Nashauna Drummond, Acting Lifestyle Coordinator

Left: Jerk Chicken Breast Roti served with warm pineapple chutney and accentuated with Scotch bonnet marmalade. - Claudine Housen/Staff Photographer Right:Quick and easy veggie mince wrap. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer

For years vegetarians have promoted the health benefits of their lifestyle over those of persons who eat meat.

A strict vegan diet is purportedly cholesterol-free and generally low in saturated fat. However, is it really a better choice than eating meat?

Vegetarian is a lifestyle

Yvonne Hope, owner of Ashanti Oasis Vegetarian Restaurant at Hope Botanic Gardens, has been a vegetarian for over 33 years. For her, being vegetarian is a lifestyle. She notes, "The body is the temple of the father, being vegetarian is a way of living and keeping the body clean."

She, however, explains that not all her clientele are vegetarians. "Some of them just want to eat one healthy meal per day and they do that here."

She notes that when her first child was born, doctors warned her that her child would be malnourished and may develop learning disabilities if she was kept on a strict vegetarian diet.

Her daughter, now in her 30s, has never had dairy or meat and has been very successful academically straight up to university. She has also been extremely healthy.

She said if one decides to be a vegetarian, one needs to do one's own research, as some persons may be allergic to wheat or mushroom or other foods that constitute a vegetarian diet. However, she highlights that there are some persons who are vegetarians but they do not eat properly. She also notes that vegetarians are at very low risk of getting a stroke. "It's best to read and find out where you want to go. Where to get the things you need and you have to prepare yourself mentally. It's a way of life. The key is that your meal is balanced with enough protein and vitamin B," she added.

She outlines that a well balanced meal for a vegetarian is one that contains protein in the form of beans or peas or whatever form, carbohydrates from yam or sweet potatoes and your green leafy vegetables (callaloo, broccoli) and fruits.

All vegetarian dishes courtesy of Ashanti Oasis Vegetarian Restaurant.

A meat lover could never think of giving up delights such as this smoked pork.

Meat all the way

Forty-four-year-old Brian James* has been a meat eater all his life, and notes that nothing is better for him. "I work very hard and eat very hard and I'm very healthy. I don't believe in this vegetarian thing. God made everything and so there is nothing that's bad for you. We all have to die some day, so we should just enjoy life."

James occasionally exercises and includes raw vegetables in his diet. He further states, "It cannot be healthy to deprive the body of anything. If you are telling me I can get my protein from beans, what about the protein that I should get from meat? You can't tell me it's the same thing."

*Name changed upon request.

A favourite of vegetarians, bean stew. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer