Vegetarian diet properly to protect health

If you follow a vegetarian diet properly, it will improve your health but increase the risk of nutrient deficiencies when eating unhealthy. How do you go vegan the right way?

When you follow a vegetarian diet properly, your body will increase the amount of plant-based foods and reduce the amount of animal-based foods. A healthy vegetarian diet typically includes a variety of legumes, nuts, and whole grains.

A vegetarian diet in the right way will help you reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, obesity, high blood pressure and some cancers. You can refer to 13 more benefits of vegetarianism that will surprise you.

Here are the most popular vegan diets, menu planning, and vegetarian tips to help you reap the health benefits.

Popular vegetarian diet

A healthy vegetarian diet usually includes a variety of legumes, nuts, and whole grains, but different vegetarian diets will add different foods. Here are three common vegetarian diets:

• The lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. Don’t eat meat, seafood, and fish but eat eggs, dairy products, and plant-based foods.
• Lacto vegetarian diet. Do not eat meat, fish, seafood, including eggs, but only consume dairy and plant-based products.
• ovo vegetarian diet. Do not eat meat, fish, seafood, dairy products but eat eggs.

The lacto-ovo vegetarian diet is often popular because it is chosen by many people. This is also the vegetarian diet that provides your body with the most nutrients. When following this diet, stick to foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, grains, vegetable oils, eggs and milk.

8 How to make a vegetarian menu properly

How to plan a vegetarian menu will greatly determine the nutritional needs that you provide your body every day. Here are some suggestions for a vegetarian menu that you can refer to.

1. Build a diet with vegetables

To maintain the nutrition of a vegetarian diet, you should build meals around a variety of vegetables. Vegetable dishes that help you increase your protein intake are spinach, peas, cabbage and kale.

In addition, your body also needs vitamin D to absorb calcium. Some fungi that grow well in the sun are also capable of producing vitamin D.

• Besides the familiar mushrooms such as: straw mushrooms, chicken thighs, enoki mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, cat mushrooms, etc. You can boldly try more special mushrooms.

Vegetable dishes are often very diverse. You can cook dishes such as soup, stir-fried noodles with carrots and vegetables, sautéed bok choy with mushrooms, mixed salads, stir-fried vegetables, sautéed corn with butter, bitter melon stuffed with tofu, carrots, black fungus, and vermicelli. … Thus, the first principle of proper vegetarianism is simply to diversify the main vegetable dishes in your menu.

2. Go vegan properly with fruit

Fruit provides healthy fiber and important nutrients for you. Here are suggestions for fruits that provide essential substances for the body.

• Calcium: You can provide calcium for the body from strawberries, oranges, figs.
• Iron: Foods rich in iron you should give your body daily are prune juice or dried fruits like apricots, raisins and prunes.
• Protein: Combine dried fruit with nuts for a protein-rich snack.

3. Make a healthy menu with cereals

Whole grains are an integral part of a healthy vegetarian diet. It’s a healthy source of energy to get to the recommended amount of protein and other nutrients like: B vitamins, iron, magnesium and selenium.

• Quinoa is considered a complete protein because it contains nine essential amino acids. These are amino acids that must be consumed in the diet because your body does not make them on its own. You can refer to the TOP 7 ways to cook strange and delicious quinoa seeds.
• Other nutritious protein-rich grains are oats, brown rice, barley, chestnuts, and buckwheat.

4. Proper vegetarian diet with beans

Important ingredients in a proper vegetarian diet that you should not miss are legumes such as peas, lentils, red beans, black beans, chickpeas… These beans are often nutritious and don’t cost much. cost and easy to maintain.

• Legumes that are naturally low in fat can provide your body with fiber, protein, and other nutrients like folate, magnesium, potassium, and iron.
• Legumes also contain resistant starch that is normally delivered directly to the large intestine to feed the healthy bacteria.

5. Build a menu with nutritious nuts

Nuts are a good source of protein and healthy fats in a vegetarian diet. You can add chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, and flax seeds to smoothies, yogurt, salads, and other dishes.

You can use peanut butter or almond butter to replace buttermilk or cheese.

6. Make a vegetarian menu from soy

Soybeans and soy products such as tofu, tempeh (compressed soy sauce) and soy milk are commonly consumed in vegetarian diets. You can choose from: baby tofu, soy yogurt, soy ice cream, soy protein powder and soy protein cake.

7. Use vegetable oil instead of animal oil

You can use vegetable oils to replace animal oils in your vegetarian diet such as: olive oil, avocado oil, peanut oil, flaxseed oil, sesame oil, sunflower oil… These oils Providing healthy fats helps you lower your triglyceride levels, reducing your risk of heart disease and stroke.

8. Go vegan properly from eggs and milk

If you are a lacto-ovo vegetarian, you can consume eggs and dairy products to meet your protein needs more easily.

• One large egg provides 6g of protein, phosphorus, vitamin A, vitamin D (helps the body absorb calcium).
• One cup of skim milk provides about 9g of protein and about 35% of the recommended daily intake of calcium.

If you don’t consume eggs or dairy, read labels to make sure the products you buy don’t contain these ingredients. Eggs and milk are often found in baked goods, pasta, soups, and other common foods.

Be careful not to lack nutrients

Some vegetarians often suffer from some nutritional deficiencies due to not eating enough food groups. Therefore, you need to pay attention to the following nutritional content:

• The protein. You should have a variety of protein from legumes, nuts. The American Institute of Medicine recommends that women consume 46g of protein per day, while men need 56g of protein per day.
• Increase the amount of iron in the body. Legumes, lentils, whole grains, and vegetables are often rich in iron, but your body doesn’t absorb iron from plants as well as from animals. Therefore, you need to add more vegetarian foods that contain a lot of iron. Men and postmenopausal women need 14g of iron per day, while premenopausal women need 33g per day.

• Supplement with calcium and vitamin D. Calcium plays an important role for healthy bones and helps the body to metabolize efficiently. Your body also needs vitamin D to absorb calcium. Calcium will be abundant in: dark green vegetables, beans, tofu … In addition, some mushrooms when exposed to ultraviolet rays will provide vitamin D to your body.
• Do not forget to load vitamin B12 for the body. Vitamin B12 is usually produced by bacteria in animal products. So it is very likely that you will not get enough vitamins when fasting. Without enough vitamin B12, nerves can be permanently damaged and your body won’t produce red blood cells normally.

• Omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for a healthy cardiovascular and nervous system. Walnuts, soy products, and canola oil also contain an omega-3 called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Our bodies can use ALA to synthesize EPA and DHA, but this process is often inefficient leaving your body deficient in nutrients. In addition to eating foods rich in ALA, you can also buy plant-based omega-3-rich foods or take an algae-based supplement.

7 notes and tips for vegetarianism properly

Please note the following when following a vegetarian diet properly:

1. Gradually change to a vegetarian diet

You should not cut out your daily eating habits but switch to a diet completely.

When you start eating, you should only spend 1 day a week cutting down on meat and enjoying vegetarian dishes. As you become more comfortable with this vegetarian routine, reduce meat, seafood, dairy and eggs on other days of the week.

2. Try a partial vegetarian diet

Other experts recommend adopting a flexitarian diet. This vegetarian diet will allow you to eat meat occasionally. If you want to be a vegetarian, let your body gradually get used to a completely fish-free diet.

3. Spend the weekend planning the menu and shopping for the ingredients

Being vegetarian in the right way and with enough nutrients is not simple. But it will be easier if you prepare in advance. When changing eating habits, it takes you more time to choose your menu.

Therefore, you should spend the weekend to make a menu for a week and then go shopping to save time.

4. Note when eating out

Restaurants and bars are increasingly offering vegetarian options. However, you should still carefully read the menu or ask the owner questions to be sure.

5. Food labels do not say “vegetarian”

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not regulate the use of the word “vegan” on food labels because there is no standard definition of what ingredients make up a vegetarian food.

6. Meet daily nutritional needs

The US Department of Health recommends that you eat different food groups such as green vegetables, starchy vegetables, legumes and nuts, soy products, etc. Recommended calories per day 1,000 to 3,200 calories per day.

7. People with gluten intolerance should be careful

Grains are an important part of a vegetarian diet, but cereals are often high in gluten. If you have symptoms of gluten intolerance, choose grains such as corn, buckwheat, quinoa, millet, sorghum and rice.

The correct way of vegetarianism is being applied by more and more people. Try different vegetarian diets. Then you will find yourself a suitable and healthy diet!