Flexitarian diet: helps prevent diabetes and improves the heart

Helping to lose weight, protecting the heart and preventing diabetes, among other diseases, are some of the benefits of the flexitarian diet, an eating regimen designed so that people who have a vegetarian diet do not stop consuming the nutrients they provide. natural foods of animal origin.

This is an eating plan created by dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner that consists of a vegetarian diet with the consumption of meat or fish occasionally, for example, more than once a month, but less than once a week.

Its name comes from the words “flexible” and “vegetarian”, and it was in 2014 when the Oxford dictionary recognized the word flexitarian, as a definition of this food preference.

What is the flexitarian diet?

The menu of this diet seeks to combine a diet in which animal products are not consumed, such as lacto-ovo vegetarian, with the consumption of meat or fish, in a controlled manner during the month.

The center of this diet is to increase the intake of vegetables and with an occasional intake of meat and seafood foods.

This type of diet brings health benefits such as helping to lose weight, preventing diabetes, promoting heart health, as well as other diseases.

• Because it is a diet with a predominant intake of natural foods, without the consumption of ultra-processed foods, with a high level of sugar and fat, the flexitarian diet contributes to weight loss.
• The eating plan of this diet includes a high consumption of fruits and vegetables, foods that are loaded with nutrients, antioxidants, fiber and vitamins that contribute to the protection of cardiovascular health.
• Due to the nature of the flexitarian diet, the consumption of foods rich in fats and sugars is not contemplated, indicates Marca, while the intake of fiber, vitamins and antioxidants is encouraged, which favor the prevention of diabetes.

A study from the University of Oxford explains that the current eating model is not sustainable, which is why it recommends adopting a diet with a predominant consumption of vegetables and less meat intake, such as the flexitarian diet, which could save more than 8 million lives by 2050.

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