Everybody in this world wants to have a healthy body. What can we do to achieve that? Firstly, we should have a healthy diet. Healthy diet means consuming foods in the right quantities of nutrients which include all of the nutrients that our body needs. Having a healthy diet is not easy. We have to watch our meals, control our nutrients and make sure that we get enough nutrients every day. Having a healthy diet means we consume nutritious food that keep us away from illness, therefore we must know what kind of food that is not good for our body, such as fast food and junk food. Too much consumption of meat is also not good for body because it can cause excessive of cholesterol. In this modern era, there are some people that choose to be vegetarians to avoid cholesterol, cancer or the other diseases. What is vegetarians? Vegetarians are people who do not eat meat and only eat foods produced by plants. There are many types of vegetarian, such as ovo-lacto vegetarian, lacto-vegetarian, ovo-vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, pescetarian and vegan. In this essay, I will explain more about vegan who does not consume meat and products produced by animal, such as egg, cheese, milk and yoghurt.
Being a vegetarian is a choice. Everybody has their own reasons of why they want to become one. Some of the reasons are because of health, environment, compassion for animals, religion and many more. In this essay, I will explain based on health and environment reason. Oxford study found that vegetarians have longer life than meat eaters by six years. Vegetarian diets are mostly rich in vitamins, minerals, fibers, phytonutrients and antioxidants which is build up the immune system and slows down the aging process. Moreover, vegetarian diets not only tend to be generally lower in saturated fat and cholesterol but also have a higher intake of plant nutrients than non-vegetarian diet. Thus, vegetarian diets can reduce the risks of many certain chronic diseases. So, it makes sense that vegetarians can have longer life. “In one of the largest studies — a combined analysis of data from five prospective studies involving more than 76,000 participants published several years ago — vegetarians were, on average, 25% less likely to die of heart disease” (Anonymous, 2009). Not just heart disease, being a vegetarian also can prevent you from some chronic diseases such as colon cancer, heart disease, kidney stones, type 2 diabetes, stroke, obesity and also help to lower your blood cholesterol. For environment reason, most production of meat and animal products is through factory farming which is environmentally unsustainable that cause global warming. Livestock industry needs electrical energy, room heater, many electronic tools and transportation to carry the livestock which is very wasteful of energy and produce significant carbon emissions. Livestock industry produce more greenhouse gasses compare to all the cars and trucks in the world. Apparently, the livestock industry has produced around 9% toxic carbon dioxide, 65% nitrous oxide and 37% methane gas. In addition, livestock industry also needs a lot of energy to convert livestock to eat meat. For example, to produce 1 kg of meat, it results 36.4 kilos carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, become a vegetarian is one of the ways to reduce global warming.
Being a vegetarian means we only can consume plant-based food. We have to find our balanced diet so we will not lack of essential nutrients for our body especially for nutrients that mainly contained in animal food. We have to learn what kind of nutrients that we needed each day and make sure that we get the adequate nutrients. The examples are protein, vitamin B12 and vitamin D. The main sources of protein are meat and fish. We know that there are 20 types of amino acids, 9 of them are essential amino acids that we only can found in food, especially animal food. Vegetarians can get the protein needed by replacing the meat with consume beans such as peanuts, soybeans, almond, tofu, tempeh and soy milk. Nevertheless, every kind of plant-based food is definitely lack one of more essential amino acids. Therefore, to meet the sufficient intake of essential amino acids, we must combine some types of plant food. For instance, eating rice and dried beans, barley and dried beans, corn and green peas and so on. The other is vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 is really important for our body. Vitamin B12 can increase appetite, the function of nervous system and prevent the occurrence of anemia. However, most of food that contains vitamin B12 are animal food. For plant-based food, we can find vitamin B12 in soybeans, tempeh, cereal or we also can take vitamin B12 supplement. Vegetarians can meet their need for vitamin D from exposure of the skin to sunlight. But not everyone lives in a climate where they can get enough vitamin D in this way. Vitamin D is only found in few foods, but for vegetarians, they can consume vitamin D-fortified soy milk, breakfast cereals and vitamin D supplements. Vegetarians should pay attention to the intake of these vitamins because it is essential for our body. To become a healthy vegetarian, we have to maintain and watch our diet. To add on, people should vary their choices of vegetables to have enough amount of nutrition. There is a lot information of vegetarian diets that we can find from variety of sources. At the minimum, vegetarian diets should include an assortment of fruits, vegetables, grains and grain products (cereals, pasta and breads), nuts, seeds, dried beans and dairy products or fortified soy substitutes.
Plant-based diet is low in saturated fat, high in fiber and packed with antioxidants that support the immune system so the body is more capable to avoid the unhealthy cancer cells. In this era, cancer is become a deadly disease that can attack people even if they are still young. Free radicals, the use of chemicals in food, various types of harmful viruses, and radiation is causes of cancer, if all that goes into human’s body then it can cause damage of DNA which makes it no longer function in regulating the cell performance optimally. However, vegetables and fruits contain phytochemicals that can prevent the damage of DNA. Vegetarian diets also contain a lot of fiber which is one of essential factor in the prevention of cancer, especially colon cancer. People with high intake of meat or poultry must have a high chance of colon cancer because meat or animal products are usually high in fat and not contain fiber which make the growth of cancer fast. Not all types of cancer can be prevented by become a vegetarian. But some of them such as the other chronic disease that can be prevented as a vegetarian is heart disease. “Heart disease is the number one cause of death for Americans – about 600,000 people die each year from it” (Jake Richardson, 2016). Common heart disease is the growth of little bumps called plaques inside the arteries which can block the heart’s blood supply. These plaques are consisted of cholesterol, fat and cells that overgrowing from the artery’s muscle layer. These are some factors that causes heart disease; high cholesterol level, high blood pressure, excess weight, diabetes, smoking, family history of heart disease and sedentary lifestyle. Some of the factors can be interrupted by being a vegetarian. Dietary habit of vegetarians is low in cholesterol and saturated fat. But being a vegetarian is not enough, we also have to make sure that we have a healthy lifestyle; no smoking, have enough sleep, do some exercises and many more.
Many people believe that become a vegetarian is not good for health because vegetarian diets do not contain all the nutrients that human’s body needs which is the nutrients that come from meat or animal products. When we do not eat meat, we will lack some of essential nutrients, such as vitamin B12, vitamin D, protein, sulfur, iron and calcium. It is often thought that none of vegetarian diets that can replace the nutrition of meat or animal products which cause people do not want to go for vegetarian. On the other hand, the truth is we still can find foods that can replace meat or find some ways to get the adequate nutrients. It must be acknowledged, that get the adequate nutrients for vegetarians is not easy, we must make efforts and try as many ways as possible to obtain sufficient nutrients. As a vegetarian, we cannot lack of nutrition because it also can cause health concerns such as when we lack of vitamin B12, it can cause Alzheimer and also can increase the risk of heart disease. Now we live in the modern era, there are a lot of vegetarian recipes in internet and a lot of vegetarian foods that we can find in supermarket which can make us more creative and combine all the vegetarian diets to meet the adequate of nutrients. “By eating a variety of foods including fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, soy products, and whole grains, vegetarians can get adequate nutrients from non–meat sources” (Lea Basch, 2016). However, some vegetarians maybe need to consume supplement for vitamin D and vitamin B12 because these vitamin is a little bit hard to be found in plant-based food.
It might seem that some studies said long-term vegetarian can change their generations’ DNA which can lead them to inflammation. Some scientists found that long-term vegetarianism can lead to genetic mutations. This mutation happened so that vegetarians can absorb essential fatty acids easily from plants. Still, at the same time, it can boost the production of arachidonic acid that can increase the risk of cancer and heart disease. Not only that, long-term vegetarian diets block the production of Omega-3 which leads to a higher risk of heart disease. The experts found that those who are hereditary to the vegetarian diet tend to carry genetics that rapidly metabolize the fatty acids from plants, such as vegetable oil. As time goes by, vegetable oil that is consumed will be converted to arachidonic acid which will cause chronic inflammation and increases the risk of heart disease and cancer. On the contrary, some researchers said that we have to avoid animal food such as meat, egg, bacon and chicken because it can increase the production of arachidonic acid. Some studies also found that long-term vegetarian gene allows individual to produce synthetic versions of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acid which are essential for brain but indeed it is rarely contained in vegetarian diet. Because the Omega-3 and Omega-6 is hard to be obtained by vegetarians, they produce their own synthetic versions of those Omega to protect their heart. Vegans are not advised to eat food that contain too much vegetable oil because it has Omega-3 fatty acid which has been produced by vegetarian gene. Some experts also recommend individuals who have vegetarian ancestors to keep taking the vegetarian diets to prevent them getting double dose of fatty acids which can cause inflammation. “But somehow, this study about a gene variant that means some people might be better off eating a vegetarian diet was misinterpreted to mean that eating vegetarian will cause your genes to mutate and lead to a higher risk of colon cancer” (Kaleigh Rogers, 2016).
To have a healthy body, we must know what kind of diet that suitable for us. The food which lower in cholesterol, high in fiber and contain adequate nutrients. Getting adequate nutrients is the most important one, do not consume too little or too much nutrients because it will lead you to health concerns. Being a vegetarian is one of the ways to get a fresh and healthful body, prevent us from some chronic diseases, although it is not easy. When we become a vegetarian, we do not just get a healthy body, but we also can save our planet, keep our environment cleaner and not harm the animals. We must combine our healthy diet with a healthy lifestyle. It will become useless if we are vegetarian but we smoke, it will not prevent us from disease. Have some exercises and a healthy lifestyle is important; get enough sleep, avoid smoking, avoid alcohol drinks, smile and laugh are example of healthy lifestyle.