentioned scarcities are typically caused by poor consumption planning. Well-adjusted vegetarian diets are pertinent for all stages of the life cycle, incorporating childhood, adolescence, pregnancy and lactation periods, the retirement. Well-balanced vegetarian diets are also appropriate for competitive athletes. In the majority of situations, vegetarian diets are advantageous in the averting and medication of particular diseases, including cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, various types of cancer, renal disease, osteoporosis, amentia, diverticulitis disease, etc. As the causes for selecting a vegetarian diet frequently surpass the health and robustness only, the impact of all causes of vegetarian diets are believed to be a subject of the new field of nutritive ecology. The last one related to rigid and persistent life styles and human evolvement. Nevertheless, enhanced state of health is one of the main reasons why people decide to adopt a vegetarian dietary regime, and different researches demonstrate a wealth of proofs to support the health advantages of a vegetarian lifestyle. The majority of researches have investigated that vegetarians have decreased rates of health issues, incorporating obesity and cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, etc. 

Despite the fact that vegetarians usually have a decreased body mass index, they demonstrate a tendency to be more health-conscious than non-vegetarians do. Therefore, generally speaking, the health outcomes of vegetarians sustain better even when the above-mentioned agents are taken into account. In addition, a lot of studies have demonstrated elevated length of life among vegetarians. It is apparent that these advantages appear from both a limited consumption of possibly hazardous dietary constituents, incorporating animal protein, red meat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, and an elevated consumption of advantageous dietary constituents, incorporating fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and different types of nuts and beans, which are abundant in antioxidants, dietary fiber, etc.

Obesity and Overweight

Researches continuously demonstrate that vegetarians, and especially vegans, are slimmer in comparison to their omnivorous colleagues. In fact, the study conducted by the European Prospective Investigation in Cancer and Nutrition (known as EPIC) contrasted and analyzed the weight attaining during 5 years in approximately 22 000 omnivorous, fish-eating, vegetarian, and vegan males and females. Their statistics demonstrated that weight attainment is the lowest in the vegetarian and vegan groups. This result can be explained in a number of ways, incorporating the decreased intake of fat, elevated dietary fiber intake, combined with decreased energy solidity, which is usual for a vegetarian diet. Vegetarians are known to more regularly and frequently consume such foods as whole grains or nuts. The above-mentioned food is independently connected with a lowered hazard of obesity and weight attaining. On the other hand, a greater intake of red meat, for example, has been connected with an elevated hazard of having weight gain.

Coronary Heart Disease

The most reliable proof of the health advantages of a vegetarian diet is connected to a lowered risk of having and developing coronary heart disease together with coronary disease death. Numerous researches have depicted a decreased incidence of coronary heart disease, and a complex analysis of five researches demonstrated that the hazard of death from ischemic heart disease  is 24 percent lower for vegetarians on a contrary to meat eaters. On the other hand, lacto-ovo (people who eat milk products and eggs) vegetarians demonstrated a 34 percent lowered hazard, while vegans have a 26 percent lowered risk. This advantage was obvious for those people who had adhered to their diet for at least five years and was higher in young age categories. Particular aspects of a vegetarian dietary regime, incorporating a decreased intake of saturated fat, elevated intake of dissoluble fiber, and higher consumption of whole grains, beans, and nuts, are possible in contribution to the cardiovascular precedence.

Hypertension

The arguments demonstrate that a vegetarian diet can assist in both the averting, managing and controlling of hypertension. The above-mentioned EPIC study depicted that vegetarians had a decreased occurrence of high blood pressure and lower systolic and diastolic blood pressures on a contrary to meat-eaters. A lot of randomized clinical tests have demonstrated that a vegetarian dietary regime can decrease the blood pressure for both, people with normal blood pressure and for those who suffer from hypertension. Nevertheless, despite the fact that it is well acknowledged that the combination a weight detriment and lowering a sodium intake is helpful in decreasing the blood pressure levels, the influences of a vegetarian diet on blood pressure emerges as independent of these. It practically demonstrates that only the constituents of the vegetarian diet are responsible for these results.

Cancer and Diabetes

Generally speaking, cancer ratios in the case of vegetarians occur to be fairly lower than for meat-eaters, who live in the analogous communities, at the same time, when lifespan is considered to be greater. The greater intake of fiber by vegetarians, performs a main function in lowering colon cancer hazard. The accumulative influence of fiber increases the transition ration of carcinogens via the intestine and lowers the surface contact subjection of carcinogenic constituents with the intestine walls. In fact, those people who adhere to vegetarian diets are known to have colonic settings, which are different from those who have meat-abundant diets. Vegetarians have a tendency to have decreased colonic cell dissemination, discrepant profiles of enteric bacteria, decreased fecal enzyme levels, and inferior levels of mutagens in excretes. Thus, all of the above-mentioned factors play a crucial role in lowering bowel cancer hazard. Vegetarian and vegan dietary regimen provide essential benefits for the averting and controlling of diabetes. Supervisory researches have depicted a solidly lower hazard of type 2 diabetes in people who follow a vegetarian diet on a contrary to non-vegetarians.

Animal Welfare and World Economy

In fact, vegetarianism brings benefits to the animal world, as no animals are harmed in order to provide food or clothes to a vegetarian. Due to the fact that the lower number of people consume meat, there is a decreased necessity for the livestock farming for meat. It practically means that the world faces less intensive requirement for saturated farming methods. As more individuals become vegetarian, there is a tendency concerning the fact that farming and the meat production industry will alter. Numerous regions of the world suffer from hunger and absence of water, vegetarianism can help to solve the problem. Huge amounts of water are wasted to grow the grains to feed the livestock, while large territories of land are dedicated to raise the cattle. These resources might be used to cultivate grains, the amounts of which will be much higher to feed people suffering from hunger, than the quantities of obtained meat. This will also help to lower the carbon dioxide emissions, which change our ecology and cause greenhouse effects. 

Budget

An individual adhering to a vegetarian lifestyle spends much less in comparison with their meat-eating colleagues. Vegetarian food is frequently less expensive, this tendency incorporates both the raw compounds purchased from supermarkets, and food taken is restaurants. The statistics demonstrates that meat stands for an essential segment of a usual household food bill. Nevertheless, it is obvious that replacement of meat with expensive vegetarian meat substitutes will not lead to analogous saving. On the other hand, the replacement of meat with lentils and other cost-friendly nutriment forms and natural foods allows realizing a process of economizing.

Conclusion

The current paper demonstrated that a vegetarian diet has numerous benefits, which are associated not only with individual health, but also animal welfare, ecology, economy and budget saving. Health benefits of vegetarianism are the most prominent, as they allow averting and managing obesity, hypertension, cancer, diabetes and coronary heart disease.

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