5 main cons of vegetarianism

In recent years, more and more peo­ple have made the deci­sion to com­plete­ly give up eat­ing meat. Such a diet can have a pos­i­tive effect on well-being and indi­rect­ly con­tribute to the preser­va­tion of the plan­et, but there are still sig­nif­i­cant draw­backs in it. More­over, for the female half of human­i­ty, it also involves seri­ous health risks. Before you declare your­self a veg­e­tar­i­an, pay atten­tion to the dan­gers that may await you when switch­ing to a new diet.

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Vitamin D deficiency

Although vit­a­min D is found in some plant foods, one of its vital ver­sions (D3) is found only in ani­mal pro­tein. What hap­pens if the body does not get enough of this vit­a­min? Bones soft­en and become brit­tle, caries devel­ops, teeth become deformed, sleep is dis­turbed and vision dete­ri­o­rates. With a low lev­el of vit­a­min D, irre­versible process­es begin to occur, which are char­ac­ter­ized by visu­al changes in the skele­tal sys­tem. When ditch­ing meat, keep in mind that every veg­e­tar­i­an needs a reg­u­lar intake of vit­a­mins as well as cal­ci­um for healthy bones and joints.

Read more: Why does the body need pro­tein and what foods con­tain it

Zinc deficiency

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Zinc is present in all our tis­sues and organs. How­ev­er, inter­nal reserves are small. The lack of a microele­ment instant­ly affects the state of the whole organ­ism. How to replen­ish the sup­ply of zinc? By eat­ing its best sources — red meat and offal (kid­neys, lungs, liv­er, tongue, etc.). Yes, zinc is indeed found in some plant foods (cere­als, sesame, nuts, pump­kin seeds), but it is meat that con­tains his­ticine and cys­teine, which stim­u­late the absorp­tion capa­bil­i­ties of the microele­ment. In oth­er words, zinc from plants is much worse absorbed.

The con­se­quences of zinc defi­cien­cy vary great­ly, as a vari­ety of tis­sues, organs and sys­tems are grad­u­al­ly affect­ed. The most com­mon symp­toms are skin rash­es, hair loss, eye dam­age, neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders, decreased immu­ni­ty, as well as impo­tence and infer­til­i­ty.

Read more: Top 5 Healthy Nutri­tion Trends

Anemia

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Ane­mia is one of the key con­cerns for veg­e­tar­i­ans and veg­ans. Ani­mal pro­teins (liv­er, meat, poul­try and fish) are the most pow­er­ful source of iron, which is nec­es­sary for trans­port­ing nutri­ents with blood cells through­out the body. With ane­mia, fatigue increas­es, effi­cien­cy decreas­es, dizzi­ness and headaches both­er, short­ness of breath appears. In the body, there is a vio­la­tion of oxida­tive process­es, which, in turn, leads to hypox­ia — oxy­gen star­va­tion of tis­sues. Treat­ment of ane­mia should be com­pre­hen­sive.

Iron is found in cere­als, some veg­eta­bles (cab­bage, toma­toes, car­rots, beets, pota­toes) and fruits (grapes, lemon), but no more than 5% of this impor­tant trace ele­ment is absorbed from plant com­po­nents. The absorp­tion of iron from plant foods is increased by 3 times if con­sumed togeth­er with ani­mal prod­ucts.

Amenorrhea

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The source of the for­ma­tion of estro­gens, which are respon­si­ble for the nor­mal func­tion­ing of the female repro­duc­tive sys­tem, are ani­mal fats. Of course, veg­etable oil, nuts, avo­ca­dos, pump­kin and sun­flower seeds are also rich in valu­able fats that are essen­tial for wom­en’s health. How­ev­er, only with a bal­anced com­bi­na­tion of fats from dif­fer­ent sources, includ­ing meat, fish and dairy prod­ucts, can we talk about a wom­an’s abil­i­ty to con­ceive. By the way, here it is worth dis­pelling the myths about the dan­gers of cho­les­terol. In fact, it is indis­pens­able for the syn­the­sis of bio­log­i­cal­ly active sub­stances and sex hor­mones. If there is not enough fat in the diet of the fair sex, amen­or­rhea sets in — men­stru­a­tion stops.

Read more: Ben­e­fit or harm? Top 5 Veg­e­tar­i­an Mis­con­cep­tions

depression and anxiety

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As part of a 2012 study, sci­en­tists com­pared the men­tal health scores of 250 veg­e­tar­i­ans and 250 meat eaters. As it turned out, over 30% of veg­e­tar­i­ans suf­fer from stress, while only 13% of meat eaters showed symp­toms of an anx­i­ety dis­or­der. The prob­lem lies in the low con­tent of vit­a­min B12 in plant foods. In addi­tion, veg­e­tar­i­ans have to wor­ry about how their eat­ing habits will be per­ceived by oth­ers, what to order in a restau­rant, what to replace meat with and how much such a replace­ment will cost (veg­e­tar­i­an­ism is not the cheap­est plea­sure).

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