What Is A Vegan Diet
By Kim Leach
People that adhere to a vegan lifestyle and diet believe that it is
wrong to eat or use products that either from an animal or animal
byproducts. There are different reasoning for this. Some people believe
that it is cruel to sacrifice animals for humans to consume or wear.
Some people adapt the vegan diet due to its healthy properties. It has
even been reported that eating a strict vegan diet can improve or cure
certain health conditions.
Due to the fact that the vegan diet contains no animal proteins or by
products such as milk and cheese, it is very low in fat and cholesterol.
This type of diet is very good for people with conditions such as high
blood pressure or coronary artery disease. Studies have shown that this
type of diet helps to prevent colon cancer, prostate cancer, reduce high
blood pressure, and decreases the chances of being prone to a heart
attack or stroke.
There is a lot of controversy as to the healthy qualities of the
standard type of American diet. Some scientists believe that a properly
planned vegan diet is a great improvement over the standard diet due to
the fact that it includes enough fruits and vegetables to either meet or
exceeded the intake that is required daily.
The American Dietetic Association has reported that if a vegan diet is
carefully planned out, it can have health benefits as well as be
nutritionally adequate for those who are eating it. However if careful
planning is not done, there can be nutritional deficits of the following
nutritional ingredients in the vegan diet. These include Vitamin B12,
calcium, iron, Vitamin D, protein, and omega 3 fatty acids.
Deficiencies in the above nutrients can cause some devastating problems
health wise. Anemia as well as pernicious anemia, rickets, brittle or
soft bones, under active thyroid production which can cause cretinism in
children and hypothyroidism in adults. Deficiencies in protein can cause
atrophy of muscles and other health issues when the body starts to break
down its stores of proteins because the daily intake is not ingested.
Therefore it is very important to those who are on a vegan diet to take
the proper vitamins and minerals as supplements to their diets in order
to prevent these health problems from occurring. It is also very
important that adequate vegetable proteins are consumed in order to meet
those daily requirements as well. Several vegetable proteins can be
combined in order to form complete proteins and give a person on a vegan
diet the requirements that the body needs on a daily basis. |
