Is plant-based better?

Plant-based diets are trendy currently and a route people are often curious to explore.

If we get technical, a few categories can fall under this umbrella:

• Vegan: Complete exclusion of animal-based products (dairy, meat, seafood)
• Lacto-Vegetarian: Includes dairy products (e.g. milk, yoghurt, cheese) but no meat or seafood.
• Lacto-Ovo-Vegetarian: Includes dairy products and eggs but no meat or seafood.
• Flexitarian or flexible plant-based diets: These don’t strictly adhere to any of those above, MOST of the diet comes from plant-based foods such as grains, cereals, vegetables, fruits, pulses etc but animal-based products are not excluded.

Now, there is no doubt that eating more fibre-rich foods (which only come from plants) is super beneficial. Simply put, including these foods can improve gut health – a key player in immunity and overall well-being.

But does this mean there is no place in one’s diet for animal products? It depends. And this comes down to factors such as your personal beliefs and ethical standpoint. It must be recognized that a lot of nutrients (e.g. protein, Vitamin B12, calcium) are more easily available through foods such as meat and dairy. That’s not to say you can’t get them from following a vegan diet, it only requires additional planning (contact a dietitian). As is always the case, it’s about finding a balance, for example having too much meat might mean not enough vegetables and that’s where problems may arise.

References

• Kaczmarczyk, M. M., Miller, M. J., & Freund, G. G. (2012). The health benefits of dietary fiber: beyond the usual suspects of type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease and colon cancer. Metabolism: clinical and experimental, 61(8), 1058–1066. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.metabol.2012.01.017
• McDonald, D., Hyde, E., Debelius, J. W., Morton, J. T., Gonzalez, A., Ackermann, G., … Knight, R. (2018). American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research. mSystems, 3(3), e00031-00018. doi:10.1128/mSystems.00031-18
• Shreiner, A. B., Kao, J. Y., & Young, V. B. (2015). The gut microbiome in health and in disease. Current opinion in gastroenterology, 31(1), 69–75. https://doi.org/10.1097/MOG.0000000000000139