• H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist

Conversion To Vegan?

Calcium is easy. [Cow] Milk deprives you of it. Any natural source will do.

Protein - nuts, soy, legumes

B12 - Soy!

Iron- beans and nuts are the shit

useful table!

If you're looking for ways to prepare beans, i'd go with the middle eastern Falafel
 
Zinc is another one that is often lacking in vegan or vegetarian diets. I can't think of good vegan sources for it off the top of my head.

Ca is easy to get from dark leafy green veggies, brocolli,etc.

SR is right about dairy and calcium, I always find it funny when people, esp dr's, recommend dairy as a good source of calcium. Technically it is, but effectively it's not.
 
>>Zinc is another one that is often lacking in vegan or vegetarian diets. I can't think of good vegan sources for it off the top of my head.>>

Sunflower seeds, Pumpkin seeds.

I'll add a bit:

Omega-3 fatty acids:
Flax oil
Flax meal (whole seeds are not properly absorbed).
Walnuts are next best.
Canola oil is mediocre.
Soy oil is a bit worse than canola.
heat at common cooking temperatures will denature omega-3s.

ebola
 
Gratzi folks.

I pile in the walnuts daily. I sprinkle flax seeds on my waffles/pancakes and my salad. But I don't have flax/canola oil. Hmm. I use olive oil sometimes for salads... :o

For the iron - which nuts are best? Will walnuts cover my ass on all sides? (protein, iron)
 
Read through this, its a really good site about how you can get all the different nutrients you need, and the benefits of being a vegetarian. It contains pretty much all the information you could possibly ever want :) :

http://www.eatright.org/Public/GovernmentAffairs/92_17084.cfm

For recipies, you can take almost any food you like that uses meat and use tofu instead. I used to do this alot when I was trying to reduce my meat intake.

As for whether vegitarianism is healthier than omnivores, I strongly disagree, but thats not the topic here, if you want to discuss it say so and I will.
 
Thanks for the link hb13.

A straight veggie diet probably isn't better than a straight omnivores diet, but a qualified diet in between, say with chicken, turkey, and fish, with plenty of soy, nuts, veggies, etc, is probably the best. But I'd love to hear other ideas/information about this.
 
I would argue that most vegetarian diets (depending on how many cheese-atarians are included. :) ) are healthier than most omnivorous diets, but that the optimal diet for most people will not be vegetarian, let alone vegan.

ebola
 
StagnantReaction said:
The Japanese lived amazingly healthy lives on local fish and soy. The only problem I personally have with eating fish is that they're mass netted, thus depressurized quicker than they can take it, resulting in their eyes exploding and nasty asphyxiation. Not a particularly fun way to go.. oh, and of course the mercury. Blah.

You don't have problems with eating soy? Ever thought of where the soy comes from? From that 1/5 of the Amazone rain forest which was cut down.
 
"You don't have problems with eating soy? Ever thought of where the soy comes from? From that 1/5 of the Amazone rain forest which was cut down"...to feed farm animals.
 
Did I deny that? Yes, a large part is used to feed farm animals, but the other half is used to feed people. Doesn't matter, my point was that the demand for soy is more devastating then most of the fishing that currently happens. Don't be so quick to judge, Jimmy the Gun..
 
i was vegan for a few years, but since i'm seriously allergic to nuts, it was very tough to get the essential stuff. freshman yr of college, i tried to survive on salads/pasta/cheerios and soymilk, and ugh, it was terrible. so now i'm an lacto ovo veggie - this works much better for me. but HUGE PROPS to people who can make pure veganism work!!
 
p.s. my fave vegan cookbook/lifestyle book is "A CELEBRATION OF WELLNESS" by james levin, md. good easy stuff.
 
"Yes, a large part is used to feed farm animals, but the other half is used to feed people. Doesn't matter, my point was that the demand for soy is more devastating then most of the fishing that currently happens."

I've read that meat farming is about 1/8 the efficency of plant farming (land/resource wise). From this I would think that meat and fish farming do much more over all damage than soy grown for human consumption.
 
The demand for soy is not referring only to human consumption, it is referring to the soy cultivation. I was not comparing anything to meat farming, I was comparing the devastation caused by the soy cultivation with the devastation caused by overfishing. Overfishing can largely be controlled, fishersmen now know they have to stop at a given time to repopulate their "crops".. The people cultivating the soy are cutting down the rainforest at an increasing rate, every few square miles of rain forest could've been the home of a unique species of plants & animals, it's not like that in the sea.
 
^^ Maybe if the farm land in the U.S. that is currently *wasted* on maintaining animal feed crops was converted to a more conservational crop, such as soy, we wouldn't have that problem.
 
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