Vegetarian and Vegan Diets: Nutritional Disasters Part 1. Over the years since the publication of my first book, I have been asked time and again if there is a vegetarian version of The Paleo Diet. ![]() How Far Do You Want to Go? When you eat a vegetarian meal, you don't eat meat, poultry, or fish. You may eat eggs or dairy. If it's a vegan meal, you'll skip anything. Hello Organic25yrs, If you must know, (I should update my About page with this info) I went vegan in 1999. Since then I founded the longest running vegan message. ![]() ![]() ![]() I’ve got to say emphatically – No! Vegetarian diets are a bit of a moving target because they come in at least three major versions. We all know in principle that vegetarians do not eat meat, poultry or fish – this is the first and foremost characteristic of vegetarian diets. Less restrictive are lacto/ovo vegetarians who limit their animal food choices to dairy products and/or eggs, whereas vegans eat plant foods exclusively. A recent study published by Vegetarian Times Magazine revealed that 3. ![]() I think the dietary effects of being Vegan are always positivehowever, I feel very strongly it is more about ones state of mind. Many Vegans are extremely stressed. Transitioning to a vegan diet is one of the most beneficial things you’ll ever do for yourself and the entire planet, but is it as easy as people make it sound? The Skinny Bitch Diet is a vegan diet that emphasizes organic foods. WebMD reviews its pros and cons. She is a member of the National Association for Family Child Care. ![]() U. S. The study also indicated that over half (5. Additional reasons underlying their vegetarian lifestyles were: 1) animal welfare cited by 5. First, let me say I respect everyone’s choice to eat whatever diet they like and those foods that they feel are best suited for themselves and their families. I also respect people’s decisions to abstain from eating meat for religious, moral, and ethical reasons. Nevertheless, as a scientist, I hope that we all try to make dietary decisions based not just upon philosophical and ethical issues, but also upon foods that are good for our bodies and long term health. Accordingly, I simply can’t lend my support to any version of vegetarian diets that people may adopt for the mistaken idea that these diets “improve overall health.”Vegetarian Diets: The Evolutionary Evidence. Although vegetarianism has deep historical roots dating back at least to 5. BC with such ancient Greeks as Pythagoras, Porphyry and Plutarch,1. In our comprehensive analysis of 2. I showed beyond question that no historically studied foragers were vegetarians. In fact, whenever and wherever animal foods were available they were always preferred over plant foods. The chart to the left shows the overwhelming preference for animal foods in all 2. Notice that not a single foraging society fell into the (0 – 5%) animal subsistence category. Most (7. 3%) of the 2. The compelling reason for their preference of animal foods over plant foods was because hunter- gatherers got more bang (food calories) for the buck (their energy expended to obtain the food), as verified by optimal foraging theory. Human preference and appetite for meat, marrow and animal food has an incredibly long history in our ancestral line. Fossils of butchered animals with stone tool- cut marks on their bones were discovered in Africa dating back 2. These definitive “smoking guns” in the archaeological record leave little doubt that all human species ate animal foods from the very get- go of our existence. Scientists are able to determine the relative percentage of plant and animal food in extinct human (hominid) species by analyzing elements called isotopes within their fossilized bones. Every single hominid skeleton examined since the emergence of our own genus (Homo) 2. Further, if we compare our biochemical and anatomical machinery to cats, who are absolute carnivores, we both share evolutionary enzyme pathways characteristic of processing lots of meat. If you are interested in these details, I have written about them in my debate with the noted vegetarian, Dr. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study. Download the Full Debate Here. If we accept the idea that vegetarianism represents an ideal human diet, then this manner of eating must be part of a much larger or ultimate mechanism governing human biology. What I’m getting at is the question of “Why?” Why would a vegetarian diet, or for that matter, any diet represent an optimal nutritional road map for our species? Any unified theory of human nutrition is a detective story in which scientists attempt to reveal or uncover biological systems that have been designed by, and put into place by evolution through natural selection. Accordingly, hypotheses regarding what we should and shouldn’t eat must be consistent with the system and ancient environments that engineered our current genes. If we are to buy into vegetarianism, then the system, evolution via natural selection, which shaped our present genome necessarily had to be conditioned over eons by a plant based, vegetarian diet. Otherwise, there is no rationale alternative hypothesis to explain why humans would “prosper and thrive” on vegetarian diets. As I have extensively pointed out,2. This information should be your first clue that there just may be some problems with vegetarian dietary recommendations created by humans for humans. What is that expression? I urge you to always let the data speak for itself, and don’t listen to me or anyone else until you have carefully scrutinized both sides of this or any other nutritional argument. I can guarantee you that the assessment of positive health effects, or lack thereof, caused by vegetarian diets is not just a straight forward matter involving objectivity and a mere sifting of scientific facts. Rather, this inquiry is politically charged involving charismatic individuals and well known scientists promoting a vegetarian viewpoint that is frequently at odds with the best science. If you are currently a vegetarian or vegan, one of the most powerful health expectations for adopting this lifestyle is that you will outlive your “hamburger eating” neighbors by escaping cancer, 7. In fact, if truth be told, your lifelong dietary deprivations will not prolong your lifespan, but rather will produce multiple nutrient deficiencies that are associated with numerous health problems and illnesses. If you have forced plant based diets upon your children, or unborn fetus they will also suffer. Not a pretty picture. Now let’s let the data speak for itself and get into the science of vegetarian diets and health. In their 2. 00. 9 Position Statement on Vegetarian Diets,2. The American Dietetic Association tells us,”. Well- planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.” I don’t know what planet the authors of this paper came from or what scientific journals they have been reading, but these statements simply are not supported by the data. To start with, if vegetarian diets are so healthful, then any reasonable person might expect that people eating plant based diets would have lower death rates from all causes than their meat eating counterparts. This question was never fully answered until 1. Dr. Key and colleagues at Oxford University conducted a large meta analysis comparing overall death rates between 2. I quote Dr. Key’s study, “There were no significant differences between vegetarians and non- vegetarians in mortality from cerebrovascular disease, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer or all other causes combined. I have underlined and bolded the last words of this sentence to emphasize the fact that vegetarians do not fair any better than their hamburger eating counterparts when death rates for all causes are considered. A more recent 2. 00. The EPIC- Oxford Study), employing the largest sample of vegetarians (3. I quote the authors, “Within the study mortality from circulatory diseases and all causes is not significantly different between vegetarians and meat eaters.” The results of this study. American Dietetic Association’s suggestion that “vegetarian and vegan diets may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain disease.”2. Vegetarian Diets and Nutritional Deficiencies. The American Dietetic Association (ADA) advises us that, “. Taken at face value, it would appear that all vegetarian diets including vegan diets are nutritionally sound all by themselves and don’t require any additional nutritional supplements. In order to get to the true meaning out of the ADA’s position statement, we need to dig deeper and determine what they mean by an “appropriately planned vegetarian diet.” The ADA further hedges this statement by telling us that “. The last line informing us that supplements and fortified foods “sometimes” are useful, is an outlandish understatement. In reality, it is not just in some cases that supplements and vitamin fortified foods are required, but rather in all cases for vegan diets and in most cases for lacto/ovo diets. Without supplementation vegetarian diets simply don’t work and invariably cause multiple nutrient deficiencies that not only adversely affect our health and wellbeing, but also that of our children. Vegetarian Diets and Vitamin B1. Even informed vegetarians won’t argue that virtually all plant foods contain no vitamin B1. Consequently, if you decide to become a vegan, by default you will become vitamin B1. B1. 2 fortified foods. Any lifelong dietary plan that requires nutrient supplementation on a regular basis makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective. You don’t have to be an evolutionary biologist to realize that wild animals don’t take nutritional supplements, nor do they normally develop vitamin deficiencies when living in their native environments. You will recall that not a single hunter- gatherer society consumed a vegetarian diet. This choice was not just a haphazard decision on their part, but rather was dictated by evolution through natural selection. If our ancestral foragers didn’t eat B1. B1. 2 deficiencies which in turn impaired health and survival thereby worsening their chances of reproducing. Accordingly, any behavior that favored all plant diets would have been quickly weeded out by natural selection because of our genetic requirement for vitamin B1. Unlike modern day vegetarians, hunter- gatherers couldn’t simply pop a vitamin pill to make up for nutritional shortcomings in their diets. Without B1. 2 supplementation, every hunter- gatherer who ever lived would have become vitamin B1. I want to emphasize that this flaw in nutritional logic is not just a minor point to be shuffled under the rug as the ADA2. Protein in the Vegan Diet - - The Vegetarian Resource Groupby Reed Mangels, Ph. D, RDFrom Simply Vegan 5th Edition. Summary. It is easy for a vegan diet to meet recommendations for protein, as. Strict protein combining is not. Americans are obsessed with protein. Vegans are bombarded with. Athletes used to eat. Protein supplements are sold at health food. This concern about protein is misplaced. Although protein is. Only about. one calorie out of every 1. Vegan athletes’ protein needs can range from 0. Protein supplements are not. How much. protein do we need? The RDA recommends that we take in 0. This recommendation includes a. When we make a few. If we do a few. calculations we see that the protein recommendation for vegans. His protein needs are calculated as. This contrasts with the protein. So, in the. United States it appears that vegan diets are commonly lower in. American diets. Remember, though, with protein. RDA) is not necessarily better. There do not appear to. Diets that are. high in protein may even increase the risk of osteoporosis 4 and. Table 1. Sample Menus Showing How Easy It Is To Meet Protein Needs. Protein (grams)Breakfast: 1 cup Oatmeal. Soy Milk. 7 1 medium Bagel. Lunch: 2 slices Whole Wheat Bread. Vegetarian Baked Beans. Dinner: 5 oz firm Tofu. Broccoli. 4 1 cup cooked Brown Rice. Tbsp Almonds. 4Snack: 2 Tbsp Peanut Butter. Crackers. 2TOTAL 7. Protein Recommendation for Male Vegan. To meet protein. recommendations, the typical moderately active adult male vegan needs. These recommendations can be easily met. Fruits, sugars, fats, and alcohol do not. However, not many vegans. Vegans. eating varied diets containing vegetables, beans, grains, nuts, and. Doesn’t that make the protein. Let’s look at a little background on the. Protein is made up of amino acids. We actually have a biological. Humans cannot make nine. In other words, we must get these amino acids from. We need all nine of these amino acids for our body to make. This means that they have large amounts of all the essential. Soybeans, quinoa (a grain), and spinach also are. Other protein sources of non- animal. For example, grains. Frances. Moore Lappe, in her book Diet for a Small Planet 6 advocated the. This got to be a very. Many people got discouraged with the complexity of this. Actually, Lappe was being overly conservative to avoid. Nutrition Establishment.” She has since. In combating the myth. I reinforced. another myth. I gave the impression that in order to get enough. This concept is illustrated below: Food Try. Thr. Iso. Leu. Lys. Met+Cys. Phe+Tyr. Val. Adult RDA,1. Source: USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 2. Notes: Amounts of amino acids are in milligrams. Admittedly. it would be a very monotonous way to eat and you might miss out on. We point this out, however, to illustrate the idea. Table 3 above shows the amount of rice. Women would need about. Dietary Reference Intakes. Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol. Protein, and Amino Acids. Position of the American. Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College. Sports Medicine: Nutrition and athletic performance. J Am Diet. Assoc 2. The Dietitian’s Guide to. Vegetar- ian Diets, 3rd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning. A high ratio of dietary. Am J Clin Nutr. 2. Knight. EL, Stampfer MJ, Hankinson SE, et al. The impact of protein intake on. Ann Intern Med 2. Lappe. FM. Diet for a Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books, 1. Lappe. FM. Diet for a Small Planet, 1. New York. Ballantine Books, 1. Young. VR, Pellett PL. Plant proteins in relation to human protein and amino. Am J Clin Nutr 1. S- 1. 21. 2S. Craig. WJ, Mangels AR. Position of The American Dietetic Association. Vegetarian Diets. J Am Diet Assoc 2.
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