The Benefits of Going Meatless

With books like The China Study and Skinny Bitch topping the best-seller lists for months at a time, you may have considered looking into the benefits of a vegetarian or vegan diet. So what’s the skinny? Are they really that much better for you, and will they help you get that lean body you’ve always dreamed of? The answer is, maybe. Here are a few of the benefits of going meatless.

For your heart. The heart healthy benefits of a vegetarian diet, ranging from blood pressure and cholesterol reduction to a significantly decreased risk of dying from a heart attack, are probably the strongest reasons to cut back on meat. According to a large research study, the risk of having a heart attack is twenty-four percent less for vegetarians and fifty-seven percent less for vegans (vegetarians who don’t eat any animal products, including dairy or eggs). The decreased risk persists even after adjusting for smoking history and weight, so even if you are a few pounds overweight, or worse, and you smoke, moving towards a vegetarian diet will help lower your risk of heart disease. What is it about vegetarian diets that make them so heart healthy? There are many possible beneficial components including consuming more fiber, nuts, soy, plant sterols, more fruits and vegetables, and less cholesterol and saturated fat. So even if you don’t want to go completely meatless, including more of these types of food in your diet and consuming meat less frequently will help your heart significantly.

To prevent cancer. While the research on the role of a vegetarian diet in reducing your risk of cancer is not quite as strong as with heart disease, vegetarians definitely tend to have a lower rate of many types of cancer including colon and prostate. In addition, the regular inclusion of beans and legumes often found in a vegetarian diet may help prevent stomach, colon, and prostate cancers, and the increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, which are loaded with cancer-fighting phytochemicals, can help protect against cancer of the lung, mouth, esophagus, and stomach. If you need more convincing on the benefits of trimming the meat in your diet, studies show that cutting back on red and processed meat may decrease your risk of colorectal and breast cancers.

To stay trim. This is an area where a vegetarian diet can, in my opinion, be a bit tricky. While research clearly shows that vegetarians and vegans tend to weigh less, I find vegetarian and vegan diets to be less helpful for many of my patients who are trying to lose weight, most likely due to the increased intake of high carbohydrate foods, which can make losing weight more challenging for the “apple shaped” dieter who tends to carry most of his or her weight around the mid-section. In addition, weight reducing vegetarian and vegan diets can be more challenging for those who eat out often or don’t cook a lot, as many of the vegetarian and vegan options at ethnic restaurants are loaded with fat, calories, and salt, which may make weight loss challenging. If your goal is to maintain your weight, going meatless isn’t a bad idea, but to loose weight it must be done correctly.

As you can see, although going completely meatless may be challenging for many, cutting back on meat will likely improve your health in multiple ways. So, next time you’re grilling, why not throw a couple of veggie burgers and tofu dogs on the grill instead of beef franks and hamburgers. Your heart will thank you, and with a little catsup, mustard, guacamole, or chipotle sauce, you might even enjoy it more than the “real” thing!

Melina Jampolis is a board certified physician nutrition specialist. She is the host of Discovery Networks Fit TV’s Diet Doctor and the author of The No Time to Lose Diet (Nelson, 2007). She is in private practice in San Francisco. www.drmelina.com.