Long-term vegetarianism in women can easily lead to menstrual irregularities.
Being vegetarian doesn't mean only eating vegetables.
A vegetarian restaurant's explanation: "Vegetarianism means excluding animal-derived ingredients from your diet. Simply put, it's not eating meat, fish, or animal-based foods. Vegetarianism is not just about vegetables."
In addition to vegetables, vegetarianism also includes other plant-based foods like melons and fruits. Among the categories included in vegetarianism, grains (including rice, wheat, soybeans, etc.) and nuts (including walnuts, peanuts, melon seeds, etc.) are also two of its branches. In fact, whole grains, green vegetables, delicious fruits, various dried fruits, edible fungi, and bean products... these are the lifeblood of vegetarianism.
What are the benefits of healthy vegetarianism?
1. Vegetarianism softens skin and freshens breath.
People who consume animal-based foods like meat and eggs for a long time will have an increase in acidic components in their bodies. This leads to active sebaceous gland secretion and excessive oil, which can easily make the skin oily, enlarge pores, and cause acne, affecting one's appearance. Meat is rich in protein, and its metabolic product is ammonia. This toxic substance not only damages the kidneys and makes the skin rough and dull, but also makes our breath and body odor less fresh and more pungent. Being vegetarian one day a week reduces total fat intake, which over time helps protect the heart and lower blood pressure. Vegetarianism can also improve the acidic constitution of meat-eaters, reduce acidic toxins in the blood, make the body full of vitality, and make the skin soft and supple.
2. Vegetarianism controls weight and expels toxins.
Although "plump and slender" are beautiful, being overweight or underweight are both unhealthy manifestations. Maintaining a moderate curvy figure is the dream of many women and also the most healthy display of physical beauty. Long-term intake of high-calorie foods will cause a straight rise in body weight, and the body will grow wider, which can easily induce various diseases such as high blood lipids and high blood sugar. Being vegetarian one day a week can help beauty-conscious women maintain a proper weight. Plant-based foods are low in calories, belong to the alkaline food group, and are rich in dietary fiber, antioxidants, and beneficial bioactive substances that can promote human metabolism, help expel toxins from the body, and have a slimming effect.
3. Vegetarianism is easy to digest.
Vegetarianism mainly refers to a dietary habit that is primarily based on plant-based foods such as vegetables, fruits, beans, grains, seeds, and nuts. Wang Zhiyong, a attending physician in the Department of Gastroenterology at Liwan District Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said that the nutrients in these vegetarian foods are easily digested and absorbed, while meat is not easily digested in the stomach, and even when it reaches the large intestine, most of it is still undigested or only half-digested. From the perspective of human anatomy, the human intestine is similar to that of herbivores, but not very much like that of carnivores. The stomach acid of carnivores is twenty times that of humans; such a strong acidic environment is enough to digest meat and bones. Experts believe that when animals are slaughtered, due to anger, fear, sadness, pain, and struggle, they produce a large amount of toxic secretions. When people eat such meat, they also ingest these toxins into their own bodies, increasing the burden on detoxification organs like the kidneys and liver, making people more susceptible to illness and aging. In addition, vegetarian foods contain a large amount of cellulose, which can stimulate intestinal peristalsis to speed up, facilitate bowel movements, and ensure that harmful substances in the body are excreted in a timely manner, reducing the irritating damage of harmful substances to the intestinal wall.
What are the disadvantages of long-term vegetarianism?
1. Long-term vegetarianism can lead to fractures.
Research has found that vegetarianism can reduce the risk of cancer, especially the chance of developing leukemia will be greatly reduced. This result has been confirmed in foreign studies. However, blindly becoming a vegetarian without understanding your own constitution can cause your body to send warning signals. Research has found that compared to meat-eaters, vegetarians have more brittle bones. "Their bones are thinner, they consume fewer calories and proteins, their body mass index is lower, and their body fat content is also lower," experts wrote in the research report. "They have a greater risk of fractures." A new discovery is that adolescent vegetarians are more prone to eating disorders; 11% of the respondents had a tendency to overeat. More adolescent vegetarians, due to lack of guidance, have severe deficiencies of iron, zinc, calcium, and vitamin B in their bodies. They also mistakenly believe they are very healthy.
2. Long-term vegetarianism causes menstrual irregularities.
From a female physiological perspective, about one-third of the respondents experienced menstrual irregularities, and some women also developed anemia. Can women really only eat vegetarian food? Due to low fat intake, it leads to too little estrogen secretion, which greatly affects these women's libido and fertility, and makes them prone to wrinkles, accelerating the aging process.
3. Long-term vegetarianism can easily lead to calcium deficiency.
Although vegetarianism has many benefits, a completely vegetarian diet can lead to iron-deficiency anemia and calcium deficiency. Eating too many vegetables can also be harmful. For example, spinach, greens, celery, and tomatoes contain more oxalic acid, which can easily form calcium oxalate stones when combined with calcium in other foods. This is one of the reasons why many women who like to eat vegetarian food are prone to stone disease. At the same time, vegetarians often have insufficient intake of vitamin A and vitamin E. A deficiency of these two vitamins can easily lead to the shedding of epithelial cells in the gallbladder, which in turn causes cholesterol deposition and also easily forms stones.
In addition, a completely vegetarian diet can cause an imbalance in the proportion of food ingredients, leading to insufficient intake of animal protein. Even if supplemented with plant protein from sources like beans, its absorption and utilization are far inferior to that of animal protein. When completely vegetarians have insufficient protein intake, the balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fats in the body will be disrupted, which can lead to a decline in immunity, anemia, and indigestion will follow. Relevant departments once conducted a special nutritional survey on some "monks," and the analysis results showed that they basically suffered from varying degrees of malnutrition, had weak immune function, and were prone to various infectious diseases.
For today's high-pressure white-collar workers, occasional vegetarianism can be used as a调剂, but long-term vegetarianism is not the best strategy.
There are three periods in a woman's life when it is not advisable to be a long-term vegetarian.
1. Childbearing age.
If one often eats vegetarian food, it can lead to a decrease in estrogen levels and cause fertility problems.
2. Adolescence.
Long-term vegetarianism can cause estrogen levels to fail to "meet the standard," leading to underdevelopment or delayed development of secondary sexual characteristics, which hinders the development of female breasts and gonads and affects female physical beauty.
3. Menopause.
Menopausal women have a reduced or absent production and secretion of estrogen due to ovarian atrophy. If they are long-term vegetarians at this time, the symptoms of "menopausal syndrome" will be particularly significant. A lack of estrogen levels can easily lead to osteoporosis, which is the root cause of fractures.
How to eat vegetarian healthily.
If you choose vegetarianism for health reasons, experts believe you can moderately and "flexibly" consume animal-based foods. The specific approach is: on the basis of consuming a large amount of plant-based foods, consume animal-based foods in moderation according to your personal situation, generally once a week, and no more than three times at most. At the same time, animal-based foods should mainly be fish, and meat should be avoided as much as possible. Fish is rich in protein and unsaturated fatty acids, so it is more beneficial to health. Most importantly, maintain healthy cooking methods and pay attention to the diversification of food varieties to achieve nutritional balance.