Nutrients to Focus on for Vegetarians

Protein has many important functions in the body and is essential for growth and maintenance. Protein needs can easily be met by eating a variety of plant-based foods. Combining different protein sources in the same meal is not necessary. Sources of protein for vegetarians and vegans include beans, nuts, nut butters, peas, and soy products (tofu, tempeh, veggie burgers). Milk products and eggs are also good protein sources for lacto-ovo vegetarians.

Iron functions primarily as a carrier of oxygen in the blood. Iron sources for vegetarians and vegans include iron-fortified breakfast cereals, spinach, kidney beans, black-eyed peas, lentils, turnip greens, molasses, whole wheat breads, peas, and some dried fruits (dried apricots, prunes, raisins).

Calcium is used for building bones and teeth and in maintaining bone strength. Sources of calcium for vegetarians and vegans include calcium-fortified soymilk, calcium-fortified breakfast cereals and orange juice, tofu made with calcium sulfate, and some dark-green leafy vegetables (collard greens, turnip greens, bok choy, mustard greens). The amount of calcium that can be absorbed from these foods varies. Consuming enough plant foods to meet calcium needs may be unrealistic for many. Milk products are excellent calcium sources for lacto vegetarians. Calcium supplements are another potential source.

Zinc is necessary for many biochemical reactions and also helps the immune system function properly. Sources of zinc for vegetarians and vegans include many types of beans (white beans, kidney beans, and chickpeas), zinc-fortified breakfast cereals, wheat germ, and pumpkin seeds. Milk products are a zinc source for lacto vegetarians.

Vitamin B12 is found in animal products and some fortified foods. Sources of vitamin B12 for vegetarians include milk products, eggs, and foods that have been fortified with vitamin B12. These include breakfast cereals, soymilk, veggie burgers, and nutritional yeast.

Vegans Don’t Get Enough Nutrition?

Compared to many mammals on the planet, humans are tiny with much less muscle mass. However, these giants animals, like hippos and giraffes and horses and cows are vegans. They eat plant-based diets and they grow strong and heavy muscles without the addition of meat to their diets. This is because protein is found in plant foods. Every plant food has protein in it in varying amounts. The same goes for calcium. By eating meat and dairy, we are just consuming the middleman, while taking out all the fiber and adding a lot of fat. Even if you don’t follow the ethics part of veganism, the diet speaks for itself. It’s healthier because there is less fat and more essential nutrients in plants.

B12 deficiency can cause blindness. But it is very rare and there are lots of foods that contain B12. But as a measure of protection against the unlikely possibility that this might happen to a vegan, Dr. John McDougall suggests taking a B12 supplement.

The vegan diet is healthier than the Standard American Diet, regardless of what omnivores want to believe. In ten years when you are running marathons and have almost no cholesterol (except what your body naturally produces) while they’re obese and lying on the couch, ask them again.

Improve My Health and Save the Planet

My vegan story...

I didn’t grow out of my 20’s until I was half way through my 30’s, when I slowly began to drop the bad habits and began to want to fuel my body with the best nourishment available.  As a typical man, I read all the fitness magazines and lifted weights.  Without any real sacrifice or intention, I rarely ate red meat.   I even went vegetarian for a few spells.  My motivation had always been health.  I wanted to be fit and strong.

Once I was exposed to Food Inc., my path to food consciousness began. While it was far from my current vegan path, it did inspire my curiosity.  I started to really think about what I was eating, how it affected my health, the health of the planet, the welfare of all the animals and all that really went into bringing that meal to my plate.  This documentary led me to reading Omnivores Dilemma, then to The China Study, then I watched Forks over Knives, then I bought my wife Skinny Bitch, but ended up reading it myself.  My hunger for food knowledge became strong.  I’ve watched and read countless other books, documentaries, blogs etc.  The more I've discovered, the more my food choices have evolved.  First I sought out organic, then grass fed (on the few occasions I had red meat), then free range, farm raised, sustainable, growth hormone free, antibiotic free, etc.  My requirements kept getting more and more specific.  Then The China Study revealed to me something I intuitively was already beginning to feel, consuming animals and animal products, is not good, plain and simple.

For someone who has never really been a pet or animal person, I ironically experienced a profound sense of compassion for these animals that I saw being horribly treated and slaughtered on many of these documentaries.  I could see it in their eyes that they didn’t want to be hurt, tortured, castrated or killed, they didn’t want to have their young stripped away from them, like every other being they simply did not want to suffer.  It pains me knowing all the atrocities that are committed every day, all day to these animal beings.  I feel like I had a wake up call…eating animals feels wrong to me. And while I originally became a vegan for health reasons, my commitment to this path has been profoundly strengthened for ethical reasons.

At the beginning of this year, I went vegetarian and quickly thereafter adopted my current vegan lifestyle.  It’s honestly been an easy transition and I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing at all.  I’m just no longer interested in eating animal products.  The thought actually grosses me out.  I love the path I’m on and hope you’ll join me.  I’m starting a blog, feel free to read along as I find my way at www.zenfans.com

If you’re considering going vegetarian or vegan, I encourage you to lean in. You need not be perfect.  Progress, not perfection will yield you some amazing results. You’ll feel better knowing you’re improving your health, the health of the planet, the well being of our animal friends and you’ll begin to see the world through more compassionate eyes. Hope to see you along the way.

Peace & blessings,

Ted Wallof

PS. If every one of us inspired ONE person to go meatless imagine the difference we could make in ten years time. I am going to collect inspirational vegetarian/vegan stories to share with everyone. If you think your story will inspire others, please share with me by sending it to info@veglov.com. I will post your stories on this www.veglov.com blog. I believe everyone has his/her own story, I think it must be great when we can share our stories and inspire others. Let’s make the world a better place. ~ Xiao Kang.

I am Young, I am a Vegetarian and I am a Better Person

By Nathan Roberts

I am Nathan, currently 19 and a vegetarian. Throughout my life I have always been influenced by others, especially my family. They are my role models and I wouldn't ever do anything to harm them. However, At every attempt to become vegan or vegetarian it was always.....  That's a stupid idea, what will you eat? Its so much more expensive, vegetarians are frail and weak, what happens in America doesn't happen in Australia, How will you get the protein? How do you get iron?

I had watched Earthlings, Food Inc., Foodmatters and almost every other healthy eating documentary I could lay my hands on, yet I still continued to eat meat. I increased my vegetable intake, and started eating more organics and health foods, and moved out of home and started aveggie patch which started off okay. Then one day I ran into a best mate at the snow. We got talking and some how came across the topic of vegetarianism, raw food diet and the future idea of becoming vegan. To me I thought it was going to be a very hard challenge, but I decided to go all out. He described to me the process of plants absorbing all the nutrients they need to survive through the soil. Soil is full of life and nutrients, hence when you eat a vegetable or a fruit you are eating something full of life, receiving these essential vitamins and minerals. When you are eating meat, you are eating dead animal flesh. Which in most cases is fed Gm corn, antibiotics, growth hormone etc. Not only is the term dead animal flesh unappealing, but the process's I once paid for to get this meat on my dinner plate are inhuman. The meat industry is a joke, it even sounds like dooms day prediction, yet people eat it off their plates everyday, like the lies they use to cover up the black walls of these mass slaughter houses and animal holding pens.

I returned home from the snow and did some more research and came across a guy called Gary Yourofsky. I was engaged by this man within the first 1 minute of listening to one of his lectures online. I think the thing that got me was the short clip of a man beating a cow up with his bare fists. A cow is a helpless animal, which has been domesticated and modified through unnatural processes to satisfy our human demands of beef, milk, cheese and many other products. If assaulting a person on a street is a criminal offence, why isn't assaulting a cow? We don't own them. They are in no way a possession to humans and should never be. They are an animal, and should exist in a mutual relationship with humans if in any relationship at all. From this point I gave up every meat product on the market, even my favorite chorizo. It wasn't actually hard at all. Not when you consider animal welfare, environmental issues, poverty issues and the impact being a vegetarian has on your health!

I then came across the documentary 'Hungry for Change', and everything just clicked. Humans aren't meant to eat meat. We are not designed for it. Well, not every day of the week anyway. We have sliding jaws, an alkaline stomach and a large intestinal tract. We share all the characteristics of herbivores. It seems only natural that we adopt a plant/tree based diet. However, 70 percent of people just don't understand this and probably never will.

My friend I met up with on that snow trip told me a quote his mother once said to him, I don't think I will ever forget it. He said 'In life there are always going to be people who disagree with you. You have to rise above them and lead the path. Through courage, bravery and compassion other people will follow'.

In the last 19 years of my life I have never ever heard truer words been spoken. So just like that I was on a mission, to make as many people as I can be vegetarian or better yet, vegan. Not everyone listens, but those who do are amazed and so intrigued, they look at you like you have discovered a cure for cancer. And quite literally you have. Once you open a door to something new all you want to do is find out more and more. Knowledge is contagious, and the satisfaction you get from informing a friend about how leading a meat free diet actually changes the world is ecstatic.

I am young, and one individual in a world of billions. I am pretty insignificant really. However, I am an earthling. I have parents, brothers, sisters and friends just like any other animal on this planet. If one minor change in my diet can save up to 100 animals per year, reduce my impact on the environment, and make me a healthier, better person. I guarantee it can do the same in millions of others. This journey has been amazing so far and I hope it continues as long as i live.

In life there are always going to be people who disagree with you. You have to rise above them and lead the path. Through courage, bravery and compassion other people will follow!

PS. If every one of us inspired ONE person to go meatless imagine the difference we could make in ten years time. I am going to collect inspirational vegetarian/vegan stories to share with everyone. If you think your story will inspire others, please share with me by sending it to info@veglov.com. I will post your stories on this www.veglov.com blog. I believe everyone has his/her own story, I think it must be great when we can share our stories and inspire others. Let’s make the world a better place. ~ Xiao Kang.

Vegetarian (Athlete) My Whole Life

By: Sebastian P. Henrich

I am 24 years young and have been vegetarian my whole life. As son of a vegetarian mother and a meat eating father, it had been my very own choice which path to go. However, already as a child I was disgusted by the mere thought of eating meat, and thanks to a respectful father as well as a rather astronomically thinking - yet meat eating - family, I was never forced into even trying meat. Why would one even have to try something, if there is no inner desire?

Nevertheless, already in the early days when I was in kindergarten, the teachers would not easily accept my choice and would try to force me to eat up what I was given. Excursions with overnight stays were especially tough, since I could not just skip lunch and eat whatever I would find afterwards in the kitchen. Inner strength prevailed over temporary hunger and society could not take me down.

I somehow survived kindergarten - in terms of lack of proper vegetarian nutrition - and elementary school turned out to be a little more easy going. Lunch variety was slightly bigger and would not always contain meat. Also, apart from one exception, teachers were more respectful toward one's choice of diet.

From then on, there were no particularly hard times in my life in regard to my vegetarian diet. However, there has forever been a struggle with intolerant meat eaters who always tried to convince me. Be it in restaurants, at friends' places, campgrounds, festivals, university, - name it, I have been asked to explain myself.

I am sure, thus far more than one hundred people have questioned my choice of living by asking or telling me the following:
Why are you vegetarian?
You don't know what you're missing.
I could never live without meat.
Do you eat fish/chicken? [Never understood how those were not "animals"]
Have you ever even tried meat?
Do you take some sort of supplements?
You must be sick very often.
How can you build up muscles?
Do you want to try? [Showing me any kind of meat]
---
This list could be continued by many more questions and smart-a** statements.

My whole life I have accepted meat-eaters and I never asked anyone to stop eating meat. I never asked anyone why he likes to eat meat and I never would even have the idea to force someone into a vegetarian diet. But my whole life my vegetarian diet has been questioned in so many different ways.

For anyone who eats meat, it's fine with me, but don't even try to convert a true vegetarian into a carnivore.

I have the flu once a year and have never been subject to any other disease (apart from the usual stuff you have as a kid). Four times a week I go to the gym without taking any sort of muscle-enhancing products. I am 6'2, weigh 165 pounds and bench-press 200 pounds ten times in a row. And this it not to show off, but to display my vegetarian pride and the fact that I have never ever suffered from being vegetarian my whole life of thus far 24 years. Who knows how life would be as a meat eater, but I am a very happy and well-balanced person.

Sebastian runs an international (English, Spanish, German) YouTube channel, in which he puts all sorts of videos, funny and also deeper stuff. Some video discussing his life choice of vegetarianism will also be taken on shortly. Please go to http://www.youtube.com/user/AllAboutEthics to get connected with Sebastian.

PS. If every one of us inspired ONE person to go meatless imagine the difference we could make in ten years time. I am going to collect inspirational vegetarian/vegan stories to share with everyone. If you think your story will inspire others, please share with me by sending it to info@veglov.com. I will post your stories on this www.veglov.com blog. I believe everyone has his/her own story, I think it must be great when we can share our stories and inspire others. Let’s make the world a better place. ~ Xiao Kang.

I Saved My Life With Food

By Deb Freeman

I watched the DVD Forks Over Knives with my husband.  Previously I was reading books on eliminating inflammation and pain in my body.  I have had pain for years and struggled with obesity.  My husband went from not taking any medication or getting sick to having 9 stents put in because of seriously clogged arteries and was put on four different medications.  The doctors could not figure out what kept clogging his arteries.

The Forks Over Knives DVD inspired me to read the book The China Study.  The more I learned, the angrier I got at our government wondering how this information could be held from the people and how much big money controls our lives.  I wanted to learn more because I realized it was up to me to take care of myself.  So, I signed up for and took the Whole Food Plant Based Nutrition course at e-Cornell.  I learned the bigger picture.was

Three weeks into the plant based diet my husband had to have some blood tests done.  His Drs. office called him because they were concerned that his blood pressure was so low.  They wanted to know what he was doing differently.  He told them he was not eating meat or dairy products and was mostly eating fruits and vegetables and other non-processed foods.  They cut his blood pressure medicine in half.

I was starting to feel better but was still having some inflammation issues.  I also knew I had to take the next step and cut out sugar like that found in my Chai teas and the special chocolates my husband would bring home to me.  Within two weeks my inflammation had finally disappeared and I could hardly believe how much better I could move.  Spring was upon us and I was gardening like never before.  I was getting up and down in the gardens with ease.  I decided to plant a three times larger vegetable garden.  Who knew we would be going into a drought but I just felt so good gardening again, pulling weeds etc. without the pain and feeling the next day like I got hit by a truck that I was not too distraught that not all of my plantings were going to produce.

I continue to read books, watch DVD's and learn as much as I can about the plant based diet and our health.  I can read between the lines when the study's come out either for or against any type of food that is out there.  Taking the course and reading The China Study really helped me feel good about the direction I am going.  I share my enthusiasm with anyone who will listen to me.  I am hoping to go out and offer classes on eating a plant based diet.  I know a lot of people want to eat healthier but don't know how, or where to start.

A year from now I hope to be at my goal weight and if possible, get off the only medication I am on (thyroid) and have hopes that my husband will be able to get off his medications and maybe have the stents removed as he would not need them anymore.  We need to be examples for those who may want to follow.

PS. If every one of us inspired ONE person to go meatless imagine the difference we could make in ten years time. I am going to collect inspirational vegetarian/vegan stories to share with everyone. If you think your story will inspire others, please share with me by sending it to info@veglov.com. I will post your stories on this www.veglov.com blog. I believe everyone has his/her own story, I think it must be great when we can share our stories and inspire others. Let’s make the world a better place. ~ Xiao Kang.

Making a Change for the Better World

By: Julie Anne Ianello

I'd like to tell you about my family's story.

I've been vegetarian on and off for a few years.  Two years ago, during a trip on I-95, I saw a poultry truck where a chicken was half in and half out of one of the openings.  He was obviously packed so tightly in there that he tried to escape.  I've not eaten meat since.

I quoted Ellen DeGeneres to my family at dinner last Thanksgiving:

"I can't imagine that if you're putting something in your body that is filled with fear or anxiety or pain, that that isn't somehow going to be inside of you."

With that, they watched Earthlings.  They've not eaten meat since that day.

We've had 'very vegetarian' holidays ever since.

My husband's cholesterol level has gone from dangerous to safe.  He is no longer on medications.  His blood pressure is down too.  He had an accident at work a few months ago where part of his finger tip was cut off.  Needless to say, within a week it was healing.  He swears it's because of his diet.  Let me add, he's lost 50 pounds too!

I am in the menopausal stage of my life.  I've always heard of and witnessed women have extreme mood swings and weight gain during this part of their life.  I'm consistently happy and I'm losing weight.

This way of life has been a positive in our lives.  We're a family who's making a change for the better and hopefully for the world.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

PS. If every one of us inspired ONE person to go meatless imagine the difference we could make in ten years time. I am going to collect inspirational vegetarian/vegan stories to share with everyone. If you think your story will inspire others, please share with me by sending it to info@veglov.com. I will post your stories on this www.veglov.com blog. I believe everyone has his/her own story, I think it must be great when we can share our stories and inspire others. Let’s make the world a better place. ~ Xiao Kang.