bite my words

Dispelling nutrition myths, ranting, and occasionally, raving

Tag Archives: vegan


by 1 Comment

The cruel side of veganism

imgres

Back in February Alex Jameison (you may know her as Morgan Spurlock’s vegan girlfriend in Supersize Me) announced on her blog that she was no-longer vegan. For some reason this has just been making the headlines in the past couple of weeks, although her devotees and members of the vegan community were quick to comment. While many people have been supportive, others have been incredibly cruel; wishing cancer upon her! And that just rubs me the wrong way.

Why do we need to label our dietary practices and fit them into pretty little boxes? Why must we either be carnivores or vegans? And why must we judge each other so harshly based upon those labels?

In my mind, it’s ludicrous to attack someone for trying to be healthy and for following her biological urges to do so. I hate to break it to these people, but humans were not born to be vegans. We are omnivores by nature. This doesn’t mean that some of us can’t be healthy while subsisting on a vegan diet. But I don’t think that those of us who consume animals and their by-products should be vilified for doing what comes naturally to us.


by 1 Comment

The problem with the growing popularity of veganism

I’m aware that many people turn to veganism due to the mistreatment of many animals on factory farms. Many of these people may also be interested in the health benefits of a primarily plant-based diet. There are also a number of people who become vegan in order to improve their health and prevent diseases.

Unfortunately, due to the increasing popularity of the vegan diet, the food industry is responding with a proliferation of vegan processed foods. Now, it’s possible that I’m wrong and the health benefits of following a vegan diet can be attributed to the discontinuation of the consumption of meat products. However, I’m pretty confident that most of the health benefits of a vegan diet can be more attributed to the consumption of whole foods and the decreased consumption of processed crap.  I suspect that as veganism becomes more mainstream there will be fewer health benefits associated with it.

If you’ve decided to follow a vegan diet I hope that you’re taking more into consideration than just the removal of animal products from your menu. Consider also what you’re putting into your body. This goes for everybody, vegan or not, the majority of your meals should come from whole foods that you’ve prepared yourself.


by Leave a comment

Home Made Egg(less)nog

http://theridgeonline.co.za/files/2010/12/eggnog.jpg

I have a confession to make. I love eggnog… In my coffee. I’m normally a black, no sugar kinda gal but now that it’s cold and December and I’m feeling ever so slightly less grinchy I’ve started spiking my morning coffee with eggnog. Oh the shame!

I was looking at the ingredient lists for commercial eggnog and it’s really not all that appealing. I think that, if I ever finish this carton, I may make a batch of my own. I’m actually a little bit grossed out by the eggs in the nog. I’m sure they add some protein, iron, and vitamin D but I thought I’d see if I could find a vegan recipe just to be completely blasphemous. I’ve no idea if these taste any good (or anything like eggnog) but I found a couple that look pretty yummy and much healthier than traditional eggnog:

Vegan Eggnog, Vegan Eggnog 2 - bonus, they’re made in the blender so no cooking!

 

 

 


by Leave a comment

Chicken vs chick’n

Something I’ve been asked about, and have been curious about myself, is how vegan meat substitutes stack up nutrition-wise to the original meat products. I decided to do a little comparison of chicken strips (not breaded, but seasoned) to see. Of course, neither product provided nutrition information based on a food guide serving. Upon first glance, the vegan version appears to be far healthier. However, the nutrition facts panel is based on a 67 gram serving, while the actual meat product uses a 100 gram serving size. If you were wondering, Canada’s Food Guide counts 75 grams of meat, fish, poultry as a serving. Just to keep things simple, and because most people eat a larger portion than the food guide recommends, I converted the vegan chick’n strips into a 100 gram serving. This puts them at roughly 149 calories per serving. The actual chicken is 110 kcal. Score: chicken 1, chick’n 0. The chick’n has 2.24 grams of fat (none of which is saturated or trans). The chicken has 1 gram of fat, 0.3 of which is saturated. I’m calling this a tie, they’re both relatively low in fat. Score remains: chicken 1, chick’n 0. Chick’n has no cholesterol. Chicken has 70 mg of cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol doesn’t have all that much impact on your blood cholesterol, especially if you’re healthy. I’ll still give this one to the chick’n. Score: chicken 1, chick’n 1. The chick’n has 254 mg of sodium per serving. The chicken has 380 mg of sodium. Another one for the chick’n. Score: chicken: 1, chick’n 2. The chick’n has 28 grams of protein per serving. The chicken has 26 grams of protein per serving. Not a huge difference. However, it’s important to note the quality of protein. Does the protein provide you with all of the essential amino acids? I know that the chicken does. The chick’n I’m not so sure about. Because of this, I’m calling this one another draw. Score remains the same. The chick’n provides you with 15% of your daily recommended intake of iron (if you’re the “average” person on which the label is based) while chicken provides you with only 8%. However, as this iron is non-heme iron, it’s not going to be as easily absorbed as the iron in the chicken. Final score: chick’n 2, chicken 1.

Even though the chick’n is the nutritional winner here it was a close competition and I am in no way trying to convince you to start eating chick’n or any other vegan meat substitute. I just think it’s good for us to know if the foods we’re eating are providing us with the nutrients we believe them to be. On the basis of the nutrition label for these two particular products, chick’n is a worthy alternative for chicken. Please bear in mind that there are other nutrients that are not listed on the nutrition label that you may obtain from one product but not from the other. Also, other vegan meat substitutes might differ considerably in their nutrient profile so please read your labels!


by Leave a comment

Does dairy cause osteoporosis?

A recent tweet in my feed caught my eye. It said “Populations that consume the most cow’s milk and other dairy have the highest rates of osteoporosis and hip fractures in later life.” If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that I’m no big fan of milk, nor of the inclusion of milk (and alternatives) as a food group in Canada’s Food Guide. Still, this statement irritated me. Association is not the same as causation. There could be any number of reasons for this alleged (I say alleged because I’m not sure what evidence this statement was based on) difference in osteoporosis and hip fracture rates between populations. Perhaps the dairy consuming population lives longer so they have more time to develop these issues. Perhaps they aren’t physically active enough to build and maintain good bone density. Perhaps they are more genetically prone to osteoporosis. After all, diet only contributes so much to the development of osteoporosis.

When I googled the tweet I found a whole lot of vegan propaganda. However, a google scholar search for “dairy + osteoporosis” yielded some interesting results. One article in particular caught my eye. it was a review of 58 studies “published on the relationship between milk, dairy products, or calcium intake and bone mineralization or fracture risk in children and young adults”. It found there was no evidence that dairy consumption increases bone mineralization in children and teens. Damn, all those years of suffering through the school milk program for nothing! Despite this lack of support for dairy in preventing osteoporosis I could find no legitimate evidence to support the claim that dairy consumption actually increases the risk of osteoporosis. Vegetarians and vegans do not appear to be any less likely to suffer from osteoporosis than omnivores (1).

It seems to me that there is no strong evidence to support either argument at the moment. There is no reason to believe that dairy consumers are at any greater (or lower) risk of developing osteoporosis than non-dairy consumers.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 562 other followers