Is a vegetarian diet always healthier than a meat-eating lifestyle?
A. Not necessarily. Cutting out the higher-fat meats from your meals will mean reducing some of the saturated fat that can lead to clogged arteries and raise your risk for heart disease. As a result, you’ll also eliminate some extra calories, which can obviously help with weight loss. And since you’re eating more vegetables and fruit, you’re likely to take in more phytochemicals and fibre, which can mean lowering your risk for heart disease and certain types of cancer. However, if you replace those meats with other high-fat foods – sweets and snack foods, rich sauces, high-fat dairy products – you can easily cancel out those benefits. In other words, a vegetarian diet is only healthier when it means eating more vegetables, fruits and whole grains and consuming less saturated fat.
