Vegan Diets - Are They Healthy?
Yes. As the American Dietetic Association and Dieticians of Canada said: 'Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence.'
Well planned, that's the important bit. Any diet has to be well planned to enhance and maintain good health. A diet consisting entirely of whiskey and chocolate could be considered vegan but it wouldn't be well planned and certainly wouldn't be healthy.
To be healthy, a diet must include a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and pulses. To this can be added grains although a few people have an intolerance to the gluten contained in many grains. For the majority who don't have an intolerance, grains are a valuable source of protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre.
A vegan diet can supply every essential nutrient. There are no problems with lack of iron or calcium from a vegan diet as it contains all you need. Protein is found in abundance in plant-based diets
It is true that plants don't supply us with vitamin B12 but that can be found in many fortified vegan foods. We need such a minuscule amount of B12 that no vegan need go without. Many or most meat eaters have to rely on supplementation to get their B12 because the animals they eat must be given cobalt supplements to ensure the bacteria in their guts can manufacture the vitamin. This is because many soils are deficient in cobalt.
Vegan diets confer many health benefits: vegans are less likely than meat eaters to suffer from heart disease and many forms of cancer. If you are worried about your cholesterol levels you could take medication to control it, with all the risks involved in using pharmaceutical drugs, or you could adopt a vegan diet. There is no cholesterol in plant food. The only cholesterol in vegans' bodies is what they make for themselves in their livers.
The range of foods that make up the vegan diet is truly amazing. There are dishes that will delight the most jaded of palates. Dishes that will have you saying to yourself: 'Surely, this can't be vegan?' You will be astounded and you will be delighted. You will be convinced that the vegan diet can provide everything you need and everything you want. And it can.
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