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A Vegetarian Diet Can Save You Roughly $750 A Year: Study

Seriously, you can buy a lot of vegetables with that leftover dough.
basil, pine nuts, rocket salad, macaroni, parmesan
Patrizia Savarese via Getty Images
basil, pine nuts, rocket salad, macaroni, parmesan

You've already heard about all the health benefits of sticking with a vegetarian diet — or even meatless Mondays — but here's a new reason you might want to make the switch.

According to a recent study published in the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition, vegetarians roughly save $750 USD a year — that's $963.67 here in Canada!

To conduct the study, researchers looked at two seven-day meal plans, one with meat and one without, Medical Daily notes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) My Plate meal plan cost $53.11 and the plant-based meal plan topped off at $38.75.

And just because you're on the vegetarian meal plan, it doesn't necessarily mean you're eating less food. In this instance in particular, Time magazine notes the vegetarian diet had about "25 more servings of vegetables, 14 more servings of whole grains, and eight more servings of fruit per week."

A common myth about vegetarian and vegan diets is that they are often expensive compared to meat-filled or junk food diets, but some of the healthiest superfoods will cost you less than a dollar per serving. Dried beans, oats and bananas are all inexpensive and nutritious foods.

And if you were wondering about all that missing meat and protein, don't worry, there are plenty of ways to get your protein fix on vegetarian and vegan diet.

Would you agree with this study? How much on average have you saved as a vegetarian? Let us know in the comments below.

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