talk me out of going vegan - Page 2

[Koalamom]

I need this thread as it is very helpful to me. I usually say go for what makes you feel best, but do look at all symptoms. Going TF, and eating meat again after 8 years was good/bad for me. I am one to take things to the extreme. I ate tons of meat and dairy and felt terrible. I also felt terrible on vegan diet. I am now coming to the balance of some of each. I am also not eating alot of meat now that the warm weather is here and I am just not craving it.

I also read too many books and am totally convinced by the author and feel I am doomed if I don't follow. I read that soy is good for you and ate tons of soy and developed thyroid problems. Then I read about raw milk and drank gallons to wrap around the globe and learned I am very allergic to dairy, and my kids are suffering from it. Why oh why can't I just trust my body and the signs it is telling me?

I agree that meat that is raised right is the only way to go, but that is just way too expensive for me, and we are allergic to eggs. So I have had to learn how to eat healthy as a vegan and really appreciate the small amount of animal products I consume.

[annethcz]

The book Real Food by Nina Planck talks a lot about what the literature says about the importance (or lack of importance) of blood cholesterol levels, in addition to lots of other great info about nutrition. Just as in childbirth, the common wisdom regarding nutrition is not necessarily supported by the scientific studies.

I'd highly recommend the book. It's well researched and includes some surprising conclusions.

[frolick16]

...and it is always important to remember that genetics DO play a part in your health.

[my_baby_love]

What I like about TF isn't necessarily that it encourages eating meat and animal products (although a good steak has tasted great lately ). My favorite element is that it's about eating food that's made from food. Not from additives, or preservatives, or who knows what else. Just food, the way our great-great-grandparents made and ate it. Food that has the most nutrients possible to help you maintain your health. I do think there is a different balance for everyone and that the balance can change based on where in life you are at the time and what types of nutrients your body needs. So, really, I think as long as your food is FOOD and you feel good eating it then it's right for you .

[Viola]

Originally Posted by snguyen

Please don't tell me most vegans consider even the name for their lifestyle so holy that it cannot be fully written.

For some reason this made me laugh. I remembering briefly wondering the same thing the first time I saw it.

[Koalamom]

You could also as over in the veg*n forum ans see what kind of responses you get there as you will surely get alot of meat eating advisers here.

[gardenmommy]

Originally Posted by my_baby_love

What I like about TF isn't necessarily that it encourages eating meat and animal products (although a good steak has tasted great lately ). My favorite element is that it's about eating food that's made from food. Not from additives, or preservatives, or who knows what else. Just food, the way our great-great-grandparents made and ate it. Food that has the most nutrients possible to help you maintain your health. I do think there is a different balance for everyone and that the balance can change based on where in life you are at the time and what types of nutrients your body needs. So, really, I think as long as your food is FOOD and you feel good eating it then it's right for you .

Very true! The Nourishing Traditions book is very animal-food heavy, but that doesn't mean that every person eating from a TF perspective must have a heavy emphasis animal foods. I do think that some animal foods are necessary for most people, but how much is widely varying across the population.

[sunny*pa*mom]

Originally Posted by my_baby_love

What I like about TF isn't necessarily that it encourages eating meat and animal products (although a good steak has tasted great lately ). My favorite element is that it's about eating food that's made from food. Not from additives, or preservatives, or who knows what else. Just food, the way our great-great-grandparents made and ate it. Food that has the most nutrients possible to help you maintain your health. I do think there is a different balance for everyone and that the balance can change based on where in life you are at the time and what types of nutrients your body needs. So, really, I think as long as your food is FOOD and you feel good eating it then it's right for you .

This is the most important thing! Actual food, with no chemicals in or on it. Animals on pasture, veggies organic. That, and listening to your body. I've been vegetarian and a traditional foodie as my body changes. I've learned I can't be healthy on idealism, I have to listen to my body. I think offering your kids a variety of healthy foods and making sure they get a lot of exercise is the best we can do as parents. Their bodies and needs will change as they grow too, we just need to respond to that.

[moonlight mom]

Absolutely great advice. I am going to focus on REAL food and listen to what everyone in my family wants. If ds wants meat - then he will have it. It is certainly better than giving him processed food. I read so much about nutrition and it can really get overwhelming. I start to wonder if I am doing the right thing. I think balance, moderation and real food is all I need to focus on.

[JaneS]

It's all about the nutrients.

It's impossible to be vegan and get enough of the extremely important fat soluble vitamins: A, D and K2 that are the keys to mineral absorption. You can eat plants with lots of minerals all day and you simply will not absorb them if you don't have these key fat soluble vitamins. Just like you can drink skim milk all day and won't absorb calcium well without the saturated fat and natural A and D vitamins in the milkfat.

And for example, true Vitamin A found only in animal foods is not beta carotene found only in plants. According to the Institute of Medicine conversion of beta carotene to true vitamin A, a medium carrot will not even give you 1/5th the daily RDA for vitamin A. And Weston Price's research reveals the RDA to be a joke.

To compare with the one China Study, Weston Price visited over 40 traditional populations eating extensively varied foods across the globe. Yet the healthy, perfectly formed humans (no cavities, straight teeth, wide faces) all ate pretty much the same in terms of nutrients: 10x the amount of fat soluble vitamins and 5x the amount of minerals and water soluble vits b/c animal foods were heavily eaten. I find his research much more convincing.

When I was veg*n (mostly vegan sometimes vegetarian) I collected tons of cavities despite eating very healthy lots of veggies, fruits, whole grains, beans, soy and nuts. It ruined my health in other ways.

If you read Weston Price's book, he tried hard to find a healthy vegan traditional population, because he inherently thought plant eating was healthiest, but he couldn't do it. The ones he found were all sick. And the healthy vegetarian populations were ones that ate lots of pastured dairy including lots of butterfat, and pastured eggs. Or people who went out of their way, travelling great distances to get seafood/fish eggs but otherwise ate veg*n b/c of where they lived inland.

The biggest glaring error The China Study missed either intentionally or not in the traditional Okinawan diet: lard. It was not low fat or low animal!

The instinctive nature of eating present in all these populations really spoke to me, even though their foods were so different they just knew what was most nutritious (such as super high nutrient dense organ meats which we modern humans with our worship of cakes, cookies, donuts, etc. turn our noses up at).

When Price asked why they ate certain foods (such as fish eggs or up to a dozen egg yolks a day to prepare for pregnancy) several populations answered in a way that was deeply moving to me: "So we can have healthy babies".

We are having less and less healthy babies these days with the shocking amount of children today suffering from autism, asthma, allergies, etc. more than ever in our recent history.

Originally Posted by Kelilah

Personally I like Thomas Jefferson's description of meat as "a condiment for the vegetables" - small amounts of meat rounding out a lot of veg

This is true, most populations Weston Price studied ate little meat... but what they did eat daily from animals is lots of fat which supplied the important fat soluble vits. And high mineral content from bone broths and/or raw milk which provided amino acids in abundance which reduced the body's need for a lot of protein.

I think today people read Nourishing Traditions and mistakenly conclude one has to eat a lot of meat, that's not true for most people... it's the animal fat that's most important. Organ meats, egg yolks, cheese, butter, cream, lard, tallow, fatty shellfish, fish eggs: these are the most nutritionally dense foods in our food chain and what traditional people across the globe used to stock their bodies with the nutrition it naturally is meant to run on.

As far as heart disease and cholesterol goes, high omega 6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) oils such as corn, cottonseed, canola, safflower, sunflower and soy are the true culprits. The PUFAs are unnaturally incorporated into the cells and make the cell walls "flabby". We human animals are meant to eat saturated fats, most especially children with developing brains... the brain is comprised of mostly saturated fats.

And also the elephant in the room is sugar and processed foods.

[moonlight mom]

Awesome post JaneS. Thanks for all the great info and clarification.

[barefootmommy]

The China Study is based on crappy science. Check out the 180 degree health blog for more info.

[JMJ]

I heard an interesting theory this past weekend that I'm going to have to look into a bit more that may explain the results of the China Study even if "bad science" doesn't explain it. If anybody has heard anything more on this, let me know. The theory goes that processed sugars/simple sugars feed candida in the gut causing yeast overgrowth which causes leaky gut, which causes absorption of entire proteins into the bloodstream where they should not be. For a person who is absorbing protein into their bloodstream, they would be better off eating less protein to experience fewer toxic effects from the protein in their blood. Better still would be to get candida under control and not be absorbing protein into the bloodstream in the first place. Therefore, any study of cultures who eat a lot of simple sugars and processed foods will show an increase in death correlated with an increase in protein.

[7thDaughter]

After reading Weston Price's book and tiptoeing down the NF path, I just got around to reading Pottinger's Cats and had another aha! moment. It's a pretty short book and not just about cats; the 2nd half includes Xray studies of children and bone calcification levels based on diet. Really cool stuff that can't be duplicated today.

I found my daughter in Price's book and my son in Pottinger. It's an eerie experience when you can see the exact effect of the modern diet on your children, listed in the problems that show up in the 2nd generation of deficiency diets. It's enough to make me back away from processed foods and vegetarianism as well, redefine my relationship with food and meat, and give sincere, heartfelt thanks to the beast in my stockpot.

My mother used the 1964 Joy of Cooking, it has a bunch of gelatine recipes. I found my own copy used on Amazon.

[bagare]

I know for me, it has been best to go grain free. I have been following TF and soaking my grains and beans, but in my case, with my diabetes and blood sugar levels, I have discovered that grain free is best for me and my family. I am low carb, but I follow the Primal Blueprint means of carbs--I keep my carbs between 50 and 100 grams a day, typically around 75ish, and I eat a vast variety of veggies, but I do limit my root veg and tubers, although I do eat sweet potatoes, probably twice a month.

So, like JaneS said, I focus on animal fats, CO, butter and the like. I don't sit down to rib eye every night, wish I could! but I do eat eggs, chicken, beef with salads, almost every meal, including breakfast. When I do eat dairy, it is full fat. This is not Atkins, though, because I keep my carbs around 75 like I said, and I am not eating pounds of meat. I will eat a couple poached or hardboiled eggs with salad for breakfast, with olive oil, or scrambled eggs with sauteed veg. I will have chicken thighs and bacon in my salad at lunch, and dinner typically has beef or chicken in one form or another, along with a cooked veg and salad. Tonight I am making Burgundy beef and we also enjoy organ meats--heart and liver especially. Talking dh into tongue for lunches! I have had really good results, and my blood sugars have come down and are not having the massive swings like from 77 to over 550 and back down again with eating grains and having to take more insulin to compensate and then crashing... talk about a rocket ride! With eating this way, I have gained better control and my moods have evened out as well, and I am much more pleasant to be around.

Course this is about you, not about me! I would do what feels best for you. If you are having mood swings, I would work on cutting out the grains, but make sure you have carbs in the form of good veg, eat cleanly and as best you can. Hope my experience helps.

[accountclosed3]

they have said it all, really.

i was vegan for 5 years (whole foods, no analogues, etc), and relatively high fat (lots of olive oil, coconut oil, and so on), but i had naturally low cholesterol and so it lead to some problems of just feelign not so fab. went vegetarian--added in raw milk, butter, cheese, and pastured eggs. essentially TF vegetarian.

then, when pregnant, had a few meat cravings. went ahead and had meat. but had a diet so heavy in eggs, avocados, butter, you can't imagine.

i mostly eat vegetables (steamed or raw) with butter, eggs and dairy. i would say i eat meat when i feel like it.

but i mostly focus on the fats. the kiddo is doing well, btw. looks like a TF kid, though he's naturally skinny based on body type of his father and i (tall and thin).

[425lisamarie]

Originally Posted by zoebird

they have said it all, really.

i was vegan for 5 years (whole foods, no analogues, etc), and relatively high fat (lots of olive oil, coconut oil, and so on), but i had naturally low cholesterol and so it lead to some problems of just feelign not so fab. went vegetarian--added in raw milk, butter, cheese, and pastured eggs. essentially TF vegetarian.

then, when pregnant, had a few meat cravings. went ahead and had meat. but had a diet so heavy in eggs, avocados, butter, you can't imagine.

i mostly eat vegetables (steamed or raw) with butter, eggs and dairy. i would say i eat meat when i feel like it.

but i mostly focus on the fats. the kiddo is doing well, btw. looks like a TF kid, though he's naturally skinny based on body type of his father and i (tall and thin).

Ditto for me, in fact bluebirdmama i responded to your post on the veg board. I feel best when i eat a MOSTLY plant based diet, good amounts of non animal fats and little grains. I eat lentils/dal of all kinds mostly, and i like chickpeas and cannelini beans. I do eat a little tofu by choice.

I wouldn't "talk anyone out of" anything if they are convicted about it. You don't have to be all or none. Often people try to follow something so intensely and then feel like a failure. I feel good with my family eating the way we do. We don't love red meats but chicken/lots of turkey and fish/sea foods. It makes it easier on the budget to make good ethical choices when i do not require a portions. I only eat occassional turkey/fish. I don't do dairy, kids do a little and yogurt/cheese.

I eat the way we can afford, to feel the best, and the way *I* feel good about. I don't really follow one particular way to the T

[figmama]

[Chicharronita]

Originally Posted by moonlight mom

But a friend just lent me The China Study. I'm not sure if anyone has read the book - but he advocates a completely vegan diet. His research showed low protein and low fat reversed heart disease, cancer and many autoimmune diseases. He found that even if you ate more calories, you never got obese because your body converts plant proteins to heat rather than fat. He states animal protein, particulary casein, is the catalyst for cancer and all sorts of problems. He really bashes all forms of dairy. His diet is completely plant based with no animal products at all, very low fat (10-15%) and low protein (<10% and preferably more around 5%).

I read the book too, and found it compelling until I read some well-researched rebuttals. There was a great thread on it back in 2007 that you may want to read:

"Anybody read The China Study?"

Some nutrition researchers take it apart pretty well:

"The Truth About the China Study" by Chris Masterjohn

Here's Dr. Campbell's response to his article, and Masterjohn's response to his response.

This is what Masterjohn says about casein (bolding mine):

"Other questions, such as what effect different types of processing have on casein's capacity to promote tumor growth, remain unanswered.

Pasteurization, low-temperature dehydration, high-temperature spray-drying (which creates carcinogens), and fermentation all affect the structure of casein differently and thereby would affect its physiological behavior.

What powdered, isolated casein does to rats tells us little about what traditionally consumed forms of milk will do to humans and tells us nothing that we can generalize to all "animal nutrients." Furthermore, Campbell fails to address the problems of vitamin A depletion from excess isolated protein, unsupported by the nutrient-dense fats which accompany protein foods in nature."
As for the hard data contained in the study:

Does the data match up?

What is most shocking about the China Study is not what it found, but the contrast between Campbell's representation of its findings in The China Study, and the data contained within the original monograph.

[see Figure 1, which shows the correlation between various foods and cancer]

But the actual data from the original publication paints a different picture. Figure 1 shows selected correlations between macronutrients and cancer mortality. Most of them are not statistically significant, which means that the probability the correlation is due to chance is greater than five percent.

It is interesting to see, however, the general picture that emerges. Sugar, soluble carbohydrates, and fiber all have correlations with cancer mortality about seven times the magnitude of that with animal protein, and total fat and fat as a percentage of calories were both negatively correlated with cancer mortality.
Anthony Colpo: "The China Study: More Vegan Nonsense! Why T. Colin Campbell's Book is Extremely Misleading." (scroll down to see the 2006 review.)

"Is wheat killing us?" by Brad Marshall. Like Colpo and Masterjohn, Marshall looked at the raw China Study data (that's conveniently NOT published in Campbell's book) and found that it doesn't support his conclusions.

"The main dietary predictor of heart disease rates in China is the TYPE of grain you eat."

"In China, the more non-rice grain you eat, the higher your risk of heart disease (and stroke). Eating meat, dairy and vegetables don't affect your risk."

Here's a snippet from the review from the Science-based Medicine blog:

"Observations from other countries tend to contradict the correlations found in China. The African Maasai eat a diet high in animal protein (meat, milk and blood from their cows) – yet they have low blood cholesterol levels and low rates of heart disease. Among the Eskimos (who ate an animal-based, very high protein, high fat diet) heart disease was practically unknown.

Campbell doesn’t attempt to explain a glaring exception to his data: stomach cancer rates are higher in China than elsewhere in the world – he doesn’t even mention that fact."

After reading with a skeptical mind, I am still feeling somewhat guilty. THe thought that I am setting up my children and/or my husband to have chronic conditions really scares me. There is so much heart disease and cancer in our genes and dh is already with borderline high cholesterol.

That is scary; however, I think the underlying cause of these chronic conditions is insulin levels gone out of whack, not consumption of saturated fats and/or protein. Gary Taubes makes a case for this argument in his excellent Good Calories Bad Calories. I can't recommend that book enough, although it's a bit daunting to read with all its references and technical explanations.

I do remember how yucky I felt when I ate high carb and low fat - all the blood sugar swings and depression - even ammennorea.

Yep! BTDT. On a high-fat, moderate protein diet I no longer know when my period is coming or has arrived due to lack of symptoms.

Unlike my low-fat low-protein/dairy days when I had to take ibuprofen for the severe cramps, never mind the weight gain, depression and other symptoms that are now gone.

[CherryBomb]

Well, I might get flamed, but there's nothing natural about veganism. Human being are omnivores, period. The WAPF website has got good information on why you shouldn't go vegan. Here's a list of articles they have.