Should I Become a Vegan?

Having a migraine so my eye sight is a bit off: thought this said "should I become a virgin". LOL.

HA HA HA HA HA!

I did not mean to be condescending about the term vegan. I just do not like to assume that everyone knows what I know...

However, I do thank you for your comments.

You weren't being condescending at all, *a lot* of people do not know the difference between vegan/vegetarian/pescetarian, etc. Actually, technically, the original definition for the term vegan included an ethical component, and generally still does.

It can be difficult for some people to stick to if there is not the ethical component, and then they end up getting frustrated and feeling like a failure. Why not consider starting with a plant-based diet? That's where many people start. Just focus your diet on plants, make anything else the sides/condiments to your meals. That's completely healthy. See how you feel from there. If you see a doctor regularly, get your annual physical with blood panel, etc, to make sure everything's good.

If you decide to go plant based, consider joining one of the groups here, such as Happy Herbivores. You'll generally get a lot more support there than you will from the general forum.

If you are going to do it you will need a lot of discipline. Being a Vegan means that you need to think about everything you eat. I would suggest eating vegan 2 or 3 days out of the week and work on increasing that to 7.

Talk to Vegans, ask a nutrionist. Log everything you eat so you know you are getting all the proper nutrition.

Vegan lifestyles can be extremely healthy if they are done correctly. Good luck

As you state you wanted to be a vegan but did not list a vegan life style, It is more than just food it is a life style that excluded more than just meat.

Veganism is a type of vegetarian diet that excludes meat, eggs, dairy products and all other animal-derived ingredients. Many vegans also do not eat foods that are processed using animal products, such as refined white sugar and some wines. Most vegans also avoid the use of all products tested on animals, as well as animal-derived

Sounds like you want to be a vegetarian just excluding the meat but keeping: dairy, eggs, and such. Or are you wanting to be an ovo-lacto-vegatarian?

I haven't had problems with it. In fact, as someone with chronic illness, it has improved my quality of life significantly. There's no reason a person has to meet the criteria listed above for someone to exclude animal products from their diet. To suggest that wanting to exclude them for religious reasons and not needing to "do your research" is also irresponsible. I may not do it for religious reasons or because I'm allergic, but I'm no different than anyone else. If you are sincerely interested, you do need to do research, but that's not to say it's not a viable option so long as you take care of your dietary needs.

From a purely biological perspective, you are built to eat meat (you are also built to eat vegetables). What do I mean? Let me share!
Let's start from the top of your digestive tract, your teeth. If you were meant to be an herbivore, all of your teeth would have broad, ridged surfaces for eating plants; if they have any incisors or canines they are modified for biting off plants (but many have no canines at all). If you were meant to be a carnivore, you'd have lots of sharp, pointy teeth for ripping into the flesh of your prey. Think your cat or a velociraptor for what this would look like. The molars, in contrast to the herbivores, are jagged to finish pulling apart the food. So which one do humans have? Neither! Humans have 8 incisors and four canines, eight premolars, and twelve actual molars. This is consistent with a diet that contains both meats and vegetables. Moving down the digestive tract, we will see all sorts of enzymes that are just for metabolizing meat. Your body is an incredibly efficient machine, however, and so if you stop eating meat for too long, it will stop making those enzymes because it knows it does not need them anymore. This is why vegetarians get sick when they try to eat meat - it is not that meat it just awful, it's just that they don't make those enzymes anymore, like an unused muscle.
Small intestines are also a good indicator of what kind of diet an organism should consume. There's this growth that sticks off of them called a cecum. Now this cecum is just a cavity that holds bacteria and increases surface area of the small intestine for better digestion of plant material. If you've guessed it already, good job! Carnivores' cecum is almost nonexistent, it is huge in herbivores. In humans, it is pretty small relative to an herbivore but larger than a carnivore, indicating we don't get our nutrition solely from plant food.
What does this mean? It means your body was built to eat meat. Lean, healthy protein choices are incredibly good for you. Fish is a great example - it is an excellent source of Omega 3s (eggs are too), which are absolutely essential for your body. Yeah, if you eat 3 servings of fish at every meal every single day, you'll get heavy metal poisoning. But then you weren't eating a balanced diet in the first place.
Does this mean that being a vegan is bad? Not necessarily. It's a lifestyle choice, and it can be a healthy one. For one thing, it's easier for many people to maintain a healthy weight as a vegan because most of the food options are lower in calories. However, it can be dangerous - getting your fat and amino acid (protein) profile correct can be tricky. If you want to be a vegan, go for it, but you will always have to pay attention to your diet to make sure you are getting the rights proteins for DNA replication, enzyme function, etc.

- I am a senior in college getting a double major in biology and chemistry with a focus on medical biochemistry. I plan to go to graduate school in the near future and work in hormone research.

The only sources claiming veganism is healthy are those with the agenda of convincing you to become vegan. There is truly no advantage in a vegan diet then you couldn't get from just eating a smart omnivorous diet.

If you hit your macros right (protein/fat/carbs) and stay in a reasonable calorie limit, you won't "get fat." Going vegan tends to cause you to have a high carbohydrate/low protein and fat diet, which isn't healthy. And yes, you do need fats to be healthy.

In addition, you'll also have to supplement vitamins, most commonly B12, which can lead to nerve damage in deficiency.

So no, I really don't think you should go vegan at all. And in response to "don't knock it before you've tried it," I was vegan for almost four years until I stopped.

You said what I was trying to say much more succinctly, haha. Good job.

I would just worry about the restriction. What if you went out to a restaurant and the only all vegan option was less healthy than grilled fish or vegetables? Meat doesn't have to be part of every meal. I only eat meat occasionally, maybe grilled chicken or turkey a couple times a week for dinner.

Just an FYI - if you go vegan, keep in mind that encompasses much more than your diet. Ditch some cosmetics, leather purses or shoes, jackets.. your leather interior vehicle. LOL. Not saying you own any of this, but just proving a point.

It's a lifestyle, and I wouldn't recommend it just to lose weight. As many others have said, if this is the path you wish to follow for ethical reasons, by all means go for it.

I opted for a vegan lifestyle a few years ago - it started as a bit of an experiment, lasted for almost a year. I felt no healthier, came up against issues when trying to find places to eat out and smelled dreadful in the bottom burp department...

In the end a pepperoni pizza called my name really loudly and overnight I returned to a more traditional eating lifestyle.

Try it if you feel you want to - but don't expect to loose weight because of it would be my advice!

No.


I was a vegan for a year...I tried it specifically to lose weight, and guess what, I lost only 3 pounds in the entire year. Don't go vegan unless you have other moral reasons. Here's a short list of foods you should stil want to eat:
-eggs
-lean meats like chicken and turkey
-skim milk
-greek yogurt

Too healthy and delicious and filling to say no to!

Going vegan for weight loss is pointless. A lot of people actually end up gaining weight. While I am also a vegan for ethical reasons, I initially became a vegan for my overall health (as I take 5 medications and wanted to see if I could find a more holistic approach to feeling good). I have come off of one pretty heavy duty drug since changing my diet, and I am weaning off of another, which is a big thing for me (I've never been able to do anything like this). There are other reasons other than "morals" to become a vegan.

I will add, though, that everyone's body is different. Some people thrive on omnivorous diets. Some people don't. There's no point in bashing either diet because, frankly, we all have different needs. I never try to push a vegan diet because I don't believe it is right for everyone. You may find it works for you. I can only give my personal experience.

If you're relying on a bunch of processed "vegan" foods, not sure how much of a benefit it is.

As an expirement, went vegan for 3 weeks. Didn't miss meat but felt making better choices and limiting the amount of meat my family did eat was a better option for me.

Not sure it's really any healthier. I was eating tons of eggs, cheese, and meat in the year prior with no ill effects on my weight or cholesterol.

From a purely biological perspective, you are built to eat meat (you are also built to eat vegetables). What do I mean? Let me share!
Let's start from the top of your digestive tract, your teeth. If you were meant to be an herbivore, all of your teeth would have broad, ridged surfaces for eating plants; if they have any incisors or canines they are modified for biting off plants (but many have no canines at all). If you were meant to be a carnivore, you'd have lots of sharp, pointy teeth for ripping into the flesh of your prey. Think your cat or a velociraptor for what this would look like. The molars, in contrast to the herbivores, are jagged to finish pulling apart the food. So which one do humans have? Neither! Humans have 8 incisors and four canines, eight premolars, and twelve actual molars. This is consistent with a diet that contains both meats and vegetables. Moving down the digestive tract, we will see all sorts of enzymes that are just for metabolizing meat. Your body is an incredibly efficient machine, however, and so if you stop eating meat for too long, it will stop making those enzymes because it knows it does not need them anymore. This is why vegetarians get sick when they try to eat meat - it is not that meat it just awful, it's just that they don't make those enzymes anymore, like an unused muscle.
Small intestines are also a good indicator of what kind of diet an organism should consume. There's this growth that sticks off of them called a cecum. Now this cecum is just a cavity that holds bacteria and increases surface area of the small intestine for better digestion of plant material. If you've guessed it already, good job! Carnivores' cecum is almost nonexistent, it is huge in herbivores. In humans, it is pretty small relative to an herbivore but larger than a carnivore, indicating we don't get our nutrition solely from plant food.
What does this mean? It means your body was built to eat meat. Lean, healthy protein choices are incredibly good for you. Fish is a great example - it is an excellent source of Omega 3s (eggs are too), which are absolutely essential for your body. Yeah, if you eat 3 servings of fish at every meal every single day, you'll get heavy metal poisoning. But then you weren't eating a balanced diet in the first place.
Does this mean that being a vegan is bad? Not necessarily. It's a lifestyle choice, and it can be a healthy one. For one thing, it's easier for many people to maintain a healthy weight as a vegan because most of the food options are lower in calories. However, it can be dangerous - getting your fat and amino acid (protein) profile correct can be tricky. If you want to be a vegan, go for it, but you will always have to pay attention to your diet to make sure you are getting the rights proteins for DNA replication, enzyme function, etc.

- I am a senior in college getting a double major in biology and chemistry with a focus on medical biochemistry. I plan to go to graduate school in the near future and work in hormone research.

Wow, can't believe I missed this. Awesome educational post. Thank you for adding this!

It isn't necessary to eat meat, I haven't eaten any animals products in a year and a half and I'm fine. Plus its so much more environmentally friendly to not eat meat. A tip: Being vegetarian makes you FAT. Being vegan makes you thin. So if you're going to do it, go all the way or you'll be dissapointed.

The reasons you stated for becoming vegan are flawed. If you just don't want to eat turkey anymore, congratulations on your decision. To stop eating because "it isn't 100% healthy" however is completely misguided.

Like everything, it's fine in moderation. Guess what happens if you eat twice as many fruits and vegetables than you're supposed to. That's right.. you gain weight.

Step back and figure out what you're trying to accomplish.