When eating a healthy vegetarian diet this will provide many healing and health benefits if you can avoid the common deficiencies associated with vegetarian diets. Some of the common deficiencies in a vegetarian include Vitamin B12 and Zinc. It is also important to have the correct ratio of essential fats which includes Omega 3, Omega 6, and Omega 9. On a vegetarian diet it is easy to load up on more Omega 6 than you actually need which can cause various health issues.
Vitamin B12 is mostly contained in red meat, offal, insects and some fermented foods. The following is a list of foods that can help provide some of the Vitamin B12 needed on a vegetarian diet:
- Eggs
- Cheese
- Tempeh
- Yogurt
- Nutritional Yeast
Zinc levels have also been found to be quite low on a vegetarian diet. This is mostly because a diet high in vegetarian foods can provide more copper which competes with zinc levels. The following vegetarian food sources contain zinc:
- Pumpkin seeds
- Chickpeas
- Sesame seeds
- Cashews
- Almonds
- Nutritional yeast
To balance the levels of essential fats Omega 3 and 6 try to avoid over consuming foods high in Omega 6. Avoid cooking foods in vegetable oil, sunflower and safflower oil. Instead use ghee, butter or coconut oil. For salad oils avoid too much olive oil and opt for flax seed oil has a good ratio of essential fats.