Fish...Dairy...and Meat! Meat is not unhealthy and contains all the vitamins and nutrients you need (with the exception of vitamin c). My own experience with vegetarianism over a 5 year period was weight gain and high blood pressure. I was eating a lot of whole grains and beans at the time. Since it was supposed to make me "healthy" you can imagine how frustrated I was!
How did your bodies react to limiting so many things?
I lost 42 lbs. I no longer have pre-diabetic symptoms. I no longer have high blood pressure. I would say pretty good
It is really hard to feel deprived when I eat a wider variety of foods now than I did before I started limiting my carbohydrates.
Tropical seafood chowders, exotic greens, delicious nut oils, using almond meal instead of flour, egg creams, curries, pumpkin soups....the list goes on.
You have to keep in mind what humans as a species ate over millions of years of evolution. Meat, fats, seasonal fruits, and veggies as a flavoring agent or when meat got scarce. Grains have only been cultivated and harvested in any concentration for about 10,000 years. The heated, extruded, and otherwise highly processed grains and starches in the qty eaten in a typical household have only been around for about 50 years. The reason a lot of these items are "fortified" is because the processing they undergo destroys any natural vitamins and nutrients in the grains and starches.
"Grains require careful preparation because they contain a number of antinutrients that can cause serious health problems. Phytic acid, for example, is an organic acid in which phosphorus is bound. It is mostly found in the bran or outer hull of seeds. Untreated phytic acid can combine with calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and especially zinc in the intestinal tract and block their absorption. This is why a diet high in improperly prepared whole grains may lead to serious mineral deficiencies and bone loss. The modern misguided practice of consuming large amounts of unprocessed bran often improves colon transit time at first but may lead to irritable bowel syndrome and, in the long term, many other adverse effects.
Other antinutrients in whole grains include enzyme inhibitors which can inhibit digestion and put stress on the pancreas; irritating tannins; complex sugars which the body cannot break down; and gluten and related hard-to-digest proteins which may cause allergies, digestive disorders and even mental illness.
Most of these antinutrients are part of the seed's system of preservation-they prevent sprouting until the conditions are right. Plants need moisture, warmth, time and slight acidity in order to sprout. Proper preparation of grains is a kind and gentle process that imitates the process that occurs in nature. It involves soaking for a period in warm, acidulated water in the preparation of porridge, or long, slow sour dough fermentation in the making of bread. Such processes neutralize phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors. Vitamin content increases, particularly B vitamins. Tannins, complex sugars, gluten and other difficult-to-digest substances are partially broken down into simpler components that are more readily available for absorption.
Animals that nourish themselves on primarily on grain and other plant matter have as many as four stomachs. Their intestines are longer, as is the entire digestion transit time. Man, on the other hand, has but one stomach and a much shorter intestine compared to herbivorous animals. These features of his anatomy allow him to pass animal products before they putrefy in the gut but make him less well adapted to a diet high in grains-unless, of course, he prepares them properly. When grains are properly prepared through soaking, sprouting or sour leavening, the friendly bacteria of the microscopic world do some of our digesting for us in a container, just as these same lactobacilli do their work in the first and second stomachs of the herbivores."
http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/be_kind.html
http://www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/mtvegetarianism.html
