素食英文介绍

Being a vegetarian is not necessarily healthy.

First of all, what exactly constitutes “vegetarian”? There are two basic kinds of vegetarian diet: lacto-ovo and strict (vegan). Most vegetarians fall into the lacto-ovo category: They eat only non-animal products (fruits, veggies, grains, nuts, soy, etc.), but do eat animal byproducts, such as yogurt and eggs. In terms of nutritional requirements, being a lacto-ovo vegetarian isn‟t all that different from being a meat-eater, according to Katherine T allmadge, RD, LD, past media spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Vegans, however, don‟t eat any animal products whatsoever -- and as a result, “they must be very careful in their selection of foods so that they get all the nutrients they need,” says T allmadge

1.Austrian researchers examined the eating habits and health of 1,320 people, ranging from vegetarians to straight-up meat eaters. They found that vegetarians had higher incidences of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders than their carnivorous counterparts.

2 Previous studies have found that people who adhere to vegetarian or vegan dietshave better cardiovascular health. President Bill Clinton, who was once famous for jogs that detoured through McDonalds, went vegan to cope with heart disease. But those studies tend to lump all plant-based diets together into one group. The real world is a little more complicated.

“These studies of vegetarian and vegan diets haven't distinguished between different qualities of p lant food,” says lead author Ambika Satija, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. “Certain plant foods, like whole grains and fruits and vegetables, are associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But other plant foods, such as sugar sweetened beverages, are actually associated with increased risk.”

Satija and her fellow researchers came to this conclusion using longitudinal data from the Nurses Health Study, which included 73,000 women, the Nurses Health Study 2, which included 92,329 women, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, which included 43,259 men. These studies work, in part, by asking participants every two to four years what they eat and how much. Subjects whose caloric intake was judged implausible (either way too low or way too high) were left out of the analysis, as were participants who already had diabetes or cardiovascular disease when they started the study.

3Plant-based diets emphasize vegetables, which are quite nutrient dense, and fruits, which are somewhat nutrient dense. However, they also typically include large amounts of cereal grains (refined and unrefined) and legumes, both of which are low in bioavailable nutrients and high in anti-nutrients such as phytate, and they eschew organ meats, meats, fish and shellfish, which are among the most nutrient-dense foods you can eat. (1)

Vegan diets, in particular, are almost completely devoid of certain nutrients that are crucial for physiological function. Several studies have shown that both vegetarians and vegans are prone to deficiencies in B12, calcium, iron, zinc, the long-chain fatty acids EPA & DHA, and fat-soluble vitamins like A & D.