I'm sure that there are already blogs out there about the anti-meat
and how the animals are treated. Well this is not that type of blog. I
am going to talk about the health side of being a vegetarian and why it
could be better to switch for a short period of time.
The benefits can easily out weight the concerns for being a vegetarian and having a healthy life.
Benefits:
-A vegetarian is 50% less likely to develop heart disease
-You are at a lower risk for hypertension, diabetes and metabolic syndrome
- Lower risk for colorectal, ovarian, and breast cancer
-Stronger Immune system
-Lower BMI, cholesterol and blood glucose levels
Concerns:
-Vitamin B12 deficiency
-Increased risk of osteoporosis (if you are excluding dairy) and depression
-Iron and Calcium deficiency due to low iron absorption in the body
-Increased risk for bacterial contamination
-Eating disorder can be covered up by being a vegetarian
Beware of Dietary Dogma, I have seen many people end up with all sorts of issues from prolonged restricted diets: http://theskinnywhitebuddha.blogspot.com/2012/02/diet-recovery.html
ReplyDelete“…remember that prolonged dieting (this one [meaning the Atkins diet], low-fat, low-calorie, or a combination) tends to shut down thyroid function. This is usually not a problem with the thyroid gland (therefore blood tests are likely to be normal) but with the liver, which fails to convert T4 into the more active thyroid principle, T3. The diagnosis is made on clinical ground with the presence of fatigue, sluggishness, dry skin, coarse or falling hair, an elevation in cholesterol, or a low body temperature. I ask my patients to take four temperature readings daily before the three meals and near bedtime. If the average of all these temperatures, taken for at least three days, is below 97.8 degrees F (36.5 C), that is usually low enough to point to this form of thyroid problem; lower readings than that are even more convincing.” - Dr. Atkins
-Good Luck