Preeti Kaur
What is a Ketogenic Diet?
A keto diet is a low carbohydrate and high-fat diet that has gained popularity in the current years. It puts the body into ketosis, where the body burns fat to produce energy when it does not have enough carbohydrates to burn. Usually, a keto diet contains a considerable amount of meat, fish, and poultry, deriving 80 -90 percent of calories from fat, 5-15 from proteins, and 5-10 % from fat. Some peoples’ concern about animal health and environmental factors may not eat animal protein due to their faith. Well, this is for them. Before understanding the types of the vegetarian keto diet, let’s first understand the kind of vegetarians there.
Vegans avoid every form of animal protein like dairy, honey, seafood, poultry, meat, etc.
Lacto vegetarians prefer dairy foods but don’t prefer any other animal protein form like poultry, seafood, meat, etc.
Lacto -OVP vegetarians prefer dairy food and eggs but avoid seafood, poultry, and meat.
Pescatarians – They have dairy, seafood, and eggs but not poultry or red meat. They are also called semi-vegetarian.
What would a vegetarian keto diet for a day seem to be?
Breakfast – You can have a chia seed pudding along with protein powder or a protein pancake made with protein powder or eggs.
Snack – consists of sliced cucumber with a dip of either cottage cheese or cream cheese and sunflower seeds.
Lunch – It could be either a large salad containing avocado, seeds, nuts, vegetables, or an egg omelet with pesto or herbed goat cheese.
Dinner – It could be anything among dishes like a spinach salad with crust cashew tofu grilled zucchini, cubed feta, or zucchini noodle with tofu and pesto.
Now, what are the benefits of A vegetarian keto diet?
Helps with weight loss
The keto diet is mainly for weight loss. So even if it’s vegetarian, that benefit stays. A study showed that 83 people with obesity could significantly reduce weight and body mass index if they follow a vegetarian keto diet. The amount of healthy fats present in the diet helps one stay full and reduce hunger or appetite.
Controls the blood sugar
In a five-year study, 2918 people following a vegetarian kept diet reduced the risk of diabetes by 55%. Again after another four-month study, 21 people could lose weight through vegetarian keto. As a result, almost 81% of people from the survey could reduce or stop their diabetes medication altogether,
Protection against chronic diseases.
Keto diet is known to reduce cancer risk cholesterol, risk of heart diseases, and improve BMI and blood pressure. Some studies also say that it may help improve the condition of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Both non-vegetarian and vegetarian keto diets help the body. But if someone has diabetes, it wouldn’t be beneficial to control their condition with diet. Proper medication is preferred. A healthy vegetarian keto diet is as good as a non-vegetarian keto diet but more challenging to follow.
