How to Eat Like an Animal Part 4

For vegetarians who consume dairy products and eggs, a healthy diet is the same as for anyone else, simply without meat or fish.

Healthy eating as a vegetarian

The Eatwell Guide shows the dissimilar types of food we should eat to accept a healthy, balanced diet, and in what proportions.

You don't need to accomplish this balance with every meal, but try to get the balance correct over a day, or even a week. Choose options low in fat, salt and sugar whenever you tin.

Equally outlined in the Eatwell Guide:

Eat a variety of fruit and vegetables every day

Try to eat at to the lowest degree 5 80g portions of fresh, frozen, canned, stale or juiced fruit and vegetables a day. Every bit well as vitamins and minerals, fruit and vegetables provide fibre, which can assist digestion and prevents constipation.

Find out more in 5 A Day: what counts?

Base meals on starchy carbohydrates

Starchy foods such as potatoes, bread, cereals, rice and pasta should make upward just over a 3rd of the food you eat. Where possible, choose wholegrain varieties.

You should consume some starchy foods every day as part of a good for you, counterbalanced diet.

Starchy foods are a good source of free energy and the primary source of a range of nutrients in our diet. Likewise every bit starch, they contain fibre, calcium, iron and B vitamins.

Dairy or dairy alternatives are needed for calcium

Milk and dairy products, such as cheese and yoghurt, are expert sources of protein, calcium and vitamins A and B12.

This food grouping includes milk and dairy alternatives, such as fortified unsweetened soya, rice and oat drinks, which likewise contain calcium.

To make healthier choices, go for lower fat milk and dairy foods. Also choose lower sugar options.

Eat beans, pulses, eggs and other sources of protein

Pulses include beans, peas and lentils. They're a low-fat source of protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals, and count every bit a portion of vegetables. Nuts and seeds are also a source of poly peptide and other nutrients.

Pulses are particularly of import for people who don't get poly peptide past eating meat, fish or dairy products.

Other non-dairy sources of poly peptide include eggs and meat alternatives, such equally tofu, mycoprotein (such equally Quorn), textured vegetable protein and tempeh.

Yous need to eat a variety of different sources of protein to become the right mixture of amino acids, which are used to build and repair the trunk'southward cells.

Cull unsaturated oils and spreads

Unsaturated fats, including vegetable, rapeseed, olive and sunflower oils, are healthier than saturated fats, such as butter, lard and ghee. Merely all types of fat are high in energy and should exist eaten sparingly.

Limit foods loftier in fat, table salt and sugar

Foods high in common salt, fat and sugar, such as foam, chocolate, crisps, biscuits, pastries, ice cream, cakes and puddings, should be eaten less ofttimes and in pocket-sized amounts.

Foods in this group mainly provide energy in the form of fats and sugars, but may only provide a very small amount of other nutrients.

Getting nutrients from a vegetarian diet

It'south important to vary what you lot eat. Some nutrients are institute in smaller amounts in vegetarian sources, or are less hands absorbed by the body than those in meat or fish.

Contrary to popular belief, nearly vegetarians commonly take plenty protein and calcium (institute in dairy products) in their diet.

But if you don't program your diet properly, you could miss out on essential nutrients. For example, vegetarians need to brand sure they go enough atomic number 26 and vitamin B12 in their diets.

A vegetarian diet during pregnancy

During pregnancy and when breastfeeding, vegetarians need to make certain they go enough vitamins and minerals for their child to develop healthily.

Read more than about being vegetarian or vegan and pregnant.

If you're bringing up your infant or kid on a vegetarian diet, you need to make sure they eat a wide diversity of foods to provide the free energy and vitamins they need for growth.

Vegetarian sources of iron

Vegetarians are more likely to have lower fe stores than meat eaters.

Expert sources of fe for vegetarians include:

eggs
pulses
dried fruit
dark greenish vegetables, such as watercress, broccoli and spring greens
wholemeal bread
fortified cereals (with added iron)

Vegetarian sources of vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is needed for growth, repair and general health. Information technology'southward just constitute naturally in brute products.

If yous regularly eat eggs or dairy products, you probably get plenty. But if you merely consume a minor amount or avoid all animate being products, it'southward important to have a reliable source of vitamin B12 in your diet.

Good sources of vitamin B12 include:

milk
cheese
eggs
fortified yeast extracts, such equally Marmite
fortified breakfast cereals
fortified soya products

Vegetarian sources of omega-3 fatty acids

Omega-3 fatty acids, primarily those found in oily fish, can help maintain a salubrious heart and reduce the take a chance of middle disease when eaten every bit part of a healthy diet.

Sources of omega-3 fatty acids suitable for vegetarians include:

flaxseed (linseed) oil
rapeseed oil
soya oil and soya-based foods, such as tofu
walnuts
egg enriched with omega-3

Evidence suggests that vegetarian sources of omega-3 fat acids may not have the same benefits for reducing the take chances of heart disease as those in oily fish.

But if you consume a vegetarian nutrition, y'all tin nevertheless look afterwards your heart past eating at to the lowest degree 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables each twenty-four hour period, cutting downward on food high in saturated fat, and watching how much common salt you eat.