Vegetarian nutrition
Vegetarian nutrition is the set of health-related challenges and advantages of vegetarian diets.
If well-planned and fortified to balance their deficiencies, vegetarian and vegan diets can become nutritionally adequate and can be appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. When fortified, a vegetarian diet can provide adequate protein, iron, zinc, vitamin B12, and calcium intake. However, in non fortified vegetarian diets, and when not enough calories are consumed, these nutrients can be dangerously low and may compromise children's health and development.
Evidence suggests that vegetarians have lower rates of coronary heart disease, obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and osteoporosis. Vegetarian diets tend to be rich in carbohydrates, omega-6 fatty acids, dietary fibre, carotenoids, folic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, potassium and magnesium. They are generally low in saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein.
The Oxford Vegetarian Study showed that the health of vegetarians compares favourably with that of meat-eaters (excluding pescetarians). British vegetarians have lower death rates than non-vegetarians, although this is at least partly due to non-dietary lifestyle factors, such as a low prevalence of smoking and the generally high socioeconomic status of vegetarians, or to aspects of the diet other than the avoidance of meat and fish.
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