Photo by Jane Trang Doan
There’s a food revolution trend growing on the horizon regarding healthy living: plant-based diets. Centered around whole, unprocessed plant foods, plant-based diets have been rising significantly in popularity in recent years–a perfect partner to Eleanor Gaccetta’s book on home-cooked food recipes!
The Plant-Based Diet Revolution
Living healthier & greener is now suggested to be the best way of enjoying the most out of life! When you’re healthy, you live longer, and you experience more! This dietary approach carries along with it a multitude of health benefits, eco-friendly habits, and sustainable living advantages.
If you want to live a long and healthy life, plant-based diets are a current favorite, and it’s one that looks to last long.
Living Healthier & Greener: Understanding Plant-Based Diets
Now, the term “plant-based diet” is just an umbrella term. Under the name is a very wide and varied collection of dietary restrictions. We’ll just be talking about the primary types:
Living Healthier & Greener with a Vegan Diet
A vegan diet excludes consuming everything and anything that comes from animals. These include–but are not limited to–meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, and honey. If it comes from an animal, that’s not a vegan diet. And no amount of winging will change that fact.
The benefits of practicing a vegan diet include having a reduced risk of heart disease. Vegans are often less likely to develop type-2 diabetes and certain cancers and have, on average, lower blood pressure.
The potential challenge with a vegan diet, though, is that you have to make sure you have an adequate intake of vitamin B12, iron, calcium, and omega-3 fatty acids. These nutrients are harder for vegans because most food sources containing these are from animal products, which are prohibited in this diet.
Living Healthier & Greener with a Vegetarian Diet
There’s some confusion between what a vegan diet is and what a vegetarian diet entails. But it’s simple. The former is entirely vegetables and fruit without meat, poultry, fish, and other animal products, while the latter can include dairy products and/or eggs. Lacto-ovo vegetarians consume both dairy products and eggs, but lacto-vegetarians only go for milk, and ovo-vegetarians only eat eggs.
Partaking in a vegetarian diet incurs the same benefits as eating a vegan diet but with the added benefits of having dairy and/or eggs.
Like vegan diets, there may be issues with procuring certain nutrients, although the addition of eggs or milk will certainly lessen the burden.
Both vegans and vegetarians are encouraged to take supplements to ensure they receive sufficient nutrients and vitamins in their diets.
Living Healthier & Greener with a Flexitarian Diet
While vegan and vegetarian diets are more in line with those who’ve already eschewed meat and the like, a flexitarian diet is better for those who are still starting out. Practicing a flexitarian lifestyle just basically means that you occasionally have meat, poultry, or fish. A flexitarian diet is perfect for people who want to reduce their meat consumption while still wanting to reap the benefits of a plant-based diet.
What should be carefully considered when undergoing a flexitarian diet is how to balance the ratio between plant-based and animal-based food. This is to better ensure that there is adequate nutrient intake.
The Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet
There are plenty of nutrients that can be found in plants. They include fibers, which promote better digestive health and lower cholesterol and are handy helpers in weight management. The vast majority of vegetables and fruits are considered superfoods for being rich in various vitamins and minerals. Plants are also abundant with antioxidants, which can protect your cells from damage caused by free radicals. Specific plant chemicals also help reduce inflammation and lower the risk of chronic diseases.
The Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet
There are plenty of nutrients that can be found in plants. They include fibers, which promote better digestive health and lower cholesterol and are handy helpers in weight management. Several vegetables and fruits are rich in various vitamins and minerals.
Plants are also abundant with antioxidants, which can protect your cells from damage caused by free radicals. Specific plant chemicals also help reduce inflammation and lower the risk of chronic diseases.
Transitioning to a Plant-Based Diet
While a plant-based diet may not be for everyone, easing yourself into one isn’t difficult! If you want to begin living healthier and greener, you have to start gradually by slowly incorporating more plant-based (vegetables) meals into your meals. It is important to ease into this diet by acclimating your body first so you don’t risk alienating it against all types of greens! Teach yourself recipes that feel good for you, and start from there!
If you want to start cooking healthy meals, Generations of Good Food by Eleanor Gaccetta is a definite recommendation! Click this link here to start ordering a copy now!
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