Vegetarian Diets

The advantage of a vegetarian diet is that it tends to be low in fat and high in fiber. The disadvantage is that is can be low in iron, vitamin D, zinc, vitamin B2, and vitamin B12.

The ovolactovegetarian diet allows for dairy products and eggs. It provides 80% of your need for zinc, but it is low in iron.

The vegan diet contains no animal protein ( meat, fish, eggs, poultry, dairy) and lacks vitamin B12.

When following any one of these diets, you need to consume complementary proteins to obtain complete proteins over the course of a day. An example of this would be beans and rice. A complete protein is a protein that has all the essential amino acids in amounts required for human use. Soy protein is considered equivilent in quality to animal protein.

Also, make sure to take a multivitamin daily to supplement your diet.