This problem does not just concern Seventh Day Adventists, but also many people of all religions or of no religion who abstain from meat for all sorts of reasons. In discussion with a nutritionist working for the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation, it seems that those dietitians who advocated high fibre, low fat diets are now saying that variety is the more important factor. In order to develop a diet which contains all the elements of nutrition for a healthy balanced diet, we need to eat a wide variety of foods from all the basic food groups. It is only through the eating of a wide range of foods that we can be sure to eat enough of all the vitamins, minerals, trace elements and so on that we require. Vitamin supplements certainly help where a diet is deficient but should not be taken indiscriminately.
Excess vitamins can also cause severe health problems.
One of the big issues regarding the eating of or abstinence from meat is that of iron. There are two types of iron in food. Haem Iron . Haem iron is up to ten times easier for our bodies to absorb than non-haem iron. Lean red meat is one of the richest sources of haem iron and contains three times as much iron as chicken or fish.