The vegetarian diets are already part of the lives of many people in Spain. There are no studies that provide data on the percentage of Spaniards who follow a diet of these characteristics, but the reality is that there are more and more products aimed at this public and more restaurants whose gastronomic offer revolves around fruits, vegetables and legumes.
According to the Happy Cow website, a search engine for vegetarian restaurants, while in 2010 there were 200, in 2019 there are already registered more than 2,200 establishments with these characteristics .
In addition, “it is increasingly easier to obtain food such as seitan or tofu (products widely used by this profile of people) in any grocery store,” Inés Mera, CuidatePlus and Adriana Montoto, members of the Nutrition Group of the Spanish Society of Family and Community Pharmacy (Sefac).
On the other hand, according to his data “the distributors of products geared towards the vegetarian public have increased their sales and even meat and dairy companies offer vegan ideas in their new catalogs such as vegetable drinks or tofu burgers “.
Today, being a vegetarian is an eating pattern that sometimes goes beyond eating. This choice can be due to several reasons:
- Religious: Hindu or Buddhism
- Health: there is a certain relationship between vegetarianism and the protective effect of chronic and degenerative diseases.
- Environment: respect for natural resources.
- Ethics: in defense of animal rights.
- Social: by influence of family, close people or references.
Apart from this, according to Patricia Lloves, nutritionist of the College of Dietitians and Nutritionists of Navarra , it is important to differentiate between several concepts: vegan diet (in which foods of animal origin are totally suppressed), lactovegetarian diet (composed of vegetables and dairy products ), ovovegetarian diet (vegetables and eggs), lactoovovegetarian diet (vegetables, dairy and eggs).
Although the reality is that the prevailing practice is the last option in which ” other vegetables, such as dairy products and eggs ” are also consumed, “Mera and Montoto highlight.
Health benefits
Regarding the question of whether these types of diets are healthy or not, it is important to remember the position of the American Dietetic Association (ADA) in this regard, which indicates that “they are healthy, nutritionally adequate and can provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases ”.
Of course, “as long as they are well planned”. Only in this way, “they would be appropriate during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence .”
For Lloves this aspect is important since “if they are done incorrectly, they can cause health problems due to a deficiency of some nutrient”. For this reason, when starting to follow this type of diet, he considers it essential to “ have the advice of a dietitian-nutritionist ”.
Thus, if done in a planned way, this type of diet can have an effect on the health of people who follow it and go beyond weight loss. It is true, as Montoto and Mera point out that ” the increase in the consumption of food from vegetables and the decrease in food from animals is associated with a decrease in weight .”
But in turn, this loss “is usually associated with a decrease in blood glucose, an improvement in the lipid profile and blood pressure levels.”
In this sense, Lloves goes further and points out that, provided it is done in a planned and safe way, “vegetarian diets can be effective in reducing the risks of heart disease, hypertension , type 2 diabetes , obesity and some types of cancer ” .
As stated in the document Vegetarian children, healthy children? , by Miriam Martínez Biarge, pediatrician and member of the Department of Pediatrics of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Hammersmith Hospital, London, “the studies carried out on vegetarian children show that their growth and development is within the normal range for their reference population, although they generally have a lower body mass index . ”
These people tend to consume more fruits, vegetables, and legumes, so their intake of fiber, vitamins A , C, and E, folate, iron , magnesium, and potassium is usually higher.
Due to the high consumption of these products, proteins are not a problem in vegetarian food, although this has been one of the fears of health professionals and the general population.
According to Martínez Biarge, ” all vegetable proteins contain all amino acids, both essential or essential and those that are not, the only thing that varies are the proportions of some of them when several food groups are compared to each other .” For example, cereals have less lysine than legumes or some nuts such as pistachios.
In general, “it can be said that vegetarian food can cover protein needs and the daily supply of essential amino acids, thanks to the diversity of foods of plant origin,” the pharmacists indicate.
According to the pediatrician, “the best way to guarantee an optimal supply of protein in a vegetarian diet would be to include at least two or three servings a day of legumes, nuts and seeds.” Examples of servings would be: ” Half a plate of any cooked legumes, two tablespoons of peanut butter, a glass of soy milk or two soy yogurts, a hamburger or two tofu sausages and a seitan fillet .”
On fats, the good news is that these diets are usually low in saturated fat ” unless the consumption of eggs and cheese is high or many processed products made with palm oil or hydrogenated vegetable oils are taken, which must always be avoid ”, according to Martínez Biarge. In addition, they are high in mono-polyunsaturated fatty acids, “which in itself confers advantages in relation to cardiovascular risk.”
In addition, they generally contain a higher iron content than those that are not. “The state of this nutrient is what determines its absorption, that is, non-heme iron coming mainly from the plant world is absorbed less than heme iron from meat, ” warn Montoto and Mera.
In addition, as they comment, “there are certain iron inhibitors such as phylates (present in legumes, nuts, cereal bran …) calcium, tea or coffee that inhibit or decrease the absorption of this nutrient” .
For this reason, to increase the use of this nutrient from vegetables, a possible alternative would be to “take it with foods rich in vitamin C (guava, red pepper, cabbage, broccoli or kiwi), which enhance the absorption of non-heme iron and , to a large extent, counteract the effect of the filatos ”, they point out from Sefac.
Conversely…
As for the nutrients on which special care should be taken for a possible deficit, they would be zinc and vitamin B12 . The consumption of zinc in vegetarian food “is less”, highlight the pharmaceutical companies, and “its absorption is also less than that of meat”.
To face this deficit, the pharmaceutical companies propose other alternatives such as:
- Choose zinc-richplant foods such as legumes (soybeans and derivatives) and nuts.
- If this is not possible, choose foods enriched in this nutrient such as certain cereals. At this point, special care must be taken due to the high content of added sugars in many of them.
- Consume these zinc-rich foodsalong with vitamin C to counteract the presence of phytates.
Another nutrient, even more important than zinc is vitamin B12. ” It is the only nutrient on which its supplementation would be necessary, since there is no plant food that contains significant amounts of vitamin B12, ” they warn.
Vegetable foods have a very low quantity and with low availability of this vitamin and it is the foods of animal origin that have the most content.
It is true that, as Martínez Biarge points out, “ that eggs and dairy products have small amounts of vitamin B12, and although their consumption in the short term might be enough to avoid a clinical deficiency , in the long run it might not be to maintain certain levels optimal of this vitamin ”. –
As with zinc, pharmacists recommend as dietary alternatives:
- Consume foods enriched with vitamin B12 such as soy drink, breakfast cereals or meat substitutes , paying attention to the possible presence of added sugars.
