why vegetarian? why carnivore? why does it matter?

Many people talk to me about their vegetarian diets and others tell me about their meat-lover diets. Which one is better? Well, neither are healthy whatsoever if certain nutrients aren't found in the particular diets.

I love the move toward more Paleolithic, Caveman type diets these days. These diets enforce the importance of eating simple, unprocessed foods. Everything eaten is made by hand and at home, for the most part. However, I believe it is equally as important to understand that more protein does not necessarily mean more healthy. Our bodies can only digest a certain amount of protein. I wouldn't condone anyone eating more than 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight that they wish to weigh. For example, I weight 125 pounds, so I will not eat more than 125 grams of protein in one day. 25 grams of protein is usually the maximum amount of protein our bodies can handle at any given meal. Eating a 10 oz steak is not going to do your body good. Eating a 10 oz steak and no veggies at all can actually do your body a good deal of harm, in the long run.

I hate hearing people talk about how healthy they are because they don't eat meat so they don't eat all the fat or get the carcinogens to which meat eaters are vulnerable. The only reason this frustrates me, is because these vegetarians tend to be the same vegetarians who don't understand they need to eat some form of protein in order to keep their immune system healthy and fully functioning. Eating processed vegetarian foods is totally the opposite of what a healthy diet should consist of. I'm not talking about tofu and tempeh, because those are great sources of protein in the vegetarian diet. I'm speaking of the veggie burgers, pastas, fat and sodium-packed dairy, sodium and crap-packed tofu sausage, and other fake food. It is totally possible to have a healthy, nutrient-dense diet as a vegetarian. A soy-whey protein shake blend such as BodyByVi (which tastes like cake batter by the way), as well as Greek yogurt, nuts, tofu, tempeh, beans, and eggs and fish if not on a strict vegetarian diet, are perfect to satisfy your protein needs.

I am actually going to move toward more vegetarian/pescetarian eating habits. I was vegetarian for over a year, and did really well with my protein needs and maintained my active lifestyle. I feel as though I have been getting a little too excited about all the meat I've been cooking up, and am going to begin to explore the world of vegetarian cooking, once again, with the exception of seafood, eggs, and some dairy. I'm a big fan of challenges, so here we go.