Sport and vegetarians

Vegetarian types:

1) Pescatarian (also spelled pescetarian). The word “pescatarian” is occasionally used to describe those who abstain from eating all meat and animal flesh with the exception of fish. Although the word is not commonly used, more and more people are adopting this kind of diet, usually for health reasons or as a stepping stone to a fully vegetarian diet.

2) Flexitarian/Semi-vegetarian . “Flexitarian” is a term recently coined to describe those who eat a mostly vegetarian diet, but occasionally eat meat.

3) Vegetarian (Lacto-ovo- vegetarian)

When most people think of vegetarians, they think of lacto-ovo-vegetarians. People who do not eat beef, pork, poultry, fish, shellfish or animal flesh of any kind, but do eat eggs and dairy products are lacto-ovo vegetarians (“lacto” comes from the Latin for milk, and “ovo” for egg).

Lacto-vegetarian is used to describe a vegetarian who does not eat eggs, but does eat dairy products.

Ovo-vegetarian refers to people who do not eat meat or dairy products but do eat eggs.

 4) Vegan

Vegans do not eat meat of any kind and also do not eat eggs, dairy products, or processed foods containing these or other animal-derived ingredients such as gelatin. Many vegans also refrain from eating foods that are made using animal products that may not contain animal products in the finished process, such as sugar and some wines. There is some debate as to whether certain foods, such as honey, fit into a vegan diet.

5) Raw vegan/Raw food diet

A raw vegan diet consists of unprocessed vegan foods that have not been heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius). “Raw foodists” believe that foods cooked above this temperature have lost a significant amount of their nutritional value and are harmful to the body.

At vegetarians, especially the strict ones, deficits of few vitamins can be present unless their nutrition is balanced.

Plant origin groceries contain generally less energy, so energy intake can be insufficient, especially at people that are highly energy active. Solution is bigger energy intake, and especially groceries of plant origin that are good sources of energy: stone fruit, beans, peas, corn, potato, avocado, dried fruit, cereals and products from wholemeal. This food should be the part of main meals and baggings. On the other side, plant food with low energy containment is recommended to the people that are included in the program of body mass reduction.

Vegeterian female athletes can also be in risk of amennorhea, non regular menstruatio cycle. These athletes are under risk of stress fracture 4.5 times more than normal athletes.

Vitamine B12 deficit can be found at strict vegetarians(vegans). Meat, fish and eggs are the richest source of this vitamine, while its containment in cereals, fruit and vegetables is very low. So here supplementation with vitamine B₁₂ will be helpful. 

Riboflavine containment(B₂ vitamine) is very low in plant origin groceries, so there is a possibility of insufficient intake. Green leafy vegetables like broccoli contains a little bigger amount of this vitamine.

When legumes and grain food are dominant in nutrition, then it comes to decreased absorption of minerals like calcium, iron and zync; cause then it comes to increased creation of fitats, that disturb absorption of this mineral. Groceries rich with following minerals should be eaten more often. Iron rich substances are: stone fruit, beans, peanuts, peas, green leafy vegetables(spinach), dates, grapes and plums. Bigger amounts of calcium are found in following types of groceries: broccoli, cabbage and spinach. Zync is found in following groceries: wholegrain wheat bread, peas, corn and carrot. Also, egg yellow and seafood contain significant amount of zync.

Also soya groceries can be very useful, like tofu, tempech and soya milk, because these groceries contain 8 times more proteins than meat and also contain 8-9 amino-acids. They also have functions that protect from cancer and heart diseases. More soya products, bigger chance to decrease risk of tumor and decrease harmul cholesterole.

Non-adequate intake of amino acids can be found in vegetarians that don’t have significant intake of animal origin groceries that contain complete proteins. Two glasses of milk, two eggs, 90-120g of meat(chicken, fish and other meat, also cheese) satisfy all needs for all essential amino-acids.

Balanced nutrition, that is mostly created by plant origin groceries, can enable intake of all needed amino-acids. Wholegrain wheat products, rice, corn, soya, peas, beans and stone fruit contain almost all amino acids. Combination of this groceries will enable even at vegetarians to achieve completely satisfied intake of all essential amino-acids.

Vegetarian nutrition reduces intake of saturated fat acids(ratio of polyunsaturated and saturated fat acids is 3:1 or over that) and cholesterole.

Here are some possible vegetarian combinations:

-          Cereals and milk products(lactovegeterians):

·         Cereals + milk

·         Pasta + cheese

·         Bread + cheese

·         Nuts + legumes and beans

·         Rice + legumes

·         Bread + soup of dried peas

·         Tortilla + legumes

·         Corn bread + beans chilli

·         Black bread + baked beans

-          Seeds and legumes:

·         Chickpeas + ground sesame seeds

·         Tofu + sesame seeds

“Athletes’ nutrition”, Marina Djordjevic Nikic

"Sports nutrition", Nancy Clark