Want to Go Vegan But Mom Disagrees

Good for you, not go get a good cook book, check out https://www.christinacooks.com/

 

@RecoveringFapaholic Good Luck!

 

I'm glad you already know enough to not fall for these videos.

One of the best sources on nutrtion imo is nutritionfacts.org.

It's safe to say Michael Greger knows more about nutrition than a stand-up comedian.



Anyway, I'm sorry about your parents behaviour and I don't think there is much you can do about it.
The only thing that might shut them up if you stay vegan, build some muscle and then they can't argue with the results.

Don't forget about B12 tho.

 

I'm not skeptical, just curious because I have considered going vegan or vegetarian but have not because of the protein thing. Where do I get protein from specifically? Plant proteins? I usually get around 120g a day and not sure how I would reasonably do that otherwise since it comes from meat, eggs, whey, etc?

 

Do what you want. It's your body and your life. You don't have to justify your diet to anyone else if it's a healthy one.

 

Keyword "if".
I'm sure i am not educated enough on these things to make the best judgments, but i feel my diet is normally very healthy even though i am a meat eater. i care a lot about what i put in my body, cook all of my meals myself, plenty of vegetables and fruit, low on breads and gluten, and nightshades, and rarely eat junk food or fast food.

However i am sure there is always something to learn.

Funny story, one night i was super baked and i was eating a piece of chicken..... the entire gravity of what i was doing flashed before my eyes and i was horrified at the fact that i was consuming another animal. first time i ever thought about going vegetarian.
didn't last though i went back to consuming meat and currently am still skeptical about it. i got to do more research on the issue one of these days though.
what i really want to do is get a piece of land where i grow a lot of food for myself and raise my own animals.

 

I think if you dig into the studies that the articles/videos you watched quote, you'll find that they are comparing vegan diets to people with no diet whatsoever. ie. cake, ice cream, pepperoni pizza, burgers & fries.

You can do pretty much any diet out there, controlled eating will pretty much always beat the shit out of uncontrolled eating, because no diet endorses Krispy Kreme. So if you're currently eating twinkies and Pizza pops, go for it. You'll have some deficiencies (unless you heavily supplement), but it's better than a sugar/salt/fat overload.

Try a search on "vegan diet deficiencies". Even the patroned saint of psuedo-science food religions, Joe Mercola, agrees that you're going to be missing out on a lot more than B12 if you throw all animal products out and aren't very strict about filling in the nutrient gaps. Iron, zinc, calcium, Vit D3 and creatine, for starters. (there's more)
You'll have to spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on your filling those gaps, which most don't do, hence the stereotypes of weakness, which are largely justified.
It can be done, athletes do it, but filling in those gaps are part of their full-time job.
But most people are just doing it as either weight loss or virtue signalling, and don't care that much about getting enough, say, calcium. If you do, more power to you my man, but eyes wide open and all that.

Just throw in a couple free-range eggs a day in there and some milk of whatever animal sounds ethical to you, and you'll fill in a lot of those gaps quick and easy. They're obscenely good for you, chickens and goats don't take up resources anywhere near what cows do, and nothing had to die.

 

I'm a vegan. I ran 50 miles in 11 hours this year. I regularly train for 30+ mile races as a vegan and so do many people. In fact one of the most succesful endurance runners of all time is a vegan. And he wrote a book about it.

Vegans = badass

 

I'm curious where you get the "humans aren't optimized for meat consumption" thing. You mentioned incisors yourself... Skeletal records show that every single time humans showed up on a new land mass, there was a mass extinction event, and that was almost entirely due to hunting. I'd be curious as to what the evolutionary argument is that we were herbivores.

hehe, I'm not vegetarian although I was what I call a 24/5 vegetarian until about 8 years ago. Rail thin, cold all the time. Put on 40 lbs of muscle to help with that, (and hey, chicks dig it) but that wasn't really possible without animal products. 3000 calories a day is technically possible without eating animal products or unhealthy crap, but not on my appetite it isn't.
Clean meat isn't unhealthy in and of itself. But uncontrolled diets sure are. There's a world of difference between lean ground pork and bacon, between chicken breast and chicken McNuggets. And you know full well from watching the people around you what they prefer.

I definitely agree that animal flesh isn't necessary these days though, simply because of the relatively new developments of supplementation and the international affairs we call supermarkets. You don't even need eggs/dairy/fish really, I'm just saying it's a lot easier (and when you move out... cheaper!) to stick to than supplementation and limiting yourself to harder to find foods. Seriously. Fuck GNC and Whole Foods... gouging bastards!

Mercury in fish is one of the few real food scares out there, but it's easily controlled for. (a quick sign of a fake food scare when you can't find contamination numbers and the corresponding safety levels) Heavy metals move up the food chain, so they tend to accumulate in larger fish. Smaller animals like shrimp, sardines and scallops are very low, though. There's a great calc at GotMercury.org that will help you figure what and how much is safe and what isn't.

Have a great day, man.

 

Veganism seems to work for some but people are omnivors for a reason. These days I eat way less meat and more raw food but I know many people who went vegan due to it being presented as healthy and fashionable and were instructed to go back to eating meat by their doctors due to mal nutrition or after developing serious sickness. Eating way less meat and way more raw foods is great. Never eating meat is pointless and can be dangerous for many. There are plenty of things you can do to improve your general and digestive health without becoming a vegan.

 

I would also point out you may have been severely misinformed about the Maasai people. Their life expectancy is far longer than 20-25, and being nomadic herdsman, they have no access to health care or hospitals, unlike the Japanese.

 

Yeah, life expectancy can be a bit of a misnomer, especially in the West, because very few people pay their health anything but lip service. We bitch and moan about free health care, yet we piss our health away like draft beer at a frat party.

But with medical advances being able to drag life expectancy kicking and screaming into the high 70s for men and low 80s for women despite our regressing lifestyle choices, I firmly believe that it's perfectly reasonable for someone that looks after themselves from a young age to expect to live well into their 100s, just because there's so many slobs pulling down the averages.

 

Hey RF,

Glad to hear that you are becoming a vegan! Been vegan myself for over 7 years. Some advice from my years on the diet:

• Plan your diet carefully. Make sure you are getting all your nutrients. Eat a variety of foods, don't eat just one thing day after day. I made that mistake and my fingernails became brittle and I got the first tooth cavity I've ever had in my life.
• B12 is important for brain health, but make sure to focus on the omega fatty acids too. Hemp, chia, flax seeds and nuts are good sources.
• Don't be a junk food vegan. Yes it's quite possible. Vegan butter, vegan cheese, vegan cream cheese, vegan sour cream, vegan meat substitutes... these are good every once in a while but should not be staples in your diet. Same goes with vegan sweets... if you have a sugar craving, eat some fruit.
• K2 is also hard to find plant sources for. It's more bio-available than K1, which there are a plethora of k1 plant sources for. Some vegans claim your body can convert k1 into K2, but I am skeptical. Anyways K2 is important for bone and teeth health. Might want to supplement, I do.

Hope this helps, please let us know how your diet is going!