Nutrition on a vegetarian diet
A burger and chips with a tub of ice cream use to be one of sons favourite treats on a Friday evening after a hard weeks work. Not very nutritious but bout ten years ago that all started to change.
High blood pressure runs in our family and about ten years ago Michael decided to include some vegetarian meals in his weekly diet, the process continued until gradually he became a fully fledged vegetarian.
Even though he has been a vegetarian now for coming on ten years he still enjoys his BURGER on a Friday evening, though this time it is made with soy protein and its super nutritious.
Most Fridays his wife Margaret makes a lovely Chocolate Ice Cream.
“You can be a veggie and still enjoy your favourite food,” he tells his mates, most of who are meat eaters.
Some people ask him for advice and while he isn’t a nutritionist he will tell people that while the switch isn’t that difficult you do have to do a little research.
“You do need to do a little bit of research in order to get the amount of protein and have a fully nutritious diet. There is more to been a vegetarian that living on veggie burgers it’s important that you get the amount of calcium, iron and vitamin B12 that the body needs,” Michael tells them.
Protein is found in nuts, grains and legumes. The right combination offers the most nutrition.
As an example he’ll tell them: “If you can pair let’s say a black bean with a rice dish and have black beans and rice, and you have a complete protein,” she said. Often he’ll invite them round to supper just to see how things are done in reality!
The message is simple – do the research and it becomes relatively simple to have a low-fat, meatless diet – and diet that is enjoyable, fully nutritious, and fun to eat, and it has the added advantage of helping to lower cholesterol and blood pressure.
Many thanks to Jack for sending me this testimony – have you one you’d like to share? If so email me HERE.