Chennai: People across the world and in India, are increasingly converting to vegetarianism or vegan diets, cutting their overall consumption of animal-based products.
Sufficient protein intake is a common concern amongst people who follow veg diets, especially since several meat options and dairy products are high in protein.
Appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseaseslike heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancer, and obesity.
Although the Indian government has been regularly sharing information about the fact that Covid-19 doesn’t spread through eating non-vegetarian food like eggs, chicken, mutton and seafood, people are still wary about it, and opting for vegetarian diets.
“Vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and athletes as long as they are well balanced with appropriate intakes of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, dairy, nuts, and seeds,” says Sheela Krishnaswamy, nutrition and wellness consultant.
“If you too are contemplating to switch to a vegetarian or vegan diet, there are three plant foods that provide proteins which you could include to ensure your body’s daily requirement for protein is fulfilled,” she says, suggesting people to add almonds, lentils (dals) and millets (pearl millet and little millet) to their diet.
She adds, “plant-based diets are more environmentally sustainable than diets rich in animal products because they use fewer natural resources and are associated with much less environmental damage.”