Hallo, gentle viewers, and welcome to another edition of Healthy Living.

On today’s program Dr. Francisco Verdú Vicente of Valencia, Spain, an accomplished surgeon with a master’s degree in naturopathy, homeopathy and acupuncture and a doctorate in science education, shares his knowledge and insights on vegetarianism.

Dr. Verdú Vicente is also a professor at the Universities of Valencia, Madrid, and Zaragoza in Spain. An advocate of vegetarianism and healthy living, Dr. Verdú Vicente stresses the importance of respect for nature and encourages people to lead a balanced, noble life.

He begins by discussing the field of naturopathy and its view of health.

Francisco: The naturopath has been around for a long time in Spain. And a natural doctor knows anatomy, physiology, and pathology, just as any other doctor would, but the difference between a doctor of natural medicine and a conventional doctor is the criteria used; that is to say, what criteria does a naturopath use when seeing patients？

The criteria a naturopath uses will be to have a holistic, global vision of the patient.

If the patient complains of an upset stomach he won’t only see the stomach complaint he will take into account the psychological problems, their constitution, and then there are also homeopathic treatments to determine  their constitution’s (characteristics), and what type of psychological characteristics the patient has. Also it is very important that the naturopath dedicates a lot of time to the patient.

Therefore the naturopath is much more interested in the patient and has a more global vision.

HOST: Dr. Verdú Vicente says that from a nutritional perspective, the vegetarian and vegan (animal-free) diets are complete and wholesome.

Francisco: And it is curious, because the children, for example, when you give them ham, they don't really realize where it came from,  whether from a pig or that it came from an animal, right？

When they eat bologna, they think they are eating something independent of that.

They assume they only eat a piece of bologna. When they start to become conscious, then they see it as a little abnormal.

Society sadly has many traps to convince people to see it as something completely normal, when it isn’t.

When you follow a vegetarian diet, there doesn’t have to be anything lacking, not even vitamin B１２. Although many times it has been said that a vegetarian diet, including a vegan diet, can be lacking, they have done studies in England with vegetarian children that don’t eat animal products of any type and they are not lacking in anything, not even vitamin B１２.