How vegetarians can get the nutrition they need
I've focused on the myths and facts about vegetarian nutrition. What issues should you watch out for, and risks need you not be afraid of?
Linda Mccartney's (Vegetarian) Home Cooking
Linda Mccartney's Home Cooking
Amazon Price: $17.95 (as of 07/06/2009)
A great introduction to vegetarian cooking.
Simple doable recipes that taste great.
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Types of vegetarians
Vegan: people who don't eat meat, or consume animal products (like milk, cheese, eggs). Vegans will often try to avoid using animal products like leather as well.
Indian vegetarian: vegetarian but avoiding eggs as well as meat and fish products. The idea is that eggs might be fertilized and that means they might be alive.
Change takes time
I always feel changes like this should be done slowly.
Don't quit eating meat cold turkey one day. Instead experiment with eating meet only half the days first (or just one day a week). That gives you time to get used to vegetarian cooking and learn about alternatives, great recipes etc.
If you've done that for a month or so, THEN you can go totally vegetarian. Your body will have gotten used to things like beans in the meantime. It will know how to respond to not getting meat daily.
Becoming Vegetarian: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Vegetarian Diet
by Versanto Melina (Author), Brenda Davis (Author), Victoria Harrison (Author), Suzanne Havala (Foreword)
The New Becoming Vegetarian: The Essential Guide To A Healthy Vegetarian Diet
Amazon Price: $14.93 (as of 07/06/2009)
A complete guide to the pitfalls of a vegetarian diet. Lists of foods and things to look out for. A book I really, really want to have...
The customer reviews of this book are excellent: people say that all their questions have been answered. All the topics discussed in this lens are covered, and a whole lot more.
Avg. Customer Rating:
Omega 3 and 6 - healthy oils
This has obvious environmental disadvantages: most edible fish species are at risk of extinction if things go on the way they are going.
Taking pills isn't going to help: they still contain Fish-oil.
So, my question was: where do we vegetarians get our omega-3 and omega-6 oils? It turns out most vegetarians aren't at risk of getting too little omega-6 oils. Those are present in salad dressing, peanut butter etc.
The issue is the omega-3 oils. So here are some sources:
- flax oil (or ground flax seeds)
- olive oil (contains a good ratio of omega-3 and omega-6)
- rape seed oil (contains a good ratio of omega-3 and omega-6)
- broccoli (a little bit)
- cabbage (a little bit)
- walnuts (a bit high on the Omega 6)
- tofu (a bit high on Omega 6)
Pregnant mothers should probably take direct sources of omega-3 oils because they are very important in brain development for the unborn child.
My source
Flax seed oil supplements
Nature's Way Flax Seed Oil, 16-Ounce Bottle (Pack of 2)
Amazon Price: $19.14 (as of 07/06/2009)
Nature's Bounty Organic Flax Seed Oil, Cold Pressed , 8-Ounce Bottles (Pack of 2)
Amazon Price: $16.24 (as of 07/06/2009)
Now Foods Flax Seed Oil, 24-Ounces
Amazon Price: $17.99 (as of 07/06/2009)
Vegetarian diet blog posts
- WRONG: Vegetarian diet 'weakens bones' | Mother Jones
- Why can't the media report science correctly? According to this AFP story: "People who live on vegetarian diets have slightly weaker bones than their meat-eating counterparts." They could hardly misreport a scientific study more.
- Vegetarian diets can keep heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes ...
- Washington, July 5 (ANI): Vegetarian can help prevent and treat chronic diseases including heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes, according to a.
- Vegetarian diet weakens bones : Ghana Business News
- ?The results suggest that vegetarian diets, particularly vegan diets, are associated with lower bone mineral density,? Nguyen wrote in the study, which was published Thursday in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. ...
- Vegetarian Diet Muscle Building Workout | Turbulence Training Fat Loss
- New vegetarian diet for muscle building workout program...let's see how this goes!
Tips from readers
- Juicing
- Ground Flaxseed will add omega 3 oils to the diet - it can be added to grains.
Vegetarian Cooking for Dummies
by Suzanne Havala
Vegetarian Cooking for Dummies
Amazon Price: $13.59 (as of 07/06/2009)
The for dummies series is always good. This one contains great recipes and covers all the bases.
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Vegetarian food is not automatically healthier, or unhealthy
Vegetarians need to watch what they eat just as much as ordinary folks do.
Some things we are less prone to (too much animal fat).
Other things we are more prone to (not getting enough vitamin B).
Nutritional Yeast - a tasty way to get vitamin B12, while avoiding animal foods
Staying vegetarian, yet getting that vitamin B12
You can avoid those pesky pills (and who likes pills?) - and yet get your vitamin B12 on a vegetarian diet with Nutritional Yeast. No longer active (or alive as it is when you want to make dough rise from yeast), it still has a great taste and provides those vitamins we all need.
Bob's Red Mill T6635 Large Flake Yeast, 8-Ounce Packages (Pack of 4)
Avg. Customer Rating:
Amazon Price: $30.52 (as of 07/06/2009)
The Nutritional Yeast Cookbook: Recipes Using Red Star Vegetarian Support Formula
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Amazon Price: $11.01 (as of 07/06/2009)
Vitamin B supplements
Sublingual Vitamin B12 (1000 mcg), B6 (5mg), Folic Acid(400 mcg) & Biotin (25mcg) - 250 Sublingual Tablets - Formulated with methylcobalamin Vitamin B-12.
You may have heard it over your years, Doctors giv more...0 points
B-12 Vitamin (Energy Plus Sublingual) (250 small sublingual lozenges)
B-12 functions in many key processes. Its main rol more...0 points
The risks of a vegetarian diet
Protein
Protein deficiency is just hard to come by in this part of the world. Since vegetarians can consume milk, cheese, yogurt etc. we can easily get our protein from animal products. For those with more principles the protein in legumes and especially soy is a decent replacement.
B Vitamins
We don't need a lot of vitamin B, and the body stores it. I think I did 12 years on the vitamin B I had stored in the first 20 odd years of my life. But now, finally, my vegetarian lifestyle has caught up with me and I'm on vitamin B supplement pills.
The B vitamins (there are several) are formed from either bacteria, yeast's, fungi, or molds. This means that the vitamin B supplement pills are usually vegetarian. After all it's much cheaper to just grow bacteria than it is to extract the vitamin from meat.
The specific vitamins vegetarians will have trouble with are Vitamin B12 (not found in any vegetable source) and B3 (mostly found in Fish and chicken but also in nuts).
Vitamin B is contained in a number of vegetarian foods like (again) milk, eggs, yogurt, cheese etc.
Tell tale signs: having trouble keeping your hands steady? Go to the doctor or just buy the pills.
Generally speaking the B vitamins are often found in wholegrain products and nuts. Nowadays there are many products for sale that have been fortified with these vitamins.
Iron
This is one I worry about sometimes. Yet research shows that vegetarians are just as likely (or unlikely) to get enough iron in their diet.
The reason that it isn't a problem is that iron gets absorbed in the body best when it's combined with vitamin C. Eating spinach would work for that.
Iron is contained in the following vegetable sources:
- spinach
- (Dried) beans
- Chick peas (one of my favorites)
- Leafy vegetables
- Lentils
- Broccoli
Personally I eat spinach a lot, but also put apple spread on my wholewheat bread. The Dutch recipe for apple spread contains iron in large quantities (not from the apples obviously).
Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet
by Brenda Davis, Vesanto Melina
Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet
Amazon Price: $13.57 (as of 07/06/2009)
Answers all questions you might have about becoming a vegan and staying healthy. Exactly what you would want to know.
Avg. Customer Rating:
More vegetarian diet tips?
monarch13 wrote...
Congratulations, you were nominated for The Healthy, Wealthy and Wise Group Excellence Award!
Good Luck and Good Health!
Monarch 13 (Michelle)
Posted April 30, 2009
StephMJohnson wrote...
Been a veggie for 5 years & love it :) Thank you for sharing your insight and knowledge!
Posted April 22, 2009
chicandsavvy wrote...
I'll go back to this for nutrional reference. Informative.
Posted April 22, 2009
EverythingMouse wrote...
Blessings to you Katinka. I have been a vegetarian for over30 years and cannot imagine any other lifestyle.
Posted April 06, 2009
Swisstoons wrote...
Hello, Katinka! I enjoyed this lens. I only experimented with a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet for about a year in my youth...but to this day, I eat red meat only rarely and chicken not very often either. And I find vegetarian fare very satisfying...especially aromatic Indian dishes. Red lentils with cumin....Potatoes with cauliflower...rice with peas. Mmm. They all make my mouth water. Favoriting this lens, 5-starring it and rolling it to my Laftovers lens. Hope you'll stop by for a visit.
Posted March 27, 2009
More by Katinka Hesselink
-
Yoga - history and tradition from India
-
Information on hatha yoga and the other classic types of yoga. In Hinduism there are various types of yoga, but in the West Hatha Yoga has become most popular and well known. When we say 'yoga' we usually mean 'Hatha Yoga'. Don't forget to vote for...
-
Vegan and Vegetarian quotes
-
I collected quotes about eating meat - or avoiding it, about eating animal products like cheese, and avoiding it. About health, environment, spiritual and personal reasons for being vegetarian or vegan. One sentiment that I really liked was: Why do...
-
Health and Beauty Lensography
-
Health and beauty go together - at least: health contributes to beauty. Ultimately, for most of us, health is more important. What follows are my lenses about both topics.
-
What a vegetarian single girl eats
-
I'm in the Giant Squid summer school - this week we are challenged to write about our favorite restaurant. We were told we could take that liberally - so I'm writing about the restaurant I eat at most nights: my place. And since I'm single and vegeta...
-
Why Vegetarian? The Environment & cruelty to animals
-
There are several reasons for people to become vegetarians. For me it has to do with the spiritual effects of eating meat as well as the impact of eating animals on animals and the environment in general.
Thanks for all your support!
A big thank you to all of you who've supported my online work by:
- linking to any of my web projects
- voting on my lenses
- buying stuff from my lenses
- asking questions
- giving constructive feedback
- ... donating money :)
- and being generally supportive :) ;)
This lens reviewed :)
Thank you mimi at growear.com.
by spirituality
Related Topics
spirituality Recommends...
Favorited By
- Spa1
- TheWhistler
- karmasherbs
- The_Homeopath
- Swisstoons
- MusicMadness
- ebay-grandma
- monarch13
- andreaberrios
- prems
- Stazjia
- moneygames
- chefkeem
- enslavedbyfaeries
- CherylK
- Music-Resource
- PW35
- LindaJM
- ChristiannaGarrett-Martin
- ggw_bach
- nightwriter46
- aj2008
- Rajays
- Pantherart
- Frankster
- Lamarena
- Kanga
- jasmineann
