Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
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Re: Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
#2I’m willing to sacrifice some karma on this. What a trash article that selectively picks information (some of it not really true and some of it easily overcome in today’s world).
Whatever diet you follow, if you don’t care about what you eat or don’t eat and in which combinations, your health will not be what could be expected for a person of the same profile who cares about what they eat.
Processed (also called “junk”) foods aren’t going away, whichever diet you look at. People want convenience. Try telling someone to change their diet to be different from what they’re used to eating and you’ll find out how difficult it is (without other motivations, external support, convenience of picking stuff off the shelves or ordering something, etc.).
Considering the environmental impact of meat (and the current agricultural systems), and considering that it’s absolutely impossible for everyone to avoid their supermarkets and convenience foods, these alternatives provide some kind of stop gap even if they may be unhealthy. Point the drawbacks. Give feedback to the makers to improve the products. But don’t pretend that the currently available junk foods (that aren’t vegan) are better overall, all things considered.
Personally, I avoid processed and junk foods most of the time. I also cook food by myself almost all the time. But I do indulge once in a while on some junk food. And I can feel its adverse effects. I’m under no illusion that this would be the same for others or even possible for others just because I’m able to do it.
Re: Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
#3Junk food is junk food. It's called "junk" for a reason.
If you're a vegan for health reasons and eating a lot of junk food, you are missing the point of being vegan for health reasons.
Re: Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
#4Any manufactured food will be less healthy than natural foods.
I'm rather suspicious of this article. It smells a bit like a meat industry funded piece.
Vegans I know are not trying to replace meat with manufactured substitutes. They eat while foods instead, including spinach and kale, which has a lot of iron.
Re: Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
#5Its almost 100% certain - if your vegan diet looks exactly like a standard American diet (using substitutes) - you will gain weight unless you're meticulous about counting calories.
If you want to be healthy on a vegan - do not eat vegan junk food. Being healthy on a vegan diet means eating whole foods - minimally processed. The food you eat should be high in fiber, low in fat, and high in water content. Most of your calories should come from minimally processed starches.
The incomplete protein thing is a myth.
https://www.forksoverknives.com/the-latest/the-myth-of-compl... Frances Moore Lappé retracted her statement about incomplete protein.
These articles are essentially Vegan FUD - hoping to get you to worry about health minutia. It tries to poison the well essentially. A whole food plant based diet is a great way to maintain your health.
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/uprooting-the-leading-cause...
Re: Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
#6Any manufactured food will be less healthy than natural foods. I'm rather suspicious of this article. It smells a bit like a meat industry funded piece. Vegans I know are not trying to replace meat with manufactured substitutes. They eat while foods instead, including spinach and kale, which has a lot of iron.
Did you miss the part where they pointed out vegetable sources are often less bio available and less well absorbed?
The article is not funded by the meat industry the BBC is not PBS. The article is talking about a culture where junk food is ubiquitous (the UK) and where vegan junk food is being touted as a healthy alternative.
Re: Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
#7There seemed something fishy about this article. I looked up the first stat that caught my eye,
> One study found that 25% of vegans had very low blood iron levels, compared to 3% of vegetarians and 0% of omnivores.
That just sounded like rubbish – although "one study" has found almost everything – so I clicked the link to the paper, Nutrient Intake and Iron Status of Australian Male Vegetarians which turns out to have involved 39 ovolactovegetarians, 25 omnivores, and 10 vegans. 10 - so already the "25% of vegans" must be nonsense. I couldn't find the 25% figure in the paper, but I think it comes from this:
> One ovolacto-vegetarian aged 23 years and two vegans aged 41 and 36 years had serum ferritin concentrations below 12ng/ml (11, 8 and 10 ng/ml, respectively).
At that point I lost interest.
Re: Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
#8I recently read that saturated fat in coconut oil is actually much better for you than unsaturated fats in regular vegetable oils due to the effect on sugar metabolism[0]. This seems like a total reversal of what is presented in the article.
[0]http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsuitablefats.shtml
Re: Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
#9Any manufactured food will be less healthy than natural foods. I'm rather suspicious of this article. It smells a bit like a meat industry funded piece. Vegans I know are not trying to replace meat with manufactured substitutes. They eat while foods instead, including spinach and kale, which has a lot of iron.
> Vegans I know are not trying to replace meat with manufactured substitutes
"Meat replacements" are rising in popularity, and I'd consider those one of the worst things you can put in your body, just look at the ingredient list[1]
- Soy-protein concentrate
- Coconut oil
- Sunflower oil
- Natural flavors
- Potato protein
- Methylcellulose
- Yeast extract
- Cultured dextrose
- Food starch, modified
- Soy leghemoglobin
- Salt
- Soy-protein isolate
- Mixed tocopherols (vitamin E)
- Zinc gluconate
- Thiamine hydrochloride (Vitamin B1)
- Sodium ascorbate (vitamin C)
- Niacin
- Pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6)
- Riboflavin (vitamin B2)
- Vitamin B12
It's also not more convenient than real food: I can cook a steak in less than 10 minutes, and it will be way more healthy than this industrial sludge.
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-in-impossible-burger...
Re: Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health
#10>Olive oil, on the other hand, is high in high-density lipoproteins (HDL).
Lipoproteins are the fat transport mechanism found in animals. Oil olive, like all vegan products, does not contain lipoproteins.