The Benefits Of Being A Vegan

We have eight essential amino acids, and these are essential because our body cannot make them. Therefore, we have to get them from the foods that we eat. If a protein food has all eight essential amino acids, it’s considered complete. So these are typically animal-based foods like chicken and eggs. Plant-Based foods do not necessarily always have all eight essential amino acids, and so they were labeled as incomplete, just because they’re incomplete does not make them at all inferior in any way.

All plant-based foods have all eight amino acids in varying amounts. There’S no need to worry about combining the rice with beans to make sure that you’re getting the right amino acid combination at each meal as long as you’re eating a wide variety of different protein sources. So that means beans, lentils, whole grains, nuts, seeds, soy, tofu and tempeh. You will be sure to hit all eight amino acids throughout the day. Carbs are very healthy and nutritious for our bodies and they come in many different forms.

The quality of carbs is very important. You want to get whole grain carbs and try your best to either avoid or limit the refined, carbs refined. Carbs are not very helpful to our body, because one they’re missing out on the fiber and they’re missing out on B vitamins, whereas whole grains such as brown, rice, wheat, bread, quinoa, etc. Those have fiber, which is good for your gut and your heart, and they have the B vitamins which are really good for our energy. So that’s not to say that you can never have white bread or white pasta.

It’S totally fine to still have those foods in your diet. We want to make sure that you’re prioritizing the fiber rich carbs and your whole grains, so it is absolutely still possible to get enough iron, even if all of your iron sources are plant-based. Your vegan sources of iron are particularly your dark, green leafy vegetables, so kale collards spinach. Those are very rich in iron, but also beans and lentils as well, and you want to pair those with sources of vitamin C. So, for example, when you’re cooking, your beans cook them in a tomato sauce.

A really popular example is China, masala or the next time you make your kale smoothie put some strawberries in there, because strawberries are also really great source of vitamin C. A lot of us have been taught to turn to Dairy for calcium, because we’ve been told that the calcium and dairy will help strengthen our bones and make sure we don’t get osteoporosis. But actually, your research has suggested that people who drink more milk have more bone fractures, so the high protein content and milk, it creates an acidic environment in our body, and our body has to bring our insides back to normal. So, in order to do that, it needs a buffer and it gets that buffer from calcium and where is all the calcium stored in our body and our bones. So our body resorts to taking the calcium from our bones to rebalance our body and over time, and that keeps happening a person can begin to have weak and brittle bones, which can lead to osteoporosis, it’s very possible to get enough calcium on the vegan diet.

Plants. Give you just enough calcium, particularly the dark green leafy vegetables such as kale, collards, broccoli, spinach, etc, also, fortified non-dairy, milks, they’re, typically fortified with calcium, so those are also a really fabulous source. I feel that soy is absolutely a safe and nutritious food and there’s no need to be afraid of it. The biggest concern about soy is that estrogen content, the type of estrogen and soy, is called Fido estrogen, meaning it mimics real estrogen, but is actually real estrogen. There is real estrogen and other foods such as milk, dairy and eggs.

That’s really important to remember, because that phytoestrogen it can attach to the special receptors in our body, and it can actually displace the real estrogen, that’s in other foods and that’s important, because it helps to regulate how much estrogen were actually taking in. So when it comes to soy, you want to try to prioritize the more wholesome forms at a mamey and tempeh, because the soy is still in the whole bean form. Edamame are just straight-up, soybeans and tempeh is a fermented. Soybean cake. Tofu is a great option as well: it’s a little bit more processed and with the imitation meats try to limit them to be just occasional additions to your meal because they tend to be much higher in sodium and potentially preservatives as well.

If you’re transitioning to a plant-based diet, just know that it is totally normal for you to want to eat more food, these new foods, you’re eating, have less calories in them. So you’re going to need to eat more food to feel completely satisfied. A hundred calories worth of cheese is much less in volume than 100 calories worth of spinach or mushrooms or eggplant. So because of that, you technically can eat a little bit more food on a vegan diet without gaining much weight, we’re eating more food, more volume, but taking in less calories when you’re on a vegan diet. I do recommend supplementing with b12, so b12 is really crucial to our health, because we need it for our red blood cells need if our circulatory health and even our brain cognition, so b12 is actually a bacteria in the soil and most Americans today get it from Eating animal foods: now it’s not actually in the animal flesh itself, but when animals eat their food there’s dirt on it.

So that’s actually how they’re getting their b12 if you’re doing the daily supplement, make getting it in the methylated form and that’s because it is much easier for your body to absorb to other options, our nutritional yeast or you can drink non-dairy milks that are fortified with B12, another major concern for when people are going vegan is that they’re letting go of fish and fish is a major source of omega-3s. So good news, there are plenty of plant-based sources of a vegan Omega threes to break it down. There are actually three types of Omega threes. We have our ala EPA and DHA. Ala is a form of omega-3, so that’s found in your plant-based foods, so your walnuts, Chia have and flax seeds and DHA EPA.

Those are found in your animal-based foods. So your salmon, sardines, etc. Now our body converts ala to DHA as long as you regularly consume, omega-3 rich food, you are going to be okay, keep in mind that fish they’re getting that DHA from eating the algae. So it’s the algae that has the omega-3 in it, not the fish itself. So DHA is a plant-based food.

Now, if you just feel like eating those foods is not enough, you can take an algae based supplement. So vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin and that’s because our body actually creates it from sunlight, but depending on where you live during certain times of the year, you probably won’t get exposed to that much Sun. So you might want to consider vitamin D supplements other ways to get a vitamin D when you are vegan are non-dairy milks that are fortified with vitamin D, and this advice doesn’t apply just to vegans. Only if you live in an area where there is not much sunlight, whether you’re, vegan or not, we definitely should consider vitamin D supplementation. It is absolutely possible to have a healthy pregnancy on a vegan diet.

You definitely do have to be very intentional with the foods that you choose to eat when a person is pregnant, they have increased needs of lots of different nutrients with any pregnancy, even vegan or not. You still need to work closely with both your doctor and your dietitian to make sure that you are getting the nutrients that you need. So, although at first it can seem a little bit challenging and tricky to transition to a plant-based diet. Just keep in mind that there are so many benefits we will be getting more fiber, more antioxidants, less saturated fat, so you’re decreasing your risk of developing heart disease type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure. There are also even other benefits as well, such as animal welfare, the health of the planet, even human welfare as well.

If you are new to the plant-based diet and you’re really concerned about your health, you can absolutely go to your doctor and request some labs, and you can also record eye titian. That can help put you more at ease to make sure that your diet is supporting your body. Going. Vegan does not have to happen overnight, try to start with just one thing per day, so if that just means changing your regular milk to non-dairy milk, that’s a step right there, or maybe just focus on one meal out of the day. Try your best to make every lunch a plant-based lunch, but keep in mind that this is your journey and it’s going to happen at your own pace.

Do it works best for you and just be kind to yourself.