Here is something Shocking! Going Vegan

So, today my younger brother tells me he and his young family are going Vegan. Now, normally I am a live and let live fellow, and don't care to get involved in peoples live choices, but this has me very worried! He has two very young children one is 3 1/2 and the other is 1 1/2 and this is the part that scares me. Early childhood development is critically linked to the food's we have available to us during this important time of our lives! I am by no means an expert in diet but it would seem to me this is a very dangerous move on there part! I understand the desires to eat healthy and to loose weight and all, but to me, this is a very extreme move that can only hurt the children and my Brother and his Wife. Feel free to share info and advice and FLAME ON if needed. I need to find a way to bring this up with them and try to convince them that this isn't a good choice,For the Kiddos!

 

It all depends on what type of veggies they tolerate. If you eat veggies, milk, cheese, eggs and fish, it is easy to be a vegetarian and get all the nutrients you need. If you take out fish, but leave eggs and dairy it is a little harder, and if you eat only veggies, it is hard to do in our present system as most of the foods have little goodness left in them.

 

The only long term effect of eating vegan is vitamin b12 deficiency. You can only get b12 from meat. So as long as they supplement with a decent blB vitamin they will be fine.

The biggest mistake new vegetarians make is eating cheese, milk, eggs, pasta and bread as a mainstay of their diet instead of veggies and fruits as their main stay.

Some suggestions for you to have this discussion, if I may, have your brother research b12 deficiency there are alot of studies that discuss the effects of long term vegetarian B12 deficincy
Suggest to him that he might want to make the transition gradually, fish or chicken 2x a week for a few months and see how their bodies react. Or vegan one week a month to start

Ask if they are going to grow their own veggies, as gardening is really a great step to prepping conversations. Also ask about sprouting.... see my post on how to use your food stores to maximize health
Sprouting- Using Stored Grain, Nuts, Seeds to Optimize Health | Survival Monkey Forums

I have a very dear friend who is a long distance runner and was vegan for over 30 years. he found that once he hit 50 he needed fish once a week to help his body recover faster.

It us easy to get caught up in the 'eating clean' movement. This expession, eating clean, bugs me for a whole host of reasons but I'm not going to go there. The problem with this movement is its moralistic, not health oriented and it gets exploited by the food companies.

This decision he made might be a great segue into discussing prepping and survival. there are a whole host of great conversations to be had around prepping and vegan eating.

I am not a vegan cuz I'm never giving up bacon! But I do try to eat only fresh raw food one week a month.

I don't like labels like vegan because it sets people up with enormous expectations for what they think they should be eating. Changing how you eat is a process, a journey not a label.

 

You didn't tell us why they want to become vegans. Just healthy? Or has the wife been hanging out with the Mom's club and learned the words gluten free? If they are planning on growing their own veggies, make sure they use vegan soil only!!! LOL!

Makes my head spin.......

Intro to Veganic Gardening | veganism.com

 

Many of our friends are Seventh Day Adventists and vegetarians. They tend to fall into 2 groupings, very healthy or very ill. If you eat veggies with lots of cooking oils, peanuts, salt, sugar, etc, you can be a perfect vegetarian with high blood pressure, bad heart, overweight, diabetes, and a host of other ills. If you eat in moderation, vegetarian or not, watch your salt, fat, sugar, etc you can be very healthy. There is a lot to be said for the survival advantages of a fairly strict vegetarian diet in a SHTF situation. They are easier to grow than animals, seeds can be stored for future use, ramp up to major growing plots quickly, with sprouting and other tricks, you can get a long term balanced diet that can be stored easily, grains, or processed at the local level, veggies and nuts. I don't think it makes any difference what your diet is, primal, veggie, present meat and dairy based, etc, it is how you regulate your consumption and the exercise you get that will determine how healthy you are.

 

I tried being a vegetarian when I was in my early 20's. I found that after a year I had a severe bacon deficiency. Since then I've made sure I got plenty of B1 (bacon), B2 (beef), C (chicken), and A (all other meat products) to supplement my vegetables, like beer and potatoes.

 

Much of the desires are Loosing weight, The Wife is Obese and continues to expand, ( whole other thread) but her needs and desires are being forced on the kids and my brother! My understanding of dietary need is that the Human Body is "designed" to function with certain food's and that to stray outside that is to invite problems down the road! I also understand that removing certain foods can/are an influence to more healthy living! What I am very concerned about is the kids not getting the correct nutrition at acceptable levels to promote and maintain healthy living and growth, and that later in live, there may be problems! I my self have gone partially gluten free and suger free, and have also gone 100% organic in that I know the source of my food from seed or sprout or calf and I can at any time follow or influence that all the way to the table! I have been able to maintain my "Fighting Weight' while having the correct amount of energy reserves and proper fat's. SO..... My brothers journey is going to be an eye full!

 

I'd just express interest and curiosity, things like:
- So, a brain is mostly made up of fat and having those in the diet are critical to proper development. Just curious as to what you be plan to feed the kids, especially the little one to get their necessary fats?
- I know the American Heart Association recommends 30-35% of calories from fats for little kids but also recommends unsaturated fats. We now know they were wrong about fats in diets for decades and they still aren't fully onboard with the current research that shows saturated fats are actually desirable and for kids they are critical. What are your thoughts on that?
- Insufficient amounts of saturated fatty acids in white blood cells compromises the immune system, just curious your plan to get enough saturated fats into everyone's diets.

Research this a good bit and beware of the convention wisdom, it turns out it hasn't been so wise and many like the AHA are very reluctant to admit they have been wrong and their recommendations have contributed to the explosion of obesity, heart disease and Alzheimer's over the past 4 decades. Look at sources of info that are cited in the books Grain Brain and Primal Blueprint.

 

Turn them on to The Primal Blueprint. Several monkies are doing it and it works. My wife and I have stopped buying all the bad foods (we can't afford to throw it away) and as we eat it down are replacing it with healthy food. There are several threads on it - @melbo 's is an especially good place to start: Going Primal - My 90 Day Journey to Health | Survival Monkey Forums

Here is a very great overweight middle aged success story: The Unconquerable Dave | Mark's Daily Apple

Buy them the book at this link Books | Primal Blueprint and SM gets a kickback as well.

 

Well, my wife and I are working on healthier eating and weight loss ourselves, but neither have any interest in going vegan. As for those that do go vegan, I know plenty and all I can say is, just the choice of going vegan does not mean you'll be healthier, nor that you'll lose weight. I've battled weight much of my life, going up and down, working on down again, hopefully for good.

My uncle is my father's non-identical twin. My uncle went vegan some 20+ years ago. Both have some health issues, and both experience the same issues - genetic pre-disposition to high cholesterol (both have issues with it, regardless of diet) and both have had prostate cancer, both have been treated and are in remission. Neither diet has effected them for the better or worse with these issues. Comparatively speaking, my uncle is smaller and, honestly, a bit more sickly looking than my father. Either way, I don't see that choosing one over the other has had a significant overall impact.

We have a friend, a school teacher, who is vegan. She chose it in part because her daughter had issues with meat/digestion, so they eliminated it from their diet. To date, the woman has gotten bigger, not smaller. I take this as evidence that poor choices (eating too much, consuming too much sugar, etc.) will affect a vegan exactly the same as anyone else. She has put on considerable weight in the last 2 years or so, so again, poor choices still equal bad results.

We know folks that are 7th Day Adventists, vegans, folks that are vegan on principle, etc. If that's what they want, then I say, let them have it. So long as you don't push your vegan lifestyle on me, I won't share my bacon with you...well, I wouldn't share it with you anyway - it's MY bacon!!!

As far as them being healthy and losing weight, it's going to take good choices, calorie restriction, exercise and, if necessary some dietary supplements/vitamins. Otherwise, it's just a choice I won't be making for myself...ever. Animals is too tasty

 

I know a friend of my Wife who is hard core vegan, and we eat well for the most part " moderation " is what I was taught and so far not to bad health wise. A steady healthy diet with a few treats here and there. I am at my body weight and cholesterol is good.
I find that many Vegans from what I keep seeing end up with increasing health issues by not having a balance diet.
I eat meat here and there about every other day or so, veggies daily, other days are fish lots fish and chicken, deer etc.
The problem is people see vegan as a quick health fix and from what I see it just puts more stress on the body adjusting to a abnormal process. I worry about bones, and skin health in growing children where vegan does not supply the correct balance this may also affect cognitive health and ability or slower cognitive growth and incomplete growth. Our bodies are kinda weird they cannibalize a growing child, meaning if healthy organs and body is needed the mental growth is put in the back burner.
Studies show as an example children with learning disabilities have faster metabolic rates and faster body growth yet the brains connection may go way into adulthood before finishing the connections or worse they stop and never complete.
The body needs to grow at its normal rate mind and body parents being vegan is one thing children doing it may cause mental and cognitive deficiencies .

 

BTW and IMO - Primal does not reprogram your genes (it's been criticized for that using that term by people who haven't read the book) - it allows your genes to follow the programming nature built into them when we lead a healthy lifestyle and eat healthy things. By healthy, I mean as the Human Being was designed to do and eat as opposed to the mainly poisonous and carb fattening foods we modern people typically eat.

 

Dunerunner nails it, it is not a diet, anyone of dozens or none at all will work, it is the lifestyle change that is required. Best to go through it now while you still have all of the worlds resources than later when you are severely limited.

 

Ever notice the switch to processed foods and artificals as well as GMO's all started in the 50's and that also correlates to the rise of heath problems! Thinking back to post WW-2, most folks were rural and the diet was local to those areas, we didn't see much obesity, heart problems, and caners. I place part of the blame for these in the shift to more urban living, processed foods, and artifical and GMO foods. I also see a large rise in mental health issues, things that we saw very little of like Downs and Autism.
The big one for me was getting rid of GMO's and sugers and suger substitutes as well as breads using processed wheat. Corn is one of the biggest causes of digestive problems ( I have them ) and removing all corn has stopped my problems! getting rid of sugers and suger substitutes helped me get rid of access weight and keep it off as well as burning up excess fats. getting back to my service weight and health standards was quite a challenge, but I was able to do it with out giving up the main things I like, Beef, Bacon, Fruits, and Salmon! Veggies I am still learning about, some really good, some really bod, so I am incorporating those into my diet! Exercising for me has never been a problem so I show results very quickly!

 

I lost 40 lbs between Jan 4 and May20 on the Primal Blue Print/Paleo lifestyle. Never once was I hungry!!

Tell then to read Unconquerable Dave story about and the rest of them success stories here Success Story Summaries | Mark's Daily Apple

No counting calories, no measuring, no portion sizes, just eat the right foods and the weight falls off.

and the best part is BACON is on the menu!!!!!

 

There is a lot to be learned about cholesterol with just a little Google time.

PreventDisease.com - Putting The Myth To Rest: There Is No Such Thing As Bad Cholesterol

In the end is really is more about how much you eat than what you eat--as long as what you are eating really is food. A lot of commercial food products are made with food substitutes. Eating that stuff is a bad survival strategy.

 

I have a coworker at my last job , He told me that they were vegans and that his kids had tons of health issues despite giving them supplements. We discussed it at length and I tried to persuade him change at least the kids diets to include fish and poultry. His wife was firmly set on being vegan.

 

Vegan - another term for bad hunter

Regardless of which direction they choose ( or she forces them to accept) I wish then the best of luck & health.

 

I'm up to my armpits in vegans here in hipster Portlandia. It cheeses them off when I pronounce it "vehjin" instead of "veegun" since the word comes from the word vegetable.

Then again, the last time giga anything was pronounced correctly was decades ago in the first "Back to the Future" when the Professor correctly pronounced gigawatts as "jigawatt" (giga is based on gigantic).