This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

How a Pescatarian Diet Can Be Beneficial for Your Health

Pescatarian diets have widespread appeal to many health-conscious people. This eating style is based on a large variety of foods that are rich in complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, high-quality protein, vitamins, and minerals. Due to a unique nutritional composition, pescatarian diets can be effective in preventing and treating a number of chronic diseases and illnesses.

What Is a Pescatarian Diet?

A pescatarian diet is one that involves abstaining from meat with the exception of fish and seafood. Similar to vegetarian diets, a pescatarian diet provides relatively large amounts of vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. Eggs and dairy products may also be included in a pescatarian diet.

How Is a Pescatarian Diet Nutritionally Beneficial?

The nutritional composition of a pescatarian diet is very similar to that of vegetarian or plant-based diets. Due to a large presence of plant-based foods, this type of diet tends to be quite low in calories and saturated fat but very high in healthy fats (monounsaturated and omega 3 fatty acids). In addition, a pescatarian diet provides substantial doses of water-soluble vitamins and minerals as well as a range of health-promoting antioxidants and phytonutrients. However, unlike the vegetarian diet, a pescatarian diet also supplies ample amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, proteinvitamin B12vitamin Dcalcium,selenium, and zinc. These are nutrients that are widely abundant in fish, seafood, eggs and dairy products.

Find out what's happening in Homewood-Flossmoorfor free with the latest updates from Patch.

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?