However, vegans never eat any food from animals, including meat, fish, dairy products and honey.
What nutrients should we pay attention to?
If you are a vegetarian (or a strict vegetarian), you need to ensure that you get enough protein and iron. If you are a strict vegetarian, you also need to ensure that you get enough vitamin B 12.
Take enough protein.
Eat all kinds of food, the most important thing is to ensure protein's full intake. This is because the content of essential amino acids in most plant proteins is very low and there are few kinds. Essential amino acids are components of protein, and are essential substances for human body. It is important to get enough essential amino acids at the same time. By eating various plant proteins, you can optimize the absorption of protein. The following foods are all good sources, so try to include them in your daily diet, and you can choose them in many ways:
1) beans (such as lentils)
2) Nuts and various plant seeds, such as melon seeds.
3) eggs
4) Soybeans and bean products, such as tofu.
5) bacterial proteins, namely fungi
6) Wheat protein, such as oats, bread, rice and corn.
7) Milk and dairy products
Soybean is the only plant source that contains a lot of essential amino acids. Mixing different kinds of protein foods in one meal can make people better absorb essential amino acids. Try these foods:
1) bean bread
2) Eat milk and soak in grains for breakfast.
3) Add lentils or cajanus cajan to the rice.
4) Vegetable soup with lentils or barley grains and bread.
5) Soybeans with rice or tortillas
6) Cheese and black wheat cake
7) Steamed couscous with stewed spicy chickpeas.
8) Hummus with pita bread
Try not to rely too much on one kind of protein, because then you may not get enough other nutrients. Cheese is very popular with western vegetarians, but although it is a good source of protein, calcium and other nutrients, the content of other substances such as saturated fatty acids and salt is also high. If you don't drink milk and eat dairy products, then choose to drink soybean milk and eat some substitutes with high calcium content.
Barley protein
For vegetarians and vegans, an essential beneficial nutrient is wheat protein, sometimes called gluten, which comes from wheat gluten (the protein part of flour). Gluten can be extracted from wheat and then processed into vegetarian chicken. Vegetarian chicken tastes like meat and can replace a kind of meat.
Vegetarians should ensure the intake of trace elements in a healthy diet.
Get enough iron.
Suitable for vegetarians and vegans to take iron food;
1) eggs
2) beans
3) Green vegetables, such as watercress, broccoli, green vegetables and okra.
4) Bread
5) cereal breakfast
The iron intake of these foods is not as good as that of meat products, but if food or drink contains vitamin C, the iron absorption will become better. So, remember to add some fruits and vegetables or a glass of juice to your diet.
Some foods, such as tea and coffee, will hinder the absorption of iron, because they contain a substance called polyphenols, which will combine with iron, making it difficult for iron to be absorbed by the body. So try not to drink tea or coffee when eating.
Take enough selenium.
Selenium is an essential mineral to maintain a perfect immune system. Meat, fish and nuts are important sources of selenium, so if you are a strict vegetarian, you must ensure that you eat enough nuts.
Brazil nuts are the best source of selenium, so eat as much as possible. Bread and eggs can also provide some selenium.
If you can include fish in your vegetarian diet, you should take enough selenium.
Get enough vitamin B 12.
Vitamin B 12 is an essential raw material for erythropoiesis. It can also maintain the health of the nervous system and help release energy from the food we eat. If you eat dairy products, you should get enough vitamin B 12. However, because vitamin B 12 does not exist in plant foods (such as fruits, vegetables and cereals), strict vegetarians may not get enough vitamin B 12.
Vitamin B 12 has several vegetarian sources:
1) yeast extract
2) Fortified bread
3) Fortified cereal breakfast
If you decide to take vitamin B 12 supplement, you should make sure that you don't exceed the recommended amount according to the instructions on the package, otherwise it will be harmful to your health.
The above is also the knowledge I have learned, I hope it will help you! Add one thing: beans are rich in protein, among which soybean protein is the best high-quality plant protein. Not only that, soybean is also rich in calcium, phosphorus, iron and B vitamins. Because soybeans and their products have so many advantages, they have won the reputation of "vegetable meat". Eating beans regularly can not only improve the nutritional supply of diet, but also avoid the influence of eating too much meat. Because legumes are rich in protein, their cholesterol content is much lower than that of fish, meat, eggs and milk. You can eat beans for a long time, but you should pay attention to your intake. You can eat 50 ~100g of bean products every day. If you drink soy milk in the morning, the consumption of other soy products will be slightly reduced. In view of your situation, I hope you have a balanced diet.