Different Types of Vegetarian Diets

Basically vegetarian diets are plant based. However, just as there are different reasons for being a vegetarian, there are different types of vegetarian diets.

Semi vegetarian diets include some flesh meats, either every now and then, or regularly of a certain type of flesh meat, such as fish.

For some strange reason some folks suggest that fish is not meat. I have had several people say this to me. I hate to burst their bubble, but it is the flesh of an animal and not from a plant.

Lacto ovo vegetarian is plant based, but also includes eggs, milk and cheese. Contrary to popular opinions there are good reasons to eliminate milk and other dairy foods from the diet.

A Lacto vegetarian eats similar to a lacto ovo vegetarian except for the eggs. A lacto vegetarian does not eat eggs.

A vegan diet is an animal free food diet. Vegans eat only fruits, nuts, grains, legumes and vegetables. This is the Genesis diet that God first gave to mankind before the flood.

Fruitarians eat only fruit, including those vegetable like plants with seeds, such as pumpkins and tomatoes.

The different types of diets listed above consist of cooked and raw vegetables, fruits, legumes etc.

However a raw or living food diet consists of eating uncooked fruits and vegetables, or cooked to just over 100 degrees, so that the nutrients are retained.

A raw or living food diet is good if you want to lose weight or if one is sick, because the food passes through the digestive system quicker.

Therefore the body spends less energy on the digestive process, and more on the healing process.

Diet food raw vegetarian, yup that was all I could eat when I became sick in 1996. During my sickness the only things I could keep down were fruit and raw food salads for about 2 – 3 months, until I was able to correct the problem.

I had rapid weight loss the first week on the raw food diet and I looked like a walking skeleton for those 3 months. It scared me to look at myself naked in the mirror. Although friends, who of course saw me with clothes on, kept saying how good I looked, hmmm!

So which ever one you choose make sure it is a healthy one.

Click here to read about pregnancy and vegetarian diets.