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Alternative medicine terms defined. Holistic health theories defined. |
Vegetarian A vegetarian is one who abstains from using meat, fish, fowl or any flesh as food, with or without the use of eggs and dairy products. Vegetarianism began many thousands of years ago with minds like Pythagoras, Buddha, Plato, and Plutarch. The word vegetarian was coined in 1842 and is derived from the Latin vegetus meaning whole, sound, fresh, and lively. However, it was not until 1847 that a significant turning point came in Western culture. on September 30, a group of 140 people in England gathered together to express their respect for their own well-being by asserting their unwillingness to eat flesh. Vegetarians may be ovo-lacto (eat no flesh but eat eggs and dairy), lacto (eat no flesh but eat dairy), ovo (eat no flesh but eat eggs, or vegan (eat nothing derived from animals.) William Castelli, M.D., Director Framingham Heart Study, said, "Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rates of coronary disease of any group in the country. Some people scoff at vegetarians, but they have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate. On the average they outlive other people by about six years now." |
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