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Which vegetarian diet could you most easily incorporate into your lifestyle?
Adding more plant-based foods to your diet has proven health benefits
While you might not be a full-fledged vegetarian, you may be moving toward eating more plant-based foods. If so, you’re not alone. Increasing numbers of Canadians are adopting a flexitarian diet – one that’s flexible enough to allow some meat, poultry and fish, but also includes more fruits and vegetables as well as a wider variety of plant foods such as beans, lentils, chickpeas, soy foods, nuts and seeds.
A well-balanced flexitarian (or vegetarian) diet – one that delivers adequate nutrition and calories from a healthy mix of carbohydrate, protein and quality fats, along with plenty of vegetables – offers many health benefits.
In general, even semi-vegetarians weigh less than non-vegetarians. This weight difference has many positive effects on overall health, including a reduced risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer, largely due to the lower intake of saturated fat and cholesterol. There’s also a decreased risk of bone loss. Even longevity may be affected – on average, semi-vegetarians live 3.6 years longer than non-vegetarians.
A flexitarian diet that incorporates a modest amount of meat while dramatically increasing the emphasis on plant foods is an excellent approach to nutrition. It can also be a transitional step to following one of the vegetarian diets, most of which fall into one of the following categories:
Diet tip: Start down the road to achieving a more plant-based diet by making one dinner a week a vegetarian meal (e.g., meatless chili, vegetable lasagna, vegetable and tofu stir-fry). Try this Meatless Monday recipe for Moroccan Chickpea and Vegetable Stew to get you started.
Originally published in Wellness Matters, Canada Wide Media’s quarterly newsletter on health and wellness.