I'm sure you've heard before about the various macronutrients and micronutrients that we are all meant to be receiving enough of... 'are you getting enough Calcium?' 'What about Protein?' 'Oh I'm feeling a bit tired today maybe I'm low in Iron'. Welcome to the era of 'Nutritionism'.
So is it possible for someone who
chooses to abstain from animal products to receive enough of these 'nutrients' to be a healthy specimen? In one word: ‘yes’. In two words: ‘yes, but...’
This 'yes' comes with a few conditions. For an animal-free diet to include all the necessary nutrients for optimal health, it does need to be varied. Simply taking out the meat and dairy and not ensuring nutrient intake from other sources is not a recipe for success.
Nutrients are definitely our friends.
The ones we have to remain friends with once we become animal-friendly include:
Iron, Protein, Calcium, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Omega 3-fatty acids & Zinc
There are many others we need to stay healthy, but these 7 are the ones that are typically derived from animal sources.
Eating a wide variety of foods including vegetables (especially dark-green leaf versions), legumes, wholegrains, nuts, seeds and including things such as seaweeds and treating yourself with natures dessert- fruit, will put you on a good track to receiving all the essential nutrients.
www.nutritiondata.com is a useful website where you can search foods by it's nutrient content if you want to find plant foods that are rich sources of specific nutrients. You could also search your favourite foods, to see which nutrients it is high in.
Ooo go on have a play, hours of fun :)
Be wary though, the foods listed in this site are definitely not restricted to healthy foods, you will need to sift through the various junk to find 'foods' that are recognisably- food.
Please, please, please do not start eating 'soy protein concentrate produced by acid wash' and just skim over the 'dried whale beluga meat'. Oh no, i know it is disturbing but when i say the website lists everything it really does list EVERYthing.
If all this nutrient-searching sounds to hard go out and pick yourself up a copy of the book:
'In Defence of Food' by Michael Pollan.
His genius advice to 'just eat food' goes along way in today's world filled with 'foodish' products.
Packets are no longer big enough to fit all of the health claims made my manufacturers, and when did what we put in our mouth become so complicated?
chemical additives, corn and soy derivatives, artificial flavourings, anti-caking agents, firming agents, neutralising agents, texturisers, thickeners, the list goes on. (http://www.nutritiondata.com/topics/food-additives)
