World Vegan Vegan is healthy

Today is the World Vegan Day

11/01/2013

In Germany, there are estimates by the Vegetarian Federation (VGE) about 800,000 people who eat vegan. More and more supermarkets are offering vegan food to their customers, and vegan restaurants and cookbooks are also booming. Viving living means making a conscious decision to live without consuming animal products.

But not only the renunciation of meat, eggs, fish and dairy products characterize a vegan lifestyle. All products containing animal ingredients are deliberately avoided. These include feather beds, cosmetics or leather gloves. Simply everything related to the exploitation of animals.

The reasons for this lifestyle vary from person to person. Central motives for this diet usually come from animal and environmental ethics. It is not necessarily difficult to seriously deal with this lifestyle. In times of frightening images of factory farming and reports of the exploitation of workers from the Eastern European countries within the meat industry or meat scandals, one's appetite may be over.

Every year on November 1st, on World Vegan Day, vegans can learn about the benefits and motivation of becoming a vegan lifestyle, and grievances are brought to the minds of others.

Important are essential nutrients
Anyone who decides for this life must make sure that the nutrition plan is varied. Deficiency symptoms can already occur with a too one-sided nutrition. In the case of a vegan diet, it is just more difficult to get all the essential nutrients. But unlike in the Middle Ages, people today have far more options available to provide all the important nutrients. Because the assumption that only who is everything is nourished healthy and has no deficiency, could already be refuted.

„Vegans need good nutritional knowledge“, says Antje Gahl of the German Nutrition Society. According to the diet, they do not consume enough long-chain fatty acids, which mainly feeds fish to the body. There is also a lack of vitamin D or iodine, because in larger quantities this vitamin is contained exclusively in animal products. Nevertheless, there are ways to compensate for that.

Meat consumption = wealth?
Meat is generally considered to be a high quality food associated with prosperity. However, there are also health issues that speak in favor of a vegan diet, explains the doctor. Ernst Walter Heinrich. He does not overlook the fact that vitamin B12 should be given extra weight by vegan people. He also argues that children's vegan diet is not only thoughtless but even necessary. According to various scientific studies, meat, fish, eggs, milk and dairy products are extremely harmful foods. Despite all the insights gained, many people only see the aspect of abstention in this way of life.

In Germany alone, the production of the slaughter quantity has been increased by almost 67 percent between 1997 and 2011, if one looks at the corresponding surveys of the Federal Statistical Office a little more closely. No matter which motives one decides for a vegan life, it is certain that one should be well informed and willing to deal with the problems. Vegan recipes can be found here, for example. (Fr)

Picture: twinlili