veganism

I've been vegan for ten years, and vegetarian for a few years before that. I don't focus too much on health studies and that stuff because I'm mostly coming from a moral angle, and I'm doing it for the animals. I just do my best to eat "right", and focus on vegetables and whole foods as opposed to processed goods. I do have a sweet tooth though. I can tell you that I feel great and most friends have trouble keeping up with me on climbs.

a local indigenous person  told me "vegetarian" is wetsuetin for shitty hunter

yeah traditionaly the FN ate whatever was around or what they could trade for salmon/bear/moose/deer but also seaweed and forest plants but now its a lot of white man crap. This has happened in indigenous populations every where in the world. I knew doctor who was the only MD for the eastern arctic during the 50's and he watched the inuit diet go to shit in a generation and then on hoiliday in the 80's he seen the exact same scenario happening in New Guinea.

but if you really wana stop eating meat you really gotta do it right or your body won't get what it needs. My former wife fed us veg when my sons were toddlers, she cooked some fairly tasty shit and i think she was doing it properly cuz the boys were fine during some formative growing years but she still developed an iron defficency at which point the veg experiment was over

And me, I cheated with a lot of beer/burger lunches

Been vegan for close to a year. The negative environmental impacts of the livestock industry are irrefutable, the morality of raising/slaughtering sentient animals is questionable at best (especially when we don't need meat/animal products in our diets), the negative health impacts of animal/dairy products are backed up by scientific evidence.

Practically speaking, millions of people are thriving on a vegan diet. And you see a lot of vegans among athletes, such as endurance athletes (ultra runners) and bodybuilders. Both need to be lean as well as strong/fit.

Iron deficiency is common in the general population (30% of the global population), not exclusive to vegans by any means. There is disagreement anyway about the minimum recommendations for iron. Iron can be easily supplemented (vegan supplements) if needed.

I highly recommend checking out Nutritionfacts.org for scientifically-backed, study-based health info.

Personally speaking, I went vegan and immediately dropped 7-8 lb on an already lean 125 lb frame (previously was pescatarian for awhile). The extra fat that I could never get rid of, even through strict calorie control/exercise/hungriness, just melted away on a vegan diet. Now I eat as much as I want, whenever I want, and am never hungry. And I sleep better at night knowing that I don't support the livestock/dairy/fishing industry. There has never been a better time to go vegan with so many food options out there. If you're a foodie, IMO the vegan diet is the ultimate diet because you can eat as much as you want without gaining weight (assuming you don't eat a lot of junk/processed food).

My only regret is that I didn't turn vegan a lot sooner. Not just for my health but for the health and education of my family.

I'd be happy to offer more advice offline if you want to send me a PM. (I won't be responding to trolls if this turns into the usual NBR gong show. The hardest part of going vegan might be dealing with the same old misinformed/trolling arguments--humans have canines, humans are top of the food chain, we are made to eat meat, plants are intelligent/feel pain too, agriculture kills animals too, blah blah blah.)

Edited for clarity.

Just to add, according to the American Dietetic Association (largest organization of food and nutrition professionals in the U.S.):

"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases."

If you've got Netflix, I recommend watching What the Health (documentary) and Cowspiracy for starters.

At the end of the day if you're eating a diet that consists primarily of whole foods - nothing processed, no sugar, no refined grains, nothing artificial, etc - you can eat what you want. There's nothing bad about having meat in your diet from a health standpoint, but if you want to cut it out though that's ok too. Anybody who says meat is not healthy is either lying or doesn't understand nutrition basics. Like XXX'er alluded too there are a number of indigenous cultures that survived and thrived on high protein and fat diets.

Remember that the human body is wonderfully adapted to eating a wide variety of foods, it's part of the reason we've survived considering our relative physical inferiority compared to many animals

Edit

I think that one thing that gets missed a lot in the switch to a vegan or vegetarian diets is that people also tend to cut out a lot or most of the crap processed food they're eating and the benefit comes from eating a whole food diet. I know when I was at my leanest this is what was going on.

Eat what you want.  As long as you aren't one of the douchnozzle twats trying to force your way of eating on everyone else by sabotaging farmers or holding "funerals" at the grocery store.

Posted by: sanrensho

The negative environmental impacts of the livestock industry are irrefutable, the morality of raising/slaughtering sentient animals is questionable at best (especially when we don't need meat/animal products in our diets), the negative health impacts of animal/dairy products are backed up by scientific evidence.

I totally agree on the negative environmental and ethical impacts of the livestock industry, but question the broad claim about negative health impacts. Is there any specific scientific evidence you have that shows the negative health impacts?

Posted by: syncro

Not a direct link to studies, but https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2121650/

not directed at Syncro, but OP:

Things to remember about Veganism - Vegenaise is the devil, and Oreos are vegan. Just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's healthy or a good choice. Especially with the increase in popularity of going vegan.

Personally, I'm stronger and faster than I ever have been, but that's not much of a baseline. I'm not doing it for the animals, but for myself.

Posted by: JBV

yeah vegetarnianism and veganism are not that prevalent amongst indigenous people's world wide i gather. discussing the potential benefits of a meatless diet to a native and/or FN person is probably met with some amusement.

I'm not sure you can survive as a vegan hunter-gatherer. You just wouldn't be able to get enough calories. Veganism kind of depends on agriculture, which basically brought with it the end of humanity living in harmony with nature. Up until that point we lived in small, egalitarian nomadic groups whose population was controlled by resources and environmental conditions.

Not sure if bot 🤔

I'm too lazy to figure out the diet trends, I tend to just follow my former pro-triathlete neighbor who is still friends with active pros who have team nutritionists.

He's been vegan for a while and I've been doing it too for the last 6 months or so. Working ok for me, my times on the climb have improved noticeably and I've lost a bit of weight. Success may be somewhat body dependant though, my natural body type is more furniture mover than cyclist.

Like Synchro said the benefit to any diet is probably that you are finally paying attention to what you are shoving in your pie hole, which usually involves less processed foods and sugar and more whole foods.

It is possible to choose environmentally responsible meats from local producers. Unless we are being completely lied to our meat comes from two small family owned farms (Abby and Cache creek) So can be sure that the feedlot / battery hen factory etc. is out of the equation. Also the supply chain side is about as straightforward as it gets.... A trip out to Abby twice a year... 

The moral concerns remain tho, although the life they lead seems somewhat natural at least. In particular the chooks would always be living under the threat of something eating them......

We definitely eat a lot less meat than we used to. And barely any red meat, mostly due to the price of decent quality these days.

Does it ever get easier to make vegan meals though? I have a couple that are in low rotation but the dairy / sauce substitutes seem a real pain in the ass. Taste is great so no issue there but it is substantially more of a chore than just vegetarian which we do a lot.

Posted by: nouseforaname

Posted by: syncro

Not a direct link to studies, but https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2121650/

not directed at Syncro, but OP:

Things to remember about Veganism - Vegenaise is the devil, and Oreos are vegan. Just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's healthy or a good choice. Especially with the increase in popularity of going vegan.

Personally, I'm stronger and faster than I ever have been, but that's not much of a baseline. I'm not doing it for the animals, but for myself.

The problem with the vast majority of studies (the ones I've looked at anyway) is that they are not multi-variate and do not consider other factors and only look at the presence of meat vs non-meat. Most of the meat is bad myth is based on bad science from the late 50's and a guy named Ancel Keys. The person we should have listened to was John Yudkin, who proposed around the same time that sugar was a bigger concern. In fact a number of years after Keys' Seven Countries study was reevaluated it was found that yes, sugar, not fat. At that time tho we were firmly entrenched in the Anti fat/meat hypothesis. I think the best example of trying to figure out whether meat is bad for you is to look at Inuit people pre-colonization. They survived for centuries in a harsh environment on a diet that consisted mainly of animal meat and fat. Think of it this way, if you go to your grocery store there is far more money to be made from refined foods than whole or raw foods. It's also now known that the sugar industry sponsored a lot of research to make fat look bad.

Now that's not to say that a plant based diet is bad either as I think there are a lot of benefits to plant based eating. The main thing to consider tho is that fresh meat products are not the devil they have been made out to be from a health perspective.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html

Posted by: syncro

Posted by: nouseforaname

Posted by: syncro

Not a direct link to studies, but https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2121650/

not directed at Syncro, but OP:

Things to remember about Veganism - Vegenaise is the devil, and Oreos are vegan. Just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's healthy or a good choice. Especially with the increase in popularity of going vegan.

Personally, I'm stronger and faster than I ever have been, but that's not much of a baseline. I'm not doing it for the animals, but for myself.

The problem with the vast majority of studies (the ones I've looked at anyway) is that they are not multi-variate and do not consider other factors and only look at the presence of meat vs non-meat. Most of the meat is bad myth is based on bad science from the late 50's and a guy named Ancel Keys. The person we should have listened to was John Yudkin, who proposed around the same time that sugar was a bigger concern. In fact a number of years after Keys' Seven Countries study was reevaluated it was found that yes, sugar, not fat. At that time tho we were firmly entrenched in the Anti fat/meat hypothesis. I think the best example of trying to figure out whether meat is bad for you is to look at Inuit people pre-colonization. They survived for centuries in a harsh environment on a diet that consisted mainly of animal meat and fat. Think of it this way, if you go to your grocery store there is far more money to be made from refined foods than whole or raw foods. It's also now known that the sugar industry sponsored a lot of research to make fat look bad.

Now that's not to say that a plant based diet is bad either as I think there are a lot of benefits to plant based eating. The main thing to consider tho is that fresh meat products are not the devil they have been made out to be from a health perspective.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html

Thank you for the links, syncro.

I just finished reading "The case for keto" which focuses on low carb and high fat, and argues that there are people who are insuline sensitive and who are better off eating certain types of veggies and protein and fat, and almost not carbs whatsoever. I am curious if such a diet would work when going vegetarian or even vegan. The