Becoming Vegetarian

May 27, 2019

Becoming Vegetarian

The vegetarian diet has gained widespread popularity in recent years. People become vegetarians for many reasons, but there are still many of them who don’t see advantages of cutting off meat from their diet or just don’t know how to start. If you’re one of them, we’ll be happy to show you how to benefit from being vegetarian and help you become one.

So, what exactly is vegetarian diet?

Basically being a vegetarian means not eating meat, fish and poultry, but it’s not that simple. There are many different kinds of vegetarianism.

Here are the most common types;

Lacto-ovo vegetarian diet: Eliminates meat, fish and poultry but allows eggs and dairy products.

Lacto-vegetarian diet: Eliminates meat, fish, poultry and eggs but allows dairy products.

Ovo-vegetarian diet: Eliminates meat, fish, poultry and dairy products but allows eggs.

Pescetarian diet: Eliminates meat and poultry but allows fish and sometimes eggs and dairy products.

Vegan diet: Eliminates meat, fish, poultry, eggs and dairy products, as well as other animal-derived products, such as honey.

Flexitarian diet: A mostly vegetarian diet that incorporates occasional meat, fish or poultry.

As you can see, you don’t have to eliminate every kind of meat immediately. You can start your vegetarian journey by becoming a flexitarian or just choose another diet to follow.

Advantages of vegetarianism

No matter which vegetarian diet you choose to follow, it’s a great change for both yourself and the environment. Most of the bad things that happen to our planet are caused by cattle breeding, for example CO2 emission, methane emission, equatorial forests’ clearing and water usage.

To produce 1kg of meat you need;

15300 litres of water to produce grains and roughages for cattle to eat

120 litres of water for cow to drink

35 litres of water for the slaughtering process

Therefore to produce just ONE kilogram of meat you need 15 455 litres of water. So instead of eating 5 hamburgers you would have water to drink for the next 25 years (1,5 l./day). Also, 1 kg of meat from beef produces about 34,5 kg of CO2 emission.

Animals need space to live, too; vegans use about 0,16 acres of land per year, vegetarians 0,5. Feeding a person who normally eats meat requires about 18 times as much.

Now imagine how much water and forest land you safe on vegetarian diet and how much of CO2 you do not emit. It’s amazing how much we can do for our planet by simply cutting off meat from our diet!

Vegetarian diet is good for our health, too. Just one condition – you have to know what to eat. Meat is one of the best sources of iron, proteins and vitamin B12. If we don’t absorb enough of it, we can have anaemia and that’s very dangerous. But meat isn’t the only source of those nutrients.

Here are some vegetarian meat substitutes: