[B3LIAL]

I've researched the shit out of veganism scientifically, but I know a whole foods plant based diet is just THE diet for a human being to be on, because of how I feel on it.

Seriously it's like a godsend. Whole plant based foods are just the foods that seem clear as day to be the healthiest foods for humans, and the foods we're more physiologically suited to consuming.

Today I had a MOSTLY whole foods day -

Oats 100g w/ cashew milk
3 bananas
A handful of black grapes
1 orange
1 apple
A slice of bread packed with peanut butter
A hand full of cashew nuts and some almonds
Soup made with a tonne of different vegetables w/ Tofu
4x omega 3 capsules.
2.5 litres of water + 1 cup of tea (400ml)

Result = So fucking high on life.

 

[Red Panda]

Undoubtedly humans need a high intake of plant foods, but we did evolve being physiologically capable and having benefits from eating animal derived products and this myth has to stop. Occasional consumption of animal products is completely fine (see Mediterranean diet), obviously the amount being consumed in the modern world and especially the US is absurd and has to stop as well.
A well planned vegan diet with B12 supplement can be wholesome and healthy and is approved by the dietetic associations of several countries.

With that being said, I do horrible on a high fiber diet because of IBS and yea there's a chance it will get fixed if I persist because of bacteria balance but so far it's been way too uncomfortable to keep at it. Legumes/ beans are the best protein staple for vegans and the worst for me. I do eat lentil soup once or twice a week though and try to ignore the pain.

I'm not sure if you are joking about the "feel good" argument though.

 

[chad86tsi]

It is believed that humans rapidly evolved after we learned to harness fire because we were then able to exploit meat sources that were previously inedible, or too difficult to efficently digest in it's uncooked form. Whole plant food is and was the majority of a healthy intake, but don't discount animal nutrition as being important. Back then, meat wasn't part of every meal, more likley it was a semi-rare treat, or even only infrequenlty consumed, but it still is part of our history and evolution.

One opinion on the reason why you feel so apmed up:

Aproximates:
apple 19g
Orange 9g
3 bananas(14x3) 42g
cup of grapes 15g

That's 76 grams of sugar.

 

[Caveman Dreams]

Ive been toying with going vegan on and off, due to the reports improvements of emotional state. But still not sure how many changes I would have to make to my diet. Maybe some point in the future.

 

[Meliodas]

Veganism is a whole world away from just being a vegetarian, which is very easy to manage. I have stopped eating meat at times simply because it is expensive.

Vegans, however, will run into several nutritional deficiencies without supplementation. Therefore I see nothing natural about the lifestyle. Is popping pills really better for your health than drinking a glass of milk?

 

[cuddle bun]

I think it's more convincing when vegans and vegetarians just admit they are being anthropomorphic in their eating preferences.

It's not nutritionally superior.

It's also not a complete avoidance of harming living things (because plants are living things too and plants are often harmed or killed when they are harvested).

it's the attempt to avoid harming living things that have a face - i.e., anthropomorphism.

 

[Red Panda]

I think it's more convincing when vegans and vegetarians just admit they are being anthropomorphic in their eating preferences.

It's not nutritionally superior.

It's also not a complete avoidance of harming living things (because plants are living things too and plants are often harmed or killed when they are harvested).

it's the attempt to avoid harming living things that have a face - i.e., anthropomorphism.

Nutritional superiority to which diet exactly? Cause there are definitely diets that veganism beats nutritionally, like the standard american diet. Sure if we compare it to the Mediterranean it loses because of the need for supplementation and eventual deficiencies that may arise more easily (but not always). The only vitamin you can't ever get is B12, everything else depends on planning your diet and the success of that may depend on where you live and if you have access to a variety of foods from (likely) all over the world to make sure you get everything you need. Vegan diet is a rich and high tech world diet. Also here's a source Daily Recommendations

Animals hurt and scream and get stressed and you can empathize with them because we are similar. Certainly some vegans become obnoxious about it and do anthropomorphize to an absurd degree, but vegan ethics in general are about not hurting sentient beings. To say it's anthropomorphism is wrong because it's not about having a face, it's about experiencing stress, fear, and pain due to having a similar neurological systems.

Here's a video from a vegan who advocates for ethics primarily and agrees that veganism isn't necessary "natural" (hence the name)
I like her because she takes down on those crazy vegans who spread false information and make people hate veganism

 

 

[ShatteredHeart]

 

[Tad Cooper]

I actually got told by my doc to stop being vegetarian cause it was affecting my health - I struggle to absorb amino acids etc from plant based foods, plus am likely to be intolerant to gluten. Also a lot of stuff like omegas, you can't get the soluble form from plants but only from meat/fish or supplements. We're actually working on GMing plants to have these genes in so we CAN have the soluble omegas from plants, but it's a work in progress!

 

[cuddle bun]

Nutritional superiority to which diet exactly?

If you take a vegan diet, and add fish/meat/eggs to it, then that resulting diet would be nutritionally superior to a vegan diet for the fast majority of people unless they have some kind of food intolerance related to meat or fish or eggs.

The only vitamin you can't ever get is B12, everything else depends on planning your diet and the success of that may depend on where you live and if you have access to a variety of foods from (likely) all over the world to make sure you get everything you need.

There are several nutrients that are unusable to the human body in their plant form that need to be converted by the body to the same nutrient that is found naturally in animal foods. For example vitamin A, vitamin D, and omega 3s. Many people's bodies are inefficient at these conversions and some people can't successfully convert one of more of these nutrients at all from the plant form to the usable form.

 

[Red Panda]

If you take a vegan diet, and add fish/meat/eggs to it, then that resulting diet would be nutritionally superior to a vegan diet.

There are several nutrients that are unusable to the human body in their plant form that need to be converted by the body to the same nutrient that is found naturally in animal foods. For example vitamin A, vitamin D, and omega 3s. Many people's bodies are inefficient at these conversions and some people can't successfully convert one of more of these nutrients at all from the plant form to the usable form.

Yes a vegan diet with fish/eggs/meats would be equivalent to the Mediterranean Diet, as I mentioned. Which is rich in plant foods and has small amounts of animal products.

Previtamin A exists abundantly in plants and it's extremely hard to be vitamin A deficient in 1st world countries. Vitamin D is not adequately gained from any food source vegan or not, it is made by contact with UV rays.

DHA is potentially a problem, yes, due to its link to Alzheimer's and dementia. But the research is very new on that, only observational studies have shown correlations between intake of omega-3s and dementia and clinical trials have failed to show any effect in preventing or treating it. It may be beneficial to cognitive decline beyond dementia though, which is good. There's more here if you like Essential Fatty Acids | Linus Pauling Institute | Oregon State University
Omega-3

As an RD I wouldn't recommend a vegan diet for health unless my client was very insistent on it,for ethical reasons (though I would try to give them the facts to change their mind), I would recommend a Mediterranean Diet.

 

[cuddle bun]

Yes a vegan diet with fish/eggs/meats would be equivalent to the Mediterranean Diet, as I mentioned. Which is rich in plant foods and has small amounts of animal products.

Previtamin A exists abundantly in plants and it's extremely hard to be vitamin A deficient in 1st world countries. Vitamin D is not adequately gained from any food source vegan or not, it is made by contact with UV rays.

DHA is potentially a problem, yes, due to its link to Alzheimer's and dementia. But the research is very new on that, only observational studies have shown correlations between intake of omega-3s and dementia and clinical trials have failed to show any effect in preventing or treating it. It may be beneficial to cognitive decline beyond dementia though, which is good. There's more here if you like Essential Fatty Acids | Linus Pauling Institute | Oregon State University
Omega-3

As an RD I wouldn't recommend a vegan diet for health unless my client was very insistent on it,for ethical reasons (though I would try to give them the facts to change their mind), I would recommend a Mediterranean Diet.

What you wrote is not totally true... like Inuits get all the vitamin D they need from their diet which is heavy in fish. And some people are incapable of converting beta carotene to retinol so a vitamin A deficiency is definitely possible on a plant diet.

But the bold part goes back to my original point and sounds like we agree anyway; my original point was it's a lot more convincing when vegans and vegetarians talk about their diet as a personal preference not to eat things that share common traits with humans (such as a face, or a central nervous system, or whatever).... personal preferences like that are easy to respect but when they talk about it in terms of "nutritional superiority" they just don't sound very convincing at all.

 

[Red Panda]

What you wrote is not totally true... like Inuits get all the vitamin D they need from their diet which is heavy in fish. And some people are incapable of converting beta carotene to retinol so a vitamin A deficiency is definitely possible on a plant diet.

But the bold part goes back to my original point and sounds like we agree anyway; my original point was it's a lot more convincing when vegans and vegetarians talk about their diet as a personal preference not to eat things that share common traits with humans (such as a face, or a central nervous system, or whatever).... personal preferences like that are easy to respect but when they talk about it in terms of "nutritional superiority" they just don't sound very convincing at all.

The Inuit have genetic adaptation to lower vitamin D levels like the other dark skinned people do, their bodies are more sensitive to it so they don't need as much. And the Inuit have pretty special diets of marine mammals that would be culturally unpalatable by the rest of the population. Sadly the Inuits who move to the south and/or adopt western diets do get rickets nowadays. They are still way too north to have enough sun and don't consume their ancestral diets. You can read more here https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/li...-put-inuit-at-risk-for-rickets/article687556/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3417586/

Yes, we do agree!