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Hey guys, I just finished reading this book called You Don't Need Meat by Peter Cox. It definitely convinced me to reduce my intake of animal products, if not cut it out completely. Right now I just cut out land animals and am eating fish and eggs and dairy products still. However I do have a question.
What sort of issues might occur if I were to cut out all animal products from my diet? I'm kinda scared to do that because I train almost every single day, and sometimes even twice a day. I'm worried that if I did cut out all animal products, I wouldn't be able to get enough protein from plant foods to rebuild my muscles. Also, are there any vitamin/mineral deficiencies that might happen?
What sort of issues might occur if I were to cut out all animal products from my diet? I'm kinda scared to do that because I train almost every single day, and sometimes even twice a day. I'm worried that if I did cut out all animal products, I wouldn't be able to get enough protein from plant foods to rebuild my muscles. Also, are there any vitamin/mineral deficiencies that might happen?
1. You'll have to eat a lot more in plant source protein to make up for the loss of protein dense animal sources.
2. A few vegans failed to do the research into the body's minimal need for protein and where to find it in the plant kingdom, so they tend to lose their hair.
3. Vegans tend to have clogged arteries because they use a lot of vegetable oil (bad stuff) in their salads, because they don't want to use cream based dressings, because someone has to milk those poor oppressed cows for the milk, cream, butter.
I'm sure some others can post some other potential problems to look at.
protein seems to be the biggest and most obvious. The rest seems to be pretty avoidable IF you make a special effort for variety in your diet. That's a footstomp point for everything, but if you're going to limit *things* then your variety pool gets smaller in the first place.
People have been eating meat for thousands of years...I would highly recommend eating some sort of meat, or you really need to be on top of how you are going to replace all of the nutrients.
I have to have meat, almost as much as carbs. Chicken, beef, pork...shit even some curry goat is good
I'll take issue with the statement "vegans tend to get clogged arteries because of the vegetable oil". Where's the proof for that?
Well, let me restate, those vegans who tend to use heavy amounts of vegatable oil tend to have higher risks of CVD, but that doesn't mean much then, does it? Anyone who makes heavy use of VO is a candidate. If a vegan avoids all dairy, then they tend to rely more heavily on vegetable oil based dressings (Italians, vinegar and oil, etc). That's the rub.
I've seen some very unhealthy and pale looking vegans. It's doubtful they could recover easily enough from any illness or injury and if they were to get hit by a serious one, it could very well render them feeble for the remainder of their life.
Also, how do you prove the negative effect of a social behavior? I'm sure I could try and dig up some statistics, but you can't prove a tendancy or correlation. You can show trends, but never does it prove a cause/effect relationship.
I think the issue is vegetable oil. A generic term. When you see vegetable oil on an ingredients list, it generally means a blend of corn and soybean oils. These oils are high in omega-6 fats, and without a balance of omega-3 fats in your diet, you can have chronic inflammation that can lead to many health issues.
Choose other oils that are lower in 6s or higher in 3s, or both. We get tons of 6s in virtually everything, and you can only get so many 3s, so a reduction in 6s can be more valuable than a dramatic increase in omega-3s.
A few oils better than soybean or corn are...
Olive
Canola
Walnut
Coconut
Palm
Flaxseed, but it tastes nasty and isn't good for cooking.
to the OP: if you are truly considering this as a permanent way of eating you should go get a good text on being a vegan (e.g. Messina & Messina's) to answer your questions. If you want a different take on it from someone with a specific plan, you could look at Fuhrman's book. Both of these are from a nutrition view rather than animal rights view. If you want more specific training as a vegan advice, you could go ask over on Dos' forums as he is a vegetarian.
The book actually does have provide some info on nutrition. But the main part that convinced me isn't animal rights; it's a bunch of correlational studies showing that people who eat less meat have less cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses that plague Americans today. They are correlational studies, and don't prove cause-effect, but it was enough to convince me to reduce my meat consumption.
And btw, we have been eating meat for thousands of years, but I'm pretty sure that much longer before that, we have been surviving off nuts and berries and stuff. And plus, we raised our own plant foods before we raised animal foods. Plant foods were more dependable.
LisaS, I am currently debating on whether or not to eliminate meat. I'm so damn confused right now. I'll definitely check out those books. Meanwhile, I'll just continue on my reduced-meat, and if I start to feel like crap, I'll introduce meat back in.
The book actually does have provide some info on nutrition. But the main part that convinced me isn't animal rights; it's a bunch of correlational studies showing that people who eat less meat have less cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses that plague Americans today. They are correlational studies, and don't prove cause-effect, but it was enough to convince me to reduce my meat consumption.
There was a criticism to "The China Study" regarding the validity of the claims and the conditions under which they performed the study and interpreted the data. The China Study made many of these same claims. You might want to google for it.
I'm not saying don't do it, just make sure you know as much as possible. Let the truth convince you, not the rhetoric.
On board with cynic here. I think it's more fair to say that vegetarians tend to be more health conscious as a group than non (exercise, pay attention to food intake quality\quantity, actually eat vegetables\fruit quite possibly a variety of). The meat eating in and of itself isn't *the* factor.
Monkey's eat meat (bugs) and don't cultivate plants or livestock. Not really trying to get into the evolution debate, but i don't think farming is a major argument.
just to make a quick point: When the plague hit Norway, the people in the south who had a grain based diet died, the people further north who ate more animals/fish/etc had a much higher survive rate.
And yeah, vegans/vegetarians seem to be more conscious about health, it's not that they don't eat meat, but rather that they don't eat MC donalds, they probably exercise more, etc.
And btw, we have been eating meat for thousands of years, but I'm pretty sure that much longer before that, we have been surviving off nuts and berries and stuff. And plus, we raised our own plant foods before we raised animal foods. Plant foods were more dependable.
Humans and our ancestors have been eating meat for millions of years, and hunting of animals is apparently one of the major advances that allowed increased success and population growth hundreds of thousands of years ago. I think it's safe to say that meat is a normal part of the human diet.
If you are concerned about health issues associated with eating meat derived from livestock, which are normally fed unnatural diets for their species, have poor fatty acid profiles, etc., then maybe consider eating free-range meat and poultry?
This concept is addressed in The Paleo Diet, and the authors recommend buying the leanest meats possible (since livestock tend to have unnaturally high saturated fat levels and Omega-6 levels compared with the wild animals we are evolutionarily adapted to eating) and substituting things like olive oil, flax oil, fatty fish, nuts, avocadoes, etc. to obtain the fats you need in your diet.
I thought it was only 6,000 years? Damn, now I'm all confused again.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin, 1759
It is possible to live healthily as a vegetarian, but one simply has to be more aware of the deficiencies you're going to run into if you don't supplement.
There's a lot of micronutrients on non-vegetarian foods that you can't replace very easily. B12 is the major one, but there's many more.
Veganism is not a good idea from the standpoint of optimal nutrition. But someone who cuts out red meat & still eats fish, eggs, & dairy really isn't compromising much at all.
A girl I dated years ago was vegan and was an avid climber/cyclist. She took a lot of care to make sure she was getting her proteins - it wasn't easy. Unlike the typical vegan mentioned here she didn't coat everything in oil (not sure where that came from, but anyone who puts oil on their food is going to have issues). She did eat eggs/drink milk to some extent.
If you're worried about the impact of society due to eating meat then opt for naturally raised animals. The majority of the fish I eat I catch myself. The chickens/beef/pork I eat come from local farms. I pay a bit more but I know that they're not being raised in a tiny pen.
I do ok on free range non-meat animal products. I personally have a no-kill policy. Vegan is tougher by far, beans and grains are good protein sources but they have lots of carbs. If your objectives are nutrition & health based rather than animal rights/morality based, I'd say just find healthier choices of meat and animal products. Free range/cage free, no hormones, no antibiotics, natural diets, etc... Better for you and incidentally better for the animals.
Since you have to do a butt-ton of research to ensure you're making the right food choices for optimal nutrition, just do so including animals.
I would think it's kinda tough to get lots of studies where you control for the type/quality of meat and quantity/quality of non-meat products eaten, know what I mean? Like... how do you know study A that says people eating meat have higher risks for X,Y, &Z are eating a mainly McDonalds and KFC diet versus eating some veggies & refined grains on "conventional" meat that's treated with all sorts of unnaturalness, versus eating free range meat, lots of veggies, fish, whole grains, etc.
Thanks everyone for replying.
Aoife, about the studies, they tried to normalize as best as they could. Both the people in the vegetarian and the meat-eating groups got their exercise and ate pretty clean. Of course who knows what their definitions of "eating clean" and "getting exercise" are?
Anyway, I'll definitely check out those books when I get the time. School starts tomorrow for me so I probably won't have that much free time. Anyway, as long as I know I'm not really sacrificing by cutting out land animals, I'll continue my diet.
I have been one for only 3 months and the first 2 months were quite a battle.
there are quite a bit of products out there that help you when planning meals if you are Vegan. i have switch to boca ground "meat" for anything that calls for ground beef. I have soy cheese, soy butter etc. They even have "riblets" which are quite good.
I haven't had a cold or been sick since i went Vegan. When you eliminate meat and dairy you are getting rid of quite a bit of the hormones and antibodies that are given to the animals.
I wasn't rah-rah PETA when i started this, i was just looking for a lifestyle change that would help me loose weight. The more research i did the better I felt about not eating animals. So in the end i really and rah-rah PETA.
With cloned meat being approved for human consumption I am quite happy I have already made the change to beign meat free.
I have been one for only 3 months and the first 2 months were quite a battle.
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I haven't had a cold or been sick since i went Vegan. When you eliminate meat and dairy you are getting rid of quite a bit of the hormones and antibodies that are given to the animals.
Sorry, but three months w/o an illness is not too impressive. I went 16 years w/o an illness (not including the cryptosporidium outbreak in 93) and I'm an omnivore. However, even not taking my 16 years illness free, 3 months is still not a long time. Let's see how you are in 1-2 years.
Aoife, cloned animals don't live as long as normal ones. That's enough to make me feel uncomfortable eating their meat.
Bliss, did you take any supplements during those first two months? If you did, do you still take them? And why was it "quite a battle?" I'm just curious and want to know what to expect with this diet
I haven't noticed anything too difficult so far. In fact, the fat is melting off, and I haven't lost any muscle mass or strength. Then again it's only been about 1.5 weeks so far...
When you eliminate meat and dairy you are getting rid of quite a bit of the hormones and antibodies that are given to the animals.
Milk can add to your "sick" feeling esp since it seems to add mucous to your system. When we're sick I put the dairy away, it seems to help the cold pass faster.
There was a great article in the WSJ this past week about vegan athletes. Carl Lewis is probably one of the most famous, but this article focused on KC Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzalez. Turns out he dropped a lot of weight (incl. muscle) going vegan, so he added a bit of chicken & fish to his diet, but otherwise focuses on a mostly-vegan diet.
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