An Assessment of the Nutritional Knowledge and Eating Habits of Vegetarians in Mauritius

Abstract

The objectives of this paper were to identify the nutritional knowledge and beliefs of vegetarians, assess their eating habits and also investigate on the reasons why they have adopted a vegetarian diet. A survey questionnaire was adopted for the study. A quota sampling of 100 vegetarians from four different age groups was targeted and a 24-hour dietary recall was used to analyze the eating habits of a sub-sample of twenty respondents. The respondents were found to be mostly of Hindu origin (85%) and the majority were lacto vegetarians who preferred a meat-free diet on grounds of religious beliefs, dislike of animal flesh as well as for ethical reasons respectively. They are knowledgeable about the importance of micro and macro-nutrients in the vegetarian diet, but the food recall also revealed that only three out of the twenty respondents were consuming balanced meals that is they were having foods from the three food groups namely ‘food for energy’, ‘food for growth’ and ‘food for health’. The mismatch between theoretical knowledge and practice was revealed clearly in the sense that 96 % of the respondents are aware of the concept of balanced diet however; this was not put into practice when analyzing the meals that were consumed. This calls for dietary guidelines and food guide models which are specific to vegetarians as the Mauritian population comprises mostly of Hindus who follow vegetarian diets.

Keywords: Vegetarian diet, Nutrition, eating habits and knowledge