Adopting a healthy vegetarian diet isn’t as simple as scraping meat off your plate and eating what’s left. You need to take extra steps to ensure you’re meeting your daily nutritional needs.

Vegetarian diet planning

Vegetarian Diet Pyramid

A healthy vegetarian diet consists primarily of plant-based foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. Because the emphasis is on nonmeat food sources, a vegetarian diet generally contains less fat and cholesterol, and typically includes more fiber.

Vegetarians fall into groups defined by the types of animal-derived foods they eat:

• Vegans eat only plant-based foods. They don’t eat foods from animals, including meat, poultry, fish, milk, eggs and cheese.
• Lacto-vegetarians consume milk and milk products along with plant-based foods. They omit eggs as well as meat, fish and poultry.
• Lacto-ovo vegetarians eat eggs, milk and milk products, such as cheese and yogurt, in addition to plant-based foods. They omit red meat, fish and poultry.
• Flexitarians (semivegetarians) primarily follow a plant-based diet but occasionally eat small amounts of meat, poultry or fish.

To keep your vegetarian diet on track, you may find using a vegetarian food pyramid helpful. This pyramid outlines various food groups and food choices that, if eaten in the right quantities, form the foundation of a healthy vegetarian diet.

No matter what your age or situation, a well-planned vegetarian diet can meet your nutritional needs. Even children and teenagers can do well on a plant-based diet, as can older people, and pregnant or breast-feeding women. If you’re unsure whether a vegetarian diet is right for you, talk to your doctor or a registered dietitian.

Meat alternatives

Meatless products, such as tofu dogs, soy burgers, nut loaves or texturized vegetable protein, add variety to your vegetarian diet. These products, found in many grocery stores and health food markets, simulate the taste and texture of meat and usually have less fat and fewer calories. Many of the meatless products, such as tofu or tempeh, are made from soybeans.

If you follow a vegan diet, you may need to find alternatives for eggs and dairy products. Try these suggestions when meal planning or cooking:

• Milk. Drink fortified soymilk, rice milk or almond milk in place of cow’s milk.
• Butter. When sauteing, use olive oil, water, vegetable broth, wine or fat-free cooking spray instead of butter. In baked goods, use canola oil.
• Cheese. Use soy cheese or nutritional yeast flakes, which are available in health food stores.
• Eggs. In baked goods, try commercial egg replacers — a dry product made mostly of potato starch. Or you can use the following to replace one egg: 1/4 cup whipped tofu or 1 tablespoon milled flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons of water. For an egg-free omelet use tofu instead of eggs.

Ensuring adequate nutrition

The more restrictive a diet is, the more difficult it is to get all the nutrients your body needs. A vegan diet, for example, eliminates food sources of vitamin B-12, as well as milk products, which are a good source of calcium. Other nutrients, such as iron and zinc, are available in a meatless diet, but you need to make an extra effort to ensure they’re in yours.

Here are nutrients that may be deficient in a vegetarian diet and how you can get these nutrients from nonmeat sources:

• Protein. Your body needs protein to maintain healthy skin, bones, muscles and organs. Vegetarians who eat eggs or dairy products have convenient sources of protein. Other sources of protein include soy products, meat substitutes, legumes, lentils, nuts, seeds and whole grains.
• Calcium. This mineral helps build and maintain strong teeth and bones. Low-fat dairy foods and dark green vegetables, such as spinach, turnip and collard greens, kale, and broccoli, are good sources of calcium. Tofu enriched with calcium and fortified soy milk and fruit juices are other options.
• Vitamin B-12. Your body needs vitamin B-12 to produce red blood cells and prevent anemia. This vitamin is found almost exclusively in animal products, including milk, eggs and cheese. Vegans can get vitamin B-12 from some enriched cereals, fortified soy products or by taking a supplement that contains this vitamin.
• Iron. Like vitamin B-12, iron is a crucial component of red blood cells. Dried beans and peas, lentils, enriched cereals, whole-grain products, dark leafy green vegetables, and dried fruit are good sources of iron. To help your body absorb nonanimal sources of iron, eat foods rich in vitamin C — such as strawberries, citrus fruits, tomatoes, cabbage and broccoli — at the same time you consume iron-containing foods.
• Zinc. This mineral is an essential component of many enzymes and plays a role in cell division and in the formation of proteins. Good sources of zinc include whole grains, soy products, nuts and wheat germ.

The key to a healthy vegetarian diet — or any diet for that matter — is to enjoy a wide variety of foods. Since no single food provides all of the nutrients that your body needs, eating a wide variety helps ensure that you get the necessary nutrients and other substances that promote good health.

Getting started

If you’re thinking of switching to a vegetarian diet but aren’t sure where to begin, start with menu planning.

• Start with what you know. Make a list of meatless meals you already prepare regularly, such as spaghetti with tomato sauce or vegetable stir-fry.
• Make meatless substitutions. Select meals that could easily become meat-free with a couple of substitutions. For example, you can make vegetarian chili by leaving out the ground beef and adding an extra can of black beans or soy crumbles. Or make fajitas using extra-firm tofu rather than chicken. You may be surprised to find that some dishes require only simple substitutions.
• Experiment with new meal ideas. Buy or borrow vegetarian cookbooks. Scan the Internet for vegetarian menus or for tips about making meatless substitutions. Check out ethnic restaurants to sample new vegetarian cuisine. The more variety you bring to your vegetarian diet, the better the chance you’ll meet all your nutritional needs.

By Mayo clinics staffs

Forget lentils and tofu. Vegetarian cooking is enjoying a makeover, prompting meat-eaters to put down their steak knives. New green cuisine is tapping into the rise of the “flexitarian”, the occasional vegetarian who is helping their waistline and the planet by eating less meat.

A new crop of vegetarian restaurants is springing up, catering to rising demand for meat-free dining options. Even established restaurateurs, such as Aldo Zilli, are jumping on the bandwagon: Zilli is considering axing meat from one of his London eateries to cash in on the new trend. He is even mulling rechristening one of them Zilli Green. And other chefs, including Oliver Peyton, are increasing the number of meat-free choices on their existing menus. From Sir Paul McCartney, who wants us all to eschew meat on Mondays, to Lydia Guevara – granddaughter of the revolutionary Che – who is starring in a new anti-meat campaign for Peta, there is no shortage of high-profile figures banging the vegetarian drum. This is boosting sales of meat-free foods in supermarkets as shoppers swap minced meat for substitutes such as Quorn. The meat-free market was worth £739m last year, up by a fifth in the last five years and is forecast to enjoy similar growth until at least 2013, according to research by Mintel.

Vegetarian food is no longer the crunchy preserve of a small minority but is hitting the mainstream. A recent poll for the Food Development Association showed that 86 per cent of Brits eat non-meat meals once or twice a week, forcing restaurants to follow suit.

“Historically, chefs haven’t liked vegetarians but that is changing. Younger chefs particularly understand the need for vegetarian food,” said Peyton, who owns several restaurants in London. “So many more people want vegetarian food these days and it’s my job to cater for them.” His restaurants, which include Inn the Park, in St James’s Park, now offer up to three meat-free alternatives per course, he said. He is one of a band of chefs, including the IoS’s Skye Gyngell, who is backing Sir Paul’s “Meat Free Monday” drive, which wants people to cut out meat to help slow climate change since livestock production pumps more greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere than transportation.

Andrew Dargue, who owns Vanilla Black, a vegetarian restaurant that relocated to London from York last year, said that his customers are increasingly meat-eaters looking for something different. “People can have a block on vegetarian food and say they don’t like it but they don’t stop to think that even tomato soup or scrambled eggs on toast is vegetarian,” he said. His food, dubbed “haute vegetarian” by the critics, is certainly finding favour: Vanilla Black even gets a mention in the Michelin Guide.

Other newly opened meat-free restaurants in London include two branches of the Swiss chain Tibits and the vegan diner Saf, which also has outposts in Turkey and Germany. They join the capital’s vegetarian stalwarts such as Manna in Primrose Hill and Soho’s Mildred’s. Outside London, Heather Mills opened a vegan cafe in Brighton, V-Bites, earlier this month.

Richard Harden, who owns the Harden’s restaurant guide, said specialist vegetarian eateries are “growing in popularity”. He said more people, himself included, were happy to forgo meat for at least one meal. Ben McCormack, editor of the Square Meal guide, said: “Vegetarians are better served than they used to be. With the rise of the ‘flexitarian’, restaurants are improving their vegetarian offerings.”

The doyen of crossover cooking is the French triple Michelin-starred chef Alain Passard, who took meat off the menu at his vaunted Parisian restaurant L’Arpège at the height of the BSE scare in 2001.He has since reverted to serving steaks but he remains the acknowledged father of the new green cuisine. British chefs who cater well for non-meat-eaters include Simon Rimmer, who owns Greens, near Manchester, and Yotam Ottolenghi, who writes a weekly vegetarian cooking column.

Top vegetarian chef: Simon Rimmer

TV chef Simon Rimmer calls himself an ‘Accidental Vegetarian’ in one of his cookbooks, but that doesn’t lessen his impact on the new green cuisine scene. His Greens restaurant, near Manchester, has done much to fly the vegetarian flag outside London.

Top vegetarian cookbook: Café Paradiso Seasons

Silence any vegetarian doubters out there with a meal whipped up from Irish chef Denis Cotter’s Café Paradiso Seasons, a gem of a cookbook that will have even meat-eaters salivating. A guaranteed nut-roast-free zone.

Top non-vegetarian restaurant for veggies: Morgan M

It may sound contradictory, but Morgan M, in north London, is a French restaurant that is as admired for its vegetarian cooking as for its meat and fish dishes. Chef Morgan Meunier first offered a seven-course ‘garden menu’ in 2003 and hasn’t looked back since.

Top vegetarian restaurant: Vanilla Black

Vegetarian restaurants and Michelin guides may sound like unlikely bedfellows but Vanilla Black, one of London’s newcomers to the non-meat scene, scores itself a mention for the quality of its cooking, which owner Andrew Dargue hopes appeals as much to carnivores as their more discriminating friends.

Top meat-free ingredient: Mushroom ketchup

The humble mushroom is no Quorn, the fungus-based meat substitute, but it is the vegetarian chef’s secret ingredient when it comes to whisking up something satisfying that didn’t used to fly, run or swim. Add a few drops of mushroom ketchup to just about anything you’re cooking to see what we mean.

‘We wanted to help the planet, so we had to go veggie’

Debbie Howard, 44, persuaded her partner, Ryan Morley, 35, that it would be a good idea for their family – her children, Jasmine and Sonny, and his daughter, Ella – to become vegetarian:

‘I was a vegetarian for 10 years until I got pregnant and suddenly had cravings for meat. I struggled for a couple for years after that, so we did eat a bit of meat for a while. When the twins were old enough, I explained to them that meat is a dead animal, and they’ve never wanted to touch it since. But I found it hard to keep off meat, much to their complete disapproval. When they were five, I ordered meat at a restaurant and they both got up to sit at another table. I had to change my order! Nowadays though, we’re all committed veggies.

For me, not eating meat is mainly about animal cruelty. But for Ryan it was because of environmental issues such as intensive farming and greenhouse gas emissions. It’s hard because he really loves meat. But we couldn’t keep talking about wanting to help the planet, while destroying it by eating in a way that is badly harming it.’

By Susie Mesure

Sunday, 12 July 2009