Dietary knowledge and patterns in non-meat eating health sciences students

Abstract

Abstract: 

Potentially lacking nutrients in non-meat eating people includes B12 vitamin, fatty acids, omega 3, iron, calcium, D vitamin, zinc and in smaller maeasure protein and iodine. It’s important for these people to know how to supplement their diet with different foods to obtain adequate nutrition.

The objectives were to study nutritional knowledge and practices in Health Sciences students who don't include meat in their diet and to know the differences in legume intake between those who don't eat meat and those with unrestricted diet.

A cross-sectional survey was made using a Google form, sent through the Guaraní self-management system to students of the Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in August / 2021. Qualitative variables were described as frequency and percentage, Student's T test was performed, p <0,05 was considered significant.

A total of 3,095 surveys were answered, with 81.4% of respondents were women. 98.3% considered that nutrition is an important topic when talking about health and 85% answered that they know which are the nutritional habits that promote health. 23.7% do not include meat in their diet, establishing the vegetarian/vegan group. Within this group, it was found that 88.1 % knew how to properly replace meat in their diet, by combining legumes and cereals.

In the vegetarian/vegan group, 56.5% incorporates fresh legumes into their diet, compared with only 44.4% of the group with unrestricted diet, p<0.00000001, odds ratio 0.61 (0.51-0.72).

If the consumption of canned and fresh legumes is considered together, this increases to 68.11% in the vegetarian/vegan group, with p<0.00001, odds ratio 0.69 (0.58-0.82).

Despite the fact that non-meat consuming students are aware of the recommendation to supplement it with legumes and cereals in their diet, a significant percentage do not do so, which warns of possible nutritional deficiencies in this population group.