Is meat necessary for growing, with what can it be substituted?

Question

I am 15 years old and I was wondering if I can stop eating meat, without any consequences (like not growing anymore.) Can meat be substituted by other vegetables, fruits or fish???

Please answer.

Answer 1

Of course you will still grow. For example, take a look at people who were raised vegetarian from birth, they grow normally.

Answer 2

That's the same age I was when I decided to give up meat, and it turned out to be the smartest decision I ever made.

Humans don't need to eat meat.

We are one of the members of the primate family who, like gorillas, are at their healthiest on a meat-free, plant-based diet.

Meat is even bad for us.

We have to sterilize it and build a tolerance to it just to be able to consume it at all.

And, even then, it causes all sorts of health problems for us.

The only reason we still eat meat is that misinformed parents keep raising their kids eating it.

Then those kids grown up and do the same thing.

You can get everything you need from non-meat sources.

If you usually depend on meat for your protein, iron and B12, then you'll want to make sure you find new sources for those three things.

Eat soybean products (like tempeh, tofu and soy milk) for your protein & iron, and take a cheap multivitamin (like Centrum) for your B12.

Lentils, spinach and cereal are also good sources of iron.

Some other sources of protein include seitan (wheat gluten), lentils and beans (soy, black, kidney, baked, lima and refried).

Nuts are okay but their protein content usually isn't high enough to justify their price.

Brown rice is usually a better choice than nuts.

The taste of meat is very addictive and that addiction is the main problem that people encounter when they try to stop eating meat.

You can pick up veggie burgers and other meat substitutes at the grocery store to help you with that.

I wish you the best of luck!!

You're making an extremely wise choice that will benefit the entire planet!

.

Answer 3

Meat is not necessary for growing, my brother is 14 and is 6ft 4 and he has never eaten any meat, fish or poultry in his life. Meat can be substituted by beans (kidney beans, lima beans, pinto beans, black beans, etc), Grains (oats, rice, wheat, etc), soy milk( which is high in protein), tofu (soybean curd), and fruits and veggies. Being a vegetarian is also energy efficient because all living creatures use up energy from food by moving and breathing so the animal loses the original energy so less energy goes to the human than if you just ate the food and not the animal that ate the food.

  

Answer 4

Mushrooms and spinach are the meat for vegetarians why dont you try that.  Good Luck.

Answer 5

Many school nurses, dietitians, social workers, and even physicians are concerned that a vegetarian diet may r****d children's growth. Yet, clinical studies prove this to be a myth. In 1992, after reviewing all available scientific evidence, the Department of Community and Family Medicine at the University of California at San Diego concluded that children on a diet of mostly vegetables, fruits, grains, and legumes, when consuming adequate calories, not only grow normally, but have actually been shown to attain greater height than meat-eating childen. According to the US National Institute of Health, "with appropriate food choices, vegan diets can be adequate for children at all ages."The American Dietetic Association also considers well-planned vegan diets "appropriate for all stages of the life cycle.

Similar findings have been published for over forty years about Seventh-Day Adventist children and their parents who had been on meatless diets since childhood: They've shown no evidence of growth retardation. For example, Loma Linda University compared the growth of 1,765 California children attending state schools and Seventh-Day Adventist schools.

In their report of January 1991. the Seventh-Day Adventist students, who ate far less meat but much more vegetables and fruits than the state school children, attained a greater height.

http://www.vegsource.com/attwood/vegkid....

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

For more info about the environmental benefits of a vegetarian diet...

http://vegetarianweek.com/BenefitsofaVeg...

Answer 6

Fish can replace meat in most every sence.Check governmental sites like below,they agree with me

Answer 7

Google the vegetarian food pyramid and eat a balanced diet.  You can get everything you need from a vegetarian diet.  Fish is not included in a vegetarian diet because vegetarians do not eat dead animals.

Answer 8

My friend was basically a vegetarian not by choice. His family didn't have a lot of money for meat, and his sister was a vegetarian, so they ate that way.

He towers over his parents. Same thing with the sister and the brother. All 3 children are very tall. I would suggest mainly taking a multivitamin and making sure you get enough calories. You need to eat 10x your body weight in calories a day. if you weight 110 pounds, you need 1100 calories a day.

Answer 9

you see vegetarians are uasualy -skinny and under weight because they dont eat meat you can subsitute with lentels beans etc but to stay healthy you need natural proteins that mostly come from red meat and poultry

Answer 10

No, nutrients are necessary. The body is not interested in the source of the nutrition, only the nutrients themselves.

Answer 11

Beans (kidney beans, lima beans, pinto beans, black beans, etc), Grains (oats, quinoa, buckwheat, wheat, rice, etc), soymilk, seitan (wheat meat from wheat gluten protein "flour" and water and spices), tofu (soybean curd), and fruits and veggies as side dishes.

How to make Seitan

http://www.vrg.org/recipes/vjseitan.htm