Vegetarianism has a long history in China. In ancient times, it was called vegetarian. China people used to be vegetarians, which was mainly related to their religious beliefs, that is, the so-called "no killing". At present, European and American countries choose vegetarians for ecological protection and environmental protection, but mainly for maintaining health and preventing diseases.
The traditional diet of European and American residents is mainly animal food. Since 1980s, more and more studies have found that eating too much animal food is extremely harmful to human health. Excessive intake of fat, protein and cholesterol through meat, eggs and milk leads to high incidence of coronary heart disease, diabetes and cancer among British and American residents. Therefore, western nutritionists have affirmed the diet of China and India, which is mainly based on plant food. Furthermore, since the United States in the early 1990s, there has been a trend of vegetarianism all over the world. Some vegetarians almost completely reject animal food. In Europe and America, there have been many restaurants specializing in vegetarian food in recent years. Even ordinary restaurants have introduced vegetarian dishes, and schools, hospitals and even airplane meals have started vegetarian catering. In 2003, the Yang Kan Institute of the United States formulated a dietary guide to promote vegetarianism, which set off a dietary revolution in the west to maintain health through vegetarianism.
Vegetarian food is divided into several categories.
Vegetarianism refers to a diet that does not eat animal food. Animal foods include meat, fish, poultry and their by-products. According to the types and scope of avoiding eating animal food and its products, vegetarianism can be divided into the following categories:
1. Absolute vegetarianism is also called vegan, vegan and strict vegetarianism, that is, all foods are plant products, except plants, the meat of animals includes meat, poultry, fish, shrimp and shellfish, and the items extending from animals, including eggs, milk and honey, are not eaten.
2. Egg milk vegetarian diet does not eat animal meat except plant products, including livestock and poultry meat, fish, shrimp and shellfish, but eats eggs, milk and its products.
3. Milk vegetarian diet is basically the same as egg vegetarian diet, except that you don't eat eggs, but you can eat milk.
Egg vegetarian diet is similar to egg milk vegetarian diet, except that you don't refuse to eat eggs.
5. Chicken fish essence, also called white meat essence, means eating fish and chicken instead of quadruped meat. Strictly speaking, chicken fish essence can only be called "semi-essence".
In addition, there are fruit elements (only fruits that naturally fall from fruit trees) and fish elements (eating fish instead of livestock and poultry meat).
Vegetarians emphasize the benefits of vegetarianism.
In September 2006, the 37th World Vegetarian Congress was held in the vegetarian kingdom of India. Advocates of vegetarianism not only list the health hazards of eating too much animal food, but also emphasize the beneficial effects of plant food on health. The participating scholars summarized the disease prevention mechanism of fruits and vegetables into eight aspects: antioxidation, improving the detoxification activity of enzymes, stimulating the immune system, inhibiting platelet aggregation, lowering blood pressure, changing cholesterol metabolism, regulating steroid hormone metabolism, and resisting bacteria and viruses. Studies reported by Britain, Japan and Sweden at the meeting confirmed that the cancer incidence and mortality of vegetarians were significantly lower than those of carnivores. Many studies in Germany and Finland show that vegetarians live longer than non-vegetarians 15 years. China scholars attending the meeting pointed out that compared with meat, plant food has more advantages and contains more dietary fiber, which plays an important role in maintaining the health of digestive tract.
Great changes have taken place in the diet of the urban population in China in the last twenty years. On the dining tables of many urban families, there is more and more meat and less vegetables and grains. Young people and children eat meat as a meal, are keen on foreign fast food, and are unwilling to eat tofu and coarse grains. In 2004, the per capita consumption of animal food in China was 248 grams, which was 3-5 times that of 1982. The incidence of diseases such as hypertension, fatty liver, diabetes, cancer and obesity increased greatly. This situation has aroused the thinking of some China people with strong health awareness. Coupled with the introduction of vegetarianism in Europe and America and the influence of Buddhist beliefs, vegetarianism has appeared in cities such as Hangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Dalian. Vegetarian restaurant, with fungi, bamboo shoots, wild vegetables, bean products and konjac as raw materials, is well received by consumers. Some elderly people and well-educated white-collar workers are interested in vegetarian food. There are still many women who mistakenly believe that vegetarianism can lose weight, so they consciously don't eat or eat less meat in their daily diet and use a lot of fruits instead. Some people choose egg white or vegan.
How should vegetarian food be arranged?
Vegetarian food can avoid the harm of eating too much meat to people's health, and a reasonable vegetarian food will be more beneficial to health than an unbalanced non-vegetarian food. However, vegetarianism is not as simple as cabbage, radish and tofu. In terms of nutrition, more than 40 kinds of nutrients in 7 categories needed by the human body can basically be found in non-animal foods. However, if vegetarians want to get these ingredients from the food they eat every day in a comprehensive and balanced way, they must go through serious scientific collocation. If the arrangement is not good, or if vegetarian diet is simply regarded as not eating meat, it is likely to make the human body lack one or more nutrients and affect health.
Vegetarians should eat the following five foods every day:
1. Cereals and potatoes: 1/3 of the total food intake, including rice, flour, potatoes and sweet potatoes. And pay special attention to coarse grains such as buckwheat, oats and corn. Cereals and potatoes can provide sufficient calories and a certain amount of protein, and are also important sources for vegetarians to obtain minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc, B vitamins and cellulose.
2, vegetables and fruits: vegetables and fruits contain a lot of vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber, no cholesterol, can provide a small amount of calories. The food intake should account for 1/3 of the whole day's food intake. Because of the great differences in nutritional components and contents of various vegetables and fruits, it is recommended to eat at least five varieties every day, especially dark vegetables such as carrots, spinach, celery and tomatoes. Fruits include dried fruits, such as jujube, longan and raisins.
3. Beans and nuts: These foods refer to soybeans and their products, miscellaneous beans such as adzuki beans, peas and mung beans, and hard fruit foods such as cashews, peanuts, walnuts, broad beans and hazelnuts. Bean products and nuts are the main sources for vegetarians to obtain high-quality protein, and they can also provide some calories and minerals, such as calcium, iron and certain kinds of vitamins. It also contains a certain amount of fat, mainly unsaturated fatty acids, which is necessary for the human body to absorb fat-soluble vitamins.
4, bacteria and algae: mainly refers to kelp, Undaria pinnatifida, mushrooms, fungus and so on. , can provide a variety of minerals and vitamins.
5. Vegetable oil: including sesame oil, peanut oil and soybean oil. It is an important source of heat energy for vegetarians, and vegetable oil can also provide fat-soluble vitamins.
Nutrients that vegetarians are easy to lack.
The more kinds of food people eat every day, the more kinds of nutrients they get. Vegetarians completely reject animal food, and the range of food choices in the diet is very narrow, so it is more likely to be lack of nutrition. Vegetarians are most likely to lack nutrition:
Calcium: Vegetarians can get calcium from bean products, hard fruits and algae foods rich in calcium, and fruits and vegetables such as chrysanthemums, cabbages and lemons. However, due to the restriction of food intake, it is unlikely to meet the basic requirement of 800 mg per day. If it is egg milk, the problem of calcium will be solved by drinking milk.
Iron: Plant foods generally contain less iron, which is not as easily absorbed as that in animal foods. In order to get enough iron, vegetarians should focus on iron-rich foods, such as black fungus, spinach, rape, kelp, black rice and black sesame.
Vitamin D: Fish and milk are rich in vitamin D. Vegetarians should sunbathe to make vitamin D instead of eating fish and milk. Adults sunbathe 10 minutes a day, and the elderly for 30 minutes.
Vitamin B2: Vitamin B2 mainly exists in meat, milk and coarse grains. Vegetarians can get it from lots of buckwheat and other whole grain foods, such as brown rice, porridge and whole wheat bread.
Vitamin B 12: Vitamin B 12 does not exist in plant food, but exists in seaweed such as laver. But vegetarians can't eat a lot of seaweed to get vitamin B 12. Vitamin B 12 is a difficult problem for vegans, but it does not exist in ovalbumin.
High-quality protein: Vegetarians' high-quality protein mainly comes from beans and nuts. Although its quality is not completely equal to that of animal protein, we can use the complementary effect of various food proteins to improve the biological price of protein. But if the arrangement is not good, it will easily lead to the lack of high-quality protein.
When making vegetarian recipes, we must carefully design and pay special attention to the diversity of various foods. Theoretically, the arranged vegetarian diet will basically not lead to the lack of some nutrients in the human body. However, it is quite difficult to achieve a balanced diet through vegetarianism, especially for vegans.
It is difficult to guarantee health by being absolutely vegetarian.
Absolute vegetarians who don't eat any animal food need to eat a lot of grains, especially coarse grains, in order to get enough B vitamins from grains. Vegetables and fruits are huge, so you need to eat a lot in order to get more minerals and vitamins from them. For vegetarians, nutritionists don't ask them to eat seven or eight percent full, but eating too much is unbearable for some people. Even if you can eat it, because of the high cellulose content in vegetables and coarse grains, eating a lot of cellulose will lead to abdominal distension and frequent defecation, and will also affect the absorption and utilization of minerals calcium and iron.
Except for soybeans and hard fruits, other plant foods are low in protein and incomplete in amino acids, especially lacking in methionine and lysine as animal protein. Therefore, vegetarians are prone to malnutrition due to the lack of high-quality protein. If it is egg milk, it is not easy to be malnourished, because you can get enough high-quality protein from eggs and milk.
Animal meat, eggs and milk are good sources of iron and calcium. Vegetarians mainly rely on plant food and bacterial algae to get iron and calcium, which is difficult to meet the needs of human body, especially children, the elderly and pregnant women who have a great demand for iron and calcium. Therefore, there are more people suffering from iron deficiency anemia in vegetarians, and if they are children, their development will also be affected.
Long-term vegetarians, due to low fat intake, may affect the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, and may also lack linolenic acid, including docosapentaenoic acid, thus affecting intellectual development.
Apart from seaweed, the only source of vitamin B 12 is animal food, and vegans will have vitamin B 12 deficiency. Lack of vitamin B 12 may lead to pernicious anemia and neurological dysfunction, such as unresponsiveness and memory loss.
Adult men and women who are absolutely vegetarian have decreased sexual desire, and men often have impotence. This may be one reason why Buddhist ascetics advocate vegetarianism. Plant foods lack L-carnitine which can burn fat. Therefore, eating improper vegetarian food for a long time can also lead to obesity.
How to treat vegetarianism correctly
At present, the trend of vegetarianism is getting worse and worse in China and even the whole world. Many people write books and advocate vegetarianism. But today, the dominant idea of the world nutrition community is still to advocate a balanced diet of meat, poultry, fish, eggs and milk. Most scholars at home and abroad believe that a vegan and an improperly arranged vegetarian diet are very dangerous, which can easily lead to malnutrition, anemia and low immunity. In my opinion, if someone insists on vegetarianism, they should choose egg milk or fish milk. Fish milk refers to vegetarian food, and you can eat milk and sea fish, shrimp and shellfish. In addition, professionals should participate in designing recipes. Otherwise, it is very likely that the front door refuses the tiger and the back door attracts the wolf, which avoids the harm caused by eating too much meat, but it causes some diseases lacking nutrition, which is also harmful to the body.