Nutrition and Diet Tips

Nutrition during pregnancy is one of the main factors we must consider must pay special attention to:

• Folic acid is a vitamin that needs to drink daily. Deficiency leads to anemia, premature detachment of the placenta, infants with low birth weight and some malformations, mostly of the nervous system.
  Although present in many foods, which are subjected to heat during the cooking process makes it possible to destroy, so it is necessary to consume fresh fruits and vegetables without cooking, and, as ordered, take a multivitamin with this vitamin.
• If a pregnant woman has some degree of malnutrition may occur low birth weight, intrauterine growth retardation and fetal or neonatal death. In addition, it increases the risk of heart disease, hypertension and diabetes in adolescence and adulthood.

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Calcium

It is recognized that vegetarians may have a higher overall intake of calcium, but the percentage of the total consumed absorbed is estimated below. This mineral is important for health, education, growth and maintenance of bones. Several studies have found a direct association between dietary calcium intake, bone density and fracture risk reduction. However, the largest meta-analysis of 33 studies on the subject, shows that the contribution of dietary calcium on bone density is modest.

The authors suggest that differences in the intake of this mineral or animal consumption sources (milk and dairy products, sardines) or plant (nuts, seeds, legumes) have no significant effect on the observed variation in bone density. If we look at these data, it is unlikely that the reduced strength of vegetarians in this analysis due to differences in dietary calcium intake.

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Legumes, also known as legumes, provide a quality and quantity of important nutrients to our body. They are of plant origin, bringing the largest number of proteins within this realm.

Along with grains, we can say that beans are the other pillar that allows you to feed the global population.

A diet with a good proportion of vegetables, is low in fat, highly nutritious, rich in fiber, with effective protection against cardiovascular disease and obesity.

Legumes group belong:

• Alfalfa,
• Beans,
• Peas,
• Green beans,
• Lentils,
• Chickpeas,
• Lupins
• Soy (with isoflavones, which is highly antioxidant),
• Peanuts

The cultivation of vegetables is very beneficial for the care of the ecological environment. In these times of so much pollution and environmental pollution, its culture promotes the fixation of nitrogen in the soil, and therefore enriches the fields for future crops and to feed livestock.

What is the nutritional value of vegetables?
As mentioned above, legumes provide us with an excellent quality and concentration of nutrients without the saturated fat intake with food of animal origin.

Carbohydrates: as in cereals, legumes carbohydrate is starch. In almost all the starch represents 50% ie in a ration of 60 gr., We have some 30 gr. carbohydrate as starch, the other 10% are simple sugars such as sucrose, glucose, fructose. A diet is not correct if he ignores carbohydrates.

Protein: excellent source of vegetable protein, between 20% and 40%. For example, 60 gr. soybean contain 20 gr. protein. These are incomplete or of low biological value and therefore should be combined with grains, nuts, etc.., To make them better quality protein.

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This feeding is associated with lower bone mineral density, but no cause for clinical concern.

The association between vegetarian diets and bone mineral density is controversial. The debate centers on the possibility that this type of food results in a lower bone mass, as some studies, compared to other investigations that have found no statistical significance in this relationship. The issue concerned because BMD is the strongest and most consistent predictor of fractures associated with osteoporosis.

In Western countries, a considerable proportion of the population has adopted a vegetarian diet that includes foods not found in traditional diets as the best for the formation and growth of bones.

The quality and quantity of ingested nutrients (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, vitamin D, A, K) and the consumption of other dietary elements that promote or hinder the absorption of minerals that nourish the bone, have a significant imprint on health marrow. These factors add up to each individual’s genetic predisposition to develop bone disorders.

The latest review on the possible association between diet and bone mineral density, a controversial issue, is a meta-analysis conducted by the Bone and Mineral Research Program Garvan Institute of Medical Research, picked up this October in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Differences between vegetarian diets

The density of bone is a complex physiological phenomenon that is influenced by multiple genetic and environmental factors.

One of the criteria of this review was to clarify the different concepts of vegetarian diet, since he could have some interesting differences between the consumption of nutrients that serve the bone depending on the type of food.

A range of studies analyzed bone density from four types of vegetarian diets: semivegetarian, which excludes only the consumption of meat as animal feed, lacto-ovo-vegetarian, which also rules out fish, but includes milk and eggs; lacto-vegetarian, which allows only milk and dairy products such as animal protein source, and the vegan diet, which dispenses with all foods of animal origin.

The analysis took into account nine studies, with a total sample of 869 women and 1880 men. The most relevant results revealed that vegetarians had 4% lower bone mineral density (femoral neck and lumbar spine) than omnivores. This parameter was lower in vegan, with 6% less bone thickness.

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