thinking about becoming vegetarian or vegan?

Question

(i'm 16) What are the benefits and downsides? i'm leaning more towards vegetarian. is this a good idea heath-wise? i am not the healthiest person, im not overweight by any means and i like veggies and fruits i just haven't been taking care of me very well. (getting over an eating disorder.)
can you tell me more about it?

oh yeah and i'm still gonna eat tuna, fish is supposed to be very good for you and tuna is the only fish i will eat

thank you!!
oh i didn't know that i could replace tuna, thats great! well i hate eating fish so that works.
yeah i am gonna wait a while before i start this i just wanted to get all the facts. but im pretty sure im gonna do it.

Answer 1

This is a great idea! but you gotta pull it through correctly or it could be bad.

I will start out by telling you some plusses on going vegetarian/vegan.

One you save many animal's lives by not eating them. Supposedly it is quite healthy to go off the meats and sometimes dairy because one meat isn't always the healthiest (i.e. hamgurgers) and

two it makes you think about what you're eating by giving yourself restrictions and order.

But it is a HUGE responsobility to cut meat or animal bi-products out of your diet because you have to replace to major protein in your diet these things supply you with with something else. If you do not start drinking protein shakes, putting protein powder in your food and drinks... eating properly without the animal bi-products going veg could be dangerous.

Also if ou are stressed right now I would consider holding off until you gain your head a bit because if you lack protein and are stressed you could develop a collin disease, or become temporarily anemic.

Hope this is helpful.

Best of wishes!

Answer 2

Excellent choice! You know, tuna is loaded in mercury. So it's not good for you.

If you're going vegetarian, please know that milk inhibits your iron absorption. There is a long standing myth that vegetarians are anemic because they don't eat meat. However, studies have shown that meat eaters are JUST as anemic and they've discovered milk is the reason why.

The best way to go is start slowly. Know your comfort foods. What things do you fall back on in a crisis? Ice cream? Oat meal? Candy? If your comfort food is a burger, make sure you formulate the most satisfying veggie version as soon as possible.

Become a label reader. Phase out any item in your normal day that contains High Fructose Corn Syrup. This will immediately launch you on your way to better health.

Increase the amount of fruits and veggies you eat. Find satisfying ways to cut them up and dine with gusto! Check out the link below to "fat free vegan" blog. Her tiny apple pies are just to die for. You can do this recipe with any fruit or veggie!

Pick up some books at the library and read up on veggie health so your parents don't worry about you.

Learn a few "family feed" recipes so your parents know that you're eating well.

Answer 3

The truly change (no longer the normal notion) among the 2 is that vegetarian is simply meals comparable and being vegan is a whole ethical option. The normal notion, that's less difficult to explain to others, is wherein each are meals offerings. Vegetarians are humans that don't consume animals (this, below no questionable occasions fish and chicken, which means should you consume both you're NOT a vegetarian, it's referred to as a "flexitarian" mostly). Lacto-vegetarians don't consume eggs; ovo-vegetarians don't consume dairy merchandise. A natural vegetarian (or regularly known as vegan) eats neither of the ones or another animal merchandise. A actual vegan is a individual does the whole lot of their vigor to go away the smallest footprint on this planet. They don't use any animal merchandise and use eco-touchy stuff instead than eco-harming matters. Though for ease of expertise vegan is known as only a vitamin. For each individual it's unique. When I made up our minds to come to be vegetarian it used to be type of unexpected and I knew that I needed to a minimum of check out it. The first couple of weeks had been relatively convenient for me however as time handed humans began to take a look at and have an impact on me. I mostly acquired stomachaches as good, however discovered they had been being brought on through meat and the through-merchandise (traditionally lard and such). I began chopping the ones matters out; lots of them had been junk meals anyhow. This helped me get an excellent greater vitamin, due to the fact that it used to be a natural teenager vitamin on the time. I misplaced two.five pant sizes within the month after, too. Becoming vegan used to be the rough facet for me. So many matters have dairy or eggs (watch out of a few of the ones veggie burgers vegans, plenty of them have egg), however that acquired plenty less difficult after I began to peer the outcome. Now I have practically no pimples, it's potent. I additionally practically not ever get unwell in any respect, no colds relatively and not anything worse in any respect. I might not ever return to consuming dairy once more simply due to the fact that of that. My enjoy with vegetarianism appears to be the reverse than so much, so plenty relies on the character. Becoming vegetarian used to be one the high-quality existence form offerings of my existence. It is far more fit than a SADiet and I consider such a lot greater emotionally. You not ever must consider dangerous approximately killing an animal and simply ordinarily I have a much less competitive demeanor. You best must fear approximately B12 due to the fact that crops don't have that main diet in any respect, ever different one they do. Though now there may be this sort of kind if fortified meals merchandise that it's not so main to fear approximately. Fresh uncooked meals will have to be the bottom of the vitamin of direction. Don't fear an excessive amount of approximately getting adequate protein should you do, learn the nutrients information on contemporary meals like lettuce, it truthfully has a few grams a serving. Orange juice has 2 grams for an 8-ounce glass and most of the main amino acids adding B6.

Answer 4

Bieng a vegetarian you cant eat meat, so that means instead of tuna- you eat nuts. Also one of the up sides is that theres alot of alternitives like tofu, veggie burgers (where I live theres even veggie tuna). Thing is you have to stick with or yall get another eating disorder. (If you get the craving for meat just eat an apple or somethin.)

Answer 5

get some friends to do it with you,, it's quite fun,, being a vegetarian is easy,, there's so much food out there for you,,

downsides: you cant eat animals
upsides: animals dont get eaten

you dont need tuna or anyfish,, it can be good for you,, but it's unnecessary

Answer 6

you made a good choice...

upsides:animals are not harmed,you will be healthier,you are helping the environment.

downsides: there are none

you can't eat tuna.... if you do you aren't a real vegetarian.

you can eat nuts,beans, and peanut butter for protein (and other stuff too)

hope this helps!

Answer 7

Improving Personal Health

It's no secret that compared to average meat-eaters, vegetarians generally live longer, are less likely to be overweight, suffer far fewer incidences of cancer and heart disease, and have more energy. These facts have been consistently borne out by decades of scientific research. The largest epidemiological study ever conducted (the China-Oxford-Cornell study) concluded that those eating the amount of animal foods in a typical American diet have seventeen times the death rate from heart disease, and, for women, five times the rate of breast cancer, than those who get 5% or less of their protein from animal foods.

Meat contains 14 times the amount of pesticides as plant foods, since pesticides get concentrated as they move up through the food chain, and since they're more easily stored in fatty tissues. In 1980, six years after the pesticide dieldrin was banned, the USDA destroyed two million packages of frozen turkey products contaminated with dieldrin. (And such contamination can routinely occur without detection.) In 1974, the FDA found dieldrin in 85% of all dairy products and 99.5% of the American people. The EPA discovered that the breast milk of vegetarian women contained far lower levels of pesticides than that of average Americans. A study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine found that "The highest levels of contamination in the breast milk of the vegetarians was lower than the lowest level of contamination…(in) non-vegetarian women… The mean vegetarian levels were only 1-2% as high as the average levels in the U.S."

Saving the Earth

All food animals consume several times more grain than they produce as meat. So several times as much land is needed to grow grain to feed animals, several times as much energy is used to harvest the grain and transport it, several times as much water is necessary, several times as much pesticides, etc. Worldwide petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 11 years if the rest of the world ate like the U.S. The least energy-efficient plant food is 10 times as efficient as the most efficient meat food. A nationwide switch to a pure vegetarian diet would allow us to cut our oil imports by 60%.

Over half of the water used in the U.S. is used to grow feed for livestock. It takes 100 times as much water to produce meat than to produce wheat. The water required to produce a day's diet for a typical American is 4,000 gallons. (It's 1,200 for vegetarians and 300 for vegans.) Compared to a vegan diet, three days of a typical American diet requires as much water as you use for showering all year (assuming you shower every day).

U.S. Livestock produce 250,000 pounds of waste per second -- 20 times as much as humans. A large feedlot produces as much waste as a large city, but without a sewage system. Animal waste washed into rivers and lakes causes increased nitrates, phosphates, ammonia, and bacteria, and decreases the oxygen content. This kills plant and animal life. The meat industry account for three times as much harmful organic waste as the rest of the industries in the U.S. combined.

It takes ten times as much land to produce food for an average American compared to a pure vegetarian. An acre of land can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but only 165 pounds of beef. In the U.S., 260 million acres of forest have been destroyed for use as agricultural land to support our meat diet (over 1 acre per person). Since 1967, the rate of deforestation has been one acre every five seconds. For every acre cleared for urban development, seven acres are cleared to graze animals or grow feed for them.

Around 85% of topsoil loss is directly associated with raising livestock. We have lost 75% of our topsoil. The USDA says crop productivity is down 70% as a result of topsoil loss. It takes nature 500 years to build an inch of topsoil. Vegan diets make less than 5% of the demands on the soil as meat-based diets.

Caring for Animals

Around eight billion animals are killed for food every year in the U.S. alone -- a number greater than the entire human population of the planet. Each meat-eating American eats the equivalent of about 24 animals per year. What's worse, modern agricultural methods mean that animals are raised in cramped confinement operations instead of the pastures from childhood picture books -- a practice known as factory farming. Chickens are crammed into cages with no free space, and are debeaked to keep them from pecking each other to death. Animals are pumped full of various powerful drugs to kill diseases resulting from filthy living conditions, and to make them grow or produce faster than nature intended. When cows and chickens stop producing as much milk and eggs as the younger animals, they're unceremoniously slaughtered and made into low-grade meat (fast food and pet food). For some, vegetarianism and veganism are ways to refuse to participate in the commodification of animals.


Reasons to not eat fish
Worldwide demand for fish, along with advances in fishing methods--sonar, driftnets, floating refrigerated fish packing factories--is bringing ocean species, one after another, to the brink of extinction. In the Nov., '95 edition of Scientific American, Carl Safina writes, "For the past two decades, the fishing industry has had increasingly to face the result of extracting [fish] faster than fish populations [can] reproduce." Research reveals that the intended cure--aquaculture (fish farming)--actually hastens the trend toward fish extinction, while disrupting delicate coastal ecosystems at the same time.

Fish are living magnets for toxic chemicals. According to Consumer Reports (Feb., '92), a notable incidence of unacceptable levels of PCBs and mercury were found in certain species of fish that were tested (see #85). Ingesting PCBs is considered a chief cause of reduced sperm count among American men--70% of what it was 30 years ago.

Nearly half the fish tested in a 6-month investigation by Consumers Union were found to be contaminated by bacteria from human or animal feces, suspected to be the result of poor sanitation practices at one or more points along the fish handling process

At least 95% of all toxic chemical residues in the American diet come from meat, fish, dairy products and eggs. This is because such residues are stored in fat. Each step up the food chain serves to amplify the consumption of toxins. Fish, especially, have very long food chains. Avoiding fish to avoid toxic residue may not be a sufficient preventative measure, however, as one third of the world's fish catch is fed to livestock. Due to the excessive use of pesticides, insecticides and petrochemical fertilizers on cropland, the injection of hormones and antibiotics into farm animals, and the abundance of PCBs and mercury in our oceans, there is toxicity in the flesh of all animals people eat. More than ever, it is wise to eat "low on the food chain," with plant food being the lowest and safest.

Late in 1995, the FDA put into place new rules pertaining to the regulation of fish processing. The rules require the FDA to inspect each of the nation's 6,000 processing plants, at most once per year and as little as once every three years, at which time a few samples may be taken for later evaluation. Individual fish will continue to not be inspected by any US agency. Though every fish processor will be required to keep ongoing records of safety procedures peculiar to its operation, no regulations whatsoever will pertain to the 100,000 fishing vessels that bring seafood to market. The new system is considered an improvement--from the standpoint of the consumer--over the previous one

The positive health benefits a person may think he or she gets from eating fish can better be achieved through a whole foods vegetarian diet. Fish lacks carbohydrates, fiber, and vitamin C. Also, fish is high in animal protein, which is hard on the kidneys and high in fat, which increases the risk of cancer and gall bladder disease.

In a seven-year study of washed-up marine debris at Padre Island National Seashore (located on the southeastern coast of Texas), the US Department of the Interior found that the shrimping industry was far and away the biggest contributor of ocean litter.