What is in your opinion the benefit of being vegetarian?

[krya]

Hi Guys,
What is in your opinion the benefit of being vegetarian?

[bhavi]

I believe vegetarian food keeps us light and active and keeps cholesterol in control as people who eat more non vegetarian food are more prone to cholesterol and heart problems unless they exercise accordingly.

[krya]

OK, which means it helps to avoid being too fat.
make sense, because it's a bit hard to imagine a Fat vegetarian person, even though it's possible.

[Luperca]

Not true. I know a few overweight vegetarian people. Some plant fats are as unhealthy as animal based fats. Also quite often people fry their food to make it more tasty. My late brother-in-law was a vegetarian almost his whole life and he suffered badly with cholesterol problems. Like any way of eating, you need to be as healthy as you can.

So the benefits of being a vegetarian. Yes, can be health. Also for ethical reasons. Do we have the right to raise other living beings for our own consumption? We have evolved to be omnivores. We are, essentially speaking, scavengers. That's how our ancestors survived. I believe that anybody who eats meat should be prepared to kill the animal. If you are not prepared to end another's life then you have no right to eat it's flesh! That simple. The same way I believe if you absolutely have to take a life (hunting or fishing) then you should at least respect that being by making sure it wasn't in vain. (And my blood curdles when I hear people bragging about the hunting prowess!!)

Then we go onto farming practices. Do we have a right to force animals into reproducing for our own gain - absolutely not! A lot of farming practices are barbaric at best. Animals forced to breed, forced to grow. Absolutely terrified when it comes time for slaughter. It's all to sad and the result: meat sold to the public that is so full of growth hormones, antibiotics, stress hormones and preservatives. And we wonder where all the diseases come from! Luckily people are becoming more aware of the problems. More and more people are looking at organic, free-range and ethically farmed. But we still have a very long way to go.

So eating meat, bad for us, bad for the animals and bad for the environment.

[Legion]

I think humans need to evolve out of the habit of killing animals for consumption. I think Spiritually its a better way forward and I implore you to research all great people, and have a look at their diet.

[krya]

Thanks Luperca, It's interesting to know that.

Some plant fats are as unhealthy as animal based fats

So the healthy food is not always veg.

[Luperca]

Thanks Luperca, It's interesting to know that.

Some plant fats are as unhealthy as animal based fats

So the healthy food is not always veg.

Not really. Not all veg is healthy. Especially if it has been processed.

[fatehearted]

Hey guys. Great thread to partake in. So quick background of myself in this I started learning about physical exercise and diets since I was about 15 when I first stepped foot into a gym, doing the wrong things I might add with a very poor understanding of nutrition, however I still knew more than many adults I encountered. This trend continued and I became a personal trainer when I was 19. That was 6 years ago, since then I have evolved and found a love for movement, free movement, flexible strength and explosive power. For the last 3 or so years I have been looking for spiritual approaches to exercise and nutrition and with time developed and researched what I felt were the most beneficial forms of eating for physical activity and athletic performance. This was a view of paleomammalian principle. Where an individual best tries to mimic the eating habits of our hunter gatherer ancestors by consuming lean, grass or naturally fed meats that have come under little stress, loads of vegetables as fresh as possible and many times raw, plenty of seeds and nuts, some fruit and a fair amount of fats. Through my research I discovered that energy stored in fat is actually more bio available to the human body and our typical sources of carbohydrates were in fact just filled with biologically unavailable starch and sugar, I also discovered that most of human kind hasn't evolved to digest animal milk properly as obviously it was never intended for our consumption. Further more the pasteurization process destroys the milks essential vitamins, minerals, proteins and enzymes which would have helped us digest and absorb the nutrients effectively.
I also found that most starchy carbohydrates, bread, pasta, potato, contains gluten, which a protein that developed with the industrial farming age. Gluten basically blocks our body's ability to effectively absorb nutrients as it clogs what are called philli. These little philli are vibrating hairs that allow us to absorb, gluten essentially clogs these philli and blocks other nutrients from passing through.

So the idea behind the paleo way of eating is human physical performance and physical health. Thereby eradicating any unwanted foods from the diet that we have not yet evolved to eat or rather are not evolving to be able to consume.

I continued with Paleo for a while, however what always stuck with me is an ingrained thought to always cut down my meat intakes, I felt there was definitely something happening where meat was affecting me negatively. I had read about the value of vegetarianism and veganism in spiritual practice. I began to slowly cut down meat and now am almost a complete vegetarian/vegan with the idea to go full vegan as animal by-products are certainly not favorable for the body nor for the spirit and mind.

Foods like dairy, starch, gluten, sugar as well as processed goods (if it has a nutritional breakdown you should generally put it down) cause acidity in the body. When the body is not at alkaline it goes into a state of defense by trying fight the acidity through the production of mucus. It is in this mucus that disease begins to develop and spread. The more acid we are, then the more mucus we produce and so the more disease and virus' we can hold.


However, the human form is not just the physical body, we are conscious thought and we are subject to every vibration and frequency we are exposed to. When we choose to eat the meat of animal, we are choosing to put the 'trauma' or 'fear' frequency into our bodies, as these animals are not just being killed for consumption but they are also being mistreated on a mass scale that could be viewed as genocide. meaning the collective frequency held in the meat or by products is of fear, anguish and disparity.
Our cells recognise this and behave accordingly, we absorb the frequencies with the nutrients.

I have become more aware of what I consume, however I do rarely now consume meat, I am in the transition phase. I can't remember the last time I ate red meat, which by the way takes somewhere near 48 hours to break down effectively before your body can even begin to absorb it, so imagine the kind of stress that break down process is putting on you. Talk about acidic build up.

Vegetables are all healthy but like anything too much of one and not enough of the other will always lead to imbalance. There is a certain level of responsibility that falls on each of us to know at least to some degree what foods do what and how our bodies work with them. Also mainstream information generally is very unreliable so do some digging and comparing.

I eat a lot of home made organic humus, raw broccoli and cauliflower, home made vegetable soups/ stews/curry. I do not use stock and if I use spice I search for non radurized natural spices.
I eat a lot of nuts, sometimes raw and sometimes roasted, but never salted or flavored. I do not eat dry foods because they use sulphur dioxide to dry the food and I am anti chemicals on my food.
I eat some fruit, probably not enough, but I try at least 1 a day. It should be 2-3 and always a good mix. pear, apple, melon, pineapple and berries(super food) are all great.
I get all my essential fats from the nuts and lots of yummy avo when it's available. Essential fats are so important for natural body processes and will not make you fat. Sugar, gluten and starch and dairy is the stuff that will hurt your body.
I get plenty pf protein through mixed nuts and seeds as well as chickpeas, some beans and if I am disciplined and go shopping I can get through hemp seed as well.
Drink water and try even get from a spring if you guys can, much of our tap water is flouridated. Flouride has been said to strengthen bones and teeth, again my research is showing this to be untrue.
I have found some information which claims that flouride actually calcifies and stunts the pineal gland which is representative of the 3rd eye in the body and also where we produce dmt which is in part responsible for our dream state.
If it is isn't natural and needs to be produced in a factory eat less of it, if it's natural, i.e. you could pick it and eat it, then do exactly that.

Phew. What a rant. any questions?

Love and light

[krya]

Interesting reading,
and Yes I've a question.

Some vegetarian spiritualist eat eggs and some others will take some fish because in their opinion those are very soft, tender kind of animals.
What do you all think about that?

[Warren-79]

Just 2 weeks ago a vegetarian told me that fish displays no emotion so its okay to eat. Same with eggs....to me an animal is an animal, whether running or swimming, its a life and its ridiculous for us to say that we shouldn't eat animals......UNLESS, they are being tortured from birth to death just so we can taste "good food", or they never see daylight, are used as worthless products for profits and are treated as if they don't deserve to live unless they serving us for some reason.

Just want to add something else......MOST vegetarians are EXTREMELY unhealthy people due to what they eat. Most vegetarians actually eat very little veggies and think that excluding meat from ones diet makes you vegetarian by default - I was one of them. What happens for most, is that we drop out the meat products and add in extra other stuff to make up the difference, like, bread, pasta, cheese, sugar, chips, etc.....This was a long journey for me.
I have been vegetarian for about 3 years then, went over to veganism for a long while, then went to over to raw food for a while, etc.....and in the end, just decided to drop all the labelling. I can tell everyone on here that eating about a 60%-70% raw fruit and veg diet made me feel the biggest difference of all the above diets (this is what I strive for in terms of diet). More energy, better overall mood, no tired spells after lunch, more energy, easy waking up in the morning, no more joint pains in the morning, and did I mention more energy :-)....also there's no guilt that animals had to SUFFER for your plate. If they weren't suffering, Id probably have some meat occasionally, but I would never support the practice that's happening everywhere now, including South Africa.
I would advise those wanting to go "veg", to do so but know that changing your diet and becoming vegetarian is only the 1st step towards becoming healthier as you will later learn that its not what label you are that makes you healthier. You can be vegetarian and order 2 portions of extra large frys from Mc Donalds and that's what a lot of vegetarians still do. I changed over because of animal right reasons and not for health and I'm glad I did, eventually, with all the learning and switching diets, degenerative diseases, become nothing more than a choice once you know why and what to eat.

As for benefits.....there's one big one......You gradually embody, a different body and your thinking changes......and eventually you realise that its not about diet at all but your life actually changes because you are living closer to nature. Your daily choices change, and the world you experience around you all change for the better. You literally feel physically different and react to situations differently. Your body isn't trying to clean up the mess you swallowed for lunch anymore so you start healing from within and this can be felt. There's practically no heated oils in you body, no cholesterol and lots of water based alkaline veg to neutralize the acid in your blood. You will notice you skin become soft and smooth again (can be noticed within 24hours by just adding 3 glasses of wheatgrass powdered drink to you daily diet on an empty stomach - or any other alkaline drink) - you will literally see and feel a difference in your skin within 1 day if you drink this thrice a day on an empty stomach.
The switch for me was a back and forth movement - It takes a while to get off your addictions and I still see how far I can push it sometimes (chocolate/sugar addiction).
There is also a lot of mis-info on the web. Nuts are not really good for us and very hard to digest unless its soaked overnight to get rid of the inhibitors. Soy is poison, and all the other so called health options, aren't really healthy - gojis and cacao included although I still eat them. You will discover that you left the meat eating box and just got into the Vegetarian box, still being told by the Health boards in different magazines or internet, what a vegetarian should eat and what not to. When I started out, I thought nuts and soy were good and used them as a replacement to get protein. I was so wrong....and just to give an example of a 60 - 70% raw diet, this is what I had for the entire day yesterday, I usually don't have a structured time to eat anymore because the food is quick to prepare.......I was off work so I did eat a lot more than usual though.

Before Breakfast: Glass of Structured water mixed with powder wheat grass + Orange (STRUCTURED WATER COSTS R35 FOR 14 liters)
Breakfast : Cooked oats with brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, goji berries
Snack : Bananas + kiwi + orange + seeds (pumpkin, sesame and almonds(the only alkaline nut)
Lunch : Raw Choc smoothie (3Bananas, 1orange, 1apple, tbsp Raw cacao, tbsp vanilla essence, tbsp raw organic peanut butter, a few dates, glass of water, handful of soaked almonds) - for a chocoholic, this is the best lunch ever, the ingrediants make around 3 to 4 glasses of drink.
Snack : Dates, goji berries, apple (seed mix)
Dinner : Raw green salad (Lettuce, tomato, dates, radish, lots of mushrooms, dried chillies, cayenne pepper, yellow, green and red pepper, carrots, lots of avo, cilantro, mixed herbs, thyme, oregano.)....and salad dressing which is made by mixing 1 part raw unfiltered apple cider viniger with 1 part olive oil.
This is roughly what I have daily + usually have 2 glasses of fresh veg juice during the day, either bought or made at home.


To anyone interested, here's a link to some very good info.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRFl4ERBOrs

Sorry for going way off topic.