Veggie Benefits

hyscience / CC

Guess what, people: Eating vegetarian food is good for you! If you don’t believe me, just ask the American Dietetic Association (ADA), which had the following to say in its latest position paper on vegetarian diets:

The results of an evidence-based review showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with a lower risk of death from ischemic heart disease. Vegetarians also appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than nonvegetarians. Furthermore, vegetarians tend to have a lower body mass index and lower overall cancer rates.

Need more proof? Check out the following recent studies:

• According to a study published in the Journal of Nutrition, people with type 2 diabetes who consumed 40 grams of soy protein isolate per day for nearly two months saw significant reductions in both their LDL cholesterol and the ratio of LDL to HDL cholesterol. This is just the latest in a long list of studies showing that soy lowers cholesterol—the FDA even permits companies to boast about the cholesterol-lowering effects of soy on their product labels.
• In more soy news, an amino acid found in higher concentrations in soy and other vegetable proteins can lower your blood pressure.
• In addition to clogging your arteries, a low-carb diet makes you stupid—at least that’s the conclusion of a recent study at Tufts University in Boston. Scientists there found that young women performed worse on mental acuity tests after just one week on the Atkins diet and other low-carb diets. D’oh—you could’ve aced that chemistry final if only you’d had a V8!
• Speaking of V8, a Mayo Clinic study has found that eating lots of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables may reduce your risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Bad news for people who hate broccoli—taking antioxidant supplements doesn’t have the same effect.
• A study at Oxford University backed up these findings and even went a bit further, concluding that vegetarians slashed their risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, and other blood cancers by 45 percent.

So, how’s about we mosey on over to VegCooking.com and get started fixing up a mess of cholesterol-lowering, artery-unclogging, cancer risk–slashing, brain-boosting veggies, shall we?

Written by Alisa Mullins