Advices how to optimize a vegetarian diet to give you the most health benefits

Some people find that a vegetarian lifstyle helps to alleviate or cure special health problems or diseases they suffer from, or prefere a vegetarian diet of other reasons. It is however more difficult to get all necessary nutrients in the right amount for the daily life and bodily development by a vegetarian lifestyle, than by lifestyles that includes consume of animal food sources. Here are some advices about getting the right amount of the various nutrients from a vegetarian diet.

How to get enough protein with all necessary amino acids

Many vegetarian ingredients contain much protein, and these should be included in a vegetarian diet, for example ,soy, nuts, almonds and sunflower seeds. Other food souces contain less, but still significant protein amounts, for example beans, peas and cereal sorts.

However these sources tend to be deficient in some important amino acids, especially methionine.

Milk, cheese and most other diary products contain much protein of high value. If those are included in the diet in enough quantity, you will get enough protein. However, diary products still do not have exactly the amino acid content that perfectly matches the need of a human beeing.

However, milk and diary products have a surplus of amino acids of which corn products are in deficit. By combining diary products with whole corn products in the same meal, you get a combination with a very good amino acid content.

Moshrooms have a valuable content of proteins. However, mushrooms contain much water. To get enough proteins from mushrooms, you must either eat great volumes of it, or you must damp out most of the water to get a food source with a highe percentage of protein.

The typical protein source of many vegetarians are soy products. But soy beans do not have a very good amino acid composition. It is therefore not wise to relay only on soy products as a protein source.

Soy beens are also toxic, and must be cooked or fermented a long time before being eaten, but heavy cooking also degrades the nutritional content.

Also most soy products bought in stores, even those from health food stores, are heavily industrially processed, and based on soy beens grown by industrial agriculture. They cannot be recommended.

Soy products based on traditional Japonaise or Chinese fermenting processes are healthy.

How to get all neessary essential fatty acids.

The body needs fatty acids of the type mono-unsaturated, omega-3-poly-unsaturated, omega-6-polyunsaturated and omega-9-poly-unsatyrated.

The best sources of mono-unsaturated fatty acids are olive oil, rape oil or canola oil, and these should be included in the diet. Other good sources are the following seeds or fruits and oils maide from them: Almonds, peanuts, cashew, pecan, hickory nuts, hazel nuts, pistachio, macadamia, filbert, avocado.

Omega-6-fatty acids are very easy to obtain in an adequate amount through a vegetarian diet. Soy oil, corn oil and most other vegatable oils or vagetable sources of fat contain omega-6 in abundace.

Prefered sources of omega-6 should be: Sunflower, safflower, grape seed, cotton seed, soy, walnut, sesame, wheat germ and oils from these sources. If you consume much soy oil, corn oil or other omega-6-containing oils, you can eaily get too mush of omega-6 acids. You should therefore not use these oil sorts in great amounts.

The omega-3-poly-unsatyrated acids are the most difficult to obtain with a vegetarian diet. Flax seeds. flax oil, chia seeds and chia oil are good sources of the omega-3-acids alfa-lineoleic acid and the body can make the other omeg-3-fat types from this fatty acids. These kinds of seeds or oils must be included in a vegetarian diet on a daily basis in order to avoid diseases due to deficiency of omega-3 fat.

How to get the right amount of energy

It is not difficult to get enough energy in a vegetarian diet. Cereals, peas, beans and sweet fruit contain energy in the shape of carbahydrates. Vegetable oils, nuts, almonds and fat seeds like sunflower seeds and almonds contain fatty acids also providing energy.

The problem is in fact that you can get too much energy by a vegetarian diet, so that you get over-weighted from it. Therefore it is important to consume much of food sources with a high protein content, and less of those containing much fat and carbohydrates. This can be achieved by consuming lean soy products, mushrooms and lean diary products.

How to get enough vitamins and minerals

A varied vegetarian diet consisting of natural and undisturbed ingredients will giv you a good supply of most vitamins and minerals. However, it is easy to get too little of vitamin B-12 or cyan-cobalamine, a vitamine important for blood production.

This vitamin is made in the intestines by the natural bacterial flora, but this production will not allways be enough to meet the need.

Milk and diary products will however give you a good supply of this vitamine.

Some breeds of yeast produce vitamine B 12. Those are however not found in ordinary brewery or baking yeast, and must therefore be bought as separate products. One of these is the yeast brand called T-6635+ or "vegetarian support formula". Another is Saccaromyces Cervisiae.

If you live on a vegetarian diet without diary products, you have to consume products with some of these yeast sorts or B 12 fortified food products to be sure of getting enough B 12.

Disclaimer: The health information contained herein is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace discussions with a healthcare provider. All decisions regarding patient care must be made with a healthcare provider, considering the unique characteristics of the patient.