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A Healthy Diet For Life

A varied whole-food vegan diet will provide all the nutrients required for a healthy body during pregnancy, for breastfeeding and from birth onwards. In fact there is no known nutrient the vegan diet cannot provide and several studies have shown that vegan women typically have healthy pregnancies and that their children thrive.

The vegan diet is

low in fat (especially saturated fat)
cholesterol-free
high in fiber and complex carbohydrates
low in salt
rich in vitamins A and C

Vegans are less at risk of
high blood pressure
heart disease
gallstones
diverticular disease
hemorrhoids
diabetes
kidney stones
cancer of the breast and colon

Some doctors also prescribe vegan diets to treat high blood pressure, angina, rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.

New Cancer Report Urges Mainly Plant-Based Diet
A major new report by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research published in 1997 recommend a reversal of current dietary trends in most parts of the world so that food supplies remain or become plant-based [a typical vegan diet!]. The report says:

" ... within the last 50 years, the trend has been to invest in the very resource-intensive rearing of animals ... The consumption of fatty meat and of meat, milk and other dairy products has also been promoted with the incorrect message that such foods are especially healthy."

In 1996, over ten million people developed some form of cancer. 30% - 40% of these cancers are actually preventable by correct diet.

The Importance Of Good Nutrition
The diet of a pregnant woman and that of her infant during the first year of life, can affect the health of that child 40, 50 or even 60 years later. It is therefore of utmost important that the pregnant woman and baby is provided with good nutrition. A pregnant woman requires extra nutrition to support the growing fetus and to allow for changes in her body.

Research Gives Veganism The Thumbs Up!
Studies carried out on life long vegan children in 1981 and 1992 showed that although generally lighter in weight than their omnivore peers, vegan children are within the normal ranges for height and weight. Infants and children raised on a varied vegan diet obtain adequate protein and energy, are healthy and grow normally. Reports in the medical press of vegan infants suffering protein and energy deficiencies are extremely rare. In some instances infants were weaned onto poorly planned fruitarian or macrobiotic regimes rather than vegan diets. In other cases parents had not adopted veganism but instead had eliminated foods from their infants' diets on a piecemeal basis and without seeking proper advice.