Vegan or vegetarian diets can be hugely beneficial to your overall health, can do wonders for your digestive health, help you lose weight, boost your metabolism, improve heart health, lower the risk of heart disease and some cancers as well provide you with a sense of well-being.
This is possible because meat based foods can be harmful to your health particularly when you indulge in them too much. Vegan/vegetarian diets can be quite amazing when you have the system down, and have a list of food varieties to choose from.
Unfortunately, vegan can also be limiting, which is why many people routinely have an issue with sticking to the diets. More often than not, these folks end up getting bored with the routine foods, and switch to their regular meat based, carefree diet.
A complete vegetarian diet lacking no vital and essential nutrients is possible. All it takes is a little initiative and some research. Unfortunately, most beginners and even a few seasoned vegan food lovers tend to make a few common mistakes.
These mistakes, left for too long, can actually negate the health benefits of a vegan diet, resulting in even worse health. The following are some of the top vegetarian and vegan diet mistakes to avoid if you want to get the most benefits from the diet.
Top Pitfalls You Need to Watch Our for on a Vegan or Vegetarian Die:
1. Eating Far Less Proteins Than You Should
Many new vegans and vegetarians often end up eating less proteins just because they’ve switched over to the “other side”. This is mostly because they were used to animal protein sources.
This is why you need to find alternative sources of protein that will get you just as much proteins as necessary. Proteins are critical to your health because of the many purposes they serve.
They are crucial to tissue building, wound healing, bone strengthening, muscle growth and recovery, and hormone balance. They are also great for weight loss seeing as they can equally double as an appetite suppressant, whilst still providing you with the nutrition you need.
It’s also possible to experience an extended period of fullness from eating lots of protein. This automatically curbs your desire for snacking and eating in between meals.
So, how much protein should you eat too meet the minimum daily protein requirements? As an adult, that’s going to be 0.8g/2.2lbs (1kg). So, if you weigh 150lbs (64kg), you’ll need to eat about 54g of protein daily.
Animal sources of protein can easily help you meet this minimum benchmark daily. For instance, an 85g serving of chicken will provide you with about 27g of protein. Eat this twice a day, and you’ll meet the daily requirements.
Vegetarians on the other hand, can indulge in other non-meat protein sources like tempeh, tofu, seitan, chickpeas, beans, teff, yeast, nuts, lentils, spirulina, green peas and even hemp seeds.
These are huge protein sources. A cup of lentils for instance contains 18g of proteins, for instance. So, all you really need to do is combine a few of these plant protein sources and you will get enough protein every day.
2. Not Eating Appropriate Amounts of Whole Fiber Foods
Whole fiber foods are very important to your digestive health. Yet, some vegan/vegetarian adopters routinely eat less of this because they feel that these are carb-rich foods that can add to their colorific intake.
While this could be true to an extent, the reality is that eating more processed/refined foods just because they do not contain animal related isn’t healthy either. Of the “two evils”, whole grains and foods that are rich in fiber are healthier for you and produce far better health benefits. So, eat more whole grains, fruits and veggies.
These foods are often rich in essential minerals, vitamins, and nutrients that your body sorely needs. Whole grain and fiber rich foods are also known for their metabolism boosting properties.
This is why people who eat more whole grain and fiber rich foods tend to burn twice the amount of calories at every point in time than those who eat a similar quantity of processed or refined foods. So, cut out the refined and processed foods from your diets, and replace them with more whole grains and fiber rich foods.
3. Low Heme Iron Consumption
The average vegetarian isn’t aware of the fact that they don’t take as much iron as is necessary for optimal health. One of the major sources of iron is meat, which often provides as much as 20 percent of your daily iron needs per meal.
Meat typically contains heme iron that’s easily absorbed by the body through the consumption of meat. Vegetarians typically eat more plant based foods, fruits and vegetables which can often contain non-heme iron sources. The body doesn’t absorb this non-heme iron easily.
This is why many vegetarians often suffer from iron deficiency, which can in turn, trigger anemia. People who are anemic typically suffer from frequent bouts of dizziness, respiratory distress in the form of short breath, and severe tiredness.
The good news is that there’s a way to extract the required amount of iron you need from certain plants rich in non-heme iron. The key to this is simply taking vitamin c with these plant foods.
Some of them include oats, beans, seeds, nuts, lentils, leafy greens and cereals. You can either take vitamin c supplements or take vitamin c rich fruits and vegetables to help extract the iron you need and aid your body’s iron absorption from these foods.
4. Inadequate Hydration
Hydration is completely necessary for optimal bodily functions. This is why you need to drink lots of water even as a non-vegetarian. Vegetarians in particular needs a lot more fluids than the meat loving individuals, because they eat a lot of fiber.
Taking a lot of water aids the digestive processes, and prevents the development of conditions such as constipation, bloating and other digestive related problems. In fact, compared to the 27g of fiber consumed by those who eat plant foods and meat products daily, vegans eat 41g, and vegetarians, 34g.
Water aids the movement of fiber through digestive tract, and improves your digestive and overall health in the process. For instance, studies have shown that when people who eat a lot more fiber drink more water, they tend to minimize their risk of developing health conditions such as Obesity, diabetes, stroke and heart disease.
So, drink a lot more water even when you don’t feel thirsty. This is necessary for keeping your health in great shape, burning off belly fat and helping you lose weight. You know how they say dehydration is the enemy?
Well, it is true if you are conscious of your health and want to stay in top shape –which we’re assuming is the reason you switched over to the vegan/vegetarian lifestyle.
5. Taking Far Less Calories than You Need
Some people choose the vegetarian or vegan lifestyle for the purpose of weight loss and less calorie intake. And this is effective, seeing as they tend to eat far less calories –between 263 and 600 calories less, with vegans eating far less than even vegetarians- compared to the non-vegan/non-vegetarians.
While there’s nothing wrong with this, the reality is that cutting back on your carbs or calorie intake can actually do more harm than good for your health. You see, carbs which are a major source of calories are also responsible for fueling your body.
This is what gives you the energy you need to function optimally. The problem with carbs lies in taking excess amounts and not burning them off. This is the one thing most vegetarians need to pay more attention to.
You see, most vegans/vegetarians tend to eat far less calories than is necessary for optimum bodily functions. This is not only unhealthy, it can result in damaging health conditions like hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), slower metabolism, and fatigue.
While it’s true that the food needs of vegans/vegetarians can affect their calorie intake, it doesn’t have to be that way. Eat more carbs so that you can function optimally and be in great physical shape.
6. Shortage of Vitamin B12 in Your Diet
Vitamin B12 deficiency is usually one of the unintended side effects of switching over to the alternative food lifestyle. You see, vitamin B12 is often easily sourced from meat, chicken, dairy, eggs and other meat related products, and plays a critical role in the production of DNA and RNA.
It also maintains healthy nerve cells, improves red blood cell production, and aids the absorption of iron nutrients in the body. Without the adequate supply of the B12 vitamin, you will often experience side effects such as numbness, temporary memory loss, slower cognitive functions, megaloblastic anemia and fatigue.
Please understand that this is different from folate. Most people take folic acid supplements in the hopes that it’ll take care of that. But, studies have indicated that folate only masks vitamin B12 deficiency.
So, don’t just depend on your folic acid supplements. Start taking certain B12 vitamin rich foods. You’ll often find them in edible algae and some fortified cereals. You can also take vitamin B12 supplements to help meet your needs and restore some balance in your body.
7. The Assumption that Vegan/Vegetarian Foods are Automatically Healthy
Here’ an interesting thing to note: not all vegan/vegetarian foods are healthy. Shocker, eh? Well, that’s the reality. There’s the naïve thinking that going vegan/vegetarian automatically means healthier meals. Don’t get us wrong, it can.
It’s just automatically assuming that foods labeled as such are healthier than normal non-vegan/non-veggie foods can be unwise. A good example of this is the popular assumption that almond milk which is often commonly used by vegans/vegetarians, is better than the regular cow milk, just because it is made from plants.
The reality is this isn’t necessarily true seeing as cow milk has a high nutritional value that makes it even better than almond milk. For instance, a cup of unsweetened almond milk contains just 1g of protein, while a cup of cow milk contains 8g of protein.
Not just that, sweetened almond milk tends to have high glucose content. The only advantage almond milk has is that it’s from plants and is a low calorie milk.
Other good examples of vegan/vegetarian foods that aren’t healthy include refined meat substitutes, nuggets and soy-based veggie burgers that were made from artificial substances and contain artificial ingredients that could be somewhat harmful to the body.
Most of the time, these high calorie products are described as healthy, when in reality, they are have no healthy ingredients, nutrients, fiber and proteins.
We understand the appeal of some of these foods when you’re just starting out as a vegan/vegetarian. But, studies have shown that these can actually impact your health negatively, resulting in rapid weight gain, calorie overload and nutritional deficiencies.
8. Consuming Lots of Cheese
Want to make your meals vegan or vegetarian? All you gotta do is replace meat with cheese, and voila, you have a vegetarian meal. While cheese can be a decent source of food nutrients like vitamins and protein and provides good flavor for your meals, it lacks the nutritional punch that protein has.
For instance, the ratio of zinc and iron in a 28g steak to an equal size of cheese is 2:1 and 4:1 respectively. This means that in order to get the requisite amount of zinc and iron in your meals as you would get from beef, you would need to eat between 2 to 4 times the amount of cheese you’d normally eat.
Also, when it comes to chicken, you only have eighty percent of the protein found in a similar sized chicken meat. The real damage is in the number of calories you ingest when you eat cheese.
Cheese typically has far less proteins, and more calories than any form of meat. Combine this with the amount of cheese you have to eat to meet your daily nutrient requirements, and you can see how quickly it will contribute to your weight gain.
So, what’s the best thing to do? Start by incorporating more plant foods that have sizable amounts of the nutrients you desire. Some good examples of these include beans, lentils, tempeh, quinoa and chickpeas. Then, you can add the cheese in moderate quantities.
9. Indulging in Calcium Deficient Diets
Most people assume that kids are the only people who need to worry about calcium and the role it plays in their bodies. As a result, many people routinely ignore their calcium intake, to their detriment of course.
People with low calcium in the bodies tend to develop osteoporosis and brittle bones as they age, thus increasing their likelihood of having their bones broken. This is why you should pay attention to your calcium intake.
It’s even worse when you are a vegetarian, seeing as most vegetarians unwittingly tend to indulge in low calcium diets. Not only is calcium one of the minerals that helps your teeth and bones stay strong, it also plays a key role in keeping your muscles strong.
The good news is that calcium is found in a variety of foods. The bad news is that it’s found in dairy and meat products –two food groups that vegans and vegetarians tend to avoid. So, what can you do to increase your calcium intake? Well, there are certain calcium rich plant foods, vegetables and fruits that you can eat.
Some of these include oranges, figs, swiss chard, turnip greens, beet greens, almonds, bok choy, broccoli, spinach, collard greens and kale. Of all these foods and veggies, the body absorbs the highest amounts of calcium from bok choy, turnip greens and kale. This is a pretty decent amount compared to the 30% calcium that the body absorbs from the most popular calcium source –milk.
10. Poor Meal Planning
One of the biggest gripes that people have with the vegetarian life is the need for proper meal planning. Unfortunately, because most people are too busy, they end up eating whatever is available, while neglecting their nutrition. This is why you need to pay extra attention to your meals and plan them so you can get the full amounts of nutrients that your body needs.
If you are going to succeed in living the vegetarian lifestyle, you need to take meal planning very seriously. This is what will help make the transition from your meat and dairy products based lifestyle to the vegan/vegetarian lifestyle.
Most vegetarians typically plan their meals in advance. So, it doesn’t matter if they are going on a trip or having dinner somewhere, they know exactly what they’ll have at every point in time.
If you’ll be eating out, check out vegan/vegetarian restaurants or check those who aren’t but have made have provisions for vegans through their menus. Please understand that the menus in non-vegan/vegetarian restaurants will be restricted and not as full-fledged as those found in dedicated restaurants.
This means you may need to work with the limited options available in those restaurants. When you have to cook at home though, the internet is your friend. You can do a quick search for tasty, nutritious recipes that you can quickly make in the comfort of your own home.
So, never joke with your meal planning. It is crucial to your success in this new lifestyle.
11. Neglecting Omega-3 Fatty Acids
Most people have a general idea of the fact that omega-3 fatty acids are healthy for you. But just how healthy and important are they? Well, they have been linked to lowered bad cholesterol, reduced inflammation, increased brainpower, improved eyesight, and faster muscle recovery.
The most popular sources of this is fish oil, which often have eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). These are the most effective and useful types.
Even though they are a less popular source of the omega-3 fatty acid, certain plants have alpha-linoleic acid (ALA), which often needs to be broken down into the aforementioned DHA and EPA to be useful and beneficial to the body.
Sadly, the body is usually unable convert the ALA to the best forms. However, since most vegans/vegetarians don’t eat fish, all they have to do to get adequate amounts of omega-3 fatty acid is to eat higher quantities of plant food containing ALA.
Some of these plants include flax seeds, hemp seeds, walnuts, and chia seeds. Another alternative is to pop a few omega-3 supplements every day and you’re good.
These are pretty much all the major pitfalls that you have to avoid and watch out for as a new vegan/vegetarian.
Some extra tips to take note of also include excessive intake of refined carbohydrate foods, drinking too much concentrated or fruit juice and not eating a balanced meal because you’re vegetarian. If you pay attention to all these, you will eat healthier and get a lot more nutrients into your body.
