A well-balanced vegetarian diet
“You Are What You Eat” an age-old proverb is a true reflection of the power of nutrition. It refers to the fact that food controls a person’s health. Nutrition is an essential component of heart health, vegetarian diet in particular benefits heart health in a number of ways. In this periodical, we wish to bring into your kind notice the cardio-protective benefits of vegetarian diet and explain the reasons as to why non-vegetarian diet is not good for your heart health.
A well-balanced vegetarian diet is adequate in every aspect of nutrition be it macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein and fats) or micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). A number of researches have shown that vegetarians are at a lower risk of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, all of which are directly linked with the risk of heart disease. Vegetarian diet is rich in dietary fibre and antioxidants which protects the heart from inflammation and damage thereby preventing heart attack. Awell-planned vegetarian diet helps in lowering cholesterol levels and weight management.
Vegetarian lifestyle, is a great foundation for a heart healthy diet. At Saaol we emphasize greatly on vegetarianism, as it is an important component to bring the cardiac risk factors to the lowest. All kinds of meats (mutton, pork, beef, ham), poultry, all kinds of fishes are loaded with cholesterol people sometimes get bewildered and end up justifying their non-vegetarian food consumption as a component of their healthy fat intake; however, they tend to overlook the fact that body specifically the liver produces 80-85% of the total cholesterol requirements of the body and the rest is obtained from invisible fats.
vegetarianism has taken the lead over non-vegetarianism
Evidences suggest that vegetarian diets may lead to lower blood pressure, improved cholesterol levels, healthier weight and less incidence of Type 2 Diabetes. Vegetarian diets have lower levels of total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol than meat-based diets. Several cross-sectional studies have shown that vegetarians have significantly lower concentrations of total cholesterol, LDL- cholesterol, and triglycerides compared with non-vegetarians. Vegetarian diets may reduce blood cholesterol concentrations through several mechanisms, they are low in cholesterol, total fat, and saturated fatty acids, leading to less absorption and conversion to blood cholesterol. The phytochemicals present in vegetarian foods exert substantial influence on cholesterol levels via multiple mechanisms. Phytosterols reduce intestinal absorption by competing with cholesterol and preventing its accumulation.
Apart from scientific evidences, the mythological evidences also supports vegetarianism. Major mythological descriptions of various religions suggest that humans were created by God as vegetarian beings, the 7th Adventist stands a great example to it. Our gut, teeth and overall body is designed to adopt vegetarianism, it also keeps our body in equilibrium.
Over the years, vegetarianism has taken the lead over non-vegetarianism. People in the west have returned to vegetarianism after being non-vegetarians. We Indians who have a tradition of vegetarianism, supported by religion, are still going, unfortunately, towards non-vegetarianism. We should focus on the health benefits that vegetarian diet offers us.
DECODING VEGETARIANISM
HEART FRIENDLY VEGETARIAN DIETDECODING VEGETARIANISM
In recent times vegetarian and vegan diets are gaining more popularity because of their health benefits. Vegetarian food comprising of a variety of salads, cereals, legumes offer better health due to the high amounts of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants present in them. Vegetarian diets have a very less amount of cholesterol which is present in milk and milk products. In comparison to non-vegetarian food it has negligible cholesterol and has a higher quantity of fibre. Being lower in cholesterol and high in fibre it helps in keeping heart healthy by not causing plaque formation or blockage further reducing the already existing blockage by flushing out extra fat in the body as fibre acts as sponge and flushes out the bile acids from the body which is formed from cholesterol present in the body.
Fibre also helps to keep your gut healthy, further helps in absorption of many nutrients. Most of the studies on vegetarian diet has been carried out in Europe, three among seventh day Adventists in U.S, in an analysis of above studies Key.et.al found a 24% lower rate of coronary heart disease mortality among vegetarians relative to non-vegetarians. There are many more studies done whose results reflects similar findings. So it's very clear that a vegetarian diet has heart friendly effect
NON VEGETARIAN DIET- HEART'S ENEMY
Non vegetarian food comprises all foods derived from animal sources which includes mostly flesh food and eggs like poultry, fish, red meat etc. These foods contain a huge quantity of cholesterol and at the same time some have high concentrations of minerals like sodium and calcium. Cholesterol and fat intake has been considered to play a major role in deteriorating heart health. The blockage that forms in the arteries is supposed to be formed of cholesterol. There are numerous researches that indicate that theintake of non-vegetarian foods in large quantities or more frequently can lead to the formation of plaque in the arteries, on the contrary exclusion of all in the blockages. An extremely popular study called the
Lifestyle Heart Trial by Dr.DeanOrnish proven that the elimination of non -vegetarian foods and including a high fibre, low fat vegetarian diet leads to reduction in the blockage percentage, the
EPIC Oxford data, also gave similar results that people on vegetarian diet have lower percentage of cardiac incidents than those who are on non-vegetarian diet.
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