Some Reasons to Go Vegan
If you’re familiar with my columns and my books, you know that I’m not one of those health advocates that disavows all animal proteins. As long as the meat you eat is skinless poultry (preferably free-range) or fish, I have no problem with it – even red meat on occasion is OK. Consider it The Mangano View on Meat.
But as I’m sure you know there are those health advocates out there that do disavow all meats. Some suggest you eat a strictly vegan diet. Again, while I don’t count myself as a vegetarian or vegan, I have no bone to pick with such a diet plan – so long as it’s complemented with other sources of protein. I’ll get to that in a moment, but first, here are a few reasons why I can’t criticize a vegan-based diet.
According to a study recently published in the journal Arthritis Research and Therapy, a vegan-based diet dramatically reduces the risk of two of the leading causes of death in this country – heart attack and stroke – and a disease that approximately 10 percent of the country lives with every day, including 300,000 children – arthritis.
To find out if vegan diets were significantly contributory to long-term health – and not just a diet meant for card-carrying members of PETA – a group of Swedish-based researchers assembled a group of 66 volunteers, all over the age of 50 and suffering from arthritis. Thirty-eight of the participants were fed a strictly vegan-based diet: one that contained no animal meat, animal by-products (like milk and eggs) or any foods containing gluten (like bread, pastries, pretzels and pasta). The remaining 28 were encouraged to eat meat and animal by-products but they had to be quality sources (lean meats, whole grain carbohydrates and plenty of nuts). Of course, the vegan dieters’ food choices also had to be quality sources. Naturally, the diets weren’t identical, but by and large, both groups were broken down thusly: 60 percent from carbohydrates, 30 percent from fat and 10 percent from protein.
By the study’s conclusion, here’s what the researchers found:
Those on the vegan diet:
- Decreased LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels
- Maintained HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels
- Decreased body mass index
- Decreased inflammation in joints stricken with arthritis
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Those on the control diet:
Studies like these certainly add to the credibility of vegan-based diets and the wrong-headed belief that vegan diets are incompatible with achieving optimum health. Personally, I enjoy the occasional egg, glass of milk and chicken breast too much to give up all together. But I nonetheless have tremendous respect for those who do.
So, if you’re considering adopting a vegan-based diet – or if you have a son or daughter considering going vegan but you’re worried about the nutritional side effects it might have – I have no problem with such an adoption. However, you will have to be more creative than the rest of us in how you get vital nutrients into your body that will otherwise be lacking.
For instance, you’ll want to supplement with iron-fortified vitamins, as the lack of meat in a vegan diet significantly reduces quality source of iron. Sure, spinach and beans have iron, but because their non-heme sources – the body doesn’t absorb them nearly as sufficiently as heme sources.
For protein, thanks to what’s found in nuts, implementing protein in the diet should be fairly easy. But don’t forget soy milk. Soy milk is a great source for the protein and the vitamin D that would ordinarily be lost in a vegan-based diet.
Some would argue that a vegan diet restricts variety. But when you think about it, a vegan diet encourages variety – demands it, even – for variety is the only way that a vegan can get all the vital nutrients the body needs when meat, poultry, eggs and milk are not an option.
If you’re a vegan or are considering it, you won’t get any argument from me. Just make sure you’re eating from a variety of sources to ensure proper nutrition.
 
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