About a vegetarian and vegan diet, from a nutritional stand point?
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I realize there is a lot of ignorance on both of these, I myself am a bit ignorant on it, I recently became vegetarian for moral reasons, and I’m a bit at a loss at what exactly to look up, I’ve dropped meat but I continue drinking milk and eating eggs, I’m trying to slowly drop milk, recently I’ve been considering the Vegan life style, but it’s so cloudy, the vegans I "know" on the internet seem healthy and fine, yet personal friends all have their horror stories about "Oh a friend of mine went vegan and almost died!" my question is:
CAN you be Vegan and be healthy, do you need to take pill supplements?
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Tags: Diet
6 responses so far ↓
1 Help needed //
Hmm, it’s very risky to become a vegan, especially if you are used to eating meat.
At least vegetarians eat milk and eggs, get some stuff they need.
Yeah you will probably have to end up talking some pills to make up for stuff. But what if they killed the animals to make the pills. Does that not defeat the purpose? Also eating pills is pretty bad for you. If you were to stop being vegan your body might have become dependent on those supplements.
But kudos on the effort. Good luck. Ask a doctor and other vegans to be certain.
2 wallmyster //
Dont bother with pills, BACON is the best dietary supplement for vegans
3 Red Doll Shoes //
Vegans are more healthy than corpse-munchers and pus-chuggers. Animal products are bad for you. The reason you think they’re good for you is because you were taught that government-funded food pyramid in elementary school (pure propaganda). And your friends are making that up. No one has ever died from going vegan. However, heart disease, cancer, and stroke are the three biggest killers in the U.S. right now and, SURPRISE! the meat and dairy-based diet is a direct link!
4 smiling_veggie //
You can most certainly be vegan and healthy and you don’t have to take supplements, but some do and that is perfectly fine as well. This is the American Dietetic Associations opinion on vegetarian/vegan diets:
"Appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes."
A fantastic way to become a healthy vegan is to research nutrition. You should eat whole grains, legumes (beans, lentils), fruits, vegetables, and nuts and seeds if you aren’t allergic every single day. You can take supplements if you want to, but it isn’t required. The only nutrient that you cannot get in significant amounts from a vegan diet is b-12, but there are foods that are fortified with it like nutritional yeast, some cereals, some non-dairy milks, some vegan nutrition/granola bars, etc. Some take flax oil to get their requirement of omega-3’s in as well, but you can get omega-3’s naturally from a vegan diet. And some just take a multivitamin like many non-vegetarians do.
Here are two websites to help you out with vegan nutrition:
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/
http://www.vegparadise.com/basics.html
Good luck with researching nutrition and good luck with veganism!
Oh, and by the way, most of the stories that people say about "a friend of a friend who went vegan and almost died" are made up or severly exaggerated. People like to discourage others from vegetarianism despite the fact that many know so little on the subject. Don’t let it get you down. You can be a healthy vegan if you want to be.
5 Charlie F //
The site below is run by a group of medical doctors who promote a strict vegetarian diet. Vegans follow a strict vegetarian diet. The horror stories you hear about vegans are usually about anorexics who claim to be vegan to cover up their eating disorder.
Get this Vegetarian Starter Kit from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/
6 ideaguy83 //
The horror stories come from lack of education. Vegans need b12, it must be supplemented either by a pill or through fortified foods. If you are vegan but don’t drink soymilk or eat fortified yeast then you will obviously be deficient. Vegans also need iron (this is the one I hear all the time around here). Someone who hasn’t researched will eat a few leaves of spinach and call it a day and then end up sick. This is because the oxalates in spinach prevent most of the iron from being absorbed. Veganism is a hard diet to follow, but it is completely safe if you do the research and consult your nutritionist. Vegetarianism is easy, everything you need that is hard to find as a vegan is contained in dairy so it’s almost impossible to screw up.