Vegetarians

If you are a vegetarian or a vegan, then you have cut down a major source of saturated fat, the ‘bad fat.’ However meat and diary products contain some essential nutrients, which we need to find elsewhere.

Vegetarians need iron, which we get from green vegetables, some breads and cereals. There is a lot of protein in meat and fish, which we can get from pulses, seeds, eggs, yogurt, cheese and soya.

Selenium helps in our immune system and meat and fish are a good source but we can also get it from Brazilian nuts. Diary products contain iron but there is plenty in green vegetables like broccoli, cabbage and okra aswell as almonds and sesame seeds.

However, vegetables must also be given a chance to say something in their self defence. I found this poem, which is a strong pleas against the trend of vegetarianism:

Vegetarians

Vegetarians are cruel, unthinking people.
Everybody knows that a carrot screams when grated.
That a peach bleeds when torn apart.
Do you believe an orange insensitive
to thumbs gouging out its flesh?
That tomatoes spill their braine painlessly?
Potatoes, skinned alive and boiled,
the soil’s little lobsters.
Don’t tell me it doesn’t hurt
when peas are ripped from the scrotum,
the hide flayed off sprouts,
cabbage shredded, onions beheaded.

Throw in the trowel
and lay down the hoe.
Mow no more
Let my people go!

Roger McGough

Link:

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/Vegetarians.aspx