Health and Fitness Oasis

People of all ages, including teens, have adopted a vegetarian lifestyle. If sounds like your teenager, you may wonder how to keep your vegetarian teenager healthy when you feel they’re missing vital nutrients.

It is possible to meet all your body’s nutritional needs by eating only fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and legumes. Because there is no meat in the diet, vegetarian diets usually have less fats and cholesterol, although there will be some. It will, however, take some planning to ensure your teenager includes a variety of foods to get all of the vitamins and nutrients they need. By learning more about the vegetarian lifestyle, you will be able to guide your teen into making wise food choices.

Standard diets are based upon a food pyramid and it is possible to find a vegetarian food pyramid as well. If you’re concerned your teen may be missing vital nutrients, you may want to speak with a registered dietician to learn how your teen can compensate by eating other foods rich in those nutrients. Read the rest of this entry »

The expression ‘we are what we eat’ is not just an expression but a reality.  There is a relationship between diet and disease.

Some people believe it’s healthier to be vegetarian. But being vegetarian doesn’t mean you have to eat only vegetables.  There is also the choice of flexitarian and pescatarian.  The Pescatarian is the self-proclaimed vegetarian who abstains completely from meat but eats fish.  While the Flexitarian is the term coined to describe those who eat mostly vegetarian but occasionally eat meat.

The word Flexitarian was originally coined in a magazine review of a new restaurant who described their offerings as ‘flexitarian’; a menu that was leaning towards vegetarianism but with a hint of animal protein. Although this term is recognized in the dictionary, it isn’t recognized by most vegetarian groups.  The idea that a person can be called a vegetarian who eats meat sometimes appears to be paradoxical.

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