Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vegan. Show all posts

Wednesday, 30 January 2013

Vegetarians 'cut heart.?


Vegetarians 'cut heart risk by 32%'

Vegetables

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Ditching meat and fish in favour of a vegetarian diet can have a dramatic effect on the health of your heart, research suggests.
A study of 44,500 people in England and Scotland showed vegetarians were 32% less likely to die or need hospital treatment as a result of heart disease.
Differences in cholesterol levels, blood pressure and body weight are thought to be behind the health boost.
The findings were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Heart disease is a major blight in Western countries. It kills 94,000 people in the UK each year - more than any other disease, and 2.6 million people live with the condition.
The heart's own blood supply becomes blocked up by fatty deposits in the arteries that nourish the heart muscle. It can cause angina or even lead to a heart attack if the blood vessels become completely blocked.
Scientists at the University of Oxford analysed data from 15,100 vegetarians and 29,400 people who ate meat and fish.
Over the course of 11 years, 169 people in the study died from heart disease and 1,066 needed hospital treatment - and they were more likely to have been meat and fish eaters than vegetarians.

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Choosing the veggie option on the menu is not a shortcut to a healthy heart”
Tracy ParkerBritish Heart Foundation
Dr Francesca Crowe said: "The main message is that diet is an important determinant of heart health, I'm not advocating that everyone eats a vegetarian diet.
"The diets are quite different. Vegetarians probably have a lower intake of saturated fat so it makes senses there is a lower risk of heart disease."
The results showed the vegetarians had lower blood pressure, lower levels of "bad" cholesterol and were more likely to have a healthy weight.
Tracy Parker, from the British Heart Foundation, said: "This research reminds us that we should try to eat a balanced and varied diet - whether this includes meat or not.
"But remember, choosing the veggie option on the menu is not a shortcut to a healthy heart. After all, there are still plenty of foods suitable for vegetarians that are high in saturated fat and salt.
"If you're thinking of switching to a vegetarian diet, make sure you plan your meals carefully so that you replace any lost vitamins and minerals, such as iron, that you would normally get from meat."

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Tuesday, 22 January 2013

refusing meat is regarded as a sign of madness


20 of your tales of vegetarian woe

Salad with ham

What do vegetarians eat in a country where refusing meat is regarded as a sign of madness? A Magazine feature published last week raised this question, and there was a huge response from readers.

It might be tomato pasta. Again. Or salad. Plain rice. Or vegetable stew... with lumps of chicken to pick out. For the BBC's Dany Mitzman in Bologna, Italy - where vegetarianism is seen as an exotic illness - it's tagliatelle with mushrooms. Here is a selection of tales from our vegetarian readers trying to find meat-free options when far from home.
1. Breanna, Whistler, Canada: I was a vegan when I moved to West Africa in 2002. I rapidly started eating dairy, eggs and fish again just to be able to survive. I not only encountered bewilderment but inevitably would get asked "why no meat?" and end up in long discussions where my friends and colleagues tried to convert me. I tried every explanation: loving animals, hating plants, being a Buddhist, but all in vain. After a few months, I finally hit upon gold. I simply told people that my grandfather had forbidden it before he died. Nobody would dream of asking me - an unmarried young woman - to go against my grandfather's wishes. After that, everyone went out of their way to find meatless dishes for me to eat.
2. Lucy, Glasgow: In Cuba, a very helpful restaurateur bent over backwards when I told him, "soy vegetariano". However, when he served me my plate of crisps, grilled vegetables, beans and rice, he proclaimed: "But you cannot be a vegetarian - you're not skinny!"
3. Grant Finepen, Subic, Philippines: Try being a vegetarian in Texas. My friend went to a BBQ and said he didn't eat meat so, after many sympathetic words of consolation, he was given a burger bun with a salad.

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Keep quiet! Everybody needs to eat meat”
4. Phil, Riccione, Italy: When I first moved to Italy, everyone thought my vegetarianism was odd, but my wife's nonna [grandmother] thought it was extremely suspicious. Initially, when we were invited for lunch, she would try to tempt me with all manner of cooked beasts. After failing to win me over, she now cooks separate "vegetarian" pasta sauce just for me, but she sneaks finely-minced meat into it. My wife caught her in the act, to which her defence was "Keep quiet! Everybody needs to eat meat. Besides, otherwise it won't taste as good."
5. Angus Gafraidh, London, UK: The French are overwhelmingly in favour of animal rights, in that every animal has the right to be eaten by a French person. While staying in Bayeux I ordered a meat-free salad and was served a tuna salad. When I explained that I didn't eat any form of meat including fish, the waiter retreated into the kitchen, a puzzled and slightly outraged look on his face. One by one the kitchen staff poked their heads out for a shifty look at this strange creature who did not eat animals. Eventually I ended up with a slightly misshapen cheese quiche - I am sure they had laboriously picked the ham pieces out - and a salad that smelled faintly of tuna. Next time I will take my own sandwiches.
6. Demarest Campbell, San Francisco, US: In South Africa, requesting vegetables is like swearing at the wait-staff. One bewildered waiter told me haughtily, "But, vegetables is what food eats."

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Don't you ever feel like you're dying for steak?”
7. Richard Ward, Keighley, UK: Try Newfoundland in Canada. I was on a road trip there for a week a couple of years ago, I basically had to live on onion rings and side salads. Everything had meat in it and the staff in restaurants and cafes openly mocked that I didn't eat meat. Only one place served a veggie option... and you guessed it, veggie lasagne - the bane of all vegetarians I know. It's just lazy catering.
8. Georgina Rowbotham, York, UK: The concept of vegetarianism absolutely does not exist in Tanzania. After trying to explain a couple of times that meat available in the UK often isn't farmed very pleasantly, I watched a schoolgirl chase my dinner (a decent-sized chicken) around the school courtyard until she caught it, I decided that since there wasn't an abundance of food and since it was the very definition of free-range, I had no problem tucking into it later that evening.
9. Christopher Smith, Pewsey, UK: I remember going out to eat in a restaurant in Bamberg in Germany. We ordered ravioli, having first established that the filling was vegetarian, There then followed a lengthy animated discussion between the management and my German-speaking friend on whether the pink meaty filling inside the ravioli was spinach or not.
10. Julieta, Buenos Aires, Argentina: I am also a non-meat eater in a country where vegetarianism is an exotic illness. Try telling people you don't eat red meat in Argentina. First question is always "Why?", followed by "Are you sick?" and, later, any of the following: "Are you sure? Come on, a bit won't hurt", or "Don't you ever feel like you're dying for steak?"

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You're in meat country now, love”
11. Kedaar Raman, Troy, New York: I have travelled far and wide. My family raised me as a traditional Hindu Brahmin vegetarian. I have found it hardest to find vegetarian food in Malaysia, China and Vermont when I lived with local farmers. I was always given the look of pity when I told locals I did not eat meat. I explained it was a personal choice and that I did not feel like I was missing out on anything since I have never eaten meat in my life. If a mother does not put a piece of meat in a baby's mouth and say it is food, the baby does not know it is food.
12. Martha P, Buxton, Derbyshire: In the deep south of New Zealand, we stopped at the one pub in the village for lunch. When I asked the bar-keep what vegetarian options there were, he sucked his teeth - "You're in meat country now, love" - and proceeded to make me a most delicious salad sandwich.
13. Marcus Oliver, London, UK: As a third-generation vegetarian (no meat, no fish), I made life even more difficult for myself by getting into practical farming in Ireland from school age. People I met and worked with couldn't understand how I could help raise livestock and yet never eat the end products. I later became an agricultural journalist for 30 years. I remember vividly a steak house in Maidenhead where the waiter brought out a leg of chicken as a substitute for the steaks my colleagues were enjoying. I sent this back complaining that it, too, was meat. I eventually got a huge lump of sweaty cheddar cheese plonked on my plate, enough for a family of four. On another occasion, at a beef production conference in Ireland, one of the delegates had to be forcefully restrained by his fellow farmers from punching me. He couldn't see how I could report fairly on the conference when I wouldn't eat the exquisite beef on offer.
14. Otto Gross, Boonton Township, New Jersey, US: On my first business trip to South Korea, the response to telling people I was vegetarian in Seoul was, "Vegetables are what they feed animals before they kill and serve them." But these experiences are not just overseas. On entering South Dakota, one of the first signs we saw was "South Dakota. Vegetarians not welcome". Now this was definitely meant in jest, but it underscored we were infidels in the land of beef.

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No sir, no meat in our oil, just pure lard”
15. Laura Dover, Calgary, Canada: When I was in (then) Czechoslovakia in 1992, I order a meatless, fishless pizza. Sure enough, they brought me a ham pizza. My Czech boyfriend berated the waitress and pointed out the meat on the pizza. "But it is chopped up in small pieces!" she exclaimed.
16. Jonathan Lesser, Jerusalem, Israel: My experiences of avoiding eating meat dishes are mostly based on my childhood during numerous walking tours throughout the UK. In the 1960s "kosher only" was relatively unknown. Much to my embarrassment, my Dad was constantly asking fish and chip owners what they fried their chips in: "No sir, no meat in our oil, just pure lard..." We had to "schlap" (an apt word here) all our dishes with us, not to mention tins of kosher Spam, in itself a contradiction of terms. We usually went pretty hungry on those walking tours.
17. Sarah, Surrey: Not only am I a vegetarian, but I love to travel and the two don't often go hand in hand. In Asia, I quickly became accustomed to eating simple foods such as plain boiled rice (including for breakfast) to ensure I didn't go hungry. But it wasn't all bad. Tropical climates offer the most beautiful exotic fruits, vegetables and spices at incredibly low prices. There were also a few vegetarian restaurants, particularly in Borneo, serving some of the most delicious veggie food I've ever eaten. Yes, in some countries locals struggled to comprehend that I didn't eat meat, but in others there were locals who - primarily for religious reasons - were vegetarians themselves, and for once I was in the majority. Amazing.

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Is chicken meat? Is pork meat? It's just a little, you'll never notice”
18. Jonathan Pagden, Chesham, Bucks: I once stayed in a hotel in Munich (in a land famous for offering six varieties of meat for breakfast), and asked for the vegetarian lunch option. The waiter brought a plate of bacon. When I pointed this out, he said, with a completely straight face, "It came from a vegetarian pig." I still don't know whether he was joking.
19. Cheryl, Austin, Texas, US: I routinely travel around the world for work and the reactions to non-meat eaters are routinely hysterical. "Is chicken meat? Is pork meat? It's just a little. You'll never notice. Are you ill? Poor thing..." When I worked in eastern Hungary, the company cafeteria staff would try very hard to come up with something suitable (their soups, appetizers, main courses, desserts all have animal products and even the veggies are cooked in butter). It became a daily contest and everyone would gather around to see what had been concocted for me on any given day. One day I received something that looked vaguely like a deep-fried brick, about four inches long and an inch deep. I cut into it to find that it was a block of cheese. Similar adventures even in India and South America, where bean and lentils are easy to come by.
20. Damian Bown, London, England: Reminds me of a story that my sister recounts of visiting a restaurant in northern Italy and asking "I am a vegetarian, is that a problem?" to which the waiter replied "Only for you madam, only for you."

Saturday, 5 May 2012

ritual slaughter


Leading vet criticises ritual slaughter of animals

Halal abattoir in Oudeschoot, NetherlandsProf Reilly says if there is no alternative to non-stun slaughter, then it ought to be kept to a minimum

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A leading vet has criticised the "unacceptable" rise in the number of animals killed in ritual slaughter.
Ritual slaughter is lawful in the UK and the EU to satisfy the dietary requirements of Jews and Muslims.
Prof Bill Reilly, former president of the British Veterinary Association, said estimates suggested more animals were slaughtered than was necessary.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said its own figures showed most animals were stunned before being killed.
The FSA conducted a survey into animal welfare in slaughterhouses in September.
A spokesman said: "The results indicate that the number of animals not stunned prior to slaughter is relatively low, accounting for 3% of cattle, 10% of sheep and goats, and 4% of poultry.
"They also show that the majority of animals destined for the halal trade in both the red and white meat sectors are stunned before slaughter."
The FSA said full details of the survey would be published ahead of a discussion at a board meeting on 22 May.
'Not acceptable'
But Prof Reilly, writing in the Veterinary Record, said: "In my view, the current situation is not acceptable and, if we cannot eliminate non-stunning, we need to keep it to the minimum.
"This means restricting the use of halal and kosher meat to those communities that require it for their religious beliefs and, where possible, convincing them of the acceptability of the stunned alternatives."
He suggested some abattoirs might be refusing to stun animals simply to cut costs.
UK legislation allows halal (Muslim) or schecita (Jewish) "non-stun" slaughter as long as it does not cause "unnecessary suffering".
But Prof Reilly said he witnessed schecita slaughter in the 1970s and he wrote: "The distress, fear and pain were there for all to see in the abattoir."
Prof Reilly said his own estimates suggested around two million animals, mostly poultry, were killed in the UK each year without stunning for the orthodox Jewish community.
Halal meat now accounted for 25% of the entire UK meat market, Prof Reilly added. Anecdotal evidence suggested that almost half of lambs destined for slaughter were killed without prior stunning.
Joyce D'Silva, from the charity Compassion in World Farming (CWF), said: "Judaism and Islam believe that animals are creatures of God; science tells us that they are sentient beings, who can suffer.
"If you hold either view, or both, then your principle concern must be to ensure the least possible suffering for the animal concerned.
"Therefore animals should be handled with care and stunned effectively before their throats are cut in order to minimise their distress and pain.
"Consumers should be able to tell how the animals they eat are reared, transported and slaughtered," he added.

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Friday, 5 November 2010

you need to eat a balanced diet

Vegetarian and vegan



cashew nuts The important thing to remember if you're a vegetarian is that you need to eat a balanced diet to make sure you're getting all the nutrients your body needs.





Healthy eating



spaghetti big The main healthy eating messages are the same for everybody. As part of a healthy balanced diet, we should all be trying to do the following:
  • eating at least five portions of a variety of fruit and veg every day
  • basing meals on starchy foods such as pasta, rice, cereals and pulses such as beans, peas and lentils. These should make up about a third of the diet
  • trying to cut down on food that is high in saturated fat and having foods that are rich in unsaturated fat instead, such as vegetable oils (including sunflower, rapeseed and olive oil), avocados, nuts and seeds
  • trying to grill, bake, poach, boil, steam, dry-fry or microwave instead of frying or roasting in oil
  • eating some protein foods such as dairy products, eggs or pulses and having a variety of these foods
  • cutting down on sugar
  • watching how much salt we're eating - it's a good idea to check food labels and try not to add salt to your food when you're cooking
  • drinking about 1.2 litres (6 to 8 glasses) of fluid a day or more if you exercise
But you also need to make sure you're getting enough nutrients, especially protein, iron and selenium, which can sometimes be lacking in a meat-free diet.




Getting the nutrients you need




Getting enough protein

lentils It's important to make sure you're getting enough protein.


These foods are all good sources, so try to include a mixture of these in your diet each day, and vary the types you choose:
  • pulses (such as lentils and beans)
  • nuts and seeds
  • eggs
  • soya and soya products such as tofu
  • mycoprotein, sold as Quorn™
  • wheat proteins, such as cereals, bread, rice and maize
  • milk and dairy products
Protein is made of amino acids, some of which are known as 'essential amino acids' because the body can't make them itself.


It's important to get some of each of these essential amino acids at the same time. Soya, quinoa and hemp seeds are the only vegetarian sources of the complete mix of essential amino acids. (The complete mix is also found in meat, poultry, fish and eggs.)


Although it sounds complicated, it's actually easy to get all the essential amino acids you need by eating different types of protein foods at the same time, in fact you will often being doing this already, for example by having:


  • beans on your toast
  • milk with your breakfast cereal
  • rice with lentil dhal
  • a rice and bean salad
  • vegetable chilli (with kidney beans) served with rice or tortillas
  • bread and cheese
  • soup made with lentils, beans or split peas with a chunk of bread
  • houmous and pitta bread
It's also not a good idea to rely on one type of protein because you might be missing out on nutrients. And, if for example you rely on cheese as your source of protein, you might be having too much saturated fat.


If you don't eat milk and dairy products, choose soya, rice or oat drinks fortified with calcium instead.



Getting enough selenium

Brazil nuts It's important to make sure you're getting enough selenium because selenium is important for our immune systems to function properly.


Meat, fish and nuts are the best sources of selenium, so if you're a strict vegetarian, it's important to make sure you're eating enough nuts.


Brazil nuts are a particularly good source of selenium, so try to eat a couple every day. Eating a small bag of mixed unsalted nuts can be a convenient way to get your daily selenium intake, but make sure it contains Brazils.


Bread and eggs also provide some selenium.


If you eat a mostly vegetarian diet but also eat fish, you should be getting enough selenium.




Getting enough iron

broccoli Although meat is the best source of iron, it can also be found in:
  • pulses
  • green vegetables such as watercress, broccoli, spring greens and okra
  • bread
  • fortified breakfast cereals
Remember that it's easier to absorb iron from food if we eat it with foods that contain vitamin C, so have some fruit or veg, or a glass of fruit juice with your meal.


Cutting down on tea and coffee could help to improve iron levels in the body. This is because tea and coffee contains compounds, called polyphenols, which can bind with iron making it harder for our bodies to absorb it.




What do vegetarians eat?



Vegetarians don't eat any meat, fish, seafood or animal by-products such as gelatine, but the majority of vegetarians do eat some animal products, mainly milk, cheese (made with vegetarian rennet) and eggs.


Some people eat a mostly vegetarian diet, but also eat fish.



What do vegans eat?



Vegans don't eat any foods of animal origin. This includes meat, fish and dairy foods, and also honey.


If you are a vegan, you need to make sure you're getting enough protein and iron (see above), but it can also be difficult to get enough vitamin B12.


These are good vegan sources of vitamin B12:
  • yeast extract
  • fortified bread
  • fortified breakfast cereals

Monday, 1 November 2010

the calorie has had its day



Calorie information on a food label Naan bread or garlic bread? Let's count the calories...
Counting calories is an addictive pastime for many a dedicated slimmer. Croissant or toast? Curry or pizza? Sandwich or salad?
Food labels help millions of people decide what to buy and what to eat. So it's important that they are accurate but, according to some experts, the system on which they are based is flawed and misleading.
A calorie is the energy we get from food. Too much energy and we end up getting fat. But how is the calorie content of food calculated?
Back in the 1800s an American chemist, Wilbur Atwater, devised the system on which calorific values on our food labels are still based.
Basically, he burned food and then measured how much energy it gave off.


“Start Quote

What's important is to eat fewer calories so that the body is in negative energy balance. How you calculate it doesn't matter.”
End Quote Gaynor Bussell British Dietetic Association
He then estimated the amount of energy the body used up by calculating the amount of energy in undigested food in waste products.
That thankless task prompted Atwater to conclude that every gram of carbohydrate produced four calories, every gram of fat produced nine, and every gram of protein produced four calories.
These figures have been used as the basis for calculating the calorie content of food ever since.
Energy usage
Nutritionists have always known that these calorific values are approximate.
But recently some nutritionists, including Dr Geoffrey Livesey, are saying that the calorie content of items in our shopping baskets could be up to 25% out.
This is because the texture of the food, its fibre content, and how it is cooked can all affect the amount of energy the body is able to get from food, he says.
Even the process of chewing food uses up energy and, therefore, calories.
The more protein or fibre in a food, for example, the harder the body has to work to process it.
A filled jacket potato
So when we are weighing up which ready meal to buy in the supermarket, we need to think about more than just the calories contained in food before we eat it - we need to consider how our body digests and processes it too.
Dr Livesey says: "People need to be given the right information to make the right choices, following the latest scientific understanding, because if you are not following the science, you're following something else.
"When you consider calories have been used as the only measurement for understanding foods' impact on weight loss for nearly 200 years, despite our huge advancement in nutritional science, you realise how outdated calorie counting is."
'Calorie conscious'
So is it time to overhaul the current system of food labelling?
Dr Susan Jebb, head of nutrition at the Medical Research Council, says it's right to say that some calories are more filling than others but, "in the grand scheme of things, we're talking about really small differences here."
She added: "When it comes to advising the public and getting people to eat fewer calories, I'm not sure this is going to be helpful."
"If you're trying to lose weight you have to be calorie conscious, not calorie counting all the time.
"In any case, we need to test if this is better way of advising people than the current way."
Gaynor Bussell, a dietician and spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association, agrees that overhauling the whole system on which calories are calculated doesn't make sense without backing from scientists and governments.
What matters is eating healthily and that is "not a precise art anyway", she says.
"What's important is to eat fewer calories so that the body is in negative energy balance. How you calculate it doesn't matter."
Weight Watchers is proposing a new system called ProPoints, which it says is a more accurate alternative to calorie counting.
It's based on a daily allowance which takes into account gender, age, weight and height. All fruits and most vegetables contain zero ProPoints.
The system tells you "the amount of energy that is available in a food after you've eaten it," the weight loss organisation maintains.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization looked at the issue a few years ago and decided that changing the way calories are calculated would need huge upheaval and lots of money - all for marginal gain.
So don't fret too much over the labels at the supermarket - eating sensibly is far more important.


Thursday, 26 August 2010

Broccoli 'boosts' healthy gut



Broccoli is high in vitamins and minerals
Extracts of broccoli and banana may help in fighting stomach problems, research suggests.
Laboratory studies show fibres from the vegetables may boost the body's natural defences against stomach infections.
BroccoliTrials are under way to see if they could be used as a medical food for patients with Crohn's disease.
Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disease that causes symptoms such as diarrhoea and abdominal pain.
It affects about 1 in 1,000 people, and is thought to be caused by a mixture of environmental and genetic factors.
The condition is common in developed countries, where diets are often low in fibre and high in processed food.
Scientists at the University of Liverpool looked at how roughage from vegetables influenced the passage of harmful bacteria through cells inside the gut.
They found that fibres from the plantain, a type of large banana, and broccoli, were particularly beneficial. But a common stabiliser added to processed foods during the manufacturing process had the opposite effect.
Dr Barry Campbell, from the University of Liverpool, said: "This research shows that different dietary components can have powerful effects on the movement of bacteria through the bowel.
"We have known for some time the general health benefits of eating plantain and broccoli, which are both high in vitamins and minerals, but until now we have not understood how they can boost the body's natural defences against infection common in Crohn's patients.
"Our work suggests that it might be important for patients with this condition to eat healthily and limit their intake of processed foods."
M-cells
The research, published in the journal Gut, and carried out in collaboration with experts in Sweden and Scotland, investigated special cells, called M-cells, which line the gut and ward off invading bacteria.
Work was carried out in laboratory-grown cells and tissue samples from patients undergoing surgery for stomach problems.
Clinical trials are now underway in 76 Crohn's patients to find out whether a medical food containing plantain fibres could help keep the disease at bay.
"It may be that it makes sense for sufferers of Crohn's to take supplements of these fibres to help prevent relapse," said Professor Jon Rhodes of the University of Liverpool.
Commenting on the study, a spokesperson for Crohn's and Colitis, which represents patients with inflammatory bowel disorders, welcomed further insight into how the gut combats bacteria like E.Coli.
"Knowledge of the M-cell role offers a more detailed explanation as to why a healthy diet can improve the health and well being for people with Crohn's disease and healthy individuals alike," she said

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