What You Should Know About a Vegetarian Diet

By Brian Paul in Nutrition on May 16th, 2008

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by Brian Paul

You may be wondering if your decision to give up meat is the right one. So how will it change things in your life and for the planet? It might be true that one extra person won’t make a huge statistical difference in a world of meat-eaters.

But you can do a lot as an individual that will be good for you and good for hundreds of animals. A diet made up largely of meat causes heart problems which are the most common causes of death in the United States and other meat consuming countries.

Heart disease and circulation problems generally are mainly the result of cholesterol which is found in eggs, dairy foods and of course, meat. According to Earth Save, the average vegetarian has about a quarter of a chance of having a heart attack as the average person.

On the other hand the numbers of heart attacks in vegans are an astonishing 10 times less than those of people that eat meat. The health of a persons heart is only one of many areas where being a vegetarian will benefit their overall health.

For instance, you won’t be exposed to nearly as many preservatives, which are common in meat and are linked to cancer. Of course vegetarians will not be exposed to the number of additional hormones that are fed to cattle as part of their feed and will not experience some of the hormone problems people have because of this.

A digestive problem, which many nutritional experts believe to be caused by intolerance to lactose, will also be avoided. The health advantages to becoming a vegetarian are unquestionable but there is also the fact that many animals will not lose their lives to feed you either.

In fact the death toll of animals may be far greater than expected with figures in the region of 2,700 eaten by an average American in their lifetime. Even a single person could, in the space of a few decades, save the lives of many hundreds of animals which would have been killed for food. To help even further and stop the number of battery hens and dairy cows from having to suffer degrading conditions you could stop drinking milk and eating eggs.

So if you haven’t worked it out by now, yes we can all make a difference both individually and collectively which should show why becoming a vegetarian is so important. An improvement in your overall health with less chance of cancer or a heart condition and the reduction of animal deaths provide a compelling argument.

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