Is being vegan an "excuse" for when I exceed my sugar or sodium or other levels?

diogomello12

I've been pretty healthy lately keeping up with my vegan regime, but I use to exceed a bit on my sugar levels and sodium (sugar because I tend to eat some vegan cookies with dates and sodium because the pea protein powder that I usually buy has around 3750 mg per 100g).

My question being: even though I'm being 100% vegan and I manage to hit all the protein, carbs and fat that I need, am I still being unhealthy because I tend to surpass my other "unhealthy" levels?

MikePTY

Why do you think you need an excuse to go over your sugar and sodium levels? Has a doctor told you that you need to limit those because of a particular medical condition? If not, then you don't need to worry about those so much, even if you normally ate a huge steak everyday. If you do have a medical reason to limit them, then being vegan would not be an excuse.

Vegan is not inherently "healthy" or "unhealthy". There are plenty of healthy meat eaters and unhealthy vegans. And visa versa.

NovusDies

Adding to what @MikePTY said being unhealthy is a lifestyle not just food selections. You could eat whatever people consider "perfect" but still have very unhealthy habits and be in sub-optimal health. On the other hand you may have really good healthy habits overall and eat fairly poorly and still be in really good health.

To name a few and in no particular order:

Proper weight
Exercise
Sleep
Stress mitigation
Medical check-ups and, if needed, medical intervention
Healthy relationships

These are all things that can have a more immediate impact on your health than food.

kshama2001

I have no medical reason to track Sodium and Sugar, so swapped them for Fiber and Iron (I'm anemic).

MFP counts all sugar, but various health organizations are focused on added sugar, not the intrinsic sugar that comes in fruit, veggies, and dairy (adding dairy for others who might be reading and are not vegan.)

rheddmobile

If your blood pressure is good don’t worry about sodium. In fact, studies show that eating as low as the current ADA recommendations for sodium is associated with greater mortality and there are no health problems associated with eating more until you get over twice as much.

The ADA sugar recommendation as stated above is meant to be added sugars, not all sugars as MFP calculates it.

As a vegan it’s much more important to be aware of b vitamins, particularly b12 which is pretty hard to get without supplements on a vegan diet. Don’t stress about sodium or sugar, or for that matter carbs, as long as you’re hitting goals for protein and healthy fats.

dmkoenig

I don't know what brand of pea protein you use but that is really off the charts for sodium. I use Orgain protein powder which has a blend of pea, brown rice and chia protein. Serving size is 46g (half the size of yours) and provides 21g protein. Sodium is 200mg, double that it's still only 400mg. Look for a better alternative protein powder...