Lacto vegetarianism is a diet that includes dairy and is not your ordinary vegetarian diet where you don’t eat any dairy products. Something very ordinary about this diet is that people who follow this diet can have all the dairy products they desire but they can’t have eggs or meat. Which makes sense. However unlike vegetarians they tend to eat eggs since it is not necessarily animal flesh but lacto vegetarians avoid it at all cost. Since they are already breaking the rules by eating dairy.
Moving forward as I was doing some research I was able to find many experiments scientists made to come up with a conclusion on whether or not lacto vegetarianism is good for the environment or not, in other words whether or not if the diet is sustainable towards the environment or not. For example Doctor Garcia in Spain came up with the idea to compare different diets and see which one had a greater impact on the environment. The diets included in this experiment were vegan, vegetarian, lacto vegetarianism, omnivores, etc. All of these outcomes led him to believe that Dietary choices have higher carbon footprints if they are meat-rich; reducing animal products is advantageous for the environment. Which concludes that vegan diets and vegetarian diets are good for the environment because they decrease the amount of meat being consumed. Another experiment that I found more than just interesting but also very helpful was Dr. Pimentel ran an experiment comparing a meat based diet with a Lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet in terms of how they all have an environmental footprint. According to his results it was proven that no matter which diet you follow in the end they will both never be sustainable. They each have their own little package that carries whether it be processing or packaging they have some sort of toll in the environment.
Figure 1.1 : Displays how each diet functions
Now one more question that we can ask ourselves is if lacto vegetarianism is a good diet for us? After consulting multiple sources we can surely say that the Lacto vegetarianism diet is in fact good for the body. This diet includes everything your body needs such as vitamins, proteins, healthy facts, and antioxidants. All which are good for your heart, maintain blood glucose level, lastly it even helps in losing weight. After some research it was also discovered that it has helped many diabetics who were in the red zone when it came to their diet, lowered the chances of gallstones forming and lastly it has helped avoid some types of cancers. Now get this, not only is this diet good for your body but it is also good for you financially, it’s been seen that Lacto vegetarians save at least a total of $750 a year. So to answer this question if you are not only concerned about your health but also your financial impact of your diet going lacto vegetarian might be a good idea.
After careful consideration it can be said that following a lacto vegetarian diet benefits you in a healthy way for your body, saves you money and is just overall more sustainable for the environment. Although a dairy cow is estimated to annually produce more than 330 kg of methane, a greenhouse gas at least 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The lacto- Vegetarian diet doesnt 100% save the environment from there being less of a carbon footprint in some ways, but seeing that they don’t contribute to eating meat or eggs I guess that is a plus that takes away from the dairy benign taken in. As I was learning more about this diet I thought to myself well wow this diet is so great but not everyone can afford healthy food. Healthy food tends to cost more than just regular food. So even if you do save money with this diet and lose weight it’s probably because you aren’t eating as much and some people need to eat more. So I am guessing that’s why some people don’t like to get too involved with healthy foods.
Figure 2.2: Displays not only the average age of vegetarians but it also compares their incomes.
