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Vegan (Plant-based) diet

🌐👇:   [FR]   [IT]   [PT]

By definition, a "Vegan diet" 🌱, also called a "Plant-based diet", is a regimen that deliberately includes no animal products and their derivatives, for example animal meat, milk, eggs, etc. 🐖🐄🐔

First, it is important to understand that when we are talking about a "diet" here, it is not a short-term plan to reach a goal, such as 📏 loosing weight or 💪 gaining muscles.

We refer to "diet" as simply the habitual nourishment of a person. It can follow a nutritional plan with the aim of improving a person's health by consciously choosing what and how much to eat of any given food in an intelligent and consistent way.

Let's not fall into the trap of thinking a vegan diet is healthy by definition. You can have a plant-based regimen where you eat only huge amounts of french fries 🍟 and big dark chocolate bars 🍫... But guess what? That's not healthy at all!

In this article we will discuss how to optimise a vegan diet, and what are the possible benefits of such a regimen in the short and long terms.

INDEX

Who can eat a plant-based diet?

— People with health conditions

— Athletes: amateurs and pros

Why a plant-based diet?

— Heart disease

— Cancer, Diabetes, and more

How can I eat plant-based?

— Nutrients

— Daily intakes

Vegan recipes

More whys...

— Environmental protection

— Human welfare

— Animal welfare

— Individual health

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Who can eat a plant-based diet?

Who?

The short answer: everyone. 🙋‍♂️🙋‍♀️

The long answer:

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, which is the largest organisation of food and nutrition professionals, with more than 100000 credentialed practitioners, made an article stating “These diets [vegetarian and vegan] are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes”. [1]

But of course, as any other diet, to be healthy and adequate it must be correctly planned. 👩‍⚕️👨‍⚕️

People with health conditions

An important disclaimer: people with health or genetic conditions must pay special attention to their diet, since food has a fundamental impact in our health.

A short example: we find carotenoids in carrots, a preformed vitamin A that our bodies convert into a bio-available vitamin A in order to absorb it. But this conversion depends on your body health, like genetics, thyroid, zinc and iron intakes, etc.

So if you have a genetic or health condition causing vitamin A malabsorption, and you don’t eat enough vitamin A, you may start experiencing deficiency symptoms such as “night blindness” (problems distinguishing images in low levels of illumination), or your hand palms may become orangish.

To solve it, the best solution is to consume more foods with vitamin A. It is also a good idea to have the help of an up-to-date professional in the field of nutrition, who will surely be able to help you planning your diet.

The best way to find out if we have deficiencies is to periodically do blood tests, and to pay attention to body signals.

Athletes: amateurs and pros

Athletes need specially designed diets to optimise their performance in the sport they do, professionally or amateurly.

There are many athletes that are vegan. In the link below we see a a list with more than 100 vegan athletes from different sport fields, including football, bodybuilding, snowboarding...

⚽🏋🏂 www.GreatVeganAthletes.com/all-athletes

But what does science tell us about athletes?

The video below, with over 300 combined sources, compares athletic performance among people following an omnivorous diet and those following a vegetarian diet. The conclusion showed no major improvements in the short-term performance, meaning both groups of athletes following well-planned diets had similar results.

But as the studies showed, and the video reminds at the end (with some beautiful visual and sound effects 🤣)

Doesn’t matter how shred, if you’re dead 🔥 [dramatic emphasis here]

The video is referring to the long-term benefits of a plant-based diet, which we discuss in the next section.

If you are interested, we can give you a personal guidance in understanding the benefits described below, as well as designing your diet:

🍎🍊🥑🌽🍫🥜🥕

www.be100you.com/#nutrition

🍪🥬🍆🥝🥥🍍🍞

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Why a plant-based diet?

Why?

The short answer: long-term health benefits. 💪

The long answer:

The videos below show evidences from articles published throughout decades of researches in medicine. Instead of citing the articles directly, we show you these videos to make your life easier, but you can still find all the articles in videos’ descriptions. We are not sponsored by them in any way.

One of the largest nonprofit healthcare plans in United States, the Kaiser Permanente, published “Nutritional Update for Physicians” (shown in the video below), in which they state “healthy eating may be best achieved with a plant-based diet, defined as a regimen that encourages whole, plant-based foods and discourages meat, dairy, eggs as well as all refined and processed foods”.

A review of reviews of studies (a big name that simply says it analyzed and condensed information from many different articles) showed that plant-based foods have far more often protective health effects, while animal-based foods have often harmful health effects. The summary of the review is available here:

Heart disease

A wholefood plant-based diet has even been shown to revert heart disease, literally unclogging arteries. The “wholefood” means it is based on foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible. The following videos compare many studies of the mediterranean and vegan diets:

Video 1 here: https://youtu.be/uVGpTLMN6w4

Video 2 below:

Cancer, Diabetes, and more

Many studies directly link animal products, like meat and cheese, to higer risks of diseases such as coronary heart disease (the number one killer in the world), breast cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, and hypertension. A few sources are listed here:

Colon Cancer ▶️ https://youtu.be/KDRazSapYew

Diabetes ▶️ https://youtu.be/A4vqXj-uHxk

Heart Disease ▶️ https://youtu.be/LXigmGZk5FU

Hormones ▶️ https://youtu.be/lKngv7mL48s

Meat ▶️ https://youtu.be/xlNWQ8L7QoA

Cheese ▶️ https://youtu.be/3yvYFjIlOO4

Milk ▶️ https://youtu.be/rxnBDDqXSjk

And studies in the video below state that people eating less animal products (sometimes called “flexitarians”) tend to live longer:

Do not hesitate to research for yourself in order to better understand all the above claims. Before continuing, we must acknowledge that the above conclusions show many benefits of a vegan diet, but it is not a miraculous cure for everything. They may help many people live healthier and longer, including you, and if you consider it is worth a try we can help you adapt your diet to a plant-based one, just go to our website:

🍎🍊🥑🌽🍫🥜🥕

www.be100you.com/#nutrition

🍪🥬🍆🥝🥥🍍🍞

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How can I eat plant-based?

A vegan diet can be optimised to give you all of the benefits shown above, and others still. Upgrading your diet to a wholefood plant-based one involves changing habits and adapting patterns we had learned in the past.

A lot of people have unconscious eating habits and don't actually thing about what they eat. They might simply abide to community traditions, follow their group behaviour, or give in to social norms.

Chosing to eat healthier is a decision that must be taken consciously, and using the best available sources of knowledge, so we can avoid short and long term problems.

Nutrients

Since our cultures and traditions are sometimes not good in providing us information on how to eat healthy, we must adapt and learn from professionals and trustworthy sources, therefore assuring we will not have problems related to our diet.

There is a list of recommendations for those eating a wholefood plant-based diet available in this link:

📝🌱 nutritionfacts.org/2011/09/12/dr-gregers-2011-optimum-nutrition-recommendations (updated in 2019)

The recommendations goes over some major nutrients:

Vitamin B12: nutritionfacts.org/video/cheapest-source-of-vitamin-b12 The simplest solution: sumplement. This vitamin is made by bacteria, and since our food nowadays is really clean we will not find it in plants. Even animals raised in industrial farms must suplement because they also eat clean food;

Omega 3: nutritionfacts.org/video/should-vegans-take-dha-to-preserve-brain-function Some plants are rich in Omega 3s, specially linseeds (rich in ALA, more of its benefits: nutritionfacts.org/video/just-the-flax-maam). But since ALA conversion to EPA and DHA may be low, tif you experience deficiency you can get supplements (usually from seaweed oil) to increase your intake;

Calcium: nutritionfacts.org/video/plant-vs-cow-calcium-2 There are also plants with high amounts of calcium, such as collards, kale, broccoli raab (rapini), and even parsley. But many other foods also contain good quantities of calcium, such as squashes, broccoli, and green beans;

Protein: nutritionfacts.org/video/do-vegetarians-get-enough-protein It’s really not a problem at all, even if you are a bodybuilder you can still get all your proteins from plants - just choose the right food for you;

Fiber: nutritionfacts.org/video/is-the-fiber-theory-wrong In a wholefood plant-based diet it will be a non-existent problem. You will eat more fiber, and your digestive system will benefit from it - if you are constipated now, you are not alone: https://youtu.be/DhZFoinQpI0

Daily intakes

To help building your new plant-based diet there is also an idea worth a try: it’s called “Daily Dozen”, which is basically a list containing types of foods (and respective quantities) you should eat in a daily basis.

To check it out, go to nutritionfacts.org/video/dr-gregers-daily-dozen-checklist, or nutritionfacts.org/video/dr-gregers-daily-dozen-checklist-2

Another great tool we recommend using is Cronometer, which helps you calculate not only the intake of macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, proteins), but also you micronutrients (vitamins and minerals): cronometer.com

We can also help you adapt your diet to a plant-based one, just visit:

🍎🍊🥑🌽🍫🥜🥕

www.be100you.com/#nutrition

🍪🥬🍆🥝🥥🍍🍞

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Vegan recipes

Below are some selected vegan recipes that you may enjoy. If you have suggestions, send us a message and we may include it here.

Sweet dishes

Chocolate Mousse: iaco.me/post/001

Chocolate Cake: iaco.me/post/001

3-min Cookies: iaco.me/go/cookie

Spelt Blueberry Pancakes: plantstrong.com/plant-strong-recipes/top-engine-2-recipes-spelt-blueberry-pancakes

Salty dishes

Lentil Oat Loaf: www.food.com/recipe/really-good-vegetarian-meatloaf-really-33921

Macaroni & Not Cheese: plantstrong.com/plant-strong-recipes/top-engine-2-recipes-macaroni-not-cheese

Sweet Potato Lasagne: plantstrong.com/plant-strong-recipes/top-engine-2-recipes-raise-the-roof-sweet-potato-lasagna

Plant-strong Burgers: plantstrong.com/plant-strong-recipes/top-engine-2-recipes-plant-strong-burgers

We can also find some “ready-to-use” vegan meal plans here:

🥣�� veganhealth.org/meal-plans

Vegan diet: more whys...

Going vegan has positive impacts in other life areas. It includes a vastitude of other reasons, which have each one their respective benefits:

Environmental protection

A study[2-4] from 2018 showed that a vegan lifestyle have many environmental benefits. A documentary[5] from 2014 already showed the same. Some informations they stated:

It can reduce an individual's carbon footprint from food by up to 73%;

Global farmland use could be reduced by 75% (an area equivalent to the size of the US, China, Australia and the EU combined);

Converting grass into [meat] is like converting coal to energy. It comes with an immense cost in emissions;

While meat and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses the vast majority (83%) of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions;

The meat and dairy industry uses 33% of earth’s fresh water;

Animal agriculture is responsible for as much as 91% of Amazon destruction;

The water for the production of one hamburger is equivalent to showering for 2 months (3000 liters of water).

The 2014 documentary[5] shows many more environmental impacts, such as water usage and pollution, land usage and pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, land desertification, species extinction, forests destruction: cowspiracy.com

Human welfare

The logic here is simple: every time you move up in the “food chain”, you loose many of the food that was fed to the being below you. That is on of the reasons animal-based foods have a bigger environmental impact, and that is also one of the reasons many people in the planet do not have food to eat: because most food (grains in special) we produce go to feed the animals we will eat later.

In [6], Dr Walt Willett - professor of medicine at Harvard University - says “we could eliminate the worst cases of world hunger today with about 40 million tonnes of food – yet 760 million tonnes is fed to animals on farms every year”.

Animal welfare

Right now, we kill literally more than 150 billion animals per year[7]. To put it into perspective: if we killed one human for every other non-human animal we kill, there would be none (zero) humans left in less than 19 days.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

This 2 hours long documentary shows the reality of the animal-based foods industry: WatchDominion.com

Altough its content is hard to watch for some people, the shown precedures, utensils and machinery are perfectly legal and standards in the industry.

One probably “easier to digest” documentary is: hope-theproject.com/the-film/the-film

Earthlings is another film talking about ethics and speciesism in the way we treat most animals. A free “anniversary edition” is available here: NationEarth.com

Individual health

To finish this article, we cite a few more documentaries talking about the individual health benefits of a plant-based diets. If you are interested, you can go and binge-watch them all:

🙀 WhatTheHealthFilm.com

💪 GameChangersMovie.com

🍴 ForksOverKnives.com

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Sources:

[1] “Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets”, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2016.09.025

[2] www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/veganism-environmental-impact-planet-reduced-plant-based-diet-humans-study-a8378631.html

[3] www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth

[4] www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/vegan-diet-better-environment

[5] www.cowspiracy.com/facts

[6] www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/what-would-world-look-if-everyone-went-vegan

[7] thevegancalculator.com/animal-slaughter/