Please provide a detailed description of health implications

Please provide a detailed description of health implications associated with vegetarian diets. What are the benefits/risks?

Solution

Answer:

Health implications of vegetarian diet:

A vegetarian diet includes consumption of mostly plant based foods such as green leafy vegetables, legumes, fruits seeds and grains. Some vegetarians also take dairy products and eggs.

Vegetarian diets are important sources of vitamins (C and E), iron, magnesium, dietary fibers, phytochemicals and folic acid. They tend to be lower in calories, long chain fatty acids and cholesterol, vitamins (D and B12) and minerals such as calcium and zinc.

Benefits:

Eating vegetarian foods have several health benefits.

(1) Consumption of fruits and vegetables provides healthy components to the body such as fibers, vitamins and minerals. It thus bypasses the bad effects of meat consumption which contains saturated fatty acids and cholesterol.

(2) Consumtion of vegetarian diet leads to lowering the risks of diabetes, certain types of cancer and heart diseases.

(3) It results in a decreased cost of fooding compared to non vegetarian diets.

Risk factors:

(1) Long chain omega-3 fatty acids is required for healthy cardiovascular functions and can be obtained from meat and fish. So for vegetarians, consumption of flax seeds, canola oil and microalgae supplements become essential to obtain long chain omega-3 fatty acids in diet.

(2) Vitamin D is synthesized in very low amounts in the body during winter. Vitamin D is an important component in calcium metabolism, thus vegetarians need to take margarines and vitamin D fortified cereals to compensate for the needs.

(3) Milk, meat and dairy products have ample amounts of vitamin B12 which are not present in plants. So vegetarians thriving solely on plants suffer from vitamin B12 deficiency diseases such as nervous dysfunction, memory loss, etc. Thus, it becomes a necessity to consume vitamin B12 supplements in the diet.