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You may notice a natural inclination towards vegetarianism after some time on your yoga mat. The question is how to do this safely without ill-health, and how to make your transition a lifelong, successful one…

The main concern most new vegetarians have is whether they will get enough protein. An unknown fact is that women only need about 45g of protein a day (a little more if they are pregnant, breastfeeding or very active) and men need about 55g (more if very active). This equates to a very small piece of red meat. In fact, many dieticians recommend that red meat in particular should be eaten only once or twice a week, if you are going to eat it at all.

Getting Started
In making your transition from full meat-eating to vegetarianism, it is strongly advised to go slowly. Over the course of weeks, months, or even years, begin to eliminate certain protein foods and substitute them for vegetarian alternatives. Most people first cut out red meat, then chicken, then fish. Ensure you are comfortable with a few substitutions before you stop eating animal protein altogether.

Give yourself time to adjust to your new food intake and to ensure you get sufficient protein while your body learns that change is underway and adapts to it.

Allow your mind to overcome the attachment to a lifestyle of meat eating. If you try to do this too quickly, or too forcefully, your mind will reject the change and becoming vegetarian might be a short-lived fad for you.

Listen to your cravings and if you are craving red meat in the early stages, eat a small amount, and realise that perhaps your substitutions aren’t working and you need to pay more attention to your protein intake.

Vegetarian Proteins
As a vegetarian, your protein can come from many sources, including:

• Nuts – hazels, brazils, almonds, cashews, walnuts, pine kernels etc
• Seeds – sesame, pumpkin, sunflower, linseeds
• Pulses – peas, beans, lentils, peanuts
• Grains – wheat (in bread, flour, pasta etc), barley, rye, oats, millet, maize (sweet corn), rice
• Soya products – tofi, tempeh, textured vegetable protein, soya milk
• Dairy products – milk, cheese, yoghurt (not butter and cream as they are very poor sources of protein)
• Free range eggs

There are 20 different amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein, and we can make most of them in our bodies by converting other amino acids. Only eight amino acids – the essential amino acids – cannot be made in our bodies and have to be provided for by the diet. By mixing plant foods together correctly, we get all the essential amino acids we need. Single plant foods do not contain all the essential amino acids we need in the right proportions, but the deficiency in one is cancelled out by the excess in the other when combined properly, forming a complete protein.

A few examples of complete vegetable protein: are beans on toast, muesli, rice and peas. Adding dairy products or eggs also adds the missing amino acids, e.g. macaroni and cheese, quiche and porridge with milk.

New research has shown that the body has a pool of amino acids so that if one meal of deficient, it can be made up with the body’s own stores. Because of this we don’t have to worry about complementing amino acids all the time, as long as our diet is generally varied and well-balanced. Even those foods not considered high in protein are adding some amino acids to this pool.

In turning vegetarian, vitamin B12 is the only vitamin that may cause some difficulty, as it is not present in plant foods. Fortunately, only tiny amounts of B12 are needed and are present in dairy products and eggs.

Iron is also needed for healthy red blood cells and, although vegetable sources of iron are not as easily absorbed as animal sources, a good intake of vitamin C will enhance absorption. Drinking a glass of orange juice after a meal is a great way to enhance the absorption of iron from your meal. Iron is found in leafy green vegetables, wholemeal bread, molasses, eggs, dried fruits (especially apricots and figs), lentils and other pulses.

The Healthy Vegetarian Diet
As a rule, vegetarians who are careful about what they eat are healthier than meat-eaters: they generally eat less fat and more fruit and vegetables than meat eaters and have an increased intake of phyto-nutrients, which protect cells in the body against damage that could lead to disease, particularly cancer.

Vegetarians have a higher intake of fibre because their diets include more fruit, vegetables, whole grains and plant proteins, like lentils. Fibre intake is vital to keep us regular and has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer.

Vegetarian diets also tend to be bone friendly, because they are usually lower in protein than meat eaters and include more foods rich in magnesium. This means the body loses less calcium and bone formation is aided.

Vegetarian food is generally cheaper than meat and fish-based meals, and it can be much healthier, tastier and more exciting, as well as being friendlier to our beleaguered planet.

The Case for Vegetarianism
There are many reasons to choose vegetarianism, from personal, physical and mental health to environmental concern and moral activism, to spirituality.

Consider the following facts which appear on www.vegsoc.org:

• In the UK almost 800 million animals are slaughtered for food each year, about fifteen live animals per person per year.
• Roughly one quarter of all methane emissions come from livestock giving off gas (farts) contributing to global warming.
• Ammonia from animal waste and agricultural fertilisers contributes to acid rain, which kills aquatic and plant life.
• Intensive grazing causes soil erosion and nutrient depletion, which can make soil infertile, creating deserts on previously fertile land.
• It takes up to 10 kilos of vegetable protein to produce one kilo of meat. It takes 900 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of wheat but 100 000 litres to produce a single kilo of meat.
• Commercial fishing has decimated fish populations to the point of near extinction and many governments, including ours, have had to implement stricter fishing quotas.
• Recent health scares such as E-coli and BSE (Mad Cow Disease) which resulted in the slaughter of millions of animals.
• Research has shown that a vegetarian diet could help reduce risks from certain cancers by up to 40%; decrease the possibility of dying from heart disease by 30%; restrict the chance of suffering from kidney and gall stones, diet-related diabetes and even high blood pressure. It could also lower cholesterol levels and reduce health problems related to obesity.
• Over 90 percent of all food poisoning cases each year in the UK are related to the consumption of animal products.

Yoga and Vegetarianism
For those who have adopted yoga as a lifestyle, it is strongly suggested to turn vegetarian. The above listed reasons are the strength behind the philosophy of non-violence – ahimsa – one of the back-bones of yogic philosophy.

Yogis believe that by consuming the flesh of an animal you are consuming the emotions that the animal has stored in its lifetime. Animals treated badly store this energy in their bodies and this energy gets transferred to us when we eat their flesh. We spend time on our mats to expend emotions we store in our own bodies; it would seem odd then to replace that with the emotions of another life.

Vegetarianism prevents the yogi from creating karma due to violence toward the planet, toward the co-inhabitants of the planet and toward the yogi personally through ingesting impure foods.

In the Bhagavad-Gita, it is beautifully stated that the nature of the food we eat is a wonderful signpost to what is going on inside our minds. If you are craving hot, spicy foods, the mind is ill-at-ease and there is unrest within. If you are craving heavy, dead foods (meat, chicken, fish) or find yourself craving stale foods, the mind is depressed and dark, if you are craving pure foods (of a primary source of energy, with limited intervention), the mind is still and calm. You are what you eat. By putting certain foods into your body, you process and manufacture certain states of mind. You can be in control of the quality of your life through a greater awareness of what and how you eat.

Yoga does not only exist on the mat, however it is your choice how deeply you wish to integrate it into your lifestyle.

By Kerry Weavind and Nadine Fawell

Kerry runs the Haum of Yoga

Article first published in Complete Yoga, 2005, Volume 7