Whether for ethical principles, personal or religious beliefs, those who adhere to this diet do not eat any type of meat and only include some foods of animal origin in their menu, such as eggs, milk, yogurts and cheeses. The protein base of your diet is based on the intake of these foods.
In today's world, this can be considered the most popular form of vegetarianism. Generally speaking, when you use the term “vegetarian”, people tend to associate it with lacto-ovo vegetarians. This is evidenced when we find several restaurants called “vegetarian”, but which also serve foods that have milk or eggs in their composition.
The diet is balanced and not so extreme. Therefore, some people choose to follow this diet as a way of adapting to pure vegetarianism and, later, to veganism.
Unlike vegans (vegetarians who exclude any and all products of animal origin, including clothing and other everyday products), lacto-ovo vegetarians, in addition to consuming eggs and dairy products, also buy and consume other animal products, such as coats made from wool, for example.
This type of vegetarianism can be motivated by ethics, since the animals that produce their food are not necessarily slaughtered.
However, there are some ethical dilemmas among supporters of lacto-ovo vegetarianism, as in some breeding sites, as soon as cows and chickens lose productivity, they are slaughtered. Due to this, the number of lacto-ovo vegetarians has been growing, looking for products derived from animals with certificates from independent institutions that guarantee the ethical origin of the food, ensuring that no animal was slaughtered during the production of the food consumed.
It is a lifestyle beneficial to health, as it helps to fight bad blood cholesterol and even weight control, as it has little animal fat in the diet.
People who follow this lifestyle achieve a very balanced life, because food is able to meet the needs of all nutrients.
However, one of the major problems faced by these people is the fact that the amount of dairy ingested to meet protein needs can interfere with the absorption of iron by the body. This is because the calcium present in dairy products interferes with the nutrient absorption process.
For this reason, it is recommended that fans have a moderate intake of dairy products and replace meat with foods such as soy, flaxseed, peas, lentils and beans, which are vegetable proteins and are also rich in iron, combining the useful with the pleasant.
