Know the Facts About Vegetarianism

In my opinion, eating healthy is probably the most important thing you can do in controlling your health.  And the first step to eating better is going from a meat-based diet to a vegetarian diet.  In fact, the more that you learn about vegetarianism, the more and more it seems like a good idea.  Being a vegetarian can be great for your health and the environment.  Learning some facts about this eating style can help you to make the decision to move in this direction.

A unique study performed by British Medical Journal showed that children who had high IQs at age ten were more likely than those with average IQs to become a vegetarian by age thirty. Other studies have shown that vegetarian women are much more likely to have female babies. Where non-vegetarian women have 106 boys per 100 girls, vegetarian women have 85 boys per one hundred girls, making the statistic a significant one to consider.

When beginning a vegetarian diet, it is very important to ensure that your body is getting the types of nutrients it needs that normally come from meat.  While you can substitute many different types of foods to accommodate for your nutritional needs, sometimes supplementation is necessary. You need to make sure that you are getting a good amount of protein as well as essential amino acids. Many vegetarians take omega-3 fatty acid supplements as well as iron and vitamin B12 in order to give their bodies the nutrition that it needs.

Several studies have been conducted to determine the longevity of individuals with various diets. The results showed that the group of people with the lowest mortality rates were those who ate only fish when it came to meat products. Vegetarians had the next-lowest mortality rate, followed by those who occasionally eat meat. Avid meat eaters had the highest mortality in the study, clearly showing that meat-eating was the most unhealthy practice.

When it comes to raising cattle to be used for their meat, many resources are used. Almost half of the United State’s water supply is used in order to raise livestock, along with using a full eighty percent of the agricultural land in order to grow grain for the cattle and to allow them to graze. Clearly, the most environmentally-friendly diet one can indulge in is the vegetarian one. With all of the current news attention being paid to global warming, you may want to consider the carbon dioxide output that is caused by raising livestock. Raising livestock is responsible for a full eighteen percent of the global warming effect, which is even greater than the contribution of automobiles, which only contribute fifteen percent.

Hopefully, this information will help you to decide on adapting a vegetarian lifestyle. You can see how beneficial it is to your health and the health of the world that you live on. Learn all that you can about the lifestyle and you may find that it is something that you can successfully participate in with great joy.