Vegan and Vegetarian Diets

[Mofra]

But all diets that are built on a foundation of 'wholefoods' will always be superior to diet of processed crap, there are just many, many diets that suit this narrative.

QFT.
A simple "don't eat crap" diet would improve the diet of most of the Australian population.

 

[Eaglespur]

Few years ago I was dragged kicking and screaming into a vegan diet by my better half. Don't eat meat at all any more, but have the odd slip up from time to time with dairy. Best shape I've been in since my late teens. Kids are thriving and none of us have needed to see a GP in years.

My wife makes great efforts to ensure we are taking in all the essential nutrients and vitamins with plenty of chia seed, hemp seed, kale, quinoa and the like. We do buy some of the frozen vegan pretend meats but mainly as fillers for traditional meals for me, or lazy nights. They aren't really necessary.

I understand the hostility some have towards a vegan diet. Nearly ended my marriage over it.
My wife first challenged me could i kill the animal that I want to eat I said of course I could.

But similar to others once i looked at the negative health risks of continuing a meat and dairy based diet the choice was simple. I see fat and unhealthy people everywhere - I'm in my forties - look to be in my thirties, run my own tradie business so always active, surf on my days off and go all night in the sack!! Whats the problem??

Awesome man, love it. I've been vego for over a year myself.

Now if only Richmond could snag a flag

 

[Gigantic]

Have recently made the switch over. I first went on a pescatarian diet, then slowly phased out the fish and went vegetarian. I'm also lactose intolerant so I never really drank milk and only time I ever ate cheese was when it was in a burger/sandwich, but I've also stopped eating fast food so cheese has essentially been phased out. Dairy was probably the easiest to give up for those reasons. I will admit I did eat meat here and there while I was a vegetarian, probably for convenience more than anything but I did eat it with a guilty conscience. But for the last few weeks I've not touched meat. I've always loved fruit so significantly increasing my fruit intake was never an issue. I then started reading more into the ethics of it then eventually dropped the eggs and honey and went full vegan.

I'm doing it for health and ethical reasons, after reading some studies and being presented the evidence it's really got me convinced. It probably took a month of inner confliction but over time I challenged my own ethics and really thought about it and then made a conscious decision to be rational and aligned my behaviour with my values. Going vegan has definitely made me more conscious about what I'm eating and has been a lot easier on my digestive system I reckon.

 

[Jason mp]

Have recently made the switch over. I first went on a pescatarian diet, then slowly phased out the fish and went vegetarian. I'm also lactose intolerant so I never really drank milk and only time I ever ate cheese was when it was in a burger/sandwich, but I've also stopped eating fast food so cheese has essentially been phased out. Dairy was probably the easiest to give up for those reasons. I will admit I did eat meat here and there while I was a vegetarian, probably for convenience more than anything but I did eat it with a guilty conscience. But for the last few weeks I've not touched meat. I've always loved fruit so significantly increasing my fruit intake was never an issue. I then started reading more into the ethics of it then eventually dropped the eggs and honey and went full vegan.

I'm doing it for health and ethical reasons, after reading some studies and being presented the evidence it's really got me convinced. It probably took a month of inner confliction but over time I challenged my own ethics and really thought about it and then made a conscious decision to be rational and aligned my behaviour with my values. Going vegan has definitely made me more conscious about what I'm eating and has been a lot easier on my digestive system I reckon.

LCHF myself so eat meat, but have been keen on giving the vegetarian/vegan option a go for a number of years, around 90% animal welfare reasons and 10% health. very hard when the cook in the family (my wife) is not at all keen to give it a go. kudos to you Gigantic.

 

[Gigantic]

LCHF myself so eat meat, but have been keen on giving the vegetarian/vegan option a go for a number of years, around 90% animal welfare reasons and 10% health. very hard when the cook in the family (my wife) is not at all keen to give it a go. kudos to you Gigantic.

I'm fortunate I'm on my own and cooking for myself so could just jump right in. It wasn't easy though, I was watching talks about ethical issues and what goes on in the meat and dairy industry feeling horrified and empathising but then a few hours later I'd be stuffing meat down my throat, kind of subconsciously trying to justify it and choose not to accept that I had any culpability through my own consumption. We're selfish beings and we choose to believe things as we want to when it serves us, whether it's because of convenience, habit or what ever.

We've been socially programmed to consume meat, most people view it as convention and something we have to do for our bodies because we've been doing it for centuries. You ask lots of people why they're eating meat and that's the only answer they're going to give you.

End of the day not everyone loves animals, people sit on different parts of the spectrum. For that reason I'll probably never expect to convince anyone to do it for animal welfare or ethical reasons. I'm just hoping to do my part, mostly for my own conscience.

Good to hear you're keen on giving it a go though, hopefully you can convince the wife to do the same.

 

[iBeng]

Saw this pop up in Facebook, obviously not a conclusive study but interesting results:

Identical twins ate carnivore and vegan diets separately for 12 weeks

We’ve all heard the jokes about vegans being a bunch of pasty buggers unable to fight off even the most innocuous of illnesses, but if you’ve ever wondered just how realistic that stereotype is, an experiment conducted by two identical twins might have finally answered the question. Yeah, nah...

ozzyman.com

Here's a separate link:

Identical Twins Compare Vegan And Meat Diets: Plant-Based Twin Lost More Fat, Had More Energy

'On a vegan diet my mental focus was much better, I didn't have the mid-afternoon energy dips'

www.plantbasednews.org

 

[Jason mp]

Interesting, I have tried to go vegan and vegetarian a few times(only for short periods though ie. 1-2 weeks) over the last few years, I've never been much of a cook and was basically just eating plenty of fruit and mashed potato/pumpkin/sweet potato, frozen greens, yogurt so that made it hard re variety and I couldn't seem to satisfy my hunger so I couldn't stick to it.

 

[Aeglos]

Saw this pop up in Facebook, obviously not a conclusive study but interesting results:

Identical twins ate carnivore and vegan diets separately for 12 weeks

We’ve all heard the jokes about vegans being a bunch of pasty buggers unable to fight off even the most innocuous of illnesses, but if you’ve ever wondered just how realistic that stereotype is, an experiment conducted by two identical twins might have finally answered the question. Yeah, nah...

ozzyman.com

Here's a separate link:

Identical Twins Compare Vegan And Meat Diets: Plant-Based Twin Lost More Fat, Had More Energy

'On a vegan diet my mental focus was much better, I didn't have the mid-afternoon energy dips'

www.plantbasednews.org

I like how the second article suggests that any unwanted side effects of him going vegan are just an individual experience but any positive effects are strongly implied to be due to the diet.

 

[Aeglos]

In other words any style of dieting has the potential to be good or bad depending on how its done.

‘How my vegan diet ruined my gut’

After 12 years on a vegan diet Yanar Alkayat thought she was super healthy – then she saw a gut specialist...

www.bodyandsoul.com.au

 

[iBeng]

Its fair to say it's not a case of A over B, it can be personal choice and you can still have levels of success.

 

[Noel Gallagher]

i used to use the nutri bullet 1000, went through 2 of them in a week, before that i had around the 700 watt for a year or so with no problems. i now use the nutri ninja 1000 auto iq and i like it a lot better, blends it up finer with less lumpy bits and it slips into the go position easier.

my preferred mix every morning- garlic, ginger, spinach, berries (frozen), avocado, banana, raw organic unfiltered apple cider vinegar and water (not tap water, filtered rain water).

Ditto I switched from the Nutra 1000 watt to Ninja 1000 watt - doesn’t leave any lumps and the auto iq is a good feature