Vegetarianism

What it means:

The term vegetarianism covers a whole range of eating behaviours, but technically a vegetarian is a person who does not eat meat, fish, chicken, shell fish or anything derived from any of these when they have been killed. A vegans will only eat plant based foods and won’t, for instance, even eat eggs or milk. In fact there is a whole range of eating behaviours covered by the term ‘vegetarian’ from people who will eat almost anything to those who are vegetarian but don’t even like vegetables!

Is it healthy?

‘Yes’ – research shows that you can eat a vegetarian diet and be as healthy as, if not healthier than, those who eat meat. This is as long as you make sure that you get all the necessary types of protein, carbohydrates, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and essential mineral

How do I do that?

For protein - teenage girls need 45 grams of protein and teenage boys need 55 grams of protein, per day. Get it from nuts, peas, beans, cereals, milk, cheese and eggs

For carbohydrate – which gives you energy – you get from bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, fruit

For fats – you get from butter, cheese, milk

For vitamins – five portions of fruit and vegetables a day will give you most of these but beware, vegetarians can easily run short of the B vitamins which are normally contained in meats. Marmite is a good source, but you may need to take supplements

Essential minerals – most important are calcium, iron and zinc. Calcium is found in milk, cheese, yoghurt, white bread and green vegetables. Iron is found in eggs, leafy greens, whole meal bread, plain chocolate and lentils (vegetarians tend to run short on iron unless they are making special efforts to make sure they get enough). Zinc is found in cheese, sesame and pumpkin seeds and lentils.

If you are a vegetarian or are thinking of becoming a vegetarian we would strongly recommend checking out the website
www.vegsoc.org/youth/school/ks4/