How to Be a Healthy Vegetarian

Many young people today–some of our best young people–are changing their ancestral eating habits. Because of their deep reverence for all living creatures, some are going vegetarian. They eat no meat or fish , but they do eat eggs and dairy products. Others are avoiding not only animal products, but animal by-products, and are going “vegan.” They will not consume eggs or dairy products; some even eschew honey and gelatin.

We have always recommended the inclusion of animal products in your diet because they are a source of protein that is biologically complete. However, because of current risky practices in raising poultry and livestock, the use of antibiotics and stilbestrol in animal feed, the use of tranquilizers, the spraying of animal feed with insecticides, we must concede that meat, unless you can get is from organic sources, does have its quota of dangers. We believe a person is creating needless dietary difficulties by trying to do without meat. We recommend meat. But choose it very carefully.

We do not dispute the fact that it is possible to maintain health and vigor on a purely vegetarian diet. But it is not easy. One should not undertake this kind of diet in a haphazard manner. It is true that many famous people have lived their lives well without meat–Henry David Thoreau, Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, Leonardo da Vinci, Milton, Pope, Gandhi, and Bernard Shaw, to cite a few.

However, bear in mind that when these men lived, vegetables, fruits and grains still had all the nutrients nature intended them to have. Today, because of poor farming practices, and the use of chemical fertilizers, our soils have become depleted and every year the nutrition that is delivered to the produce grown on it becomes less and less.

The Department of Agriculture, when it pats itself on the back for its great production record, bases its yearly statistics not on nutrients but on the yield per acre. But the protein content of wheat and corn grown in America is steadily declining even as the bushel yield of grain per acre is increasing.

Back in 1955, Dr. William Coda Martin estimated that the protein content of our grains is declining an average of one per cent per year.

Sprouts Assume Major Importance

The vegetables which you are buying in the market place, then, are not providing you with the nutrients which they should have. If you are on a vegetarian diet, and especially if you are vegan and not consuming eggs or dairy products either, this could be disastrous. By all means, try to get your vegetables, grains, and fruits from organic sources. Then at least they will provide you with the nutrients which you expect to get from them. Grow your own as many young people are doing: find an organic friend or farmer, and by all means become a kitchen farmer. Raise your own sprouts. 

Sprouts can be your lifeline to vital health on a vegetarian diet and they can be grown anywhere–even in the trunk of your car. While natural grains and seeds contain many nutrients of benefit, when they are sprouted they undergo organic changes that multiply their vitamin, mineral, enzyme and protein content.

Dr. Francis Pottenger, Jr., found that sprouted grains and legumes provided enough first quality proteins to be classed as complete. They passed the test which is used to determine the completeness of a food; they sustained life all through the reproductive cycle for several generations, Catharyn Elwood reports in “Feel Like A Million”. (Devin-Adair)

Sprouts, then, are a superb food for vegetarians and can pinch hit for market vegetables when it is impossible to get the organic ones. Remember to use only untreated seeds for sprouting. Many commercial seeds are treated with fungicides like mercury which are deadly.

But even if you are eating vegetables of superior quality, you still must plan your diet with care because at best the protein from vegetables is incomplete. They do not have all the amino acids in balance best suited to your body’s need.

Amino Acid Balance Means More than Protein Quantity

Planning an adequate protein diet is not just a matter of selecting food on the basis of protein content. There are complicating factors. One of the most important is “biological value.” Some proteins contain all the known building blocks needed for the construction of tissue and the maintenance of body function while other proteins are deficient or entirely lacking in certain of these constituent parts–the amino acids.

One of the dangers inherent in the vegetarian diet is the possibility of an imbalance in your amino acids. Not only must all the essential aminos be supplied in adequate amounts and a balance suited to your body, they must be supplied at the same time. Meat, eggs, dairy products, are complete proteins which means they contain all the essential amino acids in the correct proportions. All but 8 of the known amino acids can be synthesized by your body from other sources. They are, therefore, not called essential. The 8 which you must include in your diet because the body cannot make them are: leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, valine, lysine, isoleucine, threonine and tryptophan. Arginine is considered essential for growing children. Because they depend upon each other to make body tissue, if one is absent, none of them are used. They go on a sit-down strike. The tryptophan you consume in the morning does not hang around waiting for the methionine you consume in the evening. When rats were fed a diet consisting of all the essential amino acids but one, they could not maintain growth even if the missing amino acid was fed several hours after the incomplete mixture. (Nutrition Reviews, 6, 244, 1948)

How do you balance your amino acids properly on a vegetarian diet?

If you are a whiz at mathematics, you could learn the quantities of all the amino acids in the various foods, match them against your body’s requirements for each (they differ) and plan your meals accordingly. But, as you consult charts giving the amino content of various foods, you will discover that different authors give quite different values which adds to the complications. This is because, as revealed by Sanchez, Scharfenberg and Register in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (October, 1963) genetic, environmental or processing factors may significantly alter the amino acid content or availability of a protein from the average values in standard composition tables.

A simpler method suggested by Dr. J. A. Campbell, chief of the vitamin and nutrition section of the Canadian Food and Drug Directorate is to measure the content in a food of three building blocks of protein-lysine, methionine and cystine. Dr. Campbell told an American Chemical Society meeting (September, 1959) that “Since most common foods are deficient in these amino acids, such a technique is quite reliable…” In other words, in virtually all incomplete proteins, it will be one or more of these three that is missing or in short supply.

Amino Acid Planning

Lysine is heat sensitive when exposed to temperatures even as low as those used to pasteurize milk (148 to 150 degrees), says Gena Larson in her booklet Fundamentals in Foods. As the heat goes up and the length of cooking time is increased, the degree of lysine available from protein sources is progressively reduced. This is well to bear in mind. Make sure you don’t kill the amino acids in cooking, and serve a raw vegetable, salad, raw fruit, raw sprouts or unroasted seeds. One or more of these should be an integral part of any cooked meal, vegetarian or not.

The one food which improves its protein picture with cooking is the soybean. The biological value of a protein is dependent on the minimum quantity of any essential amino acid made available from it. The limiting amino acid in soy protein is methionine. According to “Bridges,” suitable heating increases the availability of this amino in soy. It is the rate rather than extent of methionine liberation which determines the biological value of soy protein. During digestion of raw soy meal, methionine is set free very slowly in comparison with leucine and lysine which means that all the essential building blocks are not available at the same time. Also, soybeans contain a trypsin inhibitor (trypsin is an enzyme necessary to the digestion of protein). This trypsin inhibitor must be destroyed by thorough heating; otherwise, no protein present can be used to advantage.

As a guide in your planning, here are some amino acid values from Metabolism published by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (1968).

Eggs provide protein that is biologically complete. Dr. Roger Williams in a recent experiment was able to keep laboratory animals alive and well for several generations on a diet of nothing but eggs.

Notice the distribution of the amino acids in eggs and try to plan your meals to give you the same kind of balance. Notice the methionine content is 19.6 grams per 100 grams of nitrogen, as compared to its lysine content of 40. This is the proportion in which your body needs these amino acids. Sesame seeds come very close to the methionine content of eggs–17.5 but they fall down in lysine–16. Soybeans, on the other hand, fall way down in methionine–8.4–but are high in lysine–39.5. Use sesame seeds with soybeans, and they will combine metabolically into high grade protein.

Notice that corn is very low in tryptophan: 3.8 compared to the egg, 10.3. Corn is also low in lysine: 18 compared to the egg, 40. Sweet potatoes complement corn very nicely. They are high in tryptophan, 10.9, and a good source of lysine, 29.5.

You probably never thought of serving corn and sweet potatoes at the same meal because they are both considered starchy. Together, however, they do provide a good amino acid balance. Try serving small portions of each. Yeast, too, complements corn. Enjoy a yeast broth when you serve corn and you will experience that “satisfied” feeling you enjoy when all your amino acids are on the ball field at the same time.

Remember that a generous allowance of high grade biologically complete protein is associated not only with physical fitness and vigorI and increased resistance to disease, but also with healthy offspring.

How can you, without using a slide rule at the dinner table, be assured of a proper balance of the amino acids at each meal? Dr. Roger J. Williams of the University of Texas in his book, Nutrition in a Nutshell (Doubleday & Co., 1962), suggests this simple guide: “Don’t restrict yourself to one part of a living organism, try to get the whole works. In the plant world, do not restrict yourself to green leaves (spinach), or to roots (parsnips), or to seeds (corn or wheat), or to fruit (apples, tomatoes). Each of these is in itself incomplete. A combination diet containing leaves, roots, tubers, seeds, and fruits is a vast improvement. Early in the history of Animal nutrition it was found that seeds and leaves have a profound supplementary action,” Dr. Williams says.

Nuts, seeds, avocados, whole grains, considered “incomplete proteins” should, according to Dr. Williams formula, be eaten with raw, green leafy vegetables to provide a complete amino acid pattern that is well utilized by the body.

Gena Larson, who has researched the subject with great care, suggests these combinations as examples of complete amino acid patterns:

1. Raw greens in salad plus raw cashews or other nuts.
2. Green drink made with raw nuts or seeds.
3. Raw green vegetables with mashed avocado dressing.
4. Sprouted grains or seeds plus raw green salad.
5. Large green salad plus sesame seed dressing.
6. Raw green vegetable plus raw egg mayonnaise.

There are some more tips to help you balance your aminos: Peanuts are very low in methionine but corn, soybeans, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds or rice will compensate. So will wheat germ. If you ‘re hooked on peanut butter sandwiches, make them on a wheat germ or soy bread, add sesame seeds to the peanut butter filling, watercress, alfalfa sprouts or grated carrot for moisture, flavor, vitamins, and amino acids and you have a good biologically complete lunch.

Yeast, too, is rich in the amino acids that are low in soy or peanut flour. Whenever you use soy or peanut flour in baking, always add a little nutritional yeast. If you are avoiding dairy products and are using soy milk, add yeast to it. When yeast was added to the soy milk formulas of allergic infants, it produced better growth than when the vitamins it contains were administered separately, it was revealed by L. E. Holt, Jr., in the American Journal of the Diseases of Children (31, 427, 1956).

CRAZY-MIXED-UP Nuts

When you eat nuts, mix them up. Brazil nuts are a good source of methionine; cashews rate high in lysine. Sunflower and sesame are good sources of methionine. Combine nuts with raisins for a more complete amino pattern.

Millet is a good high protein cereal you would do well to include in your dietary. So are buckwheat groats, whole unpearled barley, natural whole grain rice and, of course, soybeans which come closest of all plant food to being a complete protein.

The one essential vitamin frequently in short supply in a vegetarian diet is B12. Vitamin B12 is associated especially with animal proteins. Liver is the richest source. Kidney, muscle meats, milk, eggs, cheese and fish are other sources. Vegetarians who eat eggs and milk in generous amounts are not quite so vulnerable as are vegans who avoid all animal products and by-products. Remember that pernicious anemia in vegetarians frequently escapes diagnosis. A vegetarian diet is rich in the green vegetables which provide lots of folic acid which keeps the blood picture normal and masks the evidence so that irreparable nerve damage can occur before the vitamin B12 deficiency is discovered.

Yeast, wheat germ and soybeans are about the only foods from which a vegan can get some traces of B12 and avoid the possibility of neurological disease which may not show its symptoms for five years. B12 is made from molds. It is not synthetic nor of animal origin when you get it as a supplement.

In a study of the effects of veganism, conducted in collaboration with the Department of Nutrition, Queen Elizabeth College, London, three scientists, Ellis, Path and Montegriffo found nine of the 26 vegans had serum B12 levels that were low; three of these had a frank B12 deficiency, whereas only one control had a serum B12 deficiency.

Other than the B12 deficiency, there was no significant difference in the clinical states of the vegans and the meat eaters except that the vegans were lighter in weight.

If you are vegan and thus not using eggs, you may be interested in these substitutes for eggs as suggested by the publication, The Vegan Kitchen by Freya Dinshah, issue of July, 1965. It is published by the Vegan Society, Enfield, Middlesex, England.

 

Vegan Mayonnaise

2 baked sieved potatoes

½ pint vegetable oil

chopped parsley, sage, green and red sweet pepper, celery and cucumber.

 

Buzz in blender.

 

Binder to be used as substitute for one egg in conventional recipes;

1 teaspoon Arrowroot flour

1 teaspoon soya flour

Mix in 1/2 cup warm water.

If you’re not using dairy products, you may enjoy making your own cheese from non-dairy products. Try this:

Raw Nut Cheese

Blenderize 3 or 4 sticks of celery, pour into bowl and mix in ground cashew nuts till you get a good spreading consistency.

Since soy is a staple on a vegetarian or vegan diet, try this:

Soya Cheese

Mix a quart of soy milk made from soy powder and bring to a boil. As the soy milk begins to rise, pour in ¾ tablespoon of fresh lemon juice. Let stand. Then strain.

Make your own nut butters and you’ll never miss the expensive spread. Grind some nuts or seeds; add water a little at a time until the mixture has a good spreading consistency.

Avocados are a natural butter.

To make nut cream, add more water to your nut butter. Add more water and you’ll have a delicious nut milk.

To make soy milk, blenderize four heaping teaspoons to pure soy powder with a pint of water. Sweeten if you like with the juice of soaked dates or raisins.