Vegetarian Diet Plan: What You Need To Know
People start a vegetarian diet plan for many different reasons: ethical concern over the welfare of animals, health reasons, cultural or religious reasons, and countless others. Some vegetarians opt to continue eating specific animal products such as eggs, dairy, and honey, which do not result in the death of the animal, while others follow a strict vegan diet.
An ovo-lacto (egg and dairy-containing) vegetarian diet plan can easily be well-balanced, nutritionally speaking, while a vegan diet must be supplemented to some degree in order to maintain full health. In particular, vegan diets are deficient in B12 and the fatty acids EPA and DHA, and must be carefully planned in order to provide all of the necessary amino acids.
So, how do you go about putting together a healthy vegetarian diet plan? If you’re serious about going vegan, it’s best to consult a qualified professional such as a dietitian to make sure that your diet is providing for all of your body’s needs. Ovo-lacto vegetarian diet plans, on the other hand, are a bit simpler. First, it makes sense to sit down and write out exactly what your goals and reasons are for going vegetarian. If those reasons have anything to do with health or animal welfare concerns, consider going that extra mile and dissociating yourself from the cruel and unhealthy practices of the mainstream egg and dairy industries, where animals are housed in cramped, substandard conditions and then given antibiotics and synthetic hormones to maintain their fragile health and unnaturally high productivity.
Almost every large and mid-sized city these days has at least one farmers’ market. Go there. Not only will you find local, seasonal vegetable produce bursting with color and flavor that puts its drab, shipped-in supermarket competition to shame; you will also find farmers offering eggs laid by happy hens that run around all day scratching up grain and catching bugs and worms, and milk from cows that actually spend their lives eating grass in a sunny pasture, and have never been injected with hormones. Once you try these products, you will realize that they bear almost no resemblance to the eggs and milk you’ve been buying at the local Metro Mart, your body will thank you, and you will never, ever go back. (Here’s a hint. Egg yolks are not supposed to be yellow. Egg yolks are supposed to be bright orange. Go figure.)
Now that you have access to fresh, healthy foods that enrich the lives of both the farmers who grow them and the customers who eat them, it’s time to sit at the kitchen table with a pad of paper and plan out a week’s worth of meals for your vegetarian diet plan. Not sure how to get started? Check out Easy Veggie Meal Plans that can be downloaded instantly, and take the hassle out of planning your week.
You’ll start to see how good you can feel after a week or two of eating meals based on whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and sustainably produced eggs, milk, and cheese. Weight loss becomes effortless when you remove all of the processed, unhealthy ‘convenience’ foods (convenient up until that fateful day when you have your first heart attack, right?) from your diet, and replace them with colorful, vibrant, fresh foods. Bloating and sluggishness become a thing of the past when your body isn’t weighed down by animal fat and refined sugar.
You can take the first step today. Why wait? Go for it!
