Thoughts on vegan diet?

[healthiskey]

If you've tried it did it improve your health or even make you worse?

[ThePlanter]

We have been following a whole food plant based diet for two years. All the clinical evidence demonstrates that whole food plant based diets reduce morbidity (disease) and mortality. For a very readable book on the clinical evidence and benefits of plant based food, read How Not To Die by Dr Michael Greger which shows how the western diet causes chronic disease and what you can do to reverse it.

In 2 yrs, my partner has come off antidepressants (NB. A slow careful withdrawal), stopped taking PPIs for reflux, lowered his blood pressure to within normal limits. My cholesterol level has reduced. We both feel good and have loads of energy.

However you do have to plan your diet carefully and base every meal on beans, wholegrains, veg, fruits and nuts and seeds, it involved cooking from scratch and minimise use of oils. A plant based diet is anti inflammatory, full of oxidants and minerals and enough protein to sustain atheletes. You will need to supplant with vitamin B12 and we take Vitamin D3 as well. Variety is key to getting a balanced diet from a range of nutrients sourced from different plant-based sources. Happy Pear and the World of Happy Pear by the Flynn brothers in Ireland will point you in the right direction for recipes.

For those of you who can’t give up the meat and the dairy, crowd it out with veg and pulses (beans are a common factor explaining healthy longevity in Blue Zones around the world) to get some of the benefits and mitigate the harm that animal products can cause when eaten 3x a day, 7 days a week.

The rewards of being plant based 95% of the time is that you can have the occasional meat and dairy meal without any harmful effects as your gut bacteria has radically changed on a plant based whole food diet. The British Gut Project showed the most diverse colonies of health gut bacteria were found in consumers of 45 different vegetables a month which is easy to achieve on a plant based diet. The gut brain connection is significant for mental wellbeing and a healthy gut microbiome means your immune system is working optimally and contributed to good physical health.

Drugs do not address the causes of disease but helps with symptoms. Fix the changes to your diet first and prove to yourself you can manage it before thinking about coming off drugs. But Type 2 diabetics and those with high blood pressure should keep monitoring glucose level and BP and talk to their doctors accordingly as they improve.