Friday, January 30, 2009

Ordering Vegetarian at Restaurants

By Ros Harlot

Mentioning you are a vegetarian as part of a conversation on health issues is still guaranteed to bring about a silence, even in today's world. If you are thinking of following vegetarian diet for certain causes - religious belief, health reason, economic reason, animal rights - you will often face a barrage of uninformed arguments from skeptical relatives and friends. You may want to consider a vegetarian diet for improving and maintaining your physical, mental and spiritual health. Unfortunately, there are some nutrients that can only be obtained from animals despite a vegetarian diet being a healthy one.

You will probably be aware that putting your child on a vegetarian diet can greatly improve his or her health and limit the exposure to animal products that are often linked to hormones and preservatives. While a vegetarian diet is a healthy one, there are other issues to consider when placing a child on a vegetarian diet so some research is necessary.

A vegetarians diet with involves regular servings of fruit, vegetables and whole grains is known to be healthy. It's this healthy consumption of fruit and vegetables etc. Another of the advantages to the vegetarian diet is that it tends to be low in fat and cholesterol.

The higher than usual amounts of fiber found in a vegetarian diet means that it doesn't stay in your system for as long nor does it take as long for the food to be produced initially. History and archaeology has shown us that our ancestors hardly ever ate meat so being a vegetarian would be normal for us. Although a vegetarian option is usually on the menu in almost any Italian restaurant nowadays, it's always a good idea to remind the server that you require a vegetarian option and whether or not you eat dairy products and eggs.

We now have some interesting facts about the vegetarian diet, brought about by medical research. Increasing numbers of the population are deciding to become vegetarians owing to the scientific research highlighting the detrimental effects meat has on us. There is also the fact that you are twice as likely to develop heart disease if you are not a vegetarian. Although exact figures are difficult to produce, a large proportion of the population decide at some point in their life to become vegetarian if only temporarily.

But more and more people these days are discovering the many health benefits of a vegetarian diet as would seem to solve many health problems in the United States today. Eating meat is quite normal and enjoyable to many people so you can understand the difficulty there is in converting people to a vegetarian diet. For a successful change to occur though, you must not consider a vegetarian diet as just a replacement for a meat based diet. - 15634

About the Author: