Why should I go VEGAN??

I am extremely well informed about all of the terrible things caused by the meat industry. I try to eat grass/natural-fed free range beasts, but in the end I just don't care.

Do you not believe that I'm perfectly willing to butcher my own food? I am, but why would I want to do that when I can pay somebody else to do it for me? (like building a home, or assembling my phone or my computer)

I also disagree regarding the health claims.

But I am genuinely curious, do any vegans here cater for meat eating people they invite over for dinner by providing animal products?

Not when guests come to dinner, but that is because I only cook for very close friends and they know me, they know I can cook and they know they won't miss the meat. And they never do either, but if I am throwing a party, and make say, ten different finger foods, I will put about three containing meat. Cocktail sausages, half the pizza will be cheese, the other half cheese and pepperoni.... and chicken and bacon vol au vonts. I'm not happy doing this but occasionally you have to do it when catering a party. The other seven, there will be tofu stuffed potato skins, Italian "sausage" rolls, two things people don't know is vegan until they see me eating it, potato wedges, garlic bread knots, bruschetta, falafel nuggets. The plates are always cleared and people are shown vegan foods are just as tasty. And my friends aren't the kind to tell a polite lie, they admit it begrudgingly or I overhear it. I gave a wedding cake as a gift, it was vegan, I didn't tell anyone, I figured this is my gift, I can save 80 eggs if I wish. 250 people were raving about it


edit: Oh, I forgot to say - when cooking the meat, I never use my own cooking equipment - my boyfriend has a frying pan and a pot for when he makes eggs or bacon, I use this

It looks like some people feel we can make up things like "animal rights" to help sooth our conscience. Well....how about we create "plant rights"? They are living things too.

Ya kind of a *kitten*, ain'tchya?

IT'S A TRAP.

the majority of the responses on here are from misinformed a-hats. there's a herbivore group on here that you should join if you want more information or you can add some vegans to your friends list. the only thing you might need to supplement is b12, everything else is plentiful in a vegan diet.

DHA, EPA, calcium, bioavailable vitamin D, haem iron are not all freely available in natural plant foods, many rely on vegan frankenfoods, supplements or go short. I'm not in any way suggesting a vegan diet is any more deficient than the standard US/ UK diet which we all know is appalling.

The conversion rate of short chain to long chain omega-3s can be as low as 10% and is affected by the levels of omega-6s in the diet which are plentiful in many nuts, seeds, soya, vegetable oils and grains. The amounts of things like flax oil, ground flaxseeds or chia you need to consume each day can be prohibitive to get an optimal intake. I always recommend vegetarian and vegan nutrition clients take a marine algae extract for DHA and EPA.

Calcium I calculated you'd need ~400g of flaxseeds or almonds or ~750g of spinach a day to hit the US target for an adult female (1g), again it's prohibitive. And that's ignoring the mineral binding factors in spinach and other plant foods. For both calcium and vitamin D many vegans and some veggies rely on fortified soya or almond 'dairy', let's be honest fortifying is just supplementing by another name.

Additional problems occur when you do the maths for different nutrients and try to combine - eating too many leafy greens doesn't leave you much room for the blue/ purple, red, and yellow/ orange produce, eating piles of almonds is incredibly high in calories and fat, and contains very little omega-3s. The reality is few want to eat solely for nutrition, they'd quite reasonably rather have peanut butter than gritty ground flax. But you'd need over a kilo of peanuts to get enough calcium, by contrast I can get the full amount in just 60g of grana padano cheese leaving me plenty of calories for a serving of oily fish for the DHA, EPA and B12.

We didn't evolve on a vegan diet and IMO it shows (not pushing primal nor paleo agendas, I am a lifestyle healthcare professional).

the majority of the responses on here are from misinformed a-hats. there's a herbivore group on here that you should join if you want more information or you can add some vegans to your friends list. the only thing you might need to supplement is b12, everything else is plentiful in a vegan diet.

DHA, EPA, calcium, bioavailable vitamin D, haem iron are not all freely available in natural plant foods, many rely on vegan frankenfoods, supplements or go short. I'm not in any way suggesting a vegan diet is any more deficient than the standard US/ UK diet which we all know is appalling.

The conversion rate of short chain to long chain omega-3s can be as low as 10% and is affected by the levels of omega-6s in the diet which are plentiful in many nuts, seeds, soya, vegetable oils and grains. The amounts of things like flax oil, ground flaxseeds or chia you need to consume each day can be prohibitive to get an optimal intake. I always recommend vegetarian and vegan nutrition clients take a marine algae extract for DHA and EPA.

Calcium I calculated you'd need ~400g of flaxseeds or almonds or ~750g of spinach a day to hit the US target for an adult female (1g), again it's prohibitive. And that's ignoring the mineral binding factors in spinach and other plant foods. For both calcium and vitamin D many vegans and some veggies rely on fortified soya or almond 'dairy', let's be honest fortifying is just supplementing by another name.

Additional problems occur when you do the maths for different nutrients and try to combine - eating too many leafy greens doesn't leave you much room for the blue/ purple, red, and yellow/ orange produce, eating piles of almonds is incredibly high in calories and fat, and contains very little omega-3s. The reality is few want to eat solely for nutrition, they'd quite reasonably rather have peanut butter than gritty ground flax. But you'd need over a kilo of peanuts to get enough calcium, by contrast I can get the full amount in just 60g of grana padano cheese leaving me plenty of calories for a serving of oily fish for the DHA, EPA and B12.

We didn't evolve on a vegan diet and IMO it shows (not pushing primal nor paleo agendas, I am a lifestyle healthcare professional).

So I guess people Like T. Colin Campbell, Caldwell Esselstyn, and John McDougall are just boobs that didn't do their research.........It's simple, if it's not for you, don't do it. It works for some, and some strive on it!(me included!) It's amazing how all the "experts" chime in on being vegan when they haven't experienced both sides of it......like I always say, take advice about being vegan from vegans. Others, 99% of the time, are clueless as to what they are talking about.

I assume this thread is so long because a bunch of flamers jumped in about how the OP shouldn't go vegan right? about how the "research" is all meaningless?

amiright?

You're saying that because you've jumped to a conclusion without reading anything. I see a trend.

I looked back on my diary to look and see what nutrients I was getting. Interestingly I've been logging off and on for a few years. I'm getting way more of the nutrients that are tracked on a whole foods plant based diet than I was on a conventional diet, or the Mediterranean diet that I also tried for 6 months. I'm getting 100% or better of all the tracked nutrients. I eat about 2,000 calories per day on average. I try to also burn 3,000 calories per week through exercise. The parts of the world that have populations that are missing out on nutrients suffer from malnutrition due to a lack of food. The Standard American Diet kills not by malnutrition but by cardiovascular disease (heart attacks and stroke), cancer, and diabetes.

I was quite specific about the nutrients and forms that are a problem or at risk in a vegan diet, other nutrients are a problem or at risk in other restrictive or commercial diets, which is why most healthcare and medical professionals don't advocate them.

veganism isn't a "restrictive" or "commercial" diet. Vegans don't view it as "I can't have meat". They simply don't WANT to have meat. There's a difference.

OMG STOP IT ARE YOU KIDDING?
#1: Vegans != vegetarians.
#2: Humans have been consuming and using animal products for 30,000 years. To say that eliminating animal products isn't "restrictive" is simply insane.

Stop trolling.

restrictive implies you don't want to be doing it. it's not restrictive to me if I enjoy living that way. haha

Incorrect.